Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the OC Oerlikon Conference Call and Live Webcast. I'm Yruna, the course call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing Star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press Star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Stephan Gick, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to OC Oerlikon's Investor Call on the signing of the agreement to divest Barmag. With me in the call is Markus Richter, CFO of OC Oerlikon. Markus will start the call with a presentation providing an update on the transaction rationale and our new pure-play perspectives. We will then follow up with Q&A. Please note that the call will purely focus on the transaction and its impact on our business. Our iDesk will support you concerning questions on today's published Q1 trading update. With that, I would like to open our presentations and hand over to Markus. The floor is yours.
Thank you, Stephan. Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to our investor call where I will provide you an update on our pure-play strategy execution. As announced in the beginning of last year, we are about to finalize our portfolio transformation. If we go back to 2014, OC Oerlikon was an industrial conglomerate with five unrelated divisions. So far, we have focused the portfolio to two divisions. We received CHF 1.2 billion proceeds, which we partly returned to shareholders and partly reinvested into growth and resilience. In surface solutions, for instance, we entered new industries including aviation, semiconductors, and energy. We diversified technologies and we moved closer to our customers. Today, the remaining two divisions are attractive market leaders in sweet spots with cutting-edge technology. They have, however, different end markets, geographies, customers, business models, and cycles. We are therefore announcing today the unlocking of the pure-play potential of these two assets.
Let me show you the different positioning of both divisions in more detail on the next slide. As you see on the left side, we have a high-tech surface solutions and coatings business. It is highly diversified both technically and regionally, with a broad customer base of more than 30,000 customers. The top 10 customers account for just 7% of sales. The business has many different end markets with different application possibilities. Leveraging our innovation into these broad-based end markets is driving the division's growth. On the right side, we highlight Barmag, our man-made fiber business. The clear focus of the portfolio is on systems and components for the production of man-made fibers, largely a project business. The regional focus is clearly on Asia. The number of customers is concentrated. The top 20 customers account for the majority of sales.
The division has an attractive cash generation over the cycle with selective growth opportunities. Summing up, the two businesses have different characteristics, hardly any synergies, and no market overlaps. Today's announced transaction will therefore increase both divisions' agility and unlock value for shareholders. Let me provide you with an overview of the transaction. As announced this morning, we signed an agreement to divest Barmag to Rieter, consistent with the 12- 36-month separation plan timeframe as announced in February 2024. The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025, subject to receipt of regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. Both Rieter and Barmag have a long history of innovation, leadership, and expertise in plant engineering for the global textile industry and APEC end markets.
The combination will enable positive future development for Barmag by allowing the business to purely focus its strategy and capital allocation on its respective end markets and geographies. The transaction values Barmag at an enterprise value of CHF 850 million. Additionally, there will be an earnout element of up to CHF 100 million, subject to the EBITDA evolution of Barmag over 2025- 2028. This represents an attractive, through the cycle, EV/EBITDA multiple of approximately 6.5, excluding the earnout, and slightly more than 7 times altogether. We expect to receive an upfront equity purchase price of approximately CHF 700 million at the time of closing. We will use the proceeds primarily for repayment of our CHF 475 million term loan, as well as for general corporate purposes and potential distribution to shareholders.
With that, let's take a look at the value creation of this transaction on the next slides. By separating the two businesses and continuing right-sizing our overhead functions, surface solutions will become more agile, dynamic, and independent. This will set free management capacity, supporting efficient operations in the current challenging geopolitical environment. We have a very solid plan in place to right-size the corporate cost to the smaller company setup and ensure future cost efficiency, with expected annual savings of CHF 13 million. Besides SG&A cost measures, we already initiated merging our group overhead functions with those of surface solutions last autumn. We target to eliminate all overhead costs which are currently borne by Barmag. In parallel, we are profiling a distinct brand. We are positioning ourselves clearly to our customers and investors as the pure-play surface solutions market and technology leader.
Last but not least, the surface solutions market is highly fragmented. We see plenty of organic and inorganic growth opportunities in terms of applications, end markets, and geographies. Following the separation, our focus will be purely concentrated on these opportunities. Summing up, we are working on various levers to unlock shareholder value. We are highlighting the attractive positioning and strong USP of the pure-play OC Oerlikon on the next slide. OC Oerlikon is a market and innovation leader in cutting-edge surface technologies such as PVD and thermal spray. The application of these technologies represents an attractive niche market where application know-how of interdisciplinary sciences is required. OC Oerlikon is at the technology forefront for almost a century and has built up a long-standing customer relationship alongside a strong brand. Our strong credibility is supported through our integrated product and technology offering.
The company benefits from a highly scalable global footprint, enabling leveraging of shared technologies and AI for low marginal cost. In the last decade, we have diversified our end markets and positioned us closer to our more than 30,000 customers. This makes us, in today's challenging economic environment, more resilient and positions us well to benefit from a potential market recovery in the midterm. Another sweet spot characteristic is our value proposition for our customers, delivering technology with a high impact at a relatively small cost. Summing up, OC Oerlikon has a strong positioning, serving as a fundament for profitable future growth, as shown on the next page. OC Oerlikon is an enabler for efficiency, performance, and sustainability. This drives demand and growth for our solutions in the midterm. We are capitalizing on the increasing demand for surface solutions by driving geographic expansion.
