Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Gurit Full Year 2025 Results live webcast. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. Kindly be aware that all participants will be set in listen-only mode, and the conference will be recorded. Right after the presentation, there will be a Q&A session where questions can be asked. To take part in the Q&A session, please use the telephone and press star and one. Dial-in numbers are available in the invitation. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. Note that the conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. Today, the audience will hear from Mr. Tobias Lührig, CEO of the Gurit Group, and Mr. Viktor Bernhardt, CFO of the company. At this moment, I am pleased to hand over to Mr. Tobias Lührig. Please go ahead.
Live from Gurit's headquarter here in Zurich. I'm pleased to have with me today our new CFO, Viktor Bernhardt. In 2025, we did our homework. We executed a rigorous restructuring program, repositioned the company for future growth. Today, we will demonstrate that these efforts have already started to materialize in the second half of 2025 and are expected to continue going forward. We structured today's presentation into 3 parts. I will start with an overview about the financial performance, for example, net sales, operational results, business market highlights, and give you 2 or 3 facts about our sustainability efforts in 2025. Viktor will continue with a deep dive on the financial results of 2025, including restructuring costs, free cash flow development, and balance sheet positions.
I will resume and give you an outlook about our strategy and the market, an overview of the wind market and how we operate in those growing markets, and why we are well-positioned to capture future growth. I also present you some selective highlights from our Marine and Industrial businesses. Before we dive into the Q&A session, I will conclude with the guidance for 2026 and a midterm outlook. Let's start with our 2025 achievements. Gurit successfully completed its restructuring program and streamlined its production footprint. It reduced overhead costs and exited significant unprofitable businesses. As a result of these measures, our net sales decreased from CHF 431.7 million to CHF 319.6 million, mainly due to the discontinued businesses. Our reported operating results were at CHF 43.2 million, reflecting restructuring effects.
On the adjusted basis, we reached at an EBIT of CHF 29.7 million. Our Return on Sales went from 6.9% in 2024 and improved to 8.1% in 2025. Despite this challenging year, we delivered a solid financial results. The net debt reduced by CHF 7.7 million to CHF 55 million. The free cash flow increased significantly to CHF 12.3 million compared to CHF 4.4 million in 2024. These figures provide a clear indication of the progress achieved over the past 12 months. A leaner, more focused organization with improved profitability and strong cash generation. In 2025, we focused on profitable, strategic, important businesses. We worked on our resilience and diversification by advancing our multi-market strategy. I give you some example of that.
For example, in Wind Systems, we secured a long-term supply agreement with Western OEM, supported by our Gurit OptiCore technology. We entered new markets like the subsea markets and we've been awarded with a multi-year subsea contract, entering an attractive new market where we see strong positioning of our company and strong growth potential. We, therefore, we expanding our footprint in Australia and Dallas in order to serve this future growth in those segments. We ramped up our capacity in Europe in our production facility, especially in Vall d'Uixó in Spain, in order to meet future demand. I will provide you more details on the underlying market growth and demand drivers later in the presentation. Let me provide you an overview of our three business units.
Wind Systems ended at CHF 190 million, Manufacturing Solutions at CHF 41 million, and Marine Industrial at CHF 88 million in sales. In Wind Systems, we delivered stronger than expected performance despite strategic exits. We improved competitiveness through footprint optimization and restructuring. As I told you, we secured the first long-term contract based on our OptiCore technology. I will share you more details on how our new operational set up is looking like later in this presentation. In Manufacturing Solutions, the net sales were in line with our expectation. We experienced a small slowdown in early 2025 and followed by a recovery later in the year. The outlook remains positive because we received some positive signs in early 2026. In Marine Industrial, we operated generally in a softer market environment. Achieving the major breakthrough in the subsea segment, as I mentioned before.
All across the three business units, we see clear evidence of improved positioning with early wins validating our strategic direction. Let me now turn on the supply chain performance and the ongoing topic of the U.S. tariffs, focusing first of the year 2025. Throughout the year, we experienced, actually, especially in the first half of the year, we experienced fluctuating freight rates and volatile transit times. Despite this environment, we ensured high service level by relocating select suppliers and optimizing our inventory management. These measures allowed us to maintain stable operations and reliable customer supply. In 2025, the impacts of the tariffs were minor. As the direct importer, we paid less than $1 million, where the majority of those tariffs could be passed through.
We are currently working with duty specialists to reclaim those tariffs, but due to the high pass-through rate, we do not expect significant positive effects. More relevant were the indirect effects. Early year order delays, particularly in Marine and Industrial. And over the course of 2025, it gradually normalized during the year. While we had expected that the tariff topics go away, it has recently resurfaced, as you know. However, due to our organizational setup in Canada and Mexico, both benefiting from the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, the direct impact of currently imposed tariffs remains limited. Let me briefly share two highlights of the Gurit sustainability efforts in 2025. We were awarded the EcoVadis Gold rating once again.
