Ladies, and gentlemen, welcome to the SGL Carbon Conference Call, Full Year Results 2025. I am Valentina, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Claudia Kellert. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, and a very warm welcome to our conference call today. We would like to give you an overview about fiscal 2025, but also detailed outlook and our expectations for the current fiscal year and above all, our new strategy. Andreas Klein, our CEO, and Thomas Dippold, our CFO, will lead the presentation and will be available for your questions after the presentation. Let's get started. Thomas, it's your turn.
Thanks so much. This is Thomas Dippold. It's a pleasure to have you all in this call on the details of 2025. We've split the presentation. I will guide you through our figures for 2025, and Andreas then will take over and introduce our new strategy and our SGL Growth 2030. First starting with how we ended up in 2025. On slide number four, you see our overall profitability performance for the year. As you all know, 2025 has been a difficult year for SGL Carbon. Why that? Beginning of the year, we informed you that we are about to restructure our Carbon Fibers business.
While doing that, we closed two sites in the course of the year and just were left over with the profitable remains of that business unit. What did we do? We closed Lavradio in June and Moses Lake we idled in August. By doing that, we lost, of course, a lot of sales, but also some unprofitable losses which burdened our result also in the years before. By doing so, you see the impact on our top line. Our sales dropped by 17.2%, coming from EUR 1.026 billion down to EUR 850 million in 2025.
The Carbon Fiber closures played a major part of that, but the second part of it, if you follow us in our quarterly presentations, you also know that especially our silicon carbide business in the semiconductor industry is suffering quite a bit. Andreas will elaborate later on how this market is developing going forward. 2023 of course was still a very difficult year for semiconductor in general, in silicon carbide, graphite business in particular. Those two businesses mainly contributed to the drop of our sales of 17.2%. Luckily, we could offset the high-margin business drop in silicon carbide, which normally you can't compensate just by cost saving because the margin is really very good.
With overall cost saving initiatives, plus, the restructuring of Carbon Fiber down to a profitable core, we managed to keep the EBITDA drop in our P&L to be roughly on the same level as our sales drop, which is quite remarkable. We reached EUR 135 million in 2025, which is well inside our guidance range, which we initially gave you beginning of the year or just one year ago, where we said between EUR 130 million and EUR 150 million, our EBITDA pre guidance should be. Overall, we are suffering from low demand in semiconductors, in particular silicon carbide business. We are also suffering from a slow demand from automotive customers.
What we did, and we did quite successful, is restructuring Carbon Fiber, and all in all, it ended up in an EBITDA pre-margin of EUR 15.9 million, which is quite healthy. Coming to the individual business units and starting with the largest one, which is Graphite Solutions. There we see a drop in sales of roughly 18% coming from EUR 540 million down to EUR 440 million, if I round it up a little bit. We lose EUR 100 million in our top line. Then you see how profitable the business is which we lost. This is what you can see when you look at the EBITDA, which is dropping from EUR 131 million-EUR 81 million. We lose EUR 50 million in the EBITDA pre, where we lose EUR 100 million in our top line.
This clearly shows what kind of profitable business we are losing there and how hard it is to compensate that with cost saving measures. Overall, when you include the group, we were successful with that. Within Graphite Solutions, of course, this is rather impossible. Having a sales drop of 18% reflects then an EBITDA drop of 38%. But this is related to the development of silicon carbide business. This is the main drop out of the EUR 100 million sales drop, EUR 88 million, which you can see in the comments is related to semiconductor, but also to industrial applications. The demand is still very slow. The storage and the inventory levels are still very high.
That's the reason why we see only in a timely manner in the second half of the year or latest 2027, that the demand for this business will be there. Again, all other industries which we serve like energy, mobility, chemicals, and so on, remain stable, but it's also not growing. This is the clear message that we can send for the course of 2025. We lose, especially our high margin business in silicon carbide. Therefore, we are burdened with fixed cost absorption and low utilization of our assets, which is simply there. As a result, our EBITDA pre-margin drops from 24.3% - 18.3%.
We are confident that in the course of the year 2027 latest, we will see a recovery of our business. Coming to the next business unit on slide number six, which is Process Tech. They have another strong year. On the one hand side sales, but also EBITDA pre are slightly declining compared to the year before. How do we see that? We had EUR 138.3 million sales in 2024, and we go down to EUR 130.9 million euro in the top line, which is -5%. EBITDA doesn't follow that in that range. We're coming from EUR 33 million in 2024 down to EUR 31.8 million, which is a drop by 3.6%.
