Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A warm welcome from my side. Thank you for joining us today to review Rieter's full year 2025 performance and discuss the strategic path ahead. Together with our CFO, Oliver Streuli, I will outline the key results of 2025, the progress of our transformation, our expectations for 2026 and beyond. Before I begin the presentation, let me draw your attention to the picture on the cover page. That reflects the new Rieter, consisting not only of natural fibers, but also of man-made fibers. Let's move to the agenda on slide number two. We will briefly look at the key messages and review the market. I will then hand over to Oliver for a deep dive into the financials.
Afterwards, we will take a more extensive look at the successful acquisition of Barmag, the medium-term financial guidance, and the outlook for 2026. Now to the key messages on slide number four. Let me first start with the green boxes. 2025 was a year marked by cyclical weakness in the global spinning machinery market, influenced by geopolitical tensions, lower yarn margins, and high volatility in investment sentiments. Against this backdrop, Rieter delivered an order intake of CHF 703 million, slightly below last year, but stable in local currencies. Sales declined to CHF 685 million, reflecting the subdued market and the result of lower order intakes in the last years.
Our operating EBIT reached CHF 2.5 million, affected by lower volumes and pricing pressure, yet supported by active cost management and the early impact of our restructuring measures. Despite a challenging market, we preserved strategic flexibility, strengthened our portfolio, and positioned the group for accelerated earnings recovery once demand normalizes again. Second, the blue boxes. The Asian countries delivered strong order intake, confirming the region's ongoing structural importance for our business model and long-term market presence. The most important structural development, of course, for the year was the successful acquisition of Barmag, a transformative step that expands our presence in the higher growth man-made fiber market, enhances sales diversification across technology and end applications, adds scale, productivity levers, long-term synergy, potential, and strengthens our market position in the long term in the strategically important Asia region. The soft integration is progressing according to plan.
We expect to realize medium term a minimum of CHF 20 million in synergies, driven by portfolio consolidation, cross-selling, procurement efficiencies, and optimized production structures. One of the most significant regional developments was China, where sales increased by 32%. This growth was driven by a supportive investment environment, improved mill utilization, and strong domestic demand. With our efforts to create a local for local organizational setup, we were able to participate more than in the past in the strong market. Let's turn to the gray boxes. We continue to make tangible progress in sustainability and operational performance. The share of renewable energy used increased to 38.7%, compared to 28.6% in 2024. Women in management positions rose to 20.1%, up from 15%.
This was enabled by systematically embedding a focus on diversity into all human resources processes and across the entire employee life cycle. We were also able to reduce occupational accidents to a frequency rate of 2.7, down from 3.3 in the prior year. This was thanks to the targeted safety trainings in the year on the review. These developments support both our ESG commitments and the long-term stability of our operations. We now move to our group leadership team on slide number five. To capture the full potential of Barmag and the wider group, we strengthened our leadership team with Georg Stausberg, who now heads up the Man-Made Fiber Division. He brings deep industry expertise to this role and the whole combined company. This reinforced leadership setup provides the operational focus required for the successful integration, profitability improvement, and long-term competitiveness.
Now to the Rieter's full year results, 2025. Let me start with the global economic and textile key indicators on slide seven. This slide shows the resilience of retail sales, which confirms that people are still shopping despite all the global uncertainty. Retail sales are particularly healthy still in Europe. A look at the capacity utilization of spinning mills, however, paints a slightly different picture. In the rest of the world, capacity utilization is down year-on-year, while it is relatively constant in China. India maintains a healthy capacity utilization level of 88%. A word on the profitability of the spinning mills on slide eight. Here, you see the cotton margins in terms of Swiss francs per kilo on the left, compared with polyester on the right.
The spinner's cotton margin is naturally very slim and has come under increasing pressure in the recent years due to labor shortages and rising costs. Low capacity utilization further weighs on the margins. Whereas the rest of the world stays quite stable, but with low volumes, India and China have low margins, but high volumes. A similar picture you can also see on the polyester margins. Here, Barmag and Rieter pursue the same vision of fully digitizing and automizing the value chain, underpinned by strong sales and service networks, which in turn will help strengthen the margins. A deep dive into the market situation on slide number nine. The 2025 market developed unevenly across the different regions. The Americas showed a stable market environment overall, being more positive in Central and South America, but more cautious in North America.
Rieter is very well-positioned in this market, and we see quite some growth prospects for the near future. EMEA includes Europe, Middle East, and Africa, with the main markets, Turkey, Egypt, Uzbekistan, and Pakistan. Whereas Turkey and Uzbekistan have still not recovered from the downturn, we see some market improvements in Egypt. Overall, we can support our customers with automation solutions and low energy-consuming products to create an advantage in the conversion costs per kilogram yarn. India and a part of Southeast Asia is considered as ready for growth. The latest agreements between the U.S. and India regarding tariffs and the free trade agreement between India and the European Union have given more planning security for our customers. With the strong mill utilization, several larger projects are now in the final planning phase. China has shown the highest resilience in the market over the last four years of downturn.
Besides focusing on latest technology, which helps us, a clear investment plan by the central government supports this trend. Rieter has implemented a strong local organizational setup to match the Chinese requirements, and our growth is in the biggest textile market, indicates that we are following the right strategy. This concludes now my part of the presentation, and I hand over to Oliver Streuli, our CFO, for the financials.
Thank you, Thomas. Good morning also from my side. I will now walk you through the key financial information for the full year 2025. Sales amounted to CHF 685.1 million , a decrease of 20% compared to the prior year. Free cash flow came in at -CHF 40.6 million , versus a positive CHF 14.1 million in 2024. Order intake, as already heard, reached CHF 703.4 million , down 3% year-on-year in Swiss francs. Despite the exceptionally low sales level, operating EBIT remained slightly positive at CHF 2.5 million , but below last year's CHF 33.9 million .
Restructuring, transaction, and impairment effects totaled CHF 54.2 million, significantly impacting reporting EBIT free cash flow and leading to a net result of CHF 63.4 million. Thanks to ongoing strong cost discipline, consisting of structural and temporary measures, we were able to reduce overhead costs by another CHF 61.3 million compared to the prior year. Lastly, net liquidity improved to CHF 184.3 million, supported by the capital increase ahead of the Barmag closing. Now let's turn to order intake on slide number 11. Order intake decreased by 3% to CHF 703.4 million. Machines and systems recorded a slight decline. Components softened quite a bit, while after-sales delivered solid growth. FX translation headwinds weighed on reported figures.