This place Gurit in the top 5% of all assessed companies, and it's notably worth that we say that this is the third time, consecutive time we achieved this rating. As another highlight, I would like to mention that we reduced our Scope 1 emissions by 24% since 2020. That means that we are very well on track on our defined pathway toward a net zero company. This achievement underlines the continued commitment to sustainability, combining external validation with measurable progress on emission reduction. Now I would like to give you to Viktor.
Thank you very much, Tobias. Good morning and a warm welcome from my side. Let me guide you through our financials 2025. Before we start, just some opening remarks from my side. The headline of my today's presentation is Transformation Completed, Well-Positioned for 2026. This is pretty much what we see in our 2025 financials. On one hand, last year's financial performance was heavily impacted by the transformation Gurit went through. On the other hand, financials which we do report for 2025 show as well how swift, how decisive Gurit executed transformation and why we believe that after the completion of it, we are well-positioned for 2026. Key facts. In 2025, we generated net sales of CHF 319.6 million. Operating result was driven by major one-time effects, -CHF 43.2 million.
Our adjusted operating result was CHF 26 million. The margin of the net sales was of 8.1%, well above previous year. Gurit generated, despite the restructuring efforts we went through, a cash flow of CHF 12.3 million and reduced its net debt down to CHF 55 million by the end of 2025. We dive a bit deeper into it. The decision to stop the carbon fiber pultrusion business as well as to focus on profitable wind customers had, as expected and as communicated, a major impact on our top line. Business unit Marine and Industrial and Manufacturing Solutions were, especially in the first semester, impacted by tariff uncertainty and delayed customer decisions. All this in combination with unfavorable FX effect. This we saw a decline in our net sales of 26%. The gross profit went down by 13%.
In relative terms to net sales, it was already above previous year. Adjusted operating result, here we reached CHF 26 million. Same as before, we are in terms of net sales margin, we are well above previous year. Our operating result was CHF -43 million. If we look deeper into it and the drivers for it, by building a bridge, we see that the main deviation comes from business divestment and here from goodwill recycling of CHF 64.2 million related to carbon business, pultrusion business exit. We had restructuring expenses of CHF 4.3 million, mainly in Denmark and Italy, as well as some minor impairment adjustments. I mentioned before that the financials 2025 show a clear picture of how we managed the transformation and why we believe to be well set for 2026.
If we compare the second semester 2025 with the first semester 2025, where we still were in the heavily in the restructuring phase, we see that our gross profit went significantly up in the second semester and our adjusted operating result went up to CHF 16.7 million or 10.8% of net sales. Significant increase versus the first semester. Diving deeper into some balance sheet items. Our trade net working capital reduced in line and along with our business reduction, we reduced it by 25%. Our net CapEx we spent last year was CHF 8.7 billion, reflecting somewhat smaller, Gurit, but reflecting as well our disciplined project execution while continuing investing in operating efficiency. Our free cash flow was CHF 12.3 million, well above previous year.
Net debt, here we successfully managed to reduce net debt by nearly CHF 8 million, down to CHF 55 million by end of last year. The equity went down by CHF 8 million, heavily impacted by CTA of CHF 12.3 million. Last but not least, our net debt to EBITDA ratio went significantly down from 2.5x to 1.6x. With this, I hand over to Tobias for the outlook.
Thank you very much, Victor. Before we go to the outlook, let me just take a few minutes to give you two insights about our market environment in wind energy, and our positioning as well as on the Marine and Industrial sector. Let's start with the wind energy. This is our primary market at this point in time. There are some global mega trends we are riding on. The global electrification is accelerating. Mega trends such as digitization, artificial intelligence, and the rapid expansion of data centers are driving a significantly increase in electricity demand around the world. This growing demand must be addressed through evolving energy mix with renewables playing a central role.
If you take a closer look at Europe, wind is their extremely strong and very competitive energy source that will be tapped over the next few years. According to the global supplier forecast of by Brinckmann, Western OEMs are expected to deliver a compound annual growth rate of about 10.5%. This growth is supported by strong regulatory frameworks in the Western markets, clear decarbonization targets in the countries and in the regions, and a continued policy to support a renewable energy. This combination of structural demand growth and support of regulation creates a highly favorable market environment for Gurit, particularly given our positioning in advanced composite material for wind and energy application. Let's take a even closer look.
It is important to note that according to the industry expert and our own analysis, Chinese OEMs are expected to play a relatively minor role outside of China. The market penetration is projected around 16% globally, ex-China by 2035. Chinese OEMs are likely to enter price-sensitive markets such as India, Southeast Asia, Turkey, and Australia. It's also, I think, important to note the moment, those OEMs, since non-Western OEMs enter different market and they open local manufacturing sites, they're also seeking for global suppliers like Gurit. Let me go on 2 sub-markets, the onshore and the offshore market. I start with the onshore market first. Here the market dynamics looks like the following. We expected a growth at approximately 6%, primarily driven by the European demand.
