Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining our webcast on the results of the first half year of 2025. My name is Frank Dernesch, and I'm Head of Investor Relations and Treasury at Technotrans. I'm delighted to welcome our CEO, Michael Finger, and our CFO, Natascha Sander. This morning, we will cover, first, the highlights of the first six months of 2025. Second, the progress in our focus markets. Third, the financial performance in detail. Fourth, our strategic roadmap and the outlook for 2025. After the presentation, we will open the floor for your questions. Please note that the following presentation contains forward-looking statements. These reflect the present views of the board of management and are based on the corresponding plans, estimates, and expectations.
These statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, which could mean that the actual results may differ considerably from those expected. With that, I am pleased to hand over to our CEO, Michael Finger. Michael, the floor is yours. Thank you.
Thank you, Frank, and a warm welcome from me as well. In the first half of the year, we've delivered on plan. Revenue went up, EBIT margin doubled. We are pleased with the overall results. However, political challenges have increased. This is mainly driven by the U.S. tariffs, which are causing additional uncertainty in our markets. Even if the indirect impact for Technotrans is limited, we cannot foresee the indirect impact as many of our customers generate a significant share of their revenue in the U.S. It was good to see that in this challenging environment, revenue increased by almost 5% to EUR 121 million. Profitability rose even stronger. EBIT more than doubled to EUR 8.4 million, lifting the EBIT margin up to 7%. A great performance from our team. Let me comment on the two main drivers.
The first one, our operational momentum remained strong. Our volume production approach in all areas is paying off now. With our building block strategy, we are generating the expected scale effects. We can see that pretty well in our improved technology EBIT margin. Natascha will show you the details later. Our focus market, Energy Management, Healthcare & Analytics, and Print, reported substantial rise in revenue. These more than offset cyclical impacts in Plastics and especially in Laser. Looking forward, we can see a positive development of our order backlog from EUR 80 million-EUR 84 million and a book-to-bill of 1.1, which are all signals for future growth in the second half. The second driver of our good performance is our efficiency program, ttSprint. It continues to improve our cost position. All sub-projects have delivered on plan. Profitability is rising.
Accordingly, ROCE also increased significantly from 11.5%- 15%. After talking about the strong figures, I'm pleased to share some more highlights with you. In Energy Management, revenue increased by 11% to EUR 18.4 million. We have strengthened our market position by high volume deliveries of battery thermal management systems for railway and e-buses. In addition, we have successfully increased our production capacity of our liquid cooling systems for data center. In Print, our legacy business is regaining traction. We have closed an exclusive framework agreement with Windmöller & Hölscher to supply the next generation of an energy-efficient ink supply system. Windmöller & Hölscher is the leading OEM in flexo print. This contract is about an order volume in the low double-digit million EUR range and underpins future revenue development in 2025 and 2026. Finally, Healthcare & Analytics.
The demand for analytical systems and scanners remained very strong. With an outstanding performance, we have improved our revenue in this segment by 44% year-on-year. You can see these three highlights demonstrate fast-growing segments offset cyclical softness. Even in challenging times like this, we can show growth as a group in the first half of this year. Let's take a deeper look into our markets. As already outlined, three out of five focus markets reported an increase in revenue compared to last year. In these focus markets, the strong performance continued as expected. Let me give you the details. As I mentioned in the highlights, Energy Management reported an increase of revenue. Strong deliveries of battery thermal management systems for rail and e-buses were the main drivers. Serious production with our new liquid cooling units for data centers is also performing as expected very well.
Therefore, we have increased our production capacity. Energy Management represents already 15% of our group revenue. Please remember, we have started this business a couple of years ago from scratch. In Healthcare & Analytics, the strong revenue trend of analytical systems and scanners continued. In addition, high precision cooling systems for our clean room in Baden-Baden are adding value. Revenue rose by 44% compared to last year, reaching almost EUR 10 million in the first half of this year. Print continued its recovery. Revenue grew by 8% to EUR 42 million. Key drivers were packaging label and digital print solutions. The framework agreement, which I've mentioned before, with Windmöller & Hölscher represents an important building block for the future development of Print. Print represents around one-third of consolidated revenue.
