Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our full-year conference. It's a pleasure to welcome you in Rümlang, in our head office, and also via webcast to talk about the full-year results of 2025-2026. Today, I'm joined by our CFO, René Peter. Very welcome to have you here and to have questions together with you on René and myself. Also, just so you know, two gentlemen in the... Steve Bewick and Carsten Franco are also here from the access committees. Maybe you could also have questions to them if you would like. Let me start with the highlights and the development of 2024-2025, and then after the highlights, René will give more insight into the financial performance. With this one, I think it's very important. We delivered very strong, very strong results and made major progress on our strategy execution. We are well on track to deliver our commitments for 2025-2026.
I think it's very important that dormakaba, many of you know dormakaba much longer than me, but I think we are on a journey. The journey was that we have targets of growing consistently 3%- 5% organically and to come up to a margin which is between 16% and 18%. This journey we are on for some time. Now we come to the year 2025-2026 where we want to talk about this target. I think that is what the journey is on, and I think we are very well on track thanks to a strong team, thanks to what we have done. We reached our guidance for this year. Cash flow has been substantially improved, and I think we see that the momentum is continuing 2025-2026. I will come back later on the details of the numbers. I think it's very good that we are on this trajectory.
We want to grow further 3%- 5%. We want to reach the first time an EBITDA margin of above 16%. What you also can see on the page that we talked about the return on capital employed in the past, we want to have a more like even cleaner figure, which means like the adjusted operating cash flow between 11.5% and 12.5% for the fiscal year which just started. With this one, this page is somewhere we were started, and I think it very well shows where we are on and what we are doing. On the first slide, Till Reuter, elevate performance. It's about the strict execution of our Shape for Growth program. This year until 2024-2025, we realized like CHF 148 million. To come back and to put it in relation, we came up with CHF 170 million finance, HR, IT operations.
Out of the CHF 170 million, we have CHF 148 million realized. We put another $40 million- $50 million on top for the commercial, which we come later to, but we are well on track to work on the cost savings and have achieved a lot. One topic on the cost saving was clearly working on the shared service centers and the best cost countries, Sofia, Nogales, Chennai. It's important, you know, if you talk about it, but you have to build a strong nucleus. If you have a nucleus, you can shift more people. I think what we achieved in the last year is really we have now 300 and more people in Sofia, which means you can hand over more functionalities.
What we have seen is that we are on the shared service, on the without the commercial, 80% completed, and more than 20 countries, the back office already moved to shared service. Commercial, we launched last year on the Capital Markets Day, another $40 million- $50 million on top. I think that's also where parts are going to the shared service. Big parts of the commercial execution come from Germany and the U.S. Here are same like cost saving, go-to-market. I think all of these measures show and are the path to the 15.5% EBITDA margin. What we delivered now year- over- year, half year over half year, I think it's really consistent and to be continued. Complexity. Cost is one topic, but as you all know, complexity is something which, you know, dormakaba is very complex.
On the product side, I think we have to manage complexity on the go-to-market in lots of the processes we have internally. I think it's an ongoing task to reduce complexity. While on the cost performance, the 80% on the 170, on the commercial, we maybe are one year, we are more because we start later. On the complexity, we are in the middle of it. I think here it's very important. You will see later, we have a new terminal generation. It's about platforms. You have many, many products. The question more like how many same parts, components you have to come up to the right number of products. Here it's about toolbox strategy, modular strategy. I think we show later one example of how we want to be more platform on the hardware side, on the software side, and also on our firmware side. Same like divestments.
Divestments go-to-market. We have sold South Africa last year, end of last year. We have done the UK, the less profitable service in the UK. The Brazil time and tenders, we lately sold. Also the Kuwait go-to-market is about efficiency. We can go via partners. I think it's also where we made big progress. It shows we are continuously checking our go-to-market, our portfolio on the product side, but also on the go-to-market side. Supplier base, it's big numbers two years ago. It's continuing. What does it mean? You know, if you had, I think there was a number of about above 20,000 suppliers. If you have 20,000 suppliers, the amount you buy from each of them is small. If you lower the numbers, the amount is bigger. You have better negotiation power.
Continuously working on the number of suppliers gives us more power, gives us more potential for cost savings. Last one on complexity, not last, but I think to mention here, door closer complexity. When I arrived, we knew there were close to 10,000 SKUs. I think we will continuously work on this one. It's an example where we showed that on the $300 million door closer business, we believe that we could have above $20 million, close to $25 million cost savings. We are advancing here. We see the potential, but this takes time because, you know, in the end, if you're putting, if you have this complexity and you want to reduce to a platform strategy, you have to introduce new products. It comes over time, but at least something which is important. It goes over product, hardware and software.
It goes in a go-to-market and clearly also internally where we have to work on the complexity every day. Not more important, but for me, which I in the end, innovation and growth is something which I really want to drive and which is important. We have already started to do small transactions, so 4M and 80s. I think it's important to continue. Our competition is continuously acquiring companies. I think we have to also be part of the consolidation. We want to be part of the consolidation. We have to further work on the product portfolio. We saw today our announcement about a new CIO, David Fuller, who is joining us as new Chief Innovation Officer.
Same time, I'm very happy that Magin Guardiola, who was doing for two years, really helped us to put in a global product roadmap to really get the American, Asian, and European business under one structure. He will focus on new projects. David's background is much more on the software side, having done robotic AI and software focusing really on how to go to market on the software side and how further to improve our software offering. The focus R&D, we talk more about verticals. We have the indirect business, but the vertical, talk about airports, data centers, it's getting more important. If you talk about products, I think it's always yet to combine it with what is the impact on the customer, what's the customer journey. We have progress and I will show you a little bit more. Today, you know, we're delivering strong numbers. That's the one message.
