Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Good morning, and welcome to the Meyer Burger Technology AG conference call regarding the half-year figures of 2024. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. So let me now turn the floor over to Franz Richter, Executive Chairman.
Yeah, thank you very much, and good morning, everybody. I'm Franz Richter, Executive Chairman of Meyer Burger since a couple of weeks, and we are right now working on, again, a transition through these right now a little bit difficult times. Today we report about the half-year figures, which we published yesterday late tonight, and we will go through a presentation. Together with me here is Martin Jeschke from the finance team, so if there are questions afterwards for the number part, he will be available to answer those questions. So we talk about the half-year report, and we talk about, of course, about the market, business, financial statement, and then probably most interesting, the outlook. How do we see our time, and how do we see our business going forward? But let's start with the market and business review.
A little bit of chronology of the events since the beginning of this year. It started in January. We prepared the company to close module production in Germany to really eliminate losses. We had the ramp of the installation of the module production in the States, and so the decision was made that we prepare if the market doesn't pick up, and we are not really selling in Europe and Germany. We were ready to close, and that happened then in March. In March, we decided and closed the module production in Freiberg in Saxony. And as you know, there are two parts in the solar module production, the solar cell itself, which is done in Thalheim, which is north of Leipzig. There we have the solar cell production and the module production, where the cells are integrated into modules.
That was closed in Freiberg and transferred to the States to Phoenix in Arizona. And in April, we had decided to build the cell production in Colorado Springs, and of course, a significant increase. There was a steep ramp from this 1.4 GW in Thalheim production we have in Thalheim to another 2 GW in Colorado Springs. And in June, probably it will be, of course, then also ramp the module production in Arizona.
In April, we had the rights issue to finance the Colorado Springs investment with a rights issue of CHF 206 million. That was successfully accomplished. But then as we went further, and due to the significant price increase in infrastructure in August, we had to decide that and to recognize that the finance was not really viable. We had issues, as I said, with price increases. We couldn't really carry over costs to the market, to customers.
So finally, we had to accept that that project with the cell production in Colorado Springs was not possible. And hence, we had to restructure. And in September, we had to come up with a new plan and how to work from there on. What we did basically was then that we decided to refocus on basically, as I call it, refocus on what we have. On the left-hand side, you see the initial U.S.-only production. So that was the plan that we would, as there's a lack of support in political support in Europe, we had the plan to transition completely to the U.S., at least with the module, and had the cell manufacturing in Colorado, module production in Phoenix.
As I said, price increases, Chinese competition, so the tariffs which we had to pay for wafers to get from China into the U.S., so that all didn't work out. Finally, we closed that and moved to a concept on the right-hand side where we do have the cell production in Germany, the existing cell production, that is what we have, and then also have the ramp of the module production in Phoenix, Arizona, and both together are complete, providing us a capacity of 1.4 GW. We have 1.4 GW cell production running in Thalheim already, so that is an existing production. It's well established and with good results. I will come to that in a minute, and the module capacity in Phoenix is in the ramp, and with that, we are with a 1.4 GW cell and module capacity going forward.
The rights offering, of course, now we can say what happened to the money, and of course, as I said, the intention was to finance Colorado Springs. From that rights offering, from the proceeds we received, about CHF 40 million went into the investment into Colorado. Of course, we also increased and ramped up the Phoenix module production, which we will continue to use, then we had CHF 70 million on the balance sheet, and some money went into the operations in Europe, so with this being said, now on the left-hand side, you see Colorado Springs, that red X, so we are discontinuing Colorado Springs, the cell production there, and of course, there are already prepayments, there are already equipment, there's already investments done, which are now sitting and will not be used.
Of course, we have to take write-offs on that, and we will come to that financial impact later on. However, those equipment are still there, and we will see going forward how we can, yeah, use out of these equipment and these assets, which are right now written down. So with this, we had to restructure the company. We are going through a restructuring process, and we engaged a restructuring advisor, external experts who guide us and help us and analyze, and basically then also audit the plan, the business plan going forward, that this is a viable plan. We have, in principle, the 1.4 GW production, which is already completely, or almost completely, not completely, but to a very high degree already sold in long-term contracts. That is a pretty stable business plan.
