Good afternoon and a warm welcome to the Krones Conference call. My name is Olaf Scholz, I'm head of investor relations here at Krones. We have had a good start into 2025, and so we continued our profitable growth path. With strong figures and an improvement in all key figures, we published our Q1 results in the morning. But nevertheless, there are also uncertainties in the world which could affect the world economy. Well, that's the situation. Christoph Klenk and Uta Anders will give you more details about these figures and will give you also additional information. After the presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask questions. I think you also know how the Q&A questions work. You can raise your hand over the Teams function or send me just a short email.
Additionally, please be reminded that this meeting will not be recorded, so please also deactivate any functions of recording at Teams. I think let's start with the presentation, so I hand over to Christoph Klenk. Christoph, the floor is yours. I'm sorry.
Thanks, Olaf. Yes, good evening and warm welcome on behalf of the two of us here. Pleasure to have you here today and give you insights where we are after Q1 and how we see actually the perspective of Krones in 2025 and beyond. I can say before I start, we are quite pleased where we are, so the results are good and in line with our planning, and we come to that in a minute. As always, I skip, let me say, the overviews and we jump immediately into the order intake, which might be one of the important topics where we are with this and how our outlook is in particular under the view of the tariffs we are facing in the US or we might face or might not face. Order intake, as you can see, is above €1.4 billion.
We are quite happy with the number we have achieved here. Again, in line with what we have discussed here, as we said, it should be between 1.4 and 1.45, so quite keen at the targets with this one. We have seen in the order intake already a bit of a slowdown from the US and could compensate that, fortunately, from other areas, in particular from Africa, Middle East, and South America, so that helped quite a lot to be there. Uncertainty, I come to that in a minute after I have spoken on how we are distributed over the world that we talk about the tariffs as well. But all in all, we are quite happy, and if we look further down the road for the next quarter, we would see the way that the pipeline is really strong.
However, uncertainty plays a big role into it, and the question is how much is actually postponed or not. We do expect for Q2 a slightly lower order intake than we've seen in Q1. Nevertheless, we keep what we have said in terms of that we see that year on year we should have a ratio around one, so book to bill, so that should be the case after 2025, and we are still sticking to that target. If we look to our order backlog, this has been quite stable and okay, so a bit up and down, but on a very marginal level. We are quite happy that with that backlog we have right now, we can on one hand utilize our capacities until the beginning of Q1, Q2 next year.
That's giving again a very good safety in terms of our planning, and we know exactly the margins which are in that order backlog. This is emphasizing even more that for 2025 we have a clear view on where we are in terms of profitability. All in all, we are quite okay with that one. If you look to our delivery times, which is one of the issues we have because competition is a bit better than we are, we have been down at 50 weeks, and for some products we are even a bit better. Things going okay, and we are talking in that regard, of course, all the time ex-works for bottling lines and other equipment we are delivering.
Now coming to our distribution around the world, I mean, markets have been going quite well, and you see that the US is on a decline, and this time we talk about revenue. Important, it's not order intake. We talk about revenue, and this is of course more than a bit offset to order intake, of course, once we are going to realize the orders. Nevertheless, we have anticipated, and that has first of all nothing to do with the tariffs, that the US might be not as strong as it has been in the past since we have seen that the investment activities over the end of last year have been going down, but you see on the other side that some of the other areas have picked up quite nicely and that we are heading in the right direction.
All in all, we believe things are quite balanced. There's a bit up and down, but no fundamental change in our markets. One thing is maybe a bit remarkable that's Eastern Europe, Central Asia, that's going really from, let me say, Eastern Europe to the western border of China, everything which is in between without India, of course, that's belonging to APAC, but all these states like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, and on, they are all belonging into that region, and this works quite well. There has been quite significant investment and seems to be quite stable even in the outlook. Asia Pacific picked up quite nicely, we are happy with that one in terms of how this is distributed. Nevertheless, mid and long term, we expect much more from Asia. Africa, Middle East is doing fine.
We had just this week a review with our management team. There are 17 countries, 70, which we are actually dealing with in Africa. Well said, a couple of conflicts, but nevertheless, still the continent is going okay. South America, as already said, was quite good. Now, a few words, and we have no separate slide for North America because we believed there's so much uncertainty in how things are going with the tariffs that we were not quite clear on what slide we should for the long-term prepare, but just to give you some insights. We have 20% of the revenue, as you see here, on average in the US. Half of it, we have local value creation, so we manufacture half of it in the US.
