Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to today's earnings call of Bajaj Mobility AG following the publication of the preliminary financial figures of 2025. I'm delighted to welcome CEO Gottfried Neumeister and CFO Petra Preining, so they will guide us through the presentation and the results shortly. Having said that, let's start.
When you feel like giving up, don't. When you're thinking about giving up, don't. When it looks like you ain't going to make it, keep going. When they tell you you can't, come on, man, who are they? If you go down, get back up. If you feel pain, tell yourself there is no pain. The only pain that exists is the pain of defeat. Today, we will not be defeated. If your opponent is tough, you must be tougher. Today, we make it count. Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity, everything you ever wanted.
So good morning, good afternoon, and good evening to the world. This is Gottfried Neumeister. I'm really excited and pleased to be able to speak to all of you. Thank you for your interest in joining us for the preliminary key figures of 2025, which we are about to disclose to you. I would like to lead your attention to the presentation, which we are sharing, and which will also be then shared and published on our homepage. We have, in the usual ways, staggered it with a presentation by the management board, followed by a Q&A session afterwards. So first, I would like to give you an overview of where we are, what has happened during the last year, and we will go through it. First, the value proposition, then the ownership and the new setup. Thirdly, the turnaround, what has happened.
Of course, also our motorsport is a very important part of it. Then we will go through the achievements, the units, and lastly, the preliminary financials. Coming to the value proposition and how we stand today, we try to summarize in four bullet points. Number one is clearly the same focus as ever, with a very clear positioning of all our brands that we want to compete in the pinnacle of all motorcycle companies. So definitely, the positioning of our group has not changed. We're focusing on premium motorcycles. We have, during the last 12 months, sharply refocused our portfolio. We have streamlined our portfolio, and the turnaround is really in full swing and full progress. We have significantly reduced our inventory, which was one of the main factors of the crisis we had been through. This is really an important one.
It is not some romantic feelings of the past. We have had the most successful year in the history of our group in the racing segment. We won 29 titles. We are not a branded house. We are a house of brands. You see all three remaining brands. I will, in a second, explain to you how we've sharpened the portfolio. Those three are the remaining ones. On the top, KTM Ready to Race is not only our slogan. It's part of our DNA. It is exactly what others cannot deliver, that you can take our motorcycles out of any dealership and you're able to race with them, and you're not able to race, you're also able to win, as we've just seen in the recent weeks.
Husqvarna for Pioneers, it is very dynamic, pure in design, a different atmosphere, but nevertheless, especially in the off-road, Husky is a very, very strong brand in the U.S. and also in Australia. And then GASGAS, our young, vibrant brand, touching on really the youngsters. The strategic pillars going forward, I think this is really important, and I've said it before. It is not about making volumes. First, we want to really make this company profitable again before we really start growing it. The premium focus, I've mentioned more than ever, we try to really take a different approach. Happy to answer any question you might have. Also, in terms of recalls, this is a very clear, offensive strategy that we will, other than in the past, really proactively deal with anything quality-related. We want to build up the trust, and therefore we are proactively acting.
Service, our excellence, this is something which we want to embed in the future and really increase the standing of the service element, the customer service, the customer support as a key differentiator. I think we will face in the future even more competition from different parts of the world. I think the one thing which most times money cannot buy for is an attitude thing. Others will be able to really sell cheaper motorcycles, but if you get the spare parts, if someone is answering the phone when you have an issue and how truly you're dealing with your customers and the service element will clearly be fostered in the future. As I said in the beginning, for us, we focus on profitability and value creation, and then we look for the volumes. A little bit about our ownership and the new setup.
We have, luckily, really for us, in May received an aid through Bajaj, EUR 800 million to pay off on one hand our old existing debt. We used EUR 600 million of the EUR 800 million to pay off our debt, and we were able to get EUR 200 million more to really recover and start the production of our company again. And this really followed in November by the best possible outcome, having Bajaj Auto as our new main and majority shareholder, going up to 74.9% in November. As a result, the company was also renamed at the beginning of this year to Bajaj Mobility AG. I think this is one of the greatest commitments to also have Bajaj in the holding company, the name of a company which is listed itself in India and which we will touch upon in a second.
For me, it's about stability and continuation of a very successful long partnership, which is there since 18 years. This means continuity and, as I said, a very welcome outcome out of this difficult situation we've been in. Bajaj itself is the number one three-wheeler maker in the world. They have a leadership in more than 40 countries and being present in more than 100. The largest electric vehicle company, I mean, there are so many superlatives to Bajaj. We also are showing some of the revenues that you get a feeling for those of you who are not as familiar with the company. Bajaj Auto is selling more than 4.7 million vehicles a year, has an incredible industry leading margin of 20%. You see it yourself, an annual revenue of EUR 4.5 billion with an EBITDA of close to EUR 1 billion.
