Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PIERER Mobility AG Half Year Result 2025 Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the call school 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. You can register for questions at any time by pressing *1 on your telephone. Webcast viewers may submit their questions in writing via the relative field. We kindly ask webcast participants to refresh the browser. For operator assistance, please press *0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Gottfried Neumeister, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, U.S., and good afternoon, Europe. It's a pleasure for me to speak to you today for the first time. I've been the CEO of the company only since January, so it's the first result presentation there is. Maybe a quick introduction of my side. I worked 15 years together with Niki Lauda, founding an airline from scratch and leading it for more than nine years. All in all, I worked 15 years together with Niki Lauda. The last 12 and a half years before I joined Do&Co, I worked before I joined PIERER Mobility, I worked for Do&Co, a global catering company with more than 16,000 employees in 33 locations around the world. A company that made EUR300 million in revenue when I joined and EUR2 billion when I left, being the co-CEO. That's in short a little bit of an introduction about myself.
As I said, I started one year ago as co-CEO next to Stefan Pierer, both co-CEO in PIERER Mobility AG and also KTM AG. Since January, I'm CEO of both companies and as I said, happy to speak to you and hopefully able to answer all your questions which you might have. We have prepared an investor relations presentation for you, which I will share with you in a second. It will be followed by a proper Q&A session to leave enough room and time for all your questions. Let's move to the presentation. The first slide where we try to summarize, in essence, the key facts of our first half year. EUR425 million in revenues, we'll see them later in the P&L in detail. An EBITDA of EUR1 billion, which is positively affected by the restructuring profit of around EUR1.2 billion.
We sold 85,000 motorcycles, so we're talking about wholesales compared to the retails, which are the sales to the end customers. On the 30th of June, we had 4,303 employees in our group. The major headlines are, of course, the successful restructuring of the group, which happened at the latest on the 23rd of May. There was a first success in between the 25th of February, where we reached an agreement with the court. Ever since, we have worked very hard to really not only keep the company alive, but also set up a structure which is future-proof. We have cut out low-hanging fruits in terms of restructuring. We managed to sell MV Agusta, the stake which we only acquired last year in April.
We have also now signed, just two days ago, an agreement to sell KTM Sports Car, so the Crossbow, the car business, which is also being sold. We are in the process of winding down our bicycle business, which is really working well, better than planned. That's something which should happen up until the end of the year. In parallel, we have initiated a big company-wide project, which is called Project Phoenix, which is an efficiency program to work on efficiencies and restructuring and reduction of our cost base. In a nutshell, we have just lined up the important dates which I just mentioned to you. On February 25, we managed that the creditors' committee had accepted a 30% quota. The EUR1.2 billion, which is the extraordinary restructuring gain, is resulting from that 70% which fell away.
We had been given three months to finance these funds and the needs up until May 23. We've managed through our longstanding partner, Bajaj Auto, to receive sufficient funds to pay off old debt and get enough funds to really revive the company. In totality, we're talking about EUR800 million, whereas EUR600 million were used to pay off old and existing debt, and EUR200 million is set here for the company for the continuation of our businesses. Latest by that date, we had to bring up the necessary funds in order to close the insolvency proceedings. Since that day, also the administrator is not part of us anymore, and we're completely free again. On June 16, the quota was paid and everything became legally binding. I've touched upon some of the topics we have already raised. On the other way, there were also reasons for the insolvency.
To summarize, and I'm happy then to ask specific questions, there were three really main reasons. One was the investment into MV Agusta at a very late time, and cash-wise, it cost us EUR220 million of liquidity. The PIERER Mobility AG bicycle business consumed more than €400 million. This all in all is EUR620 million. In totality, we had, because of previous years, a tremendous inventory of motorcycles ahead of us. When I arrived and joined the company, we were shortly before the insolvency, we were talking about 270,000 motorcycles, which were either with dealers and importers or in our own stock. 200,000 of the 270,000 were with dealers and importers, 70,000 in our own stock. That was literally before we entered into the insolvency proceedings.
