Good morning everybody, here to the publication of our first half-year results of Palfinger AG. First of all, let's go to slide number one. Who are we and where do we stand. I mean, it's clear that Palfinger is the global market leader with huge growth and earnings potential. Why is Palfinger so unique and special. We will explain it a little bit better here in our equity story. First of all, Palfinger is clearly the market leader, a market leader who adds value to our customers every
This means this value creation we are consistently implementing in our business. Topic number three, the growth. I think here clearly what you can see as well later on in the presentation of Felix Strohbichler and in the revenue spread, we have a huge momentum in Europe, a focus on growth markets like North America, APAC, and as well the marine business including the service segment. Number four, the earnings potential. There is a huge potential we see by further increasing our profitability through digitalization, standardization, and as well to further optimize our footprint. If you go to the next slide, I think most of you have seen this already, no doubt. Palfinger is clearly the global leader with unmatched coverage. This means the market leader on crane and lifting solutions. 2024, just to remind you, we managed to get the revenue of more than EUR 2.3 billion.
We are present in all the regions globally. We’re providing maximum customer support close to our customers, customer proximity, and we have a strong and solid global team with around 12,000 employees. I think all these factors and facts are clearly underlining why Palfinger is that strong, why we are the global leader in crane and lifting solutions. On the right-hand side, you’ll see a little bit further information on revenue spread, always around 25%-27% in North America, EMEA below 60%, mostly driven by the core markets like Germany, France, and the Baltics. If you go to the next slide, clearly to be said here that we managed to achieve our forecast in terms of financial results. We have plans in the first half of 2025.
The order intake, we are running on a higher rate compared to what we have seen last year since Q1 2024, so the order intake became stronger. We also managed to increase our output, so quite important here that we are not losing flexibility in terms of adjusting our capacity. I think this was also a concern of some of the people attending this call. How flexible is Palfinger. How can we manage when the market is coming back. Last but not least, a strong focus on our sales and service strategy. Just to mention a couple of activities we have, we opened and we started to provide the service hub in Madrid with construction work. We opened Duisburg and as well we are heavily localizing the marine activities in Singapore.
Last but not least, in a nutshell here, we are targeting roughly $700 million revenue in 2023, sorry, 2030, by doubling our business on the service side. I think this has a huge potential, which will be further explained in our strategy where we’ll come back at the end of this presentation. What does it mean in terms of focus on the regions. It turns out that we managed to be quite successfully implementing the strategy in the region for the region. It’s not only a slogan because it sounds nice; it became a reality at Palfinger. Considering the top-selling product in the United States, which is clearly the loader crane, the service crane, tail lifts, and the area working platforms, we managed as well quite well to overcome the impact in terms of tariffs, which we have seen under the Trump administration.
This is still resulting in a quite volatile demand, but we can deal with it quite well. What did we do. First of all, we implemented a task force to deal with it. We made sure that we further create value in the region for the region. We made a further adjustment of the supply streams, and we managed as well to overcome the impact by price increases because even the situation for our major and main competitors is different and it’s even more difficult. Out of the headquarter in Schaumburg, in addition, we will open up here our spare parts hub close to our headquarters as well to further grow in supply in terms of service and parts business.
If you go to the next slide, and I think this was already shown now several times, but that’s one of the reasons why we are still quite successful in a difficult environment, and why it has clearly proven that our resilience helps us in these states to still be successful and quite widespread in terms of different industries. If it’s forestry, if it is private housing, which maybe can slightly go back, but we can overcome it in other areas, the marine business, which is further growing, all these elements are quite heavily contributing to the overall results and to the success of something. If you go to the next slide again, here, the confirmation of our product portfolio as well, there’s nothing new. What all these products are having in common, they are supported by digital solutions provided and developed by Palfinger.
This leads me now to see and further look into the numbers, and I’m handing over here to our CFO, to Felix Strohbichler. Please, Felix.