So a very strong partner which has teamed up with us, a debt-free partner who is really giving us the necessary help to survive and who is giving us now the backup which we need to really even recover faster than we have anticipated. A little bit about the turnaround, what's happening. So the headline for the turnaround is simplification and focus. We have throughout the year, yeah, got rid of several past businesses. Number one, the X-BOW, which was a car manufacturing, but we sold only 17 cars, and we clearly decided to focus on our core segment on the motorcycles. Therefore, we got rid of X-BOW. We got rid of MV Agusta. We sold or went down the complete bicycle business, which costed us more than EUR 400 million in the past. So also very successfully done. And we have stopped to sell CFMOTO within Europe.
We had the distribution for CFMOTO in Europe, but to focus on our three brands, it was absolutely necessary to cut away any distraction, anything which is not core. And those were very important steps during the last 12 months. We have resumed our production in July 25. It was July 29, so really in the middle of the summer after being closed for more than six months. And yeah, it went well. It was a very bumpy road because we have started our year with almost all suppliers asking for prepayments. So managing the working capital throughout the year, managing the reduction of the inventory levels, which have declined, was a very, very important task.
Also, the spare parts availability as we were coming out of the insolvency to really provide the necessary cash is one thing, but to really place those orders and get those deliveries in was clearly another one. But those were, as I said, really big achievements which gave us the confidence. And the biggest confidence came from the second half of the year where, and you will see it later, where our sales levels have increased by 60%. So really the demand is strong and it's coming back. But as I said, I will touch upon it in a second. If we go to the next slide, you see the development of our employees over the last couple of years reaching peak times more than 6,000. At the end of 2025, we had 3,782 employees.
We have, at the beginning of January, announced another restructuring program, and we have announced that we are reducing our workforce by another 500 white-collar employees around the world. This is something which, yeah, has already started, and this is part of our Phoenix restructuring program. As I told you, for me, the most important one and for the company is how well our products are received. We have really an incredible lineup of new motorcycles, which we started once we resumed production. The first motorcycle, new motorcycle, was only launched in November. The first one, it's the KTM 990 RC R. In the meantime, we have now won numerous tests, even against Ducati Panigale V2, or the Yamaha R9. So our new motorcycles are well received on the market. It's not only the 990.
Also, the 990 Duke R has just recently won against four contenders, but also the Super Adventure, the 390 Adventure R, and the 390 Enduro R, which are coming from India, are incredibly well received. We are entering a new class with them, which we haven't had. And therefore, really good and great to see that despite the noise, we really have managed to keep really the trust of our loyal customers and also the dealers.
And this slide should just give you a reflection of how those motorcycles are received. I've mentioned before the motorsport we have last year, and please allow us because it's really about emotions, and you need to feel it other than just see it on a slide. As I said before, we had the most successful season in the history of our group in 2025, winning 29 championship titles in all those classes which you see below.
2025, an exceptional year. 16 champions, 28 titles overall. But numbers only tell a part of the story. Because real champions don't flinch when the pressure rises. They train harder, push further, and break through every limit. This isn't just racing. It's a relentless pursuit of greatness. This is our DNA.
Racing is our DNA, and luckily it's not only 2025. If you have followed the news of 2026 and what we have achieved now in January, only the first couple of weeks, we won the first two Supercross races in front of 75,000 people in the stadium in Anaheim and San Diego. We were also able to win the Dakar Rally now for the 20th time.
There is no one who has been more successful than KTM in the Dakar Rally. So coming back a little bit to numbers and our performance, we're showing you here our market development. Of course, this is a little bit, not a little bit, but heavily influenced by the insolvency and us being away from the market and being away from production for almost nine months in total. If we take the last quarter of 2024, our relevant market in that time grew by 7.8%. We're very transparently showing how we have performed. KTM group, -27.4%. KTM -28%, Husqvarna -27%, and GASGAS -19%. As I said, a reflection of our previous year. Here you see a breakdown where we sold our motorcycles. And I think this is, again, a big achievement that we have managed to keep the retail at an incredible high level.
272,000 motorcycles were sold to end customers last year. If you look to wholesale, 209,000, this was intentionally because we said part of the restructuring is that we need to have the patience and we need to be brave enough not to sell in to allow the market to recover. We have managed to clear out really substantial inventories, which I will show you in the last slide or in one of the next couple of slides. This shows you, as I said, our wholesale and retails and how they have spread across the globe. Here you see the development because we wanted to give you really a deeper insight how it's developed, what I told you before, first half of the year and second half of the year. Global sales are the ones which we are making out of Mattighofen.