That means our margin level is still very healthy, reaching 24%+, in this business unit, and this is very strong. If you follow us through the course of the year, then you see that our Q4 was also the weakest of all the four quarters in Process Tech. This is exactly what happened, which we indicated, with the declining order book and order intake, which we see in Process Tech. This will also be part of our business in 2026. Process Tech won't be able to repeat the levels, either in sales nor in EBITDA pre in 2026. Now we really are hit with the decline and sluggish development of, mainly the chemical industry, which is now really, also hitting our business.
In the last years, we were for whatever reasons able to still find our niches and our businesses and our projects. Now the overall downturn with all the macroeconomic environment and with all the gas prices and everything that kicks in the chemical industry. Now we also see some sluggish order intake, which is really affecting on the one hand side Q4 last year, but also the start of the year 2026 to give this as a kind of a preview. Coming to Carbon Fibers, there you see a remarkable development. On the one hand side, sales drops by 29% coming from roughly EUR 210 million the year 2024 down to roughly EUR 150 million in the year 2025.
Normally you would expect this is a catastrophe and terrible, but we really idled and closed the loss-making business activities on the one hand side in Lavradio, Portugal, and also Moses Lake in the U.S . We are left with a profitable core, which we keep. This is EUR 150 million top line, at least in 2025. When we compare it like for like, then we also have to exclude sales wise, but we come to that later when we come to the guidance. The first six months where we still had Lavradio in our books and eight months where we still had Moses Lake business in our books. It was unprofitable. They at least contributed some sales.
This drop and the loss-making business restructuring led to an EBITDA pre-development, which you can't express in percentages because a minus turns to a plus. We had an EBITDA pre-loss of EUR 11 million, where some EUR 60 million of BSCCB JV at equity contributions were included. The real result, the operative result of Carbon Fibers was -EUR 27 million in 2024. We were able to turn this around in the course of the year 2025 to operative +EUR 7 million result. Together with the at equity result of our joint venture with Brembo, BSCCB, where we make this carbon-ceramic brake disc. They also contributed in the year 2025, EUR 7 million.
We really managed the year to have a EUR 14.1 million EBITDA pre in this business unit, which is quite remarkable to manage this in one year. What is also fair to say that the overall restructuring for Carbon Fiber is mostly over. All the targets that we aimed for in 2025 have been reached. We are happy with the development and the turnaround of the business. We clearly have to say in the beginning of the year when we informed you that we're about to restructure Carbon Fiber, we also said that we estimate the cash relevant restructuring costs will be around EUR 50 million, and they should be split half half for the years 2025 and 2026.
I'm happy to share with you that we were able to limit the cash relevant restructuring costs to roughly EUR 35 million, and all of that has been paid in 2025. What's left in 2026 is, I mean, there's still a couple of million EUR, but it's a low single-digit million EUR amount that still has to be paid. Don't call me arrogant or not that I do not respect that. The overall message that I would like to bring across and to you is this is neglected given the large chunk of cash that had to be paid for the restructuring. This has already been digested in 2025, and it's reflected in our bank accounts and our financial statements.
On the next slide, you see the development of Carbon Fiber, and I think this is also fair to show you how things evolved and developed. You see, from 2021 onwards as it's the last year where we still had this take-or-pay contract with BMW on the i3 model. Then at half year 2022, I'm sorry, this take-or-pay contract expired, and we went into the wind industry where we are still in the second half of 2022, quite successful. This was in trouble in 2023 and especially in 2024 when we got kind of overwhelmed by Chinese wind capacities, which really took over the whole market.
With the very rational decision after we couldn't sell our Carbon Fiber business to restructure it. I think the turnaround from -EUR 11 million to +EUR 14 million is quite remarkable, especially when you take into account that our joint venture, BSCCB, only contributed less than half of the previous years because they're also in trouble, because the OEMs that they serve are also in trouble, especially in China or in the Asian industries. This is what's happening. I mean, we are happy with the EUR 14 million that we achieved in 2025. Just to repeat that, almost all cash relevant restructure measures have been fully digested and implemented. Coming to our last operative business unit, which is Composite Solutions.
They are also suffering here on slide number nine, you see that. A kind of a sluggish development. You know that in 2024, at least for a couple of months, we still had a very profitable business in the U.S. with a big local OEM there, with the contract expired and got terminated. As a result, our sales dropped then by EUR 60 million, coming from roughly EUR 125 million down to EUR 108 million. We are really fighting hard to get new orders. If you get new orders, then often the projects get delayed. You know that with our Composite Solutions business, we are in automotive there, in particular in EV business, with electric vehicles, but there, the new models often come later.
