Good morning. Welcome to the Presentation of Our Half Year Results 2025. My name is Peter Stierli and I'm here together with Marcel Imwinkelried, our CEO, and Reto Suter, our CFO. Marcel will start the webcast presenting the highlights of our H1 performance. Reto then will talk about the numbers in more detail. At the end, Marcel will spend a few slides on the outlook and what's to come for Siegfried. At the end we're going to have a Q & A session and you can dial in and connect to us by clicking on Click Call on the webcast window. This webcast is scheduled for 45 minutes and will end at 10:45 A.M. Please note that the session will be recorded. With that, over to you, Marcel.
Thank you, Peter. Good morning and a warm welcome also from my side. I'm excited to present to you our half year results 2025 together with Reto. It has been one year since I took over as the CEO of Siegfried Group. Let me tell you, even after one year, I'm still impressed by the great team, the technical capabilities of our sites, and the many opportunities ahead of us. Siegfried is unique. At our global manufacturing network of 13 sites, we are able to offer our customers the entire value chain development and manufacturing services from early phase to commercial scale and from the drug substance all the way to the finished dosage form. The Siegfried team is delivering. Earlier this year, one of our major customers was looking into building up a second supply point for one of his blockbuster drugs in addition to our site in China.
We were able to secure the contract and to offer this second supply point from our site in Saint-Vulbas in France. This truly reflects the strength of our global network. Another example, at our Capital Markets Day, I explained to you that reliability is our license to do business. Our customers cannot afford any supply interruptions. We measure reliability with the KPI OTIF. This means on -time in-f ull. The team at our drug product site in Malta achieved a staggering 99% OTIF performance this year. In my career, I was responsible for many manufacturing sites and believe me, this is really outstanding and truly impressive. Our global network and our expertise put Siegfried now in a unique position. This is why I'm so excited to stand here today in front of all of you.
I really look forward to talk more about our bright future in the second part of my presentation. First, let me give you a summary of our half one results. If there is one message I want you to remember today, we have delivered a solid performance in the first half of the year. We have executed exactly according to plan, and we have laid the foundation that makes us confident to confirm targets for the full year 2025 and beyond. Moreover, we were able to deliver these results despite inflationary pressures, despite adverse currency effects, and despite the final wave of customer destocking. I'm particularly excited about two of the numbers on this chart. We have been able to further expand our EBITDA margin to 21.6%.
We have been able to make substantial further progress in our networking capital optimization, freeing up more than CHF 35 million of cash despite increasing inventories due to the manufacturing progress for conversion into revenues in the second half of the year. M & A is always on in secret. We are confident to confirm our outlook for the full year. For 2025 we expect sales growth in the mid single digit percentage range in local currencies and a core EBITDA margin above 22%. Now I would like to hand over to Reto who will give you more insights about the financial numbers.
Thank you very much Marcel. I'm happy to be here. Good morning, [Foreign language] , a warm welcome to you from my end. I'm happy to add some additional colors on these great financial numbers. Now also in the first half of 2025, Siegfried has delivered profitable growth and we have set the foundation for a perfect full year delivery. We have communicated effects on the top line. Early on there were three of them. First of all, we have by now seen the last wave of destocking, around CHF 10 million, mostly in the drug substances cluster. Of course, the currency headwind was much stronger than what we had anticipated. Back in February, following April 2, the foreign currency, specifically the dollar, devalued strongly against the Swiss franc and we have for this first half a currency headwind of 1.7%.
For the full year, we expect that currency headwind to sustain to maybe 1.5% against us. However, the natural hedge worked just beautifully in these first six months and we had no impact at all to the EBIT margin. Lastly, we also spoke around seasonality and I will take a few minutes towards the end of my presentation to also touch upon this topic. Now, what were the results? Drug substances printed CHF 413.8 million. Drug products CHF 205.8 million, in total CHF 619.5 million, which is flat in Swiss francs but represents a growth of 1.6% in local currencies. The currency split on the right-hand side as well as the net sales split between the clusters is pretty much unchanged to the prior period. Let me take also a moment to speak about tariffs. Good news. The tariff exposure continues to be absolutely minimal.
