Contl Ag S/Adr

Thank you very much. And welcome to all of you to our Q3 2025 results presentation. Today's call is hosted by our CEO, Nicola Setzer, and our CFO, Roland Welsbacher. Both the press release and the presentation of today's call are available for download on our investor relations website. And I'd like to remind everyone that this conference calls for investors and analysts only. So if you do not belong to either of these groups, Please disconnect now. Following the presentation, we will conduct a Q&A session for cell site analysts. To provide a chance for all to ask questions, we would like to ask you to limit yourselves to no more than three questions. This will help us to conclude in time. And before handing over, I want to briefly highlight some extraordinary effects that impacted our Q3 figures. As you're already used to it from the formal Movio reporting, The signing of the sale of our original equipment solutions business within Contitech has resulted in some accounting technicalities. Here, too, Ivers 5 applies, and the assets and liabilities attributable to OSL were reclassified to assets and liabilities held for sale. Furthermore, the sale has resulted in a write-down of the assets, which reduced the basis for depreciation. The depreciation of the new book values of the OSL assets has stopped. Without the signing, there would have been no impairment trigger, and the depreciation would have been roughly 6.5 million euros higher in Q3. With this up front, let me now hand you over to Nico.

Thanks, Max. Very welcome to the call of an, again, eventful third quarter. Our quarters have been in the last time always eventful, but this time with two major events and two major milestones. As already mentioned, on the one hand, Theo Movio spin-offs, with a fantastic ring the bell event on September 18th. So, this was very impressive going forward for sure. And you could see already that it started quite well as well in terms of market cap. So, just in that day, 700 million Euro market cap was additionally created. And as the story continues, I should say as of today or better yesterday, it's in the meantime greater than 2 billion, 2.4 roughly. or 15% in seven weeks, and if you look, the underlying indices, they are definitely not 15% up, so we clearly outperformed. With that measure, the market, not just that this measure has been greatly, but looking as well how it was executed, speed and precision from announcement, August, we started last year, December decision, and September 18th, then the listing, and with the final transaction, I should say, So that shows how focused and determined the Conti team was and is once we decide on strategic realignment and all hands on deck. And I'm really grateful that the team has achieved this on time and on budget, I should say. In particular, or even more, because the OASL sale has been signed basically in parallel. So it was August 27th when the signing took place with the industrial holding company regions. which is, and that's why we were pursuing this strategic move from our point of view, clear, better strategic owner for that asset to develop its value accretive going forward. And on the one hand, on the other hand, we see for Quantitech, this is a clear strategic move to focus even more on the industry business, on industry customers, getting now to an 80% industry business. And therefore, our strategy, which we announced three plus one champions, three sectors plus the one, the one is OSL, We see us following suit with those two, focusing now on the last two, which are within the group. And just to finalize this one, expected closing is until first quarter 2026. And then OSL is done. And at the same time, we fully focus then on the Contitech independence. So with those strategic milestones coming out to our performance, and it's a good operational performance, but first of all, those strategic moves have had as well strong impacts in particular on the near base. You see under special effects on the right side that combined both had an impact of greater than 1 billion, 1.1. Negative impact, Roland will give more details in his part. However, I want to highlight right now already, those have been all non-cash effect of one of means as we did it as well in previous years. We, our dividend policy allows for adjusting such events means they would be out of the dividend base, which we will then look into for next year's dividend. Secondly, leverage ratio. So, now on a pro forma base means we have excluded out of the 12 months every day the automotive deconsolidation effects, 680 million, so very substantial, which is getting us right now to a 2.2. We said we believe to be at around two-ish. This is now September until the end. We're working farther with our cash as well to deliver it. So, we are on target, and we have expected such a ratio. So, from the more strategic part now to the operational part, you see organic growth 2.6%, which is a decent growth given that the last quarters have been more shy. Very strongly driven by tires. Tires 3.7, which we'll see on the next chart, but I mentioned it already that tells you immediately that the growth was very much driven or all driven by tires. ContiTech's been slightly improving, but slightly negative organically with 0.6 and responsible replacement tire business, and there the regions, North America and APEC and PLT helped. Helped as well overall good operational performance, and you could see that channel mix, regional mix, our measures all contributed to a strong price mix on the sales part, and you see that, The negative impacts, which we had lower volumes in line with the year-to-date, so at the minus one percentage points roughly. Strong change rate effects with drop-throughs and the tariffs effects. They have been almost completely offset by all the mitigation measures which we took in place, which we started more or less at the beginning of the year and which are now unfolding. So, the adjusted debit margin is with a strong comp of last year. basically close to be stable. On Contitech, as mentioned before, slide sales down. However, earnings are significantly up. That is a proof that our measures, our safeguarding measures, which we've initiated, they clearly pay off. And the environment, in an environment which is still weak on the industry as well as on the OE side, however, we can admit that the third quarter already shown some signs, in particular, September of improvement for industry business Our business areas have been in at least a positive territory with regard to growth, whereas OE is still down. I already mentioned OESL results in a stop of depreciation, $6.5 million. Already now I can mention Quantitech would be as well up in terms of earnings even without that effect, and we have excluded it, which you see in the middle from the group result, where it has only a minor effect. Looking on the adjusted free cash flow, here's slight operational improvement, 157 to 169, so 12 million. But you have to consider that last year we had the one-off payment from VITASCO, 125. If you adjust for that, you see that operationally we are going in the right direction. And this holds as well true for the adjusted EBIT of the group, which you see on the upper here. If you deduct the 125, you see that our EBIT has improved there as well, based on the two stronger sectors, two strong sectors. And looking on the group, operational holding costs, you see that we are trending, if you do the math, you see that we are trending as well downwards on those costs, and we have elaborated on that. This is expected, and we are further working in order to get further to the pure play of tires, now combined with Quantitech to lower holding costs, which are in line with our businesses. So, looking into the figures, All in all, you see a challenging quarter, but with the strong September ending, so the second half of September was on the stronger upper side. It helped with solid performances. On tires, you see 3.6%, which I already mentioned. Again, sales and replacement PIT are up, whereas DOE part and in parts as well, truck tire was down. Still gives overall with a strong price mix. as an organic sales growth. And the results you see on the right side, 14.6 to 14.3. Flattish, again, strong comp last year. It was a strong quarter with the 5.08, only slightly down with the 5.01 based on our mitigation measures, which took place. Quantitech, again, 0.6. Industry up, OE down. Both trending, as well as the OE side trending a bit better in the year-to-date trend. So, that is a positive. And you see on the right side, Even if you deduct from the 97, the 6.5 Mark mentioned gets you to 91. You see we are up from 4.4 to 6.1. So, in a difficult environment with organic sales slightly down, particularly the industry business contributed and the safeguarding measures we managed quite well on the quantity side to mitigate the impacts. And with that, I hand over to Roland.

