Dear ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome to today's half-year results 2026 media and analyst webcast from Schweiter Technologies. What have we prepared for you today? I would like to start with a short business review, as well as some examples regarding the progress of our strategy implementation. Afterwards, I will hand over to Urs Scheidegger, our Group CFO, who will provide some more details around our financial results. I would then share our view on the rest of the year, our outlook, before we will certainly have also some time for questions and answers at the end. Important to know regarding questions, you can just push the respective blue question or Q&A button below our picture, and your name will be put into the queue.
We will then call up one after the other so that you can ask your question verbally, as you actually also wished last year when we conducted the online call for the first time. Let me start with the key numbers. We achieved in the first semester CHF 450 million net sales versus CHF 459 million last year. The CHF 459 million are adjusted by CHF 12 million from the divestment of the Bus & Rail business, as well as another CHF 23 million from FX impacts. That leads to a slight organic negative growth of 1.7%. On EBITDA, we realized CHF 45 million, which results in an EBITDA margin of 10%. This versus the reported 8.8% last year. And again, if we adjust it by the divestment of the Bus & Rail business, then we compare to 9.4%.
The free operating cash flow resulted in CHF 13 million versus strong CHF 21 million last year. The cash flow in the first semester was impacted on the one hand by increased raw material costs and hence higher inventory valuations, and on the other hand, by intentionally slightly higher stock levels as we anticipate in certain businesses in the coming weeks an increased sales so that we want to be prepared. The slightly higher stock level will help us deliver fast to our customers and to additionally gain market share. Nevertheless, we were able to increase the net liquidity by another million Swiss francs compared to the last year first semester. Going also there in the right direction. But let me go in a bit more details about our four business areas. Our strategy implementation is progressing well and is showing also measurable results.
Let me start with the bottom right, Transport & Industry. After the divestment of the Bus & Rail business, Transport & Industry represents now 13% of our total sales. Also, the organic growth of the continued business was slightly negative due to the persistently subdued market environment. However, our innovative solutions like the recently launched DUOLENE, for instance, generate new project opportunities. But we also have to admit that the lead times or the approval processes for these new materials take a bit longer than originally anticipated. The weaker load in the industry factories led also to a slight profitability reduction. If we continue with Core Materials representing 22% of our net sales. Also in Core Materials, we have to report lower sales and volumes in the first semester compared to last year.
The strong demand that we actually had in wind in Europe was unfortunately more than offset by temporary order delays from North American blade manufacturers. Additionally, there was a slow demand from the non-wind business, in particular the marine business in the Middle East and Europe. In China, as you know, a very competitive market, we were able to fully load our line and to improve margins, especially also thanks to our expanded kitting operations for balsa and PET in China. Overall, the margin increased due to better achieved PET price quality, but also thanks to the continued strong performance of our balsa business. If we continue with architecture increased its share to 23% as we were able to grow the business in sales and volumes.
Especially Americas is still the growth engine, whereas Asia Pacific sales was obviously impacted by the war in the Middle East and also some project delays in Southeast Asia. In Americas, maybe to be highlighted since we talked the last presentation about it, the market of data centers is still very attractive for us. We increased our sales by almost 50% in that specific market compared to last year. China seems to recover in architecture, as we also were able to grow, and Europe was on previous year level. The margin increase comes from a strict pricing and cost discipline. We increased prices immediately when the LME for aluminum went up beginning of the year. If we conclude the four businesses with display representing 42% of our total sales in the first semester, we actually had flattish sales and stable volumes in Europe and Americas.
We could also profit from our successful portfolio transformation towards a more sustainable and more attractive offering. The clear focus on higher margin products and applications is definitely showing results. On the other hand, in the first semester, as you can imagine, the market was highly impacted by the sharply increasing raw material prices after the start of the war in the Middle East, the consequence that the Strait of Hormuz has been closed. At the beginning of the crisis, the distributors actually feared a limited availability that helped us additionally to push the immediately implemented price increases successfully through. We can also state that we gained a lot of trust with our customers in that period, thanks to our very transparent price policy. Transparent, but also very consequent, we see that in the positive development also of our margins.
