Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the PFISTERER Holding SE Q3 2025 Key Figures and Business Performance. 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, Johannes Linden.
Hello from PFISTERER side. Good morning. Johannes Linden, my name. Welcome to the webcast of the Q3 Key Figures and the Business Performance, followed by a discussion. We have prepared a presentation that I think you will be all available to look at. The presentation is covering a brief introduction of our business, which I suppose we can keep really brief. We're going to be talking very shortly about the overall market tendencies, and this then will be leading us to the presentation regarding our financial figures and possible discussion afterwards. With this being said, let's move to the participants on our side first. My colleague will be introducing himself.
Yes. Good morning also from my side, Konstantin Kurfiss speaking. Before Johannes starts, just a brief introduction. Twenty years in the industry, thirteen years or more than thirteen years in PFISTERER. Previous experience also for MKT and PFISTERER in former times. I'm the co-CEO with Johannes together, and I'm responsible for sales and technology here in the company and joining the call with the team here. Thank you, Johannes.
All right. Thanks, Konstantin. I continue. I'm the person on the left, the one with the glasses. I have also 20-plus years of industrial experience and 23 years profit and loss responsibility in different companies, amongst others also listed companies such as SIG in Switzerland or Andritz in Austria, Ningbo PIA Automation in China. Meanwhile, I'm almost three years here at PFISTERER, taking care of the functional areas of operations and finance. With this, let's move forward to the more exciting stuff that is PFISTERER. You see here an introductory picture that describes what we are doing, our products. They find their applications in the electrical infrastructure. You see an example here in the center of this page. There is a so-called Dry Termination that is connecting an overhead line with an earth cable in the area of 170,000 volts.
This is the product that we provide here, which has certain advantages as it can be pre-assembled on the ground, and it's easy to be installed in the elevated height. This is very preferential for our customers as they have lots and lots of projects. We have lots of business, and all of that needs to be done as efficiently as possible. We have the mission as PFISTERER to be the preferred partner for innovative, reliable, and mission-critical electrical connections. Wherever electricity needs to be connected, it also needs some kind of an insulation. We are providing these connections as well as the insulation solution. On the next page, there is a condensed electrical landscape, as we call it. On this condensed view, you will find situations where products of PFISTERER find their way into the infrastructure.
You will find these products in all of these situations simply due to the fact that we are cable agnostic. We can work with every cable company, and we have the program to be applied across the entire power value chain at all voltage levels. You will find these products underwater. You will find them under the ground. You will find them in the air. You will find these products that we provide at low voltages, below 1,000 volts, in the medium voltage area that is between 1,000 and 53,000, or in the high voltage area that is above 53,000 volts. The colors here indicate situations where electricity needs to be connected in dark blue. You find the generation of electricity. It could be a nuclear power plant or a gas turbine.
It's not illustrated here, but it could be an onshore wind park or an offshore wind farm. It could be a solar field. Wherever electricity is being generated, it needs to be connected to some sort of transmission, and that's where our products come into play. The transmission itself is taking place via overhead lines or underground cable systems or subsea situations. Again, our products are mission-critical and connecting individual situations up to the point where electricity needs to be distributed, be it for the application of rail and mobility, as you see on the top right in example, or be it more and more also in the areas of data centers where we all know there are many projects ongoing on a global basis.
The PFISTERER Group is characterized on the world map that you see in the center of the slide in the presentation illustrating our 17 companies in 15 countries where, in conjunction with our technical distributors, we are present in more than 90 countries. We have five factories in the United States and Rochester in New York, three factories in Germany, but the largest single factory itself is in the Czech Republic. For the companies in Argentina, Brazil, but also in Italy, Spain, France, the U.K., Switzerland, and Poland are supporting our sales as our newly founded company in 2024 in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, as well as our subsidiary in Dubai in the Emirates. Lastly, two companies in China and South Korea are presenting us in the market.
The revenue split from a regional point of view is in the pie chart on the top left, illustrated in the first nine months of this year. Our largest geographical sales segment has been Europe and Africa, with 54% of our revenues. The second largest has been the Middle East, with 22%, the Americas at 15%, and then Asia-Pacific with 9%. On the bottom left pie chart, there is the revenue split in the second dimension of our reporting, which is our product segments that we are reporting. HVDC is not shown here as at this point is not generating sales yet. We're going to be talking about this a little bit later, where we stand in developing the relevant products for this to be changed rather soon.