We have introduced a new regional organization in 2022. This supports us in accelerating our expansion into Americas and APEC, where we are underrepresented compared to Europe, which is our home turf. In parallel, we are leveraging technology leadership into new areas such as battery shielding, and we are strengthening our offering in existing markets. Unlike 2014, we are today present in industries like aviation, semiconductors, and energy. All of them have attractive growth potential in the midterm. Summing up, all ingredients are in place for profitable 4%-6% sales growth in the midterm. In the short term, we are exposed to soft end markets and PMIs. We therefore conclude our presentation with an update on our 2025 guidance. Following the signing of the agreement to divest Barmag, Barmag will be reported as discontinued operations.
In the profit and loss statement, the results from Barmag will therefore be shown as a single line item result from discontinued activities, including retrospective adjustments for comparison periods. This has an impact on our 2025 guidance provided in February, which included Barmag. You find our February guidance on the left side of the slide, and we align it to the pure-play scope on the right side. We continue to expect flat to low single-digit percentage of sales growth despite soft end markets, particularly in luxury. While we previously expected 18.5%-19% operational EBITDA margins for OC Oerlikon Surface Solutions, our guidance for OC Oerlikon is approximately 18.5%. This reflects the corporate costs which were borne by Barmag so far. We are executing on a clear plan to eliminate this corporate cost overhang going forward and expect to lower the overhead costs by CHF 13 million.
As with regards to the current geopolitical environment, we are recognizing increased macroeconomic uncertainties arising from potentially prolonged trade conflicts. OC Oerlikon is closely monitoring the situation, maintaining a strong focus on pricing and cost efficiency. With that, let me open up for Q&A on the transaction.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume from the webcast while asking a question.
Please limit yourself to three questions and place them one by one each, hence allowing the company to answer each question individually before posing the next question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question from the phone comes from Michael Fuchs with Vontobel. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, hi. Good afternoon, everyone, and congratulations to the deal. First question would be, in terms of the use of the proceeds, why are you not considering to deleverage the balance sheet further rather than paying out after shareholders or eventually making additional acquisitions or keeping some firepower on the balance sheet? That would be my first question.
First of all, thanks for the congratulations. Much appreciated. The proceeds will be definitely used to improve our balance sheet position.
We will use the proceeds to pay back a term loan of CHF 475 million, which was used at the time for the RIRI acquisition. On top of that, we will have to decide what to do with the remaining parts. The midterm for our leverage is certainly to be under two times. With that, you can be assured that improving the balance sheet and deleveraging is a top priority. The exact split of the proceeds will come in due course. Okay, thank you. My second question would be on just financials. If you could help us, what tax rate you're expecting for the standalone OC Oerlikon business and what net working capital intensity that standalone business has, if that's already possible to say. Thank you. For the 2A, I would say we expect right around 27% tax rate for the standalone.
For networking capital, as you suggested, at this rate, it's a little bit too premature to have a good number for that. We'll update once we have more details.
Okay, thank you. The final question would be if there are any changes to the management structure planned following the announcement of the deal, or do you have any plans to change that only after the closing of the deal?
For the management model, we'll remain intact for the moment. If we consider Barmag, it's a carved-out unit for us, which we hand over to Rieter. For RemainCo, we are in place, in position. No changes are to be expected at the moment.
However, if we look at the executive share model right now, it has been announced, and I want to reiterate that the next generation of management has been onboarded, and we expect that the double or the chair model that we have right now will be discontinued latest by H1 2027.
Perfect. Thank you.
For any further questions, please press star and one on your telephone. The next question from the phone comes from Sebastian Vogel with UBS. Please go ahead.
Hello, and good afternoon. My three questions are the following. The first one relates with regard to the earnout. How likely do you see the chances that you get the full earnout over the time period that you have alluded to?
Obviously, it's a negotiated earnout that is based on performance of the EBITDA.
To what percentage we will benefit from that is also a bit up to what the markets are doing, but I can say we feel good with the negotiated terms on the earnout.
Got it. My second question is with regard to the medium-term guidance. If I was reading it correctly, that you have updated that one into 20%+ , while if I'm not mistaken, in the past, you were guiding for 20%-22% for surface solution. Is that also part of the corporate costs, or why there was this change in wording?
No. Here, maybe there was some unclarity, but we continue with the 20%-22%. It is the same. If there was conflicting messages, apologies for that, but I can confirm it remains as it was, 20%-22%.
Got it. The last question, also a bit of a maintenance one.
On the CapEx side of things, what is the sort of the CapEx that you plan for the business?
For the standalone going forward, I think it would be good to consider around CHF 115 million going forward for the RemainCo.
Got it. Many thanks.
As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one. We have a question from the phone from the line of Alessandro Foletti with Octavian. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for taking my question. Sorry, I came a little bit late on the call, so I do not know if you already mentioned that, but can you give an indication of the current trading in surface solutions, in particular the tooling business by geography, if you can, and also the luxury business?
All right. Thanks, Alessandro, for the question.
We just announced earlier that this session is really focusing on the transaction itself. On the trading update, please reach out to investor relations. I know that you anyway have close contact with Stephan and Aymeric.
Okay. All right.
Much appreciated.
Great. Thank you, everybody. This concludes today's call. In case of further questions, do not hesitate to contact us in the IR team. Thank you for your attention today, and goodbye.
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