The second message really, we believe we can do more and we have to do more in the U.S. We are well positioned, we have good positions in Europe. Number one, two position, we have good opportunity in Asia. I think the benefit or the opportunity is for us really how we can grow in the U.S. Here I will show you more details on how we want to change our go-to-market in some areas and how we want to continue in other areas. I think that's more like happy to talk more about the U.S. It will be one of the areas we also expect more questions. I think it's someone when you are leading in Europe and if you are distant number three in the U.S., you have to go to the U.S. and to get more market share. Talk about the verticals.
On the one hand, we are strong in distributing of our partners, where it's very important you have delivery and at the same time to talk about the end customers and about the customer journey. We are very well positioned in airports with our automation, automatic gates, and our automation business. Last year we closed more than 80 airport projects. For example, Nohida Airport in India and Ireland, the three main airports. We have lots of installation, for example, with Air Canada. If you pass on a lounge at the airport in Zurich, it's a good example where you see our gates and our products in the airport. Another one was the cooperation with Rhodes and Schwartz, the security check, how we do border control and automated personal screening.
I think here at airport, we see as one vertical where we are well positioned and where in the future safety, security will change our habits, how we work at the airport, and we are well positioned to benefit from this change at the airport. Another vertical where we also had nice projects in Singapore and also here in Switzerland, two projects is the healthcare area. We have two children hospitals in Sydney and become one of a supplier of a major purchasing organization in the U.S. Also healthcare, you know, it's more like touchless. You think back about corona when you have to think of how can I enter buildings, how can I efficiently have a people flow. Healthcare is another vertical where we are very well positioned. Everybody talks about AI. What does AI need? Data, it needs computing power. Computing power is data centers.
Everybody, today we discuss about the big four in the U.S. We talk about also like we see lots of demand in Asia. Here we have more than 15 projects again. We can do it directly with the data centers. We can do it indirectly via partners. This is a big vertical. In the end, what you have, you have different cascading of access. If you really can get to the heart of the data center on different areas. The recent acquisition of Tunnelog is one way where we can also have the racks locked. I think here we have in the end strengthened our offering for the data centers, but also for critical infrastructure. Another vertical where we have a nice project is the sports and entertainment.
Now we have for the upcoming Africa Cup of Nations, we have a couple of stadiums and also in the Melbourne Olympic Park. You see that's if you want to go to the vertical, it doesn't mean that you only go direct, but I think it's important to have the offering and then the customer can decide if you work directly or we are partners. It's good to have the customer journey and to convince customers to go for dormakaba products. I love to get innovation into product, into customer journey. As a couple of examples, what has changed and how we can get introduced to our new products. One is the Quantum Pixel, a new product for hospitality for hotels. I think here you can see like a minimalistic design. I think it's a very nice design.
I think with the design also comes new features like Apple Wallet and where we have like a digital wallet. It's important that you have a new experience. I think it shows like for modern hotel management, I think that is the right way to go. It's something we introduced last year. Second one, I talked about how to make it more like a modular system, the new terminal generation. In the end, you have different terminals for different applications and you have to find a way how can I get a terminal for where's application. What you see is one topic, but what's behind the whole firmware, the electronics. I think it's important that here behind we have to be less complex. I think here with this terminal generation, we reduce the complexity, have less firmware variance, and are much more efficient in introducing this product.
Third product I want to show you and you heard before is Kaira. Kaira pays in on security, on critical infrastructure, on the topics we hear every day. What does it mean? It means like simplifying access for critical infrastructure and utility. You can send a digital key via cloud to the gentleman or lady doing the service. You need no additional key or device. It's simple programming. It allows very flexible. Think about in the past, people had to maintain infrastructure. They had a big bundle of keys and they had to think about which key fits. Now sending out, you can change the route. You can be very efficiently sending the key on the mobile phone without putting the mobile phone to any device. I think very flexible. The first project we were starting is in Australia with a big partner.
Utilities were also like Steven and I talked to the partner. I think it's a good change and I think it shows that we are driving our DNA, security, critical infrastructure. I think that's where the DNA of dormakaba really fits into. Transaction. Shifting gears, Shape for Growth, shape to grow. We mentioned that we want, we have to be part of the consolidation. We need market share in the U.S. We need technology to have a good go-to-market. The Thunderback was a small acquisition in February, go-to-market on the airport side. SafeTrust is going in the direction of readers. It's secure identity, but I think what's important, the reader where you put your batch, your mobile phone, is not only a reader, it's a data collection point. The question comes up for the customers, what is the customer journey? Can I do more services?
I think that is where SafeTrust, and it's one of the, it's a minority position, but we're together with SafeTrust. We have a good innovation power in the U.S. King Long joint venture we signed lately in China. I think it pays off to China for China. You know, I think I told, we told you that our philosophy is to be local for local. We have to win in the U.S. We are local. 80%- 90% comes from the U.S. for the U.S. Same in Asia. I think it's very important that also in Asia we're doing the same methodology. Here is King Long, a potential. It's a go-to-market in addition to our direct go-to-market. We did this joint venture in April. The latest acquisition, Tunnelog.
Tunnelog helps on the offering in data centers and critical infrastructure, that you also have the racks closed and you have the same system. To have more locks, in the end, a broader offering for data centers and critical infrastructure. It shows a little bit like go-to-market. I think it's very important. How can we strengthen the go-to-market? We are very innovative as dormakaba. I think it's important. What do we need to have additional go-to-market? I think this is something where you should also expect more. I think we cannot give details, but we want to grow. We want to really grow in the US. One is organically and the other one is clearly over acquisitions. Simplification. I think I mentioned this one, the three, the four parts we sold. Here it's very important.