Nevertheless, the four segments we are reporting are the largest one with high voltage accessories, HVA, 40% of the revenues, followed by overhead lines, 23%. Mostly overhead lines are also in the high voltage arena. The high voltage area is around 60%. In the accessories and the overhead line business combined, on medium voltage, we are at 40%, and components, which is in the first denomination to be looked as a low voltage situation, is at 24%. On the bottom right, there are a few selected customers we are serving. We have the largest single customer group with the utilities, such as TenneT or such as Edison. It could be INEL, or it could be the Saudi Electricity Company. Different utilities in the individual geographical segments we are dealing with directly. You see below there cable companies.
Despite the fact that we are cable agnostic, we supply our products to each and everyone. Also, cable companies that do have their own connector solutions tend to buy in different markets from us. Nevertheless, the majority of our business with cable companies is with those who do not have their own connections. This would be characterized, for instance, here with Hellenic as a European player, Telefónica, Southwire in the U.S., and so on. At the bottom, there are distributors: Maxeta, Richards, Battenberg, to name a few, the OEMs that you all know, I guess, as GE, ABB, Hitachi, Siemens Energy. You all are also aware of their growth prospects, and we supply products in order to enable them to materialize their growth.
The fifth customer group is contractors, which are executing turnkey projects on behalf of the utilities, which tend also to be connected indirectly through the utilities to PFISTERER. On the next page, I want to share some key market data just to round the picture up where PFISTERER is active. The summary sentence is in the headline of this slide. It means we believe that our large market continues to grow at a rapid speed, and we think that the market environment for PFISTERER continues to be very supportive for our growth and our profit ambitions for the years to come. First of all, I think it is undisputed that there is a massive global grid investment trend, which will be helping us in the long-term growth. You all know there are multiple studies in this connection.
One of these studies is saying that by 2050, the investment will be two to three times the ones that they are today, and they will be rising in the direction of $1 trillion, almost an unimaginable number. Why is this? Where is this coming from? A portion of it is coming from the record demand that is generated from data centers and AI. This is really accelerating the grid expansion. We believe to a different extent in different geographical regions. We have mentioned earlier, but nevertheless, it is a general trend, and this is driving the relevant demand for connections, bushings, and also substation components in the medium and high voltage that PFISTERER is providing as core products. We do see that the transmission and distribution continues to boom in Europe.
In the period between 2025 and 2029, an accumulated investment of EUR 345 billion is announced by the 15 largest TSOs only. This is not all that is invested, but this is just the number that the 15 largest have made public. This is an increase of a factor of three relative to the five-year period before, so between 2020 and 2024. We have seen this already in the year 2024, where this investment boom is, of course, not going stepwise, but it is a continuous increase. We have seen this already in the year 2024, where the investment in itself, they were already 50% higher than they used to be in 2023.
Maybe as a last element here, which is another motivation for us to be very confident in the market development, is the fact that renewables and storage activities of renewable energy or renewably generated energy, they sustain the expected demand by 2050. Predictions are saying that 70% of the global electricity will come from renewable sources. Renewables have many advantages, but also a certain disadvantage, meaning they are not generating electricity in a constant flow, but depending on the conditions. This then leads to additional investments into the grid to enable storage capacity. This in itself needs to be connected again, and there are connecting solutions in ambient HV relevant that PFISTERER is offering. With all of this being said, I would like to turn the corner now and talk about our financial performance in the first nine months of 2025.
Let's start with the order intake. That is the first line you see in the table on the right of this slide here. We are proud to say that our order intake has increased massively. We see an up by 33.6% in a year-over-year comparison for the first nine months, leading to an order intake of EUR 431.3 million that we have booked. We are seeing an order book situation at the end of September that went up by 46%. If the order book was EUR 232 million by the end of September last year, we are meanwhile showing EUR 338.7 million. What is maybe worthwhile to be mentioned is that the growth in the order intake we are showing here is recorded in all geographical segments and is also visible in all product segments.
Across the board, PFISTERER is growing in this dimension, and this obviously is already and will be turning even more into growth in revenues, and we believe also in bottom-line results. The order book itself is forming, obviously, a solid foundation for the periods to come, and the increase in the revenues that we see here at 14.5% on a nine-month year-over-year comparison is leading then to revenues at the end of September of EUR 327 million, if around it, up. This is coming strongly through the product segments HVA, so cable connections in the high-voltage arena, but also in the medium-voltage arena. We have seen a positive revenue growth development. If we go further down in the chart and look at our gross margin, we have shown last year 38.8% at the end of September. Nevertheless, at this point, we can show 41.4%.