Today we see less than CHF 5 million of 2025 sales being impacted by tariffs potentially and even adjustments to the exclusion list wouldn't materially change that number. That's good news. Now this is an uneventful slide and that's actually good news. This is the reconciliation from our reported number on the Swiss GAAP FER to the core results which are important for us to manage and to steer the business. Two items. On the one hand side, you see the one adjustment that we do in every reporting cycle, we have reclassified CHF 1.2 million of net interest on foreign pension plans from the operational expenses down to the financial expenses. Then we took out transaction cost of CHF 0.4 million. These were due diligence costs for potential M&A transactions where we had a really close look at but ultimately decided not to consume the transaction.
On the adjustments to core net profit, you see again the addition of the core net interest on the foreign pension plan. We are specifically proud around the profitability. In the first half, we have been able to further increase our profitability despite increases in input costs, namely on the personnel expenses side. How have we done that? We have used all the levers available. Operational excellence, which is a core part of our strategy, EVOLVE+; we continue to apply portfolio optimization and ongoing process for the first time now, also including drug products, and of course, as you would expect from us, a very strict cost discipline on all the levels. All the sites also enter high quote. It's no surprise that the profitability increase did show up on the core gross profit level, which we have expanded on an absolute level, but also on a relative level.
It's higher, 60 basis points. In this first half, we kept the core SG&A in check despite somewhat changed perimeter. We added the Siegfried acceleration hub, I'm sure you're aware, and also other parts of our organization continued to grow, Siegfried DINAMIQS as one example. Now let's focus a bit of time on what happened between the core EBIT and then the core net profit. If you go drill down into the core financial expenses, so below core financial results, you will see that the core financial expenses actually came in lower in this first half of 2025, obviously as a function of the lower interest rate environment here in Switzerland. We had the negative exchange rate differences impact. That's a result of the volatility and the decline, especially in the U.S. dollar. As you're aware, this is a non-cash item and it's also a valuation effect at a specific point in time.
Now, my favorite financial statement, this is also the financial statement where the ExeComm and also our Board of Directors takes a keen interest in on how that's going to develop. Also, good news here on this side, we continue to deliver a significant improvement in operating cash flow. The contributions came namely from our networking capital improvement Project FALCON, and if you drill down, it came namely from accounts receivable where we did advance greatly and also from accounts payable. However, due to the seasonality, we have a large portion of the revenues to be generated in H2 sitting in our inventory now. The positive development is real. It was masked by these capital allocations into inventory, which is then ready for conversion into sales and accounts receivable and later on then cash in the second half of 2025.
If you look at capital expenditures, that's at the upper end of seasonality. We spent around CHF 100 million on organic expansion, purchase of property, plant and equipment, so fixed assets. The largest project here, of course, as you would expect, was the high quality drug substances manufacturing building in Minden. Cash flow from financing, basically as last year. Now, status of my balance sheet, really important for a company like us. We are still at a net debt to core EBITDA of around 1.5x, and that leaves me with around CHF 600 million of non-dilutive debt capacity. Which means, and that's good news too, we are not restricted in any way at this point in time to further conduct organic but also inorganic M&A acquisitions. Which brings me to something really important: the capital allocation framework.
How does the Siegfried Group of companies intend to create long-term value over many years? It's unchanged. We invest into growth options that we have available both organically as well as inorganically, so M&A, and I will speak about the M&A angle in just a minute. Over time, these options then develop into a strong top line growth, obviously as we are becoming more complete, as we reach scale, as we become also more valuable to our customers. This strong growth comes also with expanding margins. If you combine growth and margin expansion, of course you're at a cash flow generation which increases period after period. This is then the cash which is available for further investments into growth. Again, let's spend a minute on M&A. M&A is always on, that's known to you. We never stop. Let me tell you, today is a good environment for doing M&A transactions.
When we do M&A, we are always very clear about the purpose of the deal. Does it add scale? Does it add new abilities, and that includes also geographical expansion? Or does it add a new technology platform that we did not own so far, or any combination? Of course, as evidenced in the core adjustments, we will continue to be very selective also going forward. The easiest way to destroy value is a bad deal. We will focus on creating, as before, value for our customers. As this stands, that translates automatically into value for our shareholders. We continue to see M & A as a very capital efficient alternative, also a time saving alternative to organic deployment of capital. That was the remainder of the capital allocation framework dividend policy. This committed dividend program increase of CHF 0.2 per period, that's going to stay.
