Alzchem Group Ag

Thank you for the warm welcome and good morning to everyone. It's great to have you with us today. Thank you for joining for the first and quarter two analyst call. We will take you through the key highlights of the quarters first and then, as always, be available for questions. So let's get right to the business and turn to slide five here. One second. Yeah, here we go. So let me briefly summarize our performance in the first half of 2026. We have delivered a very successful first six months here with both revenue and earnings significantly exceeding the prior year level. Group revenue increased by 6% year on year to almost 304 million. Growth was driven by both higher volumes and improved Pricing Environment, reflecting the continued strength of our specialty portfolio. At the same time, profitability once again developed significantly better than revenue. EBITDA increased by 14% overall to 64.5 million, while our EBITDA margin expanded from 19.6% to 21.2% overall. So this strong earnings performance was primarily supported by the high utilization of our specialty production facilities and the continued shift towards high margin products. In particular, our specialty chemical segment remained the key growth driver. As you know already, ingredients once again achieved significant growth supported by robust demand in human nutrition, custom manufacturing, and Defence Related Applications. Despite ongoing geopolitical tensions, we have not seen, until now, any material impact on our operating business so far. Now this underlines the resilience of our business here and the business model and the attractiveness of our end markets. In addition, we successfully secured a 100 million gross financing facility together with our banking syndicate. This provides a strong financial foundation for the next phase of our expansion strategy. More on this later on in the detailed analysis. On the operational side, the refurbishment of our carbide furnace is progressing according to plan and will further strengthen our production base then. At the same time, we have reached an important milestone for our international growth here and the growth strategy by taking the site decision for our future production activities in the United States. Another important milestone has already been achieved in Germany. Both the Nitro-Guanidin expansion project and the new Guanidin production project have entered into the startup phase and are progressing according to plan here as well. So these investments will significantly expand our capacity base in strategically attractive markets and support future growth. particularly in defense related and specialty applications. At the same time, they demonstrate our ability to execute large scale expansion projects efficiently and translate strong market demand into sustainable earnings. So against this backdrop, we remain confident regarding the remainder of the year and confirm our outlook for 26 as well. So overall, the first half of 26 demonstrates that Altschirm is executing consistently against its strategic priorities. With growth financing secured, major capacity expansion projects entering operation, continued momentum in specialty chemicals and the foundation laid for the US expansion, we are well positioned to accelerate profitable growth and further enhance our earnings power in the years ahead. So let me now briefly walk through the US expansion project here. I brought with me some picture and some information here. With the site decision for Bushy Park in South Carolina, we have reached an important milestone in our nitrogen expansion for the US. Bushy Park offers us a very attractive environment including an established chemical park infrastructure, strong logistics and access to skilled workforce because chemical plants are already there and therefore we think that we will find the skilled workforce here as well. So the project has now entered into the next phase with feed activities already started and Permitting as well as a contract finalization currently is ongoing with the DOW. We are targeting the start of construction in 2027 and what is particularly important to highlight is our two-pillar production approach. We will continue to produce the key intermediates in Germany while establishing Nitrogonadine production in the US. This setup allows