Good afternoon. On behalf of Montega, welcome to the earnings call of the PVA TePla AG regarding the Q1 figures of 2023. The COO, Manfred Bender, and CFO, Jalin Ketter, and Dr. Gert Fisahn from Investor Relations will give you a presentation on the results in a moment. Afterwards, there will be enough time for our Q&A session. Questions can then be asked via our line or chat. We are looking forward to the results, and I hand over to Mr. Bender.
Yes, thank you. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the conference call following the announcement of our Q1 numbers early this morning. Here on our side, my colleague Jalin Ketter, Dr. Fisahn, and myself are prepared to present the Q1 results to you and to answer your questions after that. I would like to start with some comments on the highlights of the first quarter before I hand over to Jalin. She will provide you with some more details and will give you an outlook for the near future. When we met last time, end of March, to talk about the final numbers of the year 2022, we were proud and happy to present great numbers to you despite the difficult environment we had in that year. Today, we are happy again that we can report about a continuing positive development in the first quarter of the current year.
All key figures were improved compared to the previous year. Order intake, revenues and earnings increased significantly. Order book is on a very high level. All business units and segments and subsidiaries contributed to this positive development. We can say that the integration of the new family member, the French company MPA, is well on track. Based on that, we are very confident to meet our goals for the full year with EUR 240 million-EUR 260 million sales and an EBITDA between EUR 36 million and EUR 40 million. The Q1 number is a little bit more in detail. Order intake increased by 0.5% to nearly EUR 62 million. Sales increased by 76% to EUR 58.5 million. The order book is at a very high level of EUR 327 million.
Last but not least, we were not only focused on growth, but also on profitability. That means EBITDA is improved by 112%. It amounted to EUR 7.2 million in Q1 2023. To prepare the company for the further growth, we started to build a new production and logistic building with 1,600 square meter. Doing that, we are focused on sustainability. The groundbreaking ceremony was in April, and the building will be completed in November that year. The total CapEx amount for this project will be EUR 5.5 million. For more details, I now hand over to Jalin Ketter to talk about the past in detail and the future outlook. Jalin, it's up to you.
Thank you, Manfred. Good afternoon also from my side. Let's have a little bit deeper look into the numbers and see what we achieved in Q1 2023. After that, I will give you an overview about the organizational changes we're heading to. Let's start with the order intake, which was very strong developed in Q1 2023. They're slightly above prior year with EUR 61.7 million and also above Q4 2022. Having a look to the regional split, we see a very big portion in Europe and Germany, which is about 56% of the total order intake volume. Also, Asia made a good development with 34% of the total volume. In terms of the segments, Semiconductor segment contributed about 81.7% and Industrial segment about 18.3%.
On the next slide, we see the development in sales with a very strong growth. Sales increased about 75.8% to EUR 58.5 million. This is the development of one of the best quarters we ever had in the past. Industrial Systems segments doubled in its volume and Semiconductor Systems contributed about half of Crystal Growing Systems and Metrology Systems equally. The major drivers of the whole business are still digitalization, e-mobility and renewable energies, which are very important for our business also in the future. Coming to group profit, we achieved in gross profit about EUR 16.7 million in total in the first quarter with some gross margin about 28.6%, which is slightly down compared to prior year.
This is caused by higher cost of materials and the product mix we had in the first quarter, 2023. In terms of EBITDA, we developed to EUR 7.2 million and an EBITDA margin of 12.3%. With that result, we are very confident to achieve our guidance with EUR 36 million-EUR 40 million in EBITDA for the total year 2023. Having a look to the EBIT, we ended with EUR 5.5 million and an EBIT margin of 9.4%, with which we are very well on track to achieve our midterm guidance, about 15% in 2024. Let's look a little bit deeper into the segments. Semiconductor Systems segment, which is about 80% of our total business volume, well developed as expected in the first quarter.
