Welcome to the presentation of our half-year results 2026. I am here with Marcel Imwinkelried, our CEO, and Tania Micki, our CFO. First, Marcel will present the highlights of our numbers. Tania will go into the financials in more detail. Marcel will talk about the progress in our strategy, EVOLVE+, and the outlook. At the end, we are looking forward to take all your questions through audio and video call in the Q&A session. With that, Marcel, over to you.
Thanks a lot, Peter, and also from my side, good morning and a warm welcome to all of you. I am excited to present to you our half-year results 2026 together with Tania. Tania joined us two months ago, and it was a busy start for her with the integration of the recent acquisition. With her strong experience as a CFO of a public listed company, she is already running on full speed, so I am very pleased to have her on board. Now let us turn to our half-year results. The Siegfried team is delivering. Let me give you a summary on the upcoming slide. The performance of the first half of the year is exactly according to plan. Growth is in line with our expectation. Net sales grew by 4.8% in local currencies. Also, core EBITDA margin, we increased from 21.6% up to 22.4%. Integration of newly acquired sites is on track.
I will give you more details later on. EVOLVE+ strategy, exciting progress. I really will share and give you more insights later on as well. With these results, we laid a solid foundation for the full-year delivery. We are confident to confirm our guidance, high single-digit growth in local currencies, and an EBITDA margin above 23%. Now, I am handing over to Tania for the financial update.
Thank you, Marcel, and good morning to everyone from my side as well. I am delighted to be joining you today for my first earnings call as CFO of Siegfried. While I have only recently joined the company, I have already had the opportunity to meet many of my colleagues across the organization, and I have been impressed by the depths of expertise, commitment, and collaborative spirit of our teams. The strong focus on execution and operational excellence is clearly reflected in the results we are presenting today, and is one of the reasons I am excited to be part of Siegfried. I am very happy to have joined the company at this important stage of its development, and I look forward to supporting Siegfried in the next phase of its growth journey. I also look forward to meeting and engaging with many of you over the coming months.
With that, let me take you through our financial performance for the first half of 2026. As Marcel has just outlined, Siegfried once again delivered profitable growth in the first half of 2026, and I am pleased to confirm that we have established a solid foundation to deliver our expected full-year results. In line with the guidance which we issued at the closing of the acquisition in May, net sales increased to CHF 633 million, representing growth of 2.2% on a reported basis and 4.8% in local currencies. Drug substances sales reached CHF 431.1 million in the first half of the year, while drug product sales amounted to CHF 201.9 million. As expected, seasonality is more pronounced this year than in previous years. This is mainly driven by the recent acquisition of three drug substances sites in the U.S. and Australia.
As the transaction closed on May 1st, the acquisition contributed for only two months in the current period. Drug products is more second half weighted due to planned ramp-up of new products. In addition, seasonality is driven by the nature of our production plan. Let me explain this in a bit more detail. The Siegfried Group recognizes most of its revenues at the completion of a production campaign. As the duration of these campaigns can vary from a few weeks to several months, or even more than a year, the timing of revenue recognition differs from year to year and depends on the production plan. Similar to last year, a larger share of revenue recognition events are scheduled for the second half of this year, resulting in a stronger second half waiting.
Now, let's have a look at the charts on the right-hand side, where we already see the first effects of the acquisition. Our U.S. dollar exposure has increased to 14%, compared with 10% in the prior year period, and driven by increased weight of U.S.-generated revenues. For the full year, we expect U.S. dollar exposure to increase further to around 20%, with the corresponding reductions in the share of the Swiss franc and the euro. The acquisition is also reflected in our sales mix. The drug substances share of net sales increased to 68.1% from 66.8% in the first half of last year. For the full year, we expect the drug substances contribution to increase further to around 70%. Turning to foreign exchange rates. The U.S. dollar and euro both weakened against the Swiss franc compared to H1 2025.
