Ladies and gentlemen, we warmly welcome you to the H1 2026 results conference call and webcast of the SCHMID Group. I am pleased to welcome the CFO, Arthur Schuetz, and CSO, Roland Rettenmeier, who will guide us through the presentation shortly, after which we will move on to Q&A session. Before we begin, I would like to remind everyone that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of applicable securities laws. These statements are based on current expectations and assumptions and are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. Please refer to our filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, including our annual report on Form 20-F for a discussion of these risks and uncertainties. We undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements except as required by law.
In addition, today's discussion may include certain non-GAAP financial measures. Reconciliation to the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found in our earnings materials and filings. With that, I am handing over to you, Arthur.
Thank you, Mara, and good morning, good afternoon, everyone. I would like to start by giving you the headline picture of the first half of 2026. In short, this has been six months of significant transformation. We have repaired the balance sheet. Our cost program has been executed, and we are seeing real momentum in order intake. Let me walk through the four numbers that tell the story. EUR 33 million of new net capital was raised to our convertible and SEPA. EUR 31 million of debt was reduced through a debt-to-equity swap announced in May. EUR 4 million of fixed costs were taken out through our Sprint program. EUR 52 million of orders we saw in the last eight weeks. 2026 remains a transition year, but the foundation is now in place for a strong second half of 2026 and a promising 2027.
Let me now walk you through the P&L of the first half. First of all, the Q1 was a slow start. It tends to be seasonally weak, but it was weaker than expected. We have seen EUR 18.2 million revenues in Q1, which increased to EUR 27.8 million revenues in Q2. Out of this, equipment revenues was EUR 10.7 million in the first six months last year, which was a very weak half year, to EUR 39.4 million in H1 2026. Spare parts and services increased their revenues from EUR 5.9 million to EUR 6.4 million year-on-year. Our gross profit margin of 21.2% was lower than expected. This is partially just the lower scale, but then also a shift towards China, where we have slightly lower margins and which we expect to reverse in the second half to more German production-based revenues.
Our G&A expenses increased by more than EUR 3 million because of the Sprint restructuring, share-based compensation, and capital structure items. I will talk more about that on the next page. Other income and other expenses include about EUR 1.7 million foreign exchange losses. This was EUR 6.3 million gains in the first half of 2025. The financial results losses reflect the accounting treatment of the XJ Harbour liability, which we converted into shares in January, and to a lesser extent, also the fair value movement of the company's warrants. It also includes, for your information, about EUR 875,000 of interest on our debt. Let me move to the next page and walk you through how we get to our adjusted EBITDA. The adjustments include about EUR 420,000 of Sprint restructuring costs. Share-based compensation reflects 2026 and 2027 C-level awards for shares and options.
Under IFRS, these had to be recognized mostly in H1 of this year. Capital structure restructuring costs reflect the fact that we had two 20-F filings this year, this half year. We are still under the Nasdaq monitoring period, which means higher filing requirements until February 2027. We also had some costs that came with the debt-to-equity conversion. Let me now talk about our Sprint program. We concluded Sprint 1. We reduced headcount for full-time equivalents of more than 40 in our German overhead functions. Most of those departures will happen in Q3. We will have about restructuring costs, about EUR 700,000, of which, as I mentioned, EUR 400,000 was expensed in the first half.
This is mostly for paid leave, again, running into Q3 mostly, and then some small severance payments. The run rate has been achieved of about EUR 4 million expenses savings in labor costs, and this also reduces our fixed costs and lowers our break-even point. Now, we have started moving to the second phase of our Sprint program, which is a purchasing cost savings program. More than 50% of our total expenses are purchasing materials, and our target for savings are 5% of those purchasing expenses, at least 5%. As we now see a period of increasing volumes for purchasing, this is a good time to renegotiate terms and conditions. We think that most of those 5% minimum savings we can achieve by year-end. However, we also redesign some high-cost components and this design to cost will take us a bit of time and will be more something for 2027.