This is also why, as part of the restructuring, we decided that it's absolutely necessary to be brave enough not to sell, which is an awkward thing because if you tell sales guys not to sell, they don't understand it. We had to give the market and our dealers the time to absorb the high inventory levels they have had before the crisis. That's something which I said was absolutely one of the main three reasons. Therefore, we reduced already in November from two shifts to a one-shift model. When we entered into the insolvency proceedings, we laid off through the insolvency proceedings, and that was a fairly easy process in Austria. It was part of these insolvency proceedings where the state would then step in to pay notice periods and to come up for accrued benefits. We have restructured the company dramatically already back in November.
In totality, compared to 2023, we have laid off more than 1,700 people and had a complete standstill up until the end of February. We then restarted operation, but unfortunately, as during the insolvency proceedings, we were not allowed to make any commitments into the future because that's what the insolvency administrator did not allow. If it's not certain that we would continue to place orders with other vendors, we lost really a very important and critical time. When we restarted because of the very sudden insolvency proceedings, we had a lot of materials still in-house from November. So did our suppliers, and they were happy to deliver those to us because they've been waiting literally four months. We said, "Okay, we are even paying for those materials." They very happily delivered them to us. Unfortunately, those were only good for 4,200 motorcycles.
For six weeks, we were able to bring back and ramp up the production. Unfortunately, none of these suppliers had made commitments, and we absolutely have no bad feelings. It's absolutely understandable if you don't know whether it continues or not. Most of them have not made any commitments. They waited whether we are going through successfully or not. Therefore, when we called up and said, "Listen, we want new components," they said, "Fine," but some of them said, "I've given all my capacity of 2025 to other manufacturers, then yeah, you can all off the chair." We had really established good relationships and said, "Go for it." We'll do it a second shift and we'll make it happen, but I need to order raw materials, which will take up at least six weeks. Then we need to produce it for two weeks.
Before eight weeks, nine weeks, there's no chance that we can provide any materials to you. This is why after this six-week of production, we had to stop again and make another break up until July 28, 2024. The company stood together, the Orange family. There was one option to lay off 1,200 people because we simply didn't have anything to do for three months. We stood together. Everybody accepted to have a pay cut of 20%. If everybody would do so, we were able to keep the 1,200 people on our payroll and, yeah, our colleagues on board. That has happened throughout May, June, and July. As you've seen from the headlines, we successfully restarted production on July 28, 2024. I need to knock on wood, are producing ever since. Let's talk about those topics then also in more detail.
I mentioned the winding down of the bicycle business is working very well. We started with close to 70,000 bicycles at the year-end 2024. We really managed to substantially reduce them. The last bicycle in Europe will sell in September. I think in the U.S., latest by the end of the year. The focus of the whole restructuring is, yeah, simplicity, reducing and focus to the core. What really made PIERER Mobility AG and the whole group, and especially KTM, so successful for so many years and get rid of anything which distracts us from our core business. As I said, we are really on a very good way to achieve this. We are showing you the motorcycle retail market environment of our first half year because it is a challenging environment. Europe lost also by itself the total market, 15%. The times are uncertain. There is inflation fear.
The tariff situation is for sure. Some questions will be addressed too. We tried to summarize how the markets developed in certain segments and how our market shares are looking. Just keep in mind, we intentionally and proactively decided not to sell in as many motorcycles to allow the dealers and importers to come down to really normal and more healthy levels. You see, for the first half year, 85,000 wholesales were, and that's the important number, 50,000 are coming from PIERER Mobility here. Out of Mattighofen, 34,000, almost 35,000 units are coming through our partner, Bajaj Auto. We had also in the press release 100,000 retails. If we talk about 100,000 retails, we're talking about all the retails happening except for India. We need to compare those two numbers.
The 50,000 units which we were selling in as wholesales compared to 100,000 retails means that we were able to reduce the stock levels by 50,000 units. You see the breakdown over the regions and brands. I think also important to mention, also CF Moto is mentioned here. In the first half year, we were still selling CF Moto. That was also a proactive decision, but a joint decision together with our partner, CF Moto. We have also still our joint venture for production, the CKM operation in Hangzhou, where we are producing. We said running around with five different brands, yeah, as a salesperson, KTM, Husqvarna, GasGas, MV, and CF Moto is simply too much. As I said, we said we need to focus on our core brands. Therefore, we have decided to end the distribution agreement. We are not anymore selling CF Moto motorcycles in Europe.