Thank you, Andreas. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Let me remind you that we are reporting our numbers in three segments. The first segment is the sales and service, which comprises all the activities we do in terms of sales and service, including spare parts. On page number 10, you can see per region how the development has been in the first quarter, and globally, we could say that overall we have seen a rather stable development, but it was overall positive because there was no region really bad. In EMEA, we have seen a higher order intake compared to the previous year, even if all the investment initiatives which are on the horizon have not yet come into effect.
In North America, we have the tariff conflict, and still the order intake in the NAM region is developing positively, not on the level we hoped for, but still it’s trending in the right direction. The LatAm region was also stable during the first half year. APAC has been positive again, positive order development, especially in India, which is a very important growth market and where we’re going to invest in the recent effect to read in the near future. Last but not least, as Andreas mentioned, marine continues to grow, is a very important contributor not only in terms of revenue, but especially also in terms of profitability. What does this mean in terms of numbers. On the next page, you can see that the external revenue has been almost stable. It’s like the kind of 2%. Profitability went down by almost 15% to EUR 104.5 million.
The reason for this is mainly a change in mix compared to the previous year. There was more of a reduction for loader cranes, for example, and things like recycling cranes in EMEA, which was compensated to a certain extent by other products in other regions, but this led to a negative mix effect. What is great to see is that the order book again is above EUR 1 billion. This is a very solid starting point for the second half year, and the service business share could be further increased to almost 19% in the first half year. Coming now to the segment operations, which includes all the manufacturing and assembly activities of Palfinger and also manufacturing for third parties. On page number 13, it’s already mentioned in the first line that production for third parties has been negatively impacted by the economic environment in Europe.
This is still difficult in many industries, and of course, this is also an impact on our activities for other OEMs. In EMEA, we had already the luxury problem that we have to increase our capacity due to the good order intake development in EMEA. In North America, we have to increase in some lower capacity utilization due to the fact that the tariff policy leads to some lower order intake in certain product groups. In Latin America, we have to expand our capacity due to the high order intake. In Brazil, Argentina is still on a low level, but stable. In APAC, it’s worth mentioning that we see a certain improvement now of the situation.
The trade pressure that is running in China is not fully consolidated at the moment, also not contributing to the bottom line, but I think it’s important to mention that we see now some slight recovery on the Chinese market. Last but not least, marine, not only sales are good in marine and service, but also the capacity utilization of our plants in Asia is on a very good level, especially regarding boats and here, especially regarding cruise boats. What does this mean in terms of numbers. Of course, the performance of the segment operations is impacted by the lower capacity utilization. The first time you see the external revenue reflect in the activities for third parties. Obviously, this is quite a dramatic decline compared to the previous years, but we expect here a recovery, hopefully with the recovery of the European economy overall.
In terms of EBIT, of course, the lower utilization led to a decline here to EUR 9 million of EBIT. Coming then to the segment other non-reportable segments, which includes on the one hand the tariff business and on the other hand the holding activities or strategic initiatives for the group, which are reported here in this segment. The external revenue side on page number 16 is reflecting the tariff numbers, and obviously, the environment for tariffs, especially in the U.S. and in Germany, is very difficult at the moment, and this led to this decline in revenue. You see an improvement on the one hand. This is mainly linked to some cost allocation also of projects, strategic initiatives. In the end, we could say that this is rather stable.
Also, the tariff business is more or less stable at the zero level, but unfortunately at the moment because the kind of revenue is not adding something to the bottom line. If you then go to the group numbers, first of all, I would like to mention it’s no surprise because everything is as guided already in the first quarter. You can see on slide number 18 a slight decline in revenue of 3% to EUR 1.14 billion. EBIT has declined by 19.4% to EUR 19.4 million, which is an EBIT margin of 7.9%, which leads to a consolidated net result of EUR 50.1 million. This has been forecasted, and we are still significantly below the previous year. As you can hear in our guidance, we do expect here a compensation out of the year.
