Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Cicor Half Year Report 2026 conference call and live webcast. I am Valentina, the 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's my pleasure to hand over to Alexander Hagemann, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your interest in Cicor, for your continued interest. Most of you have done this with us before, and I'm very happy that Peter Neumann, our CFO, and I can present results to you. Go to the next slide. First, I will give, as usual, some introduction and talk about some of the contents of the first half, whereas Peter will focus on the financial aspects. Now, most of you really do know Cicor very well. Therefore, I spare you of a large introduction, and I've summarized in one slide what is our ambition. Our ambition is to be the European leader in high-mix, low-volume electronic manufacturing services for advanced markets, which is aerospace, defense, medical and industrial. What you see on this slide is just where we stand right now.
You see over the past five years, you see 24% annual growth from 2020 - 2025. That was full year, including 6% organic growth, 19% M&A growth. Very important for us is that the EBITDA has grown faster than sales, 28% on average, with a margin increase from 9% - 10.5% in adjusted EBITDA margin. Today, Cicor is the only true Pan-European provider of electronic manufacturing services. We have access, we can address 70% of the European market. Extremely important for us as this provides us the ability to scale the business. We have grown last year 40% through the acquisitions. This is purely pro forma. This is not the reported sales number, revenue number.
This is pro forma, meaning that we have closed 2024 with CHF 480 million of sales, we have acquired businesses that in the last 12 months before closing of the transaction, done CHF 210 million in revenue. This 40% growth already indicates that we have behind us a period of transition and a transformational period. This is the theme that we are talking about for months now, that the last 12 months, from July 2025 to June 2026, indeed were a transformational period for Cicor. In the result, we are now number two in Europe in aerospace and defense markets, talking about last year, number three in healthcare technology. We are making progress in our ambition to become the European market leader. In the meantime, we are serving 11 countries with manufacturing footprint. Most importantly, seven countries in EMEA.
Go to the next slide where we can have a snapshot on the first half where it is most important. I think a question that we received a lot over the past months, obviously, what about organic growth? We have commented in Q1 on the effects that have dragged down our revenue, mostly issues in the supply chain. If I cannot say that these issues are overcome, we have been able to stabilize the situation and to return to organic growth in the second quarter. The almost 20% revenue growth, 19%, yes, it was for the complete first half, on the back of acquisitions with a flat organic development overall in the first half. Whereas Q1 was negative and organic, we already saw above 5% organic growth in Q2. That's what we have commented over the past few months.
We see that increasing momentum from the order book that is building. That is a very satisfying development that we see almost 40% order intake growth with the strongest contribution from Aerospace & Defence. That is very significant and it is not a single shot. This is a high book-to-bill rate that is pretty constant in the first half, and where the second quarter was the fifth consecutive quarter now above one. It is not a short-term element. It is not something that is driven by one or two or three programs only. This is a very broad acceleration of the business that you see in the book-to-bill rate. On the EBITDA margin, we will talk about that in detail.
It's clearly affected by our integration and productivity measures where however, I'll show you a slide in a minute, the integration program is really on track and largely completed. If we go on the next slide, we see how our revenue is split. Here we have a bit more detail that we are now providing with regards to our regions. Let's start on the left with our revenue by industry. The big growth engine was indeed Aerospace & Defence, with the share growing from 22% - 28% in our business. Overall, that was growing 19%. An enormous growth of the Aerospace & Defence business, that was both through acquisition, but also growing very well organically. The industrial and healthcare technology markets were also, in absolute terms, growing but losing in share. Obviously, they were growing significantly slower than Aerospace & Defence.
Organic growth was still a little negative in these two as we are coming in some countries out of an enormously poor economy. That leads us to the right, the revenue by region, where you see that in the U.K., now U.K. is 23% of sales and a much larger business after 24% last year. Continues to be the most important country for us, dominated by the Aerospace & Defence business that we are doing in the U.K. What you see here is that the U.K. sales development is overall organic. Switzerland, pretty stable. A pretty good situation. Cicor continues to be firmly rooted in the Swiss market.
