Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Andritz Q2 2026 Results Conference and live webcast. I am Sergen, the chorus call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question from the webinar, you may click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen and then click the Raise Your Hand button. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. For operator assistance, please press the operator assistance button on the bottom left side of your screen or star zero on your telephone. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Matthias Pfeifenberger, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning from Graz and a warm welcome from our side. It's my great pleasure to host the Q2 earnings call and webcast with you today. With me, I've got the CEO, Dr. Joachim Schönbeck, and our CFO, Vanessa Hellwing. As usual, we will guide you through the Q2 highlights and key CEO messages, followed by the financial performance, followed by an update on our business area performance, the outlook, and we will then conduct a Q&A session. Now it's my pleasure to hand over to Dr. Schönbeck for his initial remarks.
Thank you, Matthias. Good morning to everybody and thank you for joining us in this early call and thank you for your interest in Andritz. We are happy that we can report good results for Q2. We move to another record order backlog after the very strong order intake in Q1. This year, we had a very solid Q2. Growth was driven by Metals and by Pulp & Paper . We could see in Metals strong demand increase from the steel industry, and we could also see first signs of stabilization from automotive. With the solid backlog we have, we are confident for the next quarters to come. The revenue growth accelerated, supported by disciplined execution of our order backlog and then a further increase of our service revenue share. We had a very good growth in profits and profitability.
We had a significant increase in EBITA, 15% up to EUR 182 million, and we had an expansion on the operating margin from 8.4%- 8.9% EBITA margin in Q2. This was driven by improvements in three out of the four business areas. Also three out of the four business areas are in the half-year results inside the 2027 margin corridor that we have given. The guidance for 2026 for the full year is confirmed. Going to the details, we have a good order intake, EUR 2.3 billion. It's down 3% from previous year, but last year we had several large orders and the EUR 2.3 billion are very solid, no large orders included. We are quite happy with that result. Revenue on EUR 2.1 billion, 8%- up . That is very good and as I said, comparable EBITA EUR 182 million, 8.9% EBITA margin.
Net income up 7% at EUR 109 million. Looking to the first half year, order intake accumulated to EUR 5.9 billion. Book-to-bill at 1.5x. Very good growth order backlog up to EUR 12.9 billion and for the first half year, we are on EBITA EUR 330 million, 8.6% EBITA margin compared with 8.3% in the previous year. Net income up to EUR 201 million, that's up 5% from the previous year. I would say overall, that is looking good. Project activity now remains at high level. We have the seventh consecutive quarter with an order intake above EUR 2 billion, and we do see that the markets remain active on that high level. Book-to-bill 1.5x I already mentioned. I would say we are well-prepared for any uncertainties to come.
Going through the details of the order intake, you could see that in Q2, our intake growth was supported by Pulp & Paper and Metals. Pulp & Paper , 16% up to EUR 880 million. Very solid activity, mainly driven by Paper & Textile, large paper order for a paper machine from Algeria. In Metals, very nicely up EUR 573 million for the quarter, mainly driven by higher demand from steel industry. As I said, we also could see good first signs of stabilization. Hydropower dropped in Q2. No large order booked. Looks a bit difficult, - 27%. If we look to the first half year, we are up 82%. I would say it's more a matter of timing of booking than of lack of performance. Environment & Energy down in order intake in Q2, 10% to EUR 300 million.
We definitely see a very cautious investment climate across several industries, many of that related to uncertainties also in this energy transition. However, project pipeline remains very active. Therefore, we would see this probably more a transient problem. Going to the revenue. Nice increase, 8% up in the quarter, 9% in Pulp & Paper and Metals, 16% in Hydropower. Here you can see now the effect I was referring to in the last quarters, that Hydropower, due to the long execution time of the project, needs a certain time to convert the backlog into revenue. This is starting now, and I would say the machine is rolling. Environment & E nergy, due to the reasons I just mentioned, down 2% in Q2. Also down 2% for the first half year. In total, in the first half year, revenue grew by 5%.
That's, I would say, we are on a good track there. If we look to the order backlog, EUR 12.6 billion. Good record level, 50% is now in Hydropower. I would say that is also proof that the backlog will remain for a bit longer as the execution times in Hydropower are the longest of our businesses that we have. Looking into the EBITA margin. Nicely up. Comparable EBITA and margin from EUR 303 million- EUR 330 million in the first half year, and the margin up from 8.3%- 8.6%. Definitely improved in order execution despite the high backlog. The low-margin legacy projects are phasing out, and for sure, the restructuring efforts are now bearing fruit.