10% are remaining, and I should say we have 1,600 people in the U.S. There are several entities processing, and into logistics is doing completely independent in the U.S. For bottling and packaging, we do the complete life cycle services there, independent, including spare parts, which is important because that's the biggest proportion usually which for import, but we're doing spare parts manufacturing completely in North America. Now, if we look to the 10% which we are not manufacturing in the U.S., we have to see that out of this 10%, a bit more than half, we have no local competition or no bigger local competition. This is in particular blow molding, filling, and labeling. These are the majority, let me say, of the core of our bottling lines where we have more or less no limited competition in the U.S.
For the dry end, which is packaging machinery, it's around 4% of the revenue where we have competition, and therefore, the tariffs would be to a certain extent critical. Now, fortunately, we have already last year made some significant decisions. One has been that we have been ordering milling and lathe machines just to make sure and machining centers just to make sure that we can do all the spare parts manufacturing which we need in the US, we can do there. Those machines are arriving right now in Q2. Since we are manufacturing labeling machines in the US, this will help us to extend the portfolio. This decision has been made, and of course, we are working on the potential decision which might have to be taken, but I'd say very straightforward is the might.
We are working on what would it mean in case the tariffs would be higher. Can we do in a reasonable timing, can we shift production from here to the US just to make sure that we are not losing the market? The answer is yes, since with the labeling machines, we have all the processes in place. Second, this is the other important thing we have already decided last year to extend our facilities there. We have a quite significant space added to our facilities in the US, so we would be even capable of getting the production there without any harm because this is existing right now. It's existing buildings which we have rented, and this rent is starting right now, so we are moving in for the time being. So we would have all the options in the US.
Just in a nutshell, where we are with that, so for this year's revenue, we are to believe we are not concerned since tariffs are paid by our customers once they are bottling lines because this is not in our scope. Once we sell equipment directly from the US, we have already increased pricing for whatever we do in the US in accordance to what we see because of tariffs and the manufacturing there. This is already accepted by the customers because we had a huge communication already the last couple of weeks and have the feedback which so far should be okay for us. So far too, let me say the tariffs, I would assume there might be questions later on more indeed. With that, I'm handing over to Uta continuing with the revenue.
Ja, guten Abend und auch von meiner Seite. I mean, as always, talking about P&L segments first and then talking about everything which is related to the balance sheet. Let's look at revenue. We had a very good start into the fiscal year. As you can see, €1.410 billion revenue, which is a 13.1% growth compared to the full quarter of 2024. I mean, as you have read also in our communications, this is overproportionate compared to our guidance because in the first quarter of '24, there was no Net stal yet included, whereas now in the first quarter, we have approximately €60 million from Netstal included. Making it on a like-by-like basis, we are in our 7% to 9% guidance which we had given.
The reasons for the revenue increase is, as we had said, we have a very good backlog, also with good price quality then coming later on to EBITDA and overall full utilization of the capacities. With that, we also confirmed the guidance we had given for 2025 of revenue growth of 7% to 9% for the fiscal year. Moving on to EBITDA and its margin, as you can see also here, we had a very good start into the fiscal year, $149.3 million, 19.1% increase and a margin of 10.6%. Here I need to speak about Netstal also because, as you know, it has a dilutive effect and that dilutive effect is approximately 0.2 percentage points.
Taking that out, I mean, the increase would have been even higher than it wouldn't have been 10.6%, but a little bit around 10.8%. Why is that? I mean, I talked already about the good utilization of the capacity. I talked about price quality, and these were the main reasons, but also good mix. Overall, we are confirming our target for the fiscal year of 10.2% to 10.8%. Now moving on to EBT, not EBIT, to EBT. Of course, as we have said always, this is very similar to the EBIT development, looking at the overall numbers, $107.9 million EBT, which we have recognized 21.2% increase compared to last year. On a margin basis, you can see 7.7% compared to 7.1%. Very small financial income only, close to $2 million, but also that was within the expectations.
That's why also here we can see the fiscal year start was within our expectations and we also continue expect to continue like that. Moving on to personal and material expense, and let me start with personnel expense. As you can see, we have increased compared to the first quarter of '24, our personnel expense by $57 million. If you look at the ratio, it is 31.6%. Now all of you remember probably that we are always saying being around 30% is very important for us, and it still remains that sentence, first sentence on that we expect to come into that range again throughout the fiscal year. Let us talk about why are we now at 31.6% and not at around 30%. It's a little bit also timing of the fiscal year.
We had Easter in April, and Easter is the period where people take vacation, so we still have high vacation, of course. That's one of the reasons. The other reason is also the timing of the tariff increases because last year also the increase was April 1st, so there's also some effect from that. But I think the important message here is we expect to come back to a lower ratio than we have right now. The picture is different for material cost. In material cost, as you can see, $664 million, $44 million only increase, a significant decrease in the material cost ratio. Also here we have several effects. First of all, the overall statement, we expect this ratio to increase throughout the fiscal year more to a 49% level and why is it that low?