In Switzerland, you hear a lot of reports from manufacturers out of semiconductor, out of building technology, and other markets, Cicor continues to support the backbone of Swiss industry with electronics manufacturing services as the Swiss leader in that market. A stable and good position reflecting on the totality of Swiss industry, which is recovering and getting much stronger. France, the share has increased. That is purely due to the full integration of Éolane, what used to be Éolane France, now Cicor France, where we integrated the business from the end of April last year. We are also seeing growth in that country. Germany is the weak spot in Cicor. You see a decline in sales share from 20% to 14%.
Also in absolute terms, you see a significant reduction in sales, which is partially borne by our German entities and partially by exports of, for example, from Asia into Germany, but also from Switzerland into Germany. We have taken the appropriate measures so that the profit margins are in line with our expectations, but as you can see, on a significantly lower basis. Let me also say, Germany is seeing some signs of recovery, and we see over the past few months a significantly increasing activity from customers in looking for new programs. Rest of EMEA. At Cicor, we are in quite a number of countries. We are very broad-based. We are in Spain, but we also have significant sales to Italy, to Sweden, to Romania, for example.
Asia-Pacific, good situation, has grown a little bit organically, has grown really on the back mostly of our strong medical business, and the same holds true for the Americas. Going to the next slide. I was commenting on Aerospace & Defence, and you see that growth. Whereas last year, the first half was held back by the delay of certain major programs. These programs have kicked in, especially in the U.K., and you see a more than 50%, almost 60% growth from 2025- 2026. Overall, over the past years, 46% annualized growth. 45%, sorry. 45% annualized growth. This is on the back both of acquisitions and with the strong platform that we have created, we are generating the organic growth. Share of revenue has increased to an all-time high.
Now it's 28% in Cicor Group, this is in line with our strategy where we want to see Aerospace & Defence becoming something like a third of overall business. Going to the next slide, please, where I want to comment a bit more on what we are doing with the businesses that we acquired in 2025. Peter will comment on the numbers and what we have done and how that affects us. What you can see is that we have acquired not only 40% top line on a pro forma basis, but also 12 sites. This is not only 40% more top line, it's also 40% more sites. Here it is extremely important for us that we have mostly implemented in a very fast manner a very disciplined execution of the integration measures.
Here I talk about the operational integration that drives the cost synergies and creates the platform for future organic growth. In Germany, for example, we have established a cluster between our Thuringia sites, which includes Profectus. We have consolidated the management organization. If you wish, we now manage Thuringia as one virtual factory, creating the synergies that we have but leaving the locations in place. In Éolane, we have focused on operational excellence, new customer and program wins, and I am very happy that we could announce new program wins, such as the win for the French railway sector, a major five-year program, which is contributing there. We are now doing, and we have completed second-round efficiency measures.
Within the 12 months after acquiring the businesses where most of the restructuring has taken place, now we have shaped and honed the efficiency and performance of the business and done additional measures. We have established Morocco as our main hub in North Africa. We operate in Romania a best-in-class, highly automated factory that produces at competitive cost. As a proper low-cost alternative, we offer North Africa. That site is now growing very fast and where we integrate not only Éolane, but we integrate also the Moroccan site from Valtronic, which is under the same roof as one of our existing sites. That has allowed us to divest of the Tunisia site because that site was subscale and significantly smaller than what we do in Morocco. That transaction has been completed a few weeks ago, as announced.
What we did with Mercury Systems was a very attractive scenario, where we have carved out the manufacturing operation in Switzerland. Typically, this comes at a comparably low purchase price. On the other hand, a carve-out requests strong measures to integrate the operations into our operation network. We have made enormous progress, despite some difficulties in transferring manufacturing from Switzerland to mostly our Newport, U.K. site and some were local Swiss manufacturers required to our Braunschweig site. That puts us in the position that as planned, we can close the Geneva site before the end of 2026. I mentioned the complexities of a carve-out, and of transferring a site, and that requests a lot of double effort. We were hiring a number of employees in Newport, especially, and had to keep the employees in Switzerland.