As a result, we experienced a currency headwind of 3.4% in drug products and 2.2% in drug substances. Based on current exchange rates, we continue to expect a currency headwind of around 2% for the full year. Importantly, our natural hedge once again worked well during the first six months, resulting in no material impact on our EBIT margin. The next slide provides the reconciliation from our reported Swiss GAAP FER results to our core results, which form the basis for how we manage and steer the business. I would like to highlight two items included in the reconciliation. The first item relates to adjustments for our foreign pension plans while we make in every reporting period. We have reclassified CHF 900,000 of net interest on foreign pension plan form from operating expenses to financial expenses.
In the reconciliation to core net profit, we have also adjusted for the corresponding core net interest expense. The second item is the exclusion of CHF 400,000 of acquisition and integration-related costs from our core results. Having explained the reconciliation to our core results, let me now take you through the core income statement. In the first half of 2026, we further improved our profitability, increasing our core EBITDA margin by 80 basis points compared with the same period last year. We achieved this despite continued increase in input costs, particularly personnel expenses. The main drivers of this improvement were productivity gains, a favorable product mix, and a strong focus on cost discipline across our entire network, including our headquarters. What has particularly impressed me is the relentless focus on operational excellence throughout the organization, which remains a core pillar of our EVOLVE+ strategy.
This progress is also reflected at the gross profit level. Core gross profit increased to CHF 170.7 million, representing year-on-year growth of 4.7%. Core SG&A expenses increased slightly, reflecting our continued investment in systems and organizational capabilities. This includes strengthening our commercial organization in line with our increased focus on commercial excellence under EVOLVE+, as well as expanding our early-phase development capabilities across both drug substances and drug products. Between EBIT and core net profit, I would like to highlight two points. First, core financial expenses were slightly higher than in the first half of 2025, reflecting the expansion of our bond financing. Second, exchange rate movements had a slightly positive impact on the result. As always, this effect is driven by currency fluctuation and can vary significantly from period to period. Let me now turn to our cash flow performance in the first half of the year.
Operating cash flow amounted to CHF 93.7 million in the first half, compared with CHF 149.6 million in the prior year period. The decrease was primarily driven by the timing of tax payments, currency translation effects, and an increase in net working capital, largely reflecting the addition of the newly acquired sites. One of my key priorities will be to drive strong cash conversion, as this remains fundamental to our capital allocation strategy and long-term value creation. Capital expenditure was below the previous year's levels, reflecting the completion of our high-quality drug substance manufacturing facility in Minden. Investing cash flow also included acquisition-related outflows of CHF 157.4 million. Despite these investments, free cash flow remained positive at CHF 15.1 million.
Financing activities generated CHF 143.3 million, primarily to fund the acquisition, resulting in net debt-to-core EBITDA increasing to 2.3x at the end of the period. Overall, the underlying cash-generating capacity of the business remains strong. Our focus will continue to be on cash generation and net working capital management. Let me now turn to our capital allocation framework. Our capital allocation framework remains unchanged. We continue to invest in attractive growth opportunities, both organically and through M&A. These investments are designed to support sustainable top-line growth, strengthen our customer offering, and over time, contribute to margin expansion and increased cash generation. The acquisition completed in the first half is a clear example of this framework in action. It strengthens our platform, expands our capabilities, and demonstrates our ability to deploy capital selectively when we see a compelling strategic and financial opportunity.
The recent acquisitions has neither changed this framework nor our M&A strategy. M&A remains always on. At the same time, our immediate priority is the successful integration of the acquired business and the realization of the expected benefits and value creation. We will continue to assess opportunities against the same discipline criteria: strategic fit, value creation, and an attractive return on invested capital. We will not pursue transactions simply for the sake of growth. At the same time, our approach to organic investment remains equally disciplined. Now that we have completed several major capacity expansion projects, we will focus on decreasing the capital expenditure level. This is also part of my ambition to maximize cash generation. Importantly, the ramp-up of our capacity expansion projects in Minden, Hameln, and Barcelona are progressing according to plan, with the additional capacity being filled in line with our original expectations.