Let me then walk you through cash flow and working capital. We had EUR 29.3 million of operating cash outflow in H1, which was mostly the EUR 26 million of investments in our working capital. As you can see, we had negative working capital in December of last year, and we're now at about 14% of LTM sales by end of June. Now, medium term, we think we can reduce this back to more something like 10% or less. We also believe that the absolute amount of working capital is something that we can keep flat or reduce by year-end. We spent about EUR 800,000 on CapEx. We're typically running at EUR 1.5 million of annualized CapEx. Obviously, in the second half, we will start seeing some of the spending on the Chinese factory, which in total will be for around EUR 11 million, and this is land plus building.
It's not so much the machineries that we effectively have already. As I mentioned before, we raised about EUR 33 million to the convertible and the standby. That leads me to the balance sheet. We did a EUR 30.75 million debt-to-equity swap announced in May. This meant the total debt has been reduced from EUR 53 million to about EUR 23 million, which we believe is a sustainable level and also means that we actually now have some debt capacity and can fund some of our growth in debt rather than equity. Additionally, obviously we have this convertible, the Black Forest convertible, EUR 2.5 million that matures in March. Of the $30 million convertible issued in January, $11 million are remaining. We have $20 million convertible that was raised in July.
As part of the convertible financing, we now have additional debt capacity for China, as long as this is non-recourse to Germany subsidiary or to our TopCo. That means, for example, the Chinese factory can be financed on a non-recourse project base of debt. We can also raise additional working capital or bank loans up to the EUR 20 million level. The average cost of funding for our Chinese debt, the new debt, will be around 2.7%, so very attractive rates. Additionally, we still have $21 million of standby equity remaining. We have not drawn on that in the second half of this year, and are not intending to draw on this for the rest of the year. With that, I now hand over to Roland, who will give an operational update and talk about our order intake situation.
Thank you, Arthur. Let me give you an operational update. We executed well in the first half of 2026, and we also delivered one of our first InfinityLine H+ for 700 by 700mm panel-level packaging to a U.S.-based customer. In addition to that, to grow with our customer, we decided and started to consolidate and expand our Chinese manufacturing campus. We will move the currently leased two locations to one bigger SCHMID-owned manufacturing campus in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province, which is the same province as today. With this, we are consolidating our current operation and will double our production capacity in China. The total investment is about EUR 11 million, and the new facility is expected to be operational by Q4 2027. Our Malaysian facility is successfully established, up and running, and currently expanding to fulfill the demands of our growing key customer in this region.
Our order intake is accelerating. In our investor call in May, I've stated that Q1 was rather slow due to new factory planning of our flip-chip BGA substrate customer, and that I expected some momentum in the market through flip-chip BGA substrate capacity investments in the second half of 2026. We already recognized this momentum in late Q2, and we do see continuing market demand through the rest of 2026 and the full 2027.
Due to these flip-chip BGA substrate and continuing AI server board capacity investments, we already achieved a EUR 52.3 million order intake in Q3, and are totaling out to EUR 96.6 million order intake year to date. These high-end equipment orders also balance the loading of our German and Chinese manufacturing locations, as Arthur has previously explained. We published and raised our order intake guidance for 2026 in July this year to EUR 125 million-EUR 150 million.
And based on what I currently see and the information I have, I do expect us to land in the upper area of that guidance. With this, I am handing back to Arthur.
Thank you, Roland. Looking at our new guidance, the revenue guidance remains unchanged. For the full year, we expect at least EUR 100 million revenues. If you are looking at the adjusted EBITDA margin, obviously this used to be more than 12% guidance for the full year. We now expect 6%-9% margin, EBITDA margin, adjusted EBITDA margin for the full year. Order intake, as Roland just mentioned, within the EUR 125 million- EUR 150 million range, we now expect to be at the upper half of that range. With that, we conclude our presentation, and I hand over back to Mara to organize the Q&A session.
