Zumtobel Group AG

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Zumtobel Group's conference call on the Q1 results for the 2025-26 financial year. With me on the call are Alfred Felder, our CEO, and Thomas Errath, our CFO. Alfred will walk you through the highlights of the quarter, while Thomas will discuss the financial performance. After the presentation, both gentlemen will be available to answer your questions. In case you have not a copy of the report and the presentation, you may find both documents for download on our webpage. After the call, a playback of this conference call will be available on our webpage as well. And with this, I hand over to Alfred.

Good morning. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for joining us today for our Q1-25-26 call. This first quarter was again not an easy one for us. Market environment remains very, very challenging. In addition, the geopolitical environment also difficult. And the demand of the new construction, especially in our core markets in Europe, is weak, triggered by a lot of shifts and delays. And obviously, that has resulted in figures what we will show in a minute. But before I go into this, as usual, I would like to share with you a couple of highlights, what shows that our strategy, what we have implemented in beginning of 24. in the different growth areas is materializing um and here a couple of projects one uh proud um in our headquarter city of don't burn where we are the lighting solution provider where we have installed the state-of-the-art iot connected luminaires based on the zaga sockets with our oversense ready so the connected solution it's um the the product, what we have from DON, the ISARO PRO, what is installed here across the city. Another one, which is part of the core strategy, growing in the arena, in the sports, and here an indoor stadium in Dresden, equipped with our Altis, where we have now all type of products, including full color, comes with DMX controls, includes a complete perm key solution with commissioning involved. The next one is a shopping center in Belgrade in Serbia, where we have our factories both for components and luminaires, a refurbishment project with really our complete bandwidth of products called here the Evo, the Panos, the Tecton and the SplotFlight, where we have installed this. On the bottom left here, the campus founder lab in Heilbronn. in Germany, Innovation Campus. Here, this is a typical high-end brand ZUMTOBE product with our high-end products, like the Pano Studio Linkor, also including the whole emergency products. And last but not least, in the Italian part of Switzerland, in Bellinzona, the fortress here, which is a UNESCO World Heritage, where we have done a refurbishment product. So the outdated sodium vapor lamps from the 90s were replaced by energy-efficient storm contrast LED spotlights. and the result achieved has been the close collaboration what we had with the local authorities, the lighting designers, and the technology suppliers. And with that, on page four, let me just give you an overview, and Thomas will then share the details on our financial performance in the first quarter, a period that, as expected, was strongly characterized by our economic uncertainty and the persistently weak market environment. These conditions were also reflected in our business performance. So we have a revenue decline by 7.8% to 266 million euros. And on the segments, you see the lighting segment generated revenue of 210. while the revenues of the components remained at 70%, which means almost 12% below the previous year quarter one. Adjusted EBIT at 6.6 million, corresponding to adjusted EBIT of 2.5%. And the figures clearly show that the challenges facing our company remain strong. It is therefore particularly important that we continue to focus on resilience and sustainability within the entire group across the segments. And that includes also, of course, the review of our cost structures. And as part of this, you see on page five. We have decided to take the strategic decision to close our unprofitably relatively small U.S. production site in Highland, in New York, so upstate New York, two hours from New York City. This measure is part of our Focus Plus strategy. what we have revised last year and updated. It will allow us now to focus strongly on our core markets and align our global production network accordingly. And this we will do relatively short term so that the measures are taking, are contributing to our results. Despite this planned closure, our sales presence in the US will remain intact. We aim to continue to provide reliable service to our customers, especially on our international accounts, what we are servicing across all the continents, including the planners, the OEM, as I said, and the architects. And with this, the American markets, where we have been mainly with our brand ZoomToggle, we will serve out of our global production network. But also let me turn to a more long-term program as part of our updated corporate strategy analyzed in a first stage, our global SG&A costs in our initial phase. And based on this analysis, we are currently developing a global package of measure that will be implemented by the end of the fiscal year 28-29. The first measures have already been defined. is aimed to reduce organizational complexity, minimize the efficiency and optimize the process and overhead, increase decision speed and therefore enable more customer facing roles. As you see here from this slide, over the next four years we plan to achieve a significant cost savings in the SG&E area and this savings will increase annually and I expect it to reach a volume of 30 to 40 million euros in the fourth year. And that is the financial year 28-29. The main levers are the leaner organization, as I said, the expansion of our shared service centers. We have them already in Serbia in two locations, one in our factory location niche and in Portugal and in further process automation. We do expect to see the first effects as early as the current fiscal year, with 80% of the savings to be then achieved in 2027-2028. The associated restructuring costs will be in the single-digit million range annually up to the including 2028-2029 fiscal year. In the phase two, what we are currently starting, our efficiency program will also involve the review, the areas of operations, purchasing and R&D. And this program will build the foundation for steering our company and our employees safely through these challenging times. At the same time, we will ensure that we are well prepared for future development. This also applies to the economic recovery. that the industry is hoping for, especially, we will see it later in the page, the signs are turning a little bit more positive for the next 18 months, and we are already positioning our company to strengthen its competitive position. Ladies and gentlemen, with these measures, we are convinced that we can strengthen our company in the future and sustainably long term. And and be ready for hopefully the ramp up of the business with a better cost structure with a leaner organization. And with this, I would like to hand over to Thomas, who will explain the Q1 results in more detail.

