SAF-Holland SE (ETR:SFQ)
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May 6, 2026, 5:35 PM CET
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Earnings Call: Q1 2023

May 26, 2023

Frank Lorenz-Dietz
CFO, SAF-Holland

Mr. Geis, the floor is yours.

Alexander Geis
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, SAF-Holland

Thank you. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome from my side. This is Alexander Geis speaking. Today we can report on a record quarter. I will start with an overview of the group and the regions. Later on, Frank , our new CFO, will give you much more insight into our financials. I also can inform you that we overcame the cyber attack quite good. Our order books globally are heavily filled.

The integration of Haldex is running excellent. Let's start with our Q1 2023 highlights on the next page, please. We achieved a strong sales increase of 29.9% year-over-year, mainly driven by Americas and APAC regions, plus Haldex having been consolidated for five weeks. Our organic growth came in with 10.8%+.

Due to the cyber attack, SAF-Holland lost roughly €15 million in revenues during Q1 2023, but we expect to recover this during Q2, latest Q3 of this year. We also have seen a strong aftermarket growth of 30%, and this is also partly driven by the first consolidation of Haldex.

As we reported before, Haldex was consolidated for the first time as of February 21 of this year, and contributed roughly EUR 59.1 million to our sales in Q1 2023. Last but not least, as pre-released, we are assuming sales for full year 2023, turning around the upper end of the guided range, and adjusted EBIT margin projection is unchanged between 7.5%-8.5% for this year. Let's take a look to the main KPIs on the next page.

Starting on the left side, EMEA increased by 14.6%, Americas with a huge increase of 48.9%, APAC with a fantastic plus of 53.4%. Altogether, you can see that on the right side, group sales in Q1 2023 reached € 480.4 million, with a strong adjusted EBIT margin of 9.0%. Our net working capital ratio was stable with 15.6% compared to Q1 of last year, our net operating free cash flow was a positive € 5.4 million. The adjusted earnings per share reached a record EUR 0.54 in the first quarter of this year. Next page, please.

As I said before, Q1 2023, group sales includes five weeks, so from February 21 of this year, of Haldex, reaching € 480 million in sales, which is a 29.9% increase year-over-year, adjusted for FX and M&A. We saw a continued strong demand from customers for truck and trailer components, as I said before, adjusted for FX and M&A effects, we increased organically 10.8%.

On the next slide, you can see the splits by regions and by business units. Since Americas and APAC developed very strongly, we can see a more balanced sales split now. You can see that on the upper right side, this is the Q1 sales development for 2023.

Starting with EMEA, now roughly with 50% sales share of our global sales, Americas with 40%, and APAC with 10% or 11%. A little bit of a swing towards Americas and APAC away from EMEA. If we take a look on the lower part of the page, you can see the split between the business units.

This basically didn't change at all, with trailer having 61% of total sales, truck, 13, and the aftermarket at 26% of our total sales. If we now go to the next page, you can see our adjusted EBIT margin, and the 9% adjusted EBIT margin, or € 43.4 million absolute, is a good result for our first quarter of this year and shows that we can deliver what we promised.

6.4% in Q1 2022, and now 9% in the first quarter of this year, will give us a very good start into the full year, with a good start. All right, let's take a look how the different regions performed, and I'm starting on the next page with the EMEA region. EMEA increased sales by 14.6% from € 208 million last year to now € 238.8 million, with €19 million coming from the Haldex side. Adjusted for exchange rate effects and changes in the scope of consolidations, sales were up 0.7% year-on-year. Coming from a record sales of 2022, also very high level, in the first quarter of this year.

Without the cyber attack, EMEA could have come in even better. As we reported, basically, most of the sales the last week of March, so the last week of the first quarter, was missing. Nevertheless, facilities are fully booked and work 24/6 at the moment. We have good orders, new orders, existing orders, and we are really heavily trying to overcome the backlog caused by the cyber attack.