I mean, it's also realization of cost savings and material cost we have, but it's also efficiency we have. It's also to a certain degree, it's also some mixed effects and some timing. But overall, our expectation and also our planning is a higher ratio where in personnel cost it is a smaller one and always confirmed also by our latest plannings. Now talking about headcount, I mean, as you can see, 20,600 employees Krones has employed as of end of March 2025. So that's 204 more than we had end of December 2024, so a 2% increase under proportional growth, but still growth. About a quarter of that is service technicians. I mean, you'll remember that we have always said we will keep continuing or we will keep growing in service technicians. Everything else is then across the world, and it's also across the functions.
Digitalization also playing a major role here. If we look at the composition of the headcount, it's more or less the same, also looking at what is in Germany, what is outside of Germany. So there is no major change here. But all in all, also looking at the resilience of the company, of course, we're going to slow down the headcount growth, but that had already been talked about also when we did our planning for '25. Now coming to the segments, filling and packaging technology, the development of this segment is very much like the group development. Starting with revenue, I mean, as you can see, $150 million more revenue than we had last year, 14.5% in addition, so above the guidance. But also here, Netstal comes into play and is one of the reasons or is the reason why we are above the guidance.
Also, I'm coming to the guidance later. The reasons are exactly the same I mentioned for the group. Now talking about EBITDA development, I mean, as you can see, significant growth, $23 million compared to last year. On a margin perspective, 10.9%, which is a 0.7% increase. Taking out the dilutive effect of Netstal , it is around 1% here, the increase. Coming to the guidance of the segment, I mean, all I said earlier for the group applies here as well. 7% to 9% growth, 10.75% to 11% EBITDA margin, that's what we confirm. Process technology, looking at revenue, from $128 to $130, so small growth, $2 million, 2.2%. But we had already guided that the growth in process technology is expected to be only 0% to 5%. So we are within our guidance here for meeting our expectations.
Looking at the margins, first of all, EBITDA, $14 million, 10.7%. Yes, we are below last year, but we are above our guidance. So we summarize it for us, a very good start also for process technology into the fiscal year 2025. Summarizing it now from a guidance point of view, we confirm also our guidance here in terms of growth, 0% to 5%. We also confirm our guidance in terms of EBITDA, 9% to 10%. So like last year, very good start. First quarter is going to slow down a little bit in terms of EBITDA margins throughout the year. Last but not least, intralogistics, $86 million revenue, $9 million in addition, and so a growth by 12.1%. The revenue growth expectation or guidance is 15% to 20%.
You know that the second half of the fiscal year is usually the stronger one for intralogistics, so we expect this to happen also in 2025. Looking at the margin and EBITDA, $5 million, 5.8%, better than last year, but still below the guidance. That has to do also with revenue. As I said earlier, usually it's a strong second half year, and we expect the same to happen this year. So also here, we confirm the guidance we had given of 15% to 20% revenue growth and 6.5% to 7.5% EBITDA margin. Now coming to our balance sheet, first of all, liquidity position in the middle of the chart and equity on the right side of the chart as we start in the middle. The cash position is very strong again.
We had a very good start into the fiscal year in terms of cash flow. Very similar again like we had it last year. That brought us to a cash position of €592 million. Taking together free credit lines unused ones brings us to liquidity reserves of €1.443 billion. That allows us to go further, allows us to invest, allows us also to deploy the backlog, but also allows us then to grow inorganically when there are options available. Equity ratio and equity in general, €62 million addition to equity. The equity ratio all in all stayed more or less on the same level as we had at end of last year. More or less same growth in terms of equity and balance sheet, total of the balance sheet, the sum of the balance sheet.
Now let's look at working capital. I mean, the reason why we are holding that very good cash position is because of the very good free cash flow. When we look then in the slide thereafter, we will see that there was no change in working capital in the first quarter of 2025. Overall, our working capital remained at $855 million. So that's the total number, which then with the increasing revenue brought us to the share of 17.1%. We had different developments over the different components of working capital, starting with receivables POC. You can see that we kept it more or less on the same level as we had it end of December 2024. On an overall level, about $2 billion we are holding here compared to a little bit more than $1.9 billion we had at the end of 2024.
Accounts payable, yeah, 13.8% only compared to 15.4%. That tends to be a little bit underproportionate throughout the fiscal year. If we look at the overall number, also only 756 in comparison to 813. But that's also just we think it's more a timing topic throughout the fiscal year. Inventory, I mean, you heard from me throughout the last calls that we had that security, inventory security, looking for the word right now. We had built up inventory to have security in the supply chain. You had heard from me that it's our task now and also our plan to deploy that inventory and to keep then the inventory on a stable level. We achieved that also in quarter one. You can see that was 12.1% compared to 12.9%, but more remarkably compared to the 15% a year ago.