Around 70% of on the future onshore installation are forecasted to be accounted by the five major OEMs. In the offshore market, we see a slightly different picture. We expect a stronger growth between 14% and 16%, but kicks in a little bit later, and the regional driver is by far the European market region. I think it's important to note that the U.S. market outlook is expected to have minimal installation due to the current US policy framework. If it change, and we see it probably change after the next administration, we will see positive effects not earlier than the 2030s. I understand it can be sometimes challenging to grasp what Gurit actually does and is producing, especially if you are just starting to look at our business.
Let me clarify this a little bit by focusing on Wind Systems. Gurit provides mission-critical supplies and tools for the wind turbine blades, including highly engineered molds. They are essential for building the blades, and they are 100 -meter -long steel structures, very complicated. We produce and deliver core materials, PET and balsa, which form the internal structure of the blades who are essential to deliver structural integrity of the blades. We make tailor-made kits. They're ready to assembly on the spot delivered to our customers for each blade. We produce high-performance profiles, ensuring a reliable torque transition when you from blade into the turbine. We produce special coatings, ensuring performance, durability, and efficiency, not only during the production process but also in the aftermarket.
We believe that no other suppliers in the market offer those breadth and integration of products and services that Gurit provides for wind turbine blades. This combination of material tools, engineering service, positions us very well as a strategic partner for our customers. As you know, and it's very easy to spot trends, turbine becomes larger and larger, and so blades become larger and larger. Some of you have asked me whether this could reduce the market size for our core material. The answer is easy. Based on detailed analysis of our engineering data we get from our customers and we can grasp ourselves, we can see that the increase in material usage more than offsets any potential reduction from the larger blade designs. As a result, demand for core materials remain robust.
Given the current design trends, Gurit is very positioned to fully participate in the global market growth. As I promised you earlier, let me guide you through our new production footprint for Wind Systems. Currently, we operate in seven countries, strategically serving the wind industry. This network is deliberately designed to ensure customer proximity, cost-efficient production, and strategic risk mitigation. Our key location and capabilities are, for example, Ecuador, where we positioned ourself in a country that are producing 80% of the global balsa supply, and we are the only major player with free access to balsa. That means we don't have our own plantation and thereby avoiding structural supply risk. We are located in Mexico, near the U.S. border, specialized in core material and kitting.
In Spain, we are focusing on kitting and core materials, supporting the European demand. In India and China, we are producing and we are concentrated on production of structural profiles. In China and India, we're also producing molds for manufacturing solution. In both countries, we have kitting and core material capabilities. Talking about core materials. Gurit supplies to the market very important core materials and ready-to-use kits using both recycled PET and so-called virgin PET. Recycled PET enables us to meet the strictest sustainability requirements of our customers. With the choice between recycled and virgin PET, we have access to multiple raw material resources that reduces the dependency on any single supplier or supply chain. We benefit from strong scale effects through centralized extruder facilities in our core markets.
Many decades of continuous product optimization have delivered us industry-leading yields and on our extruders. Our proprietary OptiCore technology allows customers to reduce blade weights by several 100 kg per blade. This weight reduction enhances turbine efficiency over its lifetime, creating value both for direct customers as well as for the end users. Now I would like to go to the to the Marine and Industrial business for a while. Looking ahead, the Marine and Industrial market are expected to show moderate growth influenced by a slower marine demand due to the U.S. tariffs and decline in certain U.S. segments. Despite these headwinds, we have entered new market segments and driving increasing demand, particularly for the recycled PET form in the industrial space.
Our Corecell or proprietary core technology is seen as the only long-term reliable solution for specific application in the subsea and defense sector. We expect a strong growth in the subsea market, also we see multiple opportunities to replace traditional materials such as wood across various industries. New products are in the pipeline, are expected to start impacting top line later this year and the years to come. We believe Gurit is now very well positioned to capture those growth in the Marine and Industrial sectors. We have the best in-class structural engineering plus scalable kitting capabilities to support efficient production. The proprietary Corecell technology delivers exceptional and consistent material performance. We only begin to unlock new lightweight opportunities by replacing traditional materials with Gurit solution, improving performance efficiency and total system costs.
Let me now come to the guidance. We believe, and we see that the net sales from continued operations at constant FX rates to increase at a mid-single-digit rate. Our adjusted operating results margin will improve versus 2025, obviously depends on geopolitical situation and market development, including FX fluctuations. Our midterm outlook, post 2026, we see a mid -to -high single-digit growth in wind, a high single-digit growth in non-wind, and we are reaffirming a 10% operational sales margin going forward. We completed our transformation. We have now a leaner and cleaner footprint. We reduced our overhead costs. We improved our operational resilience and focused on strategic partners and customers. We believe we positioned the company for sustainable profitable growth in the future.