Coming then to our balance sheet KPIs, first of all, equity has further increased to almost EUR 770 million, which represents an equity ratio of 36.2%, which is very healthy. If one day we would set out treasury shares, it would even reach an equity ratio of close to 40%. Net debt is still on a much better level, and it’s expected to further improve at EUR 688 million, which is leading to a gain of 89.6%. Last but not least, cash flow statement on page number 20. If you compare the free cash flow of the first six months with the free cash flow of the first six months of last year, you can see a huge delta of EUR 50 million.
This will not add just EUR 50 million to the free cash flow of last year because we had a very strong finish last year, but still we are fully on track to reach our target of EUR 100 million of free cash flow for the full year. This is the target we have set ourselves, and we’ve already a better number for the first half year compared to the previous year. You can see that this is absolutely feasible and realistic. On the next slide, I would like to remind you of our COP announcement in April that we started the evaluation of a private placement of our treasury shares amounting to around 2.8 million shares. As you all know, and I have communicated also the planned use of proceeds, it’s mainly for expansion of service structures, mainly in North America, but also in EMEA.
We are also planning to invest more in our defense business, and what is an additional effect, not only that we can pull forward investment projects which support our strategy, which will be communicated later this year, but it also helps us to increase the free float, the liquidity of our share, and of course, this will also dramatically increase the chance of an inclusion into the ATX. We are still evaluating this potential sale of treasury shares. The share price is obviously on a tracking level. Let’s see what the future brings. On the next page, you’ll see here the share price development in the first half year. Starting from January 1 till today, we have around 100% of performance. We have a USD 200 million stock exchange in terms of year-to-date performance.
What is very important for us as well, especially considering our plan to get into the APAC, we are now amongst the top 20 in terms of liquidity year to date. With this, I would like to hand over back to Andreas for the outlook.
Yeah, thank you, Felix. To the outlook, if we look here, what can we expect. What are our plans. I think it’s important that you have a better understanding, let’s say, of the background of the global investments which we are expecting and which are exceeding more than USD 2 trillion. What we are considering here is, and very well known for the Europeans, the fiscal package in Germany, the rearmament in the defense business here, quite important on the defense side, so that we will further establish a strong and solid protection for Europe, then invest in Europe, repowering. This means the sustainable infrastructure projects which we are seeing, and as well the U.S. target projects. All this together amounts to more than USD 2 trillion. This is the backbone of our expectations as well for the further growth of Palfinger.
The good thing is, all in common, all these different areas, Palfinger products are required and a solid contributor to the growth of our customers and of the people who are using our equipment. I think this is quite important. This is not just a vision and a dream somebody had in a war room. It’s more about that. These are figures which will give us and provide us further tailwind. As well, and this is now talking more about 2025, we can offset the decline in revenue and EBIT, which we have seen so far in the second half of the year. Why. First of all, we see a clear further recovery here in the European and U.S. markets, where we see a further increase and where we have as well the capacity adjusted. This means we can deal with the requirements.
As already mentioned, we are targeting for the second half of 2025 a further recovery. What does this mean overall for Palfinger now looking towards 2027. I think it’s clear here, the commitment of Palfinger, of the management team, of the board, everybody in the room, our financial targets for 2027, the revenue of USD 2.7 billion, 10% in terms of EBIT margin, and 12% in gross. The good news is as well that you will soon get an invitation for our Capital Markets Day in October, October 10 here in Vienna, where we’ll show the new group strategy, but as well the ambitious financial targets for 2027. I think this is very important, and all of you should participate there to see what’s coming, what’s coming next, to see our plans. As I said, this is not a vision, not a dream, not a strategy. It’s a clear plan behind.