Let's take a look to the EBIT on the next page. EMEA here, strong increase from last year's Q1, only with 4.9% to now 7.9%. The trend is going into the right direction, and I'm very confident that we can get even better soon. Speaking of the next region, which is Americas, on the next page, please.

Well, what can I say, other than I'm very proud of our team? You can see that we increased our sales from $127 million - $189 million, which is an increase of 48.9%. Higher market shares in truck, trailer, and the aftermarket, plus the launch of more products and the successful ramp-up of our production capacities, helped to increase and to boost the sales. On the right side, you can see the Americas region saw a growth, and this is a heavy growth because on the Haldex side, most of the sales is also coming from the Americas side, so this helps also to increase our sales.

On an organic basis, as I followed increased sales in the region by 17.4% and overall, Haldex, as I mentioned before, quite strong in that region, contributed € 34.4 million to our sales in the Americas region. Finally, I have to say, due to its strong position, our strong position, as I followed, also benefited from the trend towards the disc brake axle systems, and we are now ramping up our production and assembly capabilities for air disk brakes in our Haldex Monterrey, Mexico plant. air disk brakes in North America is growing.

We are the market leader in air disk brake, and we would like to get a much bigger share here. I also can say that we won the first air disk brake tender of a North American truck manufacturer, kicking in soon. Speaking of margins on the next slide.

With 10% adjusted EBIT margin, the Americas region nearly doubled its adjusted EBIT in the first quarter. The strong improvement in earnings was primarily the result of the operating leverage due to the strong sales growth. Our hard work of reorganizing and restructuring pays off now. It's a good work of the team, I have to say.

Last but not least, speaking of our APAC region. In the APAC region, the strong growth was driven by demand in India, Australia, and Southeast Asia. Sales increased by 53.4% to now € 52.5 million in the first quarter of this year. The strong growth in the APAC region was again driven by the strong development in India, the biggest sales portion of the APAC region.

The customer demand also remained solid in the specialty market of Australia and Southeast Asia, for instance, in Indonesia, Malaysia, and some other countries. APAC Haldex had a € 5.5 million share in that sales, and our China business, I can also say that, through export related as well as a new local OEM business, which we won in the first quarter, and also will see better sales in the second quarter.

There is enough room for further sales increase. Speaking of the profitability of APAC, we have seen last year's strong 10.1%, and this could further be increased to now 10.6% or € 5.6 million absolute. Economies of scale from the higher business volume helped in India, and also the product mix was supportive.

We got new, highly profitable business in the mining sector in Southeast Asia. I reported on that earlier, also the improvement in the operating performance in China. Having said that, I would like to pause here and hand over to Frank for the financials.

Frank Lorenz-Dietz
CFO, SAF-Holland

Yeah. Thanks, Alex. Frank Lorenz-Dietz speaking, CFO of SAF-Holland SE since 1st of January, and I will give you some more insights about the financials. Next page, please. Starting with the reported EBIT. The reported EBIT has grown by 85% or € 17.8 million versus previous year, and is leading now to an EBIT margin of 8.1%.

Adding the PPA adjustments, basically on the same level like previous year, with € 2.3 million. Here, I'd like to highlight that we did not consider so far any PPA impact from the Haldex transaction. We are still in the alignment with the audit company, and we assume to bring this number into the PNL with half-year figures. I will give you later some more detail about our PPA assumption.

We add the restructuring and transaction costs. In our case, it's transaction costs, basically € 2.2 million, considering € 1.5 million as already shown in the capital market sale for the Haldex integration. We also considered already € 400,000 related to the recent cyber attack. Adjusting those two numbers, we come to an adjusted EBIT of € 43.36 million, what is 9% of sales, and 2.6% better than previous year, as Alex has presented already before.

On the next page, we see the development of the earnings per share, starting with the reported EBIT, € 38.8 million, deducting our financial results. This financial result decreased versus previous year. On one hand, due to the financing of the Haldex transaction.

