Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to today's conference call of Wacker Neuson on behalf of the release of our results for the first half year, 2022, published this morning. My name is Susanne Rizzo, Manager Investor Relations at Wacker Neuson. Thank you for taking the time today as Dr. Karl Tragl, our CEO, and Christoph Burkhard, our CFO, will lead you through this call. In the next 15 to 20 minutes, we will present to you in detail the most important events of the first half year from an operational and financial perspective, as well as the outlook for the year as a whole. Following this, we will then find sufficient time for a Q&A session. If you're not following today's call via the webcast, the presentation slides are also available for you for download at wackerneusongroup.com/investor-relations.
Before we start, please note that the entire call, including the Q&A session, will be recorded and made available publicly on our corporate website in the course of today. Now let's get going with today's session, and let me hand over to Karl Tragl and Christoph Burkhard.
Thank you, Susanne. Good afternoon, everybody. I'm Karl Tragl, and thanks as well from my side for attending our call today.
Good afternoon. This is Christoph Burkhard, and also thank you very much for taking the time for Wacker Neuson.
Ladies and gentlemen, the momentum at the beginning of 2022, which we had the pleasure of reporting in our Q1 call, continued into the second quarter. We can look back on a first half year of strong growth. The significant increase in revenue of around 16% in the first six months and 12% in the second quarter. If the dynamic development of our own order intake were so drastic, we would be confident that this positive trend would continue well beyond the current fiscal year. However, as you all know, the global political environment is now creating a considerable degree of imponderability and uncertainty in almost all areas of our daily lives. At the end of 2021, after a challenging but nevertheless successful year, we were still allowed to cautiously hope for an easing of the supply chain problems.
The Russian aggression war on Ukraine has not only abruptly dashed this hope, but has added to the challenges an escalating energy crisis in Europe and above all in Germany. In the first half year, we were only able to compensate for the persistently high material and transportation prices and the exploding energy costs through sales price increases in part and with a time lag. Continuing material bottlenecks resulted in machines that could not be completed and had to be reworked repeatedly. This impacted productivity and profitability of our plants. As a result, our earnings before interest and tax fell by 13%, and our EBIT margin reached 8.2%, a decline of 2.6 percentage points. Special times call for special action. The availability of raw materials and components ensuring production capability is right at the top of the daily to-do list.
This, together with increased demands in connection with our fundamentally very dynamic business development, led to an increase in our net working capital ratio to 30.6%, slightly above our strategic target ratio of 30% or less. Despite the understandable decline in our free cash flow and in view of the circumstances, we can be satisfied with our performance in the first half of the year. Let us now take a deeper look at our operational performance in the sales regions. As in the first quarter, the first half of the year also saw significant double-digit revenue growth across all regions. This underscores the fact that Wacker Neuson products enjoy a very high level of trust and demand worldwide. In Europe, our largest sales region, revenue rose by a good 12% in the first half of the year.
Once again, the strongest growth drivers here were our home market, Germany, and the two key European construction markets, UK and France, which also contributed double-digit growth. The still dynamic development of the construction industry was reflected here in strong demand for wheel loaders and dumpers. Our rental and service business also continued to develop well, as did our high-margin spare parts business. The group brands, Kramer and Weidemann, two specialists for compact equipment in the agricultural sector, once again performed disproportionately well. They grew almost 19% in the first half of the year and remain a key catalyst for our group sales. The Americas posted a full 28% increase in revenue across all sales channels. This trend remains unchanged even after adjustment for foreign exchange effects. The weakness of the euro against the dollar accounted for a good third of the increase.
Adjusted to this, the increase was still around 17%. This development was driven by great success in our efforts to further expand our network of authorized dealers. This places the growth of the Americas on a solid foundation and will ensure our success in the future. In Asia Pacific, the demand for our products in Australia continues to boom. The Southeast Asian markets and India were also developing well. On the other hand, we are confronted with a construction market in China that continues to contract. Strategically, however, we continue to benefit from our Chinese footprint with attractive cost structures in our plant in Pinghu. We are increasingly selling the machines we produce in China to traditional export markets such as Africa and South America. Overall, the APAC region increased sales by almost a third and contributes now around 4% to group sales.