This ended, as I said, end of June. In the first half year, you see that stake, and you will see it also throughout the year because this stake will simply shrink in size. It's part of our overall yearly performance. The retail figures compared over the last years, and here we're showing you the first half year. The two important lines to look at are the black one and the light gray one. The black one is 2025. This is our existing year, where you see also already at the beginning with a big spike, which is then offsetting the lower weeks before end of June, is our current business year. We're comparing it alongside with 2019. Why 2019? That was the year before corona, before we could argue that there was maybe extraordinary demand. That's exactly also the target number which we are aiming at for the year-end.
We had managed to sell 100,000 retails for the first half of the year. If we are staying close to that line, and this, as I said, we're monitoring on a weekly basis, then we will be able to reach 200,000 for the full year, which I said would be a huge success. That's the important and encouraging part for you as investors, is that despite all the noise, all the negative news, the retails are really, really very strong and we have a very loyal customer base because retails, we are able to keep them at a high level. This allows us to reduce our own KTM group stock. The own KTM group stock started. You see in light gray the last year's inventory numbers, how they piled up and the 66,000, which we had at the year-end.
Already in January, we managed to get the 66 down to 62. You see how these stock levels really continued to fall throughout the year. That's also what we have mentioned proactively as a real success of the first half year, that we are converting our existing stock into cash and we are freeing up this cash position. Similarly, we were able, because retails kept at a high level and we did not push as many new motorcycles into the dealers. This is the 50,000 we were talking about. You see 182,000 was the level last year. The light gray bold line at the top shows the inventory levels throughout 2024. 182,000 was the stock level at the end of December. We managed to bring down the 182,000 now to 132,000 end of June.
I can also tell you that both figures are going down and continue to go down also in the future. Here, we are really right on track with exactly the mission which we have. That's a said part of and the essential part of our restructuring is to get these stock levels down. They will not continuously fall because now we resume production and therefore we're also again starting out to send new motorcycles. If you have read already the outlook, we said that also in 2026, we will have lower unit sales. What is meant by lower unit sales? It's compared to 2024. As I mentioned, we had 270,000 motorcycles ahead of us, one year of retail volume, historic retail volumes.
Normally, you would say, "Okay, you can close down the factory even for a year's time," which is not feasible because, of course, you would lose all the skill levels on one hand. On the other hand, you cannot incentivize every customer to buy an old motorcycle. You need new products because some people are eager to get the latest version and the new technologies. It's absolutely essential and was essential to resume production. Therefore, also in 2026, we will continue with a very efficient one-shift model, which for the second half of the year, we projected 50,000 motorcycles to be produced. Here in Austria, this number, if you have a full year production, we're only talking about five months because we started end of July.
If you then multiply it and take it for a full year, this is an equivalent of roughly 110,000 motorcycles, which we can produce in one shift. Here in Austria, in historic times, in two shifts, we reach 220,000 units as yearly output levels. As I said, the explanation for that outlook is that also in 2026, we need to allow ourselves some time because you cannot cure it in one year or especially six months now up until the end of the year. Therefore, these stock levels are continuing to go down. As I said, it's very reassuring and reassuring that it works very well. If we now come to the results, first of all, the overall revenue split, 47% of our revenues are done in Europe, 32% in North America, and 21% in the rest of the world.
You again see the EUR425 million of revenues, which I've mentioned before. We see the impairment and restructuring profit of EUR1.187 million, which leads to both a positive EBITDA and a positive EBIT. The financial result is slightly negative because, of course, we are already paying interest rates. It leads to a result before taxes of €896 million. Taking off the income taxes leads then to a result for the period of EUR739 million. On the next page, the balance sheet and some key points to look out for. Number one, the goodwill. You see that we have used the crisis and the restructuring to write off completely the goodwill. This is something which, as I said, is not existing anymore in our balance sheet. We pointed out a couple of things. You see the inventory levels going down from EUR618 million-EUR 394 million, so close to €400 million.
We reduced them by EUR223 million. Trade receivables down by EUR135 million. Of course, because of the lower volume, these numbers are going down. We also collected very successfully money, receivables, and other assets. If they're just to readvance any question, this increase is happening because once we restarted and we had to place orders in May, June, we had to prepay our vendors. That's the reason why we have a counter effect. If we look to the working capital, you see assets held for sale because as of end of June, we have not had concluded the sales of PIERER Mobility AG, MV Agusta, and the Crossbow operation, which I said has happened in July. They were reclassified in assets held for sale, and those are the EUR170 million. The equity turned positive, EUR532 million of equity.