In the second quarter, the distributors had, as a consequence, full stocks, were using those up first, especially when the raw material prices started to drop again in May, June. Agility, fast delivery times, and high flexibility in the production are obviously key in that phase, and also will be in the weeks and months to come. Very happy to report that all the initiated and executed initiatives, for instance, investments into procurement or improvements in procurement, the footprint optimizations we did mainly last year, or the improved pricing tactics and processes are showing the intended results. As a consequence and result, we were able to increase the margins substantially in the display business.
Before I hand over to Urs for some more details around the financial result, I would like to highlight two, three examples that showcase the progress of our strategy implementation and showcasing also our unique design possibilities of our products. Let me start with our Virtual World. Digitalization in all dimensions is a key element of our strategy, as you know, and it goes obviously also hand in hand with our efforts and endeavors to improve our go to market and our sales approach. We introduced the Virtual World for our customers and for our salespeople to make our products and the respective applications tangible and easy to explain. It's our platform to inspire, to create ideas, and to demonstrate our USPs and of course, finally to drive sales.
We just extended our Virtual World after the supermarket that you already know, the shopping mall, the petrol station, and the car dealership. You see that on the left-hand side. We extended now the Virtual World with a hotel. As you can see on the right-hand side of the picture, both in the lobby on top and in the hotel rooms on the bottom, there are several applications of our solutions showcased. Wall cladding with customized patterns, boards for a warm welcome note, lighting, or some decorative elements, you name it. It shows that the possibilities for our solutions are unlimited and endless. With this Virtual World extension, and we are very proud on that, we again doubled the number of visitors, and even more important, we almost tripled the mean residence time of our visitors. Hence the time visitors spend in the Virtual World.
We achieve with that now also measurable results in our sales. I, of course, would like to also encourage you to visit our Virtual World to get an even better understanding of our display offering. As marked on the bottom, just visit 3acvirtualworld.com to experience our portfolio and applications. Next, in light of the recent football event in North America, I would like to share an example from football. You see there are some pictures from the new stadium in Miami, and ALUCOBOND actually contributed to the facade or to the envelope of the new stadium in Miami. The stadium was opened beginning of the year as the centerpiece of the Miami Freedom Park. It has a capacity for about 25,000 visitors and is designed specifically for football with steep, compact stands, and allows proximity to the pitch.
The new stadium is the home of Inter Miami, and obviously for Lionel Messi, and it was, due to the smaller size, unfortunately not used for World Cup games. I think there was one or two preparation games in the stadium, but we are still very proud that the ALUCOBOND facades play a key role in its iconic design. ALUCOBOND facades is very special in that case, are defined by large glazed surfaces, framed by elegant white structural elements. Things only ALUCOBOND can do. It's a great example that only with the unique design possibilities provided by ALUCOBOND you can build such buildings. For sports stadiums, actually, you don't need to travel to the U.S. in order to experience ALUCOBOND. If we take the example from Fribourg.
In Fribourg, in Switzerland, you can find the BCF Arena, home of the hockey club, Fribourg-Gottéron, and winner of the last Swiss Championship season. The stadium also hosted some games for the recent Hockey World Championship in Switzerland, as you know, the ALUCOBOND facade is very special. In that case, it was designed as the skin of a dragon, directly connecting the building with Fribourg-Gottéron's identity and emblem. ALUCOBOND creates a strong identity also in Switzerland. ALUCOBOND enables the production of lightweight, but very rigid individual elements, creating a three-dimensional surface to be similar of overlapping dragon scales. You can see the special cutouts actually on the pictures. Another great example of the unlimited and unique design possibilities of ALUCOBOND. With those great projects and examples, I would like to hand over to Urs for some more details about our financial result. Urs?
