LEM Holding S.A.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Lamb Holding SA half-year results 2025-26. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Mark Nathan, CEO.

Thank you very much. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to the presentation of our half-year results 2025-26. My name is Frank Rehfeldt. I'm the CEO of LEM, and I'm here together with Antoine Julia, our CFO. For those who are not yet familiar with LEM, LEM is providing sensors for measuring electrical parameters, namely current, voltage, and energy, and with those help our customers and society to transition to a sustainable future. Here you see the agenda for today's presentation. After my opening remarks, I will give you more detail on the business performance of LEM. Antoine Trulia, our CFO, will then introduce the financial results, and I'm going to outline what we expect in the future, as well as talk about the adjustments we did with respect to our mid-term ambitions. As you might remember, we had a tough start into 25-26. Flat sales at constant currencies in comparison to the previous year. However, both the gross margin and consequently also the EBIT margin were under pressure in Q1. Despite not seeing a significant improvement on the top line in constant currencies in Q2, we managed to improve in due to both before mentioned KPIs and Antoine will go here in greater detail. For the first six months, the 5.3% decline in our top line can be fully attributed to FX losses, whereas the segments growing and those declining were balancing out each other. We were in particular happy with the developments in automation, automotive, and track in thought with momentum in China. We are also happy to share that we are fully on track with our fit for growth program that helps us to trim our indirect cost. You might also remember that we reported 12 million negative cash flow a year ago and managed to improve the cash flow to 5.6 million in 25, 26 first half. We will come to the guidance for this year that you see here in the numbers, as well as the updated mid-term financial ambitions at the end of the presentation again. Now with that, let's move on to the business performance in more detail. Our business structure, you see here the development of the five businesses in comparison to the same period in 24-25. I will focus on the numbers in constant currencies as you know that LEM is doing about 40% of its business in renminbi. That has been strongly depreciating after the announcement of the tariffs by the USA. We are happy to share that the automation business that started to slightly grow again after four rather flat quarters. Our automotive business with strong focus to China has been growing by 9% H1 versus H1 last year and saw an even more significant volume growth and the track business was growing even stronger. However, We also saw weak segments like renewable energy and energy distribution that I will explain in greater detail in the following slides. On this page, you see the distribution of our businesses relative to each other. What becomes clear is that there has been movement in all businesses. Looking at our two biggest businesses first, Automation grew in particular in the second quarter nicely by more than 4% since inventories normalized and automotive, despite seeing a shrink in Q2 in CHF, continued to grow in REMEB. The businesses in the smaller segments have been changing positions. The very strong development of our traction business has been making it our third biggest business. First, renewable energy has been shrinking by 2% points, similar to the energy distribution and high-precision business that also lost 2 percentage points relative. Now let's go through the businesses one by one, starting with our biggest business, the automation business that almost represents 30% of our global business. You see a small growth in Q2 against Q2 last year, linked to normalized inventory levels as already mentioned. This growth materializes mainly in power levels above one kilowatt for LEM and happens across all regions. Nevertheless, there's a 3% reduction six months on six months that is to be attributed to currency in constant currencies. business has been growing by 3%. Our automotive business saw a nice growth of 9% in constant currencies, 2% in CHF. Growth areas were China and Europe, whereas in particular the Americas suffer from the policy changes the US administration has been implementing. We continue improving our market position in China. We are working mainly with Chinese OEMs and tier ones that we are expecting to further expand globally. We also saw positive momentum in Europe with increasing new energy vehicle sales and the ramp up of some of our automotive products in the market. Rest of Asia depends very much on exports that will be in particular towards the Americas if we don't see a short-term change coming. Renewable energy representing now 14% of our global business declined in constant currencies by 15%. Despite growing photovoltaic installations, the average content of current sensing by inverter is going to further decline step by step and the price pressure is going to remain high. We're expecting this to remain a segment that is as competitive as automotive. The developments in Europe go into two directions. Domestic solar will be completely dominated by Chinese players and therefore served by us in China. various large commercial projects will see European sources, and we expect that we are restarting to grow in this sub-segment with our European customers. Notable are the positive developments in rest of Asia, both in Japan and India, with local government investments that we expect to continue. energy distribution and high precision business became our smallest segment with 13% of our total turnover and it also continued to shrink at 15% six months on six months. The lion's share in this segment is the DC metering for fast chargers that remained challenging both in Europe and the US as the new energy vehicle sales developed below the installation rates on the one hand. On the other hand, some of our customers also lost market share. The Chinese expert business for DC fast chargers remained stable. The acquisition sub-segments were rather weak due to lower demand in automotive EV testing, whereas the UPS, the uninterruptible power supplies, were nicely picking up to the increasing installations in data centers. Looking at the track business was the surely biggest fund in this quarter. This takes up now 17% of our total business and developed with a growth rate of 15% in constant currencies, very positively. The development happened across all regions based on the ongoing investment into public infrastructure and the increasing standardization of regulations across Europe. The consequence of this standardization is that this requires to retrofit energy meters across the whole of Europe. Projecting this business now from a regional perspective, we see important changes in comparison to last year. Our business share in China remained stable at constant currencies, however, shrank due to the depreciation of the renminbi. Therefore, it takes now 37% of our total business, two percentage points less than for the first six months last year. The segments automation, automotive, and track contributed, as previously mentioned. The rest of Asia business showed a slight growth six months over six months and an even nicer growth in Q2 with more than 12%. The main contribution was coming here from traction. Just to report here the progress of our plant in Malaysia. We are meanwhile producing the same volume than in Bulgaria despite the fact that the sales share is still substantially lower. And we see an increasing demand of customers who look for either a dual sourcing, both from China and Malaysia, or even a relocation of their production towards Malaysia. This confirms our strategic decision to set up this new site that, on the other hand, is still burdening our P&L since it reduces the overall loading of our manufacturing footprint. Clearly disappointing sales in EMEA, shrinking 7% over six months, where the reduction in EDHP and renewable was balanced out by automotive traction and automation. The Americas numbers are including the tariffs that we are passing on to our customers, and the business is overall stable, albeit below expectations, looking at the development in automotives. Nevertheless, the successes with catalogue distributors give us positive signals for the future. With this, I would like to hand over to Antoine for the financial results.