We managed to increase our gross margin by 2.6%. Taking this now as an absolute number, we see that the gross result increased by 22% from EUR 111 million - EUR 135 million. Our EBITDA at the end of September, with this year's EUR 57.8 million, is a 30.3% increase relative to last year. Our result for the period, skipping EBIT, is with EUR 35 million at the end of September. Yeah, an increase of, I think, impressive, if I may say that, 67.2% relative to last year. We have seen, if we continue going down the chart, that our adjusted EBITDA, you may remember, we are adjusting our EBITDA by the virtual stock option program that was initiated in connection with the IPO that took place in May.
If we correct the VSOP element of approximately EUR 4 million, a little bit less than EUR 4 million, then we show an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 61 million and the adjusted EBITDA margin of 18.7% at the end of September. If you look to the net debt, this has been dramatically reduced in our favor. We are showing, meanwhile, EUR 7 million as a net debt figure. If a year ago, this was EUR 63 million. Of course, this is related to higher cash and cash equivalents that are also connected to the IPO. The networking capital as a percentage of revenues is a number we are tracking very closely. We are showing 28.6%. This is an increase relative to the nine-month figure from a year ago. Nevertheless, it is showing an improvement relative to the half-year figure, which was at 30%.
We are watching this closely and managing it also for us. What is not listed here is the earnings per share. At the end of nine months, we were showing EUR 2.11, which is a significant increase compared to EUR 1.41 a year ago, despite the fact that we have more shares due to the capital increase and the subsequent initial public offering. That was it for the moment for the nine months. If we look to the quarter three on the subsequent page, we see a similar picture. Generally speaking, but more in detail, our order intake in the third quarter of this year showed EUR 141 million. This in itself was an increase of 15.4% relative to last year's order intake. Our order book is obviously the same as on the previous page.
If we continue going down, our revenue at EUR 113 million is a strong increase of 25.5% relative to last year's EUR 90 million. Maybe it's also here worthwhile to mention that last year Q3 was the weakest quarter of the year. We do have a certain fluctuation in between quarters. This is not a straight line. Every quarter is not always showing the same tendency. Last year Q3 was rather weak. This year, EUR 113 million is a repeat, basically, of our revenue of quarter two. It does show an increase of 25.5% relative to the previous year. Our gross margin at 40.1% is up by 1.7 percentage points compared to last year. Our EBITDA with EUR 21 million is showing an 81% increase relative to the previous year. Our result for the period with EUR 13.4 million is almost three times the result of last year. It's up 186% to be more precise.
Our operating cash flow is catching up. We have shown in the third quarter EUR 9.9 million. Last year, it was EUR 8.5 million. We believe this is now also a trend to be sustained in the coming quarters. Finally, finishing our adjusted EBITDA, EUR 21.5 million, an increase of 67% compared to last year's period of quarter three. Our adjusted EBITDA margin, 19.1%, shows an up compared to the nine-month figure from the previous page of 18.7%. The adjusted EBITDA margin continues to develop in our favor. We are meanwhile, and I think I skipped that on the previous page, a team of 1,356 employees here at PFISTERER. We are 9.4% more team members on the board. If I may say that out of this, in Germany, due to the IPO, more than 90% were shareholders when we went public.
If we continue now to show more of a development over the quarters to give a better impression on how things have developed over time, we see in the illustration here on the left in red the development of our order book. Due to this significant increase in order intake and despite our growth in revenues, we do see a consecutive increase in the order book, which is, from our point of view, very good. If at the beginning of 2024, this number is not shown here, PFISTERER's order book was slightly below EUR 200 million. We have meanwhile brought this up to EUR 338.7 million at the end of the third quarter. If I may repeat once more, the order intake in the nine months of this year has developed favorably in all product segments and in all regions.
We think this is really a signal of the strength of our market position and the quality of our offering. If we look to the right at the revenues, we also see this positive development. Nevertheless, it needs to be stated, as I mentioned earlier, Q3 was the bottom last year. From there, we have seen a steady increase. I believe Q2 and Q3 can be looked at as the same number here with EUR 113 million. If we take the average of the quarterly revenues, equaling certain fluctuations in between quarters for the past years, we see that in 2023, we had a quarterly revenue averaged at EUR 83.5 million. In 2024, this was averaged at EUR 95 million. This year, year- to- date, we are averaged at EUR 108.9 million.