Of course, we have to look how we adjust our cost, our infrastructure here in Europe. That is what this restructuring program is showing, that we will reduce workforce significantly. We will have also cost-cutting or, let's say, cost-reduction measures with a short-term, short work, that is, short-time work in Germany is possible in Hohenstein-Ernstthal for the time being. Of course, we have to explore other additional revenues from other markets or from other markets, from other use of the equipment, of the technology. What we did change in 2020 from an equipment supplier to a cell and module manufacturer, we are now reopening to special, let's say, partners, not to all, to the whole market, but to partner in partnerships to use our equipment with the partners for that industry. As I said, focus on what we have.
We do have a very efficient, very much complete installed cell production in Thalheim, and you see here the three charts. On the left-hand side, the production volume, we are at plan, so that is 1.4 GW t hat is fully established. You see the yield. We are above the plan. This gray line is the yield planning over the time during that ramp-up. Of course, there's always room for optimization. That is why you see this gray line, straight line going upwards over time, but the reality is today we are above our plan numbers, and also the cell efficiency, we are above the plan, so that production is running at a very efficient, in a very efficient way, and so we can trust very much that we have a very stable production here. The module production in Phoenix, Arizona, or Goodyear, it's part of Phoenix.
We are ramping two lines. So the first line is in the ramp, and first modules are coming out. The second line will start ramping end of this year. So that in total, by about mid next year, third quarter, we will also here have the capacity of 1.4 GW then installed. There's a third line we had invested, which is right now also sitting there, which is not going into production as of today with our plans are. So again, these solar cells will come from Germany, from Thalheim, and will be integrated into modules in Phoenix. Also for the U.S. market, again, those modules still have a very high quality level. This is again certified by another test in the States. So we are from the start on, we are very high in quality.
And especially for these applications, where utility application, stability, temperature, moisture, hail resistance is very important for some areas. So that positioning works very well that we also in the States have positioned ourselves as the high-quality module producer, module provider for utility application. And especially in the U.S., very different from Europe, we do have support. There are different measures which help a lot. First of all, we do have long-term agreements with customers. And also during the last weeks, we got a lot of support with those customers and direct discussions. So they are very interested that there is a non-Chinese cell module production established in the U.S. So we get a lot of support also in terms of pricing, volume. And so therefore, we are pretty safe from the market.
We do have support measures from politics, the IRA, well-known other support mechanisms like the Forced Labor Prevention Act that we are a little bit more covered from unfair competition. And it's really then more direct, really competition in the market and not influenced by subsidies in other areas. So if we come to the financial statement, the numbers, of course, the first half here, those numbers are very much impacted by shrink of revenue. It was very difficult to sell modules here in Europe because we do not have any support from politics, from any measures. So we are very much facing a very low price competition from Chinese modules. And hence, our revenues went down significantly. It's very difficult to sell. We do sell in special applications. There are still some niche markets where our modules can be sold in Europe, but it's a very low volume.
And of course, also significant price concessions we have to make. Hence, the revenue in the first half year went down to below CHF 50 million. And also the EBITDA is basically, of course, because prices are low and we are not utilizing our production. So we are very much, yeah, selling product into stock and selling off the stock. And that only stopped after we stopped the production in Freiberg. And now we are selling off the stock here in Europe. And if you look to the EBIT, of course, there is a significant depreciation, significant write-offs. The module manufacturing in Freiberg, also the Colorado, the assets had to be written down. And also, as I said, we are selling our modules at lower price. That means also the modules, the inventory had to be adjusted. And as a consequence, of course, also net results are pretty negative.
If you look to a few key metrics for the first half year, the FTE numbers go down. We are reducing in sales force. And that is, as we said, also in the restructuring program from this half year, 1,050-1,100, that will go further down to about 850, 850. So there's significant further reduction in employees, number of employees. The cash looks here better because, of course, the capital increase, there was about CHF 206 million from the capital increase, but also significant losses reduced the cash. The inventories, as I said, are written down. PPE is also adjusted. There's a write-off one time until we come to this a little bit later. And hence, the equity went down exactly the same way because of the negative losses cuts into the equity. On the next slide, you see the bridge.