We have accounted in the first half year for EUR 18 million of non-operating items, and that's, on the majority, the restructuring costs we have in Metals and some of the right-sizing we are still doing in Pulp & Paper and Environment & E nergy. The service business is growing as we like to see it. Record high on service share. 46% for the first half year, which is an extremely good value. One percentage point up compared to previous year. 6% year-on-year growth in service. I would say we are growing organically as we are building more service centers close to our customers, but also through dedicated M&A activities that we executed last year. On the ESG side, we are happy that our performance is recognized by the external rating agencies. We could see improvement from MSCI, from ISS ESG, and from Sustainalytics.
As you know, we have reviewed our carbon dioxide emissions with Science Based Targets initiative, and we had redefined our ESG targets along their guidance. You could see that we are basically on track in all dimensions with all KPIs. You could see two ticks means that we already at the target level of 2030. We need to keep it. On others, when you only have the one tick, we are on track. With six of our KPIs, we already in the target range, and with four, we are on a good track. The others, we only have annual values, and we will report that with our annual results. That is from my side so far. I hand over to Vanessa, our CFO, to have a detailed look to our financial performance.
Thank you, Joachim. Ladies and gentlemen, warm welcome also from my side. With many details already shared by Joachim, I will keep my general comments brief and focus on the key takeaways. We delivered a strong second quarter with accelerated revenue growth, improved EBITA margins and net income. At the same time, our order backlog reached a new all-time high, providing a solid foundation for future growth. Overall, the first half of 2026 reflects strong operational execution and demonstrates thereby the strengths of our business model. From a CFO perspective, first half year confirms that the growth we achieved comes with very strong financial quality. Operating cash flow increased to EUR 291 million. This is 72% above last year. We also increased our net liquidity position by 15% to EUR 593 million on a year-on-year perspective, maintaining a strong financial position.
At the same time, we reduced our financial debt position also to manage our interest result, which obviously is rather long-term with respective lagging effects. We will come to that later. Return on capital has recovered to 18.5% following the M&A-driven temporary decline from last year, 2025. That is still well above WACC, implying substantial value generation. Operating networking capital improved sequentially for the third consecutive quarter to EUR 874 million. Having reached a new record order backlog, the increase in prepayments is still outpacing the increasing need for trade working capital. Also this, we will see later. Let me now walk you through the EBITA to net income bridge on the next slide. Our usual earnings bridge shows that the higher revenue base translated into a strong EBITA increase to EUR 404 million and further improved EBITA margin of 10.5%, which is compared to last year with 10.3%.
Depreciation increased slightly due to M&A and increased CapEx spending, but remained relatively stable as a percentage of revenue. Average three-year amortization remained flat, and we would expect around EUR 55 million at year-end from status quo. The financial result was lower than prior year, and this is due to lower interest income on slightly lower gross liquidity, as well as at the same time, higher interest payments on our financial liabilities. In addition, we faced higher expenses also for leasing. As a reminder, H1 2025 last year included a +EUR 8 million valuation effect related to our Armis investment. While the total positive one-time impact for the whole FY 2025 amounted to EUR 36 million. Consequentially, we would encourage the analysts to consider these effects when modeling the numbers for the FY 2026.
While the tax rate remained stable at 25.3%, net income increased to EUR 201 million, and the net profit margin remained solid at 5.2%, which is confirming a resilient profitability despite a lower financial result. Moving to our EBITA to free cash flow bridge, starting from EBITA of EUR 404 million, the main operational improvement in operating and free cash flow generation came from a significantly lower net working capital outflow, EUR -114 last year compared to EUR +4 this year. Income taxes paid and interest received remained broadly stable. Reduction in provisions and other items reflect the normal project life cycle, the maturity of the projects, and expiry of respective warranty periods. Summing up these effects result in a strong improved operational cash flow of EUR 291 million.