We are, based on the backlog in our order book, positive that the EUR 108.9 million does not necessarily have to be the final average data number for the year 2025. We see in quarter three, as mentioned earlier, we had a strong revenue development in HV and also in the OHL product segments. Regarding the regions, this growth has been outstanding in the Middle East, but also in Europe. On the slide now, talking a little bit more about the quality of the business regarding gross margin and also adjusted EBITDA, we also think we can show a good development over the individual quarters, starting with the gross margin, which is the columns in red. We have seen three consecutive quarters above 42%.
The quarter three this year with 40.1% is a drop lower, but this needs to be seen in conjunction with our relocation and starting up activity that we have in the Czech Republic. You may remember that in quarter three, we had this very unfavorable fire incident in one of the factories in Germany, in Wunsiedel. Subsequently, out of this, we removed the equipment to our Czech location, which is approximately 90 km east from the former factory in Wunsiedel. This relocation was finished around mid-year, and we are starting up production now in the third quarter. As we are starting up, obviously, we have a rather inefficient team there. There's a lot of training taking place. We are rather overstaffed regarding the output of this ramping up. This is pushing a little bit on the gross margin in OHL.
At the same token, if you look to the adjusted EBITDA there, this has been evened out again because we are receiving insurance payments as compensation of these additional costs that we are facing in ramping up the factory. There is an uneven situation. The costs that we have are in the gross margin, but the insurance payments that are making up for it, they are shown in the other income. Therefore, you see this uneven situation between gross margin and EBITDA. The final truth in regards of profitability is there to be seen in the adjusted EBITDA, EUR 21.5 million. This is, we think, quite a satisfactory number, which we want to continue to push also in the near future. If we move on to the earnings per share, there is a slide illustrating this.
We have adjusted the earnings per share to show a better picture in the quality of the business that we are conducting here at PFISTERER. This is the only slide where the adjustment is not only related to the VSOP and all other slides when we talk about adjusted EBITDA. It is always related to the virtual stock option program. In order to show a better picture here, we have decided on this one slide to extend the adjustments by other IPO-related costs. This is particularly, we have seen this in the second quarter 2025, where the employee participation program I was referring to earlier, more than 90% of the German employees turned into shareholders, which we believe is very good for the development of the company. This was subsidized by PFISTERER with approximately EUR 900,000. This will be another adjustment.
There were also relevant consulting fees, in particular in the second quarter 2025, but also some flashover into the third quarter of 2025. We have adjusted these elements here. At the same time, the number of shares have increased due to the capital increase in the second quarter 2025 and even more in the third quarter 2025, where the calculation is then based on the 18.095 million shares that we are meanwhile showing. Despite this, a very relevant increase on the number of shares from 14.595 million to 18.095 million, we are showing still earnings per share that is, from our point of view, very good with EUR 0.75 in the third quarter. If we compare the quarter three cumulated, so nine months of 2024 with the nine months of 2025, we do see an increase of 49% from EUR 1.58 per share to EUR 2.36 per share.
Again, despite the fact that the number of shares have increased significantly, we do show a higher earning per share, plus 49%. If we move on to the next page, I want to talk a little bit in more detail about the segments we are reporting. Let's start with the geographical segments, which are illustrated on the columns in the left graph here. If I start with North America and South America, we do see a growth on revenues of 3%. There is a shift in between Argentina, South America, and North America, United States. If the South American market has developed unfavorably for us, we have seen a decrease in revenues. We do see, we think, also from a prospective development, a good development in the United States that is overcompensating the reduction in Argentina or in South America.
We believe that the American market, in particular the U.S. market, will continue to develop favorably. Argentina is going to catch up as the political situation has stabilized meanwhile. We do see in Europe and Africa that our revenues went up by 5%. Here, it's maybe worthwhile also to mention that in Europe, the fire incident from the factory in Wunsiedel, this is covering 98% of European revenues. The factory in Wunsiedel was providing product for the European market in overhead lines. If we correct this incident, we have lost EUR 13 million of revenue due to that in the first nine months of this year, which we hope to make up as the factory is restarting, I mentioned earlier. If we would adjust this EUR 13 million, we would see a revenue growth in Europe and Africa of 13% instead of 5%.