Thank you, Nico, and a warm welcome also from my side. My pleasure today to join my first earnings call as a speaker, not just for Q&A, as last time. Before we start looking at the entire Q3 figures, let me start with a brief look at the Q3 developments in our key markets and regions based on the latest available information. Due to some delay in the data on imports, you will see some retroactive changes in the database moving forward. On this page, you see the market dynamics in which we operate with our passenger and light truck tires business. Light vehicle production overall improved, but we're coming from a very low level, so rather easy to come year over year. The strong performance of the Chinese market continues, also driven by government subsidies and exports. And Europe, while being slightly positive, flagging compared to the other markets dynamics due to weaker demand and declining vehicle exports. while North America seems to normalize a little bit in a still difficult macroeconomic environment. Now over to the tires market. PLG replacement selling was slightly down in Europe and North America. However, you have to consider the solid comparison base Q3 24. And looking at the single quarters, it can be clearly seen that the impact of imports to Europe that were partly driven by the anticipation of potential anti-dumping measures by the European Commission is normalizing. On chart seven, coming down to the trends for our truck tires business, as far as commercial vehicle protection is concerned, There are still only slight signs of recovery in Europe, even though we're coming from a very low level already in Q3-24. The North American volume trend is even worsening sequentially. Crack tire replacement business continues to show modest positive momentum. In EMEA, demand remained muted due to ongoing economic uncertainty, while North America has been lately fueled by pre-tariff import activity. However, this trend is already slowing down. And how these market dynamics translate now into the performance of the tariffs group sector, you can see on the next slide, number eight. Tariffs is significantly impacted by the highly volatile environment. Once more, we had to deal with substantial headwinds from FX and tariffs. Overall, as Nico said, volume slightly declined on the same level as in the first half, mainly due to the continuing weak PLT-OE market and software truck tires replacement demand on local manufacturers' business. However, demand for our tires in PLT replacement was healthy in North America and APEC during Q3. The sell-in for the winter tire season was also comparatively strong with a promising order book, also from Nick's perspective. And despite all challenges, we managed to perform in line with the market or even slightly better in our key region. The strong price mix of plus 4.8%, predominantly driven by product, channel, and country mix, more than compensated for the negative impact from FX and lower volumes in the top line. We benefited from regional trends, positive effects in sales channels, and the continuing trend towards premium and ultra-high performance tires in our broad portfolio. In terms of profitability, price mix helped us to almost completely compensate for lower volumes to drop through on FX and the mid-double-digit million euro cross-burden steal from Terrace. Raw material cost provided a slight tailwind versus prior year in Q3, with more positive effects now expected in Q4. And while we're talking about tariffs, the timing for the tariff reimbursements from the U.S. government and whether we still receive it in 2025 or in 2026 is still unclear. However, this will not have any impact on our ability to reach our cash flow guidance for the full year. This brings us to chart number nine. We shed some more light on our regional performance. Let's take a look at the trends and drivers in Americas, EMEA, and APEC. Starting with the Americas, we achieved strong organic sales growth of plus 5.1%. While we faced a slightly negative volume effect due to a very weak truck tires or wheel market, robust performance in both PLT and truck tires replacement volumes helped us to offset this. Favorable price mix largely compensated for effects and volume effects, whereby mix was also strongly influenced by channel lease effect. Moving on to EMEA, we saw an organic growth of plus 2.7%. The negative volume effects were mainly driven by weak PLT-OE and truck tire replacement business. Truck OE, however, that's the difference to the Americas, recovered strongly. And the PLT replacement business was supported by a healthy start into the winter business. In addition to that, sequentially improved price mix, fully compensated for FX and volume headwinds. Finally, on the right side, APEC. On the sales side, we delivered plus 3.2% organic growth. Our POC business showed solid growth in both channels, OE and replacement. On the truck side, however, Q3 was impacted by the closure of the APEC truck tires business in Moti Puram, India. Price-to-performance was largely flat sequentially. So all in all, we demonstrated healthy organic growth across all regions despite the challenging market conditions. This brings us now to chart 10 over to Contitech. Despite continuing weak volumes in the automotive and industry sectors, there are slight signs of improvement as evidenced by sequentially increasing volumes in our industry business, and the automotive business showed a slightly positive development in September, too. FX effects on sales were again negative, though with limited drop through to earnings for Contitech. Other than tires, raw material impact overall was still slightly negative in Q3 due to some offsetting effects caused by some Contitech specific materials. However, the negative effects of lower volumes and exchange rate losses were more than offset by price mix. Safeguarding