Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Meyer Burger conference call. I am Sherry, the call's 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 Mr. Gunter Erfurt, CEO, and Mr. Manfred Häner, CFO of Meyer Burger Technology. Please go ahead, gentlemen.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and many thanks for participating in our early conference call today. As already mentioned, my name is Gunter Erfurt, and I am together with Manfred Häner, our new CFO, who joined Meyer Burger at the beginning of October. I trust that you have all received our press release this morning, and I would like to give you the opportunity during this call now to ask questions regarding the transformation program which we announced today. Before we start the Q&A session, let me briefly summarize for this call. Meyer Burger successfully returned to profitability in the first half of this year. This is an achievement that we are proud of. The same period also showed substantial market volatility in terms of customer demand for our PV products and solutions.
To a very large part, this is due to market conditions that we cannot directly influence, especially the well-known 531 announcement from the Chinese government. As a result of the volatile PV environment investment decisions by our customers have been delayed, which affected our incoming orders very substantially so far this year. On top, it has also affected the global PV market for wafer, cell, and module manufacturing. That means our customer base is more and more concentrating in China. That means for us that we need to further increase our proximity to those customers and increase our footprint in China. With our comprehensive and ambitious transformation program, which we announced today, we will reposition our standard PV business solutions to Asia. We will optimize our global production footprint, and we will streamline our G&A and support functions within the group.
Besides accelerating the move of production of our standard PV business to China, we will also move significant parts of our global sales and service functions to China, so far operated out of Thun in Switzerland. We are evaluating further outsourcing and cooperation partnership models for our mainstream business in order to localize design and manufacturing with the goal to reduce costs and safeguard margins. Besides this bold move to China for our standard PV business, we will refocus our R&D activities and increase our strategic focus on heterojunction, on SmartWire Connection Technology, but also on the next generation cell technologies. The details of each of these cornerstones are available in the press release you received. As market volatility is not expected to disappear, it is important that we continue to adapt our company structure to increase our robustness against this volatility and to safeguard our long-term profitability.
With this transformation program, we will become much leaner and more focused. Upon completion of this program, we expect our breakeven level at net earnings to be reached with a net sales volume of about CHF 200 million. About CHF 250 million, and a positive EBITDA impact of about EUR 25 million on an annual basis. We expect that three-quarters of these measures are implemented by end of next year. Today's announcement of the announced measures will result in a reduction of our workforce. The transformation program includes an overall reduction of about 100 employees worldwide. In addition to that, we will about up to 80 further position move by transfer of specific functions. This is partly within Europe, but the majority part will be from Europe to Asia as a result of expansion in that region.
Following the completion of the transformation program, Meyer Burger will have about 1,000 employees worldwide. Thun, which is our headquarters, is again affected most by this transformation program. The workforce in Thun will be reduced by another up to 90 employees. So after the completion of the program, the site in Thun will be at about 50 to 60 employees only, half of which will be R&D and the other half headquarter and commercial functions. Including the around 40 employees in Neuchâtel, we will have left around 100 employees in Switzerland. We are aware that these measures, once more, are very hard for our engaged employees. As in the past, we will implement the necessary measures in a manner that is as socially responsible as possible. With that, I would like to conclude my introduction part, and we are open now to 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 touchtone 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 to asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. Once again, to ask a question, please press star and one. The first question is from Patrick Hofer, Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. Quick question regarding PERC. I'm missing PERC in your press release. Are you actually moving away from this PERC technology, or are you simply preferring to focus on heterojunction? This would be my first question. The second is more about non-PV. Are you planning actually to strengthen your non-PV business here? Hopefully, you hear me, because I'm currently located on a small island.
Thank you, Patrick, for the questions. First of all, PERC is sub-summarized under our standard PV business, as this is now a mainstream business. We are also planning to move parts of production of PERC to China, as announced this morning. Just a general comment about the PERC, so that everybody is at the same level. Everybody knows that the demand from China is lower than usual. Nevertheless, around 15 gigawatts of PERC capacity was ordered this year, out of which we are slightly more, so five gigawatt, which is one-third. In the summer, half-year results call, I made it transparent that we lost one big order, one big account, which is Tongwei, and alone that order was seven gigawatts. Out of the rest, our market share is still more so 60%.