On the bottom left, on the left chart, we see this growth jump in the Middle East, plus 79%. Asia-Pacific with minus 3%, I would call this rather a flat development. On the right side, the revenue split as per the regions. We have seen this earlier in the introductory slide. The largest region of PFISTERER remains to be Europe and Africa with 54%, followed by the Middle East, 22%, the Americas, 15%, and Asia-Pacific with 9%. If we look to the split of the product segments of the first nine months, then the picture is showing a good development in all product segments. HVA, we have seen plus 24% in the first nine months. MVA, plus 21%. We spoke about this earlier. Revenue growth has been driven by the cable accessories in HV and in MV.
We see the components business growing with 5% despite the reduction in Argentina, which has historically not participated, has been a portion of this components business. We see a very good development in the components business in all other regions. In overhead lines, plus 8%. Earlier, I was talking about the reduction in Europe, the EUR 13 million from the products we lost in revenues in the first nine months due to the fire incident. If we would include this in the OHL business, just to make a fair comparison, we would see an overhead line increase of 27% instead of 8%. HV, MV, overhead lines are all in the 20s. On an adjusted basis, components with 5% is very satisfactory because we know that the order backlog in components went up by 56%.
We will see good growth in components in the very near future. With this, I want to finish the monologue on the financial data. I'm sure there will be some questions following very soon. Before we go to this, maybe let's enjoy the moment for a second and look at this. It was quite an emotional moment for Konstantin and myself, I believe I can say. I think also for the great team that has enabled this because it's not two guys which are making an IPO. It's a team that is motivated and capable and dedicated. This is really what we find here in PFISTERER. With the IPO, as it went, and I hope many of you were invested in the IPO, I think we have developed so far quite well.
We are happy to share with you that we believe it's a significant event that PFISTERER and the IPO has been honored for the outstanding going public project execution and also the market development afterwards. We think there is more to come. This is, amongst other things, also based on our positive steps towards the HVDC system tests we have conducted and passed. This has been announced last week in the corporate news. We have presented to the market. PFISTERER, meanwhile, is the world's first, worldwide first independent supplier of a complete HVDC program for 320 kV. We believe this is a milestone in PFISTERER's development and in proving once more the technological leadership we are able to bring onto the street.
We think this will be turning into business in conjunction with our HVDC laboratory, as you may be aware, that we are building right now. As we are continuing in the testings with our selected R&D collaboration partners, we believe this will be turning into a positive business for PFISTERER in the near future. Last but not least, if you would be interested in personal meetings, we would be very happy to talk to you also on a personal basis. This could be possible on the events that we have made public. Of course, not only in these events, but amongst others, it could be those events. We will be participating next week in the Frankfurt Deutsches Eigenkapitalf orum, Monday, Tuesday. We are going to be in London on December 2nd, which then will be followed by a trip to Switzerland on December 8.
We're going to be in Lyon on early January. After that, we will be visiting the United States and will be present in New York in the German investment seminar organized and conducted by Commerzbank. Our annual report will be published on April 15. With this, maybe I will get a sip of water here, and I will be happy to cover questions, either me or Konstantin, depending on the individual questions. Thanks for the moment.
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question at this point, please press nine, followed by the star key on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to cancel your question, please press three, followed by the star key. Please press nine and star now to state your question. The first question at this point comes from Yasmin Steilenn Berenberg. Your line is open.
Hello, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. I have three, if I may. The first one is on the order intake. Your order intake was up 15%, implying a slowdown from the almost 60% increase we have seen in Q2. I know it's a very lumpy business, but maybe you could share some color on the current order dynamics and maybe also some indications on the volume price split you had in the Q3 order intake. That's my first question. Should I take them?
No,
let's do it one by one.
Yeah, please. That will be first time. Vielen Dank. Otherwise, I've overscratched here. Thank you. Yes, you're right. I mean, if you compare the Q3 order intake on a relative comparison to the previous year, this would be a lower growth than earlier. You also need to see that last year, it was already a good order intake in Q3, right? On a relative comparison, this is going down. If you have seen an order intake of more than EUR 140 million, if we would turn this into revenue, we would be almost at EUR 600 million revenue per year. I think this is still a very healthy number. Book-to-Bill is in a very good range. EUR 113 million was our revenue, intake EUR 140 million. I do not have the I did not make the division here, but I think it's a reasonable number that we are showing.