The overall number is 660 compared to 682 end of last year. Received prepayments, 18.5% compared to 17.5% last year. We are holding a little bit more than a billion in received prepayments, which is also a result of the good order intake. All in all, as I said, stable development here and rather low working capital. Moving on to free cash flow, some things I have said already throughout the last or over the last slides. Starting first with free cash flow before M&A, $165.2 million. Yes, it is lower than last year, $184.2 million, but still we believe on a very high level, mainly resulting from cash flow from operating activities, as you can see from a little bit more than $200 million. You can also see the $0.4 million. That's what I mentioned earlier, no change in working capital.
CapEx is underproportionate in the first quarter, as it tends to be underproportionate throughout the fiscal year or in the first quarter, so with $41.4 million and only 2.9%, but comparatively to last year on a comparable level. That bringing us all to the $165 million. No major M&A, just the payout of earnout. Then free cash flow reported, as you can see, financing activities, which is lease payments, bringing us then to the $592 million cash at the end of the period. Free cash flow expectation for the end of the fiscal year. Despite the fact that we had $165 million in the first quarter, we are holding our expectation, which we said will be around $200 million. This is because, first of all, we expect working capital to increase throughout the fiscal year.
We also expect and have plans for higher CapEx. That's going to balance somehow with the other cash flow generation pools. So coming approximately to that level. Last from my side, ROCE, 20.5%. So above the guidance we had given of 18% to 20%. The reason for that is, first of all, good EBIT development, but secondly, also in particular, working capital is still being underproportionate. That's why we are a little bit above our guidance. But also here, we expect to come back within our guidance of 18% to 20%. So far from my side.
Thanks, Uta. Now to the outlook. Before I come to the numbers we have here on the page, once again, book-to-bill ratio for order intake, we stay with around one. We have a good robust pipeline.
Nevertheless, we need to see how much decisions might be postponed or not, or how much the uncertainty among our customers might be going away once the view is clearer on how tariffs will look like. Revenue growth, and here I repeat only what Uta said, 7% to 9%. So with the backlog we have, we are pretty sure we're going to achieve that. EBITDA margin at 10.2% to 10.8%, as well as mentioned and ROCE at 18% to 20%. So no changes here. We're going to confirm. If you look to the segments out here, no surprises. The only remark I want to make, of course, is processing technology. We are on an EBITDA level, not on the group level. Nevertheless, since they have less depreciation on EBT level, it looks quite good.
I would say there is a bigger challenge for them to get up to the group level on EBITDA, which is our target definitely for the next years to bring them there. Intralogistics, even there, since the Q1 does not look too good in terms of our targets which we have here, we are not concerned here. We definitely believe we have a huge backlog. We have a conservative planning, and we are looking forward even to achieve the targets here in revenue growth and EBITDA margin on intralogistics.
Again, long-term view, and I don't want to go in any details because you know the slides, but more important, we had this week a two-day management meeting where we had the 70 managers from around the world together for two days, looking into 2028 risks and chances on one side, and of course, strategies, how to fulfill the targets we have. I can say even, and maybe a bit difficult to say that, but even with the problems around the world, we believe there is good reasons that we can execute in the direction of our targets. Certainly this year will be in terms of the world economy a bit more difficult. But if you look to our markets fundamentally, they are okay. This is reflected even in the robust pipeline I said.
We stay with those targets, and we see really a good possibility to go in that direction. With that, final key takeaways, but nothing which we would have not said yet. Just a summary of what we have said and you have heard in the presentation and speaking of. With that, we are at the end of our presentation and looking for Q&A together with you. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you to Christoph and Uta for these additional informations. I think we start the Q&A now. I already got some questions from Benjamin Thielmann from Berenberg. Benjamin, your questions, please.
Yes, hey guys, can you hear me?
Yes. Loud and clear.
Okay, perfect. Perfect. This is Ben, hi from Frankfurt. Maybe one question on the US demand.
You already mentioned it, that it seems that there is a little bit lower demand from the US, which is offset by MEA and APAC in particular. I was just wondering if you could give us some color. What are the growth catalysts you see in those emerging market regions? Is it that you're growing with new customers? Is it that your existing customers over there are already expanding and you're getting some share from your competitors? Is it a mix of both, or why was the growth quite strong in Q1, or was that just driven that, I don't know, those customers, they manufacture most of the less cyclical types of liquid food and beverage, so they're not really affected by economic downturns or any color on what is driving the growth over there? That'd be very helpful.
