Dear ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the KSB earnings call on the half-year results 2025. My name is Sonja Ayass, and I'm heading Corporate Communications. Our main speakers today are our CEO, Dr. Stephan Timmermann, and our CFO, Dr. Matthias Schmitz. Stephan and Matthias will report to you on the figures and the highlights of the first six months of 2025. As always, we will answer your questions in a Q&A session at the end of this call. You can use the chat window anytime during the next hour, or if you prefer so, you can also talk to us directly. Then you just raise your hand at the end, and I'll call on you to open up your microphone. This call will end after one hour, so any questions that remain unanswered will be answered afterwards.
For the sake of transparency, we are recording this call, and we will publish the recording on the KSB website under Investor Relations. Now I would like to hand over to Stephan.
Dear Sonja, thank you so much for the kind introduction. It's my hearty pleasure to welcome you in the name of the complete board, Matthias, who just stepped off stage, but of course, also Stephan Bross, our CTO, and Ralf Kannefass, our CSO, who are in the background, giving Matthias and me today the job to report on the first half of the year 2025. We do this with a great pleasure. In order to start the show, good news, this company today has a birthday, not the company birthday. This was a little bit before this. 130 years on stage in terms of being a stock company listed on the German Stock Exchange. This shows you the founders of this company, Mr. Klein, Mr. Schanzlin, and Mr. Becker.
Already 24 years after having founded this company in KSB here in Frankenthal, they went onto the stock exchange. They pitched the IPO, and since then we have been listed. It is a pleasure today to present to you the figures of the company for the first half of this year. Our agenda is rather short and sweet. Basically, the key part is, of course, the half-year report. This Matthias will take over, deep diving into all essential figures of the company. Myself, on the second part, will then step once more onto stage to give you, as well as we can do it at the time, an outlook into the rest of this year and the summary, of course, of the complete presentation.
As always, as the disclaimer, everything which is in the past or figures of the past, of course, now first half year, 2025, these we present, and we present them with pride. Everything which goes into the future, this is our best prediction at the time, and please take this as no guarantees, but the way that we see it, the way that we predict it, and the way that we guide the company. And having said this as a very short introduction, it's now my pleasure to hand over to my colleague, the CFO, Matthias Schmitz, to give you a deep dive into the figures. Matthias.
Thank you, Stephan . Now, I also say hello to everybody. I want to give you a warm welcome today at the company's 130th stock exchange birthday. We are happy to present you the half-year figures. All these figures have been already published in our annual report or in our half-annual report, internet, in the internet already. So let's take a look what we have derived so far. What are the half-year highlights, 2025? Most of you and all of the participants I know in person, and when we had a lot of discussions about KSB, and especially in the last year, in 2024, you asked me, "Mr.
Schmitz, what are you expecting for the year 2025?" And I said, "Regarding the relevant KPIs, order intake, sales, and EBIT, it is our target to be better than in the year 2024." And maybe I can start up now with a summary for the whole of the year. The half-year figures of the year 2025 indicate that we will reach our target to end this year with better financial ratios than in the previous year, 2024. What does it mean in detail? First of all, just what are the highlights? Order intake. We have increased the order intake up to a level of EUR 1.7 billion, which is 3.3% more than previous year. Adjusting these figures by the actual FX rate, order growth would have been 4.7%, which is really outstanding if you take the economic and political environments into account.
Also, the sales revenue has been increased by 1.8%. What does this mean for the EBIT? We show an EBIT reported of EUR 108 million. We have to adjust it by non-operational charges for SAP HANA, with a level of EUR 13.5 million. And so if you take them out, the EBIT margin adjusted is 8.3%, which is 0.1% better than in the previous year. I want to remind you, when we take out or adjust the EUR 13.5 million, these are non-operational expenses for the implementation of the HANA project. This means these are charges for our consultant, for SAP, on-site and so on. Again, take a look to the middle of the chart. Adjusted, we compare EUR 122 million, 8.3%, with the figures as of previous year.