We're committed to conservative investment grade leverage levels, important for us despite the fact that we generate significant amounts of cash going forward. Important to us is a strong balance sheet and the preservation of our financial flexibility. This then allows us at any point in time to engage also into M & A and continue with organic investment. With that, we are optimally positioned to capture long term value creation. Let me conclude my remarks with a few sentences on seasonality. As previously highlighted, the seasonality in 2025 is stronger compared to the last prior previous years. It all starts with the revenue recognition. The Siegfried Group on an annualized basis recognizes 98% - 99% of revenues at the end of a campaign. You see from the chart to the left hand side that the majority of these campaigns actually end in H2.
Let's spend a minute on the production plan, a very simplified version. The gray arrows stand for manufacturing for production campaigns. You see that these arrows are long, some of them are longer than one year. Each of these manufacturing campaigns consists of dozens of individual management and manufacturing steps. At the end, we recognize the revenue. That's the blue dots at the bottom of this chart. You also see looking at this chart that the majority of the revenue to be recognized in the second half of 2025 by now is already now at very far advanced stages of manufacturing. The idea or the question for a ramp up risk is actually not a real question. If they move to the right hand side, that's the resulting revenue profile. You just multiply the revenue recognition points with the volumes, that's where you end up.
There are two statements that I would like to make here. The first is, it really changes. These pathways through the year are different from year to year dependent on the production plan. The second one is it's obviously not a straight line. This lumpiness, this bumpiness in revenue recognition we will always have and it will continue also in the future. In brief, what we have been observing now in 2025 is perfectly normal. With that, I'm happy to hand back to Marcel for the outlook.
Thank you, Reto. Now let us talk about our bright future and how we are laying the foundation for profitable, sustainable growth. As I explained to you at our Capital Markets Day in October in Barcelona, Siegfried is on track to outpace the market growth across all key segments we operate in. There are four important long-term trends which drive growth across these segments. I am particularly keen to highlight one of these four trends. This is the increasing number of innovations coming from small and mid-sized pharma companies. More than 80% of new molecules currently in the pipeline are owned by small and medium-sized pharma companies. Why is this so exciting for us? Many of these companies do not have their own manufacturing capabilities and capacities.
It would be too risky and too capital intensive for them to build up manufacturing facilities on their own, and they do not have the manufacturing expertise. They rely on us, a high-quality CDMO like Siegfried, who can take their innovations to commercial scale. This is also one of the reasons why we see an ongoing outsourcing trend within our pharmaceutical industry. This is exactly where our EVOLVE+ strategy comes in. With EVOLVE+, we are best positioned to capitalize on these long-term trends, and we are set to grow above market across all the segments that we operate in. One of the most important dimensions of our EVOLVE+ strategy is our technology offering. We strongly believe that a broad technology offering is a key differentiator for acquiring new business and to secure long-lasting partnerships with our customers.
This is why we are continuously expanding our technology offering in those areas where we see the best long-term growth opportunities. Let me give you an example. Two years ago, everyone was talking about emerging GLP-1 drugs and the need to be able to offer large-scale capacities, high-speed lines for prefilled syringes. What we did, we took a step back, first of all carefully analyzing the trend, and we came to a different conclusion. Instead of putting all eggs into one basket, we understood that the opposite market will evolve into something much bigger and much more diverse, and that what we need is to be able to offer a set of key technologies in order to position ourselves as a reliable long-term partner in this area.
Today we are able to offer a broad technology portfolio for the development and manufacturing of important drugs including opacity drugs, fill and finish services for pre-filled serums. As you know, we are investing in two lines in Hameln. In our site in Germany, we're investing for high volume manufacturing, also for linker molecules used for peptide-based GLP-1 drugs and also for large scale manufacturing of very complex drug substances used for oral applications, including obesity drugs. Spray drying is the bridging technology between drug substance and drug product, and we are investing in Barberà in spray drying to enhance the solubility and the bioavailability of such oral applications. We are even offering development and manufacturing services for the next generation of obesity drugs which will be administered through viral vectors.