Most of the negative results are, of course, coming from one-time write-offs, one-time effects. So one-offs in the adjustment of inventories, you see it on the left-hand side. The EBITDA from operative EBITDA is -CHF 58 million, and the one-offs, another CHF 66 million. There are different on the right-hand side, you see the different elements there. Of course, the inventory adjustment provisions from contracts, we have to adapt that. Some impairments on prepayments, all this is accumulated in the CHF 66 million. Some ordinary depreciation, others, it is a smaller number. And then the reduction of useful lives, if you do not use the manufacturing model, of course, the inventory has to be written down. Another impairment on the cash-generating units because the prices are now differently. There was also some write-downs on that part. And then we have the intangibles and the assets in the U.S.
The inventory, the PP&E for Colorado, which is, of course, another significant write-down, and in total, it brings us the EBIT significantly to - 322, so that is, of course, a dramatic situation right now for the outlook. As I said before, we are facing a significant funding gap. The installation, the investments in the capacity increase in Colorado cannot be utilized. There are significant gaps. That in the upper double-digit range. Right now, we are in discussion and negotiations with bondholders. We have two bonds outstanding, 27, 29, and here, that is basically where we are in negotiations so that we get fresh money in, and in parallel to that, of course, we have to restructure the company as it was set up here, especially in Europe, where we had to basically a European company that has to be changed.
We have to adapt to the production, as I said, focus on what we have, this production, some R&D, but we have to restructure the whole company in a way that we can really, yeah, create that business based on this 1.4 GW capacity. So we expect, because of the negotiations with a group of bondholders, we expect that we will, within the next few days, unfortunately, we couldn't finalize this within the reporting timeframe until yesterday. So there's a little bit further discussions needed, but we are very positive that within the next days, or a few weeks, we will be able to report results here that we can close that gap. And then we look what is the future from that on. We then have a company basically based on 1.4 GW capacity cell and module.
For the first time since many, many years, we will have a business plan for the next four, five years, which has no funding gap at all anymore. That is the goal for the whole discussion we have right now, that we have to have a clear, fully funded business plan, which then gives us, provides us about CHF 350 million-CHF 400 million revenue with a CHF 70 million EBITDA number starting when we are fully ramped, full year, the first full year where we add capacity will be 2026. And then from then on, we will have a plan, we will have a business of CHF 350 million-CHF 400 million with CHF 70 million EBITDA. Of course, until then, we do have also time to sell off some assets we are not going to use anymore. For example, equipment lines in Freiberg, which is closed.
There is a value we have right now, very low values on our plans. But so the whole plan is created to provide stability, no open holes in the plan. So we will be able to really execute on that plan and to come to that business, as I said, the 1.4 GW, CHF 350 million-CHF 400 million revenue, and CHF 70 million EBITDA. So with this outlook, I am done with my presentation, and we are ready to take your questions. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, dear ladies and gentlemen. If you are dialed into the conference call and have a question for the speakers, please press nine, followed by the star key on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask a question. If you wish to cancel your question again, please press nine and star a second time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from Alessandro Foletti of Octavian. Over to you. Alessandro, please check if you're muted. We cannot hear you yet.
Yes. Good morning. Can you hear me now?
Good morning. Yeah.
Yes.
Yep. Good morning. Yes. Sorry for that. Thank you for taking my questions. First of all, I would like to wish you good luck and a lot of strength for the coming weeks and months. I have maybe two or three questions. The first one on the funding gap, how do you plan to close it?
As I said, we are right now in discussion with our bondholders because the bondholders, there are two bonds, outstanding convertible bonds, maturity is 2027, 2029, and we are in a final discussion with those bondholders, a group of bondholders, to restructure this to provide fresh money to the company to close that funding gap and then provide the going on with the business as I described, so that is basically the measure we have, and I want us to close that gap, so there will be no other. I don't see any other, so the stock market says there's no option, so we are not looking for any investors' money. We are working here with those bondholders to close that gap.
If I may, if you have outstanding bonds and you restructure, the pure restructuring of the bond does not bring additional cash, right? So you.
No, no, it brings additional cash.
Plans to step it up. Is that correct?
It's a restructuring. And as I said, the details will be published when we have that. But the consequence from that is that we will have fresh capital to the company, that we will close our gap, and then we can execute good on our plan. But the details will be disclosed when we are there.