measures we implemented, such as our measures to compensate for the impact of tariffs, and by positive effects related to our transformation, resulting in adjusted EBIT significantly above the prior year level. Those are one-time effects associated with a planned separation between OMOVIO and Computech and technical, as we stopped depreciation in OESL, which increased the adjusted EBIT, as Nico said, from a pro forma 6.1 to 6.6%. Excluding OESL, the Contitech margin in Q3 would have been at 8.5% if sales amounted to 1 billion euro. With that healthy underlying performance and an expected sequential improvement in Q4, mainly because of a seasonally stronger industrial business, as well as continuous cost-saving measures, we're confident to achieve the lower end of the guidance corridor for Contitech. With that, let's talk about cash flow on page 11. Q3 free cash flow generation operationally slightly improved compared to Q3 2024. For prior year, however, you need to consider that Q3 2024 was positively affected by a one-off effect from the reimbursement from Bitesco that Nico already touched upon earlier. The other changes in the operating free cash flow mainly relate to changes in employee benefits and some other changes in other assets and liabilities. Capital expenditures increased compared to the previous year, mainly due to our continued investment in respective extension projects, such as our plant in Raiyong, Thailand, ongoing construction of our new tile distribution center in Texas, for example, as well as a more balanced quarterly facing of our cap expense compared to the last year. So much to the operational part. Let's move on to slide 12. briefly address the more technical implications concerning our balance sheet resulting from the spin-off of Omuvium. The left side shows how our net debt has developed over the last few quarters. You can see the influence of the spin-off in Q325. All figures up to June 30, 25 are presented as reported for the entire group as it existed back then. That means for continuing and discontinued operations, The figures as of September 30, 2025, refer only to continuing operations. EBITDA for the pro forma leverage ratio was adjusted for the deconflidation effect resulting from the spinoff. As expected, we came in at around two times leverage, which is a level that we will now continuously drive downwards in the upcoming quarters. On the right side, you can see how the total equity, as well as the net debt, was particularly affected by the cash contribution to Omovium. At the same time, the total assets were reduced by the disposal of the associated net assets. All in all, this led to an improvement of the equity ratio from 14.6% as per the end of June to 22.2% as per the end of September, just as we already expected in H1. All KPI targets mentioned on our CMD do, of course, remain valid. That means we will continue to operationally strengthen our balance sheet. With that being said, let's move on to our market outlook in page 13. After a very negative picture of light vehicle production expectations, especially in Europe and North America, S&P Global has raised their expectations for financial year 25. However, we see in this forecast certain risk related to supply chain disruptions, such as the situation around Nixperia, for example, so we remain cautious. The latest S&P global figures on commercial vehicle production show that the situation has further deteriorated. Although the negative trend in Europe is gradually reversing, it is still far from sufficient to achieve growth for the year as a whole, and the outlook for North America has also deteriorated significantly once again. Our assumptions regarding the passenger car tire replacement markets did not change materially, while we increased the outlook for the commercial vehicle replacement business on the back of a healthy year-to-date performance. And for the Eurozone, we slightly increased our assumptions for overall industrial production following the latest developments in this area. However, this is a very broad picture of industrial activities for the Eurozone. Unfortunately, we have not yet seen that positive momentum in the important areas for the counter-tech industrial business. Let's now turn to our guidance. As already announced in our pre-release in October, we are confirming the guidance for sales, EBIT, and cash flow. However, some changes had to be made because of the impact of Continental's transformation. The non-cash one-offs are affecting our earnings before tax, which leads to a distortion of our regular tax rate, since we, of course, still have to pay taxes in the countries where we are doing business. This is leading to an expectation of a low triple-digit percentage tax rate for the full year. Without the spinoff, without the transformation, there would have been no adjustment for the tax rate, meaning it would have still been at around 27%. In addition, we've also adjusted the value for expected special effects on 350 million to 1.5 billion for the same reasons. Meaning, this adjustment is solely attributable to the transformation related special effects that we have already explained. Please keep in mind, we're mainly giving you the guidance for special effects and tax rates that you can model a net income. Our dividend policy does, however, as mentioned in the introduction by Nico and previously done in the past, allow us to exclude those non-cash one-offs for the basis of our dividend proposal in 2026. Or in other words, the changes in the guidance will presumably not impact the dividend this year. Furthermore, we've also adjusted our CapEx guidance from 6% to 6.5%, mainly due to the ongoing plant expansion in Asia. With this, We come to the end of our presentation. I would like to hand over the rest of the time to you now. Operator, could you please open the line for the Q&A?