I will show later on show you that the dividend has impacted the equity with a level of EUR 53 million. And also, when you take a look at the equity, our equity is impacted by FX translation effect of EUR 77 million. Nevertheless, we see the equity a little bit lower than the end of 2024, but I really want to underline the equity is higher than one year ago, at the end of June 2024. Also, here we have a good development, and we see an equity ratio of 46%. So all in all, let's start with the summary. We made a good half year, and we are on our way to fulfill the target.
I can tell you already right now, we can confirm our prognosis, and we are on the way, as I have promised, to make a little bit better result, order intake and sales in the year 2025 compared with previous year. Even if you take into account and you compare the figures starting in 2023, you see here the development. Order intake, sales, EBIT adjusted, we have continuously improved this company regarding these key issues. If you take a look seven years ago, even from there, we steadily have developed the company forward, so we are on our way also, and that's what I definitely want to underline. Regardless of all the outstanding challenges we see, to confirm we're gonna make it happen.
We're gonna fulfill our targets of the Mission TEN30, which means more than EUR 4 billion in order intake and sales, and then return on sales of more than 10%. Let's make a little bit of deep dive. First of all, the order intake we have achieved so far amounts up to a level of almost EUR 1.7 billion. What does this mean? Take a look on the left-hand chart, on the left side of the chart. We have an order backlog, orders on hand of an amount of EUR 1.9 billion yearly, the highest order backlog we ever had. This company, regardless of all the economic circumstances and issues we have, is going its way steadily, sustainable, fulfilling the mission we have, fulfilling what we have promised you so far.
Take into account the EUR 1.7 billion order intake for the first half of the year, it's already EUR 53 million more, which is 3.3%. And on top, if you calculate the FX effect, like as like, this would be another EUR 23 million. So like for like, the order intake increase is more than EUR 70 million, only in the first half of the year. In pumps, and again, that's the way we report, pumps means new business pumps, valves means new business valves, and Supreme Serv is service, including all the spare parts. We have increased the order intake in pumps up to a level of EUR 940 million. We see more or less a steady development in valves. And yes, the Supreme Serv a little bit lower than previous year.
This is due, due to reduced spare part orders only in the energy and mining business. This is a momentum right now, which is being impacted a little bit also by United States and the tariffs, but nevertheless, I really can confirm you the standard business for spare parts is running well. We are still on our mission. This does not frighten us. Sales. Let's talk about sales. Here we see that we have reached EUR 1.46 billion. And one thing I want to point out, and this is the strength of this company, we are not in only one markets, we are in a lot of markets. You are absolutely aware of what Timmermann and I have promised you and explained.
Within the standard market, actually, in these times, the water market is extremely strong, and there we see within the pump business a growth of 17%. So the way the company is structured regarding being an international company, as well as being active in all the relevant markets, this is one strength of the company, and in these tough times, it really pays out. We have more order intake, we have more sales, and of course, even if you take a look at valves, there we see the strongest growth with 7.3%. Supreme Serv , the sales are impacted by major spare part orders we had in the first half of the year.
So if you then, of course, take the EUR 5 million FX effects into account, we are absolutely okay with the development of sales in this first half of the year, and we expect that we have a further growth in the second half of the year. KSB is on its way. EBIT. Actually, with the EUR 108 million, the EBIT margin reported is 7.4%. On the first view, we might say, "Ooh, this is lower than previous year." But again, also here, I cannot underline it more clear, but you have to take the HANA cost into account. And we have done the following. If you take a look at this chart, we have split up the HANA cost to pumps, valves, as well as the premium.
So you see, EBIT margin is 8.3%, compared with the 8.2% in the previous year. Like for like, the company, as in the years before, has made a further improvement. That's the message here. Order intake, sales, as well as EBIT, these are the key ratios we have in our prognosis. With the half-year figures we see right now, can already tell you, we confirm our prognosis. If you compare these figures with the previous years, you will see they are very similar. And what does this mean? We are absolutely sure right now, the second half of the year will be a better one than the first half of the year. We know it from the order backlog we have.