Sometimes we don't get the quantities which have been indicated. Also the tooling often has been borne in the past by the OEMs. Nowadays, we have to pay for it ourselves. This is then reflected hopefully in the profitability. When the projects get delayed or come not in the quantities which we want, this is also burdening our profitability and therefore as a consequence, you see that our EBITDA drops by 37%, -EUR 9 million, coming from EUR 18.2 million, 2024 down to EUR 11.4 million. It's still an okay margin with over 10%, but that's where we are. Coming to the balance sheet, I think this is another year of heavy restructuring which is affecting our net result.
We reach a net result of roughly -EUR 80 million. This is exactly in line with what we had the year before, where we had some major write-off in our Carbon Fiber business. We still have, despite all restructuring efforts, also the cash relevant ones, a very healthy free cash flow of EUR 37 million, which is again on the level with what we also had last year. Last but not least, we managed to bring down our net financial debt below EUR 100 million. We have a leverage of 0.7, which is super healthy, and our equity ratio, despite all the losses and despite all the restructuring, also reaches a very good 39.2%. In our second chapter, I'm happy to share with you the outlook for SGL Carbon for the year to come, 2026.
We see, of course, lower sales and also EBITDA pre, but the margin should be on the level that we've seen in 2025. When you see our sales this year, we have reached EUR 850 million in our top line. Thanks to the fact that we closed Carbon Fiber business in the course of the year. If you exclude this sales contributions from Lavradio and Moses Lake, which is roughly EUR 70 million, you see that our new sales guidance will be between EUR 720 million and EUR 770 million. This is where we think we can finish this year. The biggest chunk of the sales drop that you see there is reflected in the like-for-like adjustment for the sales contribution of the restructured sites.
Our EBITDA pre, we expect in a range between EUR 110 million and EUR 130 million, reflecting the geopolitical environment and also uncertainties that we see in 2025 at EUR 135 million. You know that there are customs and FX effects and some other geopolitical uncertainties which we can't 100% foresee. This is why we say our EBITDA pre range, we expect it to be between EUR 110 million and EUR 130 million. Having said that, I'm happy to turn over to Andreas, who will guide you through our SGL Growth 2030 chapter.
Thank you, Thomas. Also from my side, a warm welcome to everyone in this call. It's my great pleasure to introduce you today to the new SGL strategy. This strategy is about growth. It's about growth with top-notch solutions from all our businesses. As outlined in the first part of this call, we laid the foundation for the next growth steps in 2025. We have streamlined our portfolio with the withdrawal from loss-making business activities, especially the Carbon Fiber restructuring and significant fixed cost reductions. We have created growth-ready company structures by adapting the corporate functions, the corporate set up to the new size of the company, and optimizing our internal processes. We have created a strong business unit, Fiber Composites, merging carbon fiber and composite solutions.
Last but not least, we have established a solid balance sheet with positive free cash flow and a low leverage, a stable equity ratio. Now it's time for growth. The name of our new strategy is hence very clear, SGL Growth 2030, and it consists of three growth dimensions. The first one, and the basis for our future growth, is in established markets and products. Automotive, semiconductor, chemicals, and also industrial applications remain core activities and hence the basis for growth. Building on that, growth in new applications and markets with existing materials and products will be key in our future development. The nuclear industry, defense, aerospace, and space will be target areas. Last but not least, growth via innovations. For example, in novel coatings for semiconductors, natural fiber composites or thermoplastic solutions.
Talking you through these three growth dimensions, I want to start with our established business, where semiconductor is and remains the biggest growth potential. For semiconductor, the big topic is leveraging our strong market positioning. We know from previous calls, but also from what Thomas explained, that the starting point is rather difficult. The inventory backlog, driven by the SiC downturn since one and a half years, is still to be digested. Nevertheless, we expect silicon carbide recovery starting end of this year or latest next year. The main driver remains EV, and with that we have a very strong underlying trend in front of us, and we have great solutions to serve this. However, we are expecting increasing price pressure from competition, especially from Asia. That means the target and, the necessity to continuously work on our cost position is very, very clear for the years to come.
Besides silicon carbide, we want to broaden our activity field in the areas of silicon, LED, solar, to be able to benefit from interesting developments in AI and digitization. In total, we expect a CAGR of 10% for the years to come in these three application fields, which we define as our addressable markets. You know that SGL is a market leader with a very wide range of products, from heaters over crucibles, up until epi components. We have to continuously work on our differentiated market positioning as a quality and technology benchmark, and we aim at leveraging our global network for local supply, especially in times with geopolitical issues like at the moment. On top, we develop the product portfolio further by adding new solutions, for example, in the area of coatings.
