Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the ElringKlinger AG Q3 2025 earnings conference call. I am Moira, the call's 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 a 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 is my pleasure to hand over to Thomas Jessulat, CEO. Please go ahead.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our earnings call for the third quarter of 2025. Also, on behalf of my colleague on the Board here, our CFO, Ms. Isabelle Damen. Today, I will start with some highlights also from a strategic perspective. My colleague Isabelle will walk you through the key results for Q3. With this publication, we reaffirm our guidance for 2025, as well as our medium-term outlook originally communicated in the annual report in March. As always, we will conclude the presentation with a Q&A session, and we look forward to addressing your questions. We advance the implementation of our Shape 30 transformation strategy as a top priority. Since its launch last year, we have made significant progress in reshaping the ElringKlinger Group and further measures and process. Another measure is the Streamline program, which aims to reduce personnel costs.
Initial savings are expected to take effect in 2026, with full savings realized by 2027. In addition, our organic sales performance during the first nine months of 2025 grew by 2.2% compared to the previous year, outperforming the European market, which recorded a decline of 1.7% over the same period. We're making significant progress in the field of e-mobility. Operations have started at our e-mobility hub, Americas, in Easley, South Carolina, which is in preparation for production ramp-up. At the same time, we're gearing up for production start also in China. After a phase of substantial investments, our CapEx level is expected to normalize to a more moderate level going forward. Shape 30 represents our roadmap for transforming the group, given the profound changes in our industry. Our transformation strategy is designed to improve profitability and cash flow.
We have already taken significant steps along this path, including the sale of two companies in the US and Switzerland, the discontinuation of the electric drive systems, and with a reinforced focus on profitable components. In this context, measures to strengthen the balance sheet have also been implemented. These actions are now complemented by a strict cost reduction plan. One of its elements is the streamline program, which targets at least EUR 30 million in global staff cost savings. Shaping the profile of the group summarizes one dimension of the Shape 30 activities. The other dimension encompasses the preparation for future growth based on the received nominations of the past quarters. In this context, we have successfully initiated the ramp-up of major e-mobility projects. Currently, we're completing the final steps for the start of production, focusing on cell contacting systems and battery components.
As part of the product transformation at ElringKlinger, we have made initial investments in production and space and equipment. At present, we're getting closer to the end of the investment cycle. Along this, we'll return to a more disciplined CapEx level according to our midterm target of 2%-4% of group sales. With having said this, now I hand over to my CFO colleague on the board, Ms. Isabelle Damen.
Thank you, Thomas. I will now provide you with some more details on our financial performance in the third quarter of 2025. At the first glance, the order intake appears to have declined by around 3%. However, we reported slight growth in organic terms compared to the prior year period. This is primarily due to the fact that last year's figures still included contributions amounting to EUR 21.1 million from the divested entities, which have not been part of the group since December 31, 2024. Despite the challenging market environment, we see a positive development in the underlying business. Organically, which means adjusted for the M&A effects and exchange rate development, order intake increased by EUR 16.6 million or 3.6% to EUR 477 million. The order backlog, representing customers' cumulative short-term call ops not yet realized, stood at EUR 1.1 billion at the end of the third quarter of 2025.
For comparison, the previous year's reporting period showed EUR 1.3 billion, a figure that still included the backlog from the two group entities divested, which amounts to EUR 136 million. Starting with the sales and organic change on slide number five. In a challenging market environment, ElringKlinger generated revenue of EUR 396 million in the third quarter of 2025, representing a year-on-year decline of 10% according to reported figures. Figures have been affected by M&A as well as FX for this quarter. The two entities in Switzerland and the United States had contributed revenue of EUR 34.1 million in the third quarter of 2024. This means the relevant basis for a year-on-year comparison will be EUR 407 million. Additionally, revenue was diluted by currency effects, equivalent to EUR 8.1 million.