In local currency, order intake was slightly above prior year. Overall, we achieved a positive book-to-bill ratio when compared to sales, which brings me to the next slide. Sales declined by 20%, closing in at CHF 685.1 million . This was driven by the continuously low market and certain customer-driven deferrals, especially in December. Machines and systems saw the steepest decline, followed by components. In contrast, after-sales remained relatively resilient in absolute terms. FX headwinds reduced sales additionally by about 2.5%. Regionally, China grew by 32%, clearly the highlight, which underpins our local strategy. Americas was stable, while in contrast, Turkey, Africa, and several Asian markets, where Rieter historically holds a strong market position, declined sharply due to the subdued market. Let us continue with the operating EBIT on page number 13.
Operating EBIT remained around breakeven at CHF 2.5 million, thanks to strict cost discipline. The negative gross profit impact of around CHF 92 million due to the lower volume, was largely offset by overhead savings. Allow me the comparison to 2023, our last normal or good sales year. In total, we have now reduced our overhead costs by almost CHF 120 million, or by more than one-third, which mitigates the continuously difficult market environment to some extent. Regarding non-operating EBIT and net income effects, restructuring and impairment costs totaled CHF 37.8 million, and transaction-related costs, including financing, amounted to CHF 16.4 million. For the sake of completeness, some real estate disposals, most prominently in half-year one, as already communicated, also supported operating EBIT as part of streamlining our production and administrative footprint.
Let's turn to an update on the announced restructuring programs on slide 14. As outlined in Q3 2025, we expect the announced measures to deliver a run rate benefit of around CHF 27 million, against one-time costs of around CHF 36 million. These benefits are expected to fully hit the P&L in 2027. On to some details. On the Short-Staple Fiber Division, as we newly call our natural fiber business, we implemented targeted capacity adjustments and shifted parts of the winder assembly to China. We also transferred repair services to Rieter, India, and Rieter, Czech Republic, and optimized the indirect-to-direct labor ratio across the supply chain in India, the Czech Republic, and also China. We also optimized the cost structure in India, Czech Republic, China, and in the U.S.
In the Components and Technology Division, we selectively transferred R&D and SG&A capacities to best cost countries and reduced the overall cost base. Several footprint adjustments were also executed, such as the sale of the Graf company, Comatex in Belgium, the closure of Graf, Netherlands, with production moved to China. Finally, we executed a planned consolidation in Germany at Suessen and initiated the closure of Bräcker, France, the beginning of this year. These measures significantly simplify our footprint and structurally reduce costs, marking another milestone in improving our overall competitiveness. On to cash conversion on slide number 16. Free cash flow reached -CHF 40.6 million , reflecting the negative net result and transaction in the restructuring-related cash outflows.
Lower advance payments from customers also weighed on cash flow, while operating working capital improved to some extent through reductions in receivables and inventories, which was partly offsetting. Strong cash discipline obviously remains a key management priority also in this year. Now, a word on our financial position on slide number 16, which is my favorite slide, but has to be taken with a pinch of salt, obviously, given the pending Barmag closing at year-end. Our financial position improved during the year. The equity ratio stood at 53.3%. The net liquidity reached a positive CHF 184.3 million at year-end. Which brings me to my last slide, number 17, on liquidity headroom. Given the still muted market environment, debt levels will be elevated during the course of 2026, following the Barmag closing.
However, it's important for me to state that available liquidity shows a combined liquidity of more than CHF 300 million, which consists of current accounts, deposits, and money market funds. On top, Rieter has access to a CHF 375 million revolving credit facility and more than CHF 100 million in bilateral credit lines. This means that our financing is fully secured and provides a sound base. This concludes the financial section. Back to you, Thomas.
Thank you, Oliver. Thanks a lot. Let's have a look at the today's Rieter, a new global leader in the textile industry. Let's look at this new animal on slide number 19. With Barmag included, Rieter is now the global leader in both short-staple and man-made fiber solutions. We are present in 31 locations across of nine countries. We now have more than 7,000 employees, with leading edge expertise in fiber technology, and we are offering technology coverage across the entire spinning and filament value chain. This expanded footprint is a key driver for the future: operating leverage, cross-selling potential, market share gains, and profitability improvements over the cycle. Here you can also see the locations divided by the different regions: Americas, Europe, Middle East, Africa, as well as in Asia Pacific.
On the right side, the three new divisions: Man-Made Fibers, Short-Staple Fiber, as well as Components and Technology. Let's have a look at the global textile landscape and the value chain on slide number 20. With the integration of Barmag, Rieter enables the full spectrum of yarn production. On the left side, the raw material, which is used in the whole textile industry. This amounted to around 113 million tons of raw material per year. These 113 million tons are divided into 54 million tons of staple fibers and about 59 million tons of filament. When we then deep dive into the figures for staple fibers, we see that roughly one third, or maybe a little bit more than one third, comes from cotton and one third comes from polyester.
These are filaments which are cut afterwards into fibers and then are spun on our machines. The rest is made up of viscose and other products. Let's jump to the slide number 21. Rieter covers the entire textile value chain, from fiber to yarn and from polymer melt to filament, fiber, and nonwoven products, and covers the complete process, from fiber preparation through to all four end spinning technologies in the spinning mills. You see on the left side, the mentioned three divisions. The Short-Staple Fiber Division unites Rieter's global expertise in short-staple fiber spinning systems across operations, sales, and services. The division covers the full portfolio, from fiber preparation to spinning preparation and to end spinning and winding.
