Hello. Good morning and welcome to the presentation on the full year 2022 results. Today's speakers are Volker Dostmann, CEO for the SFS Group, and myself, Jens, CEO of the SFS Group. The agenda for the presentation of the full year 2022 results covers positioning of the SFS Group, key takeaways of the year, development by segment, development of key financials, the outlook for 2023, as well as the opportunity for Q&A later on after the active presentation. Also, after lunch break, we will also do a deep dive of the value added by the D&L business segment here on site at our customer Bühler in Uzwil, Switzerland. The Bühler Group has around CHF 3 billion in sales, 13,000 employees, and 30 sites globally. Billions of people come into contact with Bühler technologies to cover their basic needs for food and mobility every day.
We are very delighted to have the opportunity to be here on site, and we thank the Bühler team around the CEO Stefan Scheiber for the hospitality and their valued support. I'm very delighted to welcome Mrs. Susanne Meusburger, Assistant to the CEO, Mr. Markus, CFO, Mr. Holger Feldhake, COO, Mr. Hansjörg Ill, Head of Global Procurement, Zeno Staub, Member of the Board of Directors, here at the presentation. I start now with the positioning of the SFS Group. SFS accompanies you usually unnoticed, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, reliably through everyday life. Our mission-critical precision components, mechanical Fastening Systems, and quality tools for selected niche applications are embedded in the successful products and processes of our customers, and fulfill their service with high reliability in the required precision and cost-effectiveness. Our value proposition: inventing success together.
In relation to the total cost of the customer product, the direct cost of SFS products embedded or used in the production process accounts for often less than 1%. The associated costs on the customer side, such as procurement or logistic costs, are several times higher. The focus on optimizing the direct costs of SFS products offers little room for improvement. We always strive to understand the customer's application and to reduce the total cost for our customer, thanks to individual innovative solutions. Our focused business activities aim for tailored solutions for selected niche applications. In the segment Engineered Components, this includes automotive and industrial applications under the brand of SFS, as well as electronics applications under the brand of Unisteel, and medical applications under the brand of Tegra Medical.
In the segment Fastening Systems, we serve the construction industry under the brand of SFS and the automotive industrial applications and distribution under the GESIPA brand. The segment Distribution & Logistics pursues its development under the brand of SFS with our Swiss customer base in the application range of industrial manufacturing and construction. New, under the brand of Hoffmann, we serve the European and increasingly also the U.S., Chinese industrial customer base with quality tools, workshop, and personal protective equipment. While the business model and customer groups of the three segments differ depending on the end markets, the organization is designed in such a way that the natural synergies generated are maximized across all areas. These primarily related to technological competence, sales and marketing excellence, and the potential cross-selling opportunities with customers. For instance, in the segment Engineered Components, we industrialize tools.
In the segment Fastening Systems, we sell installation tools. In the segment Distribution & Logistics, we trade with tools. New with the Hoffmann Group, also in the segment Distribution & Logistics internationally. Making substantial progress in building in each segment a global business platform for the benefit and value generation of our customers and SFS. The SFS organization is aimed at providing maximum customer proximity. Creating clear responsibilities promotes entrepreneurial action. The divisions are focused on end markets. To ensure the greatest possible customer proximity, we operate in regions, business units, and key account teams. These are targeted to the selected customer groups. The three operating segments are supported by corporate IT and finance, corporate services, corporate HR, and technology.
On January 1st, 2023, we welcomed with Susanne Jung, our new corporate HR responsible person at SFS, helping us to further focus on the development of our most important resource, our employees, or as we call them, our co-entrepreneurs. I continue with the key takeaways, which can be best summarized as SFS realizes leap in growth. In a year characterized by geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges, SFS realized a strong growth of 45.1%, and generated gross sales of CHF 2.746 billion. Sales development was driven by the consolidation of Hoffmann for eight months, and good organic growth in most end markets and regions. Operating profit boosted by 9.5% to CHF 330.3 million.
The corresponding EBIT margin was 12.1% and was impacted by mix effects from consolidation of Hoffmann, volatile and occasionally lower utilization of production capacities in Engineered Components. One-time acquisition effects of CHF 22.9 million due to the first time consolidation of Hoffmann, resulting in an adjusted EBIT margin of 12.9%, reflecting the underlying operational performance. Earnings per share increased to CHF 6.95 from previous year CHF 6.51, confirming the attractiveness of the Hoffmann transaction. CHF 171 million were spent in growth-related investments, including new production facilities in Höhr-Grenzhausen, Germany and Nantong, China, an ERP system upgrade, and continued strengthening of cyber security. The 2022 ESG highlights stayed clear as well. Continued progress has been achieved.
Progress in renewable energy generation and energy independence resulted in large-scale additional photovoltaic modules at the sites in Malaysia and China. A concrete plan to build an own wind turbine on the production site in Höhr-Grenzhausen, Germany, which further advanced through the construction of a wind measuring mast. Improved transparency in the value chain. ESG risks and opportunities will be managed through a more comprehensive supplier assessment with successive supplier onboarding in 2023. Results of the updated materiality analysis and stakeholder dialogue determine the focus for the future. The topics are energy and emission, sustainable solutions, employee promotion and engagement, procurement, occupational health and safety. Finally, the positive integration of Hoffmann expresses itself through first non-financial KPIs in the sustainability report 2022, to be published by the end of May 2023.