Marcel will provide more detail on this in a moment. Going forward, we will continue to invest selectively in capacity, technology, and capabilities that support future customer demand while maintaining capital expenditure in the low teens as a percentage of sales. As expected, leverage has increased following the acquisition, and it is now our ambition to return back to pre-acquisition levels. We will put a strong focus on cash generation and deleveraging while maintaining the financial flexibility to invest in the business and act on attractive value-accretive M&A opportunities when they arise. To sum up my remark, we delivered a solid performance in the first half of the year. We executed exactly according to plan, and we established the foundation to deliver our guidance for the full year 2026.
With that, I would like to hand back to Marcel, who will give us more insights into the execution of our EVOLVE+ strategy.
Thanks a lot, Tania, for sharing the financial insights. Now, let me provide some more insights into the good progress we have made in executing of our strategy. I will also share our outlook for the remainder of the year. Two years after the launch of EVOLVE+ strategy, we are seeing positive results across all dimensions of our strategy. The industry trends remain very much intact. Our strategy, EVOLVE+, is built on these trends. Let me give you a few examples of where we are seeing exciting progress. High demand and limited drug substance capacity in the U.S. We have significantly increased our capacity in the U.S. More details shortly. Customers are looking for supply reliability due to geopolitical uncertainty. Our global network with 16 drug substance and DP sites across the U.S., Europe, and Asia is the perfect answer to this need.
Small, mid-sized pharma doesn't have development manufacturing capacities. We can now offer them the complete service from preclinical to commercial, from drug substance to drug product. Athens and Grafton together have a really attractive offering in the U.S. Good news, the inflow of new projects for Grafton and Athens is very positive. This means our hypothesis two years ago with the announcement of new strategy of EVOLVE+ during the Capital Market Day, which we have adapted, is now really proven. These R&D teams are almost fully booked. One important update related to commercial excellence. As you know, we have sharpened our go-to-market approach and strengthened our sales organization with more hunters. Good news also here, we were able to gain 31% more RFPs in drug products and 69 more RFPs in drug substances year-to-date compared to 2025.
In drug substance, we won twice as many new innovation customers year-to-date compared to last year. After two years, the direction is clear. EVOLVE+ is really working. We are building a stronger platform for future organic growth. One of the most visible example is how the recent acquisition further strengthens our global network. With our newly acquired sites, we now operate the largest global small molecule drug substance CDMO network globally. 10 sites across the U.S., Europe, and Asia give us a truly global footprint with a very strong presence in the U.S. Our offering spans the full journey from preclinical development through the commercial manufacturing. This combination of scale, technology offering, and geographical reach is unique and puts us in a very strong competitive position.
Nowadays, if we are offering a new molecule, we are able to send out offers from three different locations, from Asia, Europe, and U.S., and our customers can make the choice. For our customer, this is about more than just capacity. It's about supply reliability and at the end also the flexibility. We can combine more than 150 years of experience with a Swiss quality mindset and deep technical expertise across our sites. This is an attractive proposition to customers. We are already seeing strong momentum from our expanded U.S. presence. Let me provide more details on that on the next two slides. From the day we announced the acquisition, the phone lines have been constantly ringing. Customers are curious about this additional capacity for U.S. We opened Wilmington for customer visits in July. Since then, five customers visit. Another six visits are scheduled in the upcoming four weeks.
Even more important, we see very concrete interest from top-notch large and mid-sized pharmaceutical companies. They are looking for capacity for end-market products as well as future product launches. The feedback has been consistently positive, and we have already submitted three concrete offers. This strong level of customer engagement gives us further confidence in the business plan, and in our ability to deliver the targeted growth. The real value of this acquisition lies in unlocking the capacity for new and high-value business. People are the key. Our integration teams are fully focused and engaged to execute this plan. I had the opportunity to meet the team on several occasions, also together with the board as part of our strategy offsite in the U.S. One thing I can really tell you, this team is really hungry.