The Man-Made Fiber Division covers Rieter's complete solutions for processing polymers into filament yarns, as well as systems for the production of synthetic staple fibers and nonwoven. The portfolio also includes the design and engineering of complex spinning plants, the manufacturing of core components, and a comprehensive range of after-sale services. Automation and digital solutions complete the offering, enabling efficient, high-quality, and future-ready production across the entire textile value chain. Through our third division, Components and Technology, we offer our customers specific textile components. Our brands are Accotex, Bräcker, Graf, Novibra, SSM, Suessen, and Temco. The division is the backbone of Rieter's technology leadership, bringing together in-depth expertise with forward-looking R&D. The division drives the advancement of high-performing, short-staple spinning machines, systems, and components. The wide range of end applications from the three divisions varies from apparel to home textiles, technical textiles, and nonwoven.
A word on the higher growth and more diversified end application on the slide number 22. Overall, you see this on the left side, the consumption of raw material will increase from the already mentioned 113 million tons to 133 million tons in the year 2030. All end consumer markets will contribute to this higher consumption and production. On the right side, you see the impact on our different business segments. All business segments will grow over the next five years. The question is not whether markets are coming back, but the question is when markets are coming back. From a macro perspective, the new investment cycle is overdue, for this, we also need some political and economic stability to motivate our customers to start to invest again. Projects are there.
Our offer pipeline is the highest in three years, and I'm sure a lot of those projects will be executed. Still, customers are hesitating to take the investment risk in this very challenging environment. Now, let's have a look into the future. What does that mean for us? I hand over to Oliver for the medium-term guidance and the outlook for 2026.
Thanks, Thomas. Let's do a deep dive into the new midterm financial guidance on slide number 23. It's clear that as a new combined group, we had to reconsider our midterm guidance for different market scenarios. Based on feedback received, we concluded that the market scenarios are a valuable approach to provide the capital market with our view on financial targets over the cycle. That is why we stick to this approach and adjusted our former low, mid, and high market scenarios, which now include the new division, Man-Made Fiber, Barmag. An adjustment of the top-line scenarios of the old Rieter Group, where we have to admit that we have been too optimistic in the past, and we had a hard reality check of what low really means over the last two years.
We also consider a substantial PPA impact in our profit and loss statement due to the acquisition of Barmag. Therefore, we will adjust for all PPA impacts to reflect the operating performance of the business in operating EBIT. Finally, we included our midterm synergy target of CHF 20 million stemming from the transaction. In summary, we see strong potential for a combined company beyond 2026. However, our markets remain cyclical in nature, which brings me to the specific revised scenarios. In a low market scenario, we now expect sales of around CHF 1.4 billion at an operating EBIT margin of 2%-5%.
In a mid-market scenario, we expect sales of around CHF 1.8 billion at an operating EBIT margin of 5%-8%, while in a high market scenario, we expect sales of around CHF 2.2 billion at an operating EBIT margin of 8%-11%. In addition to our market scenarios, we would like to provide an update on other key midterm financial targets on page 24. We target a leverage of below 2.5x net debt to EBITDA. It's clear that in the near future, capital allocation will be focused on deleveraging, while our long-term ambition is to achieve a net cash position. CapEx is expected at around CHF 50 million-CHF 70 million for the combined group in a more normalized environment. Short term, it will most likely be lower.
We adhere to our fundamental dividend policy of maintaining a payout ratio of at least 40% of available net profit. As mentioned before, in the short term, our priority is to deleverage and strengthen the balance sheet, while in the long term, we aim at stable absolute payouts per share. We also continue to aim at an equity ratio of more than 35% by means of deleveraging and shortening the balance sheet by effective use of excess cash. To sum it up, our new midterm targets position us well for margin expansion, stronger cash generation, and a more stable and diversified earnings across the cycle. Now to the outlook for the full year 2026, on slide 2026. 2026 will be a transition year, shaped by the integration of Barmag, the full execution of the announced restructuring measures, and a delayed market recovery.
In addition, we will not yet fully benefit from synergies in the combined Rieter Group. Therefore, in 2026, Rieter expects sales in the range of CHF 1.3 billion-CHF 1.5 billion. Please keep in mind that this includes only 11 months of Barmag, given the closing on the 2nd of February. The outlook for 2026 reflects the integration of Barmag and the restructuring measures announced in 2025, of which the positive effects will not yet be fully effective. As a result, a positive operating EBIT margin in the range of 0%-3% is expected. With that, I conclude my presentation. We now welcome your questions, and for this, I hand back to Operator for the Q&A session.
Thanks, Oliver. Ladies and gentlemen, we will start with the questions here in the conference room in Winterthur. Afterwards open the lines for the participants in the conference call. You may press star 1 to enter the phone Q&A session. We will take the questions from the webcast. As usual, the Q&A sessions will be recorded. I kindly ask the participants here in the room to wait for the microphone and to mention your name and the company you work for before asking your question.
There's a question, Anya. Thank you.
Hi. Thank you. This is Ingo Schachel from UBS. Can you maybe give some more color on the divergence between your after-sales order growth and sales decline on the one hand? Looking at your leverage guidance, can you give us your estimate for the end of 2026, and then maybe a time frame? You said medium-term, below 2.5x long-term net cash. Can you give us maybe that in years or months, ideally?
Thank you for the question. Maybe I answer the first one about aftersales. Then I will hand over to you, Oliver. It is true, in aftersales, we have already presented in the past a lot of initiative, how to strengthen our business model. In fact, there are two, three key drivers we have taken up. One is we are more and more localizing our organization, because service business is local business. You have to be very close to the customer. We have strengthened our service organization all over the world. The second part was availability of spare parts and delivery times. We're working very hard to decentralize our warehouses and our spare parts to be fast towards our customers.
The third element goes a little bit with our overall strategy of digitization and automation. We are pushing a lot to optimize existing spinning mills, and there, we call this engineered solution. These are the three drivers that we have a better order intake. The reality is that we concluded many orders or better orders than the year before, but still the execution of the orders is lagging because customers do have certain financing issues. They close an order, they make a down payment, but then at the moment, with this very wobbling political environment, they don't invest yet, because some of those topics are also quite big investment amounts. That's one key reason. The second topic is that in aftersales, we also have the installation of new machines.
This part has been reduced in 2025 compared to 2024, because you have a certain time lag. When we deliver the machines, in the next 12 months, you finalize the installation, and with the reduction of order intake and sales volumes in the new machine business, with a certain time lag, also our installation revenues are going down. There is a little bit of mismatch between order intake is in fact positive, but we don't see it yet in our sales volumes. The second question, I think, Oliver.