If we are selling a business, for example, the South African business, and we had the business close to $14 million, $15 million. We continue to do business and we do not lose top line. It's a different go-to-market. If you're selling, we don't want to lose the business. We want to continue the business, plus with partners. I think here it's important that this one has been very efficient. UK, when it will show you how we were growing in the UK, in this country, and it shows also the sale of a part of the business does not impact the performance of the business. With this one, handing over to my colleague and CFO, René, for detailed financials.
Thanks a lot, Till. Also from my side, a warm welcome to our full-year results 2024-2025 Analyst and Investor Conference. As Till said, we had a strong financial year 2024-2025, and I'm very pleased to tell you more about this. Let's have a look at our key figures for the fiscal year 2024-2025. We delivered a good organic net sales growth of 4.1% and an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.5%, marking now the six consecutive semesters of adjusted EBITDA margin improvement. Return on capital employed significantly increased to 30.6%, achieving our midterm targets one year ahead of plan. Net profit amounted to CHF 188 million. We delivered free cash flow of CHF 176.9 million, and we managed to further reduce our net debt by 21.2% to CHF 358.2 million. Let's look at some details, starting first with our top line development.
Net sales reached CHF 2,870.1 million amid a challenging economic environment marked by trade tariffs as well as geopolitical tension. This amount represents organic net sales growth of 4.1% compared to a previous year's already very strong growth of 4.7%. This growth was driven by strong volume growth of 2.4% and robust pricing of 1.7%. The appreciation of the Swiss franc against all major currencies except the pound sterling led to a negative currency translation effect of -2.3%. The total impact from Emmanuel amounted to -CHF 14.4 million. Both business segments, Access Solutions as well as Key & Vault Solutions and OEM, contributed to the organic net sales growth. Let's have a look at Access Solutions. Access Solutions delivered organic net sales growth of 4.4% led by our core markets and driven by a strong volume growth of 2.9%.
The strong momentum that we have seen in the first half of this financial year as well as in the second half of last financial year continued in the second half of this year despite a challenging economic environment. All core markets contributed to the positive organic net sales growth. Let's focus on some key markets. North America achieved a solid organic net sales growth of 4.2% driven by several projects in the hospitality and in airport verticals. Germany continued to outperform the markets and grew organically by 7.4%. The country reported a strong automatics business and market share gains in hardware solutions as a result of dormakaba's comprehensive product portfolio as well as focused go-to-market strategy. UK and Ireland continued the great performance of the first half and closed the year with an organic growth of 9.7%.
The rest of the world markets in Access Solutions recorded an organic growth of 3.1% with strong growth in India, China, France, and other mid-sized markets in Europe. Access Solutions achieved an adjusted EBITDA margin of 15.7%, representing a further increase of 50 basis points thanks to a strong adjusted EBITDA improvement in the second half of this financial year. Key & Vault Solutions continued its trajectory of good organic net sales growth and record performance with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 21%. While movable walls managed to maintain the strong growth momentum from prior years, OEM was impacted by the drop in demand from North America as a consequence of trade tariffs and economic uncertainties, particularly towards the end of the fiscal year. Adjusted EBITDA amounted to CHF 445 million in the financial year 2024-2025. Excluding currency translation and divestment impact, adjusted EBITDA improved by CHF 14 million.
Volume growth contributed CHF 7.7 million. Price increases and efficiency gains from the ongoing transformation program allowed us to more than offset cost inflation, resulting in a positive price over cost of CHF 31.8 million. As a result, adjusted EBITDA margin improved by 80 basis points and amounted to 15.5%, demonstrating a sixth consecutive half year of margin improvement. Our transformation program, as Till mentioned, continued to deliver with total cost savings of CHF 148 million realized so far. CHF 64 million of cost savings were delivered in this financial year. Now allow me to focus on three items in our income statement. Gross margin, first, excluding restructuring expenses, our gross margin further improved by 30 basis points and amounted to 41.6%, mainly driven by operational efficiency improvement and net procurement savings. Functional expenses as a percentage of net sales improved slightly to 29.2%, still impacted by work shadowing expenses.
Net profit, excluding items affecting comparability, net of tax increased by 5.6%. As mentioned, we have delivered substantial free cash flow in the financial year 2024-2025. Adjusted operating cash flow margin amounted to 11.7%, broadly in line with the previous year. Free cash flow stood at CHF 176.9 million, CHF 20 million below previous year due to higher restructuring expenses paid. To emphasize an increased focus on cash generation, we introduced the adjusted operating cash flow margin as part of our financial guidance. As highlighted before, we achieved a return on capital employed of 30.6% one year ahead of plan, supported by a further improvement of our adjusted EBITDA. We continued to strengthen our financial profile and further reduced our net debt, as mentioned, by 21.2%. Net debt amounted to CHF 358.2 million, resulting in a debt ratio of 0.8x adjusted EBITDA.
The repayment of our CHF 320 million bond expiring in October 2025 is already fully financed. Sustainability remains a core part of how we operate responsibly, safely, and for the long term. We have reduced our injury rate by 33.5%, reaching our targets two years ahead of schedule. That's a direct result of our teams prioritizing safety every day. We have cut our CO₂ emissions by 25% since our baseline year 2019-2020. This is an important and meaningful step forward as we continue driving towards net zero. We have also reduced landfill waste by more than 50%, which shows real progress in waste reduction as well as circular practices. Our work is getting recognized. We were named as Financial Times Climate Leader in both years 2024 and 2025.
We also have achieved Prime status with ISS, and for the first time, we have earned a spot on the CDP's A-list for supplier engagement. To align with the company's strategy and with the goal for a long-term balance of profit distribution to the shareholders and retaining earnings for future growth, a new dividend policy will be proposed to the AGM. Reflecting our strong financial stability and our confidence into future earnings, dormakaba Holding AG intends to gradually increase or at least maintain dividend per share each year. For the financial year 2024-2025, the Board of Directors proposes a dividend of CHF 9.20 per share at the AGM in October. This represents an increase of 15% over the previous year.