All in all, when excluding currency and M&A effects, revenue declined organically by 0.6% in the third quarter of 2025, remaining at a relatively stable level compared to the previous year. While global automotive production in the third quarter was 4.4% higher than the prior year level, Europe, ElringKlinger's core market, posted only a modest increase of 1.2% in the third quarter, and Germany declined by 3.6%. When considering year-to-date sales figures, prior year's numbers included EUR 123 million from the divested entities. With this in mind, sales in the first three quarters of 2024 amounted to EUR 1.228 billion, in line with the first nine months of this year. When taking into account FX effects, organic sales even increased by 2.2% year-to-date. The global production market grew by 3.8% over the first nine months, mainly driven by China. ElringKlinger's core market, Europe, even contracted by 1.7% the first nine months.
This disparity underscores the challenging conditions in ElringKlinger's primary market, where limited momentum contrasts with stronger global trends. The sales mix presented on slide seven provides a more detailed breakdown of the factors behind organic sales. Within the segment breakdown, the original equipment segment remains the largest contributor, accounting for 66% of total group revenue, which corresponds to EUR 262 million in sales. Compared to the same quarter last year, revenue in this segment declined, mainly due to the divestment of the two entities in the United States and Switzerland, as well as ongoing challenging market conditions. Within the OE segment, e-mobility generated sales of EUR 26.3 million in the third quarter of 2025. This business unit is currently in a ramp-up phase for upcoming large-scale series orders, underlying its strategic importance for the group's transformation.
The divestment of the two entities has also been reflected in the decline in the metal forming and assembly technology business unit. The aftermarket segment continues its strong performance, increasing sales from EUR 32.8 million in Q3 2024 to EUR 37.4 million in the third quarter of 2025. Growth was achieved in the Asia-Pacific region, South America, and the rest of the world, while revenues in Europe and North America declined year-on-year. In addition to currency headwinds and a general weak market environment, the primary factor behind this trend was the divestment of the two entities in the United States and Switzerland. Adjusted EBITDA of the group declined to EUR 41.1 million compared to EUR 51.4 million in last year's third quarter. In Q3, adjusted EBIT reached EUR 21.2 million, corresponding to a margin of 5.4%, which is even above the full-year target of around 5%.
Adjustments totaling EUR 16.7 million almost exclusively relate to exceptional items from the streamline program to structurally reduce personnel costs in the context of the Shape 30 transformation strategy. Reported EBIT amounted to EUR 4.5 million, corresponding to a margin of 1.1%. This is a noticeable improvement to the same quarter last year when EBIT reported stood at EUR 35.2 million. Thanks to the strategic measures implemented as part of the company's transformation strategy, the group is well positioned to maintain a solid adjusted EBIT margin at a comparable high level. These actions refer to an EBIT improvement of EUR 4 million and created a more resilient foundation for sustainable performance, although it has been more than compensated in the third quarter by effects like tariffs totaling EUR 2 million or others amounting to EUR 2.7 million, such as ramp-up costs for the large-scale orders in South Carolina and China.
In addition, the release of provisions of EUR 1.1 million in Q3 2024 has to be considered. In the third quarter, the R&D ratio rose to 5.9%, while absolute R&D spending edged down year-on-year slightly from EUR 24 million to EUR 23.5 million. This keeps the company comfortable within its target range of 5%-6% of group revenue. In the third quarter of 2025, ElringKlinger reported net working capital of EUR 389 million. The corresponding ratio stood at 23.2%, bringing the group to its short and medium-term goal of maintaining the figure below 25%. This development highlights ongoing initiatives to improve capital efficiency and enhance operational flexibility in parallel to sales activities relating to the ramp-up. Following elevated expenditures around the turn of the year in Q4 2024 and Q1 2025, CapEx has been lowered in the second quarter.
As anticipated, this figure was quite stable in absolute numbers in Q3, with CapEx at EUR 27.8 million and a CapEx ratio of 7%. It is expected to lower this level starting next year and realize a CapEx ratio level of around 2%-4% in the midterm at large. Regarding the cash flow in the third quarter in 2025, the group maintained a positive level of performance as in Q2 and achieved an operating free cash flow of EUR 18 million. This underscores the continued benefit of disciplined financial management and the sustained impact of working capital measures, even in a challenging market environment. It is the basis for reaching our target range of 1%-2% of sales with a strong fourth quarter as we had last year. This is what we are currently working hard on.