Thank you, Alfred. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A warm welcome from my side. Let me start with the lighting segment. Q1 revenues in the lighting segment amounted to 210.7 million euros and were 7% below the previous year. The sales increases in parts of southern and eastern Europe were unable to offset the negative developments in the UK as well as in the Asia-Pacific region. The fixed cost savings were not high enough to offset the decline in sales. Adjusted EBIT in the lighting segment decreased from 20.1 million euros to 11.4 million euros. Our adjusted EBIT margin declined to 5.4%. Let's move to the component segment. On slide 8, you see revenues in the component segment declined by 11.8% to 70.9 million euros. The difficult economic environment led to declining sales across all regions. Adjusted EBIT in the component segment declined to 1.3 million euros in the first quarter. The adjusted EBIT margin stood at 1.9%. Slide 9 shows the overall Q1 results for the group. Revenues in the first quarter declined by 7.8%. to 266.4 million euros, mainly as a result of declining revenues in the UK and weak sales performance in Asia-Pacific. Adjusted EBIT decreased from 20.2 million euros to 6.6 million euros. The negative revenue development had an adverse impact of 14.1 million euros. The adjusted EBIT margin was at 2.5%. Slide 10 provides you with more information on our income statement. As indicated, adjusted EBIT stood at 6.6 million euros. Special effects were negative 7.4 million euros and mainly include the cost of the closure of our US plant. After deduction of these special effects, our EBIT totaled minus 0.8 million euros. Our financial results amounted to minus 3 million euros. Net financing costs amounted to minus 2 million euros and other financial income and expenses totaled minus 1 million euros. They include interest expense for pension obligations, FX and hedging valuation. After the deduction of income taxes, our net profit for the first three months amounted to minus 4 million euros. As a consequence, earnings per share were at minus 1. Let's move to our cash flow statement. Cash flow from operating results fell from 32.4 million euros to 12.8 million euros. The change in other operating items amounted to minus 11.8 million euros. Mainly, this is the result of releasing accruals for variable salary components. Cash flow from operating activities stood at 1.3 million euros in the first quarter. Cash flow from investing activities amounted to minus 11.9 million euros for the reporting period. In addition to investments in property, plant and equipment, this also includes capitalized development costs of 5.3 million euros. As a result, free cash flow equaled minus 10.6 million euros. Cash flow from financing activities amounted to 12 million euros for the full year. Let me finish with slide 12 and give you some comments on our balance sheet. The balance sheet structure remains stable. The equity ratio is almost flat with 41.9%. Net debt increased to 134.4 million euros. This figure includes the extension of the Spennymoor lease agreement by a further 10 years. Our debt coverage ratio is at 1.98. And with this, I hand back to Alfred.