Our strong organic growth and the steadily increasing global reach of Wacker Neuson are based on our commitment to shape the major trends of the construction equipment industry. As in almost every industry, the mega trends of digitalization and electrification are driving innovation in our markets. Wacker Neuson clearly sees itself as a pioneer and a technology leader in this development. As a further milestone in mid-May, we became a key partner in the Sequello joint venture alongside PORR Equipment Services and Umdas ch Group Ventures. Sequello is a platform for digitizing construction logistics processes. The digitalization of ordering, delivery, and billing processes offers our customers high added value, and we see great potential to create a comprehensive industry solution with Sequello. We are contributing with our know-how, expertise, and resources to the joint venture.
As an SAP-based platform, Sequello digitizes and simplifies processes along the entire value chain that were previously handled in paper form. Specifically, construction companies can, for example, digitally order concrete and bulk materials such as gravel or crushed stone from their suppliers. They will obtain a digital overview of the delivery schedule and carry out all entries up to invoice verification. The integration of further software modules, such as the rental of construction machinery and equipment into the platform, is planned. This will enable customers and suppliers to collaborate even more productively, digitize more processes, minimize error, and benefit from these savings. Sequello is used via a web application, but can also be integrated directly into the user's ERP systems.
For insights into the platform, as well as for a presentation of our new electric vibratory plates and of course, other machines in our product range, we would appreciate to welcome you to our stand at the upcoming bauma trade fair, which will take place in Munich from 24th to 30th of October. There, we will focus this year to a large extent, the presentation of our digital and electrical innovations. Another important cooperation has been announced by us in mid-June. We reached an agreement with John Deere Construction & Forestry Company, a subsidiary of the John Deere Group, on a long-term exclusive OEM supply contract for mini and compact excavators, including battery-powered machines. John Deere is one of the world's leading manufacturers of machinery for the agricultural, forestry, and construction industries. We have been collaborating with John Deere for some time already through our Kramer brand.
Through this strategic sales partnership for telescopic handlers and wheel loaders in the agricultural sector, we distribute Kramer-branded machines through the John Deere dealer network. In the new cooperation, we will develop excavators in accordance with John Deere's requirements, primarily for the North American market, and we will manufacture them at our plants in Menomonee Falls in the United States and in Linz in Austria. Sales will be made by John Deere under the John Deere brand. Our own comparable machines will remain unaffected by the cooperation and will continue to be offered to the market under the Wacker Neuson brand via our sales and distribution network. We expect the new cooperation to significantly accelerate our growth path in the medium term, with first contributions to sales and earnings in about 2-3 years' time.
We are currently planning investments in the low double-digit million EUR range for the corresponding expansion of production capacities in both plants, Menomonee Falls as well as in Linz. In addition to the purely commercial appeal of this cooperation, we see this agreement as further proof that Wacker Neuson is perceived worldwide as high quality partner to the construction industry, with our products meeting highest customer expectations. After sharing with you these two strategic highlights, I will hand over to you, Christoph, for a deep dive into further financials.
Thank you very much, Karl. Well, against the background of the multiple challenges we were confronted with during the first half year, we believe that we can still be satisfied with our performance. However, the challenges created by the general economic and political environment are not becoming less. I'm not telling you anything new here. The global pandemic, the steadily worsening energy crisis, the far above average capacity utilization in the transport sector and the associated price increases, supply chain problems and material bottlenecks, and of course, the war in Ukraine. As a result, input costs are still rising. Our logistics costs have multiplied in some cases, as can be seen here in the chart based on international container rates. Our material costs are still at a high level, and of course, the sharp rise in inflation will also have an impact on our personnel costs.