Okay. And then the second one maybe on your inventory, part of it has been written down. But can you indicate of the modules that you have produced, and I believe they might be sitting in Germany, how much of that have you sold, and how much do you think you can still sell?
I mean, again, the plans there are about 200 megawatts sitting right in this inventory. We do sell those modules, and of course, we are continuing to sell, and there are also some changes. You see some political changes in the rules in Italy, and there are some projects where we still can sell that. That will take some time. There's always a problem if you sell very fast and you want to sell very fast, that has an impact on price. If you have a little bit more time, you can find those applications where you can get a better price, and that is also what happened, what we had with the discussion with bondholders, so we have to close that gap now to not, let's say, fire sale all the inventory we have right now, so that has to be done at the maximum value.
Okay. And then maybe I would have tomorrow, if I may, with your clients where you have off-take agreements and you will need to produce, as I understand, first modules this year already? How is it going with them? Are you in discussion with them as well? Are they sort of willing to support you to, I don't know, maybe increase their advances, for example, or give you more flexibility on our deliveries, etc.?
Of course. I mean, with them we are in discussion and ongoing discussion all the time. We do see significant support and strong support. As I mentioned before, there is an interest for having Meyer Burger in the market. That is obvious from all customers we have talked to. So there is a good support. Details, of course, we cannot talk about the details very much. But yeah, we do see that support and that continues.
So for the moment, the relations there are still, so to speak, on a green light?
Absolutely.
Okay. And then maybe my last question regarding your plans in Freiberg and in Colorado. Do you still have any running costs coming out of those?
No. I mean, this is, of course, there are some remaining costs. This is all covered by our business plan. That is all taken care of. And of course, that is now the question of negotiations, what to do, how to make use out of that. But as I said, this is a very conservative plan, which has been reviewed by an external organization so that we get a better trust level. And this is the biggest and the most important thing that we have to create.
We have a history. I mean, we have a history and we have to create more trust. Therefore, we have tried to come up with a very conservative plan that we can execute as we have planned. And those costs you have mentioned, which are still ongoing, there are some remaining costs in our plan. Of course, we are working on that to reduce that as much as possible.
Can you give an indication of what kind of cost is that?
No. No. I cannot. This is cost, for example, there's a rent, and then it's a question how do we get out of that contract. There is, of course, some material, which we cannot talk about the prices because we are in negotiations, and I think that is right now. We have to see when we finish that, and then we can open that.
But, maybe on the employee side, can you say if you're sort of far done with that or?
No. As I said, we are at 1,050. We have the plans to go down to 850. However, we also have to see, there is an increase in FTEs in the U.S., so we will have a little bit further decrease here in Europe. But also here, we first have to talk with the unions, with the organizations, and then I think first we will, if we have a plan established and in more detail defined, then we will talk to the people first.
All right. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you very much also from my side. At the moment, there are no more questions in the queue. So dear ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to state a question, please press nine and the star key. Muters can keep it now. One moment, please, for the next question. The combination to ask a question is nine and star. If you press it a second time, the question will be eliminated. So a new question just came in. It's from Andrea Infurna, Azimut. Oh, Andrea, please press nine star again. You just deleted your question. Let's wait a little bit more. Yes, there it is. Andrea, over to you.
Yes. Hello. Hello, everyone. And thank you for your time and your efforts. Just wanted to ask, please, this external advisor you have appointed for this new business plan, how much is the time we do have to expect in order to have some news regarding this? And let's say that the restructuring that you are doing with the convertible bondholders is just to, let's say, rely on a hypothetical new structure of the company. But is it possible to, let's say, ask which kind of guarantees you would like to give them at this stage? If it's participation in the equity, if it is something related to the pledge of certain assets, is it something that we could ask now, or it's probably also coming later after this advisor?
I mean, these are two elements. The restructuring advisor is independent from the restructuring of the bonds, first of all. I mean, we started that independently because when that business with Colorado, the cell manufacturing in the U.S., when that fell apart, we, of course, had to think about what to do, what is the plan, what can we do? Is it over, or do we have an opportunity? And again, my philosophy here was always let's focus on what we have. We do have a running production. We do have existing contracts. We do know our production capabilities, so we can make something out of that. But we needed to come up with a plan. What does it mean for the whole structure of the company? There is a significant impact, and it's a painful restructuring, but we have to go through to make the company survive.