Sure
It's your turn.
You may understand that we don't provide the guidance and leverage for 2026. However, I can help you with some indications. As you know, we financed the transaction roughly 50/50 with equity and debt. For that portion, we initiated a CHF 375 million term loan on the debt side, and on top, we had existing debt of around CHF 250 million at Rieter old, so to say, which means that you may assume that our debt position is around CHF 500 million-CHF 600 million at the moment. With regards to the phasing of the midterm targets, that's usually to be understood over a time horizon of 2-3 years, probably about three years, and the path to net cash comes thereafter.
Maybe to add on that, it also the speed of deleveraging also depends a little bit on the market recovery. Usually when the market is recovering, what first happens is you have a lot of order intake, and with the order intake, you have a lot of down payments. History shows in both areas, let's say the old Rieter, but especially also at Barmag, that this cash generation happens extremely fast. If, and we all pray for that, the markets in the near future now are picking up, then this can go very fast, the deleveraging. It's not only profitability, but it's especially also networking capital, which improves substantially in the uptime or in the process where markets are picking up.
I got a on the sheet that said capital, I got a couple of questions. The first one on the market, we can see retail sales increasing steadily in your presentation, also spinning mill utilization is increasing, yet the yarn fiber margins are coming down. Well, why is that?
What is happening at the moment is the following. I try to explain. Of course, I'm in contact with many, many customers all over the world, and we have regular monthly, let's say, market updates. We have to look a little bit on the three different areas, so China, India, and the rest of the world. Because it's very different what is happening. The end consumer market is there. That's the good news. The end consumer market even is picking up. It's not so depressed like the machinery part, you know. The end consumer market is, in fact, quite stable, especially in the apparel side, whether this is the U.S., whether this is also in the European Union.
What happened is that we had a substantial increase due to the inflation after the COVID crisis, mainly in the rest of the world, so labor costs were increasing a lot. On top of it, the biggest market we had was Turkey. Turkey was destroyed after the earthquake. The reason why the spin utilization is so low in the rest of the world is especially driven by Turkey. If you go back, you know, four, five years, our sales volumes in Turkey were, like, CHF 250 million. We talk about CHF 25 million. We were absolute market leader in this market, and the margins were very healthy. Turkey never recovered from this earthquake. 70% of the installed base was affected by the earthquake, and people left the industry, and the mill utilization in Turkey is slightly above 50%.
This in a mix impact for this rest of the world has a huge impact. A little bit similar was Uzbekistan. They probably have overinvested in 2021 and 2022, like some other countries in the rest of the world, and it takes some time until all these overinvestments are absorbed by the increase of the end markets. We believe that this is now the time where we see, okay, you know, the good ones, the big customers, they are at full capacity, and the small ones who have not the funds to invest in new technology, automation, they might go bankrupt. There's quite some tension in this rest of the world. India is different. India is split into North India and South India. North India are the big spinners. They are all above 90%. The biggest spinners in India are very healthy.
They have very good net profit margins. They have full capacity, but again, in this country, the south, these are all small spinners. They have been partially in the niche or partially it was like a part-time spinning mill they had, and they are not competitive anymore. They still produce because their cost can be the fixed cost can be absorbed, and the domestic demand is now picking up. India, as a country, we see there will be a shift from export activities much, much more into domestic demand. China is China for China.
China, even if we only see something like 70% spinning mill utilization, also there is not a north and a south, there is a east and a west. The east part along the coast, the traditional market of China, there is almost no investment anymore. Everything is investment in the west because costs for energy are much lower. You have CHF 0.04 per kilowatt hour, and also the labor costs are very low. That's a little bit how the market is there, huh? Rest of the world is still suffering. Although markets is there, they are too expensive because labor costs are so high. India and China, India is very good, and China, in fact, is also good.
We have two strong markets, with China and India, and the rest of the world, there is not yet light at the end of the tunnel.
When we look at Barmag's results in the last quarter and in H2, we can see a slight pickup in orders there, orders higher as versus sales. Maybe you can talk a little bit about what you've seen for Barmag, but also for you over the last few months in terms of order intake.
Well, I don't want to comment the result of Barmag of last year, but I can.
[crosstalk] Sure.
Maybe give an outlook. I'm not so much discussion about others, like others are doing, so I more look forward into 2026. Let's be honest, Barmag is part of our group since 24 days. I don't know everything, because before, we were not allowed to talk about any, you know, market or pricing or product topics, due to regulations. However, in the last 24 days, there were already a lot of meetings happening, all the different expert teams already have met the first time. I was two weeks ago at Remscheid. I will go next week to Suzhou and Wuxi, to the Barmag factories in China. What I can say is, first of all, we are impressed and got a confirmation about our good impression we had in the past.
It's a very solid company, very well managed, and have a similar strategy like us: technology leadership in order to achieve higher prices and margins. The pipeline we see is somehow also increasing. I know now, after 24 days, you know, several larger projects in the pipeline to come. The question is not if they come, it's again, you know, when they come, this is not only in China, it's also in some other parts of the world. I'm optimistic that Barmag is delivering good results towards our group. We have a similar expectation in terms of sales volumes. Overall, we see in sales more a side step, 2025-2026, because it takes some time until order intake will materialize in higher sales volumes.
Barmag even has a higher cycle time than the old Rieter part, whereas in Rieter it was maybe 9-12 months, at Barmag it's more like 12-18 months. Whatever we have as a pickup in certain markets will only materialize in sales volumes and EBIT at the end in 2027. Barmag, I, everything we have seen, everything we have discussed, I have to say it's like they already belong to us in certain years. It's a perfect match. It took some time until we married, but now we are both. We are all together a happy couple. The Rieter part, when I look at Rieter, I clearly have to say China is stable and there is no reason why it should not stay stable.
China tries to create a lot of production volume with low margins because they are very cost competitive in the eastern part of China. We have changed a lot, and we are benefiting. We have quite substantially increased our market share in China. India, we are convinced with these latest agreements and a huge local demand increase because the middle class population in India is over proportionally increasing. All these textile activities will more and more focus on Indian demand and not anymore just for export. We are convinced that India now is ready for growth. Now, this is a little bit a change to our historical footprint. Historically, we were super strong in the rest of the world.