I continue with the development by segment, where I will start with the headlines of the Engineered Components segment, in which the positioning has been further strengthened. Reported sales of CHF 1,028 million was achieved, up by 5.4% versus fiscal year 2021. Growth was supported by good development of the electronics division in the first half of 2022, and the automotive division in the second half of 2022. The division industrial stayed strong throughout the year, but slightly weaker in the second half of 2022. The temporary underutilization of production capacities were leading to an EBIT margin of 14.1%. For fiscal year 2023, SFS expects a solid organic growth along the targeted bandwidth of the SFS Group, and aims for that all divisions will be with organic growth.
Also, we expect that the automotive division will be with continued market outperformance of 3%-5%. The key messages of the automotive and industrial division, good growth achieved, brings to light that the automotive growth target of significant market outperformance was achieved again. Capacities of the newly built production facility in Höhr-Grenzhausen for production of automotive electric driving brakes are already fully reserved. Successful launch of ABS parts production in Nantong, China marks a further step for local manufacturing of electric driving brakes. Industrial leveraged overall good consumer demand in all application areas, and demand for aircraft components bounced back and showed strong growth throughout the year. The key messages of the electronics and medical division, major capacity expansion projects on track point towards good growth momentum in electronics in the first half of 2022, but increasingly slowing down in the second half of 2022.
The introduction of the stamping technology allows to grow share of wallet with key customers and medical with positive development over the course of the year, although uneven in the different application areas. Capacity expansion projects in Nantong, China for our electronics division and in Franklin, US, as well as Ha-La Heredia, Costa Rica, both for the medical division, progressed as planned. Work to build up and leverage the global medical manufacturing platform continued therefore nicely. In the Fastening Systems segment, again, strong performance was achieved. The continued dynamic market environment in construction industry and strong market positioning led to reported sales of CHF 644.9 million, which is up by 12.2% compared to previous year. High material availability and robust supply chains remained a competitive advantage in the construction industry.
An EBIT margin of 17.7%, driven by high capacity utilization and good cost price management, was achieved. For full year 2023, SFS expects solid organic sales growth along the targeted bandwidth of the group. Both divisions are well-positioned to capitalize on arising opportunities in all end markets. Looking into the details of the construction and riveting division, we can state that the capacity expansion project in North America is clearly on track. Good momentum in North America and Europe in construction-related application require additional production capacity. The previously mentioned expansion project in Exeter, Pennsylvania, U.S., is on track and will enable to further strengthen the robustness of the regional supply chain activities. Sustainability-related façade fastening applications, such as renovation, solar panels, and heat pumps, provide room for growth. Consistent demand from industrial customers for riveting solutions were observed throughout the year.
The automotive-related applications convinced with solid development driven by a stronger second half of 2022. The new Head of Division Construction has been appointed. Thomas Jung will take over as of January 1st, 2024, from Arthur Blank, who served the organization for more than 40 years. In the Distribution & Logistics segment, we have achieved a leading position in Europe. Leaping growth of 212.8%, mainly driven by consolidation of Hoffmann for eight months, resulting in reported sales of CHF 1,073 million. Both divisions generated attractive organic sales growth based on solid market positioning and good material availability. Adjusted EBIT amounted to CHF 102.2 million, up by 213.5% versus prior year, at a corresponding adjusted EBIT margin of 9.6%.
For full year 2023, SFS expects solid organic sales growth along the targeted bandwidth of the group on a like for like basis. Looking into the details of the D&L International-D&L Switzerland division, where we are intensively exploiting the potential for collaboration. Ramp-up of Logistic City in Nuremberg, Germany, was successfully completed. The legacy logistics infrastructure was handed back to the landlords. Consolidation of logistics activities in central Switzerland allowed the expansion of warehouse capacity and increased operations efficiency. Decisive work was performed by cross-divisional teams to start leverage of high-potential business opportunities, like the cross-selling of our C-parts portfolio, serving of international D&L Switzerland customers with the full portfolio, also outside of Switzerland, and optimizing the supply chain for Swiss customers by utilizing the logistic capabilities of D&L International.
With that, I conclude the presentation on the development by segment and hand over to Volker for the development of the key financials. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Jens. Welcome from my side, ladies and gentlemen. With the important step change with Hoffmann we saw in the last year, combined with the challenges that Jens described, quite a successful year, and we are happy to state that the teams managed again to find ways to be the reliable supply chain partner to our customers throughout the year, which was not easy given various disruptions. We are happy to present today's financials, and we thank the 13,282 employees who made that possible. Overall, the group achieved, as before mentioned, 45.1% in growth, which is based on an underlying organic growth of 9.1%. Which is a significant step driven by eight months newly consolidated sales of the Hoffmann Group shown in the D&L segment, as we said before.
The sales volume from that step change in euro were achieved as expected. Having seen considerable appreciation of the Swiss franc against the euro in the second half year, we are in the bandwidth that we announced. Looking at the newly formed D&L segment, we can state that we see in that segment an organic growth of almost 10%, which is in our expectations given at the acquisition date. All three segments show solid organic growth. Significant contribution, of course, came from the construction division in the Fastening Systems segment, as said, and the engineering components divisions contributed all. Currency impacts are minor effects given that we had also counterbalancing developments of the US dollar and the euro during the year as the pattern was different.
