Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Stadler, I would like to welcome you to the Balance Sheet Media Conference. You will be informed today about the financial year 2024 by Group CEO Markus Bernsteiner and CFO Raphael Widmer. After the press conference, the two of them will be available for your questions. My name is Marc Meschenmoser. I'm the head of communications.
Annual results. The following gentlemen will be providing information about the 2024 financial year: Markus Bernsteiner, CEO of the Group, and Raphael Widmer, Chief Financial Officer. [Foreign language ].
At the beginning of this media conference, we would like to show you some short videos on the natural disasters that hit Stadler in Valencia, in the canton of Valais, and in Lower Austria.
This morning, Group CEO Markus Bernsteiner.
For this, I'd like to pass the floor to Group CEO Markus Bernsteiner, who is going to talk about the impact of the natural disasters and also the achievements in the financial year 2024.
Dear media representatives. Business analysts. Yes. I would also like to give you a warm welcome, and I thank you for your interest in Stadler. Let us jointly look back at an extraordinary year. Let's look at the financials and into the future. As you have just seen, the financial year 2024 was marked by non-foreseeable events. Three flooding events in the canton of Valais, in Dürnrohr, and particularly in Valencia, led to delays in production and had an impact on supply chains. As a result, CHF 350 million in revenue had to be shifted into the years 2025 and 2026. I would now like to talk about the natural disasters and their consequences. In July, there was heavy flooding in the canton of Valais, and our supplier, Constellium, was affected. Production had to be suspended for several months after 1,200 tons of aluminum profiles were stored there.
850,000 tons had to be scrapped. As a result, we had to send employees into short-term work. In February, the last press was retaken into operation, and production restarted. Constellium now expects they have caught up the delay by August 2025. Heavy rain in Lower Austria caused a dam burst last September, and our local commissioning center got flooded. A four-part double-decker train for the Austrian Federal Railways, which was undergoing type testing, was completely destroyed. Meanwhile, the commissioning center has been cleaned up, and they are working at full speed again. We were hit even more severely in Valencia. The heavy rainfall there caused a natural disaster with devastating consequences. We're very glad that all employees are safe and sound. However, the consequences were severe. Over 400 employees were not able to come to work, and the suppliers in the region were also hit hard.
Components for train production are lacking, and new supply chains need to be built up. The result is that 200,000 working hours had to be shifted to the years 2025 and 2026. For about 50 orders, we're faced with delays of one to five months. Depending on the time reserves that we had planned, this will have an impact or no on the planned commissioning. In order to minimize the impact, Stadler immediately started a catch-up program, which we consistently implement. In addition, the weak economic development in Germany put the Stadler plant significantly under pressure. We get to feel that in several ways, particularly in the supplier industry. We are directly affected by suppliers' bankruptcies and therefore had to look for new suppliers. Certain suppliers no longer deliver on time, and we need to compensate for that.
Furthermore, higher energy prices caused expenses and, in particular, wages to rise. In 2019, Stadler won the tender for Berlin's Metro, and Alstom, our competitor, appeared against that, which delayed the signing of the framework agreement by over a year. After that, in spring 2020, the COVID pandemic broke out, and execution of the order had to be suspended for some time. Software problems furthermore caused the delivery to be made. So far, only 484 of the 1,500 cars for Berlin Metro have been caught up. Furthermore, we've been waiting for the commuter train. We've been waiting for the commuter train tender in Berlin for four years. We need planning security, and this is why we take a decisive approach. We are implementing a far-reaching structural and efficiency program with the objective of increasing efficiency and reducing costs everywhere.
With our social partners, we are currently negotiating a contribution by the employees, maybe a 40-hour working week, and we will keep you informed once respective decisions have been made. This brings me to the financials. The consequences of the natural disasters had a major impact on the group result, particularly the result in Valencia. The result is that CHF 350 million had to be shifted to the years 2025 and 2026. I will now give you an overview of the most important key figures for the year 2024, and Group CFO Raphael Widmer will explain the details later on. Revenue was CHF 3.3 billion. Profit amounted to CHF 55 million, and the free cash flow was CHF 140 million. EBIT achieved a value of CHF 100.5 million with an EBIT margin of 3.1%. In light of the challenging framework conditions, we can call this a good result.