Our target remains unchanged: to free up 80 cu m of high-quality capacity for innovative products available from 2028 onwards. We are on track. Transfer activities are already underway. Wilmington, the first transfer of the first product will be completed this year. Pennsville transfers have been initiated, leveraging the synergies and capabilities of both sides. At the same time, we are moving forward with new business. As capacity is freed up, we will gradually start development and transfer in activities for new exclusive products. We expect first revenues from this new business in 2027, followed by a step-by-step ramp-up from 2028 onwards. There is more. Wilmington continues to see strong demand for the existing portfolio. To sum up, we are moving fast, we are delivering according to our plan, and we remain fully on track to unlock the full value of this acquisition.
A key priority of our strategy, EVOLVE+, is to further broaden our technology offering. This is absolutely key to attract new business, especially from small and mid-sized pharma. Good news, all our strategic technology upgrades are coming online as planned. El Masnou additional lines progressing well. The site recently shipped the first sterile products to the U.S. This is an important milestone after a successful FDA audit and an approval. Minden product transfers are progressing as planned. The first large full campaign was produced and packed earlier this year. The new production facility is now really on stream. Early phase development, as already explained, strong project inflow into our U.S. acceleration hub continues. Barberà, first development projects for spray drying are being executed, while we are building up the commercial capacity till end of this year.
Hameln, the first prefilled syringe line is coming online as planned, and this progress confirms that it was the right decision to broaden our technology portfolio in these strategic areas. To sum up, we have delivered a solid performance in the first half of the year. We have executed according to our plan, and we have laid the foundation that makes us confident to confirm our guidance for the full year 2026 and beyond. We have a laser focus on the execution of our strategy, EVOLVE+, to ramp up our future organic growth. To unlock the full value of our acquisition, and most important, we focus to be the reliable partner for our customers. On-time delivery, top quality, and to make sure that our products are helping millions of patients worldwide. This makes us confident on our positive midterm outlook.
Siegfried will continue profitable growth with CapEx in the lower teens or even closer to 10% in the near future. Of course, M&A is always on at the right price and for the right business. We will continue our journey step by step, year by year. Thanks for your attention now, and now I'm handing over to Peter for the Q&A session.
We will now start with the Q&A session. We are looking forward to take your questions through audio or video call, or you can also type in your question into the web chat. The first question is from Laura Pfeifer. Laura, can you hear us?
Yes, I can. Can you hear me?
Perfect.
Yes, we do. Hi, Laura.
Hi, Laura. Good morning.
Good. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my questions. I have three, maybe if I can go one by one would be appreciated. First on drug substances. Your guidance now includes some small volumes from the previously answered and large contract here. Here, can you please specify what order is exactly back on? Is it like the usual order size and most of this will be delivered next year, or is it just a small amount that will be effective for the second half? That is just a clarification. Thank you.
Thanks a lot for this question, Laura, because I am expecting that plenty of you would ask the same question. This is now really defined and also cleared out with the customer. The additional business, what we are gaining compared to the last guidance which we had, is marginal. But now everything is in, now with the full confirmation also for the guidance which we gave in February and also after closing. Everything is in, and of course, next year, business as usual.
Okay, thank you for that one. Then maybe on drug products, it grew only a little bit in H1, but you point to the planned ramp-up of new product in H2. I am just wondering, if you could tell us a little bit more which sites, technology, and products will drive this acceleration? Specifically also here, what is the timeline on the first protein degrader project? Is that on track, and when will it have an impact on growth in DP?
Okay. Very good. First of all, I think we have quite some new products which we are transferring in, and of course, that's also the reason that we see then a bigger seasonality now in the second half of the year. Of course, the second half of the year will be stronger for DP compared to the first half of the year. Last year, it was 50/50. Now, its second half will be stronger. To come back to the second question, and in which locations, it's in two different locations where we are transferring, as we speak, new business, which will really then go further, not only for the second half of the year, but also for the upcoming years then as well. The second question about the protein degrader, as I already mentioned that during the full year presentation in February, we won three protein degraders.