Net financial debt slightly increased to EUR 389 million, corresponding to a net debt-added-buy ratio of 2.2. Last but not least, group equity totaled EUR 653 million by the end of the third quarter of 2025, slightly below the EUR 659 million recorded at the close of Q2 2025. Coming to the segment performance on slide 11. In the third quarter of 2025, the OE segment generated sales of EUR 262 million. When comparing this to the prior year figure, it's important to account for a sales contribution of EUR 34.1 million from divested entities. The adjusted segment EBIT margin stood at minus 0.8%. The aftermarket segment is successfully advancing its growth strategy, delivering yet again a quarterly increase in revenue. In the third quarter of 2025, sales reached EUR 96.1 million, which implies a growth of 13.2% compared to a previous year's quarter.
With an adjusted EBIT margin of 18%, the segment once again delivered a strong level of profitability. The engineered plastics segment delivered a strong performance in its third quarter of 2025, supported by its broad and diversified industry mix. The segment recorded sales of EUR 37.4 million, marking an increase of EUR 4.6 million compared to the same quarter last year. With an improved adjusted EBIT margin of 13.4%, the segment demonstrated its resilience in a challenging market environment. Now I'll hand back to Thomas Jessulat for concluding words on the market and the outlook.
Thank you, Isabelle. Let us now turn our attention to the market expectations and the group's outlook. Let me quickly show you our agenda for Q4 and the upcoming quarters. We anticipate a weaker fourth quarter with regard to the markets, while the outlook for fiscal year 2026 suggests largely sideways movement on a global scale.
Against this backdrop, we'll continue to prepare for entering the sales cycle, strengthen profitable business areas, and continue to refine the group's profile to ensure sustainable performance. Our focus remains on our Shape 30 targets, which is increasing the group's profitability, particularly, of course, in the OE segment and sustainably generating cash flow. This is crucial to enhance the group's resilience and competitiveness. We are continuing the ramp-up of additional large-scale e-mobility projects, building on the progress achieved in previous quarters. Following a CapEx-intensive phase, capital expenditure will normalize from next year onwards and reach a disciplined level of 2%-4% in the medium term. At the same time, we maintain an elevated level of e-mobility sales supported by strong demand. Cash flow is projected to improve significantly in the fourth quarter, recovering from the weaker start in Q1.
Market dynamics remain uneven and are expected to persist into 2025. While global light vehicle production shows a positive trajectory overall, the regional picture is mixed. China continues to gain momentum with strong growth for the full year, whereas Europe and especially North America, ElringKlinger's main markets, are still struggling to recover. This contrast reflects the year-on-year development from 2024 to the forecast for 2025. Robust expansion in China is helping to cushion the impact of weaker demand in Europe and North America and therefore ensuring that global production maintains a stable growth path. We now turn our attention to the forecast for the fourth quarter of 2025. Current projections indicate a decline in light vehicle production across all regions during Q4, including Asia-Pacific, which has been the strongest region so far, with China as the main growth driver.
This anticipated slowdown highlights the high volatility that characterizes the automotive industry. Overall, the automotive market is showing a growth of 2% in 2025, while Europe is expected to face a decline of 1.8% over the same period. I will close my comments with a remark on the outlook. Despite this short-term moderation of markets, we remain committed to our strategic targets and are preparing for the next growth cycle driven by serious production orders, particularly in the e-mobility segment. Against a volatile backdrop, we confirm the outlook published in the fiscal year 2024 annual report, including organic sales at prior year levels, an adjusted EBIT margin of around 5%, and operating free cash flow between approximately 1% and 3% of revenue. Based on our strategic measures, we aim for a midterm adjusted EBIT margin range of approximately 7%-8%.
With having said this, Isabelle Dambach and I are now ready to answer your questions.
We will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone 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. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Marc René Tonn from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. Basically, three, if I may.
The first one would be on the e-mobility sales outlook for the fourth quarter as you are now ramping up for the new orders which are coming into production at your customer. Can you give us some indication when we should expect the top-line contribution to be more pronounced on your side? Will it already be Q4? Is it more beginning of next year? That would be the first question. The second one would be on special items, whether we should expect any additional restructuring expenses for the fourth quarter between adjusted EBIT and the EBIT line.