Additionally, to enhance stock liquidity and to make ownership more accessible to investors as well as employees, a share split with a ratio of 1 to 10 will be proposed at the upcoming AGM. This concludes the part on financial performance. With this, I hand over back to Till.
Thank you, René. Thank you, as mentioned at the beginning, today we have a journey which is going to be continued and we work on our efficiencies, we work on the complexity. Today I want to give you a little bit more insight into our North American growth plan. You know, we have, everybody has a legacy, a tradition, and I think it's very important to get the good part of the legacy and where the opportunity is. Also with the legacy or tradition comes a different positioning globally. I think we all know that in Europe, where our home is, we are dormakaba, Kaba Dorma, Swiss, German. We have strong positions in Europe, number one and two positions, and also in Asia-Pacific, in Asia, Australia. We have good positions, good opportunities.
What we look on the left side with America, I think everybody knows that in the Americas we are a number three player and we are a distant number three player. However, the biggest market, the biggest single market, the most lucrative market is the U.S. I think that is all one of the topics we have to look in more detail and explain how can we do more, why are we underrepresented, and I think how can we strengthen. As I want to go in more detail, that's our key strategy. How do we want to strengthen our North American footprint and what are new ways we want to go? First of all, to give you about the size, so the biggest markets, the most lucrative, we're talking about a $13 billion market.
You know, our business hardware, AHS, AAS, and ACS, you see that 50% comes from the hardware, 25% from automatics, and 25% from access control solutions. Today we are a distant number three. We did not buy the right company in the past, so our market share is roughly around 5% in some areas. The good thing is we have a good position on the hardware side and we are strong in hospitality. We are leading in hospitality. I think what we want to do, we go through by vertical by vertical and how we want to be more clear. We're going to start with this hardware business. The hardware is the biggest addressable market, roughly $6.5 billion. It's the product-oriented, you know, the door closer, door hardware. We talk about it's getting more cost efficiency-wise and the products are largely sold indirectly.
We have a sizable business and we have a strong position in architecture hardware. We are number three because we have not invested enough. We have underinvested in the past areas and we did start already last year to invest in the portfolio. We have some regulatory gaps, for example, the exit devices and also in component feature sets that are specific to the U.S. market. Here, for example, locks, and we're going to invest. I think it's very clear that we have product gaps in the portfolio which we are going to fill. We are in the process. The second part is a go-to-market. Our sales force has been reorganized in a customer-centric way. We have in some areas really very profitable regions and we have to focus on the right regions.
Think about the go-to-market by region, not America as a whole, but we're looking at regions where we are good, which metropolitan areas we are with the right distributors on the right track and what we have to change. We have made progress over the year. We see the order backlog with some gaps filled. The order backlog is growing, but we are just beginning at this. I think here we know it is an existing market. We have a good offering. We have to add to the offering and we have to focus the go-to-market. On the automatics, which is where I believe dormakaba, the hardware is not a commodity, it's more commoditized. The automation is much more like where we differentiate, where we talk about the vertical, where we talk about how to add AI into functionality.
I think here we have a great offering and we see significant potential. The same here, we have some product gaps which are more on the lower end side and we have to focus more on verticals. Airport, where we have good global experience, much more to go to the U.S. and data centers and healthcare. I think here it's really also kind of a product gap where we're talking to partners about then the go-to-market. While the hardware business is indirect over partners on the automatics, it's much more the value contribution comes over installation and service. We work on the service network and also here we have seen already last year some good developments. We got two major purchasing organizations for hospitals. We have seen two big retailers having more orders.
I think here it's very important to have the right go-to-market and to engage with the right partnering. The third one is the access control solution. So hardware, automatics, product gaps, and go-to-market concentrate. Access control solution is a different picture. Here you see it's still like the market is more than $3 billion. We are very strong in the hospitality area where we have a leading position. Here we clearly further develop in the U.S. but also globally. In the multi-housing, we have a good offering with partners where this is something where we will benefit and haven't seen upside potential. Where we are today not really represented is the commercial area. It's 80%, so it's above $2 billion market. What we are going to change here is I think it's important to explain. dormakaba from the history is selling engineered solutions.
The product comes as a bundle and you only can buy the bundle. What we are going to change is that we have not only the bundle but also the components. You can sell locks, you can buy readers, controllers. I think here we have one customer, so we have the products. We have to adjust the products slightly for the U.S. market. There's one customer segment, the PACs, the physical access control systems and the OEM partners, which we are not really serving today. Package solution in the past, now we're going to unbundle selling components to a new customer group of the PACs, which is different than the past. I think whilst in hardware, automatics, hospitality, it's about the existing go-to-market with more focus, with product depth. Here it's a new go-to-market to the PACs. Why do I believe that we have the right to win here?
Because we have in our portfolio some companies which have not been really aligned on the dormakaba journey. One is Ledgic, a credentialed company, which is really like credential, is one of the key criteria for secure access. Farpoint, a reader company, which is in the end run independent of dormakaba in the past. Here we have a good foundation to build on to, you know, if there's a solution where we can only sell locks, where we can only sell readers or controllers. I think here is the potential to really not only talk about you can sell the whole bundle, but also going by component. I think that is somewhere where you have some gaps to address on getting the API on the products, but it's very important. We have lots of the components existing, but we are today not selling them as components.
Therefore, I think it's to be important, open, interoperable. I think this component will be a new way, and we believe that it's a big potential. This market is today a $2 billion market. If you want to really win, I think the goal has to be to be 8%- 10%. I think that's the goal for the team to build up something here to be really represented in this market. If you look at the U.S. total today, $722 million, and the clear goal must be organic and anorganic to go above $1 billion. You have the AHS, the hardware business, with a very, you know, existing business adding product, concentrating on the go-to-market, automatics, enlarging the service, the integration, the partner business, hospitality, continue with a strong brand, continue with the market, and then having the new component commercial part, which I think adds to today's business.