CapEx went up year-on-year by EUR 33 million- EUR 131 million, that was spent on growth service, digitalization, and innovation. After that, free cash flow reached EUR 160 million, a very satisfactory level and significantly above the prior year period where we reported EUR 17 million. In H1 2026, there were no M&A transactions, and the M&A CapEx of EUR 38 million fully reflects the residual outflow of the deals that were closed in 2025. Coming now to the working capital development. We saw an increase in operating net working capital in the course of last year, 2025, reflecting a larger service share and the consolidation effects from our acquisitions. We can now report the third consecutive decrease in operating net working capital in absolute and relative terms from Q3 2025 onwards, reverting back to a level of 11% of revenues currently.
While operating net working capital management remains in focus going forward, I will now explain the moving parts in contract trade working capital on the next slide. The more detailed working capital overview here on this slide shows the diverging movements. On the contract working capital side, you see another sequential increase in prepayments and contract liabilities in Q2, alongside the good order intake reported. The trade working capital remained flat sequentially and decreased slightly as a percentage of sales, influenced by a typical seasonal buildup in Q1- Q3, as well as the high service business and the general strong order intake. Structurally, the shift from larger overtime projects towards more mid-sized and completed contract orders leads to an increase in work in progress. Disciplined inventory management will definitely remain central.
With ongoing geopolitical influences, I can let you know from my CFO focus, this is much more important to minimize the order execution risk than minimizing inventory to the very limits. You can see we remain in a really good shape. As you can see here on the next slide, quarterly operating cash flow remains volatile, as quite typical for our project business. Q2 operating cash flow of EUR 202 million was supported by better operating profit and lower net working capital outflow. The longer-term message is that higher top line, good margins, and well-managed cash conversion are sustaining a structurally strong cash generation profile. Moving on to our strong financial position. Our balance sheet remains one of our key strengths and provides significant strategic flexibility.
While net liquidity increased by 15% compared to the first half of 2025, it decreased from EUR 713 million at year-end 2025 to EUR 593 million sequentially, driven by also the dividend payment of EUR 265 million in Q2 and higher CapEx. Operating cash flow remains strong at EUR 291 million in the first half of 2026. We also reduced our gross liquidity by repayment of financial debt position in Q2, and keeping please in mind our EUR 500 million revolving credit facility, which is untapped for now. That means Andritz is well-positioned to continue executing its capital allocation strategy while maintaining a very strong financial profile. Return on capital recovered in the first half of 2026, reaching 18.5% after the acquisition-related temporary dilution in 2025. Higher operating earnings, combined with a stable average invested capital, supports the increase.
This confirms recent capital development is translating now into satisfactory returns, with ROIC remaining above WACC and firmly supporting a strong value creation profile. Well, to summarize, the first check mark is on long-term profitable growth. Strong development and order intake, another new record in order backlog and a book-to-bill of 1.5x. This is supporting the revenue trajectory while margin improved further. The second check mark here is on financial discipline and flexibility. Operating net working capital improved again sequentially. Operating cash flow increased significantly while the net liquidity remained solid. That brings me to the third check mark that sits on value creation. ROIC remains significantly above the average cost of capital, implying substantial value creation.
While we have recorded accelerated growth sequentially and a step up in profitability in the second quarter, I really would like to also remind you that the higher Hydropower share is leading to a longer backlog conversion. Many thanks for your attention here, and I will now hand back to Joachim to provide an update on the business area performance and outlook.
Very good. Thank you, Vanessa. Let's have a quick view on the business areas in more detail. Pulp & Paper, I would say overall, very good development. Order intake up 16%, revenue up 9%, EBITA up 12%, and EBITA margin from 10.2%- 10.5%. That's all looking very good. Order intake has been driven by Paper & T extile that was suffering for a long time. We're happy about that development and this upstream integrating trend in China and further in the Pulp industry remains solid intact. We also believe that there are more projects to come. Revenue is now accelerating, so the order intake from the previous quarters is now executed. Good growth in service business, service share, a very nice level of 59%. It's really good, and also market has a positive outlook. Metals. I would say, you considered your problem child also improving good.
The activities that management is doing is definitely bearing fruit. We are up now 9% in order intake. We are 9% up in revenue. We are up 37% in EBITA and EBITA margin increased from 5.3%- 6.6% for the comparable EBITA margin. Order intake, I would say solid demand from steel industry, a big stainless steel complex in Turkey, a large processing line in India were definitely the highlights. We also can see stabilization on the automotive side, increased project activity. Our view that we might see the end of the trough towards the end of the year remains positive. We have a nice growth in service share from 28%- 29% on a 9% increase of the revenue, and that will further stabilize our profitability. We are now for the first half, we are in the margin corridor for 2027. I would say that's good development.