I mean, first of all, for the Africa Middle East market, there is one particular point. They have been very late coming out with their investments from Corona and the supply chain crisis. I would say when you look back, there has been underproportional, even if you look to the long-term shares we had in Africa and Middle East, so they are coming strongly back. This is one reason. Second, even those markets are going now in high-speed lines. We have one of the fastest lines we run. We have in the Middle East. If you look to Egypt, then the size of the population, if you look to Saudi Arabia, these are big countries with a lot of population and water, drinkable water being bottled is becoming their issue as well. So that was supporting.
We had a couple of countries in Africa where, I mean, we all know that there are conflicts in Sudan, Nigeria, Congo, and those conflicts are, I would say, influencing the investment scheme. Some of them, once sounds strange when I say that, but once people are in the region and our customers are used to those conflicts and they have a bit of an understanding how they work and how much they impact the market, then they start still even with the conflicts there, they do investments. So we had a bit of a hesitating market in the Africa Middle East due to certain reasons, and don't forget about Israel and Gaza. All of that was slowing down the whole thing a bit. We are now benefiting from, okay, they have, how to say, adapted to the situations.
They see a bit of a perspective, and that's one of the reasons why those markets are doing good at the moment. For Asia, I would say it has mainly to do with population growth and even being some hesitant in ordering over the last three years. So those markets are actually picking up. That's the reason. To North America, I mean, we have already predicted that North America, without whatever happens, we predicted already that some of the investment scheme is going a bit back. Don't forget, we have growing in all the other markets. This automatically makes then the share, even in case it would stay stable, the share of North America a little bit smaller. That's one of the reasons.
But nevertheless, we have seen significant investments over the last three, four years in the U.S., and it was pretty clear that they will not stay on the level they have been. So this is not a concern we had with the U.S. as a background. I hope that helps.
Yeah, that's perfect. That's super helpful. Thank you very much, Mr. Klenk.
Welcome.
Second question, if I may, would be on your top-down calculation that you provided on your group revenue exposure to the U.S. Just that I fully understand it. So you mentioned 20% of group revenues are exposed to the U.S., but 10% or half of that is manufactured in the U.S. So 10% would be exposed to tariffs, but roughly half of that, you are basically the market leader with no local competition in the field of blow molding. What would that mean?
That only 4% of your sales would, let's say, practically be affected by tariffs because any associated cost you could pass through to, let's say, to the remaining 96% because you're given the competitive landscape? Or how can I... is that the right way to think about it?
Yeah. First of all, your calculation was right. 10% is manufactured in the US. Now we have to be very careful how we see that. Once we manufacture in the US, we still have tariff impact. Why is that? Because some of the, let me say, components we need to import. This we have to be carefully considering. Again, it's valid for processing, intralogistics, and most importantly, for our life cycle business in the US. For all three categories, we have made the mathematics up.
How much is cost and pricing influenced by the tariffs once we import some of the components we need for this equipment? This is communicated with the customers. The price increases we have pushed in the market with that have been quite reasonable. They have been not as high as the tariffs, of course, because a lot of things have been done or are done in the US. They have been accepted widely. We have not feedback from all the customers, but from the majority since we have been communicated, I think, three days after because we have been well prepared. That's the reason, three days after the deliberation day. Three days after deliberation day. We have been quite quick in telling our customers where we are. That's for those 10%. Now, for those 10%, we are manufacturing in Germany.
There's one important thing to understand. These are bottling lines. And those bottling lines, we do not carry the tariffs. The customer buys ex works. And on top of that comes installation and commissioning in the US. In many cases, we have freight in. This is okay, but we don't have the tariffs in. So customs clearance is done by our customers, and this is paid directly. So that's the reason why we have no price effect into that. Now, what are our customers asking for? They are asking for, of course, can you do something that the import tariffs, because you might do more in the US or you lower your overall pricing, that we can influence to a certain extent their tariff situation. And I would say if you have an order of $10 million, it's between 25% and 30% of the stuff is done in the US.
Why is that? There are services in cable trades, cables locally. There's OEM equipment, which we buy predominantly in the U.S. So out of this $10 million, $7 million would be under tariff. And then we manufacture labeling machines in the U.S., so we can put the labeling machines on that side. Then we can do maybe some easy work even in the U.S., so it comes down maybe to $6 million. So the tariffs are going just, and these rough numbers and examples don't fix me on those, but the tariff situation for them is not when I buy a line of $10 million, I have to pay tariffs for $10 million. It's more between $6 million and $7 million they have to put the tariffs on it. So that's the situation.
If I remain for this, let me say, roughly 10%, we are shipping from here, then we have around 4% direct competition in packaging machinery in the US. That's the case. I hope that gives some color on your question. I know it's complicated, but it's very hard to say diverse in terms of what we see on the tariff side. What does that mean in total?
