Alzchem Group Ag New

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.