Yes, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we come to the Q&A session now. Now it is your turn. If you would like to ask your questions in person via audio line, please click on the Raise Hand button. If you are dialing in by phone, please press star key nine to raise your hand and star key six to unmute yourself. Additionally, you are also welcome to ask your questions in our chat box, and we will read them out loud for you. But we will start today with our audio line. I have a risen hand from Sebastien Naji from William Blair. I just sent you the allowance to unmute yourself. You may do so. Sebastien, are you there? Can you hear us?
Hello. Can you guys hear me now?
Yes, perfectly. Hello.
Great. Well, congrats on the solid results here and the continued build of the pipeline. I just wanted to ask maybe first on the order guidance for this year. You've talked about the upper half of this EUR 125 million-EUR 150 million range. You already have nearly EUR 97 million through mid-August. Maybe if you could just expand a little bit on what gives you some of the confidence that you can get that remaining portion as we move through the rest of the year, and how much of that is tied to identified projects already in negotiation versus just broader pipeline.
Thank you for your question, Sebastien. I think mostly, or I know that most of the projects are mostly the order intake projected for the rest of the year is already in negotiation.
Okay.
These projects are already in negotiation.
Great. Okay.
Maybe to clarify, so obviously most of the orders are in. There is a few small remaining, but we know exactly which machine we are going to manufacture in Germany and China. Most of the orders that we received recently or in the next few months really goes into 2027.
Got it. Okay, that is helpful. Then just on the financing. Following this $20 million convertible, do you believe your balance sheet, and in combination with some of the customer prepayments that are tied to these orders, are sufficient to fund your growth outlook here, or could you need additional financing down the line? Just maybe what are your thoughts there?
Yeah. So we are pretty well-financed at the moment. Yes, we will get customer payments. For the next six months, I do not see any issue raising new equity, at least. As I said, we now have the ability and find it very attractive to raise debt in China. For example, working capital requirements that we may have in China, whereas some of the payment terms, especially on the receivable sides, are pretty long. We can finance with debt in China, and also indirectly, effectively finance the German business. We do not see any financing requirements other than some of the debt in the next six months.
Okay. Good. Great. Maybe just on the topic of the China capacity that you guys are buying. I guess what kind of revenue level can this enlarged footprint support? Does moving from rented to owned capacity improve your unit economics at all?
Basically, at the moment, we have two facilities, both rented, which are a few kilometers apart. There's an inherent inefficiency as we have to ship stuff between the two facilities. The new facility is not quite double as big, but with the increased efficiency, we think that the real capacity, the effective capacity, let's say, is double. Roughly speaking, we can do about EUR 50 million of revenues in the old two factories. The new factory, we can do around EUR 100 million revenues. It's a significant increase. We think that as long as we can increase the current, let's say, run rate, and we're effectively running at EUR 50 million in China, certainly in the second half and the first half of next year. It's all pretty much booked out.
As long as we can increase that by something like 20%, the unit economics are starting to look better than the current plant. Obviously, with the current rented facilities, we always have a risk of rent increase, while with the owned facility, we have basically we know the next 15 years what we will pay for that facility.
Got it. Okay. Maybe just last question, but it's more on the product side, and specifically just on glass core substrates. I guess what technical or customer milestones should investors be watching for to know that the market is moving from proof of concept and qualification into a volume capacity cycle? What exactly are some of the bottlenecks? Is it TGV formation, metallization? Is it yield? Is it just simply end customer qualification? Just any thoughts on that?
The technical bottleneck is for sure the metallization of the TGVs. This is something we have also a very strong solution for. But then, of course, the customer end qualification is another thing you want to watch for.
Okay. Fair enough. Thank you. That's all I had.
Thank you very much also from my side. We have another risen hand by David Williams from Needham. I just sent you an allowance to unmute yourself.
Good afternoon. Can you hear me?
Yeah, we can hear you. Hello.
Great. Thanks. Thanks again. Thanks for letting me ask a question here. I guess maybe firstly is just on the demand trends, and you talked about the acceleration over the last eight weeks. What do you attribute the new demand from relative to the first half, just given the strength we are seeing across the markets generally, and more broad-based? What do you attribute the recent demand from?