Another million coming from the carry forward of a repayment of our term loan of €97 million we paid back in March, and the remaining portion is related to the increased overall interest rate situation from the further loan. Deducting this, we come to a result before tax of € 28.6 million, deducting our taxes with 38.8%, or € 9.1 million.

We see a result for the period of € 19.5 million, what is almost 50% higher than previous year. This calculated into a earnings per share, is leading to € 0.43 earnings per share.

Based on the reported EBIT and based on the adjusted numbers, it's, I would say, record number for the quarter of € 0.0045 adjusted earnings per share. Next page, talking about equity ratio. The historical equity ratio of SAF-Holland was always close to or higher than 30%. In year-end 2022, we reported to 29.5%.

Compared to this number, the absolute equity has improved by € 8.4 million, already considering negative currency effects of € 11.2 million. The expansion in total assets resulting from the first time inclusion of Haldex, however, caused the equity ratio to decline to 27.2% from 29.5% at end of 2022. We still feel comfortable with this equity ratio that is still close to 30%.

Now, coming to net working capital. Starting, again, highlighting the really, I would say, impressive or record low number, end of 2022, that was achieved by really strong net working capital management and very good operational results. Now, in end of March, we see a 15.6% net working capital ratio overall.

SAF-Holland, on a standalone basis, is included here with 12.4%, what is still a really good and low net working capital number, and showing only a very small increase against the end of 2022 numbers. Typically, we see some increase in the first quarter coming from seasonality and linked to the sales development.

The main increase you see is coming due to the consolidation of Haldex, which has a significantly higher net working capital ratio around the 20% mark. For better comparability, net working capital of sales calculation takes into account Haldex contribution to sales on a pro forma basis as well for the last 12 months, as Haldex contribution to net working capital is also fully included.

I will continue with the operating and the net free cash flow. The net free cash flow from operating activities has grown by € 17.3 million, from - € 5.2 in the Q1 2022, to € 12.1 now, Q1 2023.

This sharp increase was driven above all by the development of the cash flow before changes in net working capital, which rose to € 42.2 million, compared to first quarter last year, € 26.1 million. The increase was mainly due to higher earnings before taxes, while the higher finance expenses resulting from the Haldex financing and higher depreciation amortization did not affect the calculation of this operating cash flow.

Deducting our investments, we come to the net free cash flow from operating activities. This also has increased by € 15.4 million, from € -10 in the previous year to € 5.4 positive in 2023. Payments for investments in property, plant, equipment, and intangible assets increased to € 7.3 million from € 5.3 million in the Q1 last year.

This is all to prepare our planned future growth we have already presented in previous meetings. The sale of property, smaller number of plant and equipment, generated a cash inflow to SAF-Holland of € 600,000 against € 500,000 in the Q1 2022. The historical numbers, as you see also in the footnote, are not considering, it's clear, any Haldex activities. I think, for investors, more interesting, the return on capital employed.

In Q1 2023, the ROCE was 16.5%, so significantly up due to lower financial liabilities and increased EBIT last twelve month view. For better comparability, the calculation includes the Haldex contribution to adjusted EBIT on a pro forma basis as well for the last twelve months, as Haldex contribution to capital employed is also fully included.

The increase in adjusted EBIT was driven by inclusion of Haldex on a pro forma basis, as mentioned, as well as SAF-Holland's strong operating performance on a standalone basis. Our target for 2027, including Haldex, remains with a ROCE higher or equal to 15%. Last but not least, the leverage net debt to EBITDA, including the pro forma EBITDA contribution of Haldex and the related debt.

The net debt EBITDA ratio amounted to 2.46, down from the 31st of December value of 2.6. 31st December standalone net debt EBITDA ratio for SAF-Holland of 0.7 did not include additional debt due to the Haldex acquisition.