That said, and acknowledged, that not all markets are running well, we have still to improve Plastics and Laser business. Both are still suffering under the economic downturn. In general, the market situation hasn't changed significantly in the second quarter. At least in Plastics, the decline compared to the previous year has slowed down and we expect a positive momentum for the fourth quarter. Laser remains heavily affected by the economic conditions. Only high-tech cooling applications, such as EUV business for semiconductors, are doing quite well. Therefore, we have started a restructuring program to be prepared for an ongoing crisis in this market segment. To sum it up, the subdued development in Plastics and Laser is more than offset by Energy Management, Healthcare & Analytics, and Print. The diversity of our portfolio generates resilience. Fast-growing markets offset short-term headwinds. Operational performance has improved.
The EBIT margin of 7% is reflecting this. Natascha will now walk you through the financials in more detail. Natascha.
Thank you, Michael. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning from my side as well. Before diving into the financials of the first six months 2025 in detail, I would like to emphasize the following. Technotrans had a very good first half year. We are satisfied with our performance, especially with regard to the ongoing challenging economic environment. Let me begin with the top line. The positive revenue trend remained intact. Consolidated revenue of EUR 60.4 million in Q2 was as strong as in Q1. In the first six months, revenue increased by 4.6% compared to last year, reaching EUR 120.6 million. As Michael described, the strong revenue trend was driven by our focus markets, Energy Management, Healthcare and Analytics, and Print. In Plastics and Laser, the market situation remained strained. On the bottom line, the group's profitability could be improved further.
EBIT rose to EUR 4.4 million in Q2 with a margin of 7.2% despite nearly unchanged revenue compared to Q1. In the six-month period, EBIT increased significantly to EUR 8.4 million and more than doubled compared to last year. The EBIT margin went up to 7%, being twice as high as in the previous year. This outstanding performance is fueled by higher revenue, the positive impact of GT's Print, an optimized product mix, and further efficiency improvements. Restructuring costs are not having an impact this year. Let's turn to our reporting segments. In Q2, revenue in Technology increased compared to Q1. This resulted in total revenue of EUR 19.8 million in the first half year, which was 5.9% higher compared to last year. Main growth drivers were Energy Management, Healthcare & Analytics, and Print.
EBIT of the segment improved significantly in the course of the year, reaching EUR 3.9 million in the first half-year, generating an EBIT margin of 4.3%. Scaling effects, efficiency gains, and an optimized product mix were the key contributors to the notable increase in profitability. Let's turn to Services. Revenue in Services slowed down in Q2 due to the weaker service business in Plastics. Nevertheless, revenue in the first half-year period was slightly higher compared to the previous year, reaching EUR 29.8 million, which is a plus of 0.7%. The EBIT of the segment increased from EUR 4.2 million- EUR 4.5 million. Compared to the previous year, the EBIT margin improved from 14.1%- 15%. The boost in profitability is also improving the ROCE, which rose significantly from 11.5%- 15%.
Free cash flow was negative at minus EUR 1.1 million, driven by working capital increase and the purchase of land in Sassenberg. The decisive factors for the reported development of working capital are, firstly, inventory levels were intentionally increased to address the order backlog and support the expected growth. Secondly, accounts receivable rose due to reporting date effects. As expected, receivables declined at the beginning of July. In the remaining months of the financial year, we are expecting a turnaround and normalization of free cash flow. Let's turn to profitability in detail. Gross profit rose to EUR 35.9 million, representing an increase of 15.8%. On the back of efficiency gains and an optimized product mix within the Technology segment, the gross margin improved significantly from 26.9% - 29.8%.
Driven by the strong improvement in profitability, EBITDA rose from EUR 7.4 million- EUR 11.9 million, resulting in a notable EBITDA margin of 9.8%. Net profit more than doubled compared to last year, increasing from EUR 2.4 million- EUR 5.2 million. Accordingly, earnings per share also rose significantly from EUR 0.34-EUR 0.75. Our equity ratio remains strong and stable at an elevated level of 59.7%. Net debt amounts to EUR 25.5 million. With a net debt EBITDA ratio of 1.08, Technotrans continues to maintain an investment-grade financial profile. This solid financial position reflects our consistently strong credit ratings. Our performance again confirms that we are on the right track and operating from a robust foundation despite the continued challenges in the geopolitical and economic environment.