We know it from our prognosis, and of course, you can imagine, before we go to the public here with all these figures, we had two days management meeting. We prognosed and we confirm our prognosis and a better second half of the year, as we have seen so far in the first half of the year. EBIT, I mentioned it before, despite all the economic challenge, is a very solid one, and within these figures and this really shortened P&L, I'd like to highlight two things. First of all, cost of materials. Our material ratio is 39.1%. We see that our purchasing department is really doing a great job. KSB, as an international company, is also organized worldwide, and here we benefit from our locations worldwide, where we can get products from, where we purchase products from.
Of course, we have partners who deliver us the products in time on a worldwide basis. Secondly, you see other expenses have increased from EUR 221 million to EUR 233 million. This is the P&L line, where the EUR 13.5 million for SAP HANA are booked. So you see, again, a very, very solid P&L. So continuous improvement, I mentioned it before. If you go to the total cost methodology, total output of operations has increased because of a change in inventory by EUR 20 million, and the material cost ratio went down to 30.9%. Steer your eyes to 23. There, we have been on a level of 41.8%.
Cost reduction in SG&A, having working capital under control, also working on our material cost, this is what we steadily are doing, what we are continuously improving, and for this reason, we are absolute happy with the P&L that you see so far. And of course, we see the effects of all the work these people are doing. Another thing I'd like to highlight. Here, you see EUR 100 million EBIT, EBT, EUR 104 million taxes on income. We are showing an earnings after tax, EAT, of EUR 69.1 million. It's more or less the same figure as previous year, but take a look at the tax ratio. It's 33.5% right now.
It's lower than in the previous year, and I remember when we had our annual call, also before, you all asked, "Why is tax ratio so high?" You see, and I promise we will be anywhere between 32%-34%. This is where we are. The outlook for this year is that the tax ratio will go down a little bit, and we will end up anywhere at 33%. So the time is over where we had these ups and downs. This is the tax ratio as is right now. We do not see any major positive or negative effects on the tax ratio so far. Finance income, EUR 4 million, I showed it to you before. It's impacted by finance expenses for pensions, hyperinflationary countries, and of course, here you see again the taxes on income, 33.5%.
This is where we are all about right now, at the moment. Also, the balance sheet is still a very, very solid one. This is a solid one, and with this solid balance sheet, we can really stay in these times under these economic circumstances. You see the equity with nearly EUR 1.3 billion is very high. I come to this later. And the current liabilities have decreased a little bit for some smaller reasons. We have released some accruals, and the other thing is our liabilities for delivery of goods has went down. A solid balance sheet, very much comparable with the previous year. The equity, again, 46.6%, the same level as previous year, and you see how it has been impacted. Just a rough calculation. We have made earnings after tax of EUR 69 million.
We have to deduct EUR 53 million of dividend payments. Here, here you see a major effect on currency translation effects of EUR 77 million. Again, neither the dividends nor the currency translation effects are affecting the P&L directly. It's all the things are going directly into the equity. 46.6% Equity Ratio, stable, with an outlook to grow until the end of the year. Working capital. We are working hard, and we have put a lot of action in place in order to keep our working capital relations stable or even improve them. When you see our inventories as well as receivables and payables, all this is summed up under the headline Trade Working Capital, and you see with 127 days cash-to-cash cycle, we are absolutely in line with December, and we have improved by a further 3 days compared to previous year.
You have to take one thing into account. This is a growing CapEx company, and growing means you need working capital, and with all the measures we put in place, we have been able, within the last 12 months, to further improve our working capital in terms of days regarding the cash-to-cash cycle. For this reason, you see our net financial position remains stable, and this company, again, is financially stable. We have a finance agreement for the next six years. We are financed through with the banks. We have a solid net finance position. The outlook for the company is a real good one, so I think thank you for that. It's a company worth to invest. Investing, what does this mean? Let's take a look at the shares.