Thank you very much, Roman, and also from my side, a warm welcome on this conference. I am presenting the key figures of our half-year closing results. Group achieved CHF 450 million net sales. The key figure on net sales for us is the like-for-like organic FX-adjusted net sales development. We see a small decline of 2%. Like-for-like means excluding the Bus & Rail business, which we have divested last year. On the profitability, you see the improvement from 8.8% EBITDA to 10%, respectively like-for-like 9.4%- 10%. This improvement comes from a strong gross margin increase of 2.7 points of net sales, and this is very much driven by assertive price management in this volatile environment. It's very much driven by strong procurement measures. You will see that the material costs of net sales reached 50.3% versus 51.1% last year.
It's an improvement of 80 basis points on the material expenses of net sales. The EBIT reached CHF 25.3 million, 5.6%, compared to 4.4% last year reported. Like-for-like, it's 50 basis points improvement on EBIT level. Net income sees an increase of CHF 3.5 million- CHF 16.4 million, driven by the operational improvement and less exchange currency differences on balance sheet positions versus last year. Our free operating cash flow reached CHF 13 million versus CHF 21 million, and I will explain the details in the next slide. Overall, the group has a strong equity ratio of 67% and reached a positive net cash of CHF 45 million. On the left side, on this slide, you see the development of net sales. We come from CHF 494 million last year, minus the divestment of Bus & Rail, CHF 12 million.
Like-for-like, CHF 482 million- CHF 450 million. We see a bit volume decline. It's a smaller volume decline, and it is a bit driven by core materials, which was selling a bit less in the North American markets and in the non-wind markets. On the other hand, we see very strong sales in the wind markets in Europe. Display has developed stable and has also benefited from price increases, and architecture business was strong, particularly in the North American market and also in the European market. You see in the bridge, currency impact is significant with CHF 23 million. Half of it is coming from the U.S. dollar. The next slide shows you the development of our results in first half years, and it's the first time in the last five years that the group reaches an EBITDA margin of 10%.
Our measures of the Accelerate program to adjust the footprint, the divestment in Bus & Rail, and also all the other operational excellence measures, particularly in procurement, show results to this 10% and CHF 45 million this year. Also, the EBIT is improving to 5.6% and CHF 25 million, which is an improvement to last year of 16%. The free operating cash flow reached a CHF 13 million, and it is impacted by change in net working capital. You see that on the right hand in the bridge. The net working capital is impacted by higher inventories. Roman already explained, it's driven by a higher inventory valuation, by higher input costs, and anticipated higher sales now in the next weeks and months in some of our business areas. That's an important preparation for the second half-year CapEx, we have a bit higher CapEx.
This is explained because last year we had one-offs in the CapEx line with a land sale and some subsidies in England. The taxes are a bit better than last year, as we had some temporary timing of the tax payments in particular. With that, I'm handing back to Roman.
Thank you very much, Urs. Let me share with you how we see the focus for the second semester and how we judge also the outlook for the full year. The persisting volatile business environment and geopolitical uncertainties remain and ask definitely for a consequent strategy implementation also in the second semester. It also asks for a high agility of our whole organization, that's why we have a lot of initiatives going in that direction. We are actually convinced that we have a resilient business model and that we have the right strategy to tackle the challenges to come and are prepared for the next couple of weeks and months. Our strategy along the main thrusts, attractive markets, innovation and differentiation, as well as operational excellence, is showing results.
We will also keep, in the second semester, very strong focus on our cash flow, most important also on the development of our people. As we all know, people make the difference, especially in those demanding times we are currently in. Hence, I can confirm that our strategic priorities also our ambition over the cycle are clearly confirmed. The results show that we are working on the right elements, that we have done the homework, are working on those self-helping measures with the right priorities. It remains our clear ambition to achieve over the cycle growth above the market and an EBIT margin in the target corridor of 7%-9%. How do we see the second semester and the full year results from today's perspective? Let me start on the bottom with industry. We expect the muted demand likely to persist until year-end.
On the other hand, we see an increasing number of inquiries and new projects with our recently introduced innovative solutions. As I mentioned before, those projects take a bit longer than originally anticipated. We also believe that there is some upside potential from that direction. In architecture, we are overall very positive. The European and Asian construction market seems to recover slowly but surely. The current project pipeline is promising. In Americas, we also expect the business to continue to grow also now in the second semester. For core materials, we are a bit more positive than in the first semester. The current order intake and the increasing number of requests for quotes are encouraging and indicate a potential upswing in the second semester. Still to be proved, but there are some positive signs. In display, we clearly depend on the Consumer Sentiment Index.