We look into our growth ability. We show a CAGR of 9%, which of course is heavily driven by the acquisition of Hoffmann in the last year. Even if we restate for that, we would be at the CAGR of 5%, which is in the midpoint of our growth targets. Therefore, we are looking at an organic development that is stable and robust. Also given the fact that in latter years we have included in that graph the acquisitions as well. Going forward, we see that as confirmed. If you look into 2021 as a decomposition first year, first half year, second half year, we can state that we see more even underlying patterns as opposed to in earlier years, a stark increase in the second half year.
That, as expected, flattens out. If you look into end markets from an industrial perspective, then we see a clear shift towards industrial manufacturing. This is the home turf of our D&L segment, where they act as the valued and reliable partner of our industrial manufacturer customers that grow there in relation to the other segments. Likewise, to the right hand of that slide, you see a distinctive step into Europe. Hoffmann as a customer base is mainly active in Europe and therefore you see the relative weight of Europe, excluding Switzerland, as we show it here, you see that growing. The regions North America and Asia in percentage relative weight goes down and underlines our growth potential in these areas.
We go into operating profitability, we are happy to report CHF 330 million. EBIT 12.1%. EBITDA of CHF 448 million, 16.4% for the financial year 2022. The result includes profitability of Hoffmann for eight months, the acquisition led to an important revaluation of the inventories, the so-called inventory step-up, that was to the tune of CHF 23 million, which we expensed in the Q3, the last parts we expensed in the Q3 results. If we restate for that, we look at an EBIT of 12.9% and the respective restated EBITDA of 17.2%.
Like for like comparison shows that SFS did not match the record result of 2021, but standalone profitability for SFS before the acquisition would be in the midterm of our guidance and therefore solid. The patterns that you see are primarily impacted by the mix effects and the effects that Jens alluded to before. Demand swings is always a big challenge to the teams in adapting capacity. That is what you see in the second half year shining through, apart from the mix effects, but still the operations manage to balance that. In parallel, we see significant efforts in managing energy costs, labor costs, et cetera.
That is also topics that are reflected in the price negotiations with our customers. Decomposition of the profitability is mainly related to these two factors. If we look into our Swiss franc exposure that we are usually looking in, we are producing in Switzerland, denominated in euro sales for the automotive market. Our relative operational expense share in Swiss francs comes down to 1/3, shy of 1/3. Our sales in Swiss francs go down to 13.6%. We are adopting on the remaining exposure successfully hedging strategies, which on one hand gave us an advantage on the sales in the last year of CHF 4.8 million in sales and also contributed significantly to our financial results, which I'll come to at the later stage.
If you look into our overall P&L, this leap in growth shows on almost every line. We explained the major impacts here. I wanna go into the financial result, which is probably the underlying most significant change as we took on significant debt when we acquired Hoffmann. We have a financial result that is either on one hand charged with the expense on the foreign capital. Foreign capital, we have at roughly interest cost of 1.1% overall, which we deem as very attractive. We have in the financial result, the devaluation of the EUR debt that we took on, which is a favorable impact of almost 14.6 million CHF.
That is the decomposition of the financial result that you see on the lower of that overview. We are happy to report that after the capital increase, we still can see a denser earnings per share on CHF 6.95. That is a CAGR of 11.2% since the IPO. That is a net income increase of 9.4%. That is a result which you keep in mind is charged with CHF 0.43 per share by the acquisition accounting effects. The potential on the earnings per share, we are happy to state is absolutely given.
Based on that earnings per share, the board of director will propose to the general shareholders meeting a dividend of CHF 2.50 per share, which will come half out of capital reserves, which is an advantage for Swiss resident individuals, and which brings us to a payout ratio of slightly above 35%, the bandwidth that we set long-term, 35%-50%. We are not seen as a dividend title, but we look at a dividend yield of 2.3% as per 1st of March closing stock price. Coming to the net working capital, we said that with Hoffmann we see a mix effect that will be favorable in our capital utilization.
We bring down capital utilization to 99 days, restated cash per cash cycle, and 27.2% in perspective of sales. We saw during the first half year, significant demands on inventory build-up, which we accepted as a trade-off to be the reliable delivery partner to our customers. We therefore had, in the first half year, cash flows that we will come back to, but we managed to find ways to break that effect for the second half year, still remaining the delivery partner. We're on the right track. I think we can demonstrate that this is going then also into the right direction of cash generation.
When we come to cash generation capital expenditure, we are in a significant investment cycle as we have Heerbrugg site on the hand, we have Nantong expansion on the hand, we have significant investments in ERP systems going on. We mentioned that beforehand. We are at 6.2% on sales, CHF 171 million that we invested. We are profiting from a depreciation ratio that goes down. On the one hand, we had exceptional depreciations in prior years. On the other hand, we have a couple of investments that run out of the depreciation. We will come up with that slightly as we go online with Nantong and with Heerbrugg, and as we keep investing.
In the long run, with Hoffmann in the mix, we see the target bandwidth of 5%-7% coming down, probably more to the tune of 4%-6%. We are in the moment in this investment cycle. Looking into operating free cash flow, which is for the year at CHF 117 million, reflecting an EBITDA conversion of 24.8%. Included is eight months of cash flow of Hoffmann. We have a significant pattern of supply chain issues which you see here, particularly in the first half year. We found back to cash generation, our target is still to convert more than 50% of EBITDA into cash and we show that in the second half year, we came towards these ranges.