No, that was very helpful. Thank you. Thank you for that. Maybe one more question, if I may, then I go back into the queue and give my colleagues some time to ask questions. If I remember back at your capital markets day, you mentioned that you also want to internationalize your manufacturing footprint. One of the companies, sorry, one of the countries you mentioned was, for example, I think it was India.
You mentioned China back then. How has that changed considering, well, what's going on in this world? I mean, also India and the Pakistan situation is not looking very healthy. And then 20% of your revenues are from a country where the president is not the biggest fan of China. Has there been any change in your strategy in terms of where to move the footprint or at what pace? Any update on that if there is a change to the strategy?
Yeah. No, not at all. Why is the reason for it? Because exactly for those reasons that we believe that the blocs are, I would say, become more independent. We are going to invest.
The reason for investing in China is that we can do more locally in China, having no burden on our shoulders in terms of import taxes, nor any limitations we might have because of anything going to happen in the world. Of course, fighting the Chinese competition in China. We continue on that. India, I have to say, let's see how this conflict between Pakistan and India might turn out. First of all, we start with the investment, which is not too big in India. Nevertheless, we have a very strong push from our customers in India that they want to see local content. In case we don't do it, we won't be able to sell.
Number two, very important, this is actually the door to the Global South because we believe India in the long run will be one of the most independent countries. The doors are wide open to supply to the Global South in case it's really coming to an even more severe bloc situation around the world. The only thing which has been changed in our consideration is that, of course, the options, what we are going to do in the U.S. has been checked more thoroughly than in, let me say, the last six months. As I said earlier, we have done already major decisions just to be flexible in the U.S. So as I said, we expanded the plant there and have more space. We ordered machines that we can do more manufacturing.
But on the other side, we still have a 15% advantage in terms of cost between the US and here in Germany. That's the reason why we are checking options, but we have not yet made any decisions. Good or bad, I would say, of course, midterm, we have to reflect, of course, where we are with our setup in Germany then. I know that's not good news, but if we would move more to the US, of course, this would have some impact here in Germany, which we have to consider. Nevertheless, it's not a pleasant issue, but we have to deal with it, and we are thinking through that as well, that we are prepared once things would come this direction. We are really checking very carefully on how our global setup would look like.
Perfect. That's it from me. Thank you, Mr. Klenk.
Yeah. Thank you. Pleasure.
Thanks to you, Ben, for your questions. I see also Lars vom Cleff from Deutsche Bank has additional questions. Last, your questions, please.
Yes. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. I admit that I will be mainly a number cruncher today, so maybe I'll start with one more strategic question for the CEO. I mean, given all the global turmoil regarding the economic and political environment, do you see your Chinese competitors more focusing on Europe now instead of other regions in the world, or is the situation still unchanged?
No, I would say they can't move that fast that you would see a different activity than we have seen before. But again, and we mentioned that very clear and straightforward. Chinese competition is one of our focus issues. That's absolutely clear.
I mean, we have nice examples we all know from the car industry, from the solar panel industry. We don't want to get into that one. I said it earlier, we are pushing our factory in China. This does not mean only we have a factory in China. We do engineering there just to get, let me say, a competitive product portfolio against our Chinese competition. Yes, and they are moving in particular in APAC, in Africa Middle East, and we have seen them moving in Europe before the whole thing happened with the tariffs. So we definitely believe they are attacking our markets, and we have to defend them very straight and clear forward.
Perfect. Thank you. Then we'll go to the number question. Yes. Now, Uta. I'll try to be nice. No. I mean, you already shared your thinking about the development of personal material costs with us. Looking at the other operating expenditure, there was 14.2% of sales in Q1, which in my model compares to 15.1% for Q1 last year and even 15.7% for 2024. Is 14% something we should look for this year, or was Q1 rather extraordinary?
I mean, we are looking at it actually at a net of other operating expenses, income, and then also whatever this is. If you take that, actually the share remains the same more or less, and that's also what we expect then throughout the fiscal year. So that's how we are looking at this sum of numbers.
Okay. Perfect. Then if I remember correctly, you guided for a negative $8 to $10 million financial result for this year. Is that still something we should keep in our model, although we saw $2 million in Q1?
I mean, you should, if you look at your model, you should increase that a little bit to probably in the middle of positive, so one digit positive financial income. That's what you should balance or consider in your model. Because having the $2 million, as you said, and we expect them through the next fiscal or through the next quarter, we also expect a little bit more dividend income, and that then will develop a little. Assets will develop probably to $5 to $6 million approximately income.