If we go back also one year to June 24, on this chart you will see or you'll see a comparison of the development of the preference shares and the Stamm stocks. We only took the preference shares here because these are the ones we are listed on the stock market. At the 130th birthday of KSB, with more or less EUR 950 preference shares, with more than EUR 1,000 price for your ordinary shares, in time for the happy birthday, we are showing the highest market capitalization ever in the history of KSB, and the market cap as of today is EUR 1.7 billion. How did this come true? Because I said thank you also on behalf of Stephan . Thank you for the trust in this company, because when you buy shares, what does this mean originally? That means you believe in the future of the company.
You believe in the future of the development of the share price. If you take a look back, I think you could read our lips. We have delivered so far, being reflected in the share price, market cap EUR 1.7 billion. Thank you for the trust you are giving us. Now, Stephan is already very close to come. Maybe you should join, Stephan . I think we should both summarize a little bit what has happened so far, and maybe you take this chart as a handover from my side.
With pleasure, Matthias, and the summary is easy. Our order intake and our sales are above last year, and I will pinpoint this in two or three slides, a little bit more in detail. This, in the light of a political situation worldwide and economical situation, which is mildly said, very challenging. At the same time, we were able to increase our profitability despite the sizable impact of SAP HANA, one of the most important infrastructure projects that we have, which will also, of course, impact 2026. Our preference share is at an all-time high, and this is, I think, the best news. The next slide, we will confirm our predictions, our corridor, which we have given to the stock market, as we speak.
Right.
From all that we can see today, this was now Matthias's comment who has given you such a bullish presentation. If you ask yourself, where are we? Are we exactly in the middle of this corridor? Are we left of the corridor? Are we right of the corridor? We are more on the right side of the corridor than on the left, and I think this again is absolute superb news. And this basically leads me to the outlook and the summary, and I would like to put the whole picture, this very bullish picture. Thank you so much, Matthias, for having held the deep dive into the figures into a perspective.
This perspective I've tried to cover with the cornerstones of what are the true challenges at the moment, and of course, you know them all. I will not go into detail, but you must just cherish that, for a mechanical engineering company, we are doing an extremely good job. What doesn't surprise me, but what enchants me, also in 2025, this despite really challenging conditions. If you now ask me, where are the reasons for all of this? There was once a buzzword. It was called resilience. I can today tell you, we are not working on company resilience. We have company resilience, and we have a twofold, one, in terms of the company setup and two, in terms of our strategy.
This is what basically drives this success, despite the fact that the overall economic situation at the time is not really the best. Now, if you ask me, what do you mean with a company setup? Then I think, Matthias has already given you a small indication. It's our broad market approach, which makes us extremely powerful. And if we're now on stage on the stock market since 130 years, we're on stage in terms of pumps, valves, and the Supreme Serv business since 154 years. So a lot of work has been done in order really to cover markets from the heating cellar to the most modern nuclear power plants worldwide. And you will hardly find any competitor in the field of pumps and valves who can offer this. And we have segmented this into our markets.
This is an extreme focus today, and this just makes us powerful, and it is then helped by a product portfolio, which is once in a class. In terms of once, the wideness of our product portfolio from the heating cellar, via the mining pumps, to the big cooling pumps in nuclear or thermal power plants, absolutely unique, and a lot of high-end technology which is in these products, which differentiate us from our competition. On top, we have a global setup, which I think is unique. Also, not invented by me, and Matthias, and Stephan, and Ralf. We are the ones who have the possibility to structure this and to make it more powerful. It was basically put on tracks over many, many decades by those who founded the company.