The €800 million, which we received, which I mentioned before from Bajaj, leads to the financial liabilities of EUR892 million. Those are the long-term ones. Of course, because of IFRS 16, we have also other financial liabilities. Yeah, so that's in a nutshell everything for the balance sheet. Segment results, again, a summary of the motorcycle or a breakdown of the EUR425 million into the motorcycle and the bicycle segments. You see EUR372 million of external revenue. The majority of that or the restructuring happening in the motorcycle segment. Therefore, you see the extraordinary restructuring gain also reflected there, whereas the bicycle is with minus EUR11 million EBITDA and EBIT, yeah, somehow stable. As I said, it really works out well. The motorcycle segment accounts for 88% of our total revenues. On the lower bottom, you see a breakdown how the money was provided.
EUR350 million were given to the stock-listed entity, PIERER Mobility AG, and EUR450 million were given to KTM AG. Together with other lease liabilities, which I've mentioned before, it's a total debt of EUR917 million deducting our cash at hand, EUR161 million. We have a net debt or we're deriving at a net debt of EUR756 million. Employees, the development over the last couple of years reaching almost 6,200 in the peak of 2023. We saw how this number has come down dramatically up until the end of June, and it continues to go down. I would say another 200- 300 people I'm expecting to have less at the year-end. Let's phrase it this way. 25% of our employees are female. The shareholder structure. Here you see the summary of the shareholding structure just as a reminder. For the PIERER Mobility AG, let's start from the bottom.
The stock-listed entity, 25%, a little bit less than 25% is free float. The rest or the remainder is held by PIERER Bajaj AG, which then has a dual shareholding. One is PIERER Industry AG with 50.1% and 49.9% for Bajaj Auto International Holdings, which is owned 100% by Bajaj Auto Ltd. PIERER Industry AG is 100% owned by PIERER Concern. Yeah, so that's a summary of the current shareholder structure. I'm assuming there will be also some question how this continues in the future. We've put in the information on the right that Bajaj Auto International Holdings has a call option to acquire all shares of PIERER Industry AG in PIERER Bajaj AG. This call option can be exercised up until the end of May.
Most importantly, and this is what needs to be filed in between, this is subject to all regulatory approvals such as Takeover Commission, Antitrust, Merger Control, FDI. We have really a great team who has already filed and submitted all those necessary documents. We're waiting for those approvals. We, I think, compared to other countries, can expect a fairly quick outcome. We only had to file in six countries. I would say four of them are already here. The rest, we are very optimistic that in the near future, a couple of weeks, one to two months, we will hopefully hear back from the remaining ones. A little bit the outlook, which I've mentioned before, I tried to explain why now positive, then negative, and then again positive. As I said, 2025, the positive result is purely attributable to the extraordinary gain of $1.2 billion.
We also, for the full year, will expect a positive result. Beyond 2025, in the year 2026, as I told you, we are still only running with one-shift model, producing 100,000 or 110,000 instead of 220,000 motorcycles, which is still half of the contribution towards fixed cost towards all the operation. The most important thing is that we are breaking even already in 2025, but more importantly, also continue to be cash positive in 2026. How do we achieve this? This is by, again, converting existing stock into cash. In 2027, we expect a positive, not only EBITDA but then also a positive EBIT. The good news is, maybe contrary to other insolving companies, there is no rain dripping down off the roof. We have no investment backlog. We had really made significant investments over the last couple of years.
Therefore, we are confident that without spending headwinds, we can really grow back this company to its original strength and size over the next couple of years. I think that was it from my side through the presentation. As I said, I would like to leave enough time to allow questions from your side. Maybe the operator can take over and start the Q&A session and maybe disconnect also the presentation that everybody can see me answering the questions which you might have.
Thank you, sir. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume of the webcast while asking a question. Webcast viewers may submit their questions in writing via the latest field. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. Our first question comes from Constantin Hesse from Jefferies. Please go ahead, sir.
If you're taking my questions, can you hear me okay?
Yes, Constantin.