This one, lastly, M&A plus acquisitions. We are convinced as a team, we want to go above $1 billion, and it's the biggest market. It's for us important. It will also a little bit change the way today we are very European-centric. We have to be more in the U.S. Also, with David Fuller being the EC, he is a U.S. citizen, so he will be based in the U.S., really working with the team here. I think that's really like what we want to do and want to shift gears to grow in the U.S. Clearly continue what we're doing, Shape for Growth, shape to grow, complexity, but looking at the outlook, let me give some comments. The business year is already like two months old, first second of September. We expect a robust trading environment despite geopolitical tension, discussion on tariffs, which are staying.
Uncertainties, volatility stays, and I think it's very important that we also have seen this in the last half year. We believe that, or we see that interest in Europe could be lowered. The infrastructure package in Germany, we do not see today, but there should something come, hopefully. We see increased activities in the U.S. on the investment side, and I see lots of opportunities to grow. The order backlog to date is unchanged, good momentum, though the year was starting robustly, and we will further advance on our commercial transformation and on the complexity reduction and want to accelerate profitable growth. Therefore, we expect for this year to grow organically 3 %- 5%. We want to achieve an adjusted EBITDA margin of above 16%. We never did this before, so I think it's very important. The team is fully committed to go this next step.
On the operation cash flow margin, we want to be between 11.5% and 12.5%. I think that's a goal which, you know, it's very important that it's a journey. You know, you've seen that on the complexity that we have lots of projects running, and it's about working further, continue on the cost efficiencies. It has to be part of our DNA. The cost program is efficiencies. Continue to show that we can lower the distance to our competitors globally and in the U.S. Thank you. For this, I'm happy to take your questions for René and myself.
Thank you very much, Till, René. We'll open the Q&A session right away here. We'll start with the questions from the audience first. Just a small instruction from my side: please wait for the mic to be handed over to you and state your name, institution, and then go ahead. Patrick, I think you've got the first question. Here you go.
Indeed, I do. Thanks. Patrick Rafaisz from UBS. Three questions, if that's possible. First, on the guidance, you described a bit the world, right, for the outlook. What do you assume in the 3% - 5%, the pricing contribution and the volume contribution to be? In that context, can you quantify a bit what you mean by robust start? If you look at H2 on the country level in access solutions, most regions actually saw a slowdown in volumes. How did that change now into H1?
Maybe we change the order of your questions. René, you want to give more light on the second half here.
When we look at the business, we saw in the second half year, organic net sales grew 3.1% compared to 5.1% in the first half year. However, we need to consider that we were substantially impacted by the trade tariffs in the OEM business. There we were growing 7% in the first half year and 0% growth in the second half year due to the OEM business. The OEM business, actually one part of the business, is that we are supplying OEM customers in North America out of China. You can imagine with the significant tariffs imposed on the China delivery, this business was hit substantially. It was fully compensated by Modern Thought as well as our Mouleval business. Therefore, you see a 0% growth, but behind that, there were some substantial changes.
When we look at the access solution business, the access solution business is partly an indirect business, a hardware business, and partly also a project business. Therefore, you have some seasonality as well in that business, depending on some upgrades which we are doing, like in hospitality, especially in the second half year and the first half of this financial year, which obviously after a certain period of time comes to an end. As we look at the business itself, we have seen actually still a very robust performance in the second half year in access solution with 3.9% growth compared to a demand in prior comparison of about 5.6% growth. Therefore, we see that there is still a very strong momentum when we look at our business development in access solution.
I think we need to anticipate that especially the trade tariff impact on the OEM business will continue in the first half of this financial year. With this, I would like now to hand over to Till.
I think that's what's important, that you know once you, and I did the same, like you have five and take coming up to four, what does the three mean? The access solution business is stable on 4%, and the impact came from KW. I think that's important. It also should explain that, you know, the momentum, the 4%± growth , continues. We don't see the three. I think that's what I mentioned, to be clear, that we first look at the second half to have a clear understanding how to read it and then to understand that we continue on this trajectory.
Patrick, you raised also a question about pricing impact. On the pricing impact, we anticipate a price increase of about 50% due to price, 50% due to volume, like we have seen that in this financial year.
Maybe also the tariff will come in a second. I think the surcharge topic, maybe you can also address because it's a bit pricing plus surcharge.
Yeah, obviously the guidance on tariffs is difficult because at the end nobody knows exactly how this will evolve. We have announced in April pricing as a surcharge, not price increases, of between 2% -1 0% of our product portfolio. This will obviously help us in the range of 3% - 5%, maybe bringing us more on the upper part. That is something we need to see how this evolves over time. So far, what we have seen is good takeover of acceptance in the market of those surcharges.
I think just on the tariffs to add, because this question had been raised also in the morning, I think it's still very important that we do local for local. The impact on the tariffs should be controlled. In the end, with our local for local U.S., 80%-90% local for U.S., same for China, I think the impact should be manageable.
Thanks for all these explanations. Can I ask about the North America growth plan? You blurred the picture a bit, right? Trying to understand the message from the bridge to the $1 billion, was the message that it's about 50-50 organic and M&A driven?
I think we have, first of all, we want to grow above GDP, and I think we want to do it 2% above GDP in the markets. When I try to lay it out, we have existing, I'll call it established go-to-market with hardware and where we exactly know the customers, where we have product gaps from the past, which we have to repair, which we have to close. It's about in some regions we are very efficient and we have to work on the regions which are not so efficient. How can we change the go-to-market? Do we need new partners, different partners? Why is this efficiency game for me in the end? On the automatic, it is much more differentiating product over service, over direct. You talk to data centers, to airports. I think it's more direct, indirect, and you need the right service network.