Our order backlog increased from CHF 24.4 billion- CHF 29.2 billion. The development regarding the order backlog is a consequence of our successful achievements in the market. We won orders worth CHF 6.4 billion. Furthermore, we were able to further strengthen our market leadership in alternative propulsion systems. The orders are all included in our production plan. Stadler has capacity and is looking forward to new orders. The successful market performance shows that with our products, we are well positioned in a growing market. This is only possible thanks to a great team, a great team that does its best every day. I'd like to thank them for that. Moreover, Stadler continues to be a very attractive employer worldwide. Last year, we created more than 1,200 new FTEs. Based on the good order backlog, the number of employees increased to over 15,000.
What is also very pleasant to see was that our strategic focus markets, Europe and the U.S., helped us to further grow as of January 2025. Stadler U.S. was turned into a known division. I would now like to give you an overview of our three reporting segments: rolling stock, services, and components, as well as signaling. Let me start with the rolling stock segment. With a 70% share of the order backlog, rolling stock continues to be the biggest segment. Here, we are the strong number two in Europe. The order intake with CHF 4.8 billion was good to see. This led to an order backlog in this segment of CHF 20.9 billion. On the right-hand side, you see a selection of orders won in 2024. Now I'd like to give you insight into our trains with alternative propulsion systems.
Stadler further reinforced its leading position in the field of alternative drives. In Europe alone, 50% of all trains with alternative drives come from Stadler. So far, 280 battery, hybrid, and hydrogen trains have been sold. Many of them are already running successfully. Our market and technology leadership is supported by the fact that last spring, in March, we hit a world record with our hydrogen train FLIRT H2. The world record was that in Colorado, the train covered 2,803 km without refueling. Furthermore, at InnoTrans, we presented a world novelty, an emission-free multiple unit, which we developed for secondary lines. In cooperation with Erfurter Bahn and the Federal State of Thuringia, the RS ZERO will start trial operation as from mid-2026. Apart from that, we won further orders. Battery and hydrogen trains will be delivered to California, Chicago, and Calabria.
For the Paris Metro, we will build 12 tailor-made battery electric locomotives. I am convinced that vehicles with alternative drives will, in the medium term, be a decisive factor for the future of train traffic. We will continue to focus strongly on vehicles with alternative propulsion systems and be innovative in this field. This brings me to the services and components segment. In services, we've seen major growth over the past few years. Average growth was 16%. Currently, the segment contributes almost 25% to our order backlog. With an order intake of over CHF 1 billion, this segment once more achieved a very high value. It is particularly positive that we were again able to win numerous long-term full-service orders, for instance, for 50 vehicles of Koleje Mazowieckie in Poland, with a contract running for over 18 years. Another example is the maintenance of the locomotives for Alpha Trains.
The contract includes preventive and heavy maintenance of all EURO 9000 locomotives ordered for at least 10 years. I would now like to give you some insights into our signaling segment. Up until 2017, in signaling, we mainly needed our competitors who supplied us with components. Today, we are independent, and we have around 740 employees. Together with the joint venture AngelStar, it is around 900. Order intake increased strongly to CHF 520 million. Also, in this area, we were able to reach important milestones. With Italy, we now have 10 country homologations for our ETCS onboard system. With an order from SZU, we also managed to enter the market for infrastructure systems.