Thanks, Frank. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our Q2 Learning School, and I'm Antoine Schuminger, Chief Financial Officer. I'm happy to walk you through LEM's financial performance for the period ending September 30th. 2025, probably showing a welcome recovery trend after some challenging results recently. As Frank explained, at $148 million in Swiss franc, our sales declined by 5% in the first half of the year, which translated to a positive growth of 0.5% at constant exchange rate. Q2 saw a slightly higher performance at minus 4% or plus 1.2% at constant exchange rate. Our gross margin dropped by almost 15% to 59 million in the first half, mainly due to forex, price, and mix. But Q2 showed early signs of recovery at 30 million, down roughly 10% from Q2 last year. Thanks to a large reduction in operational expenditures under the Fit for Growth program, EBIT reached 11.4 million in the first half, of which 7.2 million in Q2. an increase of more than 7% from the prior year. This represents about 7.7% of return on sales for the half year, and just south of 10% for Q2. Now, before structuring costs, this margin is topping 11%. As we reported in Q1, our gross margins slipped in H1 from prior year's level, just south of 40% of revenue. This is a 400 bps drop. Now, we observed a 150 basis point recovery in Q2 following the Q1 drop due to price pressures pretty much across the business spectrum but driven by China in renewable and industry in particular. We've explained some of these pressures by overcapacity in some of these markets combined with an aggressive commercial stance since the end of last year that we've started to adjust towards a more selective approach. In addition, supply activity in Q2 is coming with better manufacturing and sourcing variance contribution. Our SG&A spend landed on $31.5 million for the first half, in sharp decline from the prior year by 13%, and with further sequential savings in Q2. These savings are heavily concentrated on the general and admin expenses, both in personnel and non-personnel, leveraging reduction in force as well as productivity gains from our Pulse program, with our recent ERP implementation. In addition to the SG&A reduction, savings in R&D were achieved with Fit for Growth through a reduction in overall R&D personnel, but more importantly, in alignment of our footprint towards Asia. This yields a reduction of more than 20%, which is enabled by constant prioritization of R&D efforts as we aim to increase the overall R&D efficiency and time to market. Our financial results improved by $1 million to a $30 million loss for the half-year period. The loss is mainly driven by the service cost of our debt, but the improvement from last year stems from a more favorable forex track. Income tax-wise, we're back to our historical effective tax rate performance, around 18%, on par with last year's, especially in the second half. The first half performance last year was lifted by a favorable one-time affecting the country tax mix, both in expected and effective rates. So our overall P&L performance in H1 shows an overall compression from the prior year, landing on a net profit of 6.8% of sales, representing a 90 basis points drop. This flipped in Q2, though, thanks to a recovery on all lines. except for revenue. Margin rate improved, and both operational expenses and financial expenses decreased further, yielding to both operational and net profits well above last year at $7.2 and $4.8 million, respectively. Working capital inflated due to large cash out payments since March, including severance and separation costs in the context of the Fit for Growth program. Our net debt position improved in the meantime as we continue to de-risk and de-leverage this balance sheet and aiming for and lending above 40% equity ratio. Aside from cost control, we focused our efforts this past semester on cash management, generating 5.6 million free cash flow to the firm from a large burn of 11.6 million in the prior year. On a lower profit and EBITDA than last year, and in spite of large restructuring outlays, We've managed to stay on top and lift our operating flows and reduce our capital expenditures and tax flows. This cash flow focus will remain one of our core priorities in the current environment. So with this, I'll let it over to Frank who will explain on how we see this environment moving forward.