It will be, we think, a very sustainable basis for our continued growth. We can maybe also just to share that thought with you, Frau Stein, and the others. If PFISTERER will continue to have order intakes 40%-50% more than what we turn into revenues, our order book would be growing into infinity. It would be touching the sky at some point simply because it will not be possible for us to grow revenues at 40% or 50%. This is a tangible business. We need to have people, equipment, materials, shipments. This is not possible. We have seen revenue growth recently in the past years of 15.7%, 14.7%. We are on a nine-month basis, again, at 14.5%. We believe this is a number that may be developing even a little bit further in the next quarter.
We think this is around the revenue growth that we're going to see also in the future. Hope it makes sense, Frau Stein.
Yeah, makes perfect sense. Could you elaborate on the volume price mix in the order intake?
Yeah, let me see. I have the nine-month figure here.
Or nine months, whatever is available.
If you look to the individual profitabilities of our segments on a nine-month basis, number one and number two are HVA and components on a gross margin basis. These are the ones where the backlog has grown the most. In HVA, we've seen an increase of 54% on year-over-year comparison. There is a lot of more business on HVA to come. As we have seen in the past, HV has stable and good margins. The same is true for components. It's typically 3-4% lower than HV, but nevertheless in the 40s and very stable business, good turnaround typically. Backlog is turning quicker into revenues as in HV or OHL projects. We think the margin in our backlog is satisfactory and will be supporting our statements we have made earlier.
Yeah. The question was more around in the 15% year-over-year growth, is it kind of 10% related to volume, 5% related to price, or is there a price component in this order intake increase at all?
Yes, it is. We are looking at an average of 3% of a price increase we have managed in the course of the year.
Okay, perfect. That's very clear. Then second, your customer, one of your customers, Siemens Energy, has recently, very recently, increased the midterm targets on sales, but more importantly, also on profitability by 400 basis points, if I remember correctly. How comfortable do you feel with your midterm targets, which remained unchanged since the IPO so far?
I would say super comfortable.
Okay. I mean, you already indicated that kind of 15% could also be the growth rate for PFISTERER midterm going forward.
That is what you said, Frau Stein. What can I say here? We are at 40.5 at this moment. Last year's Q4 was a revenue I need to look to the slide. We have this on the one slide here. Last year's Q4 was a revenue at EUR 98 million. I mentioned earlier in Q4 this year, I do not see a reason why it should be lower than Q3 or Q2 this year. It should be developing in all our favor.
The last question. I know that transformers are a very insignificant part of your business, but you might have seen the recent profit warning of Swiss R&S Group as their customers had not enough capacity to install the transformers that have been ordered. Is this a bottleneck of plumbers? Could this become an issue for your business as well at all?
My colleague will be talking to this. Let me jump out.
I believe capacity basically in the industry is always an issue. We see that in the cable manufacturers. We see that in the transformer manufacturers or switchgear manufacturers. I believe that the growth we are planning and what we are delivering into the industry, we do not see an issue here for us in that sense. For sure, the demand, like you said, and transformers and Swiss R&S Group is one of them, but also Siemens is one of them. There are also, for instance, like you see from Siemens, they are installing more capacities also to have the availability on transformers and for sure the needs also for people which are able to install.
Okay. PerOfect. That's all very clear. I'll step back into the line. Thanks very much.
The next question then comes from Adrian Pehl, ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi gentlemen. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Actually, first of all, a bit of housekeeping. Looking into your segments, I spotted a very low distribution cost line in the com business. I just wondered what that was. Another element on MVA, the gross profit margin was very high compared to the previous quarters. Anything you could share on this?
Let me start with the MV first. This is simply the reflection of a good business situation. We see MV as a growing segment. There is a strong offer activity on our side. We see good order intake. You have seen also, I mentioned earlier, that a portion of the growth in revenues was coming from MV as it is coming from HV. This is simply a good overall business situation that we are able to deal with. That was the second question. Happy Hallo, erst mal guten Morgen. Good morning to you.
Good morning.
The first question, I would need to look into the report and understand your question better than what I did.
Yeah, maybe I can add a little bit because when you look at it, and I hope my model is right, but I think so, we had distribution costs in the com segment of somewhere in the ballpark range of 10% plus of sales. It was a bit higher in Q2, actually. 13.9% is my figure, and then it dropped now to 5.7/% only, which seems awkwardly low at the first glance. I just wondered if there was something we should take into account here.
When you talk about distribution costs, are you talking about marketing and sales costs?
Yes. Marketing.
Marketing and distribution. We are showing here in nine months is 7.7 right?