Hydropower, as you know, is working in a really exciting market, even though order intake is now down for the second quarter 27% to EUR 570 million. We had several large orders booked in the Q2 of 2025, this is why I would say this drop is more administrative drop than a real drop. If you look to the full first half here, we are up 82%. As I said in our last call, that some of the bookings we were able to book prematurely to what has been planned on the project side. The revenue is nicely up 16% compared to last year, and the EBITA is up 47% to EUR 35 million, and the EBITA margin is now at 9%, up from 7.5% for the Q2.
We are profiting from the high demand on renewable energy, the grid solutions now play more and more a very decisive role and industry has realized that a lot of work needs to be done as the amount of the unsteady renewable energy from wind and solar is increasing. Turbogenerator business is developing well. Several midsize orders may be worth to mention. Strandfossen Hydropower plant in Norway from Hafslund, Norway's largest energy provider. I would say showing the good and solid partnership we have there in this country. The profitability is moving nicely up and for the first half year, we are now in our margin corridor we have announced for 2027. Looking into Environment & Energy, order intake dropped by 10%. We definitely see a subdued investment climate across several industries. I already mentioned that before. However, we see active project pipelines in many areas.
We are not too pessimistic for the midterm outlook. Now we have to see where this demand is not temporarily, but more long term. Whether we have to take some actions to reduce our capacities. The revenue declined because of the lower order intake. However, in Clean Air and Feed and Biofuel, we have solid development. I would say even though with the decline in the revenue, margins are still satisfactory despite the decline and still within our corridor for 2027. A few words to our external effects we do not have under full control. Happy to report that we have no adverse impact from the increasing trade barriers as well as from the wars that are going on. I would say our teams are working hard and apparently very effectively to keep these impacts still low and financially to a very limited amount.
We are happy that the FX change has stabilized, and we did not have any more FX headwind in Q2 for the first time since several quarters. I think that is good news. However, despite the good Q2, we confirm the guidance for 2026. Project activity will remain stable on the high level that we have reported. The revenue will be between EUR 8.0 billion and EUR 8.3 billion, and we expect the comparable EBITA margin being between 8.7% and 9.1%. We also confirm our midterm targets for 2027: revenue between EUR 9 billion and EUR 10 billion and comparable EBITA margin above 9%. We have discussed that. I would like to end that we have now reached for, in the first half year, we have reached to have three of our business areas in the margin corridor that we have announced for 2027.
We are confident to get that going. This is where I want to end. Thank you for your attention. If there is anything you'd like to ask, we are happy to provide the answers. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question from the webinar may click the Q&A button on the bottom left side of the screen and then click the raise your hand button. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. You hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press the lower your hand button from the webinar or press star and two on the telephone. Anyone who has a question may queue up now. We have the first question coming from Akash Gupta from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, and thanks for taking my question. I'll start with a couple and then come back later. The first one I have is on pipeline for large orders. I think if you find large orders as more than EUR 100 million volume, and there was no large order in Q2, and despite that, you had a very good level of order intake. The question is that when we look at for the rest of the year, next couple of quarters, can you talk about the pipeline for large orders? How does it look versus, let's say, last few quarters that we have seen? That's the first one.
Yeah. On the large orders, we can say that we are working on large orders with our customers. However, we are not in control when they really get into force. There are large orders. As I said, we will not repeat the Q1. I would say accumulation of these large orders, we don't expect that. I would say the key takeaway should be that even without the large orders, we have been able to sustain a very good order intake solidly above the EUR 2.3 billion, solidly above the EUR 2 billion threshold. I think that's a very good sign.
Thank you. My second question is on 2027 revenue target. We have seen good order intake, and you have been flagging about increased duration in backlog, particularly coming from Hydropower segment. We have six more months or five more months from today to come close the year, and you guide at bottom end, EUR 9 billion revenues for next year. The question is, do you think you can get there organically with the portfolio that you have today? Or do we need to see any incremental M&A to hit EUR 9 billion mark? If we have to do any M&A, any commentary on.
On M&A, as I said, we do not plan for that. We believe that we'll reach the EUR 9 billion revenue target, and I would say a normal small M&A activity is always part of our business model.