Today, with 37 production sites, basically in all major markets, we are just strong. Local for local, a buzzword for other companies, it's real in the KSB life, and this allows us to be quick and of course, to be cost effective. The best of all of this is, KSB, we live on sound mega trends, which are totally irrespective of headlines. This is population growth. These are the changes in the weather, which always lead to too much water or too little water. It's the increase of big cities, mega cities all around the world. It is a necessity for energy of all kinds. It's electrification. You know, the mega trends, and these are here to stay, and we follow this up with our strategy, and this strategy is sound.
And this is basically the second part of our resilience, strategy, which we focus on, which takes time, but where we slowly but surely reap all the benefits that are connected to it. And, I begin with Supreme Serv . Supreme Serv in 2018, putting focus on after sales. This is really the financial muscle today, of our company, and we still have a lot in front of us. All of these things, they are strategies which have been started, but at the end of the day, they are processes to change the mindset, the focus, and the motivation, of the company. And after sales thinking, after sales production, after sales selling, and then of course, doing the job, this is growing day by day.
This you can only do with workforce which is really fighting all around the world for the business success, irrespective of the hiccups that we have, and these are our 17,000 employees all around the world. And I think this is, i f you ask me what's the biggest pride that I have, it's our employees all around the world, which make happen what we define as our targets and our strategy. On top, CLIMB 21, founded in 2020, this is our focus on markets. Our huge product portfolio now segmented. We know who needs what, and we pinpoint these customers, and we beat our competition wherever we can. And this is just great news, and also we are just at the beginning. This has all been perfected then in our Mission TEN30.
Our mission, as Matthias said, to reach a 10%+ at latest, latest in the year 2030. I'm rather sure we will be before that. Back to Profit projects. Every one of our companies, and we have more than 100 all around the world, they all have to earn money, and if somebody has any doubts, then a lot of love is invested to get him on track. All of this has helped, and this basically has led to KSB being the company that it is today. And if I were to summarize it, we are just continuing what we have started. We have a clear vision. This is our 10%+ with the most engaged employees that you can think of worldwide. We have a plan.
We're executing this plan year by year, and we are convinced, as Matthias said it, that success will come, not only in this year, but also in the years to come. And with this, I say thank you very much for your attention. And now, Sonja, I think we have a little bit of room for questions and answers.
Yes, indeed, we do. Thank you very much, Stephan, and also Matthias, for your insightful presentations. Now it's time to open up for our Q&A session. We will move for this purpose to our blue seats. It will take approximately one-two minutes, and then we'll be right back. You might use this little break to post your questions in the chat window. Just bear with us, and see you in a minute. Welcome back to our Q&A session. Let's start with a question on the second half year. You said that you expect a better half year 2025 than the first half year this year, but do you also expect the second half year to be better than the one of 2024?
As we're striving to have a better year 2025 compared to previous year, I think the second half of the year should be better than the second half of the previous year also. To what extent, we will see, but honestly, what, what we are striving for is to fulfill what we have promised, to gain momentum year on year steadily, and this is what we will achieve what we're promising.
Thank you very much. We have a question related to KSB Supreme Serv . Are you still in the process of reaching more customers in your installed base? If that is the case, why could higher order intake of new customers not compensate for the lower demand for spare parts from the mining and energy market areas?
That's a good, good question, Sonja. First of all, are we still regaining new customers? Yes, of course. I mean, 154 years of operation, which was never really followed up, this takes years and years to collect all of the data all around the world, and this is what we're doing, and this is basically the gold, the treasure of KSB Supreme Serv . Where are we in this voyage? Maybe somewhere half, 50%-60%, but by far not the majority of those pumps which are really of interest to us have been put into our computer system, which we call C4S. Why was this not possible to basically compensate the dip in the road of especially the mining business?
Basically, due to the fact that this dip in the road is rather short term. I mean, if you look into the mining business of KSB, we basically in many cases are responsible for the stock of our customers. We kind of manage it for them, solely due to the fact that the delivery times are so long. If the customer orders tonight, he will not get the part tomorrow because we need three, four, five months in order to get it through the foundry and then the machining shop. So we follow up very well, how is the stock level of our customers? And there we notice that I would say from February onwards, major customers are not ordering parts anymore because they are trying to optimize their cash flow.
