Dätwyler Holding AG (SWX:DAE)
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Sep 11, 2026, 5:30 PM CET
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Investor Update

Jan 7, 2020

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Dätwyler conference call. I am Sandra, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentations 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 is not to be recorded for publication or broadcast. Please note that the slides for this call are available on the Dätwyler website, datwyler.com, in the sub-menu Investors and Publications. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Dirk Lambrecht, CEO, and Mr. Reto Welti, CFO. Please go ahead, gentlemen.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Yeah, thank you very much. Good morning, together, and welcome to this conference call. I'm happy that you are taking the time to learn more about Dätwyler's new focus on the sealing business. I will start with the slide two, as you heard, which you can find on our webpage. As communicated with the half-year report 2019, Dätwyler has carefully evaluated the strategic options for the distribution business and the Technical Components division. The environment in the distribution business has changed significantly in the recent past. The growing online trend and increasing demands from customers, suppliers, and regulatory authorities have shifted fixed costs and critical mass upwards. Dätwyler had recognized this trend and had attempted to achieve critical mass through a strategic acquisition in 2016 with a planned takeover of Premier Farnell. I suppose that all of you have it in mind.

Following the acquisition of Premier Farnell, there are not enough other acquisition targets in the market to reach critical size quickly enough. At the same time, we have established leading positions in the sealing business in attractive global markets. The board of directors has therefore concluded that Dätwyler can leverage shareholders' capital more profitably in the sealing business. As a result, on the 23rd of December, we have announced the sale of our distribution companies, Distrelec and Nedis, to the German company, Aurelius. The deal is due to be concluded in the first quarter of 2020, subject to the fulfillment of usual conditions for completion. The parties have agreed not to disclose details of the transaction. For the sale of Reichelt, we are taking the time to evaluate further options to optimize the value.

For the time being, the Reichelt CEO will report directly to me, but without being a member of the executive management. Now our CFO, Reto Welti, will provide you with some other financial information of the transaction. Please, Reto.

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

Welcome from my side. I refer to slide three. The divestment of Distrelec and Nedis will result in a loss for the Dätwyler Group of around CHF 670 million, which will have no impact on liquidity. This amount comprises the following positions. From CHF 420 million of goodwill, consisting of Elfa goodwill of CHF 300 million, Distrelec goodwill of CHF 30 million, and the Nedis goodwill of CHF 90 million. In addition to the CHF 420 million of goodwill, there is some CHF 50 million cumulative currency translation adjustments to be offsetted against the equity. This is equity for the foreign Dätwyler companies at our disposals. Some CHF 180 million is impairment on assets. Finally, some CHF 20 million one-off costs for the restructuring of the group are included in the CHF 670 million as a total amount.

A significant portion of the CHF 20 million relates to potential contractual IT obligations with regards to the carve-out of the Distrelec and Nedis business. The final figures will be disclosed in the 2019 annual financial statements. As you know, Dätwyler prepares its reports in accordance with Swiss GAAP FER accounting standards and offsets goodwill from acquisitions against equity when the acquisition is made. In the case of a sale of previously acquired companies, Swiss GAAP FER requires the goodwill offset against equity to be taken into account at original cost to calculate the gain or loss charged to income. As this relates to the treatment of past acquisitions in the accounts, the divestment loss has no impact on the cash and cash equivalents of the Dätwyler Group. The inflow of the sales price will increase cash and cash equivalents after the divestment has been processed.

Any negative impact on the balance sheet is limited to the impairment on assets and the one-off costs for restructuring. On the slide you see our balance sheet at mid-year 2019. At significantly above 50%, the equity ratio will still be very solid after the transaction has been concluded. Dätwyler therefore has excellent financial resources for implementing the growth strategy defined. With this, I hand back to Dirk.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Thank you very much, Reto, for this explanation. I would like to continue with slide number four. With the decision to divest the distribution business, Dätwyler will focus on the fast-growing and high-margin sealing business for attractive global markets. Based on recognized core competencies, we have become a valued development partner for high-quality, system-critical sealing components in the healthcare and automotive industries and beyond. Thanks to the successful growth strategy, revenue in the sealing business has more than doubled since 2011 to CHF 891 million in 2018. Operating profits have tripled to CHF 155 million in the same time period. By expanding existing plants, constructing new plants, and acquiring matching companies, we have established a global presence, at the same time opened up new industries and technologies.