The reason for major growth is the major order in Atlanta, where we were able to win an order for equipping the Metro with a train protection system for $500 million, making our international breakthrough in this area. I would like to show you some more highlights from the past few years. We are glad that we managed to enter the Saudi Arabian market. We were able to sell 10 intercity trains, including services for 10 years. In mid-2024, we inaugurated our latest service site in Germany. The site is specialized on the maintenance and repair of the battery vehicles. We are also proud of our Swiss Army knife amongst the trains. The ServiceJet, this tri-modal rescue and firefighting train, meets the very high requirements of the Austrian Federal Railways.
At the end of my first part, I would like to give you some insights into our sustainability strategy. The Sustainability Report was published or has been issued today together with the Annual Report. The train is the most environmentally friendly means of transport, which makes it part of the solution for tackling climate change. We continue to invest in sustainable mobility solutions, and we take on our social responsibility in all dimensions. As an example, by 2030, we would like to halve our CO2 emissions and to reach net zero by 2050. As you can read from the Annual Report and as you can see in the pictures in the presentation, we also put major focus on apprenticeships. It is our target to double the number of apprentices in Switzerland to 300, and we are well on track with that. You find detailed information in our Sustainability Report.
So much from my side now. Thank you very much, Markus Bernsteiner. Now, CFO Raphael Widmer will present the financials for the financial year 2024. Ladies and gentlemen, I would also like to welcome you here. I will now lead you through the financials part of the presentation. Let me start with an overview. Order intake for the year 2024 continued to show a positive development. With CHF 6.4 billion, we once more exceeded our strategic target. The order backlog increased to CHF 29.2 billion compared to CHF 24.4 billion in the previous year. Revenue in 2024 was CHF 3.25 billion, so this was significantly lower than in the previous year. The reason is primarily the negative impact already explained to you from the natural disasters. As a consequence, EBIT was only at CHF 100.5 million, which corresponds to an EBIT margin of 3.1%.
This is 2 percentage points lower than in the previous year. The net cash situation remains stable compared with 2023. It only dropped by CHF 31 million, and this despite the major increase in production output and work in progress and the high CapEx. The net working capital at the same time improved by CHF 155 million and dropped to below CHF 1 billion, which is a record number. CapEx amounted to CHF 233 million, which was slightly lower than the previous year. The free cash flow was positive at CHF 140 million, despite an already very strong previous year where we had a free cash flow of CHF 749 million. The order intake, which continued to be positive with CHF 6.4 billion, was once more a very strong value, which was significantly above the strategic target, but below the previous year's level.
The main driver was the rolling stock segment with an order intake of CHF 4.8 billion. This amount includes the major orders for the intercity trains in Saudi Arabia, FLIRT trains in Poland, locomotives for SBB, the Salt Lake City trams, and so on and so forth. Markus Bernsteiner already mentioned that the order intake in the services business was over CHF 1 billion, very positive. The order intake in signaling was at CHF 520 million. Here, the major order MARTA played a major role. If you look at the order intake, you see that the strongest markets for us are the German-speaking countries in Western Europe. Now, the order backlog in 2024 was CHF 29.2 billion, with a very high services and components share of more than 26%, which gives us very high revenue visibility and stability for the future.
We are in OpEx spending and not CapEx spending, which guarantees high capacity utilization over several years. The strong order intake will lead to further investments. I'll tell you more about that later on. Let me now continue with revenue. Revenue for the year 2024 was 10% lower than in the previous year. It was a total of CHF 3.256 billion, including translation effects of 1%. The reason for that were the consequences of the natural disasters in Spain, Switzerland, and Austria. Revenue in the rolling stock segment dropped by 12%. 1% of that was owing to currency effects. The services revenue increased by 10% despite a negative currency effect of 2%. In signaling, revenue decreased by 24%. Here we only show revenue from third parties, not internal revenue. The production output is revenue plus changes in work in progress.
Production output in 2024 was almost CHF 900 million higher than revenue and reached CHF 4.15 billion, which corresponds to a 7% increase year on year. Now, you see an extensive view here. The conservative units of delivery revenue recognition method leads to the following picture. Since the year 2021, order intake has always been between CHF 5.6 billion and CHF 8.6 billion. Order intake is always significantly higher than the revenue recognized in the same year. We recognize revenue with a few years' delay.