Great. I'm not very high. I actually have quite a few, so I'll just try to go for three and then I'll come back to the queue. Starting a bit more with questions around the short term, just to really understand how the second half is going to move. Production-wise, you said you're running one shift, five months, 50,000 new units being produced in the second half. Can you just give us a rough idea of how we should think about sales in the second half and how we should think? I just want to understand the next year and a half, basically, right? Production-wise, 50,000 in the second half, 110,000 next year. Just give us the gist of it or the numbers again of the current inventory that is outstanding just to have an understanding of how we should think about this growth curve.
One thing that you said last, you said you want to bring the company back to its original size in the next two years, which sounds, I mean, obviously, growth-wise, it would be quite significant. I'm just wondering how we should think about this growth curve. If you can put it into numbers, that would be quite interesting.
Yeah, I mean, original size, we need to say which was the right one. I need to be more careful with this because we have laid out a very conservative business plan over the next five years, but I'm talking to be really north of 200,000 units. In the peak times, we reached 326,000. That's something which, again, I would not say in two years' time, getting closer to the 300s will, or we are allowing ourselves at least to be conservative five years to reach back to those levels. Coming back to a normal, maybe also better utilization for production, as I said, is at least being north of the 200,000. Second half of the year, those 50,000 which we are producing, we are very optimistic to also have at least wholesales of 50,000 also in the second half of the year.
They should be higher, but I always like to leave some room for positive surprises. That's the bare minimum to achieve. As I said, I'm expecting or I'm confident with the new products that not only the new products, but we're also selling in existing stock. The number should be around 120,000 to potentially also 140,000. There is room for improvement, but that would be the bare minimum, the 132,000 stock level, which you saw on the importers. These are revenues which we already made. This is not improving our situation, but we are watching this curve carefully because this is the indicator which tells us how much more inventory am I able to sell in. Not all of that inventory is bad inventory.
The 82,000 or the 200,000 which we saw in the peak times, yes, it was for sure too much, but you always need a certain inventory size depending on your revenues because you will have motorcycles on ships in containers, 90 days transit in Australia, for example. Without inventory, you cannot do it. Therefore, not all the 270,000 was necessarily bad inventory. That's something which, as I said, gradually should come down. The winding off of that inventory, which you see here, the dealer and importer, as I said, is not revenues for us. It's only giving and helping with retail incentives that the end customer is taking up those motorcycles. Once they take the motorcycles, we are able to sell in and make our wholesales. For us, the inventory we need to work off is our own group stock inventory. That's the one which I showed you.
That was also what we freed up. Reducing from 66,000- 36,000, those 30,000 motorcycles helped to free up the cash. That was also because we were not producing at all. How can we then make those wholesales of 55,000 or 85,000 if you don't produce? The answer is because we were working off our own stock and also getting joint products from India.
Understood. Okay. We can go into more detail offline. Second question would be just on cash. Do you say, I mean, EUR161 million today, EUR750 million net debt. Do you, based on the conservative plan that you have, believe you have enough cash to cover the ramp and production and obviously the respective working capital ramp, cover the restructuring costs without having to go to market over the next two years?
Yes. That's something which the whole restructuring plan was based on, that premise is that we don't need to go out for another case, which, however, we have now been granted loans by Bajaj. This does not mean that we would not go out to the market. Once we have the security and the trust from the market, I mean, we had three insolvent companies and there were a lot of funds interested to give us money. At the end, it was 17%, which was really not only ridiculously expensive, but so expensive that it's not sustainable. That's something which certainly I think will be one of the things where we will seek a refinancing for one of those loans, additional cash. As I said, we are very confident that we don't need to reach out, especially to the capital market or to anybody else for additional cash.
We are targeting to bring up the EUR161 million or keeping them at least until the end of the year. We have our own internal goal, which is called Mission 200, which is not the Mission 200, but the Mission to 200. The Mission 200 means to target EUR200 million of cash up until the end of the year. You have to bear in mind, currently, we don't have an ABS program in Europe. All our receivables are unpledged, completely free. We have stopped all those programs. Everything was paid back. That's also a big effort. You need to imagine the efforts which we did in the first half year, not only paying back the old frozen existing debt, but everything, all the reverse factoring lines, the factoring lines, everything was paid back in full, 100%. We still have EUR161 million.