What we have seen in the first quarter, we have recognized, or let us put it that way, in the last quarter of 2025, we have recognized a shortage in IC substrates. This is what I mentioned with flip-chip BGA substrates. In the first quarter of 2026, the big substrate manufacturer were making plans to stop, and stopped incremental investments, and made plans for stage investment through new factories. This took some time in Q1, and they made it on the way in Q2, and this is what we currently recognize. These new factories are being built and are being equipped with new equipment, and this is what we started to recognize in the late Q2 and already in Q3.
Great. Thanks so much. As you think about your capacity, and what you are doing in China, but more broadly, how do you think about capacity and the ability to meet the demand you have in front of you? Maybe what are the constraints to outperforming the guidance range?
Yeah, it's quite a different situation in Germany than in China. In China, we do have a building capacity restraint that we're solving in Q4 next year. We have been hiring, I think in March, April, we hired more than 100 people, which is not without challenges, but that's kind of done in China. In Germany, we have a lot of space. I don't see any capacity issues there. Obviously, labor is always the bigger capacity constraints. By the way, there's no machinery. Also, you find very little machinery in manufacturing here, so that's never a constraint. Labor would be the main constraint in Germany, and what we are targeting to do for probably next year, when we anticipate to have some capacity issue on the labor side, is to hire effectively contract workers to supplement our working, our labor here in Germany.
That's the main constraint I would see, and obviously training them and then retain is sort of the main challenge.
Okay. Thank you for the time. I appreciate it. Best of luck in the second half.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you so much. We have another risen hand by Katherine Thompson from Edison Group. I just sent you an invite to unmute yourself. You may do so now.
Okay. Can you hear me now?
Yes. Perfect. Hello.
Great. Thank you. I saw in July that Intel made an announcement about a partnership with Lens Technology, talking about glass core substrates. I just wondered what kind of conversations you've been having with your customers over the last few months on glass core substrates.
Well, glass is solving a lot of topics over composite materials. A lot of player in the Intel supply chain, in the NVIDIA supply chain, AMD supply chain, you name them, are putting an eye on glass core substrates as it's better in terms of its flatness, its smoothness, in terms of diverse constants like dielectric constants, signal integrity. We are engaged with most of the major of the supply chain player. We are supporting them with our technology and equipment to make glass core substrates real.
Okay, thank you. I think the question for Arthur, I just wanted to understand a little bit more detail on building the new Chinese manufacturing facility. I think you've said the cost of that will be EUR 11 million. Are you able to just give me a sense of over what timeframe you expect to spend that money?
Yeah. Effectively, we're now finalizing plans with the architects. We haven't actually purchased the land, although that's all agreed and signed up. I think in about a month or two, we would expect to start construction. Effectively, it's a typical construction loan that ramps up the building, but from all I know, it's roughly in equal amounts, I would say from September, October this year for about 12 months.
Great. Okay. That's helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Ms. Thompson. We have another risen hand by Mr. Andrew McGrath from Linden Advisors. I just sent you an invite. You unmute yourself.
Thank you. Good morning or afternoon.
Morning
Hopefully you can hear me okay. Yeah, question I think has come up a few times, but as you see architectural shifts and panel-level packaging emerge, where do you see the opportunities specifically for you and any product shifts? Is your customer deployment of PLP and some of these other elements changing your products and kind of gross margin mix, or is it less specifically driven to that?
Well, panel-level packaging is an important piece of our domain. Our domain is panel, as SCHMID is producing panel-level equipment. We see different kind of flavors of panel-level packaging. Initially, a few years back, some player entered panel-level packaging for cost reason, to save cost on a larger substrate. Nowadays, we recognize panel-level packaging is used for performance reason, like glass core substrates, like the 310 by 310mm, which we currently see in Taiwan, and larger kind of panel for getting the performance of a larger package. So currently it is done for the package size and not so much for cost reason. So this is what we see in the market and what we support in the market.
Got it. And I guess on the back, again, the kind of order intake, how does the gross margin of that product mix compare to the first half and kind of historical?