The significant deleveraging in Q3 2022 - Q4 was the result of the strong operating free cash flow, which in turn was due to the improved working capital management. Our target for 2024 is a net debt to EBITDA ratio of 2.0 or lower. Now, the fourth update related to the Haldex consolidation. As already communicated, next page, yes.

The first time consolidation of Haldex took place February 21, 2023, due to the delayed approval of the Polish Office of Competition and Consumer Protection. SAF-Holland worked out its group accounting and valuation principles to Haldex, and aligned its group accounting and reporting principles to those of the SAF-Holland Group. The total effect on consolidated financial statements of Haldex AB were approximately €21 million for the year 2022.

In the line of the 6%-8% of purchase price we communicated before, and it's only visible in Haldex AB consolidated financial statements. As you could see already on our Q1 financials, all of these adjustments have no impact on the future profitability and development of the business of the combined company.

Some more detail about the PPA. Based on the current assets, the purchase price allocation for Haldex is expected to result in an increased goodwill around the upper end of € 30 million-€ 70 million, and additional PPA amortization of approximately €11 million per annum. For 2023, we have an additional step up in inventories, and it is expected to be €5 million for this year. With this, having said this, I would hand back to Alex for the outlook.

Alexander Geis
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, SAF-Holland

Thank you, Frank. Ladies and gentlemen, how do we see the full year of 2023? On the left side, you can see EMEA slightly down, with trailer to be expected -5%, trucks stable with only -1%. North America, quite stable, with a low -3% in trailer and trucks also with -1%. Brazil, down in trailer, -10%, and trucks, -15%.

Nevertheless, we will outgrow the market. Doesn't matter if the market is going down a little bit or not, we want some tenders. Production is filled, we should be able to outgrow the market anyhow. China with a +15%, both in trailer and trucks, and we see orders coming in. I mentioned before that we got some bigger orders from local OEMs.

India with a further plus of 17% in trailer and 14% in trucks. Here, the friendly reminder that we have roughly a 60% market share in trailer axles and suspensions, and we see that we get orders like hell, and we increased our production capabilities. We moved in January of this year to a new plant. We increased 50% our capacity.

We are already sold out until end of the year, so we are further increasing, and the further upgrade will kick in August, later September of this year. India is booming, I can report on this. Those numbers are not surprising to us, and therefore, we want to stay cautious, okay, for the remainder of the year. This is what we also guide on the next slide.

You can see that based on the current estimates, we are assuming group sales for fiscal year 2023, tending around the upper end of the previously planned sales range of € 1.8 billion-€ 1.95 billion. I repeat, around the upper, could be a little bit lower, could be a little bit higher, of the higher range of the EUR 1.95 billion. SAF-Holland continues to expect an adjusted EBIT margin, including Haldex, in the range of 7.5%-8.5%.

For fiscal year 2023, including Haldex, the group plans expenditures or CapEx for investments for up to 3% of group sales, with a special focus on expanding production capacities in Mexico. We are going to move into a new plant just across the border later this year.

Increase capacity in Brazil and India, I elaborated on already. In the EMEA region, the group is significantly expanding capacity for the production of disc brake axle systems, so air disc brakes, and for the new generation of trailer EBS. In addition, further investments are planned in automation projects, process efficiency improvements in production, mainly in the core market in Germany and North America, which will help to increase profitability also midterm.

Most of the CapEx is now coming in Q2, but also Q3. We ordered machines and everything, and to be able to upgrade our capacities in the course of 2023. Everybody, thanks for listening to us. We are open for questions now. Thank you.

Frank Lorenz-Dietz
CFO, SAF-Holland

Okay, we will enter into the Q&A session. We have already a question from Roland Könen, to elaborate on the allowance of current assets in the cash flow statement of € 5.8 million, also to give some more detail to the CapEx ratio in Q1, that was only 1.5%. I would take this directly, due to the cyberattack and some, I would say, temporary increase in inventories, linked to the cyberattack, we increased the allowance of current assets, the cyberattack caused as well some reevaluation of small amounts of inventories.