You see that production output defined as annual revenue plus change in work in progress, that's the green bar, starts much earlier to rise. The vehicles get built and get delivered after completion. The year 2024, we had a strong increase in production output and low revenue according to the units of delivery method. If you use the cost-to-cost method, revenue for 2024 would be CHF 4.2 billion.
In the year 2025, we expect an increase in revenue and a major increase in 2026. The planned revenues for the year 2026 are already in our books, or at least 95% of the planned revenues already in our books, and for the year 2027, we already have 80% of the orders in our books. Now, EBIT. EBIT amounts to CHF 100.5 million and is thus CHF 80 million lower than in the previous years. The reasons for that were the shifting of revenue, which led to a lack of profit contribution. Another reason was the higher SG&A expenses. These expenses were growth-related because we had to invest for the rising revenue in the coming years. The EBIT margin was at 3.1%. In the previous year, it was 5.1%. The net result follows the lower EBIT, amounts to CHF 55 million.
The tax burden was higher, and the FX effects were positive. I will now talk about the net cash position. Despite the burden resulting from higher investment and a massive increase in work in progress, the net cash position only dropped slightly by CHF 31 million to CHF 368 million, thanks to milestone payments and good down payments for new orders. If you reflect that, if you mirror that, you get the net working capital, which we were able to reduce by another CHF 155 million to CHF -1 billion and to more than CHF 1 billion, which is a record. Now CapEx. The investments mainly affect the increase in capacities in Spain, Hungary, the U.S., and Poland. The high order intake led to additional investments in our factories so that in 2025, we will continue to have high CapEx at a level of around CHF 250 million.
Investments in intangible assets mainly come from development activities for locomotives, alternative drives, and signaling. Finally, a few words on the mid-term EBIT margin. Here you see the waterfall diagram how we get to our mid-term EBIT target. The negative effects from the year 2024 account for 2%, and they are expected to go down in the next few years. We expect SG&A to rise less than proportionately compared with the revenue increase. This will have an effect of 1%-1.5%. Another comparable EBIT is expected through improved margins and operational excellence, and selective action in the market will also be decisive. More detailed information on the financials will be provided this afternoon at the capital markets day. I would like to thank you for your attention, and I hand over to Markus Bernsteiner. Thank you very much, Raphael, for your explanations.
We move on now to the outlook. This overview shows you the volume of the market, which is relevant for us. The rail vehicle market shows a volume of EUR 59 billion. If we deduct the freight wagons, which do not have a strategic relevance for us, the market volume interesting to us is at EUR 32 billion. The forecasted annual growth is at 5.8%. In this context, I would again like to mention that in the strong growing market, we are excellently positioned with our products. With this, I would like to continue with the strategy. We will continue to hold onto our strategy. Now, with the background of the market environment, which I've just explained, we are going to focus on the following strategy. Our goal is to build the best trains for our clients and to offer solutions of mobility.
Our strategic focus continues to be in the markets of Europe and North America. Very important to us is product innovation, such as green propulsion technologies, and we want to continue to win selective market shares. Diversification is decisive for us, particularly in signaling. This is important, as in this domain, we want to become independent of our competitors. In the segment of service and components, we are continuing to develop innovative service solutions, digitalization, control spaces, which are covered around the clock, and we also want to continue to develop the rail diagnostic system. From the strategy to the implementation, in reaction to the environmental disasters, we took immediate measures. We are in negotiations with the clients. We are prioritizing the production depending on the project reserves, and we're adapting delivery plans where necessary.