A lot of double expense, which is flowing into our EBITDA. Again, after some difficult start due to the technical complexities, we are now very well on track. I can report to you, having been on-site a few weeks ago, that the progress is absolutely amazing. While MADES, we are having a fantastic business. We acquired a business that standalone is very profitable, extremely well-connected to the Spanish defense industry, growing very fast and that actually did require a capacity expansion. Capacity expansion, we have done that already. That is a modest investment, meaning one additional assembly line that we have installed in Malaga to cope with the organic growth. That is very much coming from new customer wins. Kongsberg, which we announced earlier in the year, is one of those customers. An additional lot of cross-selling with our other large aerospace defense customers in Europe.
In Valtronic, what we wanted from Valtronic, we got. We wanted the capacity, the resources, both in Morocco, which I commented already, and the resources and a local manufacturing site in the U.S. We got that, and we have forcefully adapted the cost structures to the present business, which the former owner did not do, and now we have a very strong base to grow our business, both in Morocco, as I mentioned earlier, but also in the U.S. Go to the next slide, where I would very briefly want to talk about the divisions. EMS Division. Absolutely returning to organic growth in Q2. Good growth of the top line, 20%, of course, mostly driven by acquisitions. The EBITDA margin also below our targets, for the reasons already mentioned and widely explained. This is really due to the loss of efficiency during integration of the businesses.
Today, EMS is 95% of what we are doing. On the next slide, let me briefly talk about the AS Division. The AS Division has returned to organic growth. That is something which is already a positive. Despite the printed circuit boards business, mostly medical, continues to be affected by a soft market environment as sales are shifting into H2. The hybrid substrate business, on the other hand, is an extremely high demand, where we are talking mostly about Aerospace & Defence applications. On the downside, that is a lot of work that we put into that topic was the profitability being impacted by issues related to the ramp-up of capacity in Wangs.
We have faced, at the same time, not only the transfer of production from Germany after closing the factory last year, on top of that, the exponentially growing demand from our Aerospace & Defence customers. That has resulted in manufacturing issues, which have weighed on profitability significantly in the first few months, I can report that the actions that we have undertaken have been successful, over the past couple of months, we have seen significantly improved results. With that, I hand over to Peter, who will talk about the financial side.
Thanks a lot, Alexander. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Let me now lead you through some of the financial highlights. As usual, please let me start with a long-term view. Since the start of our growth strategy in 2021, we have delivered significant growth and profitability improvements. 2025 and 2026 profitability is diluted by the 2025 acquisitions and ongoing integration. Remember, these transactions came with very low purchase considerations and lower margins. As Alexander already mentioned, our integration efficiency program is largely implemented, it will deliver around CHF 10 million annualized savings going forward. Let's dive deeper into the key figures of the first half 2026. book-to-bill is strong at 1.2 for half year and has been above one since 5 quarters. Cicor achieved a new high in terms of absolute revenue with reported growth of 19%, reaching CHF 334 million of revenue.
Core driver was M&A in the first half, with +22.8% offset by negative FX of -3.8%. Cicor is also building up momentum in terms of organic growth with +5.3% in Q2 after a decline of 6% in Q1. EBITDA margin is impacted by the integration program. The margin dilution of the newly acquired companies will be decreasing moving forward. Free cash flow has been negative in the first half 2026 after two extremely strong years. Key reason is net working capital that increased ahead of with the growth accelerating and supply chain remaining fragile. This is the bridge between reported and adjusted EBITDA numbers. All of the 2026 adjustments are linked to the announced integration efficiency program. This includes the divestiture of the Tunisian facility and the consolidation of the two manufacturing sites in Berrechid, Morocco.