We will confirm our position as a reliable cash generator. When we acquired Hoffmann, we gave the target that by year-end, we are gonna surpass 50% of equity ratio, which we do. We took on dual tranche bond at a very attractive interest window. For our purpose, we managed to renegotiate the revolving credit facility, and we deployed, of course, our cash on the acquisition. We are confident to come back to the ranges of above 60% in due course and will, therefore, as we are today, be a very solid financed industry. We allowed ourselves to give that a bit of a graphic view, what happened on our balance sheet.
Not only did we enlarge it by 40%, coming from CHF 1.8 billion to CHF 2.6 billion in overall, but also in taking on CHF 680 million in debt asset. The foreign capital is solidly financed. It's cross-currency swapped into euro. We are sheltered from that point of view and very solidly positioned. When we look into return on capital equity, we show 22.7%. If you restate that for the Hoffmann effect, we would look at 24.4% on invested capital where we burdened the calculation not only with the tax effect, but also with the impact from goodwills that we have in our equity. We look at 9.7% restated.
We are deeming our weighted average cost of capital to the tune of 7.2%. Effective tax rate came up. As we indicated, we were indicating that we're looking at the tune of 20%. That materialized. One part of that is that we have a more relative share of profitable tax in high tax cost countries. We have seen a significant growth in the U.S. We have seen a significant growth in other European countries, and we have profited in the past from tax losses carry forward that we successfully used up. Now we have to face here and there the situation as it is, 90.9%. We are not expecting significant impacts from OECD minimal tax initiative as we are positioned in a local for local situation.
As we are having not any aggressive tax structures implemented, we are looking at that with a minor impact. As usual, we have the last slide here, the KPI summary. I think without going into the details here, it's the documentation of a successful step change that we made. The potential for continued and consistent growth is given. The group is providing a resilient and attractive earning per share that has also the potential. We are in a position to generate cash, deleverage the balance sheet further, and will stay, as we are already today, a very solidly financed group. With that, I conclude the remarks on the current results and hand over back to Jens for the outlook and the guidance. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Volker. Welcome back. Yes, as we take a look at the outlook 2023, the SFS performance also in 2023 will continue to be shaped by considerable uncertainties as a result of the macroeconomic and geopolitical developments which we see. Regional restrictions in supply chains will impact the course of the business in individual end markets also over the course of the year 2023. Safeguarding the business processes, ongoing effort to pursue forward-looking innovation projects, and the sharpening of the group's customer will be the focus and the top priorities in this kind of volatile environment. SFS expects, as you see here, in the 2023 financial year, sales of CHF 3.2 billion-CHF 3.3 billion, including the first time consolidation of Hoffmann for the full year.
With this, SFS also expects, before consolidation effect, sales growth along the midterm guidance of 3%-6%. For SFS Group also as a whole, including Hoffmann and EBIT margin, along the midterm guidance of 12%-15% is expected. The outlook is certainly also based on the assumption that there will be no significant deterioration of the underlying economy conditions or geopolitical energy or pandemic-related restrictions. On the operational side, as always, we focus on specific priorities in order to achieve the outlook we have given, and those are tailored to be most beneficial to reach the maximum performance of the organization in this new year. Under the topic of the mega trends, we focus further on application areas with strong underlying growth drivers due to global mega trends in digitization, demography, and autonomous driving.
Under growth, we focus on investments into the future growth projects, the larger ones in Nantong and Hürth-Bruck, but also very much smaller ones in all the other organizations as well. We also established international presence with Hoffmann. That's a continued project which will be carried forward over the next three to five years. We also expect to accelerate growth in North America and Asia to further balance the group revenue taking globally. Under customer, I was too fast, sorry. Under customer, we ensure reliable supply capability. That was probably one of the enabler of the growth, organic growth track we have seen, also was one of the enabler to achieve the profitability which we were able to achieve in the last two years.
We continue improving customer centricity in the organization and also further strengthen the local-for-local approach because this is what we see widely in the industry. It's a major concern to be locally supplied and have local speaking partners available to the value added of the customers. Under profitability, further balance the production capacity with demand while ensuring also supply capabilities and keep costs under control. We also further focus on balanced price management. We believe we are through the most difficult increases over the last two years. We still expect in 2023 and 2024 that also there will be occasional increase in cost in the supply chain, but not as widespread as we have seen it in the last two years. Under sustainability, further integrate sustainable acting and thinking holistically in the business model and the corporate strategy.
We believe this is a great opportunity we have as an organization. Last but not least, also protect employee health and safety. With that, we are at the end of the active presentation for the full year 2022. We now are available, you know, to take your questions. As usual, what we do is we take first the questions within the room. We have a microphone available. In the next 60 seconds, we organize ourselves to sit down here and, yes, be ready for your questions. Thank you for your attention. Who starts first?
Bernd Pomrehn, Vontobel. Two questions, if I may. Firstly, you're providing a pretty confident growth outlook for this year, indicating that you are not planning to participate in any recession, but you're targeting a pretty sound growth for this year. What do you believe? Will this be rather volume-driven or rather price-driven? In which regions do you expect higher growth or less growth? That would be my first question.
Yes, certainly the recession plans, you know, which were there, you know, for 2023. I think what we see around ourself is that we realize that everyone, you know, sheltered for a difficult winter, for shortages in gas and electricity, we realize this is not happening. What we clearly bank on is that the demand will be stronger, maybe not as strong as we have seen it in the last few years after recovery of COVID, but we expect a stronger demand overall. There are still plenty, and you may ask, you know, the host we have here today, we have plenty of customers. They sit on an order bank which is substantial, first. Secondly, we also expect the world will not be as negative as it may be seemed.