Before we go into the Q&A session, let me give you some or 3 next important dates. This will be April 16th, with the annual general meeting and the Q1 2026 results. On August 26th, we present you the half year report, and on October 23rd, we present you the Q3 numbers. This point in time, I thank you very much, and we are happy to take any answers.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Participant can now ask question by pressing star one on the touch-tone telephone. Questioner are requested to use handsets only and turn down the volume. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Anyone with a question may press star one at this time. Our first question comes from Laura Bucher from Octavian. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. First, I'm looking for some comments on China. I mean, you deliberately reduced your exposure to domestic products in China, so I'm wondering how you're positioned to capture the growth from, number one, the 120 gigawatt annual installation target under the new 14th Five-Year Plan, which is, I think is quite sizable. Number two, from the Chinese OEM gaining share internationally. If I'm not mistaken, they've increased their non-China share threefold last year. Also have you factored any of this into your 2026 and post 2026 growth targets? I'll take my second question after the answer, if I may.
Thank you, Laura, very much for the questions. We are working with Chinese customers obviously, we are working with China's customers outside China as well. As I told you in one of my slides, we are getting requests, especially for the growth outside of China's for our core material and kitting services. I believe we are strongly positioned over there. We see this 120 gigawatts installation as well. We expect a little bit less than that, it's on extremely high level. I think it's most important that we really focus on profitable customer relationships. We are very selective and don't participate in any big price competition in the China market.
We factors a little bit into this, of this growth into our numbers going forward.
Okay. Thank you. Just wondering why are you not, you know, guiding mid-to-high single-digit and not the 10% growth you expect in your Western market. Just wondering why you expect less. Is it lower prices? Do you see risk to your market share?
We don't see any risk at the market shares. The prices are very, very stable, but nevertheless, we are still a little bit, let's say conservative in terms of the global situation.
Okay. Thank you.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star followed by one. The next question comes from Martí Queral from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Question number one would be, please, could you give some color on what were the drivers of the gross margin expansion in H2 versus H1? I mean, is it all related to the discontinuation of the carbon fiber business, or did you have also some tailwinds from lower raw material prices?
Yeah, I take this question, Martí. Thank you very much for the question. No, we didn't have any special effects in H2, on the gross margin. It's really mostly coming from the discontinuation of the carbon fiber pultrusion business. No major tailwinds.
Okay, thanks. For 2026, I mean, you expect core EBIT margin above 2025 levels, above 8.1%. I mean, most likely, I would say that this implies a contraction compared to the 10.8% margin that you had in H2. I mean, could you elaborate why you do not expect the H2 margin to be sustainable in 2026?
Yeah, fair question, and we're expecting this one. Indeed, we delivered above 10% margin in, for two consecutive quarters. On the other hand, we want to be prudent, similar to the answer to BSK before. We are cautious going forward with all the uncertainty still.
Okay, thanks. I would have a question on the wind business, also similar to a question that was asked before. I mean, you know, if I look at the outlook statements from Wind OEMs, you know, they are encouraging for 2026. If I look in 2025, for example, the megawatts that some of these OEMs delivered grew double digit, while the core sales in Wind Materials were down 3%, roughly. My question is, could you help me understand where is this difference coming from? I mean, is it due to lower ASPs? Is it changes in market share? Like, some color would be appreciated here. Thanks.
Martí, just to grab your question correct. You're asking why there is a difference between the market growth and us being down on wind?
Basically, yes. Yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
Okay. Yes. We've seen that the raw material prices went down. Some of our raw material prices will reflect also into our sales prices.
Okay, thanks.
Mostly just if I may add, Martí, I mean, we, as we said, we stepped out from non-profitable customers, in line. It's, there we gave basically sales away.
Okay. Okay. That's clear. I mean, now you just said that raw materials went down. I mean, I guess that this helps also on the margin. That was my question before.
Well, it goes in line, but, I mean, it was not a major tailwind on the, on the gross profit.
Okay. Okay. Only one last question, if I may. I mean, you had an equity free cash flow of around CHF 11 million, I would say. I mean, is this the new base level that we should think about Gurit going forward? Is this something that you can achieve also in 2026?
For the free cash flow. Well, the free cash flow 2025 was impacted by restructuring measures, which we don't expect in that magnitude going forward. I think the level of 2025 should be definitely set to rock bottom for us.
Okay. That's clear. Many thanks. That's all from my side.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's question and answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Tobias Lührig for any closing remarks.
Yes. Thank you very much, everybody, for participating today. I hope I see you soon for the next media conference. I wish you a great day. Thank you very much, and bye-bye.
Thank you from my side as well.
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