Thanks a lot, Antoine. So let me now share our outlook for the business. The business environment is not substantially changing. We hear anecdotally about some positive outlook expected for 2026 in some segments, however, don't see those reflecting in our bookings yet. Therefore, we remain prudent considering the volatile business environment as well as our as the possible exchange rate developments and the fact that historically the second half of our business was always weaker than the first. Consequently, we guide towards a sales range of 265 to 290 million and a high single digit EBIT margin as a result from the fit for growth effort. We've decided to update our midterm financial guidance reflecting the developments in our market. As a reminder for all of us, LEM's core market of current sensing has been going through different phases. For a long time, LEM has been acting in a niche market in which we had a rather dominant position. This was a small market with limited growth potential, however, Things changed once sustainability gained importance around 2018, where the market size as well as the growth potential increased. But at the same time, the market became also more attractive for additional competition. We saw faster growth in this phase and were accordingly more optimistic with reference to our outlook. the semiconductor price crisis and the strengthening of Chinese competition was ending this market phase and we find ourselves back in a new reality. A new market reality for us, our customers like the machine building industry or automotive, as well as our peers to which we reacted with our Fit for Growth program that was launched a year ago. So we expect now a market adjustment and stabilization to continue through 26, 27 and afterwards an annual growth rate in the corridor of four to 7% in constant currencies. We target a EBIT margin corridor of 10 to 15% depending on currency and market development since we will maintain strict cost discipline and focus on financial resilience. What remains unchanged, however, is the base on which our strategy has been built. We are convinced that the trend to sustainability is going to continue despite the headwinds that we are currently seeing. We are well-positioned to capture the growth that is eventually coming back from this megatrend towards electrification, renewable energy generation, and energy efficiency. The important R&D investments that we made towards integrated current sensing, TMR, as well as forward integration like the DC meter, get encouraging customer feedback that gives us confidence that those investments will pay back. The importance to be close to our increasingly Asian customers, as well as being fast, is reflected in our footprint and the time-to-market improvements that we are seeing. And the manufacturing footprint, strongly Asia-based but balanced between China and outside of China, enables us to flexibly react to geopolitical shifts. I close here and would like to thank you all for your attention. Before opening the Q&A, I would like to invite you already for the nine-month earning call on February 6, 2026. With this, we are ready to take your questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, If you would like to ask a question, please press 9 and star on your telephone keypad. In case you wish to withdraw your question, press 3 and star on your telephone keypad. For any questions now here in the phone conference, please press 9 and star on your telephone keypad. And the first question is from Charlie Fernbach, AWP. Please go ahead with your question.