Overall, this should reverse mostly once we recover the revenues in the next months, we get more clearance on that.

CapEx ratio, our guidance of 3% of sales remains unchanged. As normal in the first quarter, the CapEx spending starts in the seasonality on a lower level. We do see some projects that we have to invest for the increased capacity, like air disc brake and other future growth. Yeah, we will remain below the 3% of sales, for sure.

The second question, I think is as well from Roland Könen. How many years do you expect to have to make the PPA write-down for Haldex of approximately EUR 11 million per year? This is not a single answer for years. There are different issues considered, like customer connection and so on.

I would assume the different positions between 10 and 20 years, but going down over the time. Yeah.

Alexander Geis
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, SAF-Holland

I'm gonna take the next question, which is coming from Henning Reuter. We understand your guidance is based on market data shown on slide 25. Some sources appear rather dated, November 2022 or January 2023, cannot incorporate the substantially better than expected Q1 market performance yet.

What makes you reluctant to eliminate outdated forecasts from the market data consensus on slide 25? Your closest peer seems to emphasize more current data and OEM announcements, leading to a significantly more positive market forecast, especially for North America. As I said before, we would like to stay cautious. I am traveling all regions, frequently every other week. I just came back from China and North America. Everybody's quite happy about the development.

Most of our customers are booked until summer, late summer, even end of the year, when we talk about specialty business in the trailer segment, and we are 60% of sales in the trailer segment, and 16%, as I explained before, in truck. Yeah, markets are quite bullish, but we heard a lot that it might be the case, second year, the market is going down a little bit. We wanna stay cautious.

We also would like to fully overcome the cyberattack, which started the last week in March, and then into the first 2 weeks of April. We already finished April numbers now and are through with May or nearly. It looks good.

As I said before, we are booked, in most of our plants and work very hard, 24/6, but we are still a little bit reluctant to be over-optimistic and would like to stay cautious. That's the main reason. Maybe there's something to explain then when we release half year 1 or Q2, which will be in August, but until then, we would like to wait, see how the different markets develop. All markets, like North America, Brazil, China, India, and also EMEA as the biggest one.

Frank Lorenz-Dietz
CFO, SAF-Holland

Okay. We have also a question from Ines Bukinac. The next one related to the air disc brake development in the U.S. and also to the destocking in Europe in the Q3 last year. I think the impact and the destocking we reported last year was mainly also related or partially related to the aftermarket, where we said in the end of the year, customers have been cautious in building up big inventories.

This we see now also the opposite effect in a really good aftermarket growth on the one side, and I would assume also, not assume, it's obvious that in the Americas, air disc brake technology becomes a bigger importance, and we are very well positioned to participate on this market development.

Alexander Geis
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, SAF-Holland

Yeah, this is also the reason why I mentioned before that we already have an assembly line in the Haldex plant in Monterrey, Mexico, for trailer air disc brakes. We are now upgrading this and extending to a second line with a higher capacity.

We do the local assembly then and manufacturing in Mexico for the North American market, which is mainly the U.S., for both truck and for trailers. Once we have accomplished this, we also are targeting to get even higher share in the truck business, which is a little bit more profitable than the trailer business in that section.

Frank Lorenz-Dietz
CFO, SAF-Holland

Next question comes from Jorge Gonzalez, related to the, our market outlook for EMEA and North America. As already mentioned before, we have good filled order book in both regions, and we stick to the market assumptions we have seen before that, yeah, nothing more in detail about it.

Alexander Geis
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, SAF-Holland

Maybe I can fill a little bit more in into this EMEA. The order intake of the trailer manufacturer softens in the second quarter of this year. I can report on this. Nevertheless, the order book is still filled until summer time. There might be a slight decrease.