Sales increased about 67.3% to EUR 42 million, and EBIT margin ended at a level about 14.3%, which is well on track with our guidance. Crystal Growing Systems were the most important drivers of this development. Order intake amounted to EUR 50.4 million and is equally driven by metrology and crystal growing systems. Order backlog is, with EUR 228.3 million, still on a high level and reaches already into 2025. The Industrial Systems, which is roughly about 20% of our business, also developed very well in terms of sales, with an increase about 101.9% to EUR 16.5 million. EBIT margin slightly decreased to 6% compared to prior year, which is because of higher cost of materials and the product mix in the first quarter.
We will see further development of that margin in the next months so that we will get on a normal level at the end of the year again. In terms of order intake, we see a little bit the lumpiness of our business. Order intake is slightly down to prior year and amounted to EUR 11.3 million. We have a very good outlook when we see the discussions with our customers and the orders we are heeding to. We are quite confident to achieve our targets also in that area. Order backlog developed to EUR 98.9 million and further increased. That gives us a good outlook into the future and will keep us busy in the next months and already in 2024. Before we come to our guidance, let's have a look to the recent developments.
As planned, Andreas Mühe, our CTO, will leave the company end of June 2023 when his contract will expire. Having a look to the past, we developed PVA TePla AG from an operational holding to a financial and management holding. We developed very strong directors on our GmbH levels who are also responsible for the technology and the technology development of the business. We are very proud that we can close that development within the second half year of 2023 and move on with the further steps in the development of the business. There are no current plans to search for a new CTO. We thank Andreas Mühe for the developments in the past and wish him the very best for the future. Digitalization and automation are very important topics for us already now, and they will be for the future as well.
That's why we will propose Dr. Myriam Jahn in our annual shareholder meeting in June to the supervisory board. We are looking forward and welcome her to our team. Let's come to the last slide, and let me confirm our guidance for the full year 2023. We plan to achieve a double-digit growth in terms of sales to an amount of EUR 240 million-EUR 260 million. In terms of EBITDA, we want to achieve EUR 36 million-EUR 40 million. We are quite confident to achieve this guidance. Looking back to the numbers we already presented now in quarter one, which were very strong, we are fully on track to achieve that guidance and quite confident for the future.
As that is our last call together, Manfred, I would like to thank you for the good time working together in the past, and trustful cooperation always, and wish you the very best for the future as well.
Thank you.
That's all from my side now. We are prepared to take your questions now.
Thank you very much, Mr. Bender and Mrs. Ketter, for the detailed presentation. We will now move over to the Q&A session. Questions can be asked via audio, line, or chat. If you would like to ask your question directly to the management, please raise your virtual hand. If you have dialed in by phone, please press the star key followed by 9 to enter the Q&A queue. You'll be then asked to unmute yourself by pressing the star key followed by 6. We already received the first questions. Please go ahead, Mr. Gustav Froberg.
Hi, everyone. Can you hear me okay?
Yes, we can hear you.
Perfect. Thank you very much for taking my questions. Before I kick off, just thank you, Manfred, as well, and best of luck to the future. Onto questions. First on order intake, which I thought looked very strong in the quarter, could you please quantify the amount of large orders that you saw in Q1, and also whether or not you think any of these orders that you received in the quarter were maybe pulled forward from Q2 or maybe Q3 later this year? That's my first question.
Order intake is very balanced in total. We achieved EUR 61.7 million in total. EUR 11 million is based on Industrial Systems and the Semiconductor area is well balanced between Metrology and Crystal Growing Systems. There are no single big orders in there. It's just the normal amount of business we always have.
Okay, super. Could you talk a little bit more about your order pipeline? What you're hearing from customers at the moment maybe, or in what areas where you still see some potential to generate some orders. Do you also expect to generate more large orders in the coming quarters? If you do so, where are these orders coming from?
Yes, of course. We have very good discussions with our customers at the moment and see strong development based on the trends we're having all over and a very high demand in total. We have a little bit lumpiness of our business that we know already from the past in terms of order intake, it's not total basically that we can say, it's always the same amount in every quarter. It's sometimes higher, it's sometimes less. We see very strong demand in Industrial Systems area in our discussions at the moment. Maybe there will be some weaker months in terms of Metrology and Crystal Growing in the summertime, but that will not be something that will stay like that as the total demand is there.