I really kindly invite you to join us to see more about it and to understand better what the plans of Palfinger are. This concludes our presentation, and I’m handing over now back to the operator. Thank you for your attentionz.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on your telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to move yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. You have the first question coming from the line of Marcus Ramis from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Chant. A couple of questions, please. The first one relates to the order intake development. If I do the math and calculate the order intake in the second quarter, it was just over EUR 500 million, which is below the EUR 560 million that you’ve generated in the fourth quarter and in the first quarter. Can you help me understand the sequential dynamics. Why Q2 order intake is still up year on year, but below the fourth and first quarter.
Actually, it’s true that if you look at the total of the first half year, we had a higher order intake, but it’s not equally spread amongst months. There are some months which are stronger than the others. In fact, two of the stronger months were in the first quarter, but also in the second quarter, we have seen a strong month. It’s not that it’s equally spread out. There is also a surplus in energy behind. You should rather compare six months against six months, quarter by quarter sometimes, because if you have a large order coming in, it may change the order intake number of a quarter quite significantly. What is important is if you compare the first six months, in five out of the six first months, we had a substantially higher order intake than in the respective months of the previous year.
All right. Okay. It’s more of a kind of booking date when certain orders were digested in the order intake rather than a change in dynamics. Staying with the order book, the service share increased nicely, now to close to 19%. Is that just a reflection of the growth in the marine business, or is it also the truck crane service share growing.
In general, our service coverage further increased as well. Now we are opening the spare parts hub in the United States. I think we are coming closer to our customers. This is as well resulting in bigger growth, not only on the marine side, in bigger growth as well on the land business in terms of service and parts activities.
Okay. Turning to the United States, I would be curious to get the sense about the price increases that you’ve talked about in the presentation. Are you able to fully pass on. I think it’s like 25%. It changes so quickly. Maybe you can confirm that for your products, it’s still 25%.
Yeah. As we mentioned, we have these adjustments and this potential for us, and we can deal with it. The simple reason is we established a task force daily monitoring what’s the case, and maybe we postpone invoicing a couple of days. On the other hand, our major competitors here, the European ones, are even in a worse condition because they have no industrial setup in the United States. We can better deal with it from a regional perspective. They as well have to pass the increased costs to our customers and to their customers. This means we can, I would say, 95% offset what’s still needed in terms of adjustment, not losing profitability.
Are these kind of price increases related to the tariffs. Is that already visible in the second quarter, or is that part of the reason why for the second half we will see a return to top-line growth.
The reason for a return to top-line growth is because this is nothing we anticipated when we made our guidance. The return to top-line growth is actually a capacity and output increases. Yes, the majority of the effect of the price increases will be visible in the second half year because first you have to make an offer, and then you have to invoice. Up to now, we had some impact, but we will fully see this in the second half year.
Okay. This means that actually there should be an add-on to the kind of budgeted revenue increase coming from the mechanical effect from tariffs. Is that fair.
In the end, we communicated that we believe that we can compensate for the decline in the second half year. This is not only true for profitability, but also for revenue. This will come from several sources. A smaller source is also the price increases in North America, but the main lever is actually output increases. You also have to consider that from the seasonality in the second half year, we had fewer working days. This is quite a steep increase in the second half year because of fewer working days, which is typically also a lower revenue.
On the other hand, the agreement between the United States, Mexico, and Canada is still in place. For some components we are assembling to loader cranes in Canada, this is also positively supported by the strategy and the agreements which are currently in place. Okay. One more question, if I may, regarding the free cash flow target. Can you break down the components of this more than USD 100 million. I would be especially curious to hear about the working capital development that you’ve baked in, in the second quarter, or if you can maybe outline the full-year effect. Is USD 140 million of CapEx still a viable assumption.
I think the 140 is probably rather on the high side, but not that far away from what we expect. If you look at the chart on page number 20, you can expect an improvement in the change in working capital line. We will see a deterioration, of course, in the CapEx line. We will compensate for some of the CapEx, which did not happen in the first year. Probably 140 is a little bit too high, but we’ll be not that far away from this number. A change in working capital may appear as a seasonality effect. Typically, we build up some inventories in the first months, actually in the first weeks of the year already, and then this goes down again towards year end. We will see a similar effect also this year.