We have launched a catch-up program in order to keep the delays as low as possible. This also entails that we support the suppliers to ramp up their production again. In parallel, we're developing new supply chains, and we have continued to focus our risk management. In Berlin, we are implementing a structure and efficiency program. It is our goal to place the site on a long-term economically stable foundation. In addition, we're optimizing our business from four mid- to long-term operative fields of action. First of all, the team is the foundation. With our succession program, talent program, we want to take measures against the lack of qualified personnel. Succession management, development, and leadership program are going to be further developed and reinforced. Innovation and digitalization we continue to work on. We're using new technologies in order to become more efficient and to improve our products.
This is a precondition in order to continue to have success in the market long-term and to win orders. In the field of action, order intake and revenue, we are setting on the selective participation at tenders. This means that we need to assess very carefully at which conditions we will place our tenders. In addition, the segments of service and signaling, we want to continue to develop these in a profitable manner. In the domain of operation, the on-schedule and reliable and efficient handling of orders is at the center of our attention. A consequent cost and progress control is important to us. In addition, we are accompanying our suppliers even closer in order to assure that we remain in schedule. We're holding on to the decentral organization structure which we have because this gives us a lot of advantages.
However, in the four fields of action, we are working on a targeted harmonization of our processes and systems with the focus to continue to increase the productivity. With this, I come to our outlook. In order intake, we are focusing on a target goal of approximately 1x-1.5x of the revenue of the previous year. The challenges in the context of the environmental disasters currently do not allow us to make a detailed outlook for the current fiscal year 2025. If we count on stable supply chains, then the package of measures which has been taken by the group management and the board, with this, we will then expect an increase of the EBIT margin between 4%-5%. In addition, until 2026, we are expecting a strong growth in revenue to a level of clearly above CHF 5 billion.
Since being listed in April 2019, Stadler has been hit by a row, a chain of external events and crisis situations. Keywords are COVID, the war in the Ukraine, and now the environmental disasters. This has led to disturbances in the supply chains, to higher energy prices, and increasing costs. The group management and the board immediately took efficiency and catch-up measures in order to manage these situations. Based on all the decisions taken, the measures, as well as based on the very good order intake situation, we're expecting mid- to long-term an increase of the EBIT margin to 6%-8%. For 2025, we are expecting investments of about CHF 250 million. In 2026, and the further years, we're counting with CHF 200 million. The board intends to propose to the General Assembly for the fiscal year 2024 a dividend of CHF 20 million.
This is CHF 0.20 per share. This brings me to the conclusion of my explanations. You can see we are looking back at a challenging year. We are proud that despite all the contrary events, we were able to continue to grow in our markets of focus. On the market, with our broad and innovative product portfolio, we are on a very good track. This shows that we are well positioned. This is in a market which is growing strongly. In addition, we were able to expand our leadership market technology in the domain of alternative traction methods. In the past months, we also have been working intensely on how we can deal with the current challenges. We have defined concrete measures, which we are going about in a consequent manner and implementing them. What I am particularly proud of is that I can count on a really strong team.
Thank you very much to all of our employees at Stadler, and thank you to all suppliers and all business partners. We're convinced that we are well set up in order to remain successful also in the long run. Thank you very much for your trust. Thank you very much, Markus Bernsteiner. Now, before we take your questions, I just want to give you an outlook to the program. After this press conference at 11:00 A.M., we are offering a factory tour where we will give you the opportunity to see the production site here in Bussnang. This will be followed by lunch at 12:15 P.M., and then at 1:00 P.M., the Capital Markets Day. Capital Markets afternoon will begin. There you will receive more detailed information on the division of signaling and also the strategic objectives together with the President of our board, Peter Spuhler.
The floor is open to questions. Questions to the Group CEO, Group CFO here in Bussnang. May I ask you to introduce yourself first with name and function? Perhaps first Mr. Feldges from NZZ. Thank you. I have three questions. First of all, all these investments in the rail infrastructure we have heard of, which will become particularly in your core market of Europe. Here in the list I am reading, EUR 100 billion in Germany, in France. How far can you participate in these investments as Stadler Rail? Second question. You have said that you are a very attractive employer, but we do also hear that, yes, the engineers in Stadler Rail are earning a bit less. The home office is getting restricted, forbidden. Shouldn't you also do something there in order to be successful in hiring people?