Yes, thank you. 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. And the first question is from Akshat Kakkar, JP Morgan. Please go ahead with your question.

Thank you. Hi, Nikolai, Roland. Akshat from JP Morgan. I have three questions, please. The first one on the market outlook for the passenger car replacement business. I see that you've talked about a slight decline in demand in the second half of the year versus the first half. And when we think about the inventory situation, I think something that has been very well flagged is the high inventories or budget hires in Europe and the U.S., So how do you assess the current inventory levels in these markets? And are you cautious on selling volumes when we head in? Yeah, that's the first question. The second question is on the winter tire market, which I think mainly underpins the very strong price mix that you have had in the quarter. And it's a more structural question on the evolution of this market, given that we have had two very strong selling seasons in 2024 and 2025. How do you expect this market to evolve going forward, please, given the discussions we've always had on a structural declining winter tire market due to oil fees and tires, but also global warming? The last question is on the cost actions that you've talked about and the fixed cost measures that you've taken in response to tariffs. Are there any structural cost savings that you can carry into 2026, or are most of these measures one time in nature, please? Thank you.

Yeah. Let's start with the market outlook on the PLT side, and I would like to refer to your comment on the inventories level. So, overall, I think the inventories specifically in Europe on the Pascal side were driven by imports, and the imports, again, were driven by the expectation with regard to anti-dumping measures. Whether they come or not and to what extent and when is still unclear. So, if it would not come, then stocks obviously would normalize pretty fast, I guess. It had a dampening effect on the sell-in. Whether this now continues into the first half of 26 remains to be seen. In U.S., of course, we also have seen raised imports, but the dynamic was due to the tariffs. There was a lot of preload on the inventory side with regard to the tariffs. This is now also normalizing to some extent. It also takes time. It also muted to some extent the demand. But overall, in general, for volumes in Q4, as Nico pointed out in the beginning, we are rather on the cautious side. So we expect a slight decrease, flattish interest.