It might just be a weak quarter. We will see.
Okay. Just a quick follow-up on that before I ask my last one. In terms of maybe weakness in quarters, I know the business is very lumpy, but, would you expect that to be more Q2 or Q3 weighted?
That also depends on when we'll get the prepayments for that orders. That can be Q2 or Q3. I cannot totally say when exactly that will take place. When we have a look on the all over development, that will be all right for the full year and also for next year's.
Okay, great. Then final question is organizational. I mean, you mentioned that Dr. Mühe is leaving the business. You said that you have no plans to reinstate the new CTO. Could you tell us a little bit more about the organizational changes that you're making to the business, what it might look like in one, two years from now, and also maybe who is in charge of technology and technology development within the organization?
That's already something we already did in place. We started that reorganization already in 2015, when we started to get the operational business out of PVA TePla AG and transform that to single GmbHs. Every business line is placed into a single company, and within the last years, we developed very strong directors on that level. They are responsible to develop their technology and do further investments in their business. They are supported by PVA TePla AG, by the board then, and we are a good sparring partner for them to develop their business.
Okay, great. Thank you. That's all from my side.
Thank you very much. We'll move forward with Constantin Hesse. Please go ahead. Please unmute yourself, Mr. Hesse.
Whoops. Sorry. There we go. Can you hear me now?
Yes, I can hear you.
All right, great. From myself as well, Mr. Bender, all the best to you. Thank you for everything. My first question would be, again, a little bit on order intake. In the Semiconductor Segment, I think you had some crystal growing orders coming in there. Is there any visibility on additional crystal growing orders coming in over the coming quarters? I think on metrology, I'm fine. You already answered there's gonna be some weakness in the coming couple of quarters. On that point, though, how confident are you that metrology is gonna come back to the trends that you were seeing over the last 3, 4 quarters?
In industrials, order intake again, you're saying there is very strong demand, but looking at the last three, four quarters, that order level in Q1 was actually quite a bit below. Just wondering, are we gonna see a solid pickup in the next two, three quarters? That's my first question.
Okay.
Order intake, in metrology, I would say can be expected to be strong again very soon, at least if you see the new lots of CapEx spendings which are expected by all semiconductor players in Europe and U.S. and so on. Which are not yet reflected in our order book. We can expect order intakes to come back very, in a strong manner very soon. Industrial business is somewhat lumpy. The numbers developed quite very well currently. We know that we have nice projects in the pipeline. That means we are in contact with a number of customers for larger projects, larger orders. Also for that we can be very optimistic.
Can I just ask what's driving in Industrials that strong demand? What end markets?
It's a whole bunch of infrastructure investments, in terms of a change of energy and also, it's also driven by the semiconductor sector in the second line or second level.
Mm.
of the production. They are producing systems where parts for Semiconductor Systems are created. That's driving both of the segments.
Okay, understood. On the profitability side, it was relatively low in Q one. What is actually gonna be the key driver here over the coming quarters of higher margins? Is it only gonna be the Siltronic order flow? Is it gonna be higher utilization? Because looking at your book and assuming you already started delivering the Siltronic machines in Q one, 14% EBIT margin in the Semiconductor segment sounded a little bit low. What can we expect here in Q two, Q three, Q four? Is it gonna be more of a hockey stick or is it gonna be more of a linear improvement both in semi and in industrials in terms of the profitability?
All together you can expect that we will end up at EUR 36 million-40 million in EBITDA. Yeah, that will be a little like the developments in the last years. Q1 is starting a little bit lower, like the other quarters, and we will develop step by step in every quarter a little bit more.
More linear then?
Yeah, more linear, but also with a little bit. Not total linear. There will be a stronger quarter, but they will all be strong.
Okay. Understood. That's great. Thanks. Looking quickly at your cash flow, looking at CapEx for this year and next year, what kind of levels can we expect here? Last year, you had roughly EUR 6.6 million in addition to the acquisition you did. Going forward, are we still looking at something in the mid to high single digit investments? I mean obviously I know you're investing now the EUR 5.5 million, but if we take that away, what's the underlying CapEx spend here over the next two, three years?