All our system-critical components have in common that they make a crucial contribution to the functioning of our customer systems, but account for only a very small portion of the cost of the systems. I continue now with the slide five. In the recent past, strong growth of the sealing business has weakened some of the benefits of the merger of the two former divisions, pharma, packaging, and sealing technologies. The size of the organization has slowed down our decision-making processes, responsiveness, and technological development. In order to strengthen our market focus, boost proximity to our customers, use our long-standing core competencies more efficiently, and make the organization more agile, Dätwyler has decided to redefine the group's organization. We will combine our market and production activities to form two business areas, Healthcare Solutions and Industrial Solutions.

These two business areas will be supported by the new Technology and Innovation and Finance and Shared Service centers units. In 2018, the business area Healthcare Solutions generated a revenue of some CHF 390 million. Industrial Solutions achieved a turnover of CHF 500 million. The previous holding functions and the functions of Sealing Solutions divisions will be merged. I continue with the renewed executive management on the slide six. Thanks to our systematic talent management, we have secured three managers with proven records from our own ranks as new members of the executive management. Walter Scherz will succeed Reto Welti as Chief Financial Officer as of April 1, 2020 in the role of CFO. He will head the new Finance and Shared Service units.

As CFO of the Technical Components division, Walter Scherz successfully developed the division's financial organization from a decentralized branch-oriented structure to a central organization with a shared service center. Our previous CFO, Reto Welti, has decided at his own request to retire at the end of March 2020 after 10 years at Dätwyler. I would like to express my sincere thanks to Reto Welti for his loyalty and exceptionally valuable work and wish him all the best in the next phase of his life. The Industrial Solutions business unit will be led by Torsten Maschke. As CEO of Dätwyler Sealing Solutions, the division he has successfully developed over the past three years and played an important part in working out the new organizational structure. The Healthcare Solutions business unit will be managed by Dirk Borghs in the future.

Among other projects, Dirk Borghs was responsible for developing the sector-leading Dätwyler FirstLine production standard and was previously in charge of all production locations in the Sealing Solutions division. Frank Schön will take over the management of the newly formed technology innovation group function. Frank used to be responsible for research and development in the Sealing Solutions division. In recent years, he has successfully driven the establishment of the global research and development organization, focusing on digital knowledge management. With the completion of the sale of Distrelec and Nedis in the first quarter of 2020, Neil Harrison will step down from the executive management. The board of directors and myself would like to thank Neil Harrison for his hard work and dedication in further developing the distribution business, and I wish him all the best for the future. Now I will continue with the slide seven.

With the proactive reorganization of the group announced today, we want to preserve the synergies and economies of sales of the previous structure and realize the mentioned new benefits while optimizing our cost structure. The new structure will make our organization much more flexible and agile, speed up decision-making, and increase the exchange of information and knowledge. I'm very convinced that the new organization will enable us to implement our strategic priorities more quickly, including driving profitable organic growth, increasing agility, and accelerating the digitalization. I now come to slide number eight. With technology and innovation as a separate new service organization unit, we want to make our core competencies and decades of experience available to our customers even better and more beneficially. Our strong market positions are based on our recognized core competencies in solution design, material expertise, and operational excellence.

In the solution design, our interdisciplinary teams assist our customer with fast prototyping for tailor-made sealing solutions. Our successful track record makes us a recognized co-engineering partner of our customers. Our in-house molding shop with latest technologies provide for industry-leading flexibility and precision. With our long-term material expertise, we are able to develop high-performance materials for most challenging requirements and various applications. Our in-house mixing plants enable us to produce unique compounds. Operational excellence describe our capability to set industry standards and apply them worldwide. With FirstLine for healthcare components, and Lean & Clean for automotive components, Dätwyler operates industry-leading production standards with zero-defect philosophy and highly automated production cells. It is important to understand that only if those three competencies are aligned and combined, you are in the position to offer the best sealing solutions to the market.

On slide nine, you see that the year 2018 marked the peak of our investment program in the Sealing Solutions Division. This slide summarizes the strategic investment projects and acquisitions since 2015. Of the construction projects, only the expansion of the Indian healthcare plant is still in progress. In the near future, the focus of the investment is more on the modernization expansion of the ERP software and on digitalization projects. With all these investments, we have created a really strong base for accelerating our organic growth in attractive global markets. Due to some internal delays, the details published by customers, and the long lead times on new projects, sales from the listed investments will increase slowly but steadily in the coming years. Slide 10 summarizes now the track record of acquisitions in the Sealing Solutions Division and which is very important to explain it to you.