We have also our sales out of India, which then total up to the 209,000. But if you look to the global sales, so 50,000 units in the first half year and 80,000 in the second half year, so 60% more, there is a clear positive momentum and a recovery, as I said, then leading up to 130,000 in total. And we've managed to reach, I mean, normally I would never mention it because with revenue, you cannot buy something. But despite really all these negative noises, despite all the obstacles and being closed for such a long time, reaching EUR 1 billion of revenue is still also an achievement of our sales team. Here you see an overview where we produced the units which we have sold.
So 48,000 of those units were produced in Mattighofen, and we have roughly 120,000 that have been produced in India, 8,700 in China. We had also up until October a production in Spain. So that was also one of the restructuring measures to close down the production in Spain and shift it to Austria. And the production in Italy was at that time for a couple of months in the MV Agusta, which was, as I said, part of the company at the beginning of the year, leading up to a total of close to 180,000 vehicles. As I said, most importantly was to keep it below the retails to allow the market to recover. And this is what we see here on the next slide, a little bit historic explanation why we came to that crisis. If you look to the dark orange, these are the wholesales.
So what we are selling to our dealers and the retails is the amount which the dealers are selling to end customers. And if you look to 2019 and 2020 and 2021, the retails, especially during Corona, they picked up. There was more demand, and we had adjusted our production and accordingly the wholesales. But in 2021, for the first time, retails were lower than the wholesales. This continued to be in 2022, a drastic drop, and also in 2023. And wholesales were kept stable in 2022 and 2023 for two years. And this led to the really high inventory of 270,000 motorcycles in peak times, which we had ahead of us. We immediately jumped on the brakes in the last quarter of 2024.
Before going into the insolvency proceeding, this is what you see in the bars of 2024, that wholesales were then stopped, where luckily, and this was really the important thing, retails continued to be at a high level. In 2025, we managed to really keep the retails at still a high level, as I just showed you, but substantially reduced the inventory by dropping the wholesales. This is how we have developed so far. This led to a total stock reduction of more than 100,000 units. Out of the 248,000 which we had at the end of 2024, not everything was a bad stock because we need to have a certain stock levels to operate in Australia, in the U.S., because there will be always motorcycles on ships in transit or at dealers.
But I would say roughly 140,000 was a bad stock which we had at the beginning of 2025. And out of this 140,000, we managed to reduce now roughly 101,000. We are planning to reduce that in Q1 of 2026 by another 26,000. So we are really back on track to recover. There is, of course, a lot still to do, and we will touch upon it for sure later also in the Q&As. But we are really clearly going into the right direction. Just important questions which we assume to have received even before, how did it affect our dealers? Our dealers is one of our most important assets which we have compared to other competitors around the world. You see 4,794 dealers was the number at the end of 2024. This had roughly 220 CFMOTO dealers and 200 MV Agusta dealers.
So if I take this number out, you can see that really the number of dealers which either we terminated or which terminated with us was a relatively small number. So the big fear which was out there in 2025 that there would be a lot of dealers resigning and not believing in us has luckily, and I need to knock on wood, not happened. And this remains really a very strong asset of our group. So I would now hand over to Petra to lead you to the key financials. We will, yeah, issue our audited financial statements in a couple of weeks. So it is limited key figures, but Petra will guide you through them now.
Thank you very much, Gottfried, and a very warm welcome also from my side. As you might have read, I'm the new kid on the block. I've started with KTM in September 2025, and I'm very proud and pleased to present the preliminary financials of 2025 to you today. As Gottfried has said, it was a very difficult year for KTM, without any doubt. Nevertheless, a little bit above EUR 1 billion in revenues is a big success.
On the graph, you can see we've split it into half year one and half year two. You also see the increase we have been able to achieve in the second half. One distraction throughout all the numbers which I present to you today is, of course, the restructuring gain of roughly EUR 1.2 billion, to be precise, EUR 1.193 billion, which you can see, of course, in the P&L, in the cash flow, in the balance sheet. So it's all over the place. Therefore, we have also decided to show you how we have been doing operationally without the EUR 1.193 billion of restructuring gain.
With that restructuring gain, the company has achieved an EBITDA of EUR 874 million, an EBIT of EUR 748 million, and a profit before tax of EUR 663 million, leading into net profit of a little shy of EUR 600 million. The margins, I think we can disregard because, as I said, they are distorted by the restructuring gain. We have managed to achieve those numbers with a significant reduced headcount of roughly 30%, leading to 3,782 headcounts worldwide. Adjusted, however, if you compare apples to apples, if you like, then an EBITDA, an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 319 million, are comparable to EUR 481 million in the year 2024. So you can see that the company has significantly also been very humble because the number is negative, been able to improve the situation.