Well, this is a different segment of customers. This is semiconductor customers who are typically used to pay higher prices for the products. They also expect higher service levels, and they are used to pay for this, so this will affect our gross margin in a positive way.
Got it. Thanks. And then last one from me, just on working capital and kind of cash balances, recognizing kind of Sprint One and Two and some of the other liability offsets. It sounded like you expect working capital to stay flat, if not be a cash benefit. Any added color you can provide to the cash management component?
Yeah. Maybe if you look at the working capital items, the cash advances haven't increased as much as you would have thought. We do require guarantees in Europe, something that we, at the moment, cannot get. I think this will change over the next nine months, maybe it's fall, maybe it's spring. There are actually contracts in Europe where we don't get any cash advances, which is obviously not great for the working capital. That's one thing that hurts working capital at the moment a little bit, I would say. Other than that, in general, what you see is that China, both the receivables are late, but also the payments are late. The whole working capital gets expanded the more business we do in China. But net, it's actually not that dissimilar from Europe. Then of course, some of these items are lumpy.
We sometimes have some lumpier contracts, and there, it really can depend on the exact order. But obviously in general, we do get the cash advances before we order and pay for the parts, which is important. Maybe the other point to make is, because of the issues that we had end of last year, some of the payment terms were pretty harsh that we had to give to our suppliers, i.e., we had to pay in advance for some of the parts. That's mostly resolved, but also only recently, and that will also help the working capital to get to a more normal level, I would say. So it's a little bit higher than what I would've expected in a normalized situation.
Got it. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much. We have one more risen hand by Mr. [Thies]. You may unmute yourself now.
Okay. Can you hear me okay?
Yes. Perfect. Hello.
Okay. I wonder if you can talk a little bit, I guess you hinted at it, the margins on the backlog, or just approximately give us a sense, and is this more of like a mix or a volume ramping up story to get the margins by 2028 or 2029, longer term up closer to where some other guys in the industry are?
Yeah. Obviously, we do have a certain amount of fixed costs. R&D, and actually our listing costs are not insignificant, and that's a fixed cost block, which at the current revenue level is pretty significant. There's definitely a huge scale benefit. As I also hinted at, some of the newer products, and depending on the customer, we have big marginal differences in terms of contribution margin. I think we will see both. Clearly, the order intake that we're seeing now mostly flows into 2027. If you look at the order backlog, EUR 89 million, that's pretty much a record. There will be big scale benefits. But also the new products, the more we can sell the new products, the higher will be the contribution margin. It's hard to say what's more important, but it's both going to be quite critical for the improving margins.
And then just one longer term also. Can you give us any sense about how your capacity is scaled? Do you have enough scale, after the China factory is done, to get to, say, 500 million of orders? Or can you give us any sense of where you would need to really ramp up your capacity or where you could get to today, just based on, I am not asking for a forecast, but just based on the capacity you have today. Thank you.
Yeah. So as I mentioned, we have lots of space here in. We are in the middle of the Black Forest. So the one thing is good, we have a lot of space. Also, we used to have the solar operations, et cetera, and we still have that space effectively, so to speak. So space is not a constraint, machinery is not a constraint, it is people. And there is no sort of capacity limit as such, where I would say this is it, this is as much as we can grow. But there will be the challenge operationally, if we continue to grow very fast, we will need to train and hire and again, maybe use contract workers fast enough to make sure that we can deliver on the quality that we need to deliver. I would say that is the most challenge. We have discussed a third site.
I do not think that is anywhere imminent, though, because again, we can grow pretty far here on the German side.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much, Mr. [Thies]. We have not received any risen hands, nor do we have any questions in our chat box. Therefore, I would say, we come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you very much for your participation and your interest in SCHMID Group. If you have any further question at a later time, please feel free to contact investor relations. A big thank you also to you, Arthur and Roland, for your presentation and the time you took to answer all those questions. I wish you all a successful day. Thank you, and bye-bye.
Thank you very much, everybody.
Thank you very much.