Since 2012, we have successfully integrated seven companies with more than 3,000 employees and more than CHF 240 million of revenue. With the executed acquisitions, we have expanded in new geographies as with Chongqing, Hankook, Colombia, and Binz, have entered into additional industries as with Origom and Parco and have opened up new technologies as with Ott. Meanwhile, the Sealing Solutions Division has a proven M&A process for identifying, acquiring, and integrating companies that fit to our strategy and culture. Above all, acquisition targets must support our core competencies, match our values, and have the potential to sustain profitable growth. We want to continue to support our organic growth, it's very important for me that you understand that we selected bolt-on acquisitions as we have been doing in the sealing business during the past eight years.

Now, with that, I would like to close my short presentation, thank you very much for your attention. Now we are available for your questions.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone 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 when asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Charlie Fehrenbach from AWP. Please go ahead.

Charlie Fehrenbach
Analyst, AWP

Good morning, gentlemen. Is my assumption correct that between the two new business divisions, Industrial Solutions and Healthcare Solutions, that there's a gap in profitability, that Healthcare Solutions is more profitable than Industrial? Is question one. Question two is dividend. I know that the board is responsible to speak to dividend, but is the operating loss for 2019 of almost CHF half a billion rather argue against a dividend? Is it rather the argument better that there's no influence on cash, so you could pay a dividend anyway? Question two and three is acquisitions. You're looking for external growth as well. Is it rather Industrial or Healthcare or both? Thank you very much.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Charlie, thank you very much for your questions. Let me come to the first one that is regarding the profitability. There is a small gap between the two business units, that is clear. Please understand that we cannot disclose that today. I will come back to that during the BMK in February. If it comes to the dividend payment, since we have no negative impact on the liquidity, you can assume that the board of directors will define the dividend based on the operating results, and therefore our target level to the dividend even in the last year was around 20%. The final decision will be coming with the announcement in February, that is the target. With regard to acquisitions, I think now first of all, we have to optimize the organization.

We have to go into the detail. I do not would like to do everything in parallel. We have some ideas of further acquisitions. As you know from the past, of course, we still have a topic in China with healthcare, and we are still trying to identify something there. However, as we have shown in the last years, wherever we see a chance, we would like to have support on acquisitions, even though healthcare or in this Industrial Solutions that will show what opportunities will come up in the market.

Charlie Fehrenbach
Analyst, AWP

Thank you very much.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

You're welcome.

Operator

Next question comes from Serge Rotzer from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Serge Rotzer
Research Analyst, Credit Suisse

Three questions. First one, we thank the breakdown of the loss of CHF 670 million. You disclosed that one-off costs has been CHF 20 million, so this is cash as the other, the remaining part is non-cash. You also mentioned that there was no impact on liquidity, so this tells me that you got CHF 20 million of cash from the buyer. Is this correct? This would be the first question. The second questions would be on overhead costs. What about the overhead costs? Covered by Technical Components now have to be covered by Sealing Solutions? How much is this? What is the impact going forward, so also on the margin of Sealing Solutions? The second question. The third question is, what about the timing? I think you mentioned that when the deconsolidation will happen, I am not sure whether I got it correctly.

First, when does the deconsolidation will take happen? Secondly, when will be the sale of Reichelt? What's your timeframe? Is it three months, six months, 12 months or 10 years? This would be then the next one. With Reichelt, could you confirm me a margin of 7%-8% for Reichelt. Is this true?

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Reto, I think you will start.

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

Yeah. As I mentioned, there is no impact on cash. I did not mention any prices as this information is confidential. I would speak to what I stated. Assumption is that there is no impact on cash. Targeted deconsolidation, I will answer the question number 3. Targeted deconsolidation should take place by the end of February. That's at least the targeted date. You are aware that whenever acquisitions or divestments are taking place, that there is some regulations to be respected. This takes its time. Therefore, I cannot assure 100% that it will take place by the end of February. That's the targeted date.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Yeah. I would come to the question number two and four. Number two was regarding the overhead cost, if I understood right. Of course, we have currently some overlapping functions, which we have to clarify in detail how we deal with that. Finally, our target is to reduce the overall cost, after we have finalized the new organization so that this overhead cost will not dilute its margin of former Sealing Solutions. If it comes to Reichelt, it will not take 10 years what I can tell you for sure, but I cannot tell you whether in the short term, in the next couple of months or maybe it will take one or two years. For us, it is more important that we have here the best and the good price for this good profitable business.

As you know from current format announcement that Reichelt is on a higher single-digit range. We will tell more about that when we have our BMK in February. Okay.