This slide, you know already the current market outlook. Before I'm turning into that, let me share some sector insights. We do see after two very challenging years, first signs of recovery in Europe, especially on the non-residential sector. You see it here on the graph from Euroconstruct published in June. And there's a progress in both the renovations and the new build. although the growth remains different in the different countries in Europe. Looking ahead, construction actively is expected to pick up, particularly in the education, healthcare sectors, while the growth in storage facilities is starting to slow. We are still seeing momentum, especially when it comes to data center builds and the new technologies based on artificial intelligence. In short, We are seeing early signals of recovery in the construction market, even if the base differs across the regions. And our strategic focus will be on leveraging these opportunities in renovation and position our group, both from components and the lighting level in this area. And let me add, the lighting industry typically comes late in the construction cycle, so the positive momentum reaches with some delay, especially if I'm referring to the huge investment plan that the German government has issued. Ladies and gentlemen, the overall market and here on page 14 remains highly challenging with the geopolitical instabilities, but we are all seeing the ongoing conflicts and the rising product omission that continues to create significant uncertainty in all our markets. And this makes short and mid-term forecasting increasingly complex with low visibility. We are seeing customers adopt a more cautious approach with longer decision-making cycles, more frequent project delays, and especially in the components business with very, very short-term projects, what we see in the business. This dynamics will have an impact on our business. But that said, There are also reasons for cautious optimizations. After two years of recession, the European non-residential construction sectors, as explained, showing signs of moderate growth. And therefore, we believe we can participate. Taking all this into account, we are anticipating a single digit percentage decline. The revenues compared to the previous year. Our priority is clear. We are driving operational efficiency, delivering on long-term initiatives and on our updated Focus Plus strategy, including the two I highlighted here in the start of the call. Given the current revenue pressure and the time required for our measures to take the full effect, we are expecting an adjusted EBIT margin to be in the range of 1% to 4%. and continue with our plant at CAPEX for this year of 50 million euro. With that I would like to conclude. Thank you for your attention and Thomas and myself will be ready and happy to take your questions. Thank you for listening.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question from the webinar may click the Q&A button on the left side of the screen and then click the raise your hand button. If you are connected to your phone, please press star followed by 1 on the telephone keypad. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press the lower your hand button from the webinar or press star and 2 on the telephone. Anyone who has a question may queue up now. And we have the first question coming from the line of Michael Marschallinger from Erste Group. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I got two. Firstly, on the regional development, your most important region, Dach, we saw some small decline in the fourth quarter, now some slight growth again in the first quarter. And if I understood you correctly, I see more positive around the outlook. So I assume we would have the strength to continue in the next quarters, is that correct?

Yes, thank you for your questions. That's correct. So obviously in the dark regions we have two very strong countries, which is Austria and Switzerland. And in Germany, we are seeing a slow momentum, but as indicated previously, we are late in the cycle and a lot of these investments are still to be released in construction. But especially when it comes to refurbishment, we believe that we will be able to continue with a slight recovery in the DACH.

Okay, thank you.

And then secondly, on this announced restructuring measures on the slide number six, on this listed measures, where do you see the biggest lever for this announced measures? A leading organization, I assume, is more footprint reductions similar to the U.S. Is that correct? And maybe on the timeline, if you comment.

Yeah, so what we have done over the summer, so from late spring to summer, we have analyzed the entire SG&A structure, which means the administrative structures in our headquarters, but as well as the sales territory. And when it comes to leaner organizations, just to give you an example, we are planning more to go into this lead country concept, which means in smaller countries, we are having then a much flatter hierarchy. Let me say, if you have countries like Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic, they are under one leadership. So we are saving some costs in the leadership and having more horsepower than directly out. the leaner organization has not to do per se with closing sites but to be more efficient and in the headquarter we are of course looking into all the processes what we can streamline to get faster and therefore also reduce cost timeline i think you have seen it we plan to have the first impact already in 25, 26, which is small, and then the second one in 26, 27, and more or less reaching 80% of the same. So this 30 to 40 million have been identified with clear measures, with clear, let me say, projects, and a plan is now to execute it over time. I mentioned the excellent centers what we plan to establish more professionally in Serbia and in Portugal. And obviously you can imagine that this will be a transformation of jobs. what we will then build up there, and more or less after that, those jobs in high-cost countries will then be removed. And we are also planning to do this smoothly based on the natural fluctuation.

Okay, thank you. The next question comes from Elias Neu from Kepler Chevrolet Pisco.

Yes, good morning everyone. I hope you can hear me. My question is really on the sort of year-on-year margin bridge and just trying to understand where that margin decline is coming from. Is that mostly attributable to negative volume growth or are there any other main drivers that you can call out? And secondly, if we talk about volume growth, is your expectation still that we will return to growth in the second half of this fiscal year?

Well, you are right. The main driver is volume. Volume is basically the whole impact of our declining profitability is volume.

And your second question, obviously, we do see, and I said this at the beginning, still an extreme weak demand. Like I said in the last call, nothing has changed. we believe that maybe in the second half of calendar year 26, we might see the first impact on recovery simply because we are late in the cycle. So if the German government is issuing these budgets for infrastructure, what comes earlier is refurbishment and we believe that that might come as early as the second half of 26. So with that said, we believe we will be rather flat also in the second half of this fiscal year, both for the components business as well as for the lighting solution business.