You need people who can install it, who can service. It's growing. There might be also some smaller partners to buy to really get in the regions to have the right network because the value added comes over installation. We know this. Same like we have some product gaps, more on the so-called lower value products, but we need the full portfolio to deliver to hospitals and so on. Known hospitality, strong muscle, good product, well-established brand with our key customers. We continue in the US and globally. Multi-housing, some new players like a Butterfly and so on, which are the user interface for you. There we have offerings now where we can include our products below the user interface and have an offering with options to grow. The spot which we are going to change is a commercial offering.
A $2 billion market where we today have close to a small double-digit number. A $2 billion, I think that is, and now I think what our vision and what we want to do is we want to get the right market share. This is a bit like the philosophy. Being here in Switzerland, lots of our solutions are engineered. It means you do a solution for a big customer, a great solution. Sometimes Germanish, I can talk about because I'm German alone, a little bit complex, and you have one fits all solution. With this approach, we did not really win in the US. I think what we want to do is, and it's more like the component orientation, so you can sell the whole bundle, but you also have the possibility to sell the reader, controller, the lock.
You can also get the full one, but the customer decides. We have good components. We have Ledgic with a credential. We have Farpoint. I think that we want to go with different go-to-market. Are all the products today ready for this component? No, but it's not far away because we have something available today to start. This business is like a $2 billion market, and we want to get a market share of close to 10%. I think that's one part. I think I would believe there should be more organically. However, the unorganic part, we can today not share too many details because on the one hand, it's a consolidating market. Everybody wants to consolidate. Globally, 35% are with the big three. In the U.S., maybe the share is a little bit bigger, but we have to be part of the consolidation.
We have not been in the last three, in the last, whatever, last half year, we did some smaller ones, but we haven't been really active. We have to get more active. Better?
Thank you very much.
Thank you, Till, René. There is another question here from Martin. Go ahead, Martin.
Thank you. Martin, here with the Circle Continental Bank. I have two questions, completely different from each other. Maybe first about the new dividend policy. Can you elaborate a bit why the board came to the conclusion that it needs to be changed and that it's not related to any earnings or cash flow metrics? That's the first question. Maybe one by one.
The situation is that we have, over the last four years, substantially improved our balance sheet structure. We have a strong financial stability, but at the same time, over the last few years, we have seen some volatility in our dividend payments. We wanted to care about our shareholders to give guidance about what they can expect in the future about future dividend payments. This led to the fact that on the one hand, from a business point of view, you have heard about Till explaining about our growth ambition.
I'm Alex Housten.
We have strong cash flows, but also we need a strong balance sheet to support the strategic direction on inorganic growth. At the same time, we have a stability in our balance sheet, which allows us to clearly indicate that we plan to gradually increase or maintain our dividend moving forward.
Okay, then maybe we could say that the dividend is kind of a function of M&A opportunities as well. First M&A opportunities and then dividend.
I think dividend is a reflection of a sound financial management, which we would like to establish for future growth.
I think it's expectation management. We want to pay shareholders a dividend, which is on the level of CHF 9.20 and should at least be stable or grow. I think that's more like expectation management. I think this is also, and given our forecast and what we see, we believe that we still have enough cash flow for investment.
Thank you. The second question, yes, you alluded to it, but for me it was a bit too fast. Can you talk again about the shared service centers? Where they are at the moment, I think a plant in Eastern Europe. Do you also have plans for plants in other shared service centers? What about the ramp-up of people? Where we are today and where are we in like two to three years?
As a key element of the Shape for Growth strategy, the transformation strategy was movement of support function into base cost countries. We have established three shared service centers. The biggest one is currently in Sofia, with close to 400 FTEs. The second one is in Nogales, Mexico, for the North American markets, with roughly about 70 FTEs. The third one is in Chennai, India, for the Asia-Pacific market, with 50 FTEs. Over the last 18 months, we have actually migrated more than 20 countries to those shared service centers. This financial year closing was actually done completely out of those shared service centers for those 20 markets. It's not only just finance, it's also HR, it's also product development. We have also moved IT functions into those shared service centers. In addition, we have outsourced, as part of business process, outsourcing IT support functions to a third-party service provider.
This is a move towards migrating some of the transactional activities into base cost countries. The same thing happens also on the manufacturing side. We have had the groundbreaking of a manufacturing plant in North America, in Nogales, where we expand our production, as well as in Sofia for the European markets.
Yeah, I think just to add, the shared service is also a journey. Today, if you have 350 + and also commercial, we'd add to this one. I think it's a sizable organization now. Even when you only have 20 people or 30 people, it's not getting efficient. I think now we are also at a level in Sofia and Nogales where you see efficiency, people can be shared. I think it was very important to build up this critical size and to further, in the end, further move business to the shared service, but also to work on the efficiency in the shared service center.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you very much, Till. René, I see there are also some questions from the web. Let's take some questions from there. Operator, please.
The first question from the phone comes from Rizk Maidi from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello. Can you hear me?
Yes.
Perfect. It's just a bit of an echo. Hi, Till and René. Thanks for your time. A few questions. Maybe I'll start with North America. Sorry, there's just a bit of echo, but I'll go through it. I think since we're shedding more light on the North American business, I was wondering if you could just share with us what this new growth plan will do to the margin. I think the last time you've given some transparency on this business, I think it was in 2021 when you said that the margin was 17% and you had the plan to increase margins by 4- 5 percentage points there. Just thinking about your new strategy of unbundling adding service presence, just perhaps what do you think that will do to the margin and perhaps if you could just show where the margin is today. Thank you.