We had the highest market share in the rest of the world, and the rest of the world was also more than 50% of the worldwide market. If you compare our sales volumes in the rest of the world, in 25 compared to 22, it has been reduced by more than 80%. We lost 80% of high-margin business and had to compensate now with more competitive businesses in India and China. That's the reason why we have started to do all these transformation programs. Without Barmag, we have to be where the new markets are. This shift to Asia is a structural shift, in my opinion. Some areas in the rest of the world will pick up. Egypt, we are convinced; Latin America, we are convinced, and we also see now Bangladesh, Pakistan coming back.
Some other areas, we are very hesitant, like Turkey, Uzbekistan, countries where we had the highest market shares in the past.
That's a good market overview, but more in terms of, month-over-month, over the past few months, maybe you can tell us if you see a further pickup? We heard the pipeline is good, but firm orders, maybe you can tell us something about that?
Starting to the year was okay. Was okay. We saw that, you know, a very early indicator is besides the parts business, it's also part of our component business. We saw that in the last three months, our component order intake has substantially improved. These are consumables, spare and wear parts, where we saw pickup. Another early indicator is also our company, SSM, who is also in the man-made fiber business, but more in specialized areas. There, we had very good order intakes as well. Our offer pipeline of new machines is the highest since I'm here, and this is now three years. These are not yet orders, but all these offers have to become orders, and the question will be: What is the share we can really get for ourself?
I have to admit, pricing over the last three years has been heaviest under pressure. B ecause the cake has become smaller, and everybody had empty books, and everybody was jumping on these orders. We are mitigating that with very consequent cost management, Oliver.
Last one, then I go back in the queue. On the guidance, I can see that, despite at least, a little bit higher order intake, it's prudent to guide for basically stable sales in midpoint. I look at margins, maybe you can tell us a little bit how you came to the 0%-3%. Barmag alone roughly made 3% for the combined group. Maybe you can give us some more insights into.
Mm-hmm. Sure. Perhaps I try to explain the bridge of the 2026 guidance towards the midterm guidance. There are two main effects. One effect being that at Rieter, we still adjust our capacity and also our cost base to the market realities. That's also why we announced those restructuring programs in Q3. These effects will only fully materialise with the full year 2027. The second part is that the integration of Barmag has only started two weeks ago, and that's why we expect those synergies only to fully hit our P&L with the full year 2027. That's the reason behind that gap between the 2026 and the midterm financial guidance on that low scenario.
What I more meant was the Barmag made roughly CHF 40 million, if I'm not mistaken. If we put that onto CHF 1.4 billion, we would come to the 3% already. Obviously, you did a lot of work for Rieter, too. Is it just being very cautious, and it's fine, or are there other things that we should consider which will push the margin down a little bit in 2026?
I mean, Thomas mentioned it before. I don't consider this guidance as cautious, but as realistic. We are in the middle of adjusting to the new market reality. Plus, there is also some margin pressure in the market and the market success that we have in China. We fully believe that it's structurally the absolute right thing to focus on those markets, but these markets are more competitive than the rest of the world markets in the past. There is some pricing pressure, which is also reflected in the 2026 targets. Thomas, perhaps you want to elaborate [crosstalk] on that as well.
I think the question is, what is the performance of the old Rieter? Are we contributing? When you take an operating EBIT of two and a half million, and we mentioned that some of it also was one-time is because of real estate changes. In all fairness, if you would deduct that, the run rate was negative in 2025. We tried with everything we could do to compensate. You first have to catch up. This will come mainly with the restructuring programs we have launched in the quarter four, 2025. This CHF 27 million improvement, you can calculate, half of it will come in 2026, and the other half comes in 2027. Some of it are production closures, and this is not from one day to the other. It takes a little bit of time.
That's the catch-up we have, huh. We, of course, in 2025, we had a drop in the margins for our new orders for new machines, huh. Margins came under pressure because of the shift of volumes towards China and India. This, we also have to catch up with more cost measures. Structurally, the old Rieter is not set up for a CHF 700 million business. This is below our real internal break-even point. We are doing that, and we probably will continue to adapt, you know, our footprint, because we have far too many locations, clearly. At the moment, we are not yet ready to make high margins with a ±CHF 700 million volume. The Rieter part, with that low scenario, without any synergies, is contributing almost nothing.
You can say, "Well, combined, but you still would grow, maybe to 2% or 3%." You might not be wrong there. You know, in year four, even myself, I have learned that sometimes you have to be cautious because future is very unpredictable. We rather prefer, y ou know, if it comes better, we will take that happily.
Next question.
Hi, Thomas Schürch from NZZ. I have two questions. First, like, you have been cutting a lot of costs in 2025, especially like in Europe and Western Europe and Switzerland. I'm wondering what will be like the long-term consequences of that, for example, if it comes to innovations and so on. I mean, these people haven't just been hanging around, I guess. There has to be like an impact somehow. Second question, you say, like more or less the future is in Europe, is in China and in India. You also say, like, the margins are very low over there. I'm wondering, like, will this change, like, somehow in the future?
Is there any chance that will change, or you just have to live with that you will operate like in markets with very low margins?
Maybe I take that up as an answer. It's of course, something which is heavily discussed also within the company. It's a very valid question. We had to adapt our cost structure to a new reality. This is the minimum everybody can expect from us. Of course, we are segregating our workforce into different clusters. We say there are high-cost countries, there are mid-cost countries, and there are lower-cost countries. That's point number one. Point number two, whatever is a customer-related activity should be as close to the customer as possible. Many Swiss medium-size groups have had the same challenge, that it was more, you know, everything was at the headquarter, and all the new Asian markets have been export markets. This is not accepted by customers anymore.
They want to have their local teams. A lot of the shifts were customer-related functions we have moved into China, into India, but also into the U.S., away from headquarter. Point number one. Point number two, In R&D and production, you have certain transactional tasks. Not everything is, you know, innovation. A lot is executing certain programs for customer-related products. This also should be where the customers are sitting, because these are amendments to specific market requirements you might have in China or in India or in the Americas. That part of, let's say, R&D, we have started to shift to those markets. The question is, well, what's left for Europe? Especially, what's left for Switzerland? Here I want to make a very clear statement: Europe, and especially Switzerland, has a fundamental meaning and importance for us, and this is the innovation.