Please take account of that this has been achieved even though the top line has been reduced by 46%. Therefore, a lot has been done on restructuring and getting cost out. As Gottfried has already elaborated to you, coming back to what our DNA is, we design, we produce, and we sell motorcycles. Over the page, just for reference, the Pierer Group in 2025 had as a business segment motorcycles, the bicycles, which is, as you can see from the number in the wind-down phase already. Then, of course, also others that are basically the holding of Pierer itself. Coming to the balance sheet, what we see is a significant reduction in the balance sheet itself, roughly 34%, coming down from EUR 2.396 billion to EUR 1.586 billion.
So a reduction of EUR 810 million, basically coming out of the debt side, which doesn't come as a surprise to you as we have been in insolvency. We spoke about the restructuring gain already. In a nutshell, the debt has been, sorry, Christine, in a nutshell, the debt we have managed to reduce based on the back of the quote by half. So from EUR 1.6 billion to a little shy of EUR 800 million is our net debt. That has as a consequence, based on the very high EBITDA, a net debt of 0.9x and an equity ratio of 24.3%. So on the very important KPIs, we have managed the turnaround very, very nicely and will do so forward-looking.
Lastly, I also want to share a glimpse on the free cash flow, where you can see the net profit of EUR 590 million coming down to a free cash flow of -EUR 34 million. Again, being very humble, the second half being way better than the first half, leading to a ±EUR 4 million +, so almost black zero. This is clearly our main focus area for the year 2026 to regain profitability and to regain liquidity in the sense of free cash flow. We are working very hard. As you might have read recently, we have announced that we will let go of 500 colleagues. This is not coming out of the restructuring, but this is a consequence of geopolitical and macroeconomic situation of the world.
We want to have KTM positioned very resilient, forward-looking to be prepared, firstly, for a profitable future, but also to be prepared for any potential headwinds ahead of us. With that, I come to an end of my part of the presentation, and I would hand back to the operator to take your Q&As.
Thank you so much for the presentation and the insights. So, ladies and gentlemen, we're now happy to take your questions. So if you would like to speak directly to the management, just raise your virtual hand. And if you have dialed in via phone, unfortunately, it's not possible to ask questions, but you can also submit questions in the Q&A section. And we received the first question from Mr. Hesse. So he would like to know, "I'd like to understand if retail levels have been normalized and what kind of growth we should anticipate for the next couple of years. When can we expect volumes to return to 2023 levels?"
So thank you, Mr. Hesse, for your question. As I said before, we don't put the growth target in first place. For us, it is really gaining and coming back to profitability in first place. So the overall goal for 2026 is to have a very strong and positive free cash flow. We are fighting hard to really get our cost under control. And this is what we have also said in the ad hoc statement. We have said that we are planning to significantly increase our sales and consequently also the revenues. This is what we've stated.
At the moment, coming out of insolvency, we're not able to give really a guidance yet. Let's see how the next quarters are performing. Hopefully, you can hear that we are confident. This is why I said before, for me, the most important one was that the retail levels really were kept at a very high level despite not being able to have new products on the market. This had really an incredible effect because you cannot always incentivize someone with a discount to buy an old motorcycle. We clearly lost potential not having new motorcycles available and on the market. We started at the end of July, so some of them were only available in November when it started to get foggy and where it's misty and now cold since a couple of months in large parts of the world.
Therefore, achieving those retails and now having new products on the market, which are well received, which now dealers are calling and say, "Gottfried, for the first time, we're selling without a discount. We're selling at sticker price." Those are, for me, the most important news. Yes, we had to work with discounts to work off the large inventory, but neither KTM, Husqvarna, or GASGAS have ever been a discount brand. It was always a premium brand where we were selling through performance rather than through price. This is what we want to keep. Intentionally, also in 2026, we're keeping our volumes lower than retail levels. We, of course, will closely follow the retail trend, and as much as we can increase then our production, we will do so to follow it.
But we are, as I said, we are optimistic despite the global recession fears, everything what's going on with tariffs in the markets. We've seen our low levels in 2025, and we are definitely planning to outperform the market growth. So the market growth rate is, for us, not a reference because that was also affected by our reduction. So definitely, we have the ambition to grow faster than the global motorcycling market in 2026. And this is, unfortunately, as much as I can tell you and guide you and give you a feeling of how we will really develop during the next year.
All right. Thank you so much. Another question. And on profitability, when can we expect the company to return to its historically 8%-10% EBIT margin?