Thank you. The next question comes from Sven Weier from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First one is on the Metals business, where you saw a nice sequential improvement in the order intake against the previous quarters. I was just wondering, are you confident to maintain that run rate? Or is it also a bit like you had it in H1, that a little bit of pulling forward? That's the first one. Thank you.
Project activity in Metals is good. This is not an accumulation of events like we have seen that. We see that the market will continue on a good level. Yeah.
Sounds good. Second question is more like a strategic question. We obviously saw that Valmet is considering a potential breakup of the company, and I was just wondering when we look at your business portfolio in terms of potentials for spin-offs, how do you look at the situation? Do you consider all the four divisions and the structure of the company are thinking core and no changes will be made?
That's what we do. We believe that we are the best owner of all four business areas. Because we are assessing that on a regular basis, if we come to the conclusion that we are not, we definitely will investigate that, and then we will let you know in due time.
My understanding, obviously, is when I think about the Pulp & Paper Automation business, it's integral part of your Pulp & Paper division, while Valmet seems to want to spin that off. What do you see as the biggest advantage as having that as an integral part rather than like a separate business?
Yeah, we are running our business model in all business areas that we provide integrated solutions, including mechanics, electrics, automation, and also digitalization. We think that is a good model. We see from the trust our customers place with us that they also confirm that.
Do you see that as an opportunity to win market share once the business is spun off from Valmet, they don't have it integrated anymore?
We always try to win market share regardless what our competitors are doing.
Sounds good. Thank you, Dr. Schönbeck.
The next question comes from Daniel Lion from Erste Group. Please go ahead.
Hi. Yeah, good morning. Let me follow up on what Sven has just touched. Maybe not only focusing on Pulp & Paper, but just from shareholder perspective, it definitely makes sense not to sell parts of the companies completely, but at least float them individually. Just to some of the parts reveals actually sizable discounts in valuation when valuing the business line separately. We keep the majority of what you see.
As I said, we are reviewing that regularly, and if we believe that somebody else is a better owner than we are, we will sell it. We have done this last year with our OTORIO joint venture because we have developed the products we wanted to have on cybersecurity, but we also understood that we were not the right platform to scale it. We sold that to Armis. Armis has then been acquired by ServiceNow. What we have developed as a product still is a value proposition from ServiceNow. I think that's what we do, and rest assured that we will review this on a regular base, and if we come to that conclusion, that we will act accordingly.
Okay. Another topic. Could you maybe give us a flavor of how the margins develop within Hydro, roughly when thinking about synchronous and turbos and the normal Hydro business like equipment services? How do they compare in general and how do you think this is going to develop?
Yeah. The business model of the three products basically that you mentioned is a bit different. The, I would say, the normal Hydro business is this very long project business, execution times between three and five years. Usually large orders over long time, while synchronous business and turbo generator is a bit shorter cycled. This is where the differences are. On the margin improvement, all three main product lines contributed on a fair balance.
Okay. Lastly, you put some restructuring charges now in the second quarter. What should we expect for the second half year in this regard?
I trust that we will stay on the run rate because we will finish the main restructuring activities in Metals by end of this year, latest Q1 next year. I would say take or less the same run rate we have in the first half year.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
The next question comes from Patrick Steiner from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Patrick speaking. Basically, one question left from my side. I think I did not understand this a bit due to some kind of technical issue. In Environment & E nergy, we saw a low order intake, a bit lack of momentum. Can you give us a bit more information on which parts of the segment performed below your expectation? If you think that this is more of a temporary downturn ratio in your view, and if there's more to come in terms of prioritizing the different businesses of the segment? Thank you.
Yeah, we see weakness in order intake. We see in the new technologies we have developed for the green transition, green hydrogen and carbon capture. I would say here we have a very solid project pipeline. We also have a very, I would say, solid level of letter of intents. Basically contracts that if the customer make a go decision, will be awarded to us. The go decisions are pending. In separation, we can see across several industries that investments are postponed and shifted, especially, I would say special impact comes from chemical industry, where on our customer base in Europe, the high energy prices, and the outlook is definitely, I would say, subduing the investment climate. That's, I would say the others in pumps and feed and biofuel and in clean air, I would say that there we see not a significant growth, but a stable market.
Okay, thanks. It's very helpful. Thank you.