Perfect. Many thanks. I'll go back to the line. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thanks to you, Lars. I check. I see additional questions from Benjamin. Ben, you have additional two questions. That's possible?
Yes. Perfect. Thank you.
I just decided to join last with some accounting questions, if I may. Just quickly on taxes. Taxes in Q1 came in at roughly 30% tax rate, which was up quite a bit compared to the 26 point something you had in Q1 2024. Can you maybe help us what run rate we should assume and why is it up year over year by 300 basis points?
I mean, there are two reasons why it is up. First reason, large dividends, which we took in the first quarter and which then raised or led to withholding taxes. That's one of the reasons. We don't expect those withholding taxes in that magnitude to continue throughout the fiscal year.
Just to make it concrete, we have taken dividend from the United States just to be prepared for whatever may happen there in terms of retaliatory effects or whatever these methods are called. So that's one of the reasons why the tax rate is quite high in the first quarter. The second reason why the tax rate is quite high is also that we had some intercompany transfers of intangible assets, which were taxable. So exit tax that also led to quite an impact in the tax rate. Looking into the fiscal year, it's probably going to be around the 27% again. That's approximately the expectation we have. So to lower it over the next quarters. Does that answer your question?
Yeah, that's perfect. That's exactly what I needed. Thank you for that, Ms. Anders. Maybe one more question, if I may. Regarding, Mr. Klenk, you already mentioned the risk of order postponements. I was wondering, I mean, the book-to-bill in Q1 was quite decent, slightly above one. Were there actually already some order postponements that you have seen in Q1, let's say, from US customers, or do you expect that to be more risk skewed into Q2 out to Q4?
Yes, there have been already some, but very minor. But what we see right now in April, that there has been a lot of hesitation in the US in terms of placing the order. So out of four, we do expect that we have four big ones. We might have for the time being actually two, which are going to be executed. All the rest fits anyway in Q3 and Q4. So this was scheduled for this area. So that's the reason why we are still hesitant to say how things are going.
If we would see things moving as they are moving right now with all the tariff situations, and of course, we don't know how the European Union might negotiate in Germany, but nevertheless, it looks like there's kind of a relief what we see right now, and that's what we get reflected from our customers. Interestingly, I mean, we have the very big ones, Coke Pepsi, and there's two, three other big ones in the US. They are talking even to the government and helping on pushing that those tariffs should be lower. The expectation is that this is smoothening out a bit. Those customers pushing hard, even the government, therefore, let me say that they are loosening a bit the ties on the tariff. Those are the customers definitely they want to order within this year because they need the projects.
Q2, and I want to repeat that, might be a bit lower than what we have seen now in Q1. We still stay with, let me say, book-to-bill around one for the total year because the pipeline is so good. This includes even, let me say, what we see from the US, that it's not disappearing totally. There might be the one or the other order which might be not there, but still the projects are robust there, and we believe that customers are ordering.
Very clear. Thank you very much. An interesting final question would be on the earnouts. Ms. Anders, you mentioned it already. There were a little bit more than $2 million in Q1. Could you maybe remind us until when are these earnouts running? Is there like a time frame? What is the until you guys have to pay those out?
I mean, for this fiscal year, this was everything. We have some for Ampco still for 26.
Same magnitude.
Exactly.
Okay. This is the same magnitude we have seen like in 2025, or what can we assume there?
Approximately. Yes.
Okay. That's perfect. That was everything from my side. Happy weekend, and thank you for answering all of the questions.
Pleasure.
Thanks to you, Ben, but we have additional questions. Sorry, but we join our weekend a little bit later. At first, Peter Rothenaicher from Baader Bank. Peter, your questions, please.
Yes. Hello. Firstly, I have read about the trend towards more consumption of cans also in Europe and in Germany. Do you see here some impact, also some support in order intake?
Not outside of the enormous scheme. Not at all. I mean, we have been quite good in terms of, let me say, our positioning in cans. That was once a weak spot of ours. But I think between 2019 and 2022, we had a lot of work on our portfolio, and in particular to get cost structures okay, that we are attractive. So we might participate, but this is nothing which would give an extraordinary boost to us. It might be in the magnitude we have seen it from the other markets.
Okay. Then the second question on Netstal. You mentioned there's still some dilutive effect in the margin. So how is the integration progressing, and what do you see here from your key competitor, which is in Canada, and here some effect from the Trump tariffs?
First of all, and we usually do not talk about, I know it's not usual, but we do not talk about integration of Netstal. We want to keep them standalone, even in case we are going to integrate, let me say, in a very deep manner their injection molding machine into our bottling lines. But these are two separate ways because Netstal is quite good in the med section. So we have reasonable orders from one of the very big ones there. We are doing caps for bottles with converters, which is a significant business. We are even with the in the packaging industry. So that's the reason why we want to keep Netstal with its own DNA. However, we are going to integrate some of it in our products.
