Alzchem Group Ag New

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Q1 earnings call 2026 of Altium Group AG. I would like to welcome the company CEO, Andreas Niedermeyer, and CFO, Andreas Loesler, who will guide you through the presentation in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat. And with that, I hand over to you, Mr. Niedermeyer.

Thank you for your warm introduction. Thank you for joining us today, and welcome to our quarter one analyst call here. As always, we will go through the presentation first and then we'll be available for all the valued questions at the end. So let's skip the disclaimer and go directly to page five. I think, yeah, you should see the presentation. Let me briefly summarize our performance in the first quarter of 2026. We have made a very Solid start into the new year, group revenue increased by approximately 3% here on a year-on-year basis to approximately $149 million, building on an already strong comparison base. So at the same time, profitability developed significantly better than revenue. EBITDA rose by 18% to $32 million, and our EBITDA margin expanded to a markedly 21.7%. This clearly reflects the success of our strategic focus on high-margin specialty ingredients. In particular, our ingredients once again proved to be the key growth driver here. Growth was predominantly volume-driven with strong demand across human nutrition, animal nutrition, and defense-related applications here. As a result of this strong operational performance, net income after taxes increased by more than 20%, underlining the scalability of our business model and our discipline cost management. From a capital markets perspective, we further strengthened our equity story by increasing the free flow to around 75%, improving liquidity and visibility of the stock. On the operational side, I am pleased to report that the scheduled overhaul of the carbide corners is fully on track. Re-commissioning is expected in early July as planned. So against this backdrop, and despite the volatile macroeconomic environment, we are confident in confirming our full year outlook for 2026. We expected additional growth momentum, particularly in the second half of the year. So overall, quarter one has laid a strong foundation for another successful year here. Based on this strong first quarter performance, I would now like to turn to the key strategic projects that will further drive our growth in the coming years. Let me start with the nitrogen-benadene expansion in Germany. Progress in the first quarter was fully in line with our ambitious targets. construction and preparation activities continued as planned and we remain on track to commission the additional capacity in the second half of 26. This expansion will allow us to meet the structurally growing demand from the defense sector and further strengthen our position as a reliable European supplier. So second, in parallel, we advanced our plans for our nitrogen production site in the United States. During the first quarter, we continued to intensify the site selection process here. The site selection process is close to final and the basic engineering for the plant has already been awarded to the engineering company and has also already started. This project is a key strategic step to produce around transatlantic footprint. improve proximity to customers, and enhance supply security for our international partners. And certainly, finally, let me briefly touch on our creative investment program. Driven by sustained strong global demand, we continue to execute our 120 million investment program exactly as planned here. The construction of the new highly automated production facility and the expansion of the surrounding infrastructure progressed smoothly in the first quarter. So the project is scheduled for graduate commissioning from the second half of 27 and will secure long-term growth in our premium brands, CreaPure and CreaVitalis and further reinforce our leadership position in high quality specialty ingredients. So let me now briefly walk through The development of our operating segments, starting with the basic and intermediates here. Let's turn the presentation page as well. You should see now all the respective figures. So in the basic and intermediate segment, revenue declines by 14% year-on-year to 36.7 million, fully in line with our expectations in European chemical development. This development was driven by both lower volumes and prices and price pressures, reflecting the continued weak market environment, particularly in agriculture, pharma, and steel-related end markets. Despite a lower revenue base, EBITDA improved a little bit to 0.3 million and the EBITDA margin increased to 0.8% here. This clearly demonstrates our disciplined approach to pricing and cost management, as we deliberately refrain from unprofitable volumes while safeguarding the integrity of our integrated production tree. Operationally, the carbon furnace overhaul is progressing fully according to plan, and the segment's supply capability remains fully secured through inventories and our second furnace. Overall, the segment performed exactly as anticipated and continues to provide a stable backbone within our group structure. Let's now go where we are already much more successful to our specialties segment here. This segment delivered another very strong quarter. Revenue increased by 11% year on year to 105 million approximately with growth predominantly driven by higher volumes. while pricing contributed positively as well. The strong volume momentum was driven by our ingredients portfolio, in particular in human nutrition, animal nutrition, and defense-related applications, reflecting robust end-market demand and our expanded capacity base. This favorable volume mix combined with the continued shift towards high-value ingredients translated into a 21% increase in EBTA to approximately 31.5 million. At the same time, the EVTA margin improved further to closely 30% and underscoring the scalability and high operating leverage of our specialty ingredients business. Overall, specialty chemicals and its ingredients portfolio remain the core growth and earnings engine of our group here. So let me briefly complete the segment review by turning to others and holding. Let's turn the page as well. So in the other and holding segment, revenue came in slightly below the previous year, mainly reflecting lower pass-through revenues, in particular reduced bridge-free recharges to our customers. Accordingly, EBITDA declined modestly to 0.2 million. Largely in line with the revenue development overall, this segment behaves as expected and does not alter the underlying earnings momentum of the group, which continues to be clearly driven by our specialty chemicals and ingredients business. That was all for the detailed view on the segment development. Let's now take a look at the overall group figures and hand over to my highly valued colleague, Andreas Lösler.