Certainly, we expect a certain cooling off and slow down, but not to the level as you read it in the newspaper. That will come probably second half of 2023. We'll see a further slowdown, maybe 2024, but not be too dynamic overall. In the first half of the year, we still expect very solid business development. Secondly, on the pricing side, we still expect here and there maybe some moderate, minor price increases. I would make the guess today and say greater than 95% of growth will be volume driven, you know. Less will be sales increase driven. That's the current view, but as we know, the world is volatile. We change directions sometimes quarterly.
Okay, excellent. The second question, you achieved an adjusted EBIT margin of 11.5% in the second half of the year. You're targeting now an EBIT margin of above 12% again in 2023. What are the main levers for improving the profitability in the current year, despite some currency headwinds, rising personnel costs, probably rising or higher energy costs? Thank you.
As we said, the second half year has been impacted by six months consolidation effect of Hoffmann, which is the mix effect that you have in the first half year only for the part of the first half year. The other point is, we saw quite challenging patterns of customer demand in the second half year with still not evened out supply chains of our customer, with still difficulties in logistics, with shutdowns in particular the electronics industries, which, you know from our business pattern are very difficult to conquer.
Usually these swings in predominantly the Engineered Components part make give us headaches on margin perspective. That is the case. We looking at a better situation or an improved situation in supply chains. We look at a better situation already today in logistics, right? The container price came down from some over 20,000 from Asia to the U.S. down to acceptable, not pre-crisis, but acceptable four digits. I mean, that's good. We have a couple of things that we think we are over the hump and look into next year with a bit more confidence on that one.
Okay. Excellent. Thank you.
Okay. Oh.
Yes, hello.
Thank you, gentlemen, for taking my questions. I'm Andreas Müller from ZKB. I was wondering, you expect a solid and robust consumption market also in 2023. What should we expect about profitability in Fastening Systems? Is there room for better margins given that they're already relatively high?
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, good question. Certainly we see the three segments with an uneven development. We have seen that in the segment Fastening Systems and Distribution & Logistics, we were able with the many small customers to increase prices earlier, no, on time as needed. We see we have a lag in Engineered Components because they're usually first we have a waiting period until we can increase prices. We believe in the year 23, we will now see a shift. We'll probably see a stabilization on price levels in Fastening Systems and D&L mainly, maybe some moderate price decreases overall, we would expect in Engineered Components an improvement. We should see that also on the EBIT margin.
I would expect EBIT margin to, toward second half of the year in Engineered Components to improve, and I would expect Fastening Systems and D&L probably to come slightly more under pressure on that side.
Yes. Coming to EC and the utilization, you explained that, probably relatively low still in the first half, second half better. Is, let's say, the 2021 margin, which was clearly higher, is that sort of a blueprint already for 2023 in EC?
It could be a blueprint. 2021, we had almost perfect conditions. We came out of a cost-hovering saving COVID environment and jumped right into absolute demand driven environment, so, revenue grew faster, much faster than cost did. I would not see it as much or as dynamic as in 2021 overall. I would see it more moderate and more stepwise.
Mm-hmm.
Certainly the expectation is in Engineered Components to recover from, I would say, almost record low EBIT margins as we see it right now in Engineered Components back towards the 18%-21%, which is our targeted window for Engineered Components. We will do a step in 2023. That's the expectation.
My last question on the order book and order intake. You mentioned your clients are at pretty good level, probably order book. How is the order intake currently? Is that matching sales right now, given also that you are a bit delayed, you know, typically from what you see from, say, these indicators?
Overall, as mentioned, what we see is a strong, you know, December. We have seen a very strong December. We have seen in Fastening Systems and Distribution & Logistics, record sales in December, and we expect that this will continue, you know, to some degree forward into the year 2023. As I mentioned, everyone harbored for a challenging winter, challenging situation, which is not the case. Right now, demand is, I would say, strong.
Okay. Thank you.
Yeah, Stephanie, yes.
Thanks for taking my question. Stefanie Scholtysik, Mirabaud. One year ago, we visited Nuremberg and the Logistic City, and the major parts of the floor were still empty. Can you share with us with what businesses you have filled it up, and how you intend to leverage the sales from there?
I think the ramp up overall is on schedule. We gave back the previous locations to the landlords. Efficiency-wise, we made a further step, but certainly the investment, as you have seen, it is built for more. We expect over the next three to five years increasingly to load the facility as the business grows. Right now we, for instance, start shipments from Logistic City directly to Switzerland. That's for instance a topic we do, so with that also increase efficiencies overall, and we also work on potential transfers of warehouses from other divisions to Logistic City in the next few years. Those are some of the projects. They will come step by step overall.
When you compare to what you've seen during our visit, then you would see considerable more, already considerable more activity just because of the consolidation effect and the finalization of bringing other sites that, as Jens mentioned, have been given back to the landlords into Logistic City. Continuously, we increase utilization of that asset.
Maybe on your investments in China, we just read this morning that Foxconn, another supplier to Apple, is opening a plant in India. Shouldn't you invest more in India than in China?