That's the key reason. It's not because mines are shutting down, but because our customers, the big mines, are being extremely prudent in terms of spendings. And there, what is the background behind of this, behind all of this? It's at the end of the day, the taxes that today are put onto especially copper, which comes from South America into the U.S. And, for sure a solution has to be found because there is little alternative for the U.S., in terms of manufacturing or mining their own copper. They have to import it, and this will lead to rising product costs in the U.S. So we see it more as a bump in the road than anything which has major long-term impact.
Thank you for your explanation, Stephan. We have a question related to our market position. In the past quarter, Weir has acquired Townley and Flowserve has merged with Chart Industries. Has the competition for KSB become substantially tougher by these two transactions?
We follow up what our competition is doing, sometimes with wonder, sometimes with awe, sometimes with question marks. In both cases, I would say, as a person, I have question marks. We know Townley very well. I would have not invested into Townley. Maybe we, having no own foundry in the U.S. for the U.S. mining market, basically, for the phosphates and the mining market, needed Townley. I would personally not have done it. Regarding Flowserve and their merger with Chart, I mean, it has been blown off since the beginning of the week, so this great news, which I also question, because this is really would have been a sizable merger and a lot of post-merger integration then for a highly diversified company.
It's headlines of yesterday. Today somebody else has basically bid a higher price, and off Chart now goes to a new owner.
Thank you. It was mentioned at one occasion that the low-margin fitting business might be sold in due course. Are there any comments available?
Well, honestly, I cannot remember when we made this comment regarding this, but let me put it this way: We are not, it is not the intention as of today to sell short term any of our businesses.
I think that was quite clear. Thank you very much.
No, maybe, Sonja, I showed it in my chart, with Red List and profit orientation. Today, there's not a single company in the KSB world, where problems are so big that they are not fixable, and we fix these problems, and suddenly we polish unpolished diamonds to new perfection, and this is the good part about the potential that we still have in the company.
Thank you. Matthias, we have a question for you. As the company becomes more prominent in the capital markets, any update on merging the shares classes to further improve liquidity?
No update as of today, but nevertheless, you can be sure we are absolutely aware, especially when you take a look at the share price development, that we are playing a more important role on the capital markets, and we make up our minds how to play the game better as we're doing today.
Thank you. So for the time being, this was actually the last question that we received in the chat. If anybody would like to unmute the microphone and talk to us or send another question, then please do so. Doesn't look like it. Oh, oh yes, there's one more. There's one more we can take. "The German government is offering a 30% annual depreciation booster for all investments made between July 1st and December 31st, 2027. The German government also appears to be reducing the corporate tax rate from 15%-10% by 2032, providing a modest tailwind for German tax earnings. Any indications of how this will benefit KSB?
We do not have accurate numbers right now, but an indication, the decision by the German government will especially affect our DTAs, our Deferred Tax Assets, and the impact will be anywhere between EUR 3 million and EUR 5 million. As a first guess, it's not a concrete figure right now, but again, EUR 3-5 million is what we expect. This year.
Yeah. In 2025.
In 2025. Okay. So it looks like we have come to the end of our, n o, still another one?
Yeah.
Do you intend to improve your communication on ESG topics?
Yes. No, ESG is becoming more and more important in our communication, and what we are doing is, actually, we are overworking our equity story. And, ESG will play an important role within our updated company communication, let's say starting in Q3, Q4, or at the Capital Market Day.
I think that was a very good bridge for me, actually.
This was the idea.
Still there's another question.
Oh, okay.
Do we have any update on the valve and its path to profitability?
Yes, the update is the valve world consists of 10 companies. Nine of these companies are profitable today. One single one still has a little bit of homework to do. This is our lovely plant in La Roche. We have a plan in place. We have new managers in place executing this, and that the turnaround is graspable. And with this, the valve world, with the two plants in China, two in India, our lovely plant, SISTO, in Luxembourg, the plants here in Germany and the French plant will all be on track. And we expect this to be a major contributor also to our profitability.
