Gurit Holding AG

Hello, everybody, and welcome to the GURT H1 2025 results media and earnings conference. As said, my name is Tobias Lührig, and I'm the new CEO of GURT, and I'm pleased to be here with you today. I will focus over the next few minutes on what happened during the first half of the year, 2025, providing you with some context and background. After that, we will take a deeper dive into the financial sections. Before we move then in the Q&A session, as noted, I will return to present the outlook for GURID for the full year of 2025. We completed the restructuring of the company. We booked restructuring expenses of 40 million Swiss, of which 80 million were impairments. Due to the planned exit from the carbon fiber protrusion business, our revenue declined by 20.1% to 164.7 million. In addition to these portfolio changes, we also experienced delayed order intakes, partly driven by the uncertainty around the ongoing US tariff discussion. Javier will provide more background on this later in the presentation. Despite this headwinds, we achieved an operating profit of 9.3 million, translating into a 5.7% margin, slightly above last year's margin of 5.4%. Naturally, total profit was higher last year, mainly due to the stronger revenue base. Our main business remains the wind material segment. which generated 105 million Swiss in revenue during the first half of 2025. That translates to a decline of 22.9%. The drop primarily reflects the previous mentioned exits from the protrusion business. We continue to focus on strengthening relationships with our Western wind customers by securing long-term agreements. As highlighted in previous calls, our strategy is to concentrate on strategically important markets and key customers. Manufacturing solution generated 15.2 million, a decrease of 24.5%, mainly due to delayed order intakes. However, we're seeing strong growth in the Indian market, and we expect a stronger performance in the second half of this year. In the marine and industrial sector, we recorded 45.6 million in sales, representing a decline of 10.5%. Despite this negative growth, we are pleased to report steady progress in capturing opportunities in the lightweight and marine vessel application sector, particularly with our flagship product, CORSEL S4. Looking ahead, we are excited to begin deliveries of PT based solution to new industrial market segments, including home and workspace application, as well as the transportation sector starting in Q4. Supply chain pressure have eased during the first six months of 2025, leading to lower material costs. However, we experienced higher logistic costs, largely due to the ongoing situation in the Red Sea. US tariffs had only a minor direct impact on our sales and profits, while we are able to offset those effects with a set of countermeasures. Nevertheless, we see more indirect effects for our customers and end users in specific markets, as I mentioned on previous slides. Javier will provide more insight into this in just a moment. Speaking of Javier, as previously announced, he will be leaving Guri at the end of November. The search for a new CFO is nearing completion, and we will share an official announcement as soon the ink is dry. Looking ahead, we remain confident to our multi-market strategy and will continue to strengthen our global position as a leader in lightweight performance materials.

Thank you very much, Tobias. So let me show you some key information on the financials of the Interims Report 2025. So if we take a look on the net sales, as already mentioned, we reported 164.7 million Swiss francs in the first half year, which represents a decline of 20.1% at constant rates versus last year. We did stop the carbon fiber production business in Denmark and India in the second quarter 2025. leading to the significant drop in sales, especially in the wind systems segment. To give you an overview, the total annual sales of this discontinued business was 101 million in 2024 and was 25.8 million in the first half of 2025. Additionally, we did focus our wind business on profitable customers, supporting our overall profitability.

Together with the restructuring savings we did realize better results in the segment of wind systems compared to last year.