These are all factors negatively impacting our business performance and profitability. The fact that we can still halfway cope with all these challenges demands a maximum degree of flexibility from us and above all, from our employees. It's remarkable what our team has achieved here over the past six months. On a positive note, due to our good market positioning and the high quality of our products, we will be able to pass on part of these cost increases to the market through price increases. In addition, as part of our strict cost management, we have succeeded in continuously improving our operating cost structure. Now, as already mentioned by Karl at the beginning of the presentation, we recorded a significant increase in our net working capital in the first half year.
The reasons for this are, on the one hand, increased receivables, which stem from our dynamic business development. Furthermore, there was an increase in inventories of production-related input materials, which is necessary in the current environment of supply chain problems in order to fill as many as possible of our planned production slots. In addition, we recorded a significant increase in unfinished machines as a consequence of the strained supply chain situation. We continue to experience a big variety of missing parts, basically on a day-by-day basis. This altogether caused further negative free cash flow amounting in total to EUR -124 million, and a net working capital ratio of 30.6%, which is slightly above our target of 30%.
In line with our overall view on the expected developments in the second half of the year, we are confident to stay at or below our target level of 30% net working capital at the end of the year. Now looking at our net debt and leverage, EUR 211 million of net debt and a debt to EBITDA ratio of 0.7 at the end of June represent continuing strong and very solid financial levels of the Wacker Neuson Group. Just recently, we were able to strengthen our financial base by reaching agreements with our core partner banks on a long-term committed credit line at attractive conditions. Accordingly, our existing credit lines were extended from EUR 150 million to EUR 300 million.
Wacker Neuson therefore remains well prepared in the current volatile environment to leverage all the opportunities that still exist in the markets to continue on its growth path. With all this information at hand, let me finally elaborate on our outlook for the full year 2022. As already mentioned earlier by Karl, the general mood in the European construction equipment sector remains at a high level. At the same time, however, there are growing concerns as to whether this will remain the case in the months and quarters ahead. Against the backdrop of the current economic and political risks, we too are therefore bracing ourselves for difficult times and prefer to be positively surprised in retrospect rather than being caught on the wrong foot. At the moment, we can certainly draw some confidence from our significant order backlog.
In addition, being already halfway through the year, many of the imminent risks have either already materialized or have become more visible concerning the remainder of the year. On the other hand, and despite the fact that we have been relentlessly and quite successfully working on implementing price increases, there are certain limits to our ability to pass on price increases to our customers. Now, balancing those two effects and assessing the likelihood of the remaining risks and opportunities for H2 has led us to the following conclusions. In view of the continuing strong demand, we expect sales of between EUR 1.9 billion and EUR 2.1 billion for the full year. However, the difficult supply chain situation and continuing pressure on prices for materials, energy and transport will most likely continue to have a negative impact on our earnings performance in the second half of the year.
On the other hand, price increases implemented from the third quarter will have a positive effect on our profitability. As a consequence, taking into account the course of the business to date, the prevailing conditions and the opportunities and risks arising for the Wacker Neuson Group, we have narrowed our EBIT margin corridor for 2022. We are guiding now an EBIT margin between 9% and 10% instead of the previous 9%-10.5%. With this, we would like to open the Q&A session.
I would like to hand over to the operator to explain the Q&A procedure.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions only. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from the line of Charlotte Friedrichs from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one would be, if you could please give us the split, volume versus price, now for the second quarter or, first half year. The second question would be around the outlook for H2. How much of an uplift to the gross margin are you expecting here from price increases that you mentioned taking effect from Q3 onwards? Thank you.
I'm speaking here. Could you please explain the first part of the question? Volume and price. Could you please explain that?
Your revenue, what was the split between volume growth and price increases that you've seen in the first half or second quarter?
I guess we need to take it from the price increases that we have recorded so far. I think you can calculate about 12% on the revenue H1 due to price increases.
Understood. Thank you.
Charlotte, what was the question about the second half of the year?
Basically for us to understand what the moving parts are, what you expect for the gross margin OpEx in the second half of the year.