Serge Rotzer
Research Analyst, Credit Suisse

I probably have a follow-up question, if I may.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Yeah.

Serge Rotzer
Research Analyst, Credit Suisse

If I'm not wrong, the goodwill of Reichelt is CHF 70 million. Is this correct? Secondly, do we have to expect a further CTAs also for Reichelt? What about the net cost for the divestment of Reichelt? What do you expect?

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

The goodwill I mentioned for Reichelt is correct. As you can see in the annual report. What was the other question?

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

CTA.

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

Yes, CTA, of course, there will be a CTA. If you remember when we bought Reichelt, that was in 2010. Of course, EUR currency at that time was a completely different level, in case of a potential divestment, there would be a CTA dimension. I cannot mention you upfront because that will depend on the closing currency situation.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Okay, thank you.

Operator

The next question comes from Christian Wolf from MainFirst. Please go ahead.

Christian Wolf
Analyst, MainFirst

Hello, gentlemen. Thank you so much for taking my questions. First question, it was a bit fast at the beginning. Can you just give us the separate items of the CHF 670 million loss? I just got the CHF 30 million distribution, Distrelec goodwill, and CHF 90 million in Nedis goodwill. Can you just remind us of the remaining figures and details? Second question might be, how will be the reporting below the sales line going forward in the Sealing Solutions divisions? Will we get the EBIT, cash flow numbers, ROIC numbers in, like, months? The last question will be on the dividend strategy. As you say, you will have a lower investment CapEx need going forward. Will there be probably a change in the use of cash?

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

Coming back to your first question, details of the CHF 670 million is CHF 420 million goodwill in total. The Elfa goodwill was CHF 300 million. Distrelec, CHF 30 million. Nedis, CHF 90 million. I mentioned CHF 50 million currency translation adjustments. There is CHF 180 million impairment on assets and CHF 20 million one-off costs for the restructuring of the group. Your second question regarding reporting structure, you know that we are reporting according to Swiss GAAP FER, and there is some minimal requirements regarding segment information that we give. You will at least get sales figures. The rest we will have to decide.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Yeah, if it comes to the dividend strategy, as I said before, now we have announced last year that we have around 40% of the net result. I do not see any need for change currently. However, that is up to the business owner who's running, and let us discuss that to a later point of view. Yeah. Maybe we come back to that with the BMK in February. I think that answered your questions right, Christian?

Operator

The next question comes from Michal Lichvar from Bank Vontobel. Please go ahead.

Michal Lichvar
Analyst, Bank Vontobel

Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you very much for taking my questions. First one would be, you mentioned peaking CapEx cycle. Can you mention maybe what do you plan to spend as a percentage of sales going forward for the next two or three years? Second question, just in terms of Sealing Solutions, do you plan to also develop some new markets? Do you see some kind of wide gaps that you would like to fill? A third question, can you maybe tell us how the networking capital will change after the divestment of Nedis and Distrelec? Thank you.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Okay. Let me start to answer the questions one and two, and I'm asking Reto to answer the question three. If it comes to the CapEx for the next couple of years, please give us some more time to go back with that answer at the beginning of February. As I said already before, I think the CapEx, the investments level will be going down over the next couple of years because the major investments at Sealing Solutions we have now done in the last couple of years. However, nobody knows if we have some great ideas for the future. Maybe we have to invest, and we will do that then. For today, I can only tell you that according to what we have said before, we will, over time, reduce investments. The detailed levels about that, I will explain to you about BMK.

If it comes to new markets, new technologies, of course, we're always striving forward to identify new markets or maybe new technologies will help us, let me say, to give a better service to our customers. That is one of the reasons why we are looking for bolt-on acquisitions which are able to support this. On the other hand, that is one of the reasons why we have decided to build a service unit with technology and innovation. One of the main tasks is that we would like to accelerate the

Innovation process for new product lines, which are developed internally. We have some great product lines already, let me say, under development, and I hope that we can announce something in the next 12 months, which would help us to grow from the organic version here. That is what is coming up in the next couple of months. I'm looking forward to give you more information about that later. Yes. Reto, can you go on with.

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

Yeah. Regarding your last question, regarding the net working capital levels for the remaining group. I can assure you that basing on the Sealing Solutions business and including the Origom business, the net working capital level in % of sales will further be reduced on the timeline. With this divestment of the Nedis business and the Distrelec business, there will be a positive impact on the, as I said, the % of the net working capital compared to sales as the Distrelec and the Nedis business are quite heavy regarding net working capital. Origom, on the other hand, is very well managed and very well organized net working capital level.