Yes, 7.783.
A year ago it was 7.4. I think on a year-over-year comparison, this is pretty much in line.
It was 6.1, 12% ratio in H2, and then it dropped to 9.8, meaning Q3 is only 5.7. Relative to sales, it's quite low. I mean, we can also take it for discussion later if you want so. No worries about that. It nevertheless could be an additional source of profitability for the third quarter. That's why I'm asking.
Yeah. If I look at it, I mean, as I mentioned earlier, we had more business in Argentina earlier. This is now this year. To a lower extent to be seen in the components. Maybe another, I'm speculating now, Happil. I'm thinking for logical reasons. I don't have a precise answer to your question. Another element could be related to the fact that the components business is a business that we are growing in the United States. We have invested into production machines there. The share of local produced products, less transportation, is increasing, could be another reason. A third reason in the same logic could be that we do see a higher share of European business, but I would have to look into it, to be honest.
Yeah. Let's maybe discuss this later again. On your comments in the overhead line business, just rethinking a couple of elements. Since you said there is a shift in revenues of EUR 13 million, first of all, the question is, when do you think the relocation ramp-up of OHL in the Czech Republic is concluded? Secondly, interestingly, it then looks like that OHL has been, on an adjusted basis, the strongest growing vertical or segment in the group, whereas I think the narrative has been so far that HVA should be outperforming to some degree. Secondly, on the gross profit margin development, I mean, I took from our Frankfurt roadshow, obviously, that you said there is a normalization happening on the gross profit margin side, which was probably the case.
Actually, I didn't hear you refer to the Middle East projects that were quite strong in Q1, Q2. I was just wondering, what is the status of these projects? Is that more or less kind of concluded? Is it going on? How should we think of the segment performance?
If I start with the last one, the business development in the Middle East will continue. For the foreseeable future, we do not see any drop there. This is not a one-time project that was with one customer. I am drawing a black-and-white picture now. I think that is a little bit also what you are trying to sense. This is a good ongoing project activity there. Also in OHL, order backlog is up 41% on a year-over-year basis as we talk, despite the good revenue generation that we have seen. Second to the question regarding Czech, we would like to finish the ramp-up in this quarter, but I am not promising this. As you know, if you ramp up things in production, you see problems you did not anticipate. We need to see how that develops. So far, we are developing in line, but it is not finished yet.
We would like to finish it in this quarter, but it could also be that it's going to take until the first quarter of next year. This is not going to be a year-over-year program in the sense of it takes two years. Also, to explain a little bit the bracket. Regarding the revenue development, as I corrected earlier, OHL versus HVA. I think HVA with, was it 23%, 24% revenue growth on a year-over-year comparison? I believe it's a good number, right? I wouldn't be ashamed of 24% growth, which doesn't mean that I don't even like better 27% on this corrected basis I was referring to earlier on OHL. From a business situation, we believe HV in general, which is also then comprising HVDC at some point. If I subsumiere, I don't know.
If I take it together, HVA and HVDC, I would repeat earlier statements in the sense of this is going to continue to be a very relevant growth segment for PFISTERER for the years to come.
Right. And then on the.
My colleague wants to.
Oh, sorry.
Wants to add another comment here.
Yes. Hi, Dr. Kurfiss.
Yeah. Hello. I just want to comment if you're talking about HV, it's HVSS, so it's relying to the cable. We are talking about voltage levels here at 245 and higher. If you're looking now into overhead lines, it's also we are talking about overhead line voltage levels 380 kV and higher. This is just we are all talking about a good business in high or extra high voltage application, which affects the cable accessories for the underground cable systems and also the overhead line systems. This is what we also see in the Middle East, where we have projects coming on this voltage level. For sure, in the overhead lines, our activities, what Johannes said, in Saudi Arabia, in Dubai, and also in Abu Dhabi opening an office will help us to drive this business.
Overall, and even in the extra high voltage application and overhead lines, we also see a good margin situation.
Right. And then a bit of follow-up. Sorry for torturing you on the OHL business, but the point is actually we had quite volatile margin development. We're looking into H1 and what you printed in Q3. I mean, obviously, the gross profit margin, as we just talked about, was lower, and that led to actually an 8.6% margin only, if you want so, on the EBIT side. Is the third quarter netting out these favorable projects, gross profit margins that you enjoyed in H1 something we should take as a blueprint for the quarters to come, or is it probably extraordinarily low in Q3?