That's a good suggestion. Now, yes, we are clearly aware of that situation. We see that most customers have a strategy adjustment done. China Plus is usually the little bit the theme in the supply chain. I go back to 2018 with Donald Trump and the start of, you know, the tension with China. At that time, we have seen a first wave of considerations, and then it stopped because everyone thought, yeah, he will not be reelected, so problem gone. Companies came back and said, "Listen, this will be probably a longer-term challenge which we have with the supply chain." We evaluate other locations. India is one of them, you know, and Indonesia, you know, Vietnam, other considerations. From our side, it's good news because our competitors do not have those options available as we have.
We are working on our platform in India already intensively to support our main customers out of India, for India. In parallel, what we do in China is expand the factory because we go into stamping technology new. When you open up your smartphone, you know, and you start counting pieces, you find out that right now we have around 80 components in there with the option to add another 20-30 stamping components by implementing this technology. That's the plan for China. We would expect that some transfer from China to India will be happening over the years, and we expect in the meantime to refill that and also increase the scope in China with the stamping technology.
With several locations already active in India, we are really well positioned to take on these demands and react to those as we go along. Even Foxconn as being a fast mover will not bring that up in just in a year or two, right? This is a whole ecosystem of suppliers that they're building up there, but we are confident that we can capture that demand in India.
We also believe it will take years to reach the level of efficiency, holistically in electronics in India compared to China. That's a long journey for our customers to achieve that.
Remo Rosenau, Helvetische Bank. You mentioned that your new factory for electric brakes, is already fully booked. Given the cycles in the automotive industry, this basic concerns the next six, seven years, huh? What will the sales ramp-up be? What is your budget for this plant, you know? I mean, there will be a ramp-up, huh?
Yes.
How does that look like in terms of sales 2023, 2024, 2025? I mean, you have to plan, huh, don't you?
Yes, it's there.
Luckily, we have it.
Starts depreciating, yeah, no doubt. In that product category at site Hürth-Bruck, we have a base of CHF 20 million in sales today, and we expect that by 2026, 2027, it will be around CHF 80 million or slightly more in sales. In between, there will be the ramp-up that will come in smaller and larger steps as we see it right now.
Okay, from 20- 80 till 2026.
2026, 2027, yes. Exactly.
The profitability contribution will be, you know.
Will come.
better and better, huh?
It will be better and better, exactly. That's always the challenge in this business, that usually whatever we take on and bring online, the first one or two years, it's a drag, you know. Because it's new developments, it's smaller volumes. Then, usually after two years, when the volume increase further, then we see contributes on the profitability side. That's a normal cycle.
Mm-hmm.
This is not just new with this. This is just, I would say, a lighthouse example. On average, within division automotive, within the last six, seven years, every year, we booked business in the range of 15%-17%, that's continuously, yeah?
Mm-hmm.
As we are concerned with the automotive industry overall, with the technological change as we see it and the volatility in the supply, I think that has the main impact on our development. The second impact is the new business, the ramp-up. That's something we can manage internally in-house, and there we are quite experienced, so. We expect headaches, but we expect headaches along the normal course of the business.
Okay. Great, thank you. About Hoffmann, will there be any additional acquisition-related costs in 2023, like the CHF 22.9, or is that now all over?
No. That's all, that's all gone now. As you look at inventories that turn rather fast, we have digested the last impact from inventory step-ups in Q3. The projects for integrating, working closer together, these projects are fully operationalized and in the budget for 2023. We are not considering any extraordinary anymore going forward.
Okay. As the projects still run, the efficiency will get better still.
That is the aim.
We only have.
Yes.
will have positive impact in 2023 because the costs have already been booked.
We said for the D&L segment, we'll be looking at the range of profitability, 7%-10%, and that is what we strive for.
Okay.
Yes.
Good. Thank you.
Mm-hmm.
Yes. Alessandro Foletti from Octavian AG. A couple from me as well, if possible. Going back to the margin in Engineered Components, you mentioned it's at record low. Can you maybe dissect a little bit more in detail what's the effect of the capacity underutilization, and what's the effect of the delayed prices? Maybe to start there.
Mm-hmm. Right. That's, it's certainly a question which is challenging because both come together, yeah? I mean, in the division, we see it in the different divisions. We have both effects together, the price effect situation and the underutilization situation. From my point of view, I would guess half and half, roughly, plus, minus, you know. If we would assume we would like to make a 4 EB points step up, then I would give it 2 EB points delay price increases, which we need to follow up to the customer, overall, and then probably 2 percentage point is underutilization-
Mm-hmm.
in that area.
Right. Just to be sure on the capacity utilization, is it possible that just some volatility, as you mentioned, in H2, may have such a big effect for the full year?
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Right.
The capacity underutilization happened in electronics in the second half of the year. It started as of September, and it did not finish by year-end. It was a substantial impact of underutilization partially due to COVID in China, as we have seen, change in strategy on how to deal with COVID. That was probably a minor impact. The major impact was HDD weakness because, you know, the big tech companies elected to also go into a cost saving mode and not expand the server farms and all the other investments they do into those capacities.
Right. This answers already half of my next question about electronics. What about automotive?
Mm-hmm.
-with respect to capacity utilization, et cetera, and maybe location-wise?
Exactly. Capacity in automotive was not well utilized in the first half of the year. Remember, Ukraine conflict, OEMs did not have cable trees and did not need our components. We had there underutilization. We had also short work weeks, you know, in the Swiss operations, plus also short work weeks in Czech, in U.S., for instance. China, India, not so much. Those were performing more strong. We had underutilization first half of the year. Second half of the year, it's mainly delayed price increases due to contractual matters. We have a six-month delay before we can increase the price. That's right now the discussions and the measures we take.