Building on the established markets, it's key for us to leverage our great portfolio and the outstanding capabilities of SGL into new markets. The first market field I want to discuss today as key focus for us is nuclear. Graphite is an important enabler of clean energy technologies. We all know that the SMR trend for low carbon and stable alternative energy sources is crucial for the future development of economies, especially industries like AI, which are energy intense. We see a huge growth potential in that field. However, we have to remind ourselves that the technologies are still quite new and that the development is largely driven by startups. There are still question marks out there.
This is why we are extremely happy that with a partner like X-energy, we have found one of the most advanced technologies, one of the most stable financed, and one of the most attractive customer downstream portfolio partners, and together we want to grow into that application field. The addressable market today is still small and in development, but the potential over the next five or even over the next ten years is really huge, and a CAGR of more than 50% is just something trying to, yeah, nominate a number. It could be much higher in that area. SGL is supplying a wide range of products from vibro-molded graphite over iso- or extruded-based fuel pebbles up until the graphite powder serving different application fields in reactor setups.
On top of that Graphite Solutions offering, we have our business unit Process Technology, which can bring in engineering and assembly, competency to leverage the full power of SGL. With that, we want to establish the one-stop shop for nuclear applications with full value chains in the EU and the U.S., and hence have the best possible potential to develop and sustain a number one position in the Western world. For sure, nuclear is one of the most tremendous growth potentials of that time, and SGL is ready to participate. The second area I want to touch today is the area of defense. It's a perfect fit to SGL's automotive-based capabilities, and we have a scale-up-ready setup implemented. Of course, the improvement of defense capabilities in basically all the countries in the world, together with the massive budget increases in today's times, creates a significant momentum.
For us, it's very important to understand exactly which applications can be served by our products, where our products can add the greatest value. Two I would like to mention today, it's clearly the application of our composites in drones with lightweight solutions, still stability and high resistance being key. The second thing is protective equipment, a top priority in the defense industry, of course, and our material combinations, again, leveraging our business units as a whole, are a great strength to serve these needs. The fact that also the defense industry is largely driven by startups means that especially for these applications just mentioned, there's only a limited number of mass production capacities available, and this is exactly where we come into play with our automotive-based, readily available setup.
We assume the CAGR for the next five years to be more than 20% for the focus areas we have identified, namely body armor, vehicle armor, and drones. The full offering of what we can bring at SGL into that market will be illustrated in the next slide, where you can really see we cover a very wide range of defense applications, and we can bring in carbon and aramid fabrics. We can bring in established composite components with scale-up-ready capacities, and we deliver solutions based on rayon carbon fabrics for thermal protection, for example. The overall potential, similar to nuclear and semiconductor potentials I just mentioned, is considered at more than EUR 50 million, comparing the base year 2026 to our strategy target year 2030. Three equally significant growth areas for SGL.
Last but not least, I want to touch the topic and the application field of aerospace and space, where also a lightweight composite and heat-resistant graphite combination can be developed into many of the applications. There is a continued boom of air traffic growth and also of space traffic growth I would like to include. In general, we are talking about an industry with high entry barriers, but at the same time, there's also a very high need for high performance and reliable solutions, a perfect fit to SGL and its portfolio. Our opportunity to enter that industry with high entry barriers in general is especially the retrofit aftermarket and consumable markets, for example, in the area of brake discs. We see significant potential for us to participate.
The overall growth of that addressable market for us is assumed at close to 10% over the next couple of years. You can see that due to the rather long development cycles in that industry and the fact that we are now developing our experience into prototyping and ramp up for that industry, gives this only a comparably low growth potential of EUR 15 million+ for the years to come, comparing the 2026 base to 2030. In the third dimension of our SGL Growth 2030 strategy, I want to talk about creating new solutions for our customers' most demanding applications. We are talking about innovations, and these innovations in general are supposed to build on the thermal and production process capabilities we have in-house. We should leverage our competencies.
With innovations, we want to reinforce our high-end positioning for extreme applications, be it corrosive environment, be it high temperature applications. We want with that, create strong synergies with existing materials and businesses in our portfolio. We build on our global R&D network on collaborations with universities and research partnerships to make it a very focused innovation approach and establish resources in terms of testing and certification. Examples we have in development at the moment are mentioned to the left on that slide. It's the area of advanced coatings, where we are investing EUR 30 million in surface treatment facilities at our site in St. Mary's in Pennsylvania, in the U.S., and where we are intensifying our R&D collaboration with University of Linköping . We are currently in market introduction of new tantalum carbide-based coatings, and this is running very successful.