It's not only in drug product, we won also in drug substance as well, and this is well on track. But of course, the first year is more related to tech transfer, method transfer, and then, of course, the volume will start then in one year and afterwards and onwards then really to growth year by year.
Okay, so this will only have an impact from 2027 onwards?
It has already an impact this year, but as you are doing the tech transfer, the impact really on the sales absolute number is marginal, really. It's really changing then as soon as you are starting with the commercial production. This is ramping up now next year and afterwards. Yep.
Okay, great. I think that's clear. The last question is quickly on the margin guidance. You had already 22.4% in H1. Your guidance is unchanged at above 23%. Just wondering if there are any kind of tailwinds or headwinds that we have to consider when we think about the H2 margin.
No, Laura, I think it's here you just have more of a profitable mix effect. That would be maybe what makes the H1 2026 a little bit more than 2025 proportionally, but also, of course, we have the impact already of the operational excellence and also what Marcel mentioned, the focus on delivering with the cost discipline. So I would say there, it's still within the guidance that we are reconfirming for the full year, which is above 23%.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Laura.
Thank you, Laura.
The next question is from Sibylle Bischofberger. Hey, Sibylle. Good morning.
Good morning, Sibylle.
Morning, Sibylle.
Good morning, and thank you for taking my question. Nice to see you, Tania, and I wish you all the best for the future at Siegfried. I have three questions. I will ask them one by one if this is okay for you.
Yes, please.
First, about the acquisition of the three sites, how much was the acquisition effect in the first half? Is it fair to assume that it was at around $25 million?
It is pretty much in line, indeed, Sibylle, because we are reconfirming again the $100 million guidance that we gave when we acquired or when we closed the acquisition, and that is in line with what you have mentioned.
Thank you. The second question about the large contract. Now, the large contract or the orders from there are included in the outlook for 2026. Is it fair to assume that because of that shift, there is a positive effect expected in 2027?
I hope so. We will look at that, and we are constantly in touch with the customer. As already outlined in the past, it's an in-market product, so I don't expect a big change there, but it will proceed, and business as usual as already outlined.
We provide guidance—
The third one—
Sibylle [crosstalk] . Sorry.
We will guide then for—
Yeah, yeah. That's okay.
As usual, Sibylle, we will guide for 2027 then in February.
Thank you very much. Only a small question about the currency effect on the 2026 results. If the currencies remain as they are, could you give us a hint how much it could be on sales and on margins?
On sales, I'm estimating it to be around 2%. That's, again, as you said, expecting the currencies to not change from the level they are now, especially the U.S. dollar and the euro. From the margin we mentioned before, it's very marginal because we have a relatively good natural hedge.
Thank you very much and have a good start, Tania.
Thank you, Sibylle.
Thank you, Sibylle. The next question is from Estelle from Berenberg. Hi, Estelle. Good morning.
Morning, Estelle.
Good morning.
Yes, good morning, all. Thank you very much for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the capacity that you are freeing up with the newly acquired sites in the U.S. The transfers that are happening right now, are these already to free up that 80 cu m capacity? Or are you currently identifying other further assets to be freed in order to reach those 80 cu m?
I like this question. I would like to start from a different angle here. I think also what we see, it is really changing, for drug substance, more molecules. I was sharing with you one year ago, compared to the past, when for an API, it was common to have five to seven, eight synthesis steps. It went up to 20 synthesis steps last year, and really now also happy to share with you the newest generation of small molecules. Our customers are asking us for 40 synthesis steps.
These new molecules are becoming even more complex, and it is also, by the way, triggered by artificial intelligence, because they are going now for the golden molecules. They can already, at the development, do much stronger development activities for these molecules. Good news for us now, one is really to free up the capacity in the U.S. to have enough capacity available for the near future for these new molecules.