I don't know another country who has such an innovation DNA like Switzerland. I mean, we have the best universities, we have fantastic people coming from the universities. We are a very attractive place for many, you know, high-caliber brains outside of Switzerland. Innovation is the key driver. That's the strength and the survival package of Switzerland, and this is also valid for Rieter. In our different places, we have, for example, our three component companies, SSM, Bräcker, and Graf. The innovation is all in Switzerland and will remain in Switzerland. If I look on our R&D department we have here, we have now a new department which is called New Technologies. This is all based here in Switzerland. Digital automation brains are all based here in Switzerland, so the core innovation will be made here in this place.
If you then have to execute a development plan with milestones planning, you know, you have to purchase the material, you have to work with suppliers. Some of those tasks are then in our customer markets. That's super important. Europe and Switzerland, it's driven by innovation and value-added tasks, and if you have more repetitive, transactional execution tasks, you are more on the customer side and therefore more in the customer markets. Does that answer this first part of the question? The second one, you have to repeat once again. I somehow have forgotten with all my enthusiasm.
The margins in India.
Yes
And China, Is there any chance that they will be higher, like, in the future, or you just have to live with that?
Margins are very simple. It's price minus cost, and the price is driven by the market, and those two markets are very competitive. You have to work on your cost. Working on the cost is that you have to follow a China for China strategy and an India for India strategy in the production and the sourcing. You might have the one or the other area where in the innovation, you have to say, "Wow, does a Chinese and an Indian customer exactly need everywhere that premium package?" I believe yes, but the premium they are willing to pay for it is maybe lower than in the rest of the world. Our answer is prices. We get better prices in China and in India than competitors.
We do get that because we are considered as technology leader, but we have to work on our cost competitiveness, and this means you have to source out of China for China, and you have to source out of India for India. The rest of the world, by the way, I also believe that in the next two, three years, some rest of the world markets will pick up. I'm sure about that. There, we also have enough production capacity here in Europe. We have two major sites, in Czech Republic and in Germany, besides the component factories, where we serve more the rest of the world. Any more questions here from the room? I don't think so, really, this.
Okay, thank you very much. We will now open the lines for the participants in the conference call. You may press star and one to enter the phone Q&A session. Valentina Mayer, kindly ask you to open the first line, please.
Sure. The first question from the phone comes from Amira Manai of ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, and thank you for the presentation. I have actually two main questions. The first one is regarding the 2026 guidance of CHF 1.3 billion-CHF 1.5 billion in sales and a mid margin between 0% and 3%. Could you break down the underlying assumptions for return on standalone basis versus the contribution expected from Barmag? What would be the main risk that could jeopardize your scenario this year? Thank you.
Oli, that's your turn.
I mean, the main assumption is pretty simple one. We don't expect a significant recovery in the market to be reflected in sales. There might be some recovery in the market reflected in order intake, but not in sales. That means for both entities, more or less similar numbers than in 2025. That was the main assumption. On the profitability side, as we outlined before, 2026 will be a transition year on the way to achieving the midterm targets in a low market scenario. I hope that answered the questions. The line was not very good.
Yes, and what the main risk that could jeopardize your scenario this year? What are the main risks?
Well, it's a very good question. It's not so easy to answer because in the last three years, I could not count anymore all the risks which have arose unexpected and then even materialized within one week. I think one risk is that the biggest risk is, in fact, that all this tariff situation is not somehow now, you know, fixed. Now, I don't want to challenge any Supreme Court decision, and I don't want to challenge any company decision, whether they want to claim back or not any tariffs. You know, finally, we achieved somehow now all over the world, some stability, that everybody knew what the tariffs are. Now, it seems that the U.S. government somehow stays with their 15% more or less now on this level.
Whatever law you need to do that, I cannot exactly explain to you. I think that's the biggest risk, is really this tariff situation. There is a second risk, that's a supply chain situation. I'm not aware, or I don't know if everybody is aware, but, you know, with the increase of artificial intelligence, with AI, with künstliche Intelligenz, in how you say in German, and all these new, you know, demands for chips have become short again. Chip prices are going up and this could disrupt all over the economy again. I don't want to see any more, you know, cars where you don't have any navigation system because they don't have chips anymore, or machines from us who cannot run because there is no electronics available anymore.
That's another risk which we have foreseen and mitigated. We secured all our supplier contracts. That's a second risk. I think the thirdly risk, in all fairness, could be, you know, wherever a new war will happen. With all the peace activities we had in the last 12 months, I could not say that the war activities have been substantially reduced. There is always, you know, in the one or in the other place, certain uncertainty. That would be more from our side. I don't know if you see more risks on financing, on banks, on financial markets.
I think something which, obviously was a risk in the past, but where I see more ease on the financial markets, is basically that we see a global trend towards lower interest rates, also driven by, lower inflation, and that could be a bit of a, of a tailwind. Yeah, I think it's good now with the risk section.
To come to a conclusion, I see much more opportunities and chances looking the next three years ahead than I see risks.
Mm-hmm.
Okay, we will take the next question, please.
The next question comes from Walter Bamert, from Zürcher Kantonalbank. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Can you hear me?
Very good. Loud and clear.
Perfect. I'm asking a lot of questions, that help me in modeling. Can you give me the pro forma net debt figure after the closing?
Well, as I said before, we don't give a specific guidance, but you can take as a rule of thumb that we took a term loan of CHF 375 million to finance the acquisition. Plus we had existing debt, that so-called old rate of around CHF 250 million. If you combine that, you are ballpark where we currently stand. What I did not mention before, this number is obviously elevated and is not in line with our deleveraging plans. This is also why we have discussed that with the banks, and we have found a consent with the banks. They know about the risks and opportunities over the next 18 months, and as we said before, the financing is fully secured.