Once we're now, and of course, in June, you will also see, and that's what I mentioned, why we have EUR100 million. Let's maybe jump back to the balance sheet quickly. That's why we see also an increase because we have prepaid the materials. We had to, again, totally understandable if the trust is gone and the suppliers don't know whether it's continuing to asking either for prepayment or prompt payment. We carefully, in our cash flow projections for this year, have said 100% will be on prepayment. I can tell you now we have already achieved that 30% we have already payment terms because ever since Bajaj helped us out and we started ordering and the normal production cycle starts, a lot of companies are gaining trust again.
That is also one of the big targets which we're trying to improve for in the second half of the year, to bring down that rate of prepayment or prompt payment to a healthy or healthier normalized level. This will also help with the working capital. Again, freeing up our existing inventory will create cash. To answer a long answer to your short question, I think that cash-wise, we should be comfortable.
Thanks. Just on the overall operational structure of the business, historically, production capacity, a small one in Spain, obviously Mattighofen, and then, of course, production with Bajaj in India and production with CF Moto in China. Will these, I mean, Mattighofen, of course, stays in place. One shift in terms of the structure with Bajaj and CF Moto, that will remain in place?
The one-shift model, again, does not need to remain in place. This depends on the demand. I think the good thing and the positive thing is that we have two longstanding partnerships where if the demand grows for the next two years, we want to keep those efficient one-shift model and not to pay expensive second shift additions and whatsoever. We can breathe with our international partners if the demand would be higher without going into an expensive half shift or overtime. I think that's really an advantage. I think independent of our shareholder structure, we need to, as a European industrial manufacturer, always ask ourselves where to produce, how to produce. This is a large part of our restructuring and efficiency program, to really source also internationally. The labor cost here in Austria for assembling is only 6%- 8%. That's not the biggest burden.
The biggest burden lies in really the material cost. We source more than 72% around, we always say around our Kirchturm, as you're German, but around the near area and here in Europe. That's something where we have really dramatic savings potential. That's also not to look at what went wrong in the past. It was simply coming out of 2022. All our competitors, or some of them, were struggling. A lot of them were closed. Especially the Chinese were closed for a very long time. It was only about where do I get the materials, how much can I produce, and who was the fastest, the quickest, was simply making the deal and making the money. I think it's fair to say that there was not the biggest focus. We have now more than 510 suppliers.
It's a huge supplier base, which we need to shrink down and try to cut it in half. I think that's the biggest focus, how do we really get the material sourcing organized? How do we simplify our portfolio? Believe it or not, only in the motocross and enduro segment, we have had at least 84 different models. I don't think that we get any more customers, but we've really, we have a six days, we have a factory edition, we have all kinds of championship editions. There is a lot of savings potential by streamlining the product portfolio, simplifying it without changing something dramatically. Therefore, that's the main focus.
Okay, understood. I'm just to understand, the premium models will remain in Austria, mid-sized in China, and lower CC engines still in India.
Yes, with the potential to grow also in India, future projects, and also that's something which we need to exploit. As I said, at the moment, I think it's a big benefit to KTM to have such a strong partnership with Bajaj Auto. For us, it was really the best fit. Since 17 years, we're working together. It's a longstanding partnership, which simply means continuity and stability for our business. Yeah, let's wait for all the approvals, and then we will for sure exploit how we can really use the strength of both companies. Definitely, KTM will remain an independent company. I said, where to produce in the future is something which no one can predict and now set in stone for even five years' time. Are you able to shift in one year's time? No.
That's something where at the moment, I said we're happy to have this setup, which allows us to breathe if demand changes. Let's look in the future how this will continue.
Okay, great. I have a few more questions, but I'll go back to the queue and I'll come back in.
Okay. Thanks, Constantin.
Once again, to ask a question, please press star followed by one or text your question in the chat box. We have a follow-up question from Constantin Hesse. Please go ahead.
Okay. All righty. Let me continue then. A bit more medium-term strategic kind of questions. I mean, obviously, you said five-year plan to take the company closer to the 300,000 volume level. You are obviously aiming to regain market share. Just to understand, is racing going to remain in place in terms of the profitability of the company? Are we aiming to go back to that 8- 10% EBIT level? Just give us a bit of an idea of how we should think about it over the next five years.
Definitely profit over growth. That's what I've already said in some interviews. That's not the main target to reach the 300,000 at any price in 2029. I think most importantly, we need to become profitable and then we can start scaling again. Motorsport is part of our DNA. That's really, that's something which is not a question mark. Of course, certain classes can be a question mark, but motorsport is part of the DNA of KTM. It always allowed also historically to reach those EBIT levels with the motorsport, which was in the peak times max 4% of total spend. I think if you run efficiency programs, and that's also what in motorsport you need to do, is to think whether I'm participating with three brands in the same championship and how many good drivers. If every team has three drivers, then I need nine.