The restructuring which we initiated at the end of 2024 has been mostly completed and as communicated this was linked with only minor relocation of the production and related customer qualifications. so that we were able to complete this successfully and obviously also fast. At the end, I'm very happy to report that we were able to improve the operating profit before one of us to 5.7% of net sales. The free cash flow for the first half of 2025 amounted to negative 13.2 million. We expect that in half year two, we will have less cash out coming from the restructuring and at the same time we are working on optimizing our networking capital. Overall, the net debt resulted in 79.3 million at the end of June 2025. Going into a further split of the different segments, We have reported 105 million in sales in wind systems, again linked to the stop of the carbon fiber protrusion. With the evolution in the segment marine and industrial, where we saw a reduction of 10.5 million year over year to 44.6 million, we were not happy, but this was linked to project delays, tariffs, and somewhat a weak marine market in the first half. We know that a strategy refocus does not happen within six months. At the same time, we did record contracts with high potential and we are confident that this will have a significant impact in the coming years. The manufacturing solution recorded net sales of 15.2 million. We believe that the second half year will be stronger, so it will be a back-end loaded 2025. The gross margin, the cross-profit margin improved to 18.3% in the first half of 2025, reflecting also the efficiency improvements in the production. Last year, the margin was 17.8. In absolute terms, the cross-margin reduced to 13.1 million. All of this related to the reduction of the sales level. As part of the restructuring, we did also reduce the overhead costs proportionally to the decline of the net sales. At the end, the profit margin improved to 5.7%. We are expecting a better profitability in the second half year. Consequently, we maintained full year guidance leading to a full year profitability of around 7% equal to 2024. I need to mention that we did have an impact from the recycling of the Goodwill on the former fiber line business. Closing down this carbon fiber production business cost at one time other operating expenses of 64.2 million. This Goodwill recycling had no cash, no equity impact, but obviously was recycled to the profit and loss statement. As the last portion of the overall restructuring package at the cost of 40 million, we did book 2.9 million in April 2025. And this was mainly related to the closure of our Italian PET production in Volpeano. Let me show you now a comparison of the 2025 half-year results versus last year. Starting with 11.6 million as per half year 2024, we did see a volume and mix impact of a negative 11.7 million. Customer price evolutions were successfully controlled and combined with material purchases had a negative impact of 2.7 million only. The positive impact from efficiency measures in the production of 12.5 million include the reduction of group overhead costs in it as well. The direct impact, as we heard, of the tariffs discussion was minor in the first six months. And overall, finally, we reached 9.3 million in operating profit, translating to 5.7% profitability in the first half of 2025. Let me show you a couple of other important KPIs beyond the profit and loss statement. As mentioned, we are working on optimizing our working capital. It stood at 73.8 million at the end of half year one. This is reflecting the trade networking capital, including inventories, receivables, and also payables. A further reduction in the second half will help to optimize our free cash flow accordingly. The investments in the first half have been at 3.8 million. We are focusing on projects with a faster payback period and replacement capex leading to this result. As said, overall, the free cash flow is in line with our expectations at minus 13.2 million. Let me give you an overview about our financing situation. Our net debt increased by 16.6 million to 79.3 million. This includes, apart from the free cash flow impact, also air and out payments and also the last payment related to the acquisition of our Dallas site in 2024. Our financing, as mentioned, is secured until 2028. On the equity side, we saw a significant negative impact coming from the exchange rates, resulting in a negative CTI effect of 11.9 million. Our net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio remains solid at 1.9 times. Let me elaborate on the US terrorist situation. As we heard, the direct impact on the discussion has been very minor in the first half year of 2025. Based on the current status, we are exempted from any tariffs for imports from our Mexico facility and our Canadian facility based on the materials we supply to the US. For imports from the European Union and UK, tariffs now amount to 15% or 10% respectively. Indirectly, the market uncertainty was leading to postponed customer orders or investment decisions. In the segment of marine industrials, we saw a drop in sales accordingly. For the remainder of the year, we see no change in the very limited direct impact on our financials. And we hope that the clarity on tariffs will reduce the entire impact on customer orders and investment decisions. Now let me take a look on the markets we are serving, starting with the wind market. A growth in the onshore market in all regions outside of China is expected until 2028. Onshore growth in the US is supported by incentives, in spite of most likely raising costs. At the same time, with the market growth, our addressable market will grow as well. When watching at the offshore market, we do not see any progress in the US market. This has kept stable over the next four years. In Europe, though, the potential is significant, and the market is more than doubling over the next four years. Still, we feel quite some uncertainty about this anticipated evolution, and we remain cautious. In China, where it has very limited exposure, the onshore market will stay stable over the next years, while the offshore market will grow as well in China. As a result, we expect the Chinese competitors may expand internationally. Our assumption currently is that they may gather around 20% of the Western market. With our efficient footprint, we will be well prepared to serve the market and also the growth. If you take a look on the important market around marine and industrial, let me give you here some insights as well. Overall, the marine and industrial markets have very good growth potential, being an important pillar for Google's future growth. We are concluding on important contracts with significant potential in the coming years. At the same time, our new focus on the markets requires some patience to develop. We are very confident that we are on the right path. Especially within the marine markets, we go beyond the luxury boats and see growth potential across multiple different marine applications like commercial work boats. New markets are being developed replacing incumbent material like wood by PET applications. At the same time, we are keeping our focus with an enforced sales team on our strength. Overall, we are expecting a high single digit growth of the segment marine and industrial over the next years beating the market. The short-term uncertainty will reduce, as mentioned, and strong opportunities will support this growth. Thank you very much for listening to the financials and the markets. And with this, I give over to Tobias, who will elaborate on the outlook.