Yeah, with the winter tire market, this is, as you pointed out, a strategic question. So, so far we've seen in the last years still a solid business there. I mean, in those markets where still there's winter, there are winter tire regulations. So we assume that this will drag for a certain period. time and this will still support the tire business strongly as well as our position strongly. On the other hand, we see as well that those which are changing due to climate situations, they are going into our season business and on the season side, we have our positions. So it's a one for one change to that. How this will play out remains to be seen. Still what we said on the capital market. that overall tires is not a strong growth business, but in the area of 1% CAGR, so you should see a switch. What moves then strongly over time from the winter side will move towards season and then as well to summer. On the fixed cost measures, you asked what is structured. On the tire side, we have announced the restructuring measures in Malaysia, , India. I mean, all those actions are getting as well into next year and helping On Contitech, we have announced as well several plant closures and structural measures. So there is a certain amount of those which are executed this year, which are in execution, which will bring positive fixed cost savings then for the next year. However, with the one or the other part, like the Tracta and Modipo Ampar, there's obviously as well business, not from high enough quality in terms of education. That's why we are pursuing this. But there's a certain kind of business which is as well then facing out, which you have to keep in mind. Thank you.

And the next question is from . Please go and raise your question.

Thank you for taking my questions. The first one, please, on essentially competitive situation and tires. And one of your main competitors talked about portfolio repositioning to rebalance volume and market share. Do you see any increase in commercial or competitive pressure in Q3, Q4? right now, or so far no major impact. And then the second question, just if you could provide, I know it's quite early, but the main building blocks that we should think about on volume price mix, potentially FX, and cost for tires in Contitech into 26. And then remind us of the one-time cash effects that you had in 25, and what to expect in 26, please. Thank you.

Yeah. First of all, as you know, we don't comment competitive. So, no comment from our side to that. At the end of your question, you referred to market situations. I think Roland already mentioned how we currently see the markets. Right now, we should say from the trending point, similar to where we have been in the nine months. That's what Roland has referred to. So, we are minus 1% in volume so far. So, we managed quite well. between our cost situation, the market, and the different dynamics. And we assume for the fourth quarter that this is unchanged. Obviously, we're always trying to be better. That's why Roland mentioned as well to be flattish at best. We had a stronger second half last year, so higher comps overall. So this is the market dynamics in which we are operating right now. Going to the second part for the fourth quarter, the other important Assuming that it continues on the FX rate than right now, FX should be the same because it was relatively stable last year in Q2. This year it changed, so it should be relatively stable for the fall. And then looking even into the first quarter, you should see similar effects as then second quarter, really the exchange rate on the global zero has changed overall. Cost situation, we have seen on the indices and the spot prices, since the second quarter into the third quarter already that they are going downwards. We had only limited effects in the third quarter based on inventory and consumption. We assume that this gets a larger effect in Q4, still being certain shy due to how we currently see the inventories and the markets and the different parts, and then would drag as well into 2026. On the price mix, I would call it Quality business, I mean, the quality of our business, because it depends on, say, channel mix, where we've been relatively rich in the third quarter. As in North America, larger tires, larger mix. That is pure math. Similar to Asia Pacific, we see that certain trends should persist. However, as mentioned, we had a really strong quality of our business in the third quarter. Certain paths will continue for sure. How it all plays out remains to be seen. We have seen the question on the winter tire business strong. order book so far. Sell-in was good. Now we're hoping November, December to see as well a strong sell-out. So winter weather in Germany right now is not so . So we hope that we see some snowflakes and some predictions, and obviously this helps as well the quality and the price mix to be more supportive in the fourth quarter.

I can take the free cash flow question. So, going back 2024, we forecasted the expected one-time effect for 25 are expected to be in a high triple-digit million-euro area, more or less evenly split between restructuring, separation costs, and taxes. So, restructuring cash-outs are mostly borne by OMUVIO. Spin-off cash-outs have been specified in the prospectus, 279 million. There are over 200 million will be ultimately be borne by Omuvium. Tax cash-outs will mostly be covered by Continental. This should lead to one-offs on the Continental side amounting to roughly one-third of the originally anticipated one.

Thank you. For 26, all that should be gone, right?

Well, from the, let's say, from the first two steps of the transformation, that is OMOVI and OESL, we do not expect the big effects for 26.

Thank you.

Next slide. We announced that we are looking into plant measures as well, which is also dragging into 2036. So, there will be somewhat associated with that. Special effects you always have, yes. But it's minor compared to what you've historically seen, yes.

Okay, the next question is from Horst Schneider, Bank of America. Please go ahead with your question.