Over the next two to three years we will invest about EUR 20 million-EUR 30 million in total CapEx volume.
In total cap including the EUR 5.5?
Including the EUR 5.5.
Okay. 20, 30. That's great. Thanks. Okay, cool. I'll go back to the queue. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Hesse. We will move forward with the questions of Jürgen Wagner. Please go ahead.
Can you hear me now? I guess yes.
Yes, Mr. Wagner, we can hear you.
Sorry for the delay. I have a question on your silicon carbide tool business. This week we heard from Infineon, or they are executing on their supply from Chinese silicon carbide wafer manufacturers. When would China become a market for your equipment, as Infineon said they will, yeah, buy physical wafers already this year? A follow-up on Mr. Mühe, can you share what he's doing now post, June? Thank you.
First on SiC tools, China is already market for that. We are in touch with several customers there, and I would say it's a question of time when we see the first orders there or see significant orders there. But that's for the answer to question number one. The question number two is simply no idea what Andreas is doing after that, what his plans are. No idea, and he's not here available for today that I can ask him, so I'm sorry about that.
I think it's kind of a private question you have to ask him by himself.
Okay. Thank you very much. We will move forward with the question of Hartmut Moers. Please go ahead.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes, we can hear you.
Great, thank you. Well, I think, your sales level was very positive in particular in view of the fact that Q1 traditionally is rather weak quarter on the sales side. That's very positive. What's worrying me a bit is the profitability side, and in particular the margins. On the GP side, there is not too much of a deviation, to the 30% that you're targeting. Just here's the difference to the 30. Still driven by the crystal growing research that you were undertaking currently, or is that more market-driven?
Could you repeat your last question again, please?
Yeah. On the GP margin side, you told us last quarter that the expenses you're currently undertaking in view of the research for new Crystal Growing Systems has waited on the margin, on the GP margin. Is this still the case, or has this still been the case in the first quarter, or is this no factor anymore?
Oh, okay. Now I understand what you wanted to ask. Yeah, that's a good question. We have still some research and development in the gross margin. It's not not anymore mostly affected by that Crystal Growing System we developed last year, just a little bit, and there are further developments with customer on the industrial side we have driven forward as well. There's the second effect, which is just based on this lower development on the first quarter, higher cost of materials we had in the first quarter and the product mix at all, especially in the Industrial Systems segment. Mr. Moers, if you have a follow-up question, please raise your hand again, and we will move forward with the questions of Lucas Spang. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon. I have just one question related to the order intake and prepayment topic. Did you receive into one any orders, or do you still have one from previous quarters where you did not get any prepayments yet, so that you didn't recognize it at order intake, but which will come into order intake in the coming quarters when you receive the prepayments? Are there any orders like this?
We always have a few of these orders in our books. This quarter, I can't give you a concrete number how much that is. It's always the case that a few orders are not recognized in our order book because we didn't receive the prepayment yet.
That's the reason why we are always a little bit more confident with the future development than you might be.
Okay. Would you see this as a double digit figure or?
Let's leave it a surprise for Q2. We see high demand on all levels still, and we see very good discussion with our customers. There will be more orders to give us or the production busy in the future as well.
Okay. Thanks. That's from my side.
Thank you very much. We receive the follow-up question from Mr. Hartmut Moers. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. I would like to follow up on the profitability issue, going down from the GP to the EBIT line. I mean, looking at your fixed cost base, everything below the GP down to the EBIT line has increased quite significantly quarter-on-quarter. We are now at a level of about EUR 11 million. I remember last year, you gave us a rough breakdown of the cost development for the quarters. For a first quarter, this is unusually high. Will we now see some lower levels in the coming quarters, or what is the reason behind this rather high level in the first quarter and how is for the future development?
I think we have to decide or make a difference between the certain cost positions we have. In terms of cost of sales, there were some additional investments to further create our sales structure and improve our sales structure all over the world, which we already started in last year, when we remember, for example, that development in Korea or in the Korean market we set it up. That's something that's very important for us to get that sales structure a little bit further developed and stronger in the position. The second part is administrative costs, which will develop in the future a little bit on a higher level as before.