The challenge is not the figures you mentioned. The challenge is the net cash situation of Barmag, which is not very transparent to me. Okay, I can work with it. The other question is, you indicate somewhere purchase price allocation effect of about CHF 550 million. You mentioned mid- double digit, so that would eat up the entire EBIT of 5.5% indicated by Oerlikon on Barmag in, i f that stays about at the same level in this year. Is that correct, or is there something wrong with my assumption?
No, that is more or less correct. You know, as you may assume, if you acquire a market leader, and an asset-light business, then p urchase price allocation consists of a lot of intangible assets and goodwill. That is just normal. Now in the first y ear following the closing of a transaction, you have extraordinary purchase price allocation, driven by the step-up on inventories, for instance, and so in the first year. It will be slightly elevated, and in the following years, we will be in a run rate for the combined group of around CHF 40 million-CHF 50 million.
You mentioned 40-50 run rate in the coming years, phasing out over about 5 years, or what would you assume there?
It very much depends. For brands, we take a longer period. It's very much a mix on the different elements of the purchase price allocation. We will provide more details on the purchase price allocation with the half-year figures. You may appreciate that we just closed the transaction two weeks ago. Any PPA assumptions at the moment are provisional in nature. What is very important t o understand that these PPA effects, this is normal if you do a big transaction. These are non-cash costs, and they are also not reflecting of the operating performance. That's why we normalize. Obviously, over time, they ease, and it is also our target to, at some point, come them back to a more reported figure.
That brings me to the next question. When you say you guide for 0%-3% EBIT margin, that would be lower on a reported base due to the purchase price allocation, or you have that reflected already in there?
No, that's operating EBIT margin guidance. This is adjusted, and you can find the slide in the appendix, Walti, on the details. That is adjusted by purchase price effects, as well as restructuring and any incremental transaction costs some transaction costs with regards to the closing. They are much, much lower obviously than what we had in 2025.
It's slide number 30 in the appendix of the presentation.
Okay. That would mean you're rather assuming operating performance in line with last year, where Oerlikon reported 5.5% EBIT margin.
I think that's a fair assumption. [crosstalk]
For Barmag.
I think that is a fair assumption.
Yeah. Can you give a figure for the one-off you expect in the staple fiber business in this year?
Obviously, we will have some cash outs with regards to the restructuring activities that we undertake, mostly consisting of severance, which unfortunately are pretty high in France and also in Germany for the measures we undertake. That is one element. We also plan some incremental restructuring, not in the amount announced in Q3, but there will be most likely, further measures. Then, as mentioned, it's the transaction costs, minor in nature, but I would say those are the two main areas, apart obviously from the purchase price allocation effect.
With parts of it already provisioned in last year?
Exactly.
Yeah.
So, uh, all the-
Okay
All the programs, that's important, from an EBIT point of view, all the programs we knew and where we have a very clear plan, what to do, has been provided in this quarter four last year. Of course, this has not been cash effective, as we have a certain, closures now during the course of 2026. The cash impact comes in 2026, and the P&L impact we had in 2025.
Yeah. Fully understood.
Good.
Thank you very much.
Okay, we will now move to the questions from the webcast. The first question comes from Andreas Meier, Finanz und Wirtschaft: What is the future of the Turkish market?
I mentioned that before. The market in Turkey for us was shrinking by 90%. It was the strongest market we had in the past, and is the weakest market we have today. It was a combination of elements. One was the earthquake on February 6th, 2023, where 70% of the installed base has been impacted. Not everything has been destroyed, but people left. The second topic is, of course, that from a macroeconomic point of view, you know, it's not so easy to understand what exactly the target of the Turkish government is. They have imposed very high minimum salaries. To give you an idea, a worker in Turkey costs about $1,500 per month.
A worker in Egypt costs $250 per month. Labor costs are roughly 15% of total cost in a spinning mill, if you have 5x or 6x higher costs, you just become totally uncompetitive. This means the Turkish spinners make no money. The large one have economies of scale. They are maybe serving around the zero line, but the small ones, they make all a loss. They have not the fund to do the necessary investment, the necessary investment for Turkey to survive is automation. They have to automize their spinning mills. If they do, they don't have this handicap of labor cost anymore. This is why Turkey, for us, in terms of automation, is the key market we are now focusing on.
We have launched now several programs. Of course, if you don't have money, it's also difficult to invest into automation. It's a little bit, you know, chicken or egg, the government has promised certain support, which has not happened in full, Turkey is really struggling. If these, let's say, government controls are not eliminated in terms of minimum salaries, if there is not a support to invest into automation, I think the textile industry of Turkey is really under pressure. The Turkish customers do the following: they go to Egypt. The biggest investors now, or some of the biggest investors in Egypt, are now Turkish spinners who have all the know-how, because Turkey has a huge know-how in the spinning industry or textile industry, their home territory at the moment is not affordable anymore.
They go to Egypt, and they wait that Syria becomes stable, and then they just jump over the border. The country itself, Turkey, I see very challenging in the next two, three years. There is the one or the other project coming up, but it's very, very difficult for them, and it's homemade and an external factor with the earthquake.
I move on to the next question from Denis Petrat. Rieter sales decreased by 20% in 2025, falling to CHF 685 million. Is this drop attributed to a loss in Rieter's market share, or is it a result of a broader downturn in the global market?
Maybe you can say a few words then to the one or the other shift from 2025-20 26. I think it's both, in all fairness. The market was still down and even went down a little bit more. That's one element. Then, of course, sales is always the result out of orders you had. Still in 2024, we still had some orders from the good times, 2021 and 2022. In 2025, we were just leaving from orders we got in 2023 and 2024. It was now the real new normal. That's one point. There is a book-to-bill topic. It's the first time that our bookings are higher than our billings.
It's the a turning point we have seen on a low level, by the way, yeah. But it's the a turning point. The second topic is, yes, the market has not recovered, but the third topic is even more important. Historically, and that's why globally, we probably have lost a little bit of market share, because the market who was the strongest one was China, where we have the lowest market share. Although we improved tremendously our market share there, but the mix shift to China was bigger. From a mix impact, we improved in China, but China became more important, and this has damped our global market share. Where we have a super high market share in the rest of the world, this market has disappeared.