Okay. Understood. Any other effect, like the ramp ups that you have?
Maybe just hang on a bit on the, on this capacity utilization topic. I think we must not underestimate the sheer pattern of utilization. If you have swings, that is over proportionally impacting our margins because of ramp up, ramp down. In the overall, you look at the utilization, right? What is for us an important factor is have we steady demand even on a lower level? As long as it is steady, it's better for our margin. The challenge during the last year was this.
Stop and go.
Stop and go, right? This is just for the whole teams, that was a very big ask. Sorry. No. I believe it's also important to mention that the new programs, we have situations that customers demand more than what we can bring out. The legacy programs is usually where we see the demand fluctuations. New business, usually it's designed, it's developed, it's ready, it's available. That's a matter of bringing the machines, ramping up, and deliver to the customer. Some pains, you know, some depreciation or cupboard, that's natural. On the other hand, the true pain is with the legacy business.
Great. I have two more questions if I may. One on the Hoffmann. My calculation tells me that the margin of Hoffmann was 9.2%. assuming 10% in Switzerland, that's very easy arithmetics. If I start from there, last time we spoke you said that there are probably CHF 5 million of gains from Logistic City. The step-up is finished, so we are pointing towards kind of 10% for Distribution & Logistics in 2023. You mentioned before the prices is sort of reduced a little bit my enthusiasm, but double-digit is possible or not?
We believe in this business, double-digit is possible. Question is in which year, in which environment, Overall it's possible and it's also strategic objective to achieve that, yeah.
Right. My last question. Thank you. My last question is on M&A a little bit, or maybe I misinterpreted what you said in the closing slide with respect to rebalancing, the geographic distribution of sales. It sounded like, more acquisitions or next acquisitions to take place in the US, in Asia. How's the balance sheet looking like for that, first of all? Second, how's the pipeline looking like?
We have an organic focus in China. We have an organic focus in the US with segment Engineered Components, Fastening Systems, and D&L. Although Hoffmann has good plans for those regions to organically grow, and we hope we grow faster. Secondly, on the M&A side, we have a focus in the United States on construction. Those are usually smaller add-ons, you know, maybe CHF 5 million, maybe CHF 10 million, maybe CHF 15 million of sales. We certainly don't do a big step forward in the next 12 to 24 months, same like we have seen with Hoffmann. We probably have very selective add-ons to increase our distribution network with small hardware outlets.
Very clear. Thanks.
From a balance sheet point of view, I think I gave you an indication. I think we're the cash generating, we have enough of dry powder, and we have never curtailed that ability to do steps wherever they are needed, but we're not looking at a big one at the moment. More questions in the room? Otherwise, we switch to questions we have on the chat. Now we should see the questions here. Yeah. I read the question, Q&A from the chat. The first question we have here is from Joern Iffert, UBS. What gives you confidence electronics will grow in 2023 amid a weak consumer environment?
Yes, certainly challenging, you know, prediction to be made, but usually over the course of the last 10, 15 years in which we were in the electronics environment, we have seen that when crisis came, it usually took maybe six to nine, sometimes 12 months until the consumer cycle went really.
-through, then consumers were usually at the point where they needed, you know, replacement of their electronic gadgets. That's point number one. Point number two is we also see that the new innovations which come to the market in second half of 2023 are attractive. We also believe those attractive products will find consumers which are willing to spend. Also, number three is that we also see, especially with augmented and virtual reality classes, we see more opportunities. That's usually the area of growth overall. Number four, and that's probably most important, is we also expect substantial more stamping business to be ramped up.
We built a new building that should be ready in June, ready for the ramp up, and we have roughly around 40 stamping presses on order, which should find its way to the building and should also find its way to ramp up for the second half of the year. There are no further questions from the chat. If there are no further questions in here, then we thank you. There's one.
There is.
One question. Yes, please.
Yes, thanks. Thanks again. I was wondering in this 99 days cash conversion cycle, is that also kind of what you try to achieve next year or even lower?
I mean, that's probably kind of a new level that we achieved given the mix. It will be challenging how we build up inventories and how we manage supply chain towards our customer. Jens alluded to it. We see in the construction business completely different patterns of customers asking us to increase stock. Certainly that is where we wanna be, right? I mean, we're continuing or even increasing the focus on networking capital management as we just wanna drive down risk from there, right? That is mainly coming from inventory management and supply chain management. The focus is there, and we'll try to make that a new normal. Let's call it like this. Yeah.
Last question on the refinancing costs. You mentioned 1.1% interest rate. What's going to be the interest rate after the refinancing?
That is the interest rate that we refinanced. We have a dual tranche bond, three and five years out. We have a revolving credit facility that is that has an attractive margin pattern that is driven down by our net cash EBITDA ratio. Given the cash generation projections we're looking at, we see that remaining very attractive depending on what the underlying is. I mean, when we laid out the bond with three and five years, that would roughly reflect our expected cash generation patterns going forward.
Thank you.
Another one for me on Hoffmann. CHF 717 million you said for 2022. That is what you have consolidated. If I add back the foreign exchange, I get to what you mentioned in your presentation.
CHF 735.
35?
Yeah.
That's still quite low with respect to the initial range that you gave. Initially, you said CHF 720-CHF 770.
CHF 720 -CHF 740, we said.
Are you sure? Okay, I'm gonna have to look at the first presentation.