Good morning, gentlemen. My question regards your midterm guidance. A year ago, you postponed your goals already for two years. You still mentioned there a sales level of 600 million Swiss francs and an EBIT margin of 20% and more, which should be able to reach, I think after the year 29, 2030. Now you have the new guys, 10 to 15% margin and this growth prospect for 47%. So the old goals, can we forget about them, this 600 million and this 20%?

Yeah, thanks a lot, Vali, for your question. So let's first understand that the business realities have been further, let's say, burdened by geopolitical decisions, tariffs. So the market reality has been changing. So can we forget about the 600 million? I would clearly say no. However, the time until this will be achieved is probably even longer than what we were believing a year ago. What is for sure not helping is that on the one hand, our core markets move more to Asia, but at the same time, we report our growth in Swiss francs. And every depreciation of the renminbi basically costs us several percentage points in our growth story. So I hope this answers the question.

Okay, yes, you mentioned the sales. Now the EBIT margin of 20% also is something which could be reached far in the future.

I mean, let's be careful to talk about far in the future, particularly for EBIT, The question is how the markets are further developing. As you've been hearing, business in China is for sure confronted with higher competitiveness levels and higher price pressure. So therefore we've been moving five percentage points down at least for the foreseeable future. Whether this is possible again, It is probably possible again to reach 15 to 20 probably a bit too early to say.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thanks for the question.

And the next question is from . Please start with your question.

Yes. Good morning. So a couple of questions. I'll take them one by one. On an Xperia, I mean, there's been, you know, loads of headlines. Could you share if this has impacted you as well as a supplier?

Yeah. Hello to Marco. So, we were in the lucky position to be, for the time being, not affected. Obviously, we've been starting a lot of actions to see also how vulnerable we would be what sort of second sources we have. And as you know, we do more than 60% of our manufacturing in China and experience supplies out of China, out of Dongguan. We were basically not affected in belief that potentially this remains like this, because what I hear is that the situation becomes less critical than we were expecting still a couple of days ago.

Okay, thanks. And then maybe on your margin guidance, those 10% to 15% EBIT margin, what kind of gross margins does that imply? I mean, in Q2, you managed to go back to about 40% gross margins. Is that more or less what you can expect, basically, that would enable you to reach those 10% to 15%? Or is gross margins further improving from here in order to achieve those 10% to 15%?

Hi, Tommaso. I'll take this one. Yeah, we're expecting 40% to be kind of the new floor moving forward. As we grow, and you heard our cautious stance here on future growth, as we grow, we should be able to expand on this one a bit. But remember that we're facing kind of structural headwinds here, especially if growth happens in Chinese markets and or automotive markets, right? So we'll... We'll battle both these headwinds as we grow. But 40% is probably the new benchmark moving forward and anything north of this.

So better capacity utilization basically compensating for higher price competitiveness.

Right.

Okay. And last question. on on the full year guidance for sales i mean in h1 you achieved 148 million if i just you know would annualize that it would be already clearly above the top end of your guidance range uh frank you mentioned some seasonality impacting here is that really the main driver why you think H2O is going to be so much lower than H1 at the midpoint? Or is that also taking into account, you know, further FX headwinds or even, you know, potentially deteriorating end markets?

Yeah, I like a very good question. And so, in particular, one end market will be and this is the renewable end market, because here the feed-in tariffs will have, or the abandoning of the feed-in tariffs in China will have a negative impact on growth for the Chinese market, for sure not for the export from China, but at least for the local market. So there we will be basically expect weaker numbers, and we also have indications that the Chinese market overall will potentially develop in the second half less strong than it was in the first half.

Very clear. Thanks.

Pleasure.

And the next question is from Bantlo BKB. Please go ahead with your question.