This is what some of the trailer manufacturers tell to the market, that there might be a small decrease in the second half, or let's say, in later Q3 - Q4. We will see if this is really happening. Other areas in EMEA, like Middle East and Africa, are quite bullish at the moment, but not of the build rate, of course, of Europe.

North America, I have to say, I traveled this year already 3 or 4 times to North America, will be back in June, visiting all the top 20 trailer manufacturers and the truck customers. They are happy, they are bullish. Yeah, well, we have to see, high inflation still existing in both regions. We have interests, going up steadily in both regions. That might have, or that might, could cause, softening of order intake, late Q3 or Q4. At the moment, we don't see it, but as I said before, and I have to repeat myself, we have to stay cautious on this. If something is changing, and we are more optimistic, we will tell you in the Q2 report.

Frank Lorenz-Dietz
CFO, SAF-Holland

The next question from Jorge as well, related to Haldex. On a pro forma basis, could you please give some detail on how the internal sales of Haldex evolved in Q1? Were you already able to fit more Haldex products on your trailers in Q1? To the first part, on a pro forma basis, the internal sales is approximately €15 million in a quarter.

For the 7 weeks, we consolidated Haldex already now in our reported numbers. It's about €8 million, € 7million-€8 million internal sales. To the other part of your question, related to the cross-selling activities and the synergy potentials, we start to acquire cross-selling business, and we will bring this into our business in the next months.

I would assume for Q1 itself, we did not see already the numbers.

Alexander Geis
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, SAF-Holland

It was not much. It's basically, I also reported on this earlier, the upgrade of the capacity in our plant in Budapest, the Haldex plant in Budapest or close to Budapest, specifically for the Trailer EBS. We are here speaking with a lot of smaller and medium-sized trailer manufacturers. They want to get more products, specifically the Trailer EBS, valves, other smaller products. We have to first ramp up production, which we are doing already, and then some more cross-selling will be taking place in Q2, three, and four. At the moment, the capacity is the limit.

Frank Lorenz-Dietz
CFO, SAF-Holland

Okay. We have no further questions so far, so if you have any question, please, get into the chat.

Alexander Geis
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, SAF-Holland

If not, if there are not more questions now, I have there's coming an additional question, yeah.

Frank Lorenz-Dietz
CFO, SAF-Holland

Can you please elaborate the balance between the sales from the cyber attack versus the contribution from Haldex for a full quarter versus just five weeks? Question from Klaus Ringel, can you please elaborate the balance between lost sales from the cyber attack versus the contribution from Haldex for a full quarter versus just five weeks?

As mentioned already in our reports before, in Q1, the impact of the cyber attack was - €15 million . In our reported numbers, the impact of the Haldex, the additional impact of Haldex consolidation was € 59 million . This, if you take this €59 million for seven weeks, then for the full quarter, you can estimate the pro forma full year number based on that .

The next question coming from Roland Könen. How high do you estimate the restructuring and integration costs for Haldex in 2023? In this regard, can you still confirm that these costs will be fully adjusted in the adjusted result, but the expected synergy effects of € 10 million-€15 million will not do. Do you see yourself on track with the expected synergies? First, yes, we confirm the numbers we have presented already on the Capital Markets Day in January.

So the one-time cost for the Haldex integration, and we also confirmed the reported synergies. We are on track in implementing everything. We do have monthly review meetings with all the regions and are fully on track in implementing what we have promised.

It was € 10 million- €12 million, to be correct, in change to your question of € 10 million- €15 million. Yeah. Okay. Next question from Fabio Hölscher. "What is the estimated financial result in the upcoming quarters with the new financing structure?" As you have seen for the Q1 , a financing result of - € 10 million, taking out the portion of the carryover from our term loan from December. And considered already the increased interest rates and the higher financing.

I would assume that € 9 million- €10 million is a good run rate for the financial result . If there are not more questions, our investor relations team is always more than happy to support you in the coming days.

You can directly access, to them and, discuss further details and questions as required.