The other part is the refinancing because there is a funding gap. We do have without external money, it's not nowhere that the company can survive. But the only source I can see right now is the existing bondholders. There is a discussion. I will not go into any details. Of course, there are consequences with that. The money normally is for free. But this provides us a base plan, 1.4 GW. That is only the base for stability, for a stable operation of the company. We do not plan in the finance right now that there are many opportunities. And of course, there are opportunities. We are the only Western-style cell manufacturer with quality. We do have IP. We do have written down assets. So there is significant upside potential. We will then work on to create a story for the market.
As soon as we have more clarity here, we can talk about that. At this point in time, I will not give any detailed information because these are running negotiations, and we would sabotage ourselves.
So yes, my point was more referred to the fact that, of course, you have to save each CHF 1 million more that you will pay in the rest expenses from now on. But my question was referred to the fact that, I mean, at this stage, I suppose that you would like to have an exit strategy with zero debt in the future, having a complete haircut of the bonds under this point of view. Because, I mean, the restructuring plan that you have to do with your advisor, of course, you cannot pay any interest at the moment. But the thing here is, are you going to do a haircut of the convertibles, or are you going to completely do 100% restructuring?
Again, I mean, as I said, the restructuring will be done anyhow. That is what we do to really get the company in a shape to focus on the production of 1.4 GW capacity. There are many other things. We will just focus on that because that is a stable plan going forward. And as I said, first time since years that we have no funding gap if we succeed in our discussion, which is the second part, with our bondholders. And here, we are in discussion to close that gap, that we are fully funded for the next years. And in detail, what we are doing there, that is not to be disclosed right now. That is part of our negotiation, and we can only talk when that is finished.
Okay. And when you say next weeks, in order to have an outcome from this restructuring, can you give us a bit more clear view on that regarding the restructuring of the bond and the advisor plan?
The restructuring, I mean, as I said, this is ongoing negotiations. I cannot give you an exact date. We will be very soon. That is what I'm personally convinced. We will have a result pretty soon without giving an exact date. But I'm convinced we will have a solution. And when we have that, we will then publish more details to what it means when we have it. But before we have anything, I'm not going to tell you anything what could be or should be or may be.
Okay. Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Thank you very much. Next question is a follow-up question of Alessandro Foletti Octavian. Over to you.
Yes. Thank you for taking my follow-up. I would like to ask you a question on your CapEx plans. But first, I would like to ask you, Mr. Richter, if you agree with me in the view that, let's say, in the last three, four, five years, your discipline on capital spending was not really very high, and this sort of contributed to bring the company in the situation we are now. Is that a fair view to say?
I mean, of course, obviously, you have plans. There are opportunities. You have to go after opportunities, and it's a decision you make at the time. Of course, if that works, everybody's happy, and then you look bright and great. If that does not work out for whatever reasons, then you look differently. No question about it. The only point is, I mean, what I can say, at no time, I would say there was a plan which was totally out of range. We had a lot of commitments from different sides, from policies. There were expectations. There were a lot of discussions. In the end, it didn't work out. Today, it's a little bit meaningless to see if to look back and say, "Well, we should have done something different here and there." Fine. Other people have to look at that.
But today, we have to look at what is possible. Do we have something? My personal feeling is we have a company which has a lot of hidden assets, which are, of course, right now undervalued. So if you come up with a stable business plan with CHF 400 million and CHF 70 million EBITDA, that looks different from what I see today, the market cap is. And that has a reason, exactly what you said. That is where we are right now. And now we look forward and see what can we build based on that, what we have.
Understood. Thank you for this question. On one point, I do disagree a little bit when you say that looking back is meaningless. It is true that it doesn't change anything. But the reason I'm asking about this is because when I look at your future plan, the CHF 300 million, CHF 70 million EBITDA, and particularly what you said about looking into potentially a situation where you have no funding gap, I believe personally that one of the key points will be that you then really bring this discipline on capital spending going forward, which is why I ask you about the past in order to learn for the future in this sense. Do you understand?