us to combine our strong technological basis in Germany with a growing regional presence in the US, thereby strengthening both supply security of our customers and our overall production resilience here. So let us now analyze more details in the basic and intermediate. Therefore, I turn to the next page. which is page nine here. And in the basic and intermediate segment revenue for the first half of 26 amounted to 75.4 million. Here we saw a decline of only 4% compared to the prior year and fully in line with our expectations here. Demands remained weak in agriculture while competitive pressure from Asian suppliers continued to impact Andreas Niedermaier, Andreas Niedermaier, Profitability was temporarily burdened by the scheduled refurbishment of our carbide furnace, including maintenance and shutdown costs, as well as lower regulatory energy costs benefiting during the outage period. The furnace repair is almost complete and recommissioning will take place in quarter three now. And looking at the second quarter in isolation, the segment delivered signs of some improvement. Revenue increased by 9% year on year to 38.7 million, mainly driven by higher volumes in the steel business. While it is still too early to confirm a sustained trend, the development may indicate first positive effects from the European CBAM framework and recent safeguard measures supporting the competitiveness of the European steel producers here. Overall, the segment performed as expected with the furnace refurbishment successfully completed and first signs of stabilization in selected industrial markets. We are well positioned for improvement in the second half of the year. and that is more or less the information of the basic and intermediates. Let us now turn to the specialty chemicals, which once again was the clear growth and earnings engine of the group. So let's turn the page to specialty chemical segment here. Turning to the specialty chemicals, the segment once again delivered very strong growth and profitability. Revenue increased by 10% year-on-year to 214 million in the first half of 26, driven by a combination of higher volumes and positive price effects. You can see on the right corner the analyzers. Growth was primarily fueled by our ingredients portfolio, particularly in Human Nutrition, Defense Related Applications and Custom Manufacturing, Strong Demand for CreaPure and CreaVitalis, Continued Momentum in NitroGuanidin and further expansion in Custom Manufacturing all contributed to the segment's strong performance here. favorable product mix and high capacity utilization translated into 19% increase in EBITDA to 64 million. At the same time, the EBITDA margin expanded to close of 30%. highlighting the scalability and operating leverage of our specialty chemicals business. Operationally, we continue to execute our key growth projects. The nitrogen expansion and the new guanidine production facility in Germany have already entered into the commissioning phase while preparation, as already said, for the ES production footprint are progressing. So overall specialty chemicals once again confirmed its position as the group's clear growth and earnings engine with all key performance indicators developing in line with our long-term growth strategy here. So let me briefly complete the segment review by turning to the others in holding segment. So in that segment, revenue remained broadly stable at approximately 14 million in the first half of 26 compared to 14.7 million in the prior year. The development mainly reflects lower grid-free recharges to chemical park customers, while demand for chemical park services remained more or less stable here. EBITDA amounted to minus 3%. 0.3 million compared to 0.4 million the prior year. The decline was primarily driven by energy regulatory settlement effects related to the electricity consumption of the Chemical Park customers here. So overall, the segment development largely as expected and does not change the underlying earnings momentum of the Group, which continues to be clearly driven by our specialty chemicals and ingredients business. So that was all from my side and from the detailed view on the segment development. Let us now take a look at more details and the overall group figures and hand over for that more details to my lovely colleague, Andreas Losle.