I think it's a combination. Q3, you need to in the gross margin OHL Q3, you simply find the Kadan effect, the relocation effect. I was referring to earlier. This has been compensated with insurance payments later. On the gross margin level, we have this additional cost. We have 60 people in Kadan which are producing these insulators, but they aren't producing the amount, and we haven't seen them in the revenues yet. This is simply pushing on the cost of goods sold in the segment of OHL at this moment. The Q3 OHL margin is on the low side due to that effect that will be improving again as this relocation will be finished. Again, on the bottom line, it's not existing as these compensations are taking place. There is always a little bit of a time lag in between the compensation and the cost.
I mean, you don't get the money on a daily basis, but on a quarterly basis, you need to sum it up. You need to argue. You need to explain it and prove it. There is a certain time lag in between the cost happening on the one hand and the compensation to the insurance company on the other hand. This is another element here. This effect may be continued in quarter four as well as we ramped it up starting quarter three. Again, as I said, there is this time lag in between the cost occurrence on the one hand and the compensation on the other hand.
Okay. Two questions related to that. One is, let's assume a very clean environment. No extra cost, no distortion by insurance payments. What do you think would be a clean, whatever, EBITDA or EBIT margin for the segment over the cycle, given that it's now in Kadan? Could it be 20% EBITDA, or do you think it's going to be lower?
Overall, we are looking to the highest teen margins, happily. And this is who we are. We want to have this in all product segments. I would maybe give you a Salomonischer answer if I may.
All right. Two final questions before I jump back in the queue. One is, indeed, on the insurance payments. So first of all, is it fair to assume Q3 isolated was EUR 1.5 million?
Yes.
Secondly, for the full year, it's going to be what, EUR 6 million? There's still something to come in Q4, so likely?
Oh, yeah. Yes, yes. There will be, we don't know yet because it's not confirmed, but yeah. It's going to be a seven-digit number, EUR 1,000,000, EUR 1,500,000 maybe. Yeah.
Is that it, or should we assume more to come in Q1 next year or wherever in 2026?
It depends on if there is an auditor in the call or not. What could I say? We think there will be more cost also in quarter four that we will have to argue then in the quarter one of next year. Yeah. Basically, it's that we have this 18 months of duration for the Betriebsunterbrechungsversicherung, for the interruption. I don't know what Betriebsunterbrechung means in English. In these 18 months, they will be over mid-March next year. The fire incident occurred on the, I believe, 12th of September in 2024. This will be finished then on the 12th of March. There will be a final agreement at some point, whether this will occur in the first quarter or maybe be taking place in the second quarter. We don't know exactly.
Okay. That's a fair point. Then very lastly, again, on the order intake and how it should unfold. I mean, very nice order pattern throughout the nine months. Obviously, no doubt about it and probably ahead of the IPO expectations, for sure. Now, the question is, I mean, should you see a seasonality on the revenue side? I mean, Q2, Q3 was kind of same revenue pretty much like. On the other hand, I mean, you booked quite a nice order intake. Given your lead time, it should convert into higher growth or higher revenues. Let's phrase it this way. Higher revenues, for sure, into Q4. Probably, is that how we should see it, or is the order backlog already pretty full with bookings for 2026?
Both. I mean, 300 and so a backlog is not for quarter four revenues. There is a very significant portion for the next year. From an order book point of view, we think we have confirmed, let me call it like this, yeah? We have confirmed at least the revenue of quarter three or quarter two for quarter four, yeah? We need to make it from a productive point of view. If we meet all confirmed delivery dates, including income terms and so on, turning delivery dates into revenues, we should be seeing an increase of quarter four's revenue. Again, the quarter is not over. We still need to do it. December is normally a relatively short month. We see ourselves on a growth path.
With this, I don't want to say that every quarter will always be increasing, but if the revenue of the company on a yearly basis is growing at 12% or more, also from quarter- to- quarter, at some point, you have to grow.
Yes. All right. Thank you.
Thank you from our side.
Thank you, everyone, for this Q&A session. There are no further questions at this point, and I'd like to hand it back to Mr. Linden for some closing remarks.
Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, we are happy that you spent the last 60 minutes with us. PFISTERER is continuing to grow. As we did in the past nine months, we believe this is also the quarters and the months ahead of us. We are happy to have shared with you that our earnings and our intake developed very favorably and increased significantly. We hope that you stay loyal to us. We wish you a nice Wednesday.