Thank you. Good morning, gentlemen. Two questions I have left. One is regarding free cash flow. You have achieved the turnaround in the first half. Do we expect that to be continued, so free cash flow to also be positive for the second half of this year? And the second question is regarding your investment in integrated current sensing and in TMR. You slightly mentioned you have made progress. Can you be more specific here and tell us about how far away are you from so that these products can really be sold in large quantities into the market? And do you expect cannibalization of existing applications, or is this only or almost only new applications that can be entered? Thank you.

Thanks, Bert. I'll take your first question on free cash flow. We're definitely expecting free cash flow to be positive moving forward. Thanks to a lift in our working capital performance as we keep focusing on these actions. And that's a very high-level summary, but it's been the focus of our efforts in the first half, so we're expecting to see more results in the second half from this. We're staying very cautious from a capital expenditure standpoint as well. So overall, and we're expecting also probably less cash outlays from restructuring, right? So overall, we're cautiously optimistic here for free cash flow launch for the second half.

Thank you.

Good. And I take the ICS TMR question. And for sure, you basically had a multitude of sub-questions. Maybe allow me to quickly summarize the picture here. So this is the activity that we do in cooperation with TDK. And the products that we've been developing there together has now been sampled to several customers, both in the automotive and in the non-automotive business. and we've been receiving an overwhelmingly positive feedback. Do we expect cannibalization? Rather not, because our today's business in the area of integrated current sensing is rather small, so therefore there is majority growth, growth, growth. Talking about So we will launch the product in 2026. However, looking into, let's say, the typical qualification cycles that we have at our customers, we should not expect now an enormous sales contribution in 2026, even 2027. will be probably still a bit slow until really the applications are then picking up and getting launched and getting then in mass production. So I think here we need to be a bit more patient. This market is not an, you know, not an, let's say, iPhone market where suddenly everybody switches to a new iPhone. These are rather slow ramp-up processes.

Okay. Thank you very much, Frank.

And the next question is from . Please go ahead with your question.

Yes, thank you. Looking at your midterm new growth target in sales of 47% in local currencies, not in Swiss francs, I mean given that you're moving more and more You know, volume markets, mass markets, there must be an underlying assumption here about volumes and prices. The only conclusion can be that volumes have to go up much more than these 4% to 7% of that prices. Of course, then, on the other hand, will continue to go down. Is that the correct assumption?

Yes, thanks for the question. I think this is precisely the correct assumption. By the way, not a surprise for a component business where you see regularly a price down to a measuring point like we also see. And the more this business becomes in Chinese business, the more volume increase you need to see a bit of increase in sales eventually. Yeah. So that is exactly the right assumption.

Okay. Now, could you share these assumptions with us? I mean, there must be numbers behind this 4% to 7%, you know, on volume assumptions and price assumptions you have baked into that.

Unfortunately, we cannot share them. We can imagine that these are also relevant not only for you but also for competition. And let's be honest, we have seen certain developments in the past and for sure taken them, extrapolated them into the future. Whether all that holds true also depends a little bit on the product mix. the more let's say high value products like a DC meter come in that also distorts the picture. So it will be not that easy to construct here a picture.

Okay. And looking at the margins, I mean, taking out the restructuring costs, you should basically already be around 10% EBIT. I mean, if you say, high single-digit EBIT margin, but there are restructuring costs still there. So basically, net of restructuring, you would already be at the lower end. So from that perspective, you should reach the lower end clearly next year, right? That is the first one. And then the second question, looking further in the future, it is a race between, you know, catching up the lower price levels, which will go down further, versus operating leverage. I mean, higher utilization rates. They have to overcompensate the price pressure. That is basically what then results in the margin, right?