Yeah, also good morning from my side and thank you, Andreas, for the insights in our segment development in the first half of 26. As always, I'll start my analysis with looking at our P&L. Our group sales within the first half of 26 reached €304 million. This represents an increase of €16 million or 6% compared to last year. As anticipated and already evident in the first quarter of 26, the two operating segments delivered markedly different performances over the course of the first half of the year. The details have been discussed by my colleague already. It's worthwhile to mention that sales development benefited from the pull forward of sales that had originally been anticipated for the second half of the year. On a regional basis, the major sales increases could be achieved in Europe and the US once again and can be allocated to the specialty chemical segment. The sales portion of our segment specialty chemicals could be increased again and contributed 70% to our group sales after 67% within the comparative period. This increase in specialty chemical sales combined with the continued cost discipline resulted in a significant increase in EBITDA and also our EBITDA margin. In the first half of fiscal year 26, we generated EBITDA of €64.5 million, representing a substantial year-on-year increase of €8 million or 14%. and this is completely in line with our expectations and met the guidance. As mentioned, our cost structure is stable. Higher production volumes led to increased waste disposal costs, while the carbide furnace overhaul resulted in elevated maintenance expenses. In contrast, lower foreign exchange losses from currency valuation had a mitigating effect. Electricity costs remain slightly above the prior year level in the second quarter, driven by temporary disruptions in energy markets following the developments in Iran. However, a substantial share of our electricity exposure has been secured through forward hedging, while the ongoing carbide furnace outage is currently resulting in lower electricity consumption. Our depreciations increased slightly and so did our financial result. The latter was impacted by non-cash interests for non-current provisions and reduced interest income based on lower interest rates on surplus liquidity. All put together, we could also increase our net results up to 35 million euro. This represents a significant increase again of more than 4 million euro or 14% compared with the prior year period. And 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 flow are still very healthy and developed as expected. Our balance sheet total increased by 56 million Euro since our last reporting date. On the asset side of the balance sheet, we observed contrasting development. While non-current assets increased due to our continued strong investment activity, inventories were reduced as expected, reflecting the effect of the furnace refurbishment. The strong sales performance resulted in a substantial increase in trade receivables. Here, it's worthwhile to mention that this increase was volume driven and not attributable to any changes in payment terms or customer payment behavior. Our equity increased by 14 million Euro and our equity ratio slightly decreased to 40.3%. While our positive net income increased our equity, we had a decreasing impact from our dividend payments in May of this year. Within the second quarter, we have strengthened our financing structure, which can be seen in increased bank loans, higher cash positions, and within our financing cash flow. The new financing structure provides access to up to €100 million in debt financing. This includes newly arranged loans of 80 million Euro as well as an additional 20 million Euro of committed term loan facilities which can be drawn at any time without further conditions if required. 30 million Euro of the newly dispersed term loans were used for the early interest-optimized repayment of loans that would otherwise have matured in late 27 or early 28. This refinancing establishes a solid foundation for Altschulm's continued growth and demonstrates the bank's confidence in the company's business model. Our operating cash flow landed at €51 million and seems to be lower than last year on the first view. However, the main reason for this decline were materially lower customer grants for our defense-related CapEx program compared to last year. Adjusted for such customer grants, the reduction in net working capital resulted in a substantial year-on-year improvement in operating cash flow. As you can see, AltScam is in a very healthy capital and cash position and ready for future growth. Future is a good keyword. Let's now discuss our outlook for the remaining six months of financial year 26. As already mentioned by my colleague, we confirm our guidance as set out at the beginning of the year and still see further growth for 26. Sales are still expected to grow to approximately €600 million and EBITDA is still expected to grow to approximately €126 million. This represents a sales increase of approximately 7% while EBITDA is expected to grow by approximately 8%. The planned sales growth should 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 such volume growth in the area of human nutrition and defense, the latter expected in the last quarter of this year. However, given that certain revenues originally anticipated for the third quarter were brought forward, revenue in Q3 may be somewhat lower compared to Q1 or Q2 of this year. For the basic and intermediate segments, we expect overall sales to be at the previous year's level or slightly below. Our outlook is based on the assumption that possible raw material increases as a result from the ongoing conflict in Iran can be passed on to our customers. Our EBITDA increase for 26 is mainly driven by the developments in our segment specialty chemicals and this also applies to our EBITDA margins. The industrial electricity price scheme adopted by the German government is expected to have only minor positive impact on Alstom's cost structure from 27 onwards and has therefore not been included in the 26 guidance. As you can see, we have still 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.