As a third question, how can it be explained that your competitors, Siemens Mobility, Alstom, have higher tariffs, higher margins currently? Are these perhaps also, are they also a bit stronger in regards to the costs? Thank you very much. Perhaps if the Group CEO, Markus Bernsteiner, can answer first. First, in regards to infrastructure, when the political domain first says something, it is not translated into tender processes. We like to take part in international tenders, and depending on the actual projects on offer, we then participate. This is first in response to the first question. A second question in regards to the engineers. We have a very attractive offer concerning home office. Currently, 40% are possible. I do not know where you take your information from.
We are a very modern, contemporary employer, and this is also how we present ourselves also in regards to remote work. Now, higher margins as compared to Siemens. If we calculate everything that we have heard today concerning the environmental disasters, we are also at these target figures. Perhaps I may add something here. Siemens and Alstom have a very different mix of revenues than Stadler Rail. We are very much, we are very strong in rolling stock. Service will grow increasingly. In signaling, we have a high order intake, but the revenues are marginal. This will also adapt over time. The great contribution to the result of Siemens and Alstom comes from service and signaling. Perhaps also in regards to remote work, this is important to me, this point.
We have approximately 70% of our employees who are working in the workshops on the floors, the production floors. It is not completely fair to say, okay, great, I'm an engineer, I'm allowed to work from home, but the employee in production cannot take the car body home. Here we also have to maintain a certain fairness, and I hope that this is understood. We are a construction company of rail vehicles, and this is what it entails. Question here up front. Yes, thank you. Michael Foeth . Two questions. The first one is if the problems of the past year have influenced the performance of clients or the behavior of clients in regards to order intake. Has it had any influence on order intake last year, this year? Second question. A financial question.
If you could give us an outlook as to how the cash flow will be developing over the coming six months. I think on a slide I saw that the free cash flow could be influenced potentially in a negative manner. Perhaps as a last question, why do you not have an EBIT margin guidance for 2026? The behavior in regards to order intake, I mean, this does not concern certain countries or regions which would be behaving in a different manner. We participate selectively in international tendering processes. We do not see any change of behavior here. Free cash flow, can you respond to this, Raphael Widmer?
Yeah, so I have explained that we have a very strongly negative net working capital on a high level, and we are now moving into the phase in 2025 where we have very high production levels, work in progress, and in order in 2026 to break through the CHF 5 billion size. This binds a lot of cash. The cash which we have received for this, this will trigger a negative net working capital, which we need. These are figures which we calculate very carefully. The question is which order intakes are coming, which advance payments come in, and this makes it difficult then to clearly forecast these figures. I always say that here one year is just too short. We need to look at everything in a cycle of three years for how we are positioned in order to make a conclusive statement.
Yes, the third question. The region of Valencia and the according suppliers, I visited personally three suppliers, they are still in the cleanup phase. This renders the whole planning more difficult, which is why we have defined a mid to long-term EBIT target, which we have announced. If I may add, Raphael Widmer, this is why I also emphasized this unit of delivery method. Now, if I have costs which are increased, then my revenues come along automatically. If I have a digital vehicle, digitally a vehicle has been complete end of the year, but I cannot yet translate it, it is very dangerous to make such statements. In these circumstances, it would not be correct to make such a statement, but we are expecting growth. Further questions? Yes, please. Yes, Patrick Rafaisz of UBS. Perhaps still coming back to cash flow.
In half year time, we still had the indication that the overall efforts should pay out end of the year. This was now significantly better. There were milestone payments, there were prepayments. Can you give a bit more detail as to where these came from? Also, what was said before, it is difficult to plan because it is not clear which prepayments will come in 2025 now. If we look beyond this, do not take this into consideration, what would be the impact of the development of the working capital just looked at in an isolated manner for 2025? Yes, you know the goal to mention a figure without the prepayments. I mean, in our situation, this is something we continue to work on to achieve milestones early on and in order to be able to get these figures.