Michal Lichvar
Analyst, Bank Vontobel

Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question comes from Daniel Koenig from Mirabaud. Please go ahead.

Daniel Koenig
Analyst, Mirabaud

Yes. I had one similar question on CapEx. I want to rephrase the previous question, how much CapEx did Nedis and Distrelec have in 2018? Can you give me some kind of indication how much that was so I can readjust it going forward? Thanks.

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

Well, Nedis and Distrelec did not have very big amounts. We are actually talking a couple of CHF million, below five CHF million in total CapEx in 2018, you asked.

Daniel Koenig
Analyst, Mirabaud

Five. Okay. Many thanks.

Operator

The next question comes from Rolf Renders from Helvea. Please go ahead.

Rolf Renders
Analyst, Helvea

Yes. Good morning and Happy New Year, everyone. Just to follow up, you mentioned the focus on bolt-on acquisitions. In which enterprise value range should we think for these kind of acquisitions?

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Happy New Year, Rolf. Can you please repeat? That was not really clear. What is regarding the bolt-on acquisition? Can you repeat it, please?

Rolf Renders
Analyst, Helvea

Oh, yeah. Of course. For bolt-on acquisitions.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Yes.

Rolf Renders
Analyst, Helvea

Which size enterprise value are you hinting there?

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Okay.

Rolf Renders
Analyst, Helvea

Looking?

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Yeah, okay. The one thing is the enterprise value, and the other thing is about the size, yeah. You know this depends on the model and how profitable the business is. What we are looking here is when we are talking about bolt-on acquisitions, currently, I'm looking forward for acquisitions which we can more or less easily integrate. As long as they, and that is very important to understand, and I would like to repeat it here. As long as this acquisition sits to our core competencies and to the culture of our organization. Let me say, the turnover, what we are looking for is up to CHF 50 million-CHF 60 million, but at minimum it should be half around CHF 20 million. Of course, the enterprise value could be a different one and depends on the quantity of the business. Yeah.

Rolf Renders
Analyst, Helvea

Okay. Thank you. Do I then understand right that this chance is small that you will look to buy something large?

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

I think based on our experience in the last couple of years in solutions, I think we managed that quite well with integrating these bolt-on ones. I would not like to exclude that we have maybe an acquisition in the future, which is larger, maybe around CHF 200 million, something like that. We do not have something in our portfolio, which is what we are looking for currently, which is in this price. We are focusing on the smaller ones, which is bringing our especially benefit to the existing business. Yeah.

Rolf Renders
Analyst, Helvea

Okay. Thank you. Then looking at the strength of your balance sheet, going forward, how would you ideally like to run the company?

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Reto?

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

We have a certain limitations regarding the equity ratio. The board of directors clearly stated that there is a minimal target of 40% equity ratio. As you realize, there is, of course, still some potential. We would like to level out this potential. That's the situation.

Rolf Renders
Analyst, Helvea

All right. Thank you. On these acquisitions, what are your financial return requirements?

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

First of all, I think with regard to the acquisitions, it's important if an acquisition, a bolt-on acquisition is bringing us forward. That means adding some further competencies to our organization, et cetera, fitting to other aligned with our customer portfolio or technology. Therefore, I think we are having an individual look to every acquisition, and then we are looking for what is the internal rate of return for that.

Rolf Renders
Analyst, Helvea

Maybe I didn't get it. Did you mention the financial criteria or not?

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

I said regarding the financial criteria, we are looking more if this acquisition is in the long-term perspective as a paid acquisition, and that is very important for us. Therefore, we will always have an individual look to the acquisitions, and then we will be having a calculation of that, what is needed to get as a result. That means, of course, every acquisition should have some benefits there for us.

Rolf Renders
Analyst, Helvea

All right. Thank you. No further questions.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Thank you, Rolf.

Operator

The next question comes from Richard Frey from ZKB. Please go ahead.

Richard Frey
Analyst, ZKB

Hello, everyone. Just regarding the reporting of Reichelt. You have mentioned that there is direct reporting line to Dirk. What can we as public expect? What will be shown to us? Secondly, just to make sure that I'm on the right way as the timing, the closing of the deal is expected by end of February 2020. Am I right that, the divestment losses will flow into the 2020 numbers, or do we need to consider something for 2019 as well? Thanks.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Yes.