The buildup was slower than last year, substantially slower than 2023, which was extraordinary and not normal. This year, we do expect even some extraordinary effect because we still have some units on stock we actually want to invoice until year end. In the end, despite the growth in top line and capacity and output in the second half year, we do expect a substantially better number in the change in working capital line than you can see out of the first half year.
Do you think it’s possible to generate a cash inflow from the working capital reduction, or is it something that will be prohibited by the expected growth also then going into 2024.
I think it will be eaten up to a larger extent or even fully, the output increase, but I would expect a number close to zero in this line.
Is there also an effect included from the disposal of non-core assets that you’ve pointed out on the last Capital Markets Day in this USD 100 million.
We are busy doing some smaller transactions, and eventually, there will be a little bit in there, but from today’s perspective, we expect less than EUR 5 million out of this. This is not.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you. I'll get back to the line.
Yeah.
The next question comes online of Daniel Lein from Erste Group. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks. Good morning. I would like to follow up a little bit on the tariff situation or the U.S. market in specific and how you deal with the situation. Is it also possible maybe you change the terms of supply agreements that you just supply to the border and the clients basically have to pay for the tariffs, how high they should be. Is it always the case that you need to adjust your pricing in order to reflect the tariff situation.
No, the day when we are invoicing as well, as I said, the task force is looking where do we sit, and if the variance, I would say, is more than 3, 4 points, then we are considering to make these adjustments immediately because the customer wants to know at the end of the day the price he has to pay for. The good thing, as I said, other competitors like I have in Fassi are even in a far worse situation because they have no local content, and as well the big portion of loader cranes, which comes out of Canada, which is still covered by the agreement, which is in place now, we can absorb this. This means we want to make sure that our customers are knowing the price, the retail enterprise when they are getting the equipment, and there is no surcharge afterwards.
On the other hand, yes, it’s mentioned in a separate line how much is coming from the tariffs if there are any. At the end of the day, we need to treat our customers properly. This is quite unique to Palfinger that there is nothing unexpected coming up because otherwise, the customer could say I decline getting the product.
This also means that this will have a negative impact on the deliveries in the second half year on the margin.
No, will not. I mean, as I said, 95% we can offset. There is still a bit of a variance, but it goes in both directions. For all the local content which we have on the service cranes, the tail lifts, area working platforms, these are 100% produced, manufactured, and handled in the United States.
Okay.
Whatever is a potential remaining cost is factored in our guidance.
Okay. Understood. Also related to inventory, are inventory levels for the U.S. products, are those located in the U.S.
No, the units which are sitting in the U.S. are always related to the time when they touch the ground in the United States. Everything that was shipped in the last couple of months, and when there were no tariffs put in place, there are no tariffs. When I'm invoicing, for example, a truck-mounted forklift which we bought toward the end of the year for the bigger deals that we are supplying, there are no tariffs at all.
Good. Also related to the U.S., the FX development — do we have any figures on the impact of FX on order intake, revenue, and EBIT in the first half year or second quarter, especially?
We've also seen now the development of the U.S. dollar, and obviously, this had some impact because the invoicing in the U.S., now in terms of euros, is 10% less. Yeah. Of course, there is an impact. This is also where, if you look at the share of North American business in slide number four or so, which Andreas mentioned, you see a slight decrease of the revenue share of North America. This is also, to a certain extent, of course, a currency change.
Of course. This would also mean that you actually, when you calculate the order book, you recalculate it based on the current FX, right?
Absolutely.
That's--
The waterfall is waterfall in euros. I think it's the 30th of June, currency exchange rate.
This means that actually the decline in the intake is basically fully explained by the FX development of the U.S. dollar.