Thank you very much for the presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, now it's your turn. We're opening the Q&A session. For a dynamic conversation, click on the raise hand button for questions via audio line. And if you happen to be dialed in per phone, please use the combination star key nine to raise your hand and star key six to unmute yourself. And you're also very welcome to ask your questions in our chat box and we will read them out loud for you. And as I can see, there are already some risen hands. Mr. Christian Feitz, I will ask you to unmute yourself now. You should be able to ask your question.

Yes, thanks very much. Good morning. Congrats on the results, Christian Feitz here from Capital Shuffle. Three questions, if I may. First of all, when do you plan the startup of the refurbished furnace? You mentioned Q3, but is this more in August or in September? just for modeling purposes. My second question would be around your comments in your basics and intermediate segment. Can you elucidate a bit the weaker demand in particularly in agriculture? I understand the farmer side with China, but is this weaker demand in agriculture due to weaker farmer profitability on the back of higher fertilizer prices? and third question, how is the business in creatine for dairy going? Can you share any underlying growth rates for this business or for this pocket of the segment? Thanks very much.

So yeah, startup of the furnace, first question will be precisely in September. But that year we tried to have only one kiln online. So from that point of view, we tried to reduce stock level and only have always one kiln online. Actually, next year is planned that we run two kilns already. Weaker demand in agriculture. Yeah. So what we have seen is that the prices of the farmers are quite low. And from that point of view, that's our picture about that, that they avoid already fertilizing. Andreas Niedermaier, because they don't earn the money back through fertilizing. So that's the situation as we see that year, probably next year, hopefully, it comes back on a higher level. Because the second point on security about the use case of through the ECHA process could be solved then and that could help supporting usage of the fertilizer as well. And business for dairy, usually we don't really disclose information about that business. But what we see is that the interest is quite high of additional dairies, not only in the Ammon story. So the growth story is quite well online and inline. and that is the reason why we increased the capacities for creatine and we urgent need additional capacities, let's say that in that way round, to fulfill all the market demand late test by the end of next year.

Thanks very much, Mr. Niedermaier, very helpful.

Thank you so much. There's another risen hand from Julia Winkelmann. You should be able to ask your question now.

Can you hear me?

We can hear you.

Thank you for taking my question. I have two, please. One is on the NQ prepayment slide. The Q2 chart looks a bit different versus the chart in Q1. So to me, it looks like the self-funded contribution increased on the Q2 chart versus the one in Q1. Is this the right way to read this? And if so, is this because you expect higher capex or lower customer prepayments? And yeah, maybe also I saw that in Q2 there were no new prepayments signed, so... Maybe it would be helpful if you could comment on this. And then my second question is on the accelerated sales in Q2. Which contract or products does this relate to and was this pre-buying ahead of price increases or what was the reason behind this? Thank you.

Good morning, Julia. I'm going to take your first question, which surprises me a bit because we did not really change anything in our structure of presenting the contract liabilities. So our contract liabilities are now We are somewhat higher than 90 million. We for sure get some new customers payments in the first quarter and in the second quarter of this year, which can be seen in the cash flow statement. So overall, in the first half of the year, we received approximately 8 million of customer payments. In the comparable period, we received more than 50 million, but nothing has slowed down here. As you know, some payments are based on milestones, some payments are based on monthly installments. So as we are now opening up the plant, you can be sure that some milestones are met now and that we do expect some more contributions in the second half of the year. But overall, the situation is completely stable and we will start reducing the contract liabilities in 2027.

Okay, so your overall contribution that you expect for the NQ plant, I guess it's the blue bar on slide 21, that hasn't changed versus your estimate in Q1?

No, that hasn't changed.

Okay, thank you.

Some words about the sales increase in Q2. What are the effects behind? So what we have seen is a good growth in nitrogrenadine and creatine business because you may know that we have increased capacities for Creatine last year as well and that delivers additional quantities now and what we have seen is a pretty good custom manufacturing business but therefore we have seen some effects what we have planned in the second half of the year that we have already delivered that customer demand in the first half of the year. And from that point of view, we are a little prudent by forecasting the business that is only a contract that we have seen already in the first half of the year. Yeah.

Okay, thank you. Okay. Thank you very much. With this, we move on to the next risen hand from Peter Thilo Hassler, You should be able to unmute yourself and ask your question.

Yes, thank you very much for letting me ask my questions. First, it's about the price effect of 4.9%. Is this all due to offset rising costs or is there also part of it and margin increase? And the second question would be about the raw material prices or energy prices. Are there parts of that that cannot be passed on to customers or only in part to customers? And do you see risks if this may happen in the second half of the year? And the third question would be on your 100 million funding finance, where 80 million you already have dispersed and paid back existing loans and 30 million. Will it be necessary to raise further debt if all projects are implemented as planned? Thank you.

So let's catch the first question about 100 million funding. So from our point of view, we are financed for our growth, no doubt about that, because you may know that the US project is already financed and will be financed by the DoD. The German project are financed as well, some through prepayments and pre-cash assets, as you see on the balance sheet already. and we only need additional financing for the creatine additional capacity. So from that point of view, no, but never say no. So if we have and if we see additional growth opportunities, then we can think about that and we are really prepared for additional financing. Bank support is very high and from that point of view we can do An M&A project or we can do additional growth. So for raw material prices, a very interesting question. Due to the lower carbon production this year, we are not severely affected by the higher electricity prices and high price fluctuations here because we are living more or less from stock as well. And from that point of view, we don't see that high fluctuations that saves Thank you. Our business quite well. And usually in the basic and intermediates, we can hand over the fluctuations to our customers.