Yes, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions as well. The first one that I have relates to Contitech and the disposals. So on OESL, you have of course not quantified the purchase price, but what effects can we expect basically on depth when the OSL disposal gets executed? And in that context as well, do you expect closure of that this year or it's more in January if I remember right? And in that context, maybe also you can give an update on the disposal process of the remainder of ContiTech, so when that is really kicking off and when you expect basically closure of that. And in that context, again, when we think about Net Depth EBTA and your long-term guidance one times, but I think that is more for 2029, how should we think about Net Depth EBTA when the ContiTech disposal gets executed because that determines, and of course, the potential special dividend. So when this decision is made, you want to be exactly at one time stated EBTA, or you can be also above because you just want to trend towards end of the decade towards one. That would be the other question. Thank you.

All right. So, let me take the first one. We agreed not to announce any details of the transaction with a buyer of OESL, though I cannot be too specific, but all of the debts associated with the business will transfer to the buyer. This is mainly expected for the pensions.

Pensions, deadlines, items.

Exactly. And then closer, I think you mentioned that already, early in Q1, 2026, to be expected for OESL. And then for the entire sales process for County Tech, we more or less are on track what we already announced. So we're in the final stages of preparation and should be finalized before Christmas. And then we're basically ready to approach the market. And we want to complete the transaction in the second half of 26. So there is no use because we're still on track. And long-term with regard to capital allocation and net debt EBITDA ratios, we always said mid-term that is 27 to 29, we want to get to a leverage ratio of one or below, whereas we have certainly some flexibility with regard to the timing.

So when we really think that depends on the market conditions, how is our business situation at that point of time? And obviously, what are the preferences overall to be evaluated?

Okay, thank you. Just quick follow-up. This ContiTech disposal, basically the remainder, can be initiated already before the OESL transaction is completed, or it only starts when OESL is completed?

No, it starts already. As Roland mentioned, we are under preparation. We are going into the market already in parallel then in the first quarter in 2026. And OESL itself carved out its own business. The one is independent from the other. Okay, thank you.

And the next question is from Monica Bosio in Tesa, San Paolo. Please go ahead with your question.

Yes, good morning. I hope you can hear me, and thanks for taking my questions. The first one is the flavor between the passenger car tires and the truck tires. I know that the company does not split. between the two areas, but can you give us a flavor of the underlying margins in tracts? And can you imagine that the margins in tracts could be in the mid-single digit zone or maybe better? Any color on this would be really appreciated. My second question is more on the strategic side. As you mentioned that the tariff impact for 2026 is still not very visible. But more in general, in the long, medium term, what could be your strategic response to tariffs? And the very last is on the margins for the fourth quarter for the truck tires. On the back of the favorable winter tire season and on the back of the sound results achieved in the quarter, should we expect margins for the full year closer to the upper part of the COVID range? Because at this moment, the consensus is not accounting this. Just a check from you. Thank you very much.

I will take the first one. So we are not splitting the margins between POT and Tractor. That's in general each business which we have to create value. So at least create or give the returns on the cost of capital. This is true for Tractor as well as for POT. We saw in India getting out of a certain business where this was not the case. We've seen the same. So we act once we are getting into it. and track tire has as well a different cost of capital. It's a different business model. It's different cost base. That's why you cannot compare it. But again, we don't publish the different margins. However, as we have a strong position in Europe and America, you can believe that we have, we are creating as well value over there. Otherwise, we wouldn't be in that business supporting and further investing into it. Strategic response to tariffs. First of all, our strategic response mitigation measures as much as we could. Obviously, we explore our US American manufacturing sites or North American manufacturing sites, which we have to the max. We are doing de-bottling measures and so on. For further more long-term, we have to wait until really the dust settles. So, we have right now a certain tariff which is in place. We have to see how the dynamics as well on the cost side will go further out and then as typically we take further measures with regards to our sourcing and where we produce those tires. Keep in mind that building a tire plant is a very strategic long-term decision and we have to be sure that the environment and the framework and the market is in line for a longer period of time to justify such a decision.

With regard to your third question, Monika, I expect that you're asking about the guidance range, right? of my understanding. So, we feel totally comfortable with the current guidance in place for COVID-19 67 and 12.5 to 14. So, right now, we're remaining cautious for Q4. We're slightly optimistic, but we remain cautious. There's no need to change this. We just confirmed it, and we want to stay with this.

Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you.

The next question is from Harry Martin Bernstein. Please start with a question.

Thanks very much for taking my questions. The first one that I have is on