Before I hand back to Michael, I would like to highlight once again our main financial KPIs improved in the first half year 2025. We have achieved a substantial improvement in our profitability, reflecting the success of our strategic initiatives and operational discipline. The strong and robust performance underlines Technotrans' resilience. Technotrans is well-positioned to accelerate its path to profitable growth. With this said, please let me hand back to Michael. Michael, please.
Thank you very much, Natascha. As you can see, the financial performance of the first half is fully in line with our plannings. Our efficiency program, ttSprint, is delivering the expected impact. All our sub-projects are delivering as planned and performing in line with our expectations. The change to a decentralized market-focused organization was the right decision and is paying off already. Our divisions are achieving significant sales wins. This is the base for future growth and for future success. This leads me to our outlook. Technotrans reports a strong performance in the first half. Our business model is working even in challenging times. Main growth drivers were again the focus markets Energy Management as Analytics and Print. We have expanded our market position in growing markets such as battery cooling for railway and e-buses.
We have increased our production capacity for liquid cooling units to be prepared for more volume. The effects of our efficiency program stabilize our earnings under volatile conditions. Based on the performance in the first half, we confirm our guidance. For this year, we expect revenue in a range of EUR 245 million-EUR 265 million with an EBIT margin of between 7% and 9%. ROCE is expected to be between 13% and 16%. We remain on track to achieve our goals for this year. By the end of this year, we will have successfully implemented our strategy Future Ready 2025. What comes next? As you already know, we are planning a Capital Markets Day in Sassenberg on October 8th.
We will present our strategy 2030 and will give you a detailed update by each division, and we are happy to welcome you. With that said, I would like to ask Frank to open the line for the Q&As. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Michael. Before we begin with the Q&A, one more comment about our Capital Markets Day. Please check your inbox if you have received our invitation. If not, please contact us. We will be happy to resend it to you. We will also send a reminder by the end of this week. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now open the floor for your questions. If you wish to ask a question, please use the raise hand feature. We will enable your microphone at that time. Alternatively, feel free to submit your question in the chat. We will address written questions in turn. Before speaking, please make sure your microphone is unmuted. The lines are now open. The first question is by Mr. Brach. Mr. Brach, I have unmuted your mic. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Natascha, for the presentation. I have two questions. I do them one by one. The first one is on the Healthcare & Analytics segment. Pretty strong results, also in Q1, but especially in Q2 with a further increase in the growth rate. Was it due to BIAC orders, or is the growth broad-based within the segment? Do you expect a further increase in the coming years, or was it like a peak half year in H1?
No, thank you for the question, Mr. Brach. It wasn't an extra bulk order. It is based on series delivery contracts which have increased. The volume has increased, and we expect a stable development in this segment over the course of this year and hopefully even beyond.
Okay. The second one on Energy Management. You talked about increases in the production capacity in the recent quarters and month. Are you still, like, capacity constrained? If so, when you think you have some headroom also in the capacity, or in other words, where do you see the ramp-up in capacity production?
This is the most critical question. Nobody knows, to answer it based to your question, we have adjusted, first of all, our production capacity down to our needs in the first and second quarter, that we are able to deliver on our schedules. For the outlook for the second half of this year, we expect further volumes from this market segment, we want to be prepared for future growth, and if the growth is rising up faster than expected, we need to be prepared even more. Delivery is key in this segment. If you are able to deliver, you will participate also on growth trends, that's what we are discussing with our customer.
Therefore, we have started increasing our capacity. It's a step-by-step increase plan, and we can do this a couple of times in the future to be prepared for volumes which are coming.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you very much, Mr. Brach. The next question is from Johannes Rees. Mr. Rees, your line is open right now, please.
Yes, good morning. Also, maybe some questions to your business areas, end markets. First on Laser, you mentioned you have started a structuring process. Is this on top of your efficiency program you're already running? And maybe, is this sector loss-making at the moment, or is it still profitable?