By the way, also happy to have now on stream fully the I-804 facility in Minden. I am really confident that we can fill them very soon up. Now, the question, of course, we are also looking how we can further free up additional capacity as well. So far, what we have and already what I shared with you is this 80 cu m in Wilmington, but of course, I can also confirm that we are looking how we could further expand.
Okay, yeah. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Estelle. Next question is from Ed Hall. Good morning, Ed.
Hi, Ed.
Good morning, Ed.
Good morning. Morning, guys. Thank you for taking my questions. The first one would just be on, I think, the confirmed guidance, and apologies if I missed this, but the segment guide that you originally had, I wanted to understand if that still holds or if there's any changes as you've reported this morning. That would be the first question.
No, I think, we did this guidance beginning of the year also due to the fact, due to the large contract where we had some uncertainty, to show that up. However, in the meantime, this is settled, so we are confident that we have an agreement, full agreement also with the customer, and we don't need to do that. In the past, always, we gave guidance at the group level. Of course, we are always reporting, also at the different cluster. That means for drug substance and drug product, and we will go back as business as usual also for the near future. As DP already, what I was outlining also for the question of the colleague previously, here, DP will be stronger in the second half of the year. That's also given, yes.
Okay, perfect. Actually, just on that, I think we've had conversations previously about a 42/58 split of revenue, and you've mentioned the stronger H2. Is this the right sort of ballpark numbers I should think about, or has it changed somewhat?
It's more or less the ballpark, Ed. As you know, we cannot provide any more specific answer on the seasonality. But as I said in the beginning, it is more pronounced also because of the acquisition. Having the larger weight, and the full six months is, of course, the main reason why it's driving this more pronounced seasonality.
For drug substance, and DP has already outlined, we have a stronger second half of the year compared to the first half, yes.
Very clear. Thank you very much. Finally, we just look at the inventory, and the conversion in H2. I think outside of the acquired inventory, how should we think about this conversion? Then maybe the days outstanding for controlled substances versus maybe other products? Is that at a different level to what you typically see? Thank you.
As I mentioned before, I will be focusing on cash generation. The conversion of the inventory is, of course, part of it, and that's what we will work on together with Marcel because it is operational part as well as the finance part. But yes, of course, we are working on converting it.
Of course, I think also if you can imagine, Tania and myself were two weeks ago in Tasmania.
Also to highlight this, it was really an exciting trip. Here we had 40 degrees Celsius, and they have wintertime. The interesting part is really also to say, their business model is that they are doing the first half of the year really harvesting.
In second half of the year, they are going for full production. Then, of course, also after that, we will sell and dispatch everything. Also, you can imagine, this is also then driving this seasonality, related to the networking capital. But, this will feel sorted out till end of the year, according to the business.
Very clear. Thank you very much, and congrats again.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ed.
Thank you.
Thank you, Ed.
The next question is from Fynn Scherzler from Deutsche Bank. Good morning, Fynn.
Hi, Fynn. Good morning.
Good morning.
Good morning, and thanks for taking my questions. Really only two short ones left for me. If I can come back to the drug products segment and the new product ramps you expect in the second half. I think in the past we spoke of a large tableting contract that you had won. Is this among the new products that is now ramping up in the second half?
Exactly.
My second question, just brief. It is? Okay.
Yes.
Then—
Sorry, Fynn. Exactly. You made already the point correctly. That's what we have announced in the first half of 2024. This is now coming through. Exactly.
Can we assume this is the majority of it, or is there also a couple of other projects?
Yeah, it's more than this one. But we cannot talk about products and also customers, but it's more than this one.
Okay. Thanks. Just lastly, a formality. If you could maybe quantify how much receivables factoring you had in the first half.
It is equivalent to what we had as of end of December, so the CHF 40 million. I will be working on decreasing it, so.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you, Fynn.
Thanks, Fynn. The next question is from Daniel Jelovcan. Good morning, Daniel.
Good morning, Daniel.
Good morning.
Good morning, all of you. Tania, good start.