There are a lot of re-regulations we have to meet and reporting, additional reportings we will have to create in the future in terms of ESG and everything around, which will keep us a little bit on a higher level of the cost structure. Additionally, we had better results in Q1 2023 as we had in the years before. That's why already the positions or the accruals for profit sharing of our management is included in that result.
Does that mean, we are more looking at the EUR 11 million, as a run rate for the coming quarters? Is that how I should understand that?
Yes.
Okay, thank you. Another question, would be, I mean, you have referred to prepayments. Have you had material prepayments in the first quarter already? I mean, the cash, operating cash came in at about EUR 10 million. Is this more driven by the release of working capital, or is that also prepayment driven?
That's also prepayment driven.
Okay. Last issue would be on the order book. You're now at EUR 327 million. You used to give us a time structure of the book. How much is scheduled for the current year of that order book?
Yeah. We will take about 40%-50% in this year, and let's say 30%-40% in the next, and then the rest in 2025 already.
Okay. That would give I mean, given that you have EUR 58 million already, you might get around, let's say, EUR 40 million order intake, regular orders, short-term orders, that you can execute in the quarter, plus 50% of the book. That brings you roughly to the high end of your, of your guidance, which is, well, which supports your confidence. There's a way how we should view it?
Yeah. I feel very confident with our guidance on EUR 242 million-EUR 260 million. We will be somewhere around. We will not disclose on the higher level of the guidance yet. We see very confident development in the next quarters. We stay with the guidance.
Okay. Thank you very much. That was very helpful. All the best to you, Mr. Bender, if you haven't the chance anymore to talk.
Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will move forward with the questions of Miguel Lago. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you very much. Can you hear me well?
Yes.
Great. Okay. One question left from my side. Especially in Industrial Systems , very strong development in Q1. Is there any one of the factors that was influencing this strong development, or is it like a usual run rate we will see in the coming quarters as well?
It's well-balanced business. No one is 100% effect.
Okay. Given the order book, roughly EUR 60 million per quarter should be a fair assumption for following quarters.
Makes sense, yeah.
Okay. Makes sense. Yeah, that's it from myself for the time being. Thank you. Of course, all the best to you, Mr. Bender.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Miguel. We have another follow-up question from Constantin Hesse. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Sorry. I just heard, Mr. Bender, did you say EUR 16 million would be roughly run rate for the industrials division in terms of sales? I would actually have expected it to be a little bit higher given the size of your order book. Is it limited by capacity, or what's the reason that you can't go much higher than the EUR 16 million?
Sorry.
It's I think the 16 is just the roughly number for a quarter that we could have in one of our quarters in 2023. We have about, let's say, EUR 50 million to EUR 60 million or EUR 70 million in terms of industrial business, every year. When we see the last 3 years, we will develop that further, so we will be somewhere around that development with +X% of the prior year.
You have more capacity, so you could.
Yeah. We are building up the capacity actually, so that's why we are taking that building in place.
Okay. Understood. Quick question again, just on the order flow. Maybe Jalin, quickly over to you. Looking at the next 3 years, so 2023, fine. Guidance is obviously with that order book, I think pretty confident you're gonna achieve that. Looking at 2024, 2025, how confident are you that these are going to be growth years? How dependent is that growth on another Siltronic order?
Overall, there is a very high demand we see in the markets we are in and because of the growth driver we already mentioned. Yeah. I'm pretty confident that there will be further business development, and we will see further steps in our development as well. In terms of midterm guidance, we announced the midterm guidance for 2024 a few years ago, which we are still very confident with. Give me some time for the development of a new midterm guidance during the year, we will announce something at the end of this or beginning of next year to give you a little bit more view into the future.
Absolutely. That's absolutely fair enough. Can I just ask, you just mentioned the 2024 guidance. That was EUR 250 million in sales. This year, however, you are already achieving potentially EUR 260. Are we thinking rather something around the EUR 250 mark for 2024, or do you think is it gonna be another growth year in 2024, or is it gonna be relatively stable?