That's very clear, thank you very much. And if we just Yeah, return maybe to sort of the different regional trends. I mean, could you comment on what you're seeing in Europe compared to the U.S.? Because one of your competitors is speaking of a better environment in the U.S. So just wondering if that's something that you were seeing as well. And particularly, I know we spoke about the DACH region already, but maybe the other sort of regional developments in Europe. So what you're seeing in Eastern Europe relative to Western Europe and Southern Europe.

In Eastern Europe, we are seeing a moderate, also flat development, fortunately not shrinking. In the core countries, we had a very good momentum in the UK last year. and that is easing out a little bit, so we are not seeing the growth here. Italy okay, France weak, and also some of the Nordic territories. As you know, our US business never was big, so we are mainly there with high-end some double products for museums, art galleries, working with international architects. So it's not a substantial revenue here. And Tridonic is also having small revenues in the US. Of course, the US market with a full portfolio, what local companies have, is in a better shape than Europe, as we know more economically.

Great. Very helpful. And then maybe just final question. I'm just wondering what you're seeing on the customer side of your components business. I mean, specifically with regards to inventory levels, whether you think those are sort of currently elevated or normalized, any commentaries surrounding that would be very helpful.

No, the inventory levels, what we have in Tradonica internal are on a normal level, so to speak, slightly higher, simply because the customer behavior now and is even more short-term than it was in the past. So obviously Tridonic customers, the OEM customers, our competitors Forton and Zumtobel, if they are winning a project, then they are placing their orders to avoid inventories and it needs to be shipped within a couple of days. And that's a little bit the behavior what we see in the market.

The question with the inventory of the customer is that they have low inventory levels, but expect Tridonic to deliver within very short notice. They have no destocking, but low inventory levels. And if they get an order, they place it through Tridonic and its competitors and want to have the material on short notice.

That's great, very helpful. And just a final question for me on the pricing development in the components business. What the expectation is that this year, maybe sort of over the midterm, do you expect it to be at the current level or price erosion to fade or deteriorate?

Any confusion around that? We're looking it up what it is at the moment, but basically we are back to the to the normal behavior with something like 3% price erosion, so to speak. Of course, customers, or let me put it that way, competitors, do all have capacities are available. So when it comes to projects, price is important. But luckily, Trigonic has products that are more in the mid to high end, but everybody can apply for it.

As Alfred said, 2-3% is the price of erosion. Great, very clear. Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Patrick Steiner from OdoBHF. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you very much for the presentation. Three questions from my side, if I may. I'll take them one by one, if that's okay. First one, how much of the Phase 1 savings expected to come from personal savings, and how much is coming from other sources, and which are they, if you could maybe give one or two examples?

You mean on the SG&E project, right? Yes, exactly. Okay. So we are not having all these details ready now on what exactly is the personal savings, but it's a mix of, let me say, savings on, let me say, an example of marketing expenses, but the majority of the savings will be in the range of... 70 to 80% will be personal savings.

Perfect. Thank you very much. On the timeframe of four years, what is this depending on? And could we see a probability of the actual execution of the cost savings program to be quicker than the planned four years?

As I said, you know, one quite significant part of this cost savings will be that we are having key position with current and future skills built up in the excellent centers in Serbia and in Portugal. And obviously, we have calculated that it will take some times to hire these people, to train these people, to give them the responsibility. And therefore, we believe that this is quite an aggressive plan here, what we have with reaching 80% in 27, 28. Maybe we can accelerate a little bit what we do in 26, 27. Depends also how this whole setup is working in the different countries.

Okay, thanks. That's helpful. Last question. The phase two cost savings, can you give us some kind of quantifiable range with accepted cost savings? And also, when do you expect to start the second phase of the program?

It's currently starting. We are going into that with a similar approach like with the SG&A. We are not having the details yet, but we are also expecting a double-digit million savings with that second phase.

Perfect. Thank you very much. You're welcome.

As a reminder, for questions from the webinar, please click the Q&A button on the left side of the screen and then click the raise your hand button. If you are connected via phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone. There are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Alfred Felder for any closing remarks.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for listening. Thank you very much for your interesting questions. Outlook, as I said, is a little bit shaky with the continuous week environment, but we are positioning our company for the future and we will update you on the progress in the next conference call after the half year. Thank you so much for listening and have a great day ahead.