This is why we truly believe that building out a broad technology offering is essential to secure long term growth. We can do this through organic investment or, if needed, we can always fast track specific technology upgrades through M&A. Already today we have a very diverse technology offering and as a part of the EVOLVE+ strategy we are making this as an even stronger differentiator. Another great strength we have is commercial and operational excellence. Cash is king and a great example is Project FALCON, our networking capital optimization initiative which I presented to you at our Capital Markets Day as well. We take this initiative very seriously. I and the Executive Committee track progress on a monthly basis. On the left you see one of the charts that we regularly look at.
We are comparing today's net working capital with the net working capital a year ago and we take a close look at the various components and we are making the adaptations where needed. We do this on all levels. When you examine this monthly analytics over time, you arrive at the chart to your right hand side. As you can see, immediately after we have kicked off in May 2020 for Project FALCON, Project FALCON started to show substantial results for the full year of 2024. We have been able to reduce our inventory by more than 10% compared to 2023, and we were able to release close to CHF 60 million in cash. It doesn't stop here. The efforts continue. Today FALCON is delivering efficiency across all levels of our organization.
In the first half of this year we were able to release more than CHF 35 million in cash. We were able to do this despite a significant increase in inventories for ongoing manufacturing that will convert into revenues in the second half of the year. With this, we expect to release more than CHF 100 million cash for 2025. To sum up, we have delivered a solid performance in the first half of the year, we have executed exactly according to our plan, and we have laid the foundation that makes us confident to confirm targets for full year 2025 and beyond. With our laser focus on our strategy EVOLVE+ and with the winning spirit of our team, we are set to outpace the market across all key segments we are operating in. This makes us confident on our positive mid-term outlook.
Siegfried will continue to grow above market excluding M&A. We will stepwise expand our profitability with capital expenditure in the low teens. Of course, M&A is always on in Siegfried at the right price, but only just for the right business. We will continue our journey of profitable growth through 2025 and over the mid-term, step by step, year after year. I am sure you understand now why we are confident that we are going to hit the targets this year and beyond. Thank you for your attention. Now with that, I hand over to Peter for the Q&A session.
We will now start with a Q & A session. If you want to ask a question, please click on, click dial, and you can connect with us and dial in and ask your question directly. The first question is from Chris Richardson from Jefferies. How do you see the 17 pipeline developing and how do you plan to commercialize the products for your customers given that you do not have much experience yet in commercial manufacturing? Marcel?
Yes, thanks a lot for this question. Good question. First of all, happy to share with you that we are progressing very well. We were able to win six additional or new customers 2025, which is great and it's evolving very nicely. The next step will be then to produce then GMP patch to commercialize that also. Here we are in discussions of course, and the first step which we need to achieve is now what we are doing is to integrate the site. We are very close to finish that. Also, we have the health authority audit. Everything will happen in the second half of the year. For next year we will be ready and then also to produce commercial products as well.
Thanks, Marcel. He has a second question, which I would like to hand over to Reto. How was the receivable improvement achieved? Is there any factoring?
Yeah, no, to be very specific, there was no factoring involved. No special one off effect that we would see only now in this first half. This really was an effort in making customers pay and be a pain in the, you know what. It was really just an effort and a very close monitoring involved. Obviously, we also had quite a high amount of accounts receivable as a position towards the end of 2024.
Thanks. The next question is to Ed Hall in the video call. Ed, good morning.
Good morning, Peter. Marcel, Reto, thank you very much for taking my questions. I guess first question would just be on the pricing power that you're seeing within drug substances and drug products. I'd be curious to see sort of what was the contribution to volume versus price in the top line numbers. That'd be my first question. I guess second question would just be for your topic on M&A and how do you see the valuations in the U.S. How has this changed in the last six to twelve months today versus that prior period? Just a comment on the cash flow statement on the income tax paid and the, let's say, the large swing that we've seen there and any sort of further commentary that you could elucidate on that. I think those three would be really helpful. Thanks.
Reto, would you like to take this question?
Yeah, sure. Maybe on the first topic that you have on pricing power, majority of the increase that you have seen now was indeed volume. Obviously, we have had rounds of pricing increases in the past, but obviously a little bit of price was also included there as well. Second, on the valuation of assets in the U.S., first of all, we need to see that targets denominated in U.S. dollars following April 2nd have become 10% cheaper. That's what happens. As someone who's thinking in Swiss francs, then obviously, yeah, I mean these assets have been of value before and they are of value now. It very much depends on the very specific situation. There's still situations where Siegfried style you could extract some value. Also for us, then the last question was on the cash flow statement.