To a very large extent Calculate.
Okay. One question regarding the new spare parts hub in the United States. To what extent are you expecting this to change your figures in the second half year? Is there any impact, maybe from tariffs, or from lower costs, better margins?
Yeah, it's a mixed bag of the ingredients you mentioned. I think what’s very important is that our customers and dealers want to get easy access to spare parts. This is now one central hub in the Midwest, already in the middle of the United States. Both sides — East Coast and West Coast — can be properly supplied, I would say, within 24 hours. This means our dealers and customers are less likely to go for third-party supply of spare parts. They really dedicate and stick to the supply of original parts from Palfinger. This will bring a further boost to our business, and this boost will be partially shown toward the end of the year. The official opening will take place on September 15th this year. Still, for the remainder of the year, the spare parts are already sitting there.
We will see a positive impact to it.
Okay. Perfect. Thank you very much.
The next question comes online from Elias New [Analyst] (Kepler Cheuvreux). Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. Thanks for the time. I was just wondering if you could comment on the situation on the ground in the U.S. How has your business developed there? Are you seeing demand slowing, driven by the tariff uncertainty? Do you still expect to see growth in orders and sales for 2025 overall in the U.S.? What are your expectations there for the rest of the year?
In general, as I said, the circumstances play a little bit in favor of Palfinger because, out of the three plants we have in the United States and the one plant in Canada, we can easily deal with all the tariffs and all the requirements that were put in place by establishing the tariffs. I think this is one ingredient that works in our favor. Secondly, we can clearly see that we can gain share from our competitors because they can’t provide a certain kind of price, and they can’t provide equipment coming out of Europe covered by tariffs. Certainly, yes, there is always a certain uncertainty, and it’s volatile in the marketplace itself. We have sufficient inventory sitting on the ground and in transit to make sure that we can deal with it.
We will see a further positive trend towards the end of the year. Still, from the European side, believe it or not, the Americans are still quite happy with the Trump administration.
That’s very clear. Thank you. I was just wondering, as a sort of second question, you mentioned in the presentation that your tail lift segment is currently facing quite a tough environment. I was just wondering if you could comment on that. Secondly, how is the turnaround of the tail lift segment progressing, particularly with regard to profitability?
As also mentioned in the presentation, especially in the U.S., the logistics market and the truck market are massively under pressure. You can also hear this from truck manufacturers, and this is impacting us quite heavily. Germany, which is a very important market for us, is still quite low in terms of investments in logistic trucks. This is the situation in terms of markets. Hopefully, it improves, but I think what is required here is more stability. For example, California, which is a very important market for us because our main outlet and our assembly site for heavy lifts in the U.S. are also based in California, has uncertainty about the rules regarding e-trucks versus diesel-powered trucks. People are now waiting for CARB — what will be the outcome of those discussions?
There is a mixed bag of things, which unfortunately at the moment doesn’t help the market environment for tail lifts. As I mentioned, at the moment, we are at around zero EBIT, so it’s not adding profitability. Last year, we were already profitable, but with a decline in revenue of this extent, it’s difficult to achieve profitability. At the moment, we are relocating the American tail lift production to Mexico, and it falls under the USMCA agreement. This is not impacted by any tariffs, and it will help substantially improve our cost position. If the market comes back, we are in a very good position — also with the improved cost base — to clearly see the benefits of the restructuring and a very positive result from tail lifts. Unfortunately, we need some market; it’s a commodity product, and it’s volume-driven. With minus 20% in volume, it’s not possible for us to show the targeted results.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from the line of Jorge González Sadornil [Analyst] (Hauck Aufhäuser Investment Banking). Please go ahead.
Hello. Good morning, Andreas and Felix. A couple of questions from my side, please. The first one, just to put the backlog in context, could you remind me which share of the service revenue you normally include in the backlog for the next quarter, for instance?