So for the price effect, I will hand over to you, Andreas. Yeah, for the price effect, I think it's a combination of both. As you mentioned, it's a pass-through of cost increases. And additionally, there are some additional price increases which have a small impact on the margin as well. So, yeah. Yeah, you're right with your assumption.

Thank you. And if I may, about the creatine, have you noticed any increase in capacity investment by competitors so far?

So for sure, the creatine market is growing like hell, let's say. So not from China. And the market has to be delivered and there are only, let's say, two suppliers around the world. So there are the the one German player which is Altschem with Creapure and Creavitalis and there are many suppliers out of China and to support and to supply the market we see additional capacities growing in China as well. But the demand is high for the highest quality and we really urgent need our additional capacity for our groups.

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you so much. The next person with a risen hand is Patrick Speck. You should be able to unmute yourself and ask your question.

Yes. Good morning, gentlemen. Can you hear me? Yeah. First of all, congrats on another very good quarter. My first question is on your new US plant. Maybe I missed it, but can you give us some information? What production volume are you targeting for in the US and what will roughly be the sales contribution when it's running under full steam?

Yeah, so we plan actually to start up production, ramp of production in 2029. and we think it should be a turnover potential close to 100 million euro, a little less than 100 million from the today's point of view.

So it's roughly the same size as the new plant in Germany, right? Or Niterga or Nitti?

Yeah, it's a little different. I think the German plant could deliver a little more at the end of the day from the today's point of view. Okay, good. With some optimization.

and my second question is on your guidance. I mean, how close did you come to raising your guidance in terms of sales? Because I mean, growth was stronger than everyone expected, or at least that the consensus expected in the second quarter. And now with new capacities coming in, I know towards the end, maybe of the year, but how close did you come to raising this guidance? Because it looks like you're, yeah, coming in above the 600 million.

Yeah, so we nevertheless expect to remain within the outlook range, even if the second half of the year turns out to be on a par with our slightly better than the first half. So we see us in the range and from that point of view, we avoided to rise the outlook here. So, but the second half could come a little better than the first half.

Okay, understood. And last question from my side, I do not fully understand to be honest why we don't see any positive effect for your fertilizer business yet with this, yeah, the placate of the Strait of Hormuz and all the results coming with it. What do you think is the main reason why you cannot gain from this yet?

Yeah, that's an interesting question. But I tell you, if you haven't sold the fertilizer already, let's say by the end of the year and you're available in the stocks of your customers, then it's really difficult and hard. to sell your product. But the market is not so healthy and the farmers are, let's say, in a depression phase because they don't earn really money. So you can ask every farmers, If you ask dairy farmers or wheat and corn farmers, they don't really earn money and from that point of view, they avoid fertilizing. And that's the first thing they can save money while doing that. And we hope that farmers will come back. and will receive higher prices next year that fertilizer business can be go upwards. It's a first topic and the second topic is that you still import nitrogen fertilizer on a very, very low basis. which is difficult to compete. So we have to pay CO2 prices while doing fertilizer production, which some competitors do not have to pay. If you're thinking about Russian and Middle East fertilizers, they have completely different production costs actually.

Yeah, okay, got it. That's it from my side. All the best for the second half of the year. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your questions. Before we move on to the next question, a gentle reminder on how to ask questions. You can raise your hand by clicking on the raise your hand button to ask questions via audio line. And if you're dialed in per phone, please use the combination star key nine to raise your hand and star key six to unmute yourself. And you can always also place your questions in our chat box and we will read them out for you. And with this, I unmute the next person, Manuela Stürzer. You should be able to

Ask your question now. Hi, good morning. This is Manuela Schürzer. So I have two questions. The first one is how did creatine pricing develop in Q2 and what are you currently seeing in terms of pricing trends and customer demand across the business? And the second one is you indicated that some revenues were pulled forward into Q2. and that Q3 could therefore be somewhat softer than Q1 and Q2. So at the same time, the new NID facility is starting to ramp up. So for modeling purposes, could you help us understand a little bit more of the expected revenue contribution from the new capacity in the second half? Thank you.