It also includes the final closure of the Ulm site in Germany, as well as a move of the tool making for plastic injection molding from Singapore to Indonesia. We have also used the opportunity to streamline hierarchical structures and take in target workforce reductions. Looking more at the progression versus last year on adjusted and reported basis. The light blue is adjusted reference in 2025. The white is adjusted in 2026, providing a comparable base. Dark blue are for perspective the reported numbers in 2026. Order intake up close to 40%, revenue growth 19%, with organic momentum picking up in Q2. EBITDA reduced in absolutely mainly due to the AS results. EBITDA margin diluted as we were integrating the 2025 transaction and executed various relocation capacity ramp-up programs. EBIT reduced to the mentioned lower EBITDA profitability, while D&A was stable as percentage.
Net profit reduced lower versus EBIT as we had less one-time FX hurts while maintaining a stable tax rate. Free cash flow, as mentioned, negative after the last two very strong years as organic momentum has been picking up and supply chain situation is fragile. Some perspective on the divisions as well. Let's start with EMS. EMS is now 95% of the group revenue, so really the vast majority of our business. EBITDA margin diluted by the 2025 acquisitions, integration costs, plus softness in the German market. The integration efficiency program, plus the ramping up of specific revenue programs or customer programs in A&D and medical will drive the EMS margin improvements moving forward. AS, it's only 5% of our group revenue. We have two technologies with different trends. Thin film really benefit from increased demand, but has invested into a capacity ramp-up in our site in Vance.
The PCB business was impacted by shifts in customer demand. This has led overall to an absolute EBITDA reduction of CHF 1 million and an EBITDA margin erosion. Looking on a group level at our adjusted income statement. Material expenses remained broadly unchanged, but the EBITDA margin dilution effect is coming from the explained effects in operating expenses. If you go into the non-adjusted income statement, you'll see it's really around the people cost. Depreciation amortization rate levels remain stable. We had, again, a one-time FX hurt of CHF 1 million as the Swiss franc was strengthening. The effect is lower versus last year where we had CHF 2.5 million. Tax rate, stable and relatively unchanged. This chart shows a more detailed revenue bridge. The major impact of CHF 64 million of the transaction beginning June 2025.
The first 12 months of revenue count into inorganic. June 2026 starts to, after the 13th month, starts to count into organic. It shows that moving forward, only the remaining months of Profectus and MADES will deliver M&A growth in the second half, the percentage impact of the inorganic will go down. Another point to mention is the negative FX impact of Swiss franc at close to CHF 11 million, as the Swiss franc, especially at the beginning of 2025, strengthened significantly versus pound, euro, and U.S. dollar. That is an average 3.8% negative for the first half. Same bridge for EBITDA. There you also see not only the bridge from adjusted last year to adjusted this year, but also reported. Acquisitions contributed an absolute CHF 1.6 million EBITDA. FX had a negative effect of CHF 1.2 million and the base organic a negative of CHF 1.5 million.
The CHF 3.3 million adjustment on EBITDA all linked to the one-time effects of the integration efficiency program. On the consolidated balance sheet, first, the equity ratio improved to 29.3% due to the delivered net profit as well as the more efficient treasury operations. You see later on that we have used excess cash to reduce our financial liabilities. Financial leverage is at CHF 1.3 million, we remain at a very low leverage and have significant headroom to continue further value creative access. Yes, cash flow statement. Let's now look at free cash flow, very important measure for us. I want to highlight especially the negative impact of working capital. You see here the minus CHF 22.1 million. I will explain on the specific more. That has been the driver, obviously, for the negative free cash flow of CHF 11.5 million.