After the very low April index of -20.5 points in Europe, currently July numbers are a bit better, showing -15.9 points at the moment. That number is still lower than all the months in 2024 and 2025, but at least showing in the right direction. The low index also emphasizes for us that we need to focus on gaining market shares. If we want to defend and grow our business, we can do that only by gaining market shares since the market is rather flattish at the moment. We are confident that we are geared up to gain those market shares, especially in North America, where we have different initiatives started in that direction. Overall, the visibility across the key markets remains limited and very volatile. We can state that we expect net sales to remain overall below the prior year level for the full year.
On the other hand, we also expect the margins, EBITDA and EBIT, to exceed the prior year reference. With that, I would like to thank you for your participation and attention, and we are now ready to take your questions. Please remember, please use the respective blue Q&A button that your name is going into the queue, and then we can pick one after the other to answer the questions. Thank you very much. Either the questions function button is defect, or there are no questions. If you want to ask a question, you need to push the blue button, otherwise there will be no connection. All right. I ask the technical people. Everything all right? There is no question?
Yeah, the function is working. Obviously, there's no one asking a question.
Good. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for participating in our today's call. If there are afterwards any questions, please let us know. We are happy to answer those, and we wish you a fantastic summer period. Thank you very much and all the best.
Now a question came up.
Oh, pardon. René Rückert from the Baader Bank.
Why is no specific revenue and EBITDA or EBIT guidance being issued?
Thank you for that question, Rückert . Maybe I can elaborate a bit more details on net sales and margin. On the one hand, the visibility is very limited. What we can say on the net sales is, if we look at the cyclical nature of our business, the revenue in our second semester is typically slightly lower than in the first semester. As I just said, given the limited visibility and the current market trends, we have actually no special indication that this year this will be fundamentally different. Therefore, we expect to end the second half of the year slightly below the CHF 450 million recorded in the first half, but above the second half of 2025, which was CHF 410 million. Maybe that gives you a bit indication where we see the top line.
On the margin, our goal remains clearly to achieve in step one, as we always said, an EBITDA margin of 10% short-term, as we have it now achieved in the first semester. We have also all the initiatives and measures in place to repeat this in the second semester, and it's certainly also a goal, but we also rely a bit on the market and especially also on the raw material price development for the margin. Also due to the current limited visibility, it's just a bit too early to confirm the number also for the full year. Over the cycle, no question, our ambition remains to achieve 7%-9% EBIT margin. Also in the second semester, we will certainly beat the second semester of 2025. Hopefully, this gives you a bit more indication where we see net sales and margin.
Yes. Thanks very much.
Thank you. Joern Iffert from UBS. Iffert?
Yeah. Hello, it's Joern speaking here. Thanks for taking my questions. I would have two smaller ones, please. The first one is, you said in display, some new product launches takes a bit longer than anticipated. Can you give us more color? What kind of products exactly, and why is it taking longer? The second question would be, please, you had a CHF -11 million mix impact on sales. If you could clarify what this was. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Iffert. The first one, it was a misunderstanding because it takes a bit longer, especially in industry and not in display.
Okay.
It was especially the launch of DUOLENE, and DUOLENE is especially used for covers in the construction or vehicle market. There, it just takes a bit longer until we are on those platforms. We thought we can easily replace all the steel covers with our DUOLENE, which has actually better properties, but it just takes a bit longer than we anticipated. As I said, construction vehicles, agriculture vehicles, et c. We believe that there is a bit of upside potential out of that, because now we have it launched for more than 12 months, and we trust and hope that we can make a step there. Regarding the second question, the CHF 11 million mix impact, there we have actually a different impact. It's a geographical mix that has an impact.
We have, in certain areas, higher margins, or in other areas, a bit a lower margin. It says, of course, also product mix. You can see it how businesses evolved. Core materials, for instance, a bit lower volumes, and a bit lower net sales. As you know, a very strong margin. That product mix has there also a bit an impact, and the positive development in architecture, where we have not in all areas the same margins. The mix is coming from different dimensions. Hope this answers the question.