Yes, that's right. You're basically confirming the bottom and the floor of our guidance, so that's exactly what we're seeing. So we expect to be a 10% post- well, post- and pre-restructuring, actually, moving forward, right, at the current levels. There's a, you know, the uncertainty here on the price front is actually, you know, we're looking at the net contribution of price and cost, right? So, basically, the difference between what we're able to save on the throughput costs as opposed to how much we're we're giving away that we can extract from the market. And we expect that to be a slight negative moving forward. Obviously, in the scenario where we're growing in more competitive markets, it's going to be more of a negative. But that's basically the main reason why we don't want to signal too much of an upside from the bottom, right, from the floor of 10%, as well as As you noted, there's upside if the content of that growth is favorable. Remember also that we are quite highly leveraged from an operational standpoint, which has affected us in the short term since our investment in Malaysia. It is actually a good thing moving forward as we expect to – We expect to leverage on that fixed base of manufacturing costs. So that's one. That's another driver that would offset some of this negative net cost impact.

Okay. Good. Thank you.

And for further questions in the film conference please press mine and for the moment I would like to hand over for the questions from the chat.

Thank you. We have a question from who is asking if he could give some color regarding the restructuring program going forward and what cost base .

So we, thanks for the question, we intend to fully execute Fit for Growth. We're not quite there yet, even though we've seen some strong contribution to the P&L so far. So we will, first, we will execute Fit for Growth as intended in the coming months. Our objective is to defend the current profitability level, as I was explaining in the previous questions. Hence, adjust our cost footprint depending on the sales development. And that's the key here, right? Everything depends on sales development moving forward. So we've shown that we're able to adjust to lower volumes and be cautious and selective with our spend. So we'll continue doing so. But no one knows at this stage what the future holds, right? So we will continue to be extremely nimble and flexible with our cost base.

Then there's a second question from Jose Barros who is asking if you could speak a bit about competition with land differentiating vis-a-vis other players, and if there would be a way to target more niche markets like in the past in order to avoid high competition.

I think very good question for sure, referring a bit also to the strategic reflections that we have. in in in the team so um lamb differentiates clearly by having the widest portfolio and application having customer closeness across the world with all our american european chinese customers and having the application experience and basically having probably overall the biggest scale that we have in terms of applications, products, but also volumes. This brings us into the privileged position that the products that we are defining are really very close to the customer needs and allow us to basically deliver really what customers expect at the rounds of optimization are reduced and we clearly see this reflected in the feedback that we are getting from our customers. Now talking about the niches versus let's say the big volume, I think in the past LEM has been always playing in both areas and I think we also have to. And on the one hand the level of competitiveness that you need in order to be successful in the Chinese market, I think is a must and an important reference or benchmark to understand where we are. And at the same time, for sure, you try to discover more growth areas, be it in smart grid, be it in new technologies like TMR, where we also basically and then see the next level of developments. To only do niche business will not allow us to be really on a competitive scale, so I am deeply convinced we need to do both.

Then we have a third question from Jose Barros regarding R&A. And if yes, how would this be financed?

Maybe I take this. We've been saying in the past we would not go for M&A in order to increase our sales turnover. And I can tell you that there are a couple of competitors on the market where basically their mother companies look for alternative solutions, but we don't really consider this as the right way moving forward because we would in the midterm lose their business because customers would then look for other alternatives when that all goes to them. So, yeah, our customer strategies actually speak against such a growth option. However, what we said is when we see technologically and the partnering or M&A would make sense, then we would move forward. And you've seen this when you, for instance, been acquiring M&A. R&D teams in Munich in order to strengthen our ICS capabilities, or will be moved into the partnership with TDK in order to bring the ICS business forward.

And we have received a question from Gianmarco Gardini from . Could you give a bit of color on the impact of volumes and prices of revenue in Q2

Yeah, thanks, Jean-Marco. So this has been a hot button here since Q1. And I think not just for them, by the way. We've seen a large price drag in most markets in the past six months, but it's been led by our Chinese business, especially in automation, and to a lesser extent in automotive. So this impact has... somewhat slow down in Q2, as we've been more selective and prudent in our commercial efforts. Also remember that there was a demand trough in renewable in China following the end of the feeding tariffs, and that resulted in overcapacity in the market and the corresponding price pressures. Now, overall, you can think of our flat revenue performance as a 4% to 5% volume increase, offset by 4% to 5% price in the first half. We expect this level of delta price to reduce moving forward, to improve moving forward as we're learning to operate in this kind of environment. I hope that answers your question.