Do I find nine people who are really fighting for a competition? Having a GasGas MotoGP team, there even within the motorsport, there are savings potentials, which we are doing and looking at in the future. There are ways to also offset cost. Therefore, to answer your question, motorsport will remain part of the DNA. I 100% believe that it allows us to sell for a higher price and a premium compared to our competitors. This is what we are positioned. We are not in the commuter business. We are not in the lifestyle business. We are a racing company, and we have very loyal customers who really choose that company exactly for that reason. Others are chosen for it to be comfortable or to be durable. We are the ready-to-race brand.
Although we maybe need to rethink that tagline for certain models like an adventure, I said in an interview, an adventure is for me like a Swiss knife. It has to be universal, and you want to go to the city, you want to go up in the mountain or drive on a gravel road. I don't immediately get why it needs to be ready to race necessarily because I don't want my bum to hurt after 500km . I think we don't need to do dramatic changes. Yes, we need to work and sharpen the profile, but racing will remain a very important part.
Okay. On the EBIT margin, I'm assuming because this streamlining your portfolio, you talked about simplifying R&D spend. Is profitability expected to be better relative to the historical level because of these initiatives?
Yes, at least the ambition is to get back to historic levels. As I said, give me some room to then positively surprise, but they are certainly not out of reach.
Okay, understood. Just on the dealer network, is that going to be rationalized? Any color here would be great.
I think we have a lot of, and that's an opportunity. Although we are active since more than 40 years, we have also some white spots, which I don't know why. Asia, yeah, if I look to Malaysia, for example, a very rich country, or very well known for big bikes. There's also a lot of races there. We have zero to no presence or market share there. There are some opportunities. Do we need to necessarily grow the dealership? We reached more than 3,000 dealers worldwide. I think that's one of the big assets of the company compared to some other competitors who are emerging. I think it's more the quality of the dealers and not necessarily growing the number of dealers. To see whether I can make more sales or better sales even with fewer ones, that's something which we need to see along the line.
I think we need to not only identify the growth markets, but also look at markets who have really potential for us, for our products, and then really develop them bit by bit.
Okay, understood. Lastly, just in terms of shareholder structure, I understand that Bajaj has a call option, which has a deadline of next year. I'm just wondering, what is their end game here? Why not take PIERER Mobility AG private? Do they want to keep it listed? I'm just trying to really understand how we should think about the development of this shareholding in the future.
Yeah, unfortunately, Constantin, that's something which I cannot, that's something which you need to ask the shareholder. Everything I will tell you now would only be a guess or assumption. Therefore, I don't want to. There's only, as you said, two ways. Once you have 75%, either you try to go private. I think this would have been an option if you want to have a partner and you're jointly holding it and both companies are anyway stock listed, then you could ask yourself the question, why stay? Bajaj definitely itself is committed to the capital market. So are we. The other option is then to, if you have, once you reach 75% at a later point in time, to allow a capital increase and allow a dilution below. That's something which then, of course, would be good for the free float.
If you want to de-risk and say I've injected in the top listed entity EUR350 million, so either I'm allowing a capital increase of a similar size and I'm either diluted down to 51% or even 48%. If I have a management program, 2% or 3% for the management, you could still comfortably steer the company. Those are two crossroads. I said I don't want to comment on the likeliness, I cannot comment on it. A third option would be to just remain as in the past, simply with only 25% free float and a 75% shareholding. This is also the third solution. That's exactly what we've seen in the past together with Mr. Pierer and Bajaj. This could also be an option. Other than laying out and drawing these options, I really cannot comment to it.
Understood. Okay, that's great. Thanks, Sandra.
All right.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Gottfried Neumeister for any closing remarks.
No, if there are no more questions, I'm really happy and thankful that you took the time to join us and to listen to our results. I'm looking forward to speaking to you again in the near future. Up until then, just stay with us. Cross the fingers that we can continue this successful path which we are now taking together with Bajaj Auto, our partner. We are very confident that we can turn around this company fairly quickly. Thank you for your attention. Goodbye.