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

Yes, please. Your first question regarding the reporting for Reichelt, I can answer a similar way as I think already for the Sealing Solutions business. There is minimal requirements in Swiss GAAP FER, which for the Reichelt business, it would be a separate segment with regards to this perspective. We would at least have to give you the information on sales. Whether we will do additional information, we will see. Minimal requirement is sales. As you correctly said, closing is targeted by the end of February 2020. In the case of the deconsolidation, by the end of February, the goodwill will turn into the profit and loss, and the CTA will turn into profit and loss. As we already mentioned that are confronted with impairments on assets.

This impairment, plus the restructuring cost, as you might imagine, will have to be taken into account in the annual report 2019 already. There is a separation of the CHF 670 million into CHF 200 million, roughly, that will have to be taken into account in 2019, and the rest with the deconsolidation will then be shown in 2020.

Richard Frey
Analyst, ZKB

Okay, thank you.

Operator

As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question comes from Sebastian Vogel from UBS. Please go ahead.

Sebastian Vogel
Analyst, UBS

Hello. I have a couple of questions on the tax side of things. From previous discussions, I recall that you in the past that if you keep some part of the business till the year end 2019, you will see some positive tax impact for your 2019 numbers. Is that something that could eventually lead to a situation where you see a tax rate that is below the numbers or below the rate that we have seen in 2018? Of course, with regards to the whole situation, as you discussed a minute ago, about the partially of the amount getting into 2019, partially in 2020, how should we see overall on your tax rate because of the whole transaction. Of the CHF 670 million, and that's the last question, that's post-tax? That would be my three questions.

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

The CHF 670 million, starting with your last question, is actually on EBIT level, and it's also post-tax. Tax rate will not see a big change compared to 2018. Also for the future, there is no big impact out of this loss, because as I mentioned, it actually turns just from equity into the P&L, mainly the goodwill and the CTA, and they do not have tax effects.

Sebastian Vogel
Analyst, UBS

Many thanks.

Operator

The next question is a follow-up question from Serge Rotzer from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead.

Serge Rotzer
Research Analyst, Credit Suisse

Yes, thanks very much. You have been guiding for an equity ratio of 50%. This is a reduction of CHF 100 million-CHF 70 million of the equity. This is about or is equal to the impairment of the asset, so that's fine. Looking forward, with the net working capital change, is this now a real guidance? We should expect a reduction of the balance sheet, isn't it? With that, with a net working capital reduction, so with that, the equity ratio should be clearly higher. What is the guidance, including the net working capital optimization of the equity ratio? The second question would be, do you expect further transaction costs in 2020 for Elfa and Reichelt? For Elfa and Distrelec or Reichelt.

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

Starting with the second question. We are trying to take into account all the transaction costs in the 2019 annual report. There should not be further restructuring or transaction costs out of the sale of the Distrelec and Nedis business. For the guidance of the equity ratio, just let's finish all the effects and let's see all the effects out of the divestments. As I said, we can give you a first guidance that the equity ratio, even after the transaction, should be higher than 50%, not taking into account further improvements on net working capital, at least as a first answer.

Serge Rotzer
Research Analyst, Credit Suisse

Okay. This is conservative, 50% equity ratio would be a conservative ratio.

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

That's your judgment. I just give a first indication on that. The level should be higher than 50%.

Serge Rotzer
Research Analyst, Credit Suisse

Okay, many thanks. It's really a pity that you are leaving the company. I liked you really very much.

Operator

The next question is a follow-up question from Mr. Michal Lichvar from Bank Vontobel. Please go ahead.

Michal Lichvar
Analyst, Bank Vontobel

Thank you very much for taking my follow-up question. It's just one. I just want to know how does the civil engineering fit into your new organization? Has anything changed? Is it still a non-core asset or did you reevaluate this also?

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Thanks for the question, Michal. I think that is as before, that is non-core and we're still trying to find the right solution for the civil engineering, which is approximately CHF 40 million of sales in 2018. That means we are still trying to find a solution for that. That's no problem.

Michal Lichvar
Analyst, Bank Vontobel

Okay. Thank you.

Reto Welti
CFO, Dätwyler

Welcome.

Operator

Mr. Anton, so far there are no more questions.

Dirk Lambrecht
CEO, Dätwyler

Okay. I think, thanks a lot for all your questions. I wish you all a further good start in the year 2020. I'm looking forward to see and to hear you in February during our launch media conference. We will have some further information there for you. Thanks for your attention today. I wish you a good rest of the week and looking forward to see you again. Thank you very much from my side, to all of you.

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may disconnect your lines. Bye.