Thanks for the good question, Rizk. I think it's two answers to the question. First of all, we have a margin guidance on the 16% adjusted EBITDA, which we want to achieve in the coming year, where the impact of the U.S. new components will be, you know, we will grow organically, hopefully have some unorganically, where we want to achieve the 16% plus. We all know that the U.S. is the single biggest and the most lucrative business. Clearly, the U.S. business should be accretive to the margin. I think it would be too early to give an indication of whether the guidance, we call it the guidance of 16% above 16%. Clearly, it will be beneficial and accretive. I think that's also the reason why we have to be stronger in the U.S. It would be too early to give another indication.
I think it's very consistently delivering step by step and now getting the 16% plus. Then we maybe might have more details once we're getting closer to the $1 billion.
Thank you very much. The second one is just on the EBITDA for this year. If I do my maths, basically there's $20 million left in the $170 million program. This year, you have some proportion of non-reoccurrence of the shared service cost ramp-up that should not come back, I think. Maybe René can confirm whether a $30 million number is the right one here. If I do my maths, I get to easily 16.4%, 16.5% margin. That basically assumes there's no, you know, overpricing or no volume drop-through. If you could give us a little bit of details on how should we think about the margin.
Reece, thanks a lot for the question. It's indeed, and we already mentioned that we have some additional costs this year, which is part of the normal operating result for work shadowing, but also for product transfer into those base cost countries. This is in the range of about 50 basis points for the full year of net sales. Therefore, obviously there is some benefit which you expect, especially now in the next financial year, to see in the functional cost development, particularly in Finance and HR and product development. Now, I do not want to speculate on the exact figure, especially also when it comes to the adjusted EBITDA margin. Our guidance is very clear. We would like to be above 16%. We have never been on 16%, and that's our focus to deliver more than 16% for the next financial year.
I think Reece can follow your arguments, and you know, we are on a journey, but it's very important that it is not one bullet in the wall. It's lots of small steps, lots of changes on projects, on go-to-market. I think it's really like the whole team has delivered a great result for the last year. It's about like to empower and to really do the next step. As René mentioned, I think it's very important to get over the hurdle because then it means like also kind of a new time. I think it's one that's important, the legacy tradition. It's important to move on, but not, you know, first get it done and then do the next one.
Perfect, thank you. The very quick last one is on the new dividend policy, and my understanding is the extra retained earnings here likely to go to M&A, and you clearly stated your ambitions there. Perhaps you could just go back to the M&A policy. Are you ruling out any big transformational deals? If you could just highlight a bit on your M&A criteria just to avoid some of the mistakes that have been made in the past when it comes to M&A. Thanks.
I think, you know, clearly you want to look at go-to-market. You've seen that focus has to be on the U.S. When we look at U.S. targets, the acquisition should be accretive. Without the goodwill amortization, I think it's important that we talk about accretive, what we understand on accretive. What we do see, the market is not really consolidated. We see also smaller acquisitions, and I think the opportunity should be that we try to get the smaller on a better price and also expect that once the target gets bigger, you have the competition from our fellows in the market, which also will bid on it. I think it is something where we have a couple of topics which we are watching, but I think it's too early to guide. I think here it's accretive, go-to-market, U.S. preferred.
Perfect, thank you.
All right. I see there is another question from the web. Operator, let's take this one.
The next question comes from Martin Flükilje, Deb Verschoor.
Morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for taking my question. I've got three, actually, and I'll take one by one. First one is a bit of a general question, more strategic and I guess more strategic rather than tactical in nature. Anyhow, I was wondering, what do you consider to be the biggest challenges and opportunities ahead in the upcoming financial year in both business segments? That would be my first question.
I think it's a very broad question. The question, do we do like one hour or two hours? I think it's the biggest challenge.
That's just key points.
I think the key point is we have a volatile environment. We have to stay to be very, stay on execution, to continue on our product delivery, on delivery of the product from operations to the markets, and to win the customers, very operationally. At the same time, working on the software offering, I think that is two topics to focus on, but then also delivery performance.
Great, thanks. The next one is, I guess, a question for the CFO. Just the number of smaller transactions you've done. Some of them were indicated in terms of size, some of them weren't. Just for updating spreadsheets here, what kind of divestment effects on sales and adjusted EBITDA are we talking about? What's the kind of total transaction value we should put into our cash flow models for 2025, 2026, please?
When we look at the last financial year, we had four smaller transactions. These were mostly bought on acquisitions. From that point of view, there was a low single million amount which we paid. On the divestment side, you have seen CHF 14.4 million divestment impact net. The bigger one was actually, sorry, CHF 17 million. The biggest one was actually the service business in the UK. This will continue up to November once we have announced it. Therefore, I think with these two parameters, that's what is known today. Obviously, whatever new transaction comes up, it's not yet foreseeable and therefore I cannot make any comments on the related impact.
Thank you. With regards to items affecting comparability in 2025, 2026, and the year beyond that, just wondering whether you could update your guidance there, please, including goodwill amortization.
The goodwill amortization will be in the range of about CHF 23 million. Therefore, similar, like we have seen that in this financial year, on ISC, we had this year CHF 44.7 million on the EBITDA. We expect for next year in the range of CHF 30 to 40 million. They are mainly driven by IT cost for our Shape for Growth transformation program.
Great, thanks.
Let's double check whether we have any questions in the room. Yes, go ahead, please. Just wait for the mic. Yeah, coming. Thank you.
Ralph Gallore from ING Bank. Thanks for taking the question.
We have heard quite something about, on the one hand side, your local-to-local approach. On the other hand side, also on the ambitions that you have in the U.S. I was wondering whether you could share anything around, aside from M&A, but more on the organic side, aside from expected CapEx in the U.S. Will that be a ramp-up locally there? Any projections that you have over that foreseeable horizon? I understood it's more in the access solutions and less in the KWO. I understood KWO basically stalled the growth. If you could shed any light on that CapEx over the coming years.