One other point, we have used at the bottom, you see this CHF 29.7 million, around CHF 30 million cash, to reduce our financial liabilities. Clearly, on the net working capital herd, our priority in the second half is to convert the working capital buildup into cash as the expected sales ramp-up materialize and to deliver a clear improvement in free cash flow conversion. Net working capital as percentage of revenue significantly. At year-end 2025, we reached a new low with 2022 by increases in inventory and trade receivables. This is obviously driven by the accelerating business momentum. This is only partially offset by increases in trade payables. Return on invested capital remains for us a key measure as it nicely brings our strategy together. You can see that there is a large gap between adjusted and reported ROIC.
Obviously, the reported ROIC is due to the TT Electronics transaction write-off end of last year and the integration program, the CHF 3.3 million beginning EBITDA, beginning of this year, significantly suppressed short-term. The adjusted ROIC is down mainly to the reduction in EBIT, while invested capital, including the new acquired companies, has increased proportionally to its business size. The integration program, returning to historical EBITDA margin levels will drive a ROIC recovery. Key figures for share, no major changes. You will see that our number of outstanding shares remain mandatory convert with bond is by now converted into optional conversion period. Let's now dive into net profit and earnings per share. For 2026, we are at half year at similar levels at earnings per share with CHF 2.76 per share versus CHF 2.95 last year.
As per our EBITDA guidance, we expect a stronger EBITDA in the second half compared to 2025. That is obviously impacting then the total fiscal year guidance, and the sequential step up in terms of revenue and EBITDA from half one 2026 to half two 2026. On the left, you see the reported numbers as explained over the course of this presentation. On the right, you see what mathematically to achieve our fiscal year guidance you will require in the second half. You see a significant step up. The key drivers, let me start first, are obviously the 2025 acquisitions that are on a revenue side, are really improving sequentially. A large portion of this is driven by A&D program.
On top, we will see the ongoing savings of our integration program that you see then obviously as the revenue goes up, plus the integration program with the 2025 acquisitions are delivering significantly sequential EBITDA improvements. The second one is, we mentioned this on always in our guidance, we are phased towards second half in terms of the programs and the revenue ramping up. We have a very clear line of sight on A&D and medical programs where they're ramping up in the second half. This is really the second biggest building block because it obviously converts to significant adjusted EBITDA. Two smaller impacts, but are worthwhile to mention is, we have largely completed all our transfers and capacity ramp-up programs. We see the negative effect that we had in the first half, obviously, disappearing and going down and obviously improving into a sequential improvement.
Obviously, some of the supply chain long lead times that have led to an impact in the first half are coming then in the second half. Really, overall, we have clear line of sight on the step up and, hence, we have reconfirmed our guidance. With this, I hand over to Alexander for some more final business perspective on the outlook. Alexander, you're on mute.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much, Peter. Very helpful. What you can see, everybody, is really the amount of transformation that has taken place in Cicor over the 12 months. I am extremely pleased how my team has performed. It shows the strength of our decentral organization because the size of the program and the number of actions could not have been controlled by one headquarter. It is the strength of our teams around the world, but especially in France, in the U.K., in Germany, in Switzerland, that have been driving all these changes. As Peter has shown in his last slide, it is all about converting the scale that we now have into earnings. Our ambition is not only to be the European leader in high-mix, low-volume EMS services on a top line basis, but also on a profit basis.
As of now, we are very much complete with everything we wanted to do. It is more than 80% completion that we have. Very important, again, the divestiture of the Tunisia site, which, as we communicated earlier, has led to a lower six-digit loss. Avoided a significant restructuring charge while we were not only preserving the jobs for the employees, which have now found a new home, but also allowing us to do that without any restructuring. Looking forward, Peter has shown it all. It is a return to positive organic growth in Q2. It is something that we expect to continue. Peter's also said it. We have a clear line of sight. Pretty much all the orders are in the books for the second half, and that allows us to look at sequential growth. Second half over first half between 10%-25%.