Our guidance for this year is about EUR 240-EUR 260, so we will see where we finally end up in that range.
Yep.
2024 will be a very good year as well. Our guidance with the 15% of EBIT is still stable, and we will see some further development in sales, at least a step beside. I'm pretty confident that we will be able to say a little bit more about that in the next month.
That's perfect. Thank you. Then quickly on China, any risks you guys are seeing there in terms of the geopolitics? Have there been any discussions on potential export restrictions? How much of your metrology business is China, if I may ask?
Of course there are theoretic risks with China like always. The political situation is not stable, currently, but our exposure to China is moderate at the moment, so the risk is rather limited. Well, there is a risk, no doubt, but we don't need to be concerned about that.
Looking at the EUR 80 million you reported in Asia in 2022, how much of that was China?
I can tell you how much about our order intake is China. That's 12% in total amount.
12%. That's great. All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Mr. Hesse. We received a few questions, via the chat. The first one from Mr. Martin Jungfleisch is about the order trend. Would you expect the good order trend to come down in Q2? What are your customers saying? Is there any particular customer group that sticks out?
This is a topic we already had in the last discussions of the questions. We see very good view into the market, still a high demand and have very good discussions with our customers. We don't see total weakness in order intake in the future, and there might be some weaker quarters we will see, but that doesn't say that the whole demand will go down. Still very good position in the market.
Okay. Thank you very much. From Mr. Jungfleisch, we also received a question regarding the gross margin. Were gross margins mainly impacted by mix effects, in example, higher share of lower margin industrials, or was there anything else? Would you see gross margins up in Q2 versus Q1?
Gross margin was affected by higher cost of materials and the product mix, especially in the Industrial Systems area. Gross margin will further develop, step by step and, but always gross margin is a little bit weaker, as we have some R&D costs also reflected in gross margin. It depends how much development work we are doing in the months.
Okay, thank you very much. From Mr. Matthias Mierwald, we received a question. With the main shareholder selling out and no new major shareholder is in the table, is there a risk of under ownership? An example, no stronger owner to give strategic goalposts to PVA and or support in difficult times.
Well, I think we don't have that risk. We are happy with 100% free float so far and don't see any risk because of that.
Okay, thank you very much. We received a few questions via the auto line. Please go ahead, Helmut Bartsch.
Yeah, hi. This is Helmut speaking. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can.
Yeah. Okay. Wonderful. I would like to ask a follow-up on the Chinese silicon carbide ecosystem. Is this correct, at least this is my understanding, that at least at the moment or currently, you haven't shipped any tool to the Chinese producers of silicon carbide? Is this correct? What kind of tools then they you have been using so far? Is there a strong incumbent there in China? What is the reason why you haven't been able to ship tools and what needs to be done, yeah, in order to participate in the strong growth in China, yeah? Second one, you sound more optimistic on China, even if you haven't been able to have a customer there.
How does the pipeline look like specifically, and how is the pricing then, yeah? Thank you.
As Manfred already mentioned, there are customers in China we already delivered systems to, and there are discussions with customers in China.
Okay.
For following orders as well. I think we already have a portion in the Chinese business as well, that can further be developed, yeah.
You asked what we need to do. What we need to do is exactly what we currently do. We need to develop an own base process for production of SiC.
SiC crystals. That means most Chinese customers are not only asking about for the hardware, they would need also the, at least the basic process know-how for the production process. That's what we will be very often talked about. That's what we currently are in process to develop.
Understood. How does the competitive landscape today look in China? Is there a strong local competitor operating there? How long does it take to come up with this kind of process you just mentioned, in order to kind of, you know, this is probably a tool and a service, yeah, in order to get more traction there?
Well, to finalize the production process or a basic process needs another about 1 to 1 and a half years, according our plans. There is competition in China, yes. Well, that's something we have to handle. I think we are not too late with the new process. We are ready in 1 or 1 and a half years.