Good morning, Mr. Rees. Thanks for your question. First of all, I need to outline, we have closed successfully our efficiency program, ttSprint , by end of this year. All the actions have been closed as we have planned them. These activities we have started new. As in the last year, we haven't expected that this crisis in the Laser and machine tool market is ongoing for an uncertain time. Therefore, we have decided to be prepared for an upcoming crisis or for a longer-term crisis in this segment. We see heavy headwind coming from China in some commodity areas from Laser. We see still a downturn in the German Laser market.
If you look to press releases from very big Laser customers, from the south of Germany, they also have adjusted their plannings, their outlook, as a consequence, we do the same. Hopefully, that answers the question. We wanna be prepared for everything which is coming. Regarding profitability, I don't wanna hide that we do not publish P&Ls from our divisions. Therefore, we can't comment on that. For sure, if we see that volume is quite less, also, we are not happy with the profitability as it is on a lower level than we have expected that.
Maybe, if you don't give exact, or absolute figures, maybe you can give us a ranking of the profitability of the five sectors.
Nice try, let's keep it as we have always done it. We are happy with all the rest, but if market conditions, top line is going significantly down, everybody can make the math for themselves. The margin situation is affected as well. That's for sure the problem. In the top three market divisions, as we said, we are growing pretty well. Health Analytics by 44%, Energy Management double digits, Print 8%. We are quite happy also with the margin situation. Plastics is recovering a little bit. We are also okay with, but Laser simple math behind.
Maybe, you mentioned it just, you can give us also some more maybe background about the recovery in Plastics. Well, where you have maybe seen a recovery and why, and why you are so optimistic that before was a maybe a catch-up sale, huh?
We are not very optimistic, to be precise, for the fourth quarter.
We see some positive momentum, which we see in discussions with our customers. The quotes, projects we are quoting are becoming more and more precise. There are some fundings From the government, which we expect for energy efficiency to come. There are some positive effects in the construction industry which may help us or which may help the industry. The trend in the plastics industry is that it may relax in quarter four or Q1 of next year. Again, as I said, we can feel and see that in the discussions.
We haven't received the orders for those trends, therefore we are conservative with our outlook and we've named it quite stable for the third quarter, for example.
More on the positive areas, Print, developing very nice. It's much stronger than we have originally thought in, you know, midterm ambitions or targets. Maybe also on this new partnership you announced with Windmöller & Hölscher, I think there is no impact in the figures we have seen even on Q2. Could it also be an additional driver, say, for the second half already?
Yes, for sure. The contract with Windmöller & Hölscher will become effective second half and beyond. This is indeed not significantly seen in the second quarter as the development in Print is quite satisfying for us. As I said, mainly driven by packaging Print in various application, even if it's in the flexo Print area with Windmöller & Hölscher or in the traditional Print area for the food or for general for the packaging industry. Those are trends who continue to develop also in the future. This is the main area of focus for the whole Print industry, and we are happy to participate on this trend as well.
Great. Maybe on Energy Management, on data centers again. It looks like picking up also you're building the capacity a little bit slower than you originally or your partner had maybe forecasted especially. What is the reason for this? Has it depended that you have not maybe the capacity for larger maybe projects, you have now delivered? Or is it that the customer of your customer is a little bit holding back, or what are the reason? Is it, But it's only a push out, it's not maybe set some opportunities what your partner is seeing getting slower or lower ?
First of all, we are quite happy with the development of our data center business. We have started just, as you know, from scratch a year ago, every month is progress. We have built up lines for this, which we now have increased. We are continuing increasing those lines step by step to be able to deliver on plan. The general trend in this area is down to big decisions for hyperscalers, it takes a while to make those decision as power consumption, for example, is a big differentiation.
If you speak about hyperscalers, finally you need the power for those hyperscalers as well. I think we spoke about that also in one of the last calls. Maybe you need a special power station, atomic power station, for those hyperscalers. You can't build those within half a year. The big boost of liquid cooling for data centers will become effective if the decision is made how to provide power for those hyperscalers. In between, we speak about medium size co-location data centers and enterprise data centers.