That is a very wide margin, from 10%-25% growth. We also see, as you were seeing in one of the earlier charts from Peter, that this will be mostly organic. Why is this margin so wide? It is because the supply chains for critical components, especially in the Aerospace & Defence market, continues to be very tense. We have other and general supply chain issues. Everybody has heard about the shortage of memory chips and price escalation there. The real issue are components like basic printed circuit boards that have to be manufactured in Europe in an environment where capacities are constrained. A wide gap, it is all about execution and the ability of our supply chain teams to secure the material required. That leads to the expected revenue CHF 700 million-CHF 750 million and adjusted EBITDA of CHF 70 million-CHF 80 million.
We can tell you today that we feel comfortable in confirming that guidance for the full year. Of course, it assumes, now talking about stable geopolitical situation is maybe not the right word, but assuming a geopolitical situation that is not further deteriorating over what we see today. Of course, we have always the overall economic situation and the forward special Swiss franc as a disclaimer here. With that, thank you very much. Thanks for your interest. Let's open the mic for 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 telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered a queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Chiara Di Giammaria from Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for the presentation and for taking my questions. Can you maybe elaborate more on the shift in the AS demand to H2? Why is this the case, and does this mean that you see an improvement in healthcare for H2? Also on the A&D business, you mentioned double-digit organic growth for H1. The question is, what changed compared to Q1 here? Considering that the supply chain issues persist. Thank you.
Good morning, Chiara. Thank you for your questions. The PCB business is very much linked to the hearing aid industry, where about half of our business is going into hearing aids. The hearing aid industry is depending on five major players in the world that are having almost the entirety of the business. Here, individual customers have start slow into the year, as they have been slow in the second half of last year. Have been started slow into the year, but have announced to us an acceleration of business. That is what we see, and that is why we are stating we have this shift into second half. In Aerospace & Defence, we had very specific issues with certain customized components, where sub-suppliers of us were not able to deliver the quantity in time that we needed.
At the same time, I would have to say it was the first quarter when the PCB manufacturers or the manufacturer of the bare printed circuit boards were realizing capacity constraints and were not delivering on time. We really saw that lead times for printed circuit boards that had always been in the range of something like eight weeks, has turned into something which is more like 20 weeks. These are the two main effects that we saw.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Maissa Keskes from ODDO. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Could you please provide more colors on the nature of the supply chain constraints? Are the bottlenecks mainly related to PCB shortage, memory component as highlighted by your peers, or you are facing constraints in other areas?
Yeah. These are indeed the areas that we have. This is on memory chips, but we are not a very memory intense business. Our products have much less memory than, for example, servers. This is an effect that we have, and it is a nuisance, but it is not making a massive change. The biggest issue really is the supply of printed circuit boards. Now, in Europe, it is where printed circuit boards need to be manufactured locally, mostly in the country. After decades of the industry moving to Asia, each country only has a few PCB manufacturers left who can do this. That is the one very big issue. Talking about more general, the printed circuit boards for medical and industrial. The AI servers are using incredibly complex printed circuit boards, which are using enormous manufacturing capacity.
Even the global printed circuit board industry is in a situation of shortage and delays. This is for these two different reasons. European industry impacted by the defense demand and the Asian one by the demand from AI.
Okay. Would it be fair to assume that the low end of your full year guidance is already protected from the current supply chain constraints? While achieving, let's say the half depend on the improvement in the component availability or do the ongoing supply chain poses a risk across the entire guidance?
The way we are communicating is that we are confident in achieving our guidance, where, yes, the delta between the low end and the higher end is mostly due to execution risks, which are on the supply chain. If we are communicating that the whole guidance is contingent on also the supply chain situation, this implies that if we experience a collapsing of certain supply chains, for example, companies like OpenAI, NVIDIA, buying up all the capacity in the world for PCB and nothing left for anybody else, that is a less likely scenario, but that is the disclaimer that we are putting in. That we have a certain view on supply chain.
For a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question comes from Martí Queral from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good morning, thank you for taking my questions. The first one would be on the non-defense segment, so medical and industrial. I know that you mentioned that organic growth was still negative in H1 for both segments. Could you give us a feeling here of how much was it? Was it low single digit, mid single digit, or even more? Also what are your expectations for H2 for these two segments? That's the first question. Thanks.