And in addition, there, if you look at the Supreme Serv business of the valves, even if it's only small, with EUR 60 million roundabout, it's the most profitable business that we have as a single sector, so we intend to grow it, and we are well on the way.
Thank you very much. Then we received another question on the depreciation booster, the 30% in Germany. Are you seeing an uptake in the outlook for investments in pumps and valves by your customers?
I think that would be a little bit too early. I think the German industry, first of all, has to digest what was agreed upon in terms of tariffs on the last weekend, and see how this then fits into their investment plans. But I'm personally very convinced Germany and Europe, for several reasons, is going to come back on track. It'll take time, but we will be back on track. We have everything to make it happen, and this will, of course, be connected to investments. And if I take KSB here in Frankenthal, I mean, we're walking the talk. We're investing heavily here into Frankenthal, not since yesterday, but already the day before.
One of the major investments, you know, is our EUR 70 million, which goes into the manufacturing of the Eta, and this is a clear sign of commitment to Germany. I expect, as many CEOs announced it last week, this is not only KSB which is doing it, also other German companies a re going to walk the talk. This will, of course, then be business for us.
Which is great news. Then another question: "You mentioned the bump in the road. Do you expect KSB Supreme Serv to return to sales growth in the second half year versus the second half year of 2024?
Yes. Yes.
Yes.
Some of the Supreme Serv business, I mean, we separate between spares and technical service. Technical service is the part which in the first half of the year is, by nature, not as strong as in the second half of the year. So yes, we expect a stronger growth of Supreme Serv in the second half of the year. But again, you can see if you have to save money, it's like at home, if you cannot avoid it, you also save on Supreme Serv , unfortunately. But the answer is yes.
Thank you. Then, do you have any updates on your interest in an acquisition in the U.S.? Will you be disciplined on valuation?
I'd start with the second part. That is.
This is my part, sorry.
That is Matthias's part.
I say yes.
But, for sure, also then, then supported by me, buying companies is, is very easy. At the end of the day, earning companies, earning money with bought companies, is much more difficult because, you have to integrate them.
They have to fit company-wise, and of course, you have to have very closely analyzed what, what you buy. That's why I'm sometimes surprised what our competition is doing. But are we scouting for partners which fit to us? Yes, of course, and this we do all around the world, including the U.S. And in the meantime, in order not to lose pace, we're investing heavily into the U.S. You know that we're investing EUR 26 million in Richmond at the time. We are investing heavily into our GIW business, the mining business in Augusta, in Georgia. This is basically the Townley of KSB, but on a totally different level in terms of technology.
We are investing in Houston into a new sales and service office, including a Supreme Serv Academy. So we are investing into internal growth, but at the same time, of course, scouting. Is there somebody where the price evaluation is sensible? Where also Matthias then says.
Thank you
"Go, go for it," and I say, "This is a cultural fit, and it fits into the strategy of the company.
Thank you very much. So do we have any more questions? No, it doesn't look like it. Then I would like to announce a true highlight in our investor relations calendar. On the 11th of September this year, we will open up our doors here in Frankenthal for the second capital market day at KSB. During that day, we will of course address a little bit the figures, but this will not be our focus. We will share a lot of insights in our company. We also have invited executive managers besides our board of management, and they will also present to you a little bit about our sales regions, about our market areas, and of course, and not to miss KSB Supreme Serv , just to name a few.
So it's going to be a very interesting program, and of course, then you will have the opportunity to ask many more questions. So if you have not yet registered, just take the opportunity to do so now, because the seats are limited. So you can scan the QR code, or you can drop us an email to the investor relations team if you have not yet received the invite. So hopefully, we see each other on the 11th of September. But for now, it's just up to us to say we wish you a wonderful summertime, and see you soon.
Thank you.
Thank you.