Okay. Also, good morning from my side, and thank you, Andreas, for the insight in our segment development in Q1-26. As always, I start my analysis with looking at our P&L. Our gross sales amounted to almost 149 million euros within the first three months in 26, an increase of 4 million euros compared to last year. Compared to our guidance, we are exactly on the anticipated level, not only for the group, but also if you look at the segments standalone. The different developments within our segments have been discussed already by my colleague Andreas. On a regional basis, the major sales increase could be achieved in the U.S. once again and can be allocated to the specialty chemical segment. Our EVGA grew even more. After three months in 26, our EBITDA amounted to 32.3 million euros. This represents an increase of almost 5 million euros, or 18% compared to Q1 last year. As already discussed, the major portion of this increase came from our high-value products sold within segment specialty chemicals. This development is also completely in line with our expectations and our guidance. On the cost side, we have to report increased personal expenses based on increased union tariffs and slightly increased number of employees for our growth projects. Our operating costs increased mainly resulting from higher maintenance costs in conjunction with our carbide furnace renovation and higher waste disposal costs resulting from our increased business volume. Our Q1 costs were not yet affected by the possible cost increases resulting from the conflict in Iran. As mentioned already by my colleague, our sales and FHDA development led to a further increase in our FHDA margin In that reporting period, the EBITDA margin reached 21.7%, significantly higher than the 18.9% achieved in the corresponding prior year period. The improvement in the group's overall profitability was primarily driven by the continued shift in the revenue mix towards the specialty chemical segments which comprises highest value specialty chemical ingredients. Our depreciations increased slightly and so did our financial result. The latter was mainly impacted by non-cash interests for non-current provisions. All put together, we could also increase our net result up to 18 million Euro. This represents a significant increase of more than 3 million or 23% compared with the prior year QWAP. The same applies to our earnings per share. That was the big picture of our P&L. Now let's move on to the balance sheet and cash flow figures. Our balance sheet and cash flows are still very healthy and developed as expected. Our balance sheet total increased by 37 million euro since our last reporting date. The assets are mainly influenced by our growth projects and accordingly, non-current assets showed with 22 million euro, the highest portion of this increased balance sheet total. Major expanding is related to our nitro-granitine expansion, but we also started with first payments for our creatine investment. Our inventory level increased slightly. Reduced carbide stock levels were overcompensated by increased stock levels for our multipurpose business in preparation for production campaigns. Our equity increased by 18 million euro, and our equity ratio could be That increase was supported by our very strong net result and increased interest rates for our pension valuation. Additional payments from customers for our NitroBurn investment further increased our contract liabilities, which amounted to €93 million by the end of March 26th. Our current liabilities increased as a result of our increased business volume in Q1 compared to Q4 of last year. As of our reporting date by the end of March 26, we can again report a positive net cash position of almost €30 million. Our operating cash flow was €12 million lower than in Q1 last year. While we improved our net working capital with positive impact on our operating cash flow, The main reason for the decline in our operating cash flow was attributable to reduced customer grants for our CapEx program. Such payments amounted to 6 million Euro in Q1 1026, but almost 40 million Euro in the comparative period of last year. Investing cash flow was highly above prior year and clearly shows the progress in our current CapEx program, especially for the Nitro-Garnitine expansion. Despite this highly increased CapEx activities, we can still report a positive free cash flow. Our financing cash flow shows regular loan repayments. Last year, Q1 was affected by our share buyback program. As you can see, Altcare is in a very healthy cash position and ready for future growth. Future is a good keyword. Let's now discuss our outlook for financial year 26. As already mentioned by my colleague, we can confirm our guidance as set out at the beginning of the year and see further growth for 26. Sales are expected to grow to approximately 600 million and EBITDA is expected to grow to approximately 126 million Euro. This represents a sales increase of approximately 7% by EBITDA is expected to grow by approximately 8%. The planned sales growth shall continue to be achieved organically. The fundamental growth drivers are expected to be volume effects within segment specialty chemicals. As already outlined, we do expect that volume growth in the area of human nutrition and defense, the latter expected in the second half of the year. For the basic and intermediate segment, we expect overall sales to be at the previous year level. We are currently experiencing increases on raw material prices as a result of the conflict in Rioar. Our outlook is based on the assumption that such increases can be passed on to our customers and that this conflict will not last for a very long period. Our ABTA increase for 26 is mainly driven by the development in our segment specialty chemicals. This also applies to our ABTA margin. The recently announced industrial power price in Germany has not been included in our guidance, as we are currently analyzing the new regulations and its accounting treatment. However, we do not expect a huge impact out of this regulation. As you can see, we have interesting times ahead of us. At this point, we would like to thank you for your appreciated attention and are now at your disposal for possible questions.