I mean, I just can say as much that as we will see an increase in our gross profit, because the first percent were not affecting the total volume, but it was just on the list prices, on the individual model prices. The more time we have in the year, the more of that we can implement. This will increase. On the other hand, we are confident that we will battle them on the cost side and the material cost side. This will give us room for increasing the cost of it.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Alexander Galitsa from Hauck & Aufhäuser. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. I'd like to ask on free cash flow. After first half of the year, you're down EUR 120 million. Could you just confirm that you would expect to be around about breakeven or even positive for the full year? 'Cause if I look at it correctly, your net working capital guidance implies quite a significant release in the second half. Obviously second half should be at least as strong as the first one. Yeah, that pretty much puts you well into the positive territory for the full year.
Alexander, yeah, Christoph here. Well, you know that we are not guiding free cash flow, but I would certainly confirm that we will see an improvement on the free cash flow side towards the end of the year. I cannot confirm here that we will get into positive territory. I think that's rather a steep call. It remains to be seen because, well, you know that the increase in working capital of course is one of the main factors that influence the free cash flow. Yes, we will become better, but against the background of the current supply situation, and as we have just explained, we will of course prioritize our ability to produce.
Certainly we will, you know, as mentioned, we will strive to get below 30%, but I cannot confirm that it will be of a dimension that we will get into positive territory with free cash flow. This really remains to be seen.
Fair enough. May I just follow up on, related to this in terms of CapEx for the second half of the year, how do you expect the phasing to pan out, first half versus second half? Is second half gonna be heavier on CapEx or not necessarily?
Definitely, yes. We were a bit slower during the first six months of the year with respect to CapEx spending, which kind of is kind of a not surprising pattern, so to say. We will see more in the second half proportionally.
Okay. Thank you. Then, my second question, to come back again to the gross margin development. First half of the year, you basically lost 4 percentage points relative to last year. As we look into the second half input costs somewhat normalize your price increases obviously will benefit you. What's your thinking around the second half gross margin? Where do you think you might end up relative to the first half of 23.4% that we've seen?
I mean, I'm Karl speaking here. We do not guide gross margins. I just can repeat what I said beforehand. The German body share, which is we get into a positive area, so we will make up part or a portion of this 4%. That's all we can say at the moment.
Okay. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one. We have a follow-up question from the line of Charlotte
Hello. Thank you for taking this one as well. The question would be if you can give us an update as well on whether you've had any additional price increases now, compared to the roughly 12% that you had in the first half. Did you have more coming through now in second half, and how much would that be? And then, another question on the Americas region, can you give us a bit of an idea here, about how you expect 2023, et cetera, to develop given the infrastructure projects that are being kicked off at the moment? Thank you.
Charlotte, let me start with the pricing question. What you will see now in the second half in addition to what we have been doing and implementing during the first half is the energy surcharge, largely. The 4% on top, this is the main component that comes on top because the list price increases have already been implemented.
Okay.
The second question was about infrastructure in the U.S.
Yep.
Well, we do believe. I mean, you know that the US currently is, anyway, in terms of growth, the strongest market already. We would rather think that this is a further support factor, yeah, of the already strong sentiment in the US.
Okay. Thank you very much.
The next follow-up is from the line of Alexander. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Could you update us on the John Deere partnership in agriculture, in terms of how well this partnership has been sort of rolled out and, how much more room do you see there in terms of, sort of penetrating the dealer network, or has it been pretty much, already accomplished?
Okay. Karl speaking here. First of all, as everybody, I just want to remind you that the difference between the new one and the Kramer one is that we sell under the Kramer brand directly to the John Deere dealer network in agriculture in Europe. There we have converted more than 90% of the dealers in 2021 already from other brands to Kramer on telehandlers and the other products. We have strong position there now, and we will see growth coming from that. Not growth by adding dealers, but just growth by growing with those dealers. We perceive this as a very, very successful partnership.
Okay. Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time.
Okay. If there are no further questions, then thank you all for your time and interest, and have a great day. Bye-bye.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.