I have to say the joint work, and I would like to call it this way, works really perfect in the sense of it's a good team. We are fitting together. The culture is okay, and we are moving forward. Uta will talk about the diluted effect and where we are in terms of profitability. Now, how are the markets working, and how are we in comparison to Husky? I mean, Husky is the market leader, there's no doubt. What we are doing currently, we are expanding our sales and in particular service infrastructure around the world because they have been to some extent being in the Krones infrastructure, which has been not so much orientated to, let me say, the beverage industry. So we are investing into service people. We are investing in infrastructure, investing into stock that we get the service level of Netstal significantly up.
In terms of order intake, it was doing quite well because we want to grow because one of their, let me say, profitability problems is certainly underutilization of the capacity. So this is going nicely ahead. We had nice wins, I have to say, against Husky in certain cases. Again, Husky is a very good company doing a great job. This goes step by step, but the machine is excellent. Now, to the US, it's of course right now a problem because we are shipping from Switzerland and with the tariffs being applied from Switzerland. Let me say the currency exchange problem we have, it's an issue. Nevertheless, no project in the US has been disappearing so far because we have several customers who want to try. For a long time, they are buying the first-time Netstal machine again, and they want to establish simply competition.
All in all, it's really going nice, even if the times are challenging. In particular, the injection molding business in other areas is really difficult for us. We are on track with growth. That's good.
I continue on with the diluted effect. I mean, two things you have already mentioned, Christoph. One is we want to go in the service business, which has a good margin. Secondly, we want to go the top line in general. I mean, they want to actually double their output of machines over the next years. That will boost definitely. In addition to that, I mean, we are talking and we are jointly working together on reducing material costs. That is one of the levers we are talking about also their manufacturing base where we can support also.
They have also measures in place on increasing the efficiencies, the throughput time, lead time, and so on, which then also is going to reduce the cost of the individual machines and with that also increasing the EBIT. Overall, 25 and 26, also most of the fiscal year, the diluted effect will remain. We always said, yeah, end of 26, 27, they will come somehow in our margin corridor given all the measures we talked about.
The last point is on your luxury problem, the strong free cash flow and thus the high net cash position. I got the impression that currently there is nothing shortly coming up regarding M&A or bigger M&A projects. We set the question, what do you intend to do with the cash? Is there some opportunity to increase the payout ratio or what do you think about that?
First, with the question of M&A, yes, we have some M&A in the pipeline. As you know, we usually don't go for very big things. So it would be reasonable. In particular, we are looking in a couple of areas where technology is adding up to what we have already. We are looking to technology, which gives us even a certain kind of lift in terms of profitability. This is true for processing and for one or the other area out of the other business units. So yes, there are discussions. We are in, let me say, in pre-final stages, I would call it this way, but not far away from doing the one or the other. That's why we are happy to have that cash.
I would say the rest I have led to Uta because she's keeping the money together to make sure that nothing is going to happen once we are going through more difficult times.
I mean, it's also part of risk management.
Yeah, right. Correct.
Keeping the cash to a reasonable level, whatever reasonable is. I mean, answering your question on payout dividends, I mean, how do we look at it? First of all, the $260 this year is the highest ever dividend we had. We were close to our 30% payout ratio and our 25% to 30%. We always want to be more on the upper end. We believe in our midterm targets. We believe in our midterm targets in terms of revenue growth, first of all, but then also in terms of EBITDA growth.
Taking that together, we also expect to see a higher dividend payout in an absolute number, dividend per share. That's how we look at it. We do not intend to increase the payout ratio as a ratio itself.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Welcome, Peter.
Thanks to Peter. I check. I don't see any additional questions from the community. Also not in my email folder. I think we are more or less done, Christoph, Uta. Have some words at the end.
First of all, thanks a lot. Let's all keep thumbs pressed for all of us that this, let me say, tariff situation comes to a resolution, that uncertainty is disappearing to a certain extent because we believe once that is going to happen, that the view around the world is looking much clearer.
Second, of course, hopefully let's get some of those conflicts which nobody has, I would say, on the agenda, the Pakistan-Indian conflict. We see right now that this is not escalating and that we have not even one more of those conflicts around the world. Usually I'm not so close to the church, but since yesterday, the Pope has been announced, and he was actually the first thing he was actually asking for peace. I can only follow on this one. With that, I will finish off to say, okay, have a nice weekend. It looks like the weather is fine. Let's keep fingers crossed that things go okay. Even the new government in Germany will have a good hand to move things forward. Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much. Have a good weekend. Thank you.