The next question comes from Christoph Blieffert from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two to you. The first question is on the packaging/container board market. I'm just wondering when you expect an uptick in client demand for new machinery business, but also for services following this announced downturn we have seen over the most recent past. Secondly, on hydro, please. Could you give us some insight on the revenue or order intake contribution from pump storage to annual performance? That would be helpful. Thank you.
On the packaging and board, I would say the market situation has bottomed out, but we do not see signs of increase. That's, I would say, we see utilization rates of our customer increased. I would say in Asia more than in Europe. Frankly speaking, not to the level that huge investments are foreseeable in the near future. That's the current assessment. I would say Europe and U.S. is a little behind. Utilization rates seem to be still a bit lower than what we see in Asia. On the Hydro business, I do not have the number at the moment to give you the revenue share of the pump storage. What we could see over the past three quarters was that pump storage increased in order intake, proportionally to the rest of the group.
As revenue builds up a bit later, I would say it is growing, but I cannot provide you a value. Our IR team can reach out to you and provide you some more background information on that.
Thanks for that.
We have a follow-up question coming from Akash Gupta from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. I have a follow-up on automotive end market. I think in your prepared remarks, you talked about some stabilization in that market. Maybe you can talk about which customer group are we talking about, because when we look at these European car makers, they're still lowering their guidance and seeing very significant Chinese competition in many markets. If you can give us some more clarity on which type of customer groups you see more activity going forward in automotive?
Basically, we see it in all customer groups. We see it in North America, we see it in Europe, and we see it also in China. In China, still the local market is active. We also see the Chinese manufacturers moving outside China into Europe and around Europe. But we also see with the European car makers, even though they are still in restructuring, it looks like they have made their plans on their capacities, on the volumes, on the models they want to place. This is when project activities with capital goods suppliers like us start. This is now what we see, these discussions start, and we know this will finally go into, sooner or later, investments. That is what we see. We believe that our estimate that towards the end of this year, we will have reached the end of that tunnel is a fair assessment.
Thank you. Then maybe one more on U.S. We have seen that some companies have started to benefit from refunds of reciprocal tariff, the reciprocal tariff that was turned down by the U.S. Supreme Court early in the year. I'm just curious if there is any benefit that you may have seen in Q2 or you are expecting in second half that might benefit your margin or cash flow? Thank you.
Sorry, I'm not sure I really got the question. Can you please repeat?
Yeah. This was the reciprocal tariff in the U.S. that President Trump put in place last year, reciprocal tariff. These tariffs were deemed illegal by U.S. Supreme Court early in the year. Then companies have started filing for refunds. We have seen some companies in capital goods sector have seen benefit already and some are guiding for benefit in the second half. I don't know how much tariff you paid in the U.S., but just curious if there is anything we should expect on your performance this year.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we will not see any benefits from that. The goods we have imported to the U.S., they have been subject to the tariffs, and all the tariffs were duly paid by our customers. We have then asked for refund to the U.S. government, which has been granted, but we passed it on to our customers. Therefore, you will not see a net impact on the upside or downside in our balance sheet.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Lars Vom-Cleff from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you very much. Good morning. First of all, congratulations for you accepting your all-time high share price again this morning. I guess well deserved given the performance. Two questions, if I may. Order momentum remains very strong with the backlog at a new record. While I appreciate that group revenue conversion is slowing due to Hydropower, in H1, you have already reached 47% of your 2026 sales guidance at the midpoint. Would it therefore be fair to assume that you're currently aiming more towards the upper end of your 2026 sales guidance range?
I'm not in the details of this accounting. The band is so narrow, when we end in there, this is what we assume. In today's world, being in a project business that we are doing, I would say being more precise would be a misguiding. I would say we stay with that range.
Fair enough. Thank you. Secondly, I note that you explicitly highlighted the positive valuation effect from Armis on your 2025 EBITA. Excluding this, I calculate a negative margin impact of around 50 basis points. Is that what you're trying to tell us? That we should rather take 8.4% as a starting basis to forecast profitability for this year?
The hint was simply that last year we had a EUR 36 million one-time impact positively, which is not repeated this year. This is what you should consider when modelizing your numbers for this year.
Okay. Perfect. I'll go back into the line.
Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Matthias Pfeifenberger for closing remarks.
Okay. Many thanks to our C-suite for their elaborations and for your interest in Andritz, and we'll return back to you for the Q3 results. Many thanks for participating.