You are not talking to a 25-year-old boy. I'm now in the upper 60s, and I have made my experiences. And you're absolutely right. You always look back to learn something. That's fully okay. And that is, of course, what we do and what we did. But the time has changed. We are not looking for any steep expansion, steep growth, which is a different scenario. We are now very much down on the safe ground. And yes, of course, capital spending, and we have to do restructuring that needs discipline. That is also what we are focusing on right now. And we will execute on that. And that part, I agree with you that there is a discipline necessary, and we are set up to accomplish that.
Okay. Well, thank you very much. And again, I wish you good luck with your plan.
Thank you.
Thank you, Alessandro. The next question comes from Alessio Macaluso of Bloomberg. Over to you.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. Sorry if I missed this earlier, but is there any news regarding any sort of support from Germany given all the Chinese dumping?
No. That is no news. Again, if you base your business on what I call the safe plan, what we have, look what we have, I just say there is nothing. So it's meaningless to talk about, do we expect anything on support? We look at what is there, what do we have. If there are openings, if something opens up, we are happy to consider whatever that provides us. But our story is clearly focusing on the market in the U.S. and where solar is considered strategic. And think about all those countries with a high number of citizens, people, whether it's China, whether it's India, whether it's the U.S. Solar is seen as a strategic, important source for energy. It's the cheapest one.
And as I said, and I showed you in this presentation, there is an infrastructure. There is a support infrastructure in the U.S., and that is where we have to focus. If something else comes, fine, we will consider. But the focus is clearly the market in the U.S.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next, we have a follow-up question from Andrea Infurna, Azimut, again. Over to you, Andrea.
Thank you. Yeah. Thank you so much. Just another question because we remember very well last year when at this point in time, there were ongoing discussions with the German authorities regarding the subsidies that you had to get in order to go through. And looking at what you also presented before, I mean, it's clear that also this plan in the U.S. is also based on this IRA grant that you are going to receive. But again, we are here in a situation where we are kind of putting all our hopes in the hands of the government and of their decision. And looking at what is happening in the U.S., looking ahead for the election, what will become of the IRA? Do you have any kind of plan B in case this IRA will not be pursued and another failure from government subsidies again?
I mean, I really don't like to mention too much subsidies from the government. Yes, there is a support, which you can call it active support, that you gain something. What is more important is that unfair competition is prevented. For example, that you make clear there will be no modules, no products coming into the country which are not produced under fair conditions. That is something different. That is like also you see that in India, where they just have a duty for incoming products. That means if then all modules in the country like the U.S. are sold at a similar price and a cost structure, then we are very competitive. I mean, that is not that we are not competitive. We are not competitive if other people, other companies are subsidized or supported.
So therefore, first of all, the IRA is a contract which runs out in 2032, I guess. So those customers, and again, the biggest customer we have, it's U.S. companies. They are interested in having a non-Chinese production, a non-Chinese material and product in the States, and are willing to pay a higher price for that. And therefore, I think it's a very viable business model going forward as long as, let's say, unfair competition is prevented. I don't need subsidies for us. I need just to make sure that there's not an unfair competition killing our market.
Yeah. But you are going to receive CHF 0.07, no CHF 0.07 for the IRA, right? So if the IRA will stay in place, you can base your business plan on this. But given the fact that we are going to face this U.S. election, we do not know which will be the outcome. In the worst-case scenario, is there a plan B for the worst-case scenario?
Yeah. Absolutely. As I said, absolutely. Yeah. I mean, that is also why our customers are supporters. I mean, even supporters with more attractive pricing. I mean, there isn't a plan that we have a business also in the U.S. without the IRA money in the long run. And as I said, as long as the competitive products are not dumbed down and are not subsidized from other sources and then compete. That is what I think in the U.S. It's a very wide and widespread understanding that there should be not an unfair competition. Whether it's IRA or not, I don't care so much. But it's just to create a fair competition scenario. And that is what I expect going forward in the U.S. as well.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Next question comes from Manuel Rentsch , Schweizer Radio. Over to you.
Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. You announced today the job cuts of 200. You're going to cut jobs by 200. What does it mean for Thun? There are like 80 employees remaining in Thun. Are you going to cut further jobs in Thun? That's my first question. And the second question, you announced also selling of stock and so on. What about the headquarters in Thun? I don't remember. Would that be an option that you're selling buildings in Thun and rent it back, or have you done it already? What will be the consequences for the?