Remember in the second half of 2024 we had this large income tax payment in Hameln, you know, where we had this very profitable vaccines business which led to higher taxes. While this had been recognized, of course, in the P&L statements in the periods before, at some point you need to pay and this did not just not reoccur as we don't do vaccines business in Hameln anymore.
Perfect. Thank you very much, guys.
Thanks.
The next question is from Laura. Can you please update on the progress of the two Spanish sites in terms of capacity, utilization, profitability improvements, and also the new contracts. Marcel.
Happy to do so. I think first of all, very good news is El Masnou. El Masnou is very, very nicely utilized. We, and this will be also the first site where we are now starting also the portfolio management. By the way, also we are quite, as you know and also what we have highlighted and shared with you, investing and expanding in El Masnou because we are really acting here in a niche in the ophtha business and more, more also new novel drugs are coming through in Barberà. Here we are according to the business plan. Of course, we have also signed some additional contracts with new customers as well. Of course, also what we have already shared with you, we had a big contract signed one year ago which will become then commercial. What we see then in the P&L really then in 2026.
Thanks, Marcel. The next question is from Finn. Good morning, Finn.
Hey, good morning and thanks for taking my questions. I have three. First, you touched upon your tariff exposure, which is very helpful. A question that I often get is also on potential U.S. drug price cuts and how this could affect your business and how immediate any effect would be. Maybe you could help us there. In peer reporting, we had actually heard that it seems there's very good industry activity in the CDMO space overall. I mean, your 1H growth looks rather subtle. Is that something that could help boost your second half? Is that a development that you would confirm? Lastly, on the M&A environment, I think you said you walked away from a deal. Could you speak about the likelihood of a deal in the next 12 months, given you say the environment is still very good? Thank you.
Marcel, do you want to take the M&A question and the tariff question?
Sure, happy to do so. I think first that was the price question. I think here obviously there is something coming, not a surprise when we are and personally I'm looking at that regarding price, will this have an immediate effect? I'm not sure. I think it's more mid to long term. We are not directly impacted because price wise and also if you're looking at the COGS for these blockbuster very important products, they are very often at the single digit COGS base. What we can do as a CDMO and what we are doing also according to our strategy EVOLVE+ is operational excellence further to improve our productivity and also then at the end to be competitive also for our customers as well.
M&A wise of course we have already twice or three times also highlighted that in our presentation it is always on, but already as outlined just for the right price and for the right business. What we see currently, it's not only in the U.S. but also in other regions as well, that quite much more activities are ongoing, which is really interesting also for us.
Thanks, Marcel. Reto.
Yeah, now on industry activity, that's obviously something that we observe as well. This is also something which makes us really happy, and it's also confirmation of the very strong sustainable business case of the CDMO industry as a whole. Now, you specifically ask whether this would have a huge impact on the H2 growth. I mean, as mentioned in my part of the presentation, most of the revenue for revenue recognition in H2 is now already at very advanced stages in manufacturing. While a read across is certainly okay, you know, this doesn't happen in the really ultra short term.
Thanks, Reto, and thanks, Finn. The next question is from Dominik Felske . Siegfried is rather short of production facilities in the U.S. Do you plan to change this? Marcel?
Also happy to answer that. Of course, regarding the activities in the U.S., of course there are also customers, long relationships which we are having with them, to now also to establish a second supply point. We have three sites in the U.S.: one for early development for drug substance, the second one also then for commercial for drug substance. What we see, of course, customers are asking now and looking forward also to have a second supply point, which we can also offer. Of course, we are also looking. This is nothing new.
When we are talking about the M&A, you know that not only due to the geopolitical situation, because we were already able and looking at that 10 years ago when one of our key customers was asking us to have a second supply point, you know that we built up the second supply point in the U.S. as well. This is not something totally new for us. We are also looking forward to, according to our M&A strategy, to further expand for the right price then our network and footprint in the U.S.
Thanks, Marcel. The next question is from Charles Weston, and he's for you, Reto. Given the H1 H2 weighted year and Project FALCON, where do you expect net debt to land at the end of the year?