It's especially an outcome of tectonic shifts from the three or four regions we have in the world. When I look on our order intake figures, I'm confident that in the future, our market shares will go up. I think the reason why 2025 was especially low, we also had the one or the other shift, Oliver.
I think it's very, very difficult to differentiate between underlying market performance and, and market share. It is my strong belief that the market has the much bigger effect than the relative competitive situation. On top came also that in 2022 and 2023, we had very high sales levels because we took a lot of orders our competitors did not take anymore, that also distorted the picture to some extent. When I look at the different regions, I'm referring to page 33 in the presentation. For me, the highlight, clearly, if I look at the difference in local currency, which is reflective of the underlying performance, China increased sales by 38%, which is clearly a highlight. The market was not up by 38%, we gained market share there.
North and South America, we expanded slightly, so we at least kept our market share stable over there. We had a couple of very, very difficult markets. As mentioned before, Turkey, - 76%, because the market is just inexistent at the moment in Turkey due to the challenges we've heard. Also, in some other Asian countries, which were heavily affected by tariffs, such as Vietnam, for instance, where we declined by 20%, and there it's very much driven by the underlying market.
Okay, thank you. The next question comes from Leonie Zirn from UBS. Three parts. I will start with the first one. Your numbers suggest good positive order intake in machines end of 2025, and slightly positive for components, while negative for aftersales. Can you give a bit more color here? What exit rates do you currently see in 2026 in machines and components, similar to the fourth quarter?
Exit rates?
Yes.
Cancelations, I guess.
Cancelations. It's true, we had a better fourth quarter than what we had the two years before. That's point number one, and this is a good sign. The reality is, it really was driven by new machine sales and also by order intake and components. I mentioned that before, it started in November, that we saw that our component business is picking up. The aftersales business, we had this trend of the installation part of our aftersales business, this still was shrinking. We also saw that engineered solutions, which are mainly focusing the Turkish market at the moment and some rest of the world markets, there was no money availability to invest.
It was a little bit contra-intuitive, that although they have the need for that and we are doing a good job in the aftersales business, but especially for this topic of engineered solutions, it was not really picking through in Turkey. That was the main reason why we had a difference in the in the development of the three segments. Now, when we talk about, y ou mentioned exits, and I take cancellations as a word, because this is usually what we had. We were having more or less the same level of cancellations like in the past.
Now, of course, what we have to do, and this we are just starting, we have to look, you know, how order intake are booked in the new Rieter Group and how we deal with cancellations. We now have a certain, you know, history and procedure, like Barmag is doing that, and we have a procedure, how we did it in the past. We now have to align that, and this might give, you know, the one or the other cancellation during the course of 2026, in the first half year, when we align all that. Cancellations were on a similar level, like in the past. We just said only that we want to review our backlog.
We still have some orders, you know, of 2021 and 2022 in our books, where we have the down payment. You can imagine, I was also asking the question: "Well, are you sure after five years that they still will, you know, execute the, the job, huh?" This we have, this we will check. It will be the last year of such reviews.
Okay, I move on to the second question. After sales margin dropped from 17% in 2024 to 11% in 2025, can you please give some color here?
I think it's mainly volume driven because you saw that our volumes were going down in sales, not in order intake, but in sales. Our gross margins in aftersales are extremely good. This, you know, this hits us a lot in the bottom line, which you cannot compensate with any structural cost adjustments. It's not possible. Aftersales is damned to grow and to achieve a certain volume. That's one part. I think that's true, and there was within aftersales, we also had some more engineered solutions in our sales volumes than we had in the past. The margins of engineered solutions are a little bit lower than maybe in spare parts and in repairs, so there was a slight mix impact. This also has hit us partially.
Of course, as rest of the world is heavy under pressure, where prices are much higher than when you go to China or to India, where the landscape is more competitive. You also have a little bit of negative mix impact on the after-sales margins. We are quite confident that we will have a good result in 2026.
Okay, the third part is concerning guidance. Does your guidance price include further downside risk, or do we still need to add buffer in case markets remain weaker than expected? Also, your margin guidance of 0%-3% is below the low scenario of 2%-5%. How should we understand this? Any drags likely to be expected on a 2026 margin you would like to mention?
I mean, obviously, a guidance always includes, ideally, a balanced view on risks and opportunities. I think we elaborated on our assumptions. No significant market recovery materializing on sales level, so more or less the same picture like in 2025. If that was to further deteriorate, which again, is not our current understanding and also not the market indications, that would pose some downside risks. Otherwise, we believe that is a very balanced view. With regards to the difference between 2026 and midterm, I think we have also elaborated two main drivers. First, the full integration of the Barmag business and also the phasing of the synergies that we expect. The second one being that, at Rieter, we still need to fully execute the announced restructuring measures.
They will become effective, fully with 2027. As we heard before, for 2026, we expect roughly half of the CHF 27 million run rate benefits to materialize. That gives you the gap.
Okay.
Everybody understood? Good.
Thank you very much. There are no more questions.
Good.
Back to you, Thomas.
Okay, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to conclude now this call. I think it's clear 2025 was challenging. On the other side, strategically, it was super important for us and transformative. The acquisition of Barmag will strengthen our market position, and it will also create, or is creating a lot of earnings potential. Our medium-term value creation levers are very clear. We will realize the synergies of minimum CHF 20 million. The market will recover. I think we have done a lot in operational excellence. I believe we still can do a lot in operational excellence.
This journey never comes to an end. We have started to work on our widening portfolio on one side, in terms of customer markets. On the other side, we also internally, our portfolio, where we do produce what, we also have been very clear and consequent in execution. We are committed to a disciplined capital allocation. In terms of expenses, CapEx, we are still pushing the brake, because we want to use cash to generate, you know, a better EBITDA net debt ratio. We also will work on a sustainable margin expansion. I have no doubt about that. If you have done so many things in operational excellence, cost structure, efficiency, once markets come back, then you have an operating leverage, which immediately jumps up your profitability.
With this more diversified portfolio, we are now also very well positioned that we can unlock long-term shareholders value. Thank you very much to all of you online, but also here in the room. I would like to close this annual press conference and thank you for your interest. Goodbye. It's a very warm day today. Spring is coming back, and we should take that as a very positive sign for our market developments. Thanks a lot and goodbye.