Okay, thank you very much. Let's finish this presentation with the outlook for the remaining year 2025. Our year-end profit guidance remains unchanged. We expect the operating profit margin to stay at the 2024 level. We are providing a sales guidance of about 300 million Swiss for this year. Our focus remains on the most valuable segments of the wind market while continuing to drive innovation and sustainable solutions for our customers. In the long term, we continue to expect mid single-digit growth in the wind business and high single-digit growth in our non-wind segments. Thank you very much for your attention.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Participants can now ask questions by pressing star and 1 on their touchtone telephone. Questioners are requested to only use handsets and turn down the volume. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you can press star and then 2. We will start the Q&A session from our first question from Tobias Klopp at ZKB. Please go ahead.

Good morning. My first question would be on the adjustments to the operating result and specifically on the loss on business divestments. What do you include there except for the good recycling? Is that the full loss from the discontinued business?

So hi, Tobias. So you are referring to 64.2 million? Yeah, so the 64.2 million is really exclusively the Goodwill recycling coming from the former acquisition of the fiber line business and includes the carbon fiber portion only. You may remember that we still have the glass fiber production business in Tianjin being profitable and we kept that portion of the Goodwill on our books. And the discontinued business, so if you refer to the net sales amount, this includes, let's say, 98% is related to the carbon fiber production, and the very, very small piece is related to the business that we sold in Carmignano, Italy, which was the PET recycling topic. You can, just for you, for the records, Also, this is purely the carbon fiber protrusion.

All right. Then my next question, we heard a lot from competitors about high volumes in China due to the ending of the subsidies beginning of next year. Did you also feel an impact from that? And do you see maybe a reversal next year?

Actually, yes, this is very positive. So apart from the restructuring measures, we see a high load in China, and the high load in China does not mean necessarily for the local business only, but also for the Western business. So we are experiencing the same, yes. And for the remainder of this year, we see similar volumes. This was a little bit our fear. For the local Chinese, it may drop for next year, for 2026. But as mentioned before, the local Chinese business, we have almost no exposure to this.

Very clear. Thank you. I go back with you. Next question comes from Laura Bucher. Octavian, please go ahead.

morning thank you for taking my questions um and i'm apologize already in advance if they will be a little bit um harsh uh first one it seems to me that the old drivers of your business are not so valid anymore i mean if we look at order intake and turbine deliveries at the oems they have been record high since 2023 and yet your your wind materials even if we exclude fiberline and the tooling division they keep reporting organic decline quarter and quarter again My fear is that it has really become very commoditized. What will it take, honestly, to get this back? And then my second question, I mean, I appreciate that the underlying margins are improving, but I wonder how long can you keep restructuring your business to offset market challenges and support your underlying performance before you run out of a business and cash?

Let me take the first question, Lauer, and thank you for those questions. In fact, it's not only that we reduced the wind sales based on our stop of the carbon fiber production. We did also have a decline in the sales for our core materials. And this was very actively done in order to really focus on profitable business. We are not showing the split of the profitability by segment, but I can assure you that we are very happy right now with the evolution of the profitability in wind systems. Where we are a little bit less happy is with the evolution of marine industry, which is not surprising based on the sales and also manufacturing solutions. Important for us is that the market, our core market, let's call it addressable market where we are in, is growing over the next year. So if you want to see there is, let's call it a new base, and we are ready to grow in the markets where you want to be. So this is probably regarding your question about commoditizing of the business and where's the market going. And potentially for you, a second question on the restructuring and running out of catch. So the restructuring was exclusively in the area of wind materials. And we have to say that the big portion of this was related to the closure of the carbon fiber pollution business. So this is gone. So obviously there will be no other impact for the future years on this side. On the cash side, we did not see the full potential yet. So as mentioned, we are planning to improve our free cash flow for the second half. We have a financing until 2028. And I agree, it's obviously crucial to follow the path that we are outlining here in order to also keep the promises. Absolutely correct.

Javier, this is Philippe Royer, the chairman. Can you hear me? Yes. I would like to add something to this interesting question. So the PT world is commoditizing and we are focusing on customers where we have unique selling points. And I'm going to give you some examples. we have developed a unique software that allows customers to, let's say, reduce their cost in the blades, for example, reducing their resin consumption. This is leading us to sign long-term agreements with very large customers And when I say long-term agreements, we are talking about agreements up to five years, where for the five years we have secured, obviously, the market share at these OEMs. And we are doing that with different large companies. Western OEMs meaning of visibility in the wind market and the growth we are going to benefit from the wind market is going to be secured by these LTAs that again are possible because we are developing tools that allow us to avoid the usual commoditization trend that we see in this market. So that's really the main element that makes us getting out of, you know, usual price decrease for commodities, allowing our customers to save costs while we offer new solutions. We do that with several large OEMs, and this is really the basis of the wind policy now, working with strategic customers where we offer more than a typical PET foam producer can offer.