Lastly, on EKPO, when I look at your, let's say, on the minorities line, I think it's minus EUR 2.5 million, if I'm not mistaken, for the third quarter, minus EUR 5.5 million for the first nine months, basically representing about, let's say, 40% of the net profit or net loss in this case of that business. Obviously, a large drain on your operating performance when we're looking at EBIT. Do you expect any improvement on that side going forward, or what could be potential measures to, let's say, stabilize or improve the situation on that side? Thank you.
Thank you for your question, Marc. Sorry, Marc. I lost my voice a bit. I'll answer the second question for you.
If we expect some special items in Q4, as we are still in transition, we might still expect some—and we're not completely through with our plans yet—so we might still expect some impact in the first quarter of our restructuring measures.
Okay. On the e-mobility sales, for the fourth quarter, step by step, we'll be ramping up. At the same time, it's not so sure if it is showing significantly. It'll show, I'm sure, but it will not—in Q4, it will not be showing significantly as a contribution. Certainly, starting from next year on, the expectation is that we'll see top-line growing in regard to e-mobility sales. Okay. Third question from your side on EKPO. There is a lot of activity that we have right now in regard to cost reduction as part of our global, of course, cost reduction measures.
We would expect that we have some good progress here between Q4 and Q1 next year. In fact, it is still in a startup loss-making situation here, EKPO, but also here, we are working on reductions in order to minimize the impact here to the EK group. Is that answering your question?
It does. It does. Just one quick follow-up, if I may. Could you—and not related to that—could you remind us on the incremental increase of net indebtedness from the IFRS 16 accounting for what we have to expect for the fourth quarter from the US facility?
Yes. When we look at IFRS 16 specifically, then we are at roughly EUR 90 million right now, which compares to EUR 47 million to previous year's quarter. The expectation for Q4 this year will be roughly a EUR 30 million addition. This is an estimation.
It is a mid-double-digit million euro figure, maybe a little bit less than EUR 40 million. This is the expectation that we have right now.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Michael Punzet from DZ Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, Michael Punzet. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. I have only one left with regard to your OE business. You are still in the red figures for Q3 on an adjusted base. Can you give us any kind of guidance when we could expect a positive run rate on a quarterly base? Is that a thing we could expect for 2026, or have we waited until 2027 when all the positive impacts from your cost reduction program came in?
Yeah. When we look at the year right now, we are in an expected frame in regard to the current results.
We are on the way with the streamline program. We are making progress here. That is having already some positive impact here, but not yet a full impact in terms of our activities here in 2025. Expectation is that we'll see if there's no negative impact from the market of some significant sort, that we'll see some impact here first half of next year also on the OE segment.
Okay. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press Star and one on your telephone. The next question comes from Tobias Willems from LBBW. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello. Good afternoon. Tobias Willems, LBBW. I have one question left regarding your company strategy and your reshaping programs. Will we see further divestments in the years ahead, let's say in 2026 and 2027, especially in the automotive segment? Thank you.
Yeah.
Thank you for your question. What to expect going forward? It is a continuation of the transformation path into 2026. We'll have also, like Isabelle has said, we'll have the expectation of some more adjustments, but adjustments are going to be getting smaller going forward compared to what we have seen in the past. We'll see in 2026, and we'll see the following. We'll see a reduction of the balance sheet size because we have quite a figure. It's a high double-digit figure right now on our balance sheet of items, tooling, equipment that will be sold off to customers. We'll see a reduction of balance sheet size in 2026, going into 2026. We'll also see an improvement of financial KPIs based on the impact of all the activities done in 2025.
That I would say is a very general comment that we have laid a lot of groundwork here for improvements that we expect to kick in in 2026. We also have to say that some items are still in process where it is, to some extent, uncertain if they have an impact in 2025 or beginning of 2026.
Okay. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Thomas Jessulat for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much for joining our Q3 conference call today. We truly appreciate your continued interest and support, and we look forward to meeting you either next week at our Capital Markets Day or during our next update when we present the full year figures.
Until then, we wish you all the best for the weeks ahead and a successful start into the new year. Stay safe, and we look forward to connecting with you again. Thank you very much.