Our activities in PERC is positive, and we see now slightly customers coming back, slightly more activities back from China after the 531 event. Your next question was regarding non-PV. Indeed, non-PV business, this is something we plan to strengthen. This non-PV business so far is only good for about 15%. For a substantial change, we simply do not have the firepower. We are organically growing interesting areas in the non-PV field. We are also constantly checking on non-organic possibilities, small scale. If we have a chance for a small bolt-on acquisitions to strengthen our non-PV business, of course, we are open for that. I hope that answered your question.
Maybe a third question about your sales reps. You are saying that you are planning to move your sales reps more closely to customers, meaning being based probably mainly in China. Can you share some numbers about how many people will move? What will be the headcount you are expecting to have in terms of sales force in China? How much do you have currently in Switzerland? Just to have a bit more color in quantitative terms. Thank you.
What we will in total build up around 50 full-time equivalents in Asia. That includes also technology. We plan also to build up more technology competence in China. I mentioned that we will reduce workforce here in Thun by up to 90 employees. It's correct, the majority of that is service and global sales force, which is located here in Thun.
Okay. Thank you very much.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question is from Johannes Brinkmann, AWP. Please go ahead.
Changes in the executive board and in the board of directors are planned.
Sorry, I can't hear you.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yeah. Now it's okay.
Okay. You mentioned changes in the executive board and in the board of directors are planned. Can you give us a bit more color on that?
Sorry. Our focus right now is on stability and continuity. It's pretty demanding right now to start to implement this transformation program. It goes without saying that after implementation of the program, we will also adjust the management team, and also on board of directors level, but it's too premature now to address this topic.
Okay.
Next question is from Alessandro Taiana, UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking the time. Just one question from me. Can you elaborate a little on the one-off cash expense of EUR 11 million and a bit how you came to this number? What is exactly included in the EUR four million that you expect to spend this year? Thank you.
Good morning, this is Manfred. A big part of the costs we have in this program, the EUR 11 million we mentioned in the press release, is personnel related. We will have severance payments, we will have also the social plan, which was mentioned, and of course, also some costs for the transition of products to China. Those are the main factors of the EUR 11 million.
Okay. Thank you.
Welcome.
Next question is from Yves Turrettini, Fides Capital. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning. In your press release, you mentioned a sales level breakeven of EUR 250 million. At present we're far above that level. Could you confirm your guidance for this current year size? Does it mean that you are expecting next year a decline of sales or activity? Could you elaborate a bit about that?
Well, I'm not sure if I completely understood you. There was some echo. However, at one point I want to make clear that CHF 250 million net result break-even point does not indicate that we plan for only CHF 250 million in sales next year. This is only that north of CHF 250 million after implementation of the program will start to make a positive net result. I'm not sure if this already answered your question. If not, please, would you be so kind to repeat?
Yeah. You partly answered my question. Do you expect a sales decline next year?
We do not guide yet on sales for next year. Sorry. What we plan is for additional order intake, also some bigger orders for the remaining part of the year, and the level of backlog end of this year will give a strong indication of the sales level achievable for next year.
Okay. Thank you.
Once again, to ask a question, please press star and one. The next question is from Beat Köhler, InfraZeitung. Please go ahead.
Good morning. My question is, how long will it make sense to have Thun as a headquarters, with so little employees in Thun?
Well, I mean, little number of employees, I think 50, 60 employees, that's still substantial. There are many other companies where you have a head office of a similar size. That's still a substantial figure. There are no other plans at this point to move headquarters. As I mentioned also, one area of R&D activities will be left in Thun as well.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question is from Marty Grollemund, BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I have just a bit a question for the future. Have you any intention with that move to China, to maybe get a new main partner?
What we announced today is that we are evaluating outsourcing or cooperation partnership models for our standard PV products in the mainstream side. Yeah. That's as much as I can say at this point.
Thank you.
That was the last question.
Okay. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for participating during this call.
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