Okay. yeah, can you provide a little bit more detail than on the pipeline you have specifically out of China? How does the pipeline here in Europe look like in silicon carbide? Yeah. Thank you.
Let's discuss silicon carbide all over. There is a very high demand in the market, and we have several systems that are supporting or are supported by that development of silicon carbide in the market. It's not only about Crystal Growing Systems. There is a high demand because of the material is needed, and that's as well the case in Europe as in China or all over the world, Japan, for example. It's also about metrology systems or graphite cleaning systems, which are driving the demand at the moment in our house. We will participate from the demand of silicon carbide in certain areas of the business.
Okay. Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Brach. We also received few questions from Adam Jakubowski. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay.
We can hear you.
Okay. At first, I would like to join my colleagues in wishing Mr. Bender all the best for the future. Thank you for the cooperation so long. I have three smaller questions. The first is, how is MPA doing at the moment? How is the integration progressing? The second question is, are some of the costs of the new production site you were talking about already seen in the P&L statement of the first quarter? The last question is, the net cash position in the Q1 report. Just to be sure, are there financial assets, this EUR 9 million, excluded or are they included in this number? Thank you.
Thanks for that question. Integration work of MPA is developing very well, so they are very close in contact with our industrial area in all areas and already have developed very well in terms of the business development, sales and EBIT. Let me come to your question to the new production line. The EUR 5.5 million are not included in the cash yet, so that will come up during the year. The net cash, I'm not sure if I understand that question right, but all over the balance sheet, you will find roughly about EUR 50 million-EUR 60 million cash in certain areas of the balance sheet.
Okay. Okay. That's enough. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Jakubowski. We received a follow-up question from Constantin Hesse. Please go ahead.
Sorry, last one, I promise. On the SiC, I just wanna follow up on Helmut's question. You're saying the demand is very strong. It's actually a question I also wanted to ask before. The only thing we're hearing so far is STM, and I think we're missing in 50 machines are there to be ordered for that. We've never really heard of any other player that you might be having conversations with or even any kind of more concrete outlook here. When you say strong demand, I get on the graphite cleaning part, that's fine. Metrology, clearly, you know, we're seeing strong trend there. Crystal growing equipment, is there anything else that you're able to share with us? Yeah, anything more concrete here would be very helpful in terms of potential future growth.
As Jalin already said, we see a lot of demand for SiC related business for our subsidiary MPA, for example, and also for our industrial part in graphite cleaning parts.
Our machines, so that's what we currently see. You're right. In fact, we have one major customer for SiC crystal growing systems this time, and that is STMicroelectronics. That's correct. That's a significant order, and we are happy to have this. We are in touch with other customers, but there is nothing concrete to report yet, which is which will be finalized very soon.
Okay, there are no final conversations ongoing for future crystal growing orders?
There are no bulk order conversations.
Okay, cool. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Hesse. Well, it seems there are no further questions. Thank you very much for your questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Bender, Mrs. Ketter, and Dr. Fisan, for the detailed presentation and your time answering all those questions. Also from our side, we wish you all the best, Mr. Bender, and I hand over for some final remarks to you.
Yes. Thank you very much. Thank you for your good wishes. My impression is that I did hundreds of these conference calls during my career, my job as a board member here and in other companies. I always enjoyed that discussion with you and I would be happy to do that again. It's not decided yet what I'm doing now, but maybe we meet again. I would be happy. I always enjoyed discussing with you. I joined PVA TePla in 2021, early 2021, and the idea was that I hand over some of my experience, which I definitely have, to the board members here at PVA TePla, for example, Jalin Ketter. I think this job is done now.
The company is on the way to make EUR 240 million-EUR 260 million sales. When I joined the company, it was a little bit above EUR 130 million. It's not too bad. I can look back at a good two and a half years here at that company. The job is done. I hand over a company which is in a very good shape to my colleagues and the new board. That's a good time to say goodbye to PVA TePla. We, the capital market and me, maybe we'll meet again at another place that nobody knows. Maybe our paths cross again then, I would be happy. So far, take care. Let's look what happens.
Thank you very much for your patience with me, and hope to see you again.