This has succeeded very well in 2024, which is why we were able to deliver these better figures. This can also be used against us. We have taken it earlier, what we expected what might come in in 2025. I can only say here we will continue to make every effort also in 2025 to maintain the figure as high as possible and to work on it. Now, I know, again, I point out to the long cycles that we work in, which is something one needs to expect and accept. These 2 percentage points on the margin, which were less lost because of the different externalities, do we need to expect that in 2026 these will continue to take an influence because revenue was postponed into 2026 and that from 2027 on we will not have any more effects of these events?
The question to be in the context of the environmental damages, what is the progress in regard to insurance compensation? Have insurance claims already been covered? Have you received something? What are your expectations for 2025? We have said clearly in our information that a postponement of the revenue to have been distributed on the years of 2025-2026. With this, I think the question is answered. We will have revenue effects in 2026, which are coming from these postponements. Now, in regards to the coverage of the damages, we can say today clearly that all of the direct damages will be covered. The planning figures are also that all damages, the insurance programs which we have, which are comprehensive and professional, that all of these damages will be covered by the insurances. Further questions? Perhaps if I can just add, Valencia, this has a tremendous impact.
300,000 claims have been submitted to the insurance. They have about 1,000 experts, and this is not advancing very quickly. This is something one needs to take into consideration. Johannes Bornes-Santunest. I have a question in regard to order backlog. Now, if I do the maths, backlog plus order intake minus revenue, this brings me to a lower backlog. I mean, this isn't good for you, but I'm trying to understand the difference of the CHF 27.5 billion- CHF 29.2 billion, where these come from. I mean, FX, it cannot be. 2024- 2023, approximately the same difference. Can you explain to me how the backlog came about? Yes, a detailed analysis I cannot give you here now directly, but what is certain is that FX differences do play a role. They can move in both directions, of course.
Then secondly, on the very long-term service agreements, we have an indexation. Contracts of 30 years running time, there we have an indexation, and the order value rises, and we call it a backlog adjustment. This is the main component of this difference. Please, back on the right. Yes, from Bombardier. I have a question to free cash flow. You have said that you are insecure in regard to the prepayment, but you are making a very clear guidance. You mentioned revenue of CHF 5 billion, book to CHF1.5 billion. This brings us to CHF 7.5 billion order intake, approximately unchanged to the previous year. Actually, the prepayments should stay stable if you have a high visibility, or your clients have changed their prepayment behavior. We see time and again that certain countries do not make prepayments. They have very different contracts.
There is an insecurity in the order intakes. Can you please say something about your tender pipeline, your visibility, because probably there are conclusions there. Is it more back-end loaded? Do you have a visibility in that context? Last question, to what extent do the interest rates influence this order intake? Last time when we had negative interest rates, we are not yet there, but the clients then liked to give their funds to Stadler. Shall I start? Yes, Raphael Widmer. Prepayments, correct. If we take the guidance of 1x-1.5x the revenue, then one does come to a positive cash flow. That is correct. We also have clients in Germany, for example, who pay 90% when the vehicles are delivered. We do have postponement. We do have different behavior also amongst our clients.
Secondly, one cannot say it so accurately based on these explanations. What I can confirm is that the prepayment behavior of the clients has not changed. The question always arises, and we can only state that the clients maintain their same prepayment behavior and patterns in the contracts. Perhaps also interest rates and order intake. I mean, on one hand, we see that when interests drop, we can also raise capital cheaper. That is a positive asset. This is speculation. Questions from people who are connected online to us or via telephone? There are no questions over the phone line. The interpreter does not hear what is being sent currently. In result 25, yes. The question is being repeated. Which savings are expected and what effect will this have long-term? Group CEO?