Thank you.
Several questions, and I ask one by one.
Yes, please.
Sorry, I had a lot of interruptions in my line, so maybe the question was already asked. Just to be sure on the lost incremental order, which we have discussed inside Amstad over the last month. There are some people now saying that because it is now included, it implies a lower guidance, obviously. But, you said that the impact this year is marginal. So this contract is now settled. You will get the business incrementally, but the impact, of course, with the lead time this year is minimal. Is that correct? Just to be very sure.
Yeah, very sure, Daniel. Thanks a lot for clarifying this topic, and then let us close this chapter then for the near future, huh?
I hope so.
I hope so, me as well, to have clarity for all of us. This chapter is closed. Now, it is already in there, so the effect was marginal. It was a potential upside. However, as you know, we have the tendency always to guide a little bit conservative. So that is also now everything is included with the confirmation of the guidance which we gave, which is in line also with the guidance which we gave after closing. So that is in a nutshell, and I think business as usual now ongoing, yeah?
Mm-hmm. But as we are already in August now, or September close, it means the impact will be little because we are so late in the year. But next year, of course, the impact will be bigger, right? Just to understand.
No. Next year is business as usual. As planned.
But, the volume with this extra, or there should be higher?
Daniel, we will come back to 2027 in February. We cannot talk about 2027 at this stage.
It was related also, for this year, that was a potential upside. Now we have that figured out. Marginal upside, which is included in the guidance, and for next year, it is business as usual. We have an outlook of forecast with these key customers for the next three years, and here, there is no change for 2027. But, we will give the guidance then in February during the full year presentation.
Okay. The next question, thank you. Is the cash flow, Tania, you mentioned, I fully understand tax payment timing is an impact on the cash flow, but also the inventory delta. When I look at the inventory delta just versus the first half 2025, the delta was that inventory was up nearly CHF 200 million, and that was entirely because of the M&A consolidation or maybe also ramp up of some other CapEx projects or whatever.
It is both. Majority is for the acquisition, and also, like Marcel mentioned, we have, for example, quite a large inventory for the Tasmania operation because they harvest in the first half of the year and then they sell in the second. So by definition, you have much more in the beginning, and then you have less in the second half. So it is the nature of the business. But majority is the acquisition, and then there is a portion, of course, of ramp-up simply because also, like Marcel mentioned, the more complex steps and the production plan. So those are two elements that are impacting.
Okay. Thank you. Another one is, can you disclose in the end just the organic revenue growth for the group in the first half? I have my calculation, but in the past we had so many different assumptions regarding the transaction that I model 200 basis points, to be honest, impact on group top line from M&A. So is that ballpark a good assumption?
No, I think what we have guided also after signing and after closing, the contribution of booster is, for this year, $100 million annualized, and that is in line also now after four months. I know that you are really strong in the mathematics, so you can do the math. I think also the underlying growth is as planned.
But you mean $100 million, right?
Yes.
$100 million.
Dollars, yes.
Yeah, not everybody got that, I heard.
Yes, you are absolutely right. There was some confusion. For this year, we have the booster for acquisition, for eight months, and the contribution is $100 million what we have shared with you.
This is the confirmation.
Mm-hmm. By the way, for CHF 80 million, sorry to be stubborn here, but
Yeah
it means when I do the maths and take 1/ 12 for one month, it would mean it's roughly CHF 15 million or so in the first half impact.
Not 1/12 , Daniel.
That must be correct.
Not 1/12 , Daniel, one tenth.
2/12 .
2/10 . You divide the CHF 100 million 10 months, right, by 8 months, sorry. I will get there.
That is true, yeah. On a yearly basis, it is more.
Not 12 months.
Also the seasonality, which I was just sharing, Daniel, with the site in Australia. There is always the same pattern. First half of the year is really harvesting, second year is production.
Dispatching and invoicing. That is the reason also why we have even a strong seasonality in the new portfolio with booster.