On those, we are very successful and participate on those volumes together with our partner in the U.S., and this is running according to plan, and we hope to announce also a bigger program in the future, but nobody knows exactly the inflection point when it comes to reality.
Okay.
It will come. It's a question of if, it's a question of time.
Okay. Still a very huge opportunity. Super. Thanks a lot.
A very huge opportunity indeed. Thank you, Mr. Rees, for your question.
Yes. Thanks, also from my side, Mr. Rees. Currently I do not see another raised hand, so I would like to turn to some written questions we received by Stefan Michael. First question: What impact will a U.S. import tariff of 15% have on your competitive position and business potential in the U.S.?
Thank you, Mr. Michael, for this question. We have expected this based on the latest discussions. As I have outlined in my last speech for the Q1, we have an direct business with America or Americas around about on a level of 10%. If we turn it down to direct customers in the U.S. for Technotrans, it's less than 10%, it's in between 5%-10%. We are able to pass all our extra costs and tariffs to our customer as it's mainly spare part and service business. For the rest of the Technology business, of the serial productions, we have Ex Works contracts. That means we are sending the parts not by ourselves to the U.S. Have to do the tariff and customs work.
We are delivering it to the door of our factory, the customer is picking up and is dealing with the tariff. That's a very low impact for Technotrans. The indirect impact I've outlined in the speech earlier in this call. The indirect impact is very, very indifferent and critical to foresee, as most of our customers have business with the U.S. and we don't know exactly how this impact Technotrans. At the end of the day, direct impact, quite low, almost nothing. The indirect impact can be a little bit higher, but we can't foresee it in detail at the moment.
Thank you, Michael. next question by Mr. Michael. What factors were responsible for the decline in revenue in the Services segment in Q2? Can the segment return to growth in H2?
First of all, we have a very stable revenue in services. It differs of around about half a million by quarter, if ever. In this second quarter, we saw a slight downturn from Q1, mainly driven by big installations projects, which have moved in the next quarter or by economic effects, where customer have decided to reduce their service activities. Looking into the future, we are not concerned about this. It will be stable for the rest of the year. The forecast will be around that level. There are no signals to be concerned that revenue and service will not catch up to the volume we are able to provide also in the last quarters.
Thank you. Next question by Mr. Michael. Has the positive sales trend of Q2 in the focus market of Plastics continued in Q3 to date?
Well, yes, to Q3 will be stable on the same level as in Q3. At the moment, we have just the first months running in the third quarter, but it looks like that we see a stabilized Plastics business for the third quarter.
Thank you. The last question by Mr. Michael. Can you name the positive earnings contribution of ttSprint in the first half and give an outlook for the second half, please?
Let me please answer this question. The positive effect from ttSprint amounts approximately EUR 3.5 million for the full year. 50% of this amounts are already considered in the first half, and the remaining 50% refer to the second half of 2025.
Okay. Thanks, Natascha.
I have to add one comment. The saving effect is partly offset by a general salary increase to our employees, and we had to increase the headcount in the blue area section due to the higher sales volume.
Thank you very much. Currently, I see Mr. Rees, your hand is still there. Do you have another question?
Oh, sorry. To reset my hand. Thanks a lot.
Okay, you're welcome. As I do not see any more raised hands and any more written questions, Are there some questions left? Okay, this is not the case. Please let me hand back to our CEO, Michael Finger.
Yeah. Thanks for your questions. We are happy to answer all the questions. Even if some have left, please let us know. We also will answer them after the call. Our next event, as I mentioned, is the Capital Markets Day in Sassenberg on October 7th in the evening and 8th. We are happy to welcome you. Check your inbox again. We are happy to share our strategy 2030 on that date together with you. Our next reporting date is November 18th, where we will present the Q3 figures. That's the way forward for this year, despite the further road shows where we potentially will meet.
On behalf of Natascha, I'm happy to thank you for your continued support, trust and interest in Technotrans, and thanks for joining our call today and take care and goodbye.
Thank you. Goodbye.