I think I'll start with the first one, with the creatine prices in Q2. You know us very well now and you know that we are not commenting on product prices itself, but we can be sure that the price did not drop in the second quarter. So I would say more or less stable. And the second question to the guidance. Yes, you're right. We will see lower revenues in the third quarter, but then we think we will see higher revenues again in the fourth quarter so that overall the The sales which were brought forward in the first half of the year can be compensated again by the increased sales out of the new NITRO Guarandine facility expected to come into the P&L in the fourth quarter. So for your modeling purposes, I would not adjust the full year sales guidance because this will be probably stable.

Thank you. Thank you very much. With this, we have a risen hand again from Julia Winkelmann. You should be able to ask your question.

Yeah, thank you. I just have one follow-up on the guidance, but on the EBITDA level. The 126 million implies that H2 is sequentially lower versus the first half. Despite, I guess, the carbon carbide furnace costs rolling off and despite the startup of the new NQ facility, which probably should be margin accretive. So I was wondering why is that because of ramp up costs or general uncertainty?

Yeah, so we have ramp-up costs as well for nitrobenidine and carbide kiln. And from that point of view, we see...

So this will then also be in Q3 mainly, right?

Yeah.

Can you quantify the ramp-up costs?

So usually we don't do that. But that's a low single million figure, let's say.

Thank you. And maybe if I may, one last question on the agriculture business. Is it still around 20% of your group sales or is there an updated market exposure to ag?

So usually we don't give that very detailed information, but if you do that calculation, you have seen declining sales in ag business and really growing sales in specialty chem business. And from that point of view, it's much lower than your figure announced.

Okay, thank you.

So we see some questions in the chat. Maybe you can hand over to this one. The first one is, are there any supply chain or transportation bottlenecks that affected or could affect operations? That's a clear no at the moment. As we mentioned, we managed to pass through the price increases which were coming from the Iran conflict. And at the moment, we don't see any bottlenecks here on that side. And for the next question, I will read, what are your thoughts about the latest changes in the shareholder base? I'm handing over to my colleague, my lovely colleague, sorry, Andreas.

Yeah, so as already mentioned, sometimes We appreciate every supporting shareholder. And we think if a shareholder see that the company or is interested in a heavy growing company, especially as our specialty chemical business, then it could be a successful story at the end of the day if we have supportive shareholder base. We know the shareholder base quite well. We have good contacts to all of our shareholders. And from that point of view, we think that we welcome them if they support our strategy, what seems to be the case from today's point of view.

The last question is, can you quantify the one-off effects related to the furnace refurbishment? Yes, this was part of our guidance and it's approximately 10 million spread over the year coming from energy regulated costs and from idle costs.

Thank you very much. A gentle reminder again, if you want to ask a question, you can click on the raise your hand button for questions via audio line, or if you're dialed in per phone, use the combination Starkey 9 to raise your hand and Starkey 6 to unmute yourself. And of course also place questions in our chat. And... Since there don't seem to be any further questions at the moment, we will come to the end of today's earning call. And of course, should questions arise at a later moment, you can always place them into Investor Relations and contact them. So thank you very much for your interest in the Alskam Group AG. A big thank you also to Mr. Niedermaier and Mr. Losle for your presentation, the Q&A and your time. and as mentioned if your question wasn't answered or should any further questions occur at any given time feel free to contact Investor Relations. I wish you all a successful day and hand over to you Mr. Niedermaier once again for your final remarks.

Thank you. Thank you for your questions. All of your questions, we appreciate that very well. And for your continued engagement with Altscan, we look forward to meeting many of you over the coming months, either virtually or at one of the conferences shown here on that slide. Otherwise, we will back with our Q3 report on October 29th. Until then, enjoy the summer. Have a restful break if you're taking time off. And thank you for your continued support. Have a great day and goodbye.