Yeah.
All right. Well in this case, the question is not so relevant anymore. I wanted to know why it's not been growing much faster.
No, I mean it. We are, I mean, why is it not growing faster? When we look at new D&L business, and we will take a bet on the range. When we look at the growth, we say organic underlying growth in the new D&L segment is close to 10%, right? We have seen a good growth in that business, right? At stable currencies, we are in the mid of our expected range. If you look at EUR, we are almost spot on.
Okay. What can we expect for 23? If I hear about what you just said and all this, it should continue to grow at that rate.
I mean, we've, we have, laid out the guidance at CHF 3.2-CHF 3.3, including Hoffmann. That would imply that we have over the group a 3%-6% growth pattern, which is more or less applicable to all three segments.
Exactly.
The rest we'll see.
Okay. Okay, good.
In a year from now, we're gonna take up the discussion, yeah. That was the most important part.
Certainly what we can say, you know, based on our experience and history, right now, the business environment is easier for trading business than for manufacturing business. I think the whole volatility speaks to that. We still believe 2023 will be probably more slightly in favor of D&L and Fastening Systems, and probably slightly less in favor of Engineered Components. As soon as we go into an environment which is again more predictable, then this may shift to the other side. Alessandro now has another question.
I need a witness. I have opened.
I owe you a beer. That's what you're trying to say.
Can you read the numbers that has been indicated in August?
CHF 720-CHF 770.
May 2022, impact from Hoffmann, CHF 720 million-CHF 770 million.
Okay. That's a beer on the house. Yeah.
Yeah.
Underlying still, it's the euro exchange rate. We have been fairly surprised.
In euro we are spot on.
The appreciation in the second half year was more than 5%. 1.04, we made the... We took the guidance and at year-end we ended up in 0.99 something. 0.9980. Anyway, I owe you a beer. That's the conclusion.
This year that might come next year. This is really CHF 30 million that...
We'll find out.
Seriously.
Exactly. Good? One more, yeah, question. You, sir, you have the microphone already. Yes.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my question.
Torsten Sauter, Kepler Cheuvreux . A very quick question. Can you clarify what your guidance and outlook is for the tax rate going forward? 'Cause I think we have so many moving parts, you know, basically the footprint change. I think you also had a bit of a step down there or some tax assets. So there's probably, you know, a medium-term and a long-term outlook that's probably needed at this stage. Thank you.
I mean, we come from a basis of 17.5. We see a shift in the allocation of pro-taxable profits, as I said, right? We are now to the tune of 20. We see that as something that midterm we will probably stay at. Depending on where we go with global minimum tax, but as I said, we today deem the impact as minor.
Give you a microphone, yeah.
You made one interesting comment. You mentioned that, in general, the environment in the trading business is more favorable, a little bit easier than in the manufacturing business. Apologies. You probably have realized we are still not so comfortable with the trading business. What are the main reasons that the trading business is currently in a more favorable environment than the manufacturing business?
It's the volatility. The volatility is the enemy of the operations. Within a manufacturing environment, you need stability and you know, continuous utilization of the equipment 24/7, five, six, seven days a week. What we see is right now is that the availability of orders, you know, sometimes raw material is not as great. We have customers calling in and saying, "We still don't need because we don't have the other components. You know, please don't ship, don't deliver." This all on short notice. That gives this volatility, these interruptions, these stop-and-go effects. In manufacturing, there's little room to, you know, even that out. On the other side, in the trading business, we have inventory. You know? What we have seen also on cash flow statement is strategically we have decided crisis comes.
Everyone tries to hide money in the pocket. We go the opposite way. We say we increase inventories, we maximize availability, we get new customers, that's what we did. Secondly, also, customers clearly said, "It's worth to us to come into your supply chain." We certainly also signed attractive deals for the SFS Group in that part of the business. Right now in trading it's more attractive because of that development. As soon as we go into patterns again where for three years the world is not changing too much and purchasing can track you every year and keep track on where you are with your prices, then that business usually feels a little bit more pressure than the manufacturing business.
That was very helpful. Thank you, Jens.
Mm-hmm. Stephanie, yeah.
I have one more question, working capital. How should we think about working capital going forward? In the past, we could assume something like 23%-25% of sales. Now with the Hoffmann acquisition, is this going to change? Or what would be a right assumption?
I mean, from a mix point of view, it would rather come down. When we look at slide 30 and you look at net working capital in the past, we were trailing at 110 days, plus, minus, and we see now this step change of coming down, right? We think that with Hoffmann, we have a very well-established supply chain inventory management at place, and that this is going to keep the ratios going forward.
Okay. It's rather going down-
So, so-
if I hear you right.
I, I, I-
It will be a relief to.
I see it as we discussed before, I think this is probably more a new normal. This is not a trend that you could extrapolate and drive down. Think with roughly 99 days, plus, minus, we will have that step change of 10 days, will probably something that we maintain.
Thank you.
Good. There are no more questions. We are right on time. We thank you for your interest coming here on site, and we certainly invite you for lunch. After lunch we have the opportunity to do a tour at our important customer, Bühler here in Uzwil, and I believe it's worthwhile to stay. Also there get, you know, the foot into the water also on the trading business, you know, with SFS and understand, you know, what are the key characteristics of this business and why it's available to have a broad assortment of products and product lines available, and what's the benefit of the user on the other side of the customer. Thank you all.
Enjoy the lunch. Thank you very much.