The second example is the area of natural composite materials that's bringing in additional fibers into our composites, portfolio, and we have just recently been awarded by BMW for its M Natural Fiber Composite project. Also in that area, because it often goes hand in hand, we are in intense research partnerships with various composite recycling projects. Having outlined the three growth dimensions of SGL Growth 2030, I want to now give you an overview of what this will lead to over the next five years, reaching out to 2030, where it is our clear ambition to reach again the sales level of EUR 1 billion or higher.
Building on the guidance of EUR 720 million-EUR 730 million for this year, 2026, bringing in growth in established businesses like outlined especially in silicon carbide and semiconductor and LED, developing new markets, SMRs, defense, aerospace and space, and developing further innovations to broaden our product portfolio, and especially this also includes selective M&As to leverage our core competencies. We want to reach that EUR 1 billion sales level in 2030. With the growth activities, we also strengthen our profile as a leading performance materials platform, and with these leading performance materials serving our customers' most demanding applications, we aim at achieving an EBITDA pre level in the range of 15%-18%. This growth by diversification in attractive new markets and new product groups clearly builds on key success factors we have established in SGL and we want to develop further.
It's our strong technology competency, it's our customer centricity and being able to develop together with customers their applications, and its future-ready and competitive operation setups. We are building on a great SGL team, clear sustainability agenda, and financial stability. This will be the basis to reach these growth goals, EUR 1 billion and 15%-18%. I thank you very much for your attention and your support on this growth journey. Thank you.
Now we can start with the Q&A session, and I think Valentina will give you some more technical instructions how to handle, to ask questions.
Thank you, Claudia. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The first question comes from Sven Sauer from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I have just one on energy prices for this year, given that SGL Carbon is sometimes an energy-intensive company. Was wondering if you could share some color on hedging for energy this year and what your thoughts on this are. Yeah. Thanks.
Thank you very much for that question. Of course, this is a very important one, especially with the turbulent developments over the last couple of weeks. It's an area difficult to predict. However, we are largely hedged. That has been the strategy of SGL already the last couple of years dealing with these uncertainties. For the calendar year 2026, especially in our high energy intense locations, we are talking about electricity and gas, and we have a re-hedging ratio of 80%.
Great. Thank you.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Lars Vom-Cleff from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First of all, excuse my ignorance. The merger of Carbon Fibers and Composite Solutions, did you already address that in advance, or is that something new? And when will it be starting with the reporting from Q1 2026 onward?
Sorry for that surprise, but both segments, Lars, have reached a size after restructure that we thought it's relevant to combine the forces that we have there and to have a strong integrated business unit there. We call it Fiber Composites, and we start running the business in under that new flag from 2026 onwards. When you see our Q1 figures beginning of May, you will see Fiber Composites as a new business unit, and both the remains of Carbon Fibers plus Composite Solutions will be merged in this new business unit.
Perfect. Thank you. Looking at your medium-term strategy, I mean, I'm following SGL for 26-27 years now. I would love to give you the benefit of the doubt that it works, that the strategy works this time. I mean, for me to see the success building up, when shall we expect first milestones becoming visible with regards to your new strategy? Is it rather back-end loaded, or can we already expect contribution in 2026? Will there be additional startup costs entering new businesses and innovations besides the EUR 30 million you intend to invest in advanced coatings?
Yes, Lars. Thanks for that question, and thanks for your trust. Looking into the future, we are building on that. Actually, the first proof point that we are well on track, we have already communicated with the big framework contract for the next 10 years and the first $100 million order with X-energy in the field of nuclear. Of course, with the very differentiated picture of these applications and growth areas we have described, it will be a mixed picture. Some of them, like I mentioned, for aerospace and space, will take longer. There we have a back-end loaded situation. It will start to develop over that time of the next five years with X-energy now being the first announcement.
Of course, in some areas it will be difficult even to announce in that explicit way when we're talking about areas of defense, but you see, you should be able to see the ramp up and the contributions intensifying going into next year and the years after.
Okay. Thank you. I'll go back into the line.