There's a second question from Tabarco. whether we are able to reallocate production capacity from one segment to another to offset negative developments of specific segments like .

I would answer the question with a partially yes. So we don't have, or we try when we plan and product and plan our new developments to allocate those products not only to a single market. This sometimes works, not always. And in these cases, we have the opportunity to basically shift demand between different segments. However, with increasing volumes, the, let's say, specific solutions that you need in order to be competitive and that eventually also create payback. And this is increasing, so also the more and more specific, very segment directed products need to be developed in order to be competitive. Right, hope this answers the question.

And then we have a question from Thomas Puri. who's asking whether the goal for R&D is still 8 to 10% of sales.

Yes, so that's still the sort of range in which we operate. Obviously, when you suddenly see a dip in your top line, it looks like an artificial inflation of your R&D cost. We obviously don't then... trim digitally the percentages down. But we believe that for a company active in the high-tech sector, that is a healthy amount that we need to invest in order to remain competitive and prepare for the future.

So, Operator, we have no more questions in the chat. So there are more questions in the telephone conference.

There are now new questions here in the phone conference. One is coming from Nero Suzak, GMS Invest. Please go ahead with your question.

Good morning, gentlemen. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Thank you for taking my questions. I have a couple of them. I take them one by one, please, if I may. The first one is, regarding the range that you have given for sales in the current year. It's quite a range, so it's 25 million from 265 to 290. And if I try to model the lower end now in the segments, it's really hard to model the lower end in the sense, you know, it would be really a collapse more or less in the sales. Is it fair to assume that the lower end is really like the lowest that you could imagine, or are there scenarios where you think could be even worse? I'm also reflecting on the comment that you made on China and also on the fact that China was flat on a constant currency basis here today.

Good. So thanks, Miro, for your question. True, the range is a rather big range. Now, unfortunately, we've been seeing a lot of fractional role in the market in the past. And unfortunately, two weeks ago, we were even not clear whether the whole electronics business would not see a more severe hit based on a player like Nexperia basically not being able anymore to deliver. So we were considering all this, considering the uncertainty from the exchange rate and therefore came up also with a guidance that rather had this big range. But it's true, we work every day on actually rather being at the higher end if this is possible. So that's where we are standing, but unfortunately the last probably 12 years have been teaching us that we were also probably sometimes a bit too positive in our expectations what is still possible in this market.

Okay, very clear. And connected to that, a second question regarding the EBIT guidance. So high single digit implies 7, 8, 9%, something in this range, which is not such a large range. So it seems like there is not much operating leverage in the top line regarding your incremental margin. Is it because, you know, they're like the less secure, or the areas with the least visibility has the lowest margins?

That's a good question. Look, I think it has to do also with the, you know, again, the content of the growth, right? We are being cautious here price-wise. We are defending our price levels. the top end, the high end of our sales guidance might assume some, or may include some more, let's say, aggressivity price-wise, right? And so, obviously, we'd benefit from the volume, but this would be a scenario where we are operating at current prices or even – or slightly lower prices in some segments. So that would – you know, the tailwind on volume and on operating leverage would be sparkly offset by the price track. The other round, it works too, right? So the lower end of the – the low end of the range is – We would definitely defend our profitability and defend the low volume and the low cost coverage through more selectivity price-wise.

Very clear. The third question, if I may, you elaborated on the 40% as a floor for the gross margin. Now, looking into the upcoming two years where you gave guidance on EBIT, It's almost unthinkable to or impossible to model 15% EBIT margin taking only 40% gross margin. Or is the cost lines, you know, the G&A cost really to decline even significantly further than it already did in Q2? I mean, you did a great job. We can see that in the numbers. Can you elaborate on that? Would 15% imply a higher gross margin than 40%?

Yes, definitely, yes. To reach 15%, we would have to generate more than our floor for margin, yes.