Yeah, thank you for this. If you allow me a follow-up one.
Sure.
When I zoom into display, if you give us an update, what portion of the display revenues is now mid to high-end, where your strategy is focusing on, and what is the growth here currently? What portion is more the lower end, more commoditized? Do you see more some headwinds and also what the growth is here? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. Well, the point is that we, especially in acrylics and in polycarbonate, we did a tremendous change in moving much more into specialties, meaning special colors, or special thicknesses. The acrylic business is in the magnitude of 20%, 25% of our display business. There we did a substantial shift from commodities, more into specialties. This is one of the main drivers also for the higher margins. Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Are there other questions? No. Remo Rosenau from the Helvetische Bank.
Yes. Thank you for taking my question as well. I wonder, in the first half, were there any kind of catch-up effects due to the very weak fourth quarter last year? If I remember correctly, there were clients delaying orders due to the strong raw material volatilities. Was part of the rather good performance in H1 also due to such catch-up effects, which also improved the margins due to operating leverage, or if you could say something about that?
Thank you. I would say no. No, there was no catch-up effect from the quarter four to the quarter one. What we could observe, and I try to explain that a bit, between the first and the second quarter. When the war started in the Middle East, there was immediately a reaction from our distributors because they feared a limited availability. They were stocking up, and they also realized that prices are going up. That was mainly in the first quarter. Towards the end of the second quarter, the prices started to drop again. May, June, we saw the opposite effect. It was more between the quarter one and quarter two than quarter four and quarter one.
Okay. There were also no additional effects due to the soccer and the ice hockey World Cups on your display business? You showed all these stadiums, but that's over now.
Yeah. Those stadiums, unfortunately that was not an effect from the World Cup. The new stadium in Miami was mainly because David Beckham wanted a new stadium. There are many other stadiums where we are involved in. Of course, we wanted to make the link today also to those events. Of course, what we normally see when we have bigger events that, especially for signages, et cetera, there is an additional demand. Normally not to an extent that that would have a double-digit impact on our business. Of course, bigger events for signages, et cetera, one-offs are always interesting. Yeah.
Okay. In general, no really big special effects that should have a negative impact in the second half compared to the first half?
No.
Okay. I come back to the margins once again. The guidance is that you expect margins to exceed the prior year reference in the second half. The second half last year was exceptionally weak. The margin went down from 5.0%- 2.2%. We have 5.6% in the first half. You said that sales should be somewhere in between the second half of last year and the first half of this year. Should then also the margin be somewhere in between these two numbers, 2.2% and 5.6%, or rather nearer to 5.6% or rather nearer to 2.2%?
The first one is certainly clear. You're absolutely right. We had a weak second semester last year with an EBIT margin of 2.2%. That number we will certainly beat. It's certainly also our ambition to achieve an EBITDA margin that is close to the number we achieved now in the first semester. As I tried to point out, there are some elements from the environment that have an impact, especially the raw material prices. Therefore, it's a bit early to confirm that. Again, I'm absolutely convinced that we have the right strategy, that we have all the initiatives in procurement, in efficiency, in scrap rate reductions in the plants, etc., in place, that we can continue the journey of improving our margins.
Okay. rather near to the first half than the other way around? Okay.
Absolutely.
Okay. On the free cash flow, you said that you've got a strong focus on cash flow for the full year. H1 was a bit weaker than last year, so we should expect a strong free cash flow for the second half of the year?
Yes. Yeah, I'm convinced.
Because last year it was a bit weak in the second half, so this year should be clearly better?
Yep.
Okay. All right.
That's our ambition, and that is also what we see now.
Okay, very good. Good. That's it from my side. Thank you.
Super. Thank you, Remo. Any other questions? Seems not to be the case. In that case, once more, thank you very much for your participation and showing interest in our company. That's highly appreciated. Do remember to visit 3acvirtualworld.com to see our offering. Wishing you a fantastic summer period, and all the best. Talk to you soon. Thank you.