The next question comes from Uwe Hilgertner from SdK. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for answering my questions. First of all, congratulations to the turnaround team of the CF business. I think that is certainly, yeah, a big and great job done. Also very motivating is the number of new products and applications you are approaching. I understand that a ramp-up will take place in the coming years. However, there are some, well, quite a number of applications which probably take some time to develop. Two questions today. First of all, to the SiC market, one more time.
You said market drop is largely due to high inventory levels and also, slow demand. You expect an uptake of the demand starting already in, I believe, 2027. My question is there also a shift to other technologies? Could that also be a reason that the SiC demand is not developing as expected? Second question to CF. You reduce the turnover by around 30% of unprofitable business. What about the fixed costs? Will you be able to reduce the fixed cost in the same magnitude? Thank you.
Thank you, Uwe, for the questions and also for the feedback. Talking about SiC, the underlying demand really comes from electric vehicle development where these high performance semiconductors are needed. We see this representing the SiC downstream demand today with more than 80% of the demand going into that application. This is really the driver for that development. Why do we have this situation of a downturn since one and a half years? It's the delta of the expectations for EV growth, 40%, 50% at that time, compared to how the reality has developed with growth rates more in the area of 20%. It's still a heavy growth area, so that's clear, and this is also what we will build on going into the future.
The difference in expectation versus reality has created a huge inventory along the whole chain, from substrate wafers down to the device production, and this has to be digested now. Due to the bullishness of that industry and everyone creating capacity and already ramping up production, the inventory digestion unfortunately takes rather long. We are in that process. We can hear from our customers and also see in their publications that inventory management is progressing, but we need to continue to be a little patient.
Coming back to your second question regarding CF and the fixed cost, you're super right asking this question. Yes, we closed down Lavradio and we idled Moses Lake. As a consequence, there were another year of write-offs in this industry where we brought down the fixed cost and the values for the fixed assets. As we haven't sold the sites yet, you know that we are about to sell Moses Lake, but Lavradio is just something that needs to be closed. There's nothing to sell. We wrote off the fixed cost to the levels of the market values of the land and the buildings.
I can tell you, this is not a significant amount that's left. Only for the profitable core which we continue, we have the fair values of our machinery and assets, that's reflected. When we come to the fixed assets, everything has been brought down to the market levels, what the land and buildings are still valuable.
Once again, to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. We now have a follow-up question from Lars Vom-Cleff from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, me again. Sorry. Thank you. Once again, the medium-term strategy and your profitability estimates, you're guiding or you're targeting a 15%-18% EBITDA pre-margin. I mean, at midpoint, that would be 16.5%. If I take this year's guidance, also midpoint, it would be 16.1%. It would be 40 basis points improvement within the next four to five years. Comparing that to your statements like you're offering top-notch solutions, you want to become the number one in the Western world when it comes to nuclear, you make a difference in the customer's most demanding applications. I'm trying to square the circle. Is the profitability guidance cautious then, or is it difficult, or is it costly? I mean, 40 basis points looks rather low for me.
Lars, we understand your concerns, but you are probably, at least you indicated that, our most long-serving follower in our profitability. What we try to do is we try to keep our promises, and I think this is what we try to deliver also. We are more than happy also to surprise you and all the other investors with higher margins there. When we give a promise, we also want to keep that and this is the reason why we focus on profitable growth. We don't want to kind of dilute that by saying our margin will be 25% and then in four years nobody cares about what we said at beginning of 2026.
We say that we want to grow in this dimension. We also have to see that, for example, in silicon carbide over the course of the year and the more this technology and this product gets, you know, implemented and penetrated into the market, the margin will also go down. With such a high margin, for example, this will be impossible to contain that forever because you can't reduce your cost in the course of the margin. The same will be the case also when SMRs, for example, get more and more popular. Also there, the prices will have to go down. Of course, we have to go with that. There are potentials also for us to bring down our cost and to streamline that.
We want to keep our promises, and before we just tell you, 2030 will be nice and shiny and everything's fine and we just see, you know, some unicorns jumping around, we rather tell you, something that we can deliver, and we are very confident that we can deliver on the one hand side, the growth and the growth target of more than EUR 1 billion, but also the profitability. There's also room to surprise you, and this is also something that we want to keep as a kind of a buffer.
That is more than fair, and appreciated. Thank you.
Thank you, Lars.
Ladies, and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Claudia Kellert for any closing remarks.
Yeah. First, thanks for your participation, and as always, you'll find the presentation on our webpage. I think if you read the presentation carefully, you will have additional questions. Please call the Investor Relations team, or Jürgen Reck, myself. Thanks a lot, and have a nice afternoon. Bye-bye.