Maybe first on the KWO, the growth was stalled due to China, not due to North America. Therefore, in North America, we are growing positively. We have a good growth momentum in both businesses, in the key systems, as well as on the move of all business. When it comes to investments, first of all, obviously, we need to invest on a normal, operating business. Therefore, the strong volume growth, which we have seen over the last years, especially in North America, led to some bottlenecks in the manufacturing environment, which also now requires some investments into, especially machinery and equipment. This is normally in the normal course of business. There's nothing extraordinary, but there are some additional investments currently going on.
Okay, thank you.
All right, any further questions here in the room? If not, we are heading towards our operator once again. I see there is a question from Delphine. Operator, please.
We have a question from Delphine Bro, Audubon HF. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. Good morning. Thanks for squeezing me in. I have two questions. My first question is a follow-up. You put some emphasis on M&A and also on the North America region. In parallel, your net debt to EBITDA ratio has significantly improved. My question is, by how much would you agree to increase your debt leverage ratio as compared to the 0.8 at the end of June? Is the 2.5 x still valid?
Yeah, the 2.5 x is still valid. On the short term, we could go up to 3 x adjusted EBITDA.
Thank you. Second one, I try. Can you be a bit more specific and comment on the trend in terms of activity in the months of July and August? How does it compare versus your guidance? You are in the middle of the range, at the low end, at the high end.
We are absolutely in line with our guidance. We have seen actually a good start in July, continuing in August with positive growth on the top line. Therefore, we are confident that we will also deliver on the guidance for the full financial year.
All right, let's see. Any other questions from the room? Doesn't seem to be the case. There are a few follow-up questions from the web. Once again, operator, please.
We have a follow-up question from Martin Flückiger, Kepler Chevreau. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my follow-up. Again, financial question. Raw material and component prices, can you talk a little bit about the development over the last financial year and what you're expecting, best guess, for 2025-2026, and also update maybe your expectations with regards to wage inflation this year?
In this financial year, we have seen some, let's say, inflation impact overall on merit as well as on material for about 2 %- 3%. Higher on merit increases, lower on, let's say, on the material side. For next year, we do not see an easing of the situation. We further anticipate inflation to be in the range of 2 %- 3% on raw material. We see that the merit increase slightly comes down, but still, there is quite a lot of pressure on the salary side, especially in some of the key markets. Therefore, the transfer to shared service centers is a key, let's say, instrument and a key driver to address those developments.
Thank you, René. There is one more follow-up question from Jefferies, if I'm not mistaken. Operator, please.
Yes, we have a follow-up question from Rizk Maidi at Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yeah, perfect. Thank you. Two quick ones. Number one is, perhaps can we have a little bit more light on the OEM business? I think the Key & Vault Solutions division overall was flat in H2, and I think the OEM part is quite small. I guess the decline there has been quite severe. We haven't seen an implementation of tariffs yet. I'm just wondering, why do you explain such a big drop? Number two, how are you going to mitigate the performance here? Secondly, Till, perhaps if you could just elaborate on the journey long term. Obviously, you have the medium-term financial targets. Maybe if you could look at beyond that, perhaps reducing the complexity of the business. I think you started with door closures as the thing. I'm thinking whether there are other product families within the group where you can do something similar.
Anything on elevating the performance of the business further and potentially even improving the working capital management within the group as well. Thanks.
Let me do it more, less on the finance side. OEM business was impacted by the U.S. tariffs in the second half, where in the past there was one or two big customers in the U.S. I think we changed OEM that they are not only offering to the U.S., but also in China, but also to Europe. It's about, like, how can I mitigate? I think we all know that it didn't happen overnight. We also relocated business from China to Mexico already last year in the light of what we see on geopolitical tensions. I think OEM a little bit changed the way they worked. They had been like a workbench in the past for two or three OEMs, and now they're much more active in getting business on their workbench, which is very efficient in Taichung.
I believe that our leader in OEM is doing a very great job in getting new customers. On the journey, I think I laid out we have the cost efficiencies where you have the 170 and then the 40 plus 10, which is 220. Where on the 170, we had 148. On the 40, the commercial, we are starting, so we are working on it. In addition comes more efficiencies. One of the first meetings I was asked about was about the IT system at dormakaba. I think that everybody has in mind that we have a complex landscape, that we had various IT programs in the past. Currently, our program resize is really getting traction, and we believe that over resize, we get lots of efficiencies on how we work and that it's one layer of getting not only cost out, but also efficiency.
The door closer complexity is maybe on the numbers much more precise. Door closer complexity in the end stands for the complexity which we have to, on the one hand, manage, but also we think about how can we reduce complexity or find ways to be better. We had 10,000 SKUs for $300 million, and we had looked in details and saw that on the $300 million we can get, we were further narrowing it down, but we leave on the $300 million, we could have savings of $20 million- $25 million, maybe even more. There's only $300 million out of $1.4 billion hardware. Be assured that we take this out where we see the biggest potential. The same, we can apply to further product groups. There's more potential on the complexity reduction.
Also remember, we did the same on the hardware and software side where we had more than 40, close to 50 software platforms, reducing it to 12 or 14, which is also going on where we are migrating to this, whatever, top eight or top 10. I think that shows where on the door closer we put a number behind. There is more potential, and I think it's too early to put numbers in. If you have $300 million out of $1.4 billion, there's more to come. We have to give you more feedback on this one. This is when you talk about the journey. I think that the cost savings are more like how to get to the bottom line.
I think it's important that besides the bottom line and these measures, we have to work on the top line, how to get more business also over new products and acquisitions.
Thank you.
All right. For the last time, I'm going to raise this question. Are there any questions left in the room? If not, then I would say, yeah, with this, we're going to close our Q&A session. Thank you very much for your participation, for your questions. Please enjoy the light lunch with us. It's going to be served in front of the cafeteria there. Use the opportunity, of course, to interact with our management. Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.