Similar question we said in, or I said also in previous statements that 2026 will not be possible. As I just said, we keep still a one-shift production here in Austria. We're still eyeing those wholesales and, as I said, being patient and brave enough not to sell in more for 2027. We said for the first time, I think we can expect to see another big improvement in terms of profitability.
And the years to come should definitely have the ambition to meet the historic margins, if not better and higher ones. I tried to show you how really streamlined the company is already today. We're really focusing on our core. We're getting rid of unnecessary external warehouses, everything. If you see 15 years of growth, that's very normal that you're, of course, building up. But I can tell you that we're now really reshaping and resizing the company to a different level. Therefore, both Petra and myself are very ambitious to also then drive future profitability.
Thank you so much. The next question. Lastly, on cash, is the company happy with the current cash levels to navigate the current reconstruction, or is there a risk of further capital raises?
To have really a different play, I would hand over this question to Petra.
Thank you very much, Gottfried. Indeed, a very good question because, as I said, profitability and liquidity, so EBIT and free cash flow are the two KPIs we very, very closely monitor to see at least what we have been managed. This gives you a bit of a translation of our situation. We have been managed to set up our factoring line. Again, we have managed to get a working capital line up and running.
So we are now on a good path, on a solid path, forward-looking. There is another, as you will know for sure, there's another big ticket coming ahead of us to be refinanced latest in May. We make very good progress on this one as well. And I'm confident that we can share with you in the upcoming weeks and months also good news on that end. So asking me, of course, more cash is always better. Are we well equipped? Absolutely, yes.
All right. Thank you so much. And then Bajaj now holds around 75% of the shares. Is there a plan or expectation of a placing at some point to improve liquidity?
This is a question which only Bajaj could really answer. I can tell you that there is nothing on the table at the moment or off the table because really the main focus is to restructure the company at a fast pace to show how strong we are, how strong our brands are performing. And then, as I said, that's the first priority. There is nothing planned.
All right. Thank you. And by now, there is the last question from Mr. Hesse. So, ladies and gentlemen, please feel invited to ask further questions if you may have. What restructuring measures processes are being put in place to better align product wholesales and retail sales in order to hinder a similar outcome to what happened in 2024?
So we have not only weekly, but most importantly, monthly business meetings. We call it S&OP, where sales, production, and marketing were together in one room looking at the retail levels. As I said, we have set the production levels in first place for this year lower than we expect retails not to even run behind, and we are able to really adjust it if needed. The good thing is, and this is what I've mentioned before, it's not only us here in Austria. We have really a super strong partner in India.
We have also a joint venture in China. So if the market would recover even faster, then we're able to breathe with our two international production partners. For here in Austria, we definitely are planning to keep a one-shift model to have it very efficient, not to go in a more expensive second shift, but squeeze out as much as possible out of this one shift. This will be the highest number the company has ever produced in one shift out of Austria. So that's set.
And if we can really increase, then we would only do so if the retail levels are really picking up more than anticipated. As I said, we watched them, and we are clearly setting ourselves and keeping that goal to leave wholesales below retails for 2026. In 2027, of course, and 2028 going forward, those two should be aligned, and there should not be a big difference between them. But that's definitely a lesson learned from the past.
Thank you so much for answering. By now, we have not received further virtual hand, but we receive a question in the Q&A section from Mr. van den Hoeven. Are there any one-off costs needed for the reduction of 500 staff in 2026?
Yes, there will be one-off costs. At the moment, we have really a good dialogue with our union partners and the authorities because we have done this exercise a year ago. I can only say it's a very constructive dialogue. We will be soon, hopefully, able in the next couple of days already to announce the outcome, but we have factored it in our budget. There will be one-offs, but we don't expect them to. Yeah. So they are factored in, and let's wait up until we can really communicate how much it will be.
Thank you. So.
Hello. Ms. Malloch, if I can just ask you, are we sure that we are receiving all the questions, not only the virtual, which are written? Usually, we expect that someone would also ask over the phone. So please make sure that we are capturing. Absolutely. The whole audience.
If there are still questions, just let us know. But by now, it seems we're at the end.
Okay. Then really, Petra and I would like to say again, thank you for joining. Thank you for your interest. We will for sure keep you posted with more positive news flow in the upcoming months and keep you posted about the progress which we're doing. Happy to hear you and see you also in the coming months, maybe at one or the other investor relations conference or at a call. As always, you can reach out to our IR at Bajaj Mobility email address or the phone number if you want to have a one-on-one session or a detailed one. We're happy to pencil them in. Again, thank you very much and goodbye. Good night.
Thank you very much.