Thank you very much for your question, Martí. First of all, we have seen, and we mentioned that double-digit organic growth in the Aerospace & Defence segment. However, Aerospace & Defence is still less than 30%, 28% in H1. The reduction of the other segments was significantly lower. We have seen mostly a reduction on the still existing consumer part of the business, although this is only a few percent, and here we are not following customer demands to reduce prices to a level that we don't like because consumer business for us is opportunistic only. We have some losses there, which is non-strategic business. In the industrial and medical, we are in an almost equal situation. If you are talking about negative organic growth, we can say this is a low single-digit number only in the first half.
That is a clear sign that the business is preparing to come back. As I mentioned earlier, we see increased activity from customers in these areas now, and I should say even in Germany.
Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. My second question would be on the free cash flow. I know that H1 was impacted by the net working capital build, especially in inventories. In H2, I think you expect also to grow. My question is, do you expect also net working capital to be at track for the free cash flow in H2, or how do you think here? Thanks.
Maybe I take the question. Martí, thanks a lot for the question. We don't give a clear guidance on free cash flow for the year, but we say that on a sustainable basis, the free cash flow to EBITDA conversion is 50%. I think what we also see is obviously as growth momentum is building up. Let's put it this way, the negative free cash flow that we saw in the first half, the AR inventory will translate into free cash flow into the second half, but then it depends on the continued growth momentum also going into 2027, what the final result will be for the year. Obviously, a very strong growth momentum going into 2027 is also a nice thing from the business standpoint, but it has free cash flow implications.
We are not guiding specifically on the quarter, on the half year, on the free cash flow delivery, because again, it would also imply that we're giving some level of guidance on the growth momentum for next year. We do in due course, obviously.
Okay, thank you. Maybe just a follow-up here on the free cash flow. Like the increasing inventories, I would expect that this is maybe also related to their statement or is it also your customers-
Yes
...the ones that are taking the hit also in their balances?
Look, you would see exactly. If you see on our alternative performance measures, you see obviously the significant step up on inventories. You see that prepayment from customers are pretty stable versus end of last year or slightly going down. Effectively, you're right. Supply chain, but also by the growth that we expect for the second half. These are the two drivers for the higher inventory. Accounts receivables, the increase is obviously driven by the higher and organic growth and the higher revenue we had in the first half and especially in Q2. Obviously we are collecting as we are going into Q3. Trade payables, usually it's an increase, as we have seen in the previous, and it's only partially offsetting the increases in inventory and trade receivables. That's how you should think about it.
You see that, look, effectively versus end of last year, we had 22.3%, we're now at 24.3%. With 200 basis points heard or 2% increase, that is effectively the herd that we're seeing in our free cash flow.
Okay. Basically prepayments are roughly matching the increase in inventories.
No. That's not what I said. I said, if you look at the numbers, inventory went from CHF 184 million end of last year to CHF 201.5 in end of June, and prepayment from customers for inventory went from CHF 46.9 to CHF 43. The increase in inventory is not offset by prepayment from customers.
Okay. Thank you.
The effect, if you take inventory and prepayments together, it's around a CHF 20 million impact that you're seeing.
That's helpful. Many thanks.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Alexander Zienkowicz from mwb research. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning.
Good morning.
Obviously, the questions about organic growth and your supply chain constraints have been asked. Thinking about M&A, how is your M&A firepower? Is it still the communicated CHF 150 million, or has that changed by now? Thanks.
I can answer this. We are at leverage from 1.3. We have obviously available funding, and obviously we have shown with the TT transaction that we have also funding and available funding for larger transactions. In my mind, if you look at the current leverage, and what we've guided, that we want to remain below 2.75, you see that we have significant headroom in terms of financing. This existing financing facility, we have obviously up to CHF 100 million. That's what we have quoted.