Yeah. Again, the whole restructuring is what we have in our plan are the high-level figures. What does it mean cost-wise? I mean, we do not have a discussion right now in detail where we do this, what that means, where will we have, which part. That is all in the phase of planning. I cannot talk about anything about that, what is done where we have three sites, in Switzerland, in Thun, in Neuchâtel, and then also Pasan, Neuchâtel. All this is right now in the plans. We look at all the options we have. But what that is needs to be discussed first internally and then also with the organizations, with the people. That is basically the way to go. I cannot give you any guarantee or also not a negative answer to that. That is we need to plan on that.
Okay. And the second question is, when I looked at financial, the money you have is like CHF 83 million at the end of September. Yes. How far are you getting the money? CHF 83 million is very few money. I know that you're in talks, of course, but it's a few time left.
As I said, we are well aware of what our money is. And believe me, I probably know a little bit more in detail than you know. But we are watching that. We are in discussion. All our discussion partners know about what the situation is. And we all work and talk and negotiate to find a solution to make the company survive. And again, I cannot and I don't want to really talk openly here about where we are within that negotiation that would undermine our position and would not be good.
Thank you and good luck for the talks also.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question is from Michael Falken , Tidan Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yeah. Hi. So in these negotiations with the bondholders, there's about CHF 360 million outstanding. How big of that outstanding converts are part of these discussions?
Again, no comment to the discussion. I mean, I apologize for really not being able to talk about in detail. That is part of the discussion that is discussed within many, many rounds. I mean, we have discussed and worked heavily over the last weeks. And yeah, unfortunately, we have to take a few more days. I would have been happy to have a result today already to talk openly about that. That's not possible. But I can just say everybody works towards a goal that will make that happen. That is what I'm convinced of. And then for that, we have to wait. Otherwise, I don't understand.
No, no. I realize that. But just to understand what proportion is represented in those negotiations, and will all convertible bondholders get the same opportunity to provide capital and be equally treated in that situation?
Again, we have financial advisors. The bondholders have financial advisors. They talk. And from my point of view, fully open whether it's a whole group, whether it's part of the group, that is not clear to me. That is what we cannot talk about.
Okay. Just as part of these negotiations and what they will receive in return for fresh capital, is that something you can talk about?
No. Again, let's wait a few more days. I fully understand the appetite on information. No doubt about it. I would like to have the information completely finalized and fixed. Otherwise, we would hurt our position and then would not be meaningful for us. I mean, let's wait a few more days, a few weeks. It will be pretty soon, but we have to postpone it to then. Otherwise, it's not meaningful. The bonds, as I said, there are two bonds in 2027, 2029 outstanding. We are talking the whole part of bonds we have outstanding, and that will be in a new structure. We will then describe when we have it.
Okay. Let me just ask in terms of the offtake agreements that are in place and the parties there. DESRI was willing to put in some CHF 20 million in the rights issue. Now, they didn't have to because they got fully funded anyway. Would they be a potential participant to provide liquidity?
We talked with all.
What are the uptake?
Again, also no comment on that. We talked with all parties involved, and there are different elements what we need. Of course, we need uptake. We need customers. We need financing. But again, everybody's included in discussions, but I will not talk about to what extent.
Okay. Fair enough, then just focusing on the EBITDA and the ramp. If you get the required funding gap closed and how the EBITDA ramps up, you mentioned that you should have the second line fully ramped mid-year 2025, and the plan calls for CHF 350 million-CHF 400 million in terms of revenue and a CHF 70 million EBITDA on a fully ramped basis. So if, per se, you would get it fully ramped, both lines producing modules end of June, would you have CHF 35 million EBITDA then for the second half of 2025? Do I understand that correctly?
Yeah, yeah. But I mean, you have to. This is not your concern. We have to look to the full year. The full year, I mean, when you're in a ramp, you first have cost to install to ramp that up, and you have only revenue the second part. I mean, we talk about that fully loaded year. It's CHF 70 million. And that ramp phase 2025 is fully covered by our planning, our finance plan.
So there is a very detailed. Again, we engage also that company looking at our plans now for, I think, three or four months. I mean, that is not just that somebody looks on a plan and then gives adjustment. So we are deeply involved. They are deeply involved in our planning. So to understand completely, that's all covered. We have a complete plan looking for the next three years. Therefore, you cannot cut it by half and say half of the year that comes first and second.