Okay, thank you. A very last question. I have not really understood the transfer within the Pennsville site, which you said the first one will be done this year. So what is transferred within a site?
Good question, Daniel. Also that you understand that if you are transferring a product, and especially within one site, then from the regulatory point of view, this is the fastest way what you can do. That is really fast track, and that is what we are doing. We have different production buildings in Wilmington, and one of these particular production building is really fit for purpose for exclusive business, and this is exactly 8 cu m, which I have already mentioned. To free up, we are internally, at the Wilmington site, transferring one product from this facility for exclusive business to an older one. Then, we have already capacity available for 2027. That is also the reason why I was mentioning that we are generating the first revenues then 2027, what we are expecting. This is fastest way.
Second way will be then also that we are doing consolidation together with Pennsville, that we are also filling further Pennsville as well, which will help a lot to the scale-up effect there, and to free up then the additional cubic meters in Wilmington to bring in additional business as outlined.
Okay. Thank you very much, and further good success. Thanks.
Thank you, Daniel.
Thank you.
Thank you, Daniel. We also had questions from Stephan Wulf, from ODDO, and from Charles Weston from RBC. Thank you so much for submitting these questions. In the meantime, we have, I think, answered them already. There is one more question from Rolf Arpagaus from AWP, and he is asking about the trade agreement between Switzerland and China. In the future, Swiss companies no longer need to pay tariffs when exporting products to China. Will that impact Siegfried in any way?
It could be an opportunity, and I was together also with some customers in China. As you know, we have a site in Nantong, and also the demand is much higher there as well. Interesting is like the local to local setup, the regionalization is going on in U.S., we see the same pattern now in China. Also, there is much higher interest for local to local also in China. That means not obviously just Chinese companies, but also European or U.S. companies are looking also to have capacity available in China. So for us, that is an opportunity. Also, we are looking further how we can evolve also the business in China because the innovation is coming more and more from China. In the past, it was 40/40/20, so 40% of the new innovation came from U.S., 40% in Europe, and 20% of China. That was five years ago.
Nowadays, it is still 40/40/20, but this has changed. U.S. has still 40% of the development activities. Now, this has changed between China and Europe. China is now also together with U.S. at 40% innovative stuff and Europe at 20%. So that is also what we are looking for to further expand in China as well, but we have capacity available, which we are now offering to the customers. But the trade agreement will even help us.
Thank you, Marcel, and thank you, Raul, for this question. Now we are approaching the end of the Q&A. One more question from Tanya Hansalik. Hi, Tanya.
Hi, Tanya.
Hi, Tanya.
Hi, good morning. Can you hear me?
Yes, we do.
Perfect.
Okay, great. Just a couple more questions. Most of them have been answered. On the cash flows, you provided some guidance, but maybe can you give an indication of the networking capital if you expect a reversal in the second half? When can we expect free cash flow to be positive?
Well, free cash flow was positive already in H1, right, Tanya. Let me come back to you on this one because I'm still working on the cash projection. As I said before, I have full focus on cash generation. For me, it's one of the most important KPIs. I'd rather come back to you with my thoughts on this. For sure, it's the conversion of inventory. For sure, it's also Marcel said, less CapEx, more cost discipline around that. That's what we are looking at.
In a nutshell, long story short, we are looking forward to go to the thousands with the inventory. This will happen. One example was just the Tasmanian site, but also CapEx-wise, we had, in the last years, quite some investments, mid-teens, low -teens, and so on, to build up the capacity. Now really happy to have the capacity for the next future growth phase. Also, we are coming now towards to 10%, which also help us then at the free cash flow. That's what we are looking for. More to come, we will share with you.
Thank you very much. That is it from my side.
Well, thank you so much, Tanya, and also thank you to all the others who have asked questions and participated. We are looking forward to meet most of you again in February when we will announce our full year results. With that, this webcast is closed. Thank you so much and have a nice day.
Have a great weekend, and all the best. Thank you.
Thank you. Bye.