Okay, thanks. One follow-up maybe. You have the capability to perform a larger acquisition, but is this your target or are you still looking for bolt-on opportunities?
We are still looking for bolt-on acquisitions. That's our target in that sense. The proposed acquisition of TT was a unique situation. The pipeline that we have is full of bolt-on acquisitions in a scale as we have performed them over the past years, which is roughly targets between CHF 30 million and CHF 150 million in scale.
Okay. Thank you.
This is not purchase price, that is revenue, to clarify.
Understood.
The next question comes from Bernd Laux from Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Alexander. Good morning, Peter. Questions related to that. First, when you communicated the program in the first place, you indicated that the required one-off expenses would be a mid-single-digit million amount, and you recognized CHF 3.3 million in the first half of the year. Should we anticipate roughly half as much for the second half of the year? The second part of the question is that you mentioned that the benefits out of the cost alignment and the streamlining will already be fully effective from the second half of 2026 onwards. Does it mean half of the CHF 10 million targeted savings will be visible in the second half profitability? Thank you.
I can maybe talk or comment on the one-timers. Obviously, mid-single digit means somewhere between CHF 4 million and CHF 6 million of one-time incurred. We have recognized CHF 3.3 million, which shows that we are continuing to implement some measures in the second half. As you said, as we quoted, that we are largely completed. It is probably fair that we are, if you look in the CHF 4 million-CHF 6 million, rather in the lower to the midpoint of this range. That is a fair assumption. The vast majority is communicated also to the impacted organizations and largely completed. That's maybe on the one-time element. Then on the savings, yes, we are seeing that we
We are implementing and we have implemented vast majority. We start to see really the going levels of saving as we enter into the second half.
Thank you.
Taking my question.
Good morning.
You said earlier this year you want to focus on the integration of these many acquisitions you had in recent years. Now you announce to look forward for further acquisitions in the second half. Can I read this as a sign of confidence?
Absolutely. I said that and I tried to hint to that earlier that my teams have done an amazing job in not only identifying, defining these actions that we're doing, but also executing on these actions in a very timely manner. That includes, for example, the divestiture of Tunisia, which I can say almost happened in record time. Now it is important because we have limited management resources, even if I can rely on the global decentralized organization with an enormous amount of capable managers. These integration measures, they take resources, they take time of everybody. Now, as we state that most of the actions are completed, the same managers are supporting Peter and me in doing due diligence on new targets and integrating these new targets. Therefore, yes, our global organization is getting its hands free for now M&A activity. Very important.
We have a limited organization like everybody has, we should not overextend ourselves. Therefore it was my priority to get these integration actions done extremely fast.
Thank you.
I think you can only see that as a sign of confidence. Absolutely.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question comes from Martine Kverne from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Just having one. The Cicor France or Éolane, you said expected to reach close to Group margin targets towards the end of 2026. I'm just wondering what the main remaining steps is to get there and how you view the capacity now that given you have gotten some new orders filling up in the site.
Yeah. Thank you, Martine. It's a very important topic and we are discussing a lot. Yes, we have the confidence saying that we started the year at a low single-digit margin. We are expecting to end at a high single-digit margin in France. Therefore, what do we need to do now? After doing, as I mentioned, the second-round efficiency measures, now it is on top of that also the top line growth, the increase of the business organic growth from new programs, new customers that we won and program extensions.
Perfect. Thank you. That's very clear.
You're welcome.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question.
Very good.
Back over to you for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much for interest. I see a lot of questions from you. I want to thank you that you're spending a lot of time on working to understand Cicor, to follow us, to see what we do. We have a very ambitious strategy. We are very ambitious in the way how we are implementing that, where, as you know, the last half-year was very much the focus of integration and making ourselves a stronger company for the next steps moving forward. Thank you very much for your continued interest. I speak here for Peter and myself and the whole Cicor team, and I wish all of you a fantastic and sunny day.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for attending our call and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.