Yeah. That's okay.
Let you know that it's fully covered. That's the ramp which we are following. And yeah, that should work out.
Yeah. And then the previous potential funding sources that you were discussing when your previous CEO was discussing in terms of 45X tax credit to get that as a part of the funding package or the DOE potential loan, I guess the German export facilities is no longer considered. But those other two, the monetizing 45X tax credit and the DOE, what's the status on those? Have you completely put those to bed or what?
We have a program running which has just paused. We did not cancel anything. As I said, today, the first step is to have a safe base fundament for the business. That is 1.4 GW. But of course, I'm not looking at a company which stays there at 1.4 GW for the next four or five years, no growth, nothing. I mean, that's always what I've always said. If we just execute the plan, then we don't need management anymore. Then assistance could run the company because it's all planned. There are more opportunities. There are more opportunities where we probably then have to look at what does it mean. I'm just saying it will be very conservative. I'm much more looking to partner up with other companies. And if you look back to my career in the past, we always have worked with partners.
We're very successful in many cases where you join forces and grab that from the market, what is available, and we will not go back into high growth potential, which is completely depending on external financing sources of finance, which are not clearly on the table. I mean, less predictions, more look what is real, what is there, what is available, but options are available. That is what you said. Yeah, we have to look into that then.
Okay. No, that's fair. Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Thank you, Michael. At the moment, there are no more questions in the queue. So dear ladies and gentlemen, if you are having more questions for the speakers, please press nine and the star key now. One moment. Maybe there will be some more questions. Yes, from Eva Brandl, Bloomberg. Over to you, Eva.
Hi. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Yes. Okay. Cool. We saw that you had suspended covenants on a syndicated loan. Yeah. So you won't need to comply until the end of the year. And I was wondering, what's your current arrangement with the banks as it now looks like the structuring will be a little bit longer than expected?
No, I mean, as I said, all our obligations, all our arrangements are covered in the plan. It's in the discussion with all parties involved. And the plan will be there that works within the new setup. And of course, that will be put into the planning. And there is a schedule for the repayment. There is a schedule for what are the securities on that. And all this is covered as part of the discussion.
Okay.
Again, we have to talk about when we have the full signed documents on the table.
How much of a haircut do you envision the creditors need to take at this point?
Again, I would like to postpone that answer by a couple of days or a few weeks because that is nothing I can openly discuss. Of course, there is always an ideal way and less ideal. So we have to look. That is part of the negotiations. We cannot talk about that.
Okay. Then keep us updated, please.
We will do. As soon as we have something, we will let you know. It's in our interest to inform the market and to be open and to create more trust in the future because we execute on what we have planned and what we have published.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
At the moment, there are no more questions in the queue. So final call, nine star, please, if you have a question. Let's wait a couple more seconds. Yes, Michael Falken , Tidan Capital again, follow up.
Yeah. Sorry, I just had a follow-up. So on the basis of what you just said here, then it sounds like the proposal on the table is a separate some sort of a secured credit facility. Is that correct?
Again, let's wait for a couple of days. We are in the phase that we restructure all those elements we have from the bonds, secured loans that is covered by the plan. We will come up with a solution where all that is reflected. And let's say you could look at both ways. Keep everybody happy or disappoint nobody too much. I mean, it's a situation where the company is in a restructuring. We are running out of money if you do not close that. Everybody knows that. So everybody can lose. But everybody can also gain something and plan with a positive future. That is what we are looking for. That the company has a future, that the company can develop again. But we have to first clean up all the elements we have. And I will not talk about details here.
Okay. Fair enough. Thanks.
You're welcome.
Thank you. Dear ladies and gentlemen, so as there are no more questions in the queue, I'm closing the Q&A session now and hand the floor back over to the host.
Yeah. Thank you very much to everybody, especially for your interest, for your continuous interest in the company. And the only thing I can say at the end, so we all work very hard right now to go through this difficult time. And I hope that pretty soon we can inform you about what the results of these negotiations are. As I said, I'm very positive that we will have that in a few days or weeks, and we will come back to you. So thank you very much and have a good day.
The conference is no longer being recorded.