I repeat, we depend that from the 1,500 car bodies in the framework agreement, which we have won, currently 484 have been ordered, that this delta, that the rest can be booked as quickly as possible as order intake. This means that the contribution margin then is according. Since four years, secondly, we are waiting for this tender process of the second batch of the new S-Bahn in Berlin, which is continuously being postponed, you know, salami tactic wise. Now we're expecting a decision in March, but again, we're hearing that it will be postponed by half a year. This does not facilitate the entire planning. These are the two external influence factors. Internally, we are looking, working on the costs, OpEx, operating expenses. That we can render our processes even more efficient, effective.
If we add up all of this, then I cannot detail the calculation now in an accurate manner, the maths behind it, but we have defined a package of measures to work in a consequential manner on the costs and efficiency. Further questions online? Günther Seges, SBF Special Illumination. Which effect does Stadler see with the new products input coming from non-USA countries? It's about import customs, yes, import tariffs. What is important is that in the U.S., we are submitted to Buy Work Connect, 70% local value creation. 70% of the costs which are created in the USA based on the Buy America Act. This can have to do with suppliers of aluminum profiles, car bodies. There will be certain tariffs. This is not yet certain. It will also depend on if we receive waivers or not.
In the past, one did receive waivers for component construction or elements which were not accessible in the U.S.. Now if the tariffs do take the effect as currently discussed, it would only have a marginal impact on our orders. Further questions? Plenary here. Yes, please. Johannes Brinkmann, Nachrichtenagentur AWP. Can you say something on the plant in Minsk? Where are you at currently? The last information was that 200 employees were still working there. Is this still the case? Yes? I am happy to explain. We were very strongly affected due to the Ukraine war. The EU, the entire world defined sanctions. Currently, we are at sanction package 16. We are abiding by all sanctions. We reacted very quickly. This is an excellent plant. Excellent employees, 2,000 employees there had been employed. Many of them, 400, have already found new workplaces within the group.
Currently, we are maintaining the plant at 200 employees in a stable manner. I think there is one more question from the web. Thomas Winkler, RailTech. The question is whether Stadler would transfer production capacity to Eastern Europe and what about the competitiveness compared to the Chinese, namely CRRC? Markus Bernsteiner says, CRRC, as you know, is trying to conquer the market. We successfully won international tenders against the Chinese. We see they are having trouble with market authorization. Getting market authorization in Europe is not that easy. We see the Chinese as competitors, of course. In these international tenders, whenever the Chinese enter them, they want to win them. The question regarding shift of production to Eastern European countries, that's not planned. We do have factories and we try to fill them. Okay, then maybe one last question.
I may ask a question in English.
Sure, yeah.
Thank you. I just had a follow-up, please, on the German infrastructure plans. I know details may be scarce, but it'd be interesting to understand how much of the numbers that we're seeing in the headlines you believe are incremental versus, for example, equity investments that were already planned. Do you have a sense of how much is going into things like station or track upgrades versus areas such as signaling or rolling stock? Thank you.
If I may quickly summarize your question, the investment package decided yesterday in Germany, these EUR 500 billion. What are Stadler's expectations in this regard? Will this money mainly be invested in concrete or will Stadler also be able to benefit from that? Raphael Widmer says, well, we've heard about it.
I do believe that they mainly refer to infrastructure, that is, train tracks to wayside infrastructure. I hope that we'll be able to benefit from that and maybe in a second phase, even with rolling stock. It is first of all replacement purchases of vehicles in Germany. Yes, there will be orders incoming for us. Infrastructure means first of all signaling, and there we will certainly benefit from this package. Thank you very much. Before we have the individual interviews, I'd like to ask all those who participate in the guided tours, please do only take pictures and only film at the individual spots that are indicated for taking photographs. You find our annual report and the sustainability report online under Investor Relations. I would like to thank you very much for your interest in Stadler and in your solutions for sustainable public transport. Thank you very much.
Group CEO Markus Bernsteiner and Group CFO Raphael Widmer are now available for individual interviews.