Thank you. And the last question regarding cash flow and net debt. So your net debt went down by 4%. 5 million more than the cash flow statement would imply. And you can see that on page 13, if I'm not mistaken in the report, the fair value changes and others that 4.8 million negative number, which declined or decreased your interest bearing debt. Could you please explain what that is?

There's a Forex, Some of the improvement is coming from Forex. The same way it's impacting our sales the other way, right? So that's the biggest contribution.

But that means that would be, for example, U.S. dollar liabilities or Chinese renminbi liabilities that you have?

Yes, that would be non-THS. Liabilities, exactly.

And which currency? Is it U.S. dollars or Chinese renminbi?

It's a blend, and it's, yeah, some of that is renminbi, yes.

Thank you. That's all.

Goodbye. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.

And the last question is a follow-up from Thomas, operator of UBS. Please go ahead with your question.

Yeah, thanks. Just a quick follow-up on the fit for growth. I mean, this cost program was, so I mean, I apologize in case this is repetitive, but what I didn't quite understand, it was announced a year ago when you still had a different midterm ambition or guidance of the 600 million. And now you kind of, you know, adjust to this new reality. So my question is, does this mean, does this new top line guidance, you know, indicate that potentially there would be an additional cost program, or are you still fine even with the new market reality with the current fit for growth program?

Right. I think very, very good question, Thomas. Probably one cannot be repetitive on this question because it's one of the, let's say, really complex topics. So you remember we basically started to implement the program in, planned it in November and then basically saw some effects in Q4 where we saw the restructuring cost and the positives we started to see in April. Now, this program runs according plan, and we clearly see that we are saving the planned range in this financial year and also go for further savings. You remember we said 18 to 22 in 25, 26, and an additional 15. than in the next financial year. So that's what we currently plan and that's what we are all aligned about. Now, it depends for sure how the market is developing. At the moment, we clearly don't foresee any further restructuring necessary because we do have a base that will allow us to go forward in the way we've been planning this. But again, therefore, also you remember we were cautious with 26, 27. On the one hand, we hear positive, I called it anecdotally, evidence that maybe 26 comes better, but our bookings don't show that yet. Therefore, we rather talk about the stabilization this year and then pick up then after 26 and 27. So that's basically the current planning base. But when this, for whatever reason, would be again put into question because geopolitically short-term something happens, then potential further restructuring could not be excluded.

Okay, got it, thanks. And a last question on order levels. I mean, in Q2, orders were sequentially down quite significantly, right? And at the beginning of this fiscal year, you started to take into account different shorter-term orders as well, and yet they have declined so significantly. Could you maybe elaborate where that cutoff is and how we can kind of compare the current order levels to the levels a year ago?

I mean, looking at orders, and we remember what we already exchanged in previous discussions, The times where you can mathematically take all the levels and then extrapolate them and mathematically say that it's been exactly the sales is getting increasingly difficult. I give you a couple of examples. What we saw when, for instance, the tariffs were announced is that some important OEMs, car OEMs, were canceling certain new energy vehicle car lines or pushing them out, we saw suddenly drops in our rest of Asia business that is mainly guided towards exports into the Western market. and quite some surprising effects that then also were reflected in the order book with negative orders of push outs and cancellations. So therefore, and unfortunately, lead times are a bit difficult to simply extrapolate out of the orders what then the real sales is going to become. Hopefully, you can live with this level of uncertainty. As we have to.

And Thomas, things are technically comparable, right? Year over year. I think what we're looking at here is, you know, this is a reflection of the subjective part of how we book orders. And here, the key word is caution, right? We've learned from the noise in the market and in customers' behavior in the past six months, we are being very cautious. with how much orders we're capturing in our book, and especially as the long-term visibility is very, very muddy, very blurry, right? So overall, we're seeing less visibility, so we're being more cautious in how we're capturing orders.

Right. Looking at the time, I would like to thank each and everybody of you for your interest and, Lem, for your time. You've been invested to follow us here. And looking forward that we stay in touch and that we later talk again on the 6th of February. Thanks a lot and have a great week. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thanks, everyone. Bye.

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