Alexander Geis
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, SAF-Holland

There is another question coming in. This is: "Do you expect net working capital to increase further over the course of this year?" Well, we have seen elevated net working capital needs in Q1 due to typical seasonality and sales growth, but the net working capital ratio of Haldex was very high from last year in the ballpark of 25%. There is a lot of material around.

What we are applying now, and the Cash is King team of SAF-Holland, start this already last year, end of last year, with monthly and also weekly meetings in the different regions to bring specifically the net working capital down of Haldex to ballpark. Well, they have a little bit higher vertical integration, you heard from Frank before, we are at 12.4% on the SAF-Holland side.

This is a really good, excellent number. If Haldex is coming down to like 15, 16, 17, and we come in total, this is a lot of room to decrease the inventory specifically, but also work on the accounts payables. We also work a lot with consignment stock with our suppliers and longer payment terms. What we already did is, we check if we have similar suppliers.

We now apply the SAF-Holland payment terms, which are traditionally a little bit longer. This will help and also increase the share of suppliers with consignment stock. This is a good thing for us, and we will bring that down in this year, but also in the course of 2024 and 2025, which then will free up additional cash.

Frank Lorenz-Dietz
CFO, SAF-Holland

As there's a further question related to the estimated financial results, I was about to say this already before. Based on our activities in improving net working capital, we assume as well during the year to improve also our financing position, so our overall debt and the run rate. The €9 million we see in Q1 as a run rate, will slightly, I would assume, improve. There's a lot of potential to bring this to a run rate of € 7 million- €9 million for the remaining quarters.

Alexander Geis
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, SAF-Holland

There's a question from NIS: "Hello, could you give us the name and the word we cannot read, achieved in Q1, making you more conservative for your EBIT margin for the rest of the year, compared to 9%?" We report on the strong 9% for this year. Our guidance, we did not change, with the ballpark between 7.5%-8.5% of the year. We would like to stay conservative, fully swallow the cyberattack, see also the future in Q3 - Q4. Maybe if there is a possibility to increase that or be more optimistic, we will report on this in Q2.

The next question is coming from Jorge Gonzalez: "Regarding the positive trend for disc brakes in North America, could you please give us an estimate of the percentage of trailers that are now fitting disc brakes and your current market share, how you expect it to evolve for the rest of the year and 2024?" Well, that we see increased orders specifically from bigger fleets coming in.

Those bigger fleets are the trendsetters for the medium and smaller fleets. The share is at the moment between 15%-20% of all trailers built is with EBS brake in the trailer segment. We will see a further increase. My estimate is that it will be at least 5% year-over-year increase over the next year, 2025, and it will go up.

There is drivers I can report on that, speaking with a lot of fleets also, they understand that it's higher safety if they have trucks and trailers also equipped with EBS brake, the braking distance is much shorter. This is a benefit, everybody has driver shortages, the fleets have to equip with good equipment to find good drivers, this will increase. We're getting more and more demand coming from the trailer, from the fleets, and this is a fleet pull-through.

The fleets are going to the trailer manufacturers, ask specifically for the EBS brakes in the trailer, our share is in the ballpark of 50%-60% of all trailer axles being sold in that market equipped with EBS brake. 50%-60%.

We would like to defend that position and further increase. This is why I said before that we are increasing now the capabilities of the EBS brake in production in Monterrey, in the Haldex. Before we shipped all across the Atlantic, Sweden or here from the headquarter in Germany, we shipped all the EBS brakes to our facilities in North America. Now we are producing and assembly already in Mexico for the North American market.

Frank Lorenz-Dietz
CFO, SAF-Holland

Okay. Then no further questions, then. Thanks, thanks for dialing in, listening to our presentation. As mentioned already before, if you have any further questions, contact our investor relations team. With this, I would like to close the call for today.

Alexander Geis
CEO and Chairman of the Management Board, SAF-Holland

Yeah, thank you very much also for your trust in us. Talk to you soon. Thank you.

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