Okay, thank you.

As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and then one. Our next question comes from Marty Cueral, UBS. Please go ahead.

Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Um, first one would be on, on Chinese competition. I mean, do you keep facing strong pricing competition from these Chinese players? And if so, uh, do you see them entering the European win in the coming years?

So on the, on the price, um, there is, uh, uh, let's say, um, a controlled price pressure and obviously as we heard also supporting by LTAs with our main customers. So I guess we gave in 2024 a bit the impression that this was a huge impact, but this was also linked to our focus now on the customers where we have also good positioning. Right now, There is a very limited ambition of the Chinese to enter the Western market, but we see some plate manufacturers, for example, entering the North African market. So right now we are far away from this 20%, which I mentioned before, but we believe that there may be some competitors entering for our products, the Western market. And this 20% is supported by, let's say, external experts of the wind market. It's not our guess. So this is what we assume also going forward. But right now, just for the record, we see a limited entry of the Chinese into the Western markets.

For the record, we think that they are going to be able to enter North Africa, Middle East, some countries in Eastern Europe. and some countries in South America leading to 17 to 20% market share by 2030 more or less.

Okay, thank you. And then I would have kind of a follow-up on Western OEMs. What is your margin and pricing visibility with Western accounts? And how do you think about it going forward?

The question is about the margin?

Well, it's probably also on the price, right? So what will be the price decreases or price expectation of the large Western OEMs, right? Exactly.

Okay. I think obviously we don't communicate on margins, but quite clearly there is a request for, let's say, what they call a productivity improvement every year, which would be a price decrease. This price decrease is mitigated because we are offering new solutions. As I mentioned, for example, options for them to reduce the weight of their blades and to reduce their cost in the blades. And so this price decrease is for us limited. There is a price decrease, but you may recall that we are around 1 or 1.5% and not 5% or whatever could be the request, thanks to innovation and improvement in our product.

Okay, thank you. And then the last question maybe would be on cash flows. I mean, you already said that you expect H2 to improve on cash flow, but then how should we think for 2025 in general? Do you expect to be already figures for positive? And also if you could give us some indications on 2026, that would be also appreciated. Thank you.

We did not take to make about 2026. We did not give any guides for 2026 yet, but we will get to this later this year. You know, if I say we will become better in half year two, so obviously our ambition is to get close to the zero on the free cash flow. I mentioned this, I think, also when we published the 2024 results, when you gave the guidance on 25. So we will be working hard to get as close as possible to the zero. You know, where we will end, it's obviously depending on many factors, but this is our ambition.

Many thanks. Next question is a follow-up question from Laura Bucher, Octavian.

Please go ahead.

It's not really a follow-up, but just wanted to get your view on the potential impact for GURID of the TPI bankruptcy filing, and also, you know, LM continues struggling, maybe going out of the blade business at some point. Who knows? So really, just to get your view there, Do you expect this to impact supply chain availability of blades? Will someone else get those blade volumes? Yeah, so if you can help me out there.

Yeah, so TPI filed for chapter 11 with their US entities earlier this month. their entity in Turkey right now and India not being impacted by this chapter 11. What we see right now in this line also with what TPI communicated, the business is still running and this is the ambition that this business will run. Main customers of TPI's which are also our customers have the need that TPI continues production, especially in North America. And this is what is happening. Obviously it did not come as a full surprise, the evolution of TPI. They had recorded quite bad numbers also in their quarterly media release, especially their balance sheet was quite weak with a lot of loans. So we were partially prepared and right now it is important also for us that the business continues. We are in discussions with both TPI and also the end customer to reduce our exposure to a minimum. And this is what we are working on. So as a summary, we do not see a short-term impact on the business. It may be obviously that for the TPI locations, there might be different solutions. We don't know them yet. And also as an exposure for us, we see it as limited right now.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Tobias Lührig for closing remarks.

Thank you very much, everybody. And the next date will be the 23rd of October 2025 with the Q3 results and net sales. And I'm happy to hear and see you there. Thank you very much and have a great day.