Yeah, very good question. At the end of last year, we had a net debt to EBITDA multiple of 1.3x. This is not an unreasonable expectation as well. Now for 2025, maybe even a bit lower than that, wherever that number is, you know, no restriction through non-dilutive debt capacity available to us.
Thanks, Reto. There's one more question from Charles, and it's again related to M&A, Marcel. What type of assets are more attractive now, and what type of sellers have adjusted their price expectations?
I think we cannot say it's only going in one dimension or in one specific technology. I think of course what we are always looking at is really to expand in our core, and I think more activities, targets are on the table, let's put it in this way. Of course, as you know, we are quite strict on that, that we are not doing stupid things related to M&A activities, but it's really, we are in a really interesting time.
Thanks Marcel. The next question is from Sibyl and it's for you Reto. You invested more in CapEx in H1 2025. Can we expect higher CapEx for the full year, higher than low teens?
Yeah, I mean it's always really difficult to get the phasing right between the years. Yes, indeed we spent a little more than anticipated during now this financial first half of the financial year 2025. It was mostly due to Minden where we are heavily building now to finalization. Actually, I don't expect a massive overshoot of the capacity of the CapEx, you know, for the full financial year of 2025. We should stay within the guidance.
Laura has a follow up question on that. Can you, you know, give some insights on the ramp up time for these various CapEx projects that are currently ongoing? Reto?
Yeah, I mean let's focus first on Minden because this is the one who's going to deliver first revenues now in the second half of 2025. I mean Minden is a high quality, large volume drug substances manufacturing building, the i804, so that's specifically well suited for large high value products, you know, where throughput times and quality are really important to our customers. We will see first revenues now in the second half of 2025. Don't expect too much. That's that. We will see a ramp up over the next three to four years with large volume products that we will put into that from a manufacturing planning point of view. Minden for quite some time is already part of that plan.
Relating to the other CapEx projects, namely the two PFS lines in Hameln, first one will come live next year and then the mid size commercial line in 2027.
DINAMIQS is already outlined very soon. Happy to do the integration then in four weeks from now and is then ready. Everything is on time, in full, budget wise, timeline wise.
Great. One more question from Finn regarding GLP-1. Is this already a meaningful revenue contributor, and what does it mean for the future? Marcel?
I think we are not talking about products and also customers as you know, but of course we were really highlighting also to come back when this big discussion started two years ago about GLP-1 peptides products, what is Siegfried doing? We step back and we're really then looking at the full picture, and we were investing and also were closing our gaps from the technology point of view and really to be able to offer in all different future dosage forms, and I think we are very well positioned for that.
Thanks Marcel. There is a question from Daniel Jelovcan and it's regarding drug products. Why was DP relatively modest as it was also the case in H2 2024? Is this something that we see across the industry? Marcel?
Yeah, I think overall also here a little bit seasonality, you know what we have, we are also doing some adaptation investment, ramp up expansions as an example in two, three sites. Overall, I think as we have outlined for fill-finish, we are looking forward for a growth of 7%- 9% also midterm wise and we will make that.
Thanks Marcel. There is another question from Urs Speck. A decent portion of your networking capital cash generation stems from prepayments. How sustainable is this factor? Reto?
Yeah, I mean prepayments are just a great instrument to shorten the cash cycle, specifically as you have seen how long these manufacturing campaigns are, so we don't miss any chance to ask customers for contributions or prepayments just in order to shorten the cash cycle. Now, specifically for longer campaigns where we have to buy raw materials, et c., there we actually ask that on a regular basis. That's an element of our commercial excellence efforts, you know, in order to just be very cash conscious. That's sustainable also going forward.
Excuse me, one more question from Sibyl regarding dividend. After the share split, can we expect again in this case CHF 0.01 - CHF 0.02 increase this year, or does the dividend strategy change?
Yeah, no. I even think I made a mistake in the presentation. It's of course not CHF 0.2, it's CHF 0.02. I forgot about the 1 to 10 split. So dividend policies aren't changed.
Great. Thanks, Reto. With that, we are at the end of the Q & A. If you have any further questions, please just reach out to Reto and me anytime, and we'll get back to you as soon as we can. With that, we're closing this call, and once again, thank you for having dialed in.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Have a great day.