Typically, the backlog consists of new products because, in service, we try to send spare parts within 48 hours. I think the backlog actually doesn’t matter here. If you look at the order book, consider it as an order book for new products. On the other hand, just to add here, in terms of our spare parts hub — like in the United States — our fill rate will go further up, I would say, beyond 95% to 97%. This means I can satisfy most of the customer requirements within 24 hours.
Okay. Thank you. This is also what is giving you confidence, I understand, for the second part of the year. The backlog is a little bit exposed to, obviously, the FX dynamics. For your slight growth year on year, the backlog at the current levels is still okay, I understand, in your view?
Luckily, as I said, all these six examples that we have used here are helping us. The German fiscal package, for example, has already triggered certain orders in the last couple of months, because you need to place the order now so that you have the product available when the investment comes. Let’s say the reconstruction of Ukraine — as you know, there are still projects ongoing. This might kick in next year, whenever the war is finished.
I think, if I understand your question correctly, it’s on the one hand about the projects Andreas mentioned, but we also said that we do expect a recovery in the second half of the year. This is not mainly based on the assumption that those projects would already massively kick in, but what we do expect is, first of all, at a certain point, more stability in the U.S., which should support the order intake in the U.S. On the other hand, in Europe, more confidence from customers will also help.
On the new investment in Madrid, I’m wondering how you see the housing market for the next couple of years in Europe. There is this view that there is a huge deficit of new buildings in general — for instance, in Spain. Is this one of the reasons to expand there, or is it more related to the current business, also connected to services and waste management? What is your main view on growth for countries like Spain or Italy in the coming years?
First of all, these economies are further recovering. I mean, Italy and Spain did their homework in the European Union, and this is now clearly visible. On the other hand, in terms of machinery and equipment that we’re supplying to Spain, we need the proper installations that go hand in hand with spare parts supply. If we have more equipment sitting on the ground and operating in the marketplace, we also need to supply more spare parts. This goes hand in hand.
Thank you very much. I'll go back to the line.
We have a follow-up question coming from the line of Marcus Ramis [Analyst] (ODDO BHF). Please go ahead.
Thank you. It’s actually two questions. Firstly, on the investments in the defense business — can you help us understand what you actually mean by investments in the defense business, and how you’re going to accelerate and expand your market share gains?
I think we are close to all the companies that are mainly dealing with defense business — not only on the European side but also, for example, in the United States. Here we are already receiving certain additional contracts related to logistics activities, such as in the Baltics. Matters like these, we can’t disclose for obvious reasons.
Pe Perhaps to elaborate a little bit on what the investment is about — of course, on the one hand, we can react to tenders; on the other hand, we can proactively develop products where we believe that in the future there will be demand on the defense side. This is actually what drives us to speed up our engagement with armed forces — to proactively spend money, be ready earlier, and provide solutions even before they are asked for.
Defense business will be a further important part of stabilizing the volumes because, as I said, these contracts have a minimum lead time of three to five years, some of them even seven years. Together with infrastructure projects that we are now seeing coming from Germany, we will have quite a solid and stable line in terms of providing equipment to the marketplace over the next few years.
Is that a business that usually comes with a higher share of service? Or would it?
Yeah — service, service, and as well, I think it’s quite a positive development for our profitability.
Sure. Okay. Last question regarding this 2027 margin target. I can see that consensus is actually pretty much at this USD 2.7 billion. The improvement from, say, around 8% in the current year to 10% — is that, from your point of view, something that will be more equally spread over the next two years, or should we reckon with a more back-end-loaded development?
I think really toward the end of the cycle — so 2027 — because, as I said, some of the major projects, both infrastructure and defense, are kicking in mostly within the next two years. This means 2026 and 2027.
All right, thank you very much.
Welcome.
Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Andreas Klauser for any closing remarks.
I I think it was quite an interesting conversation, and we really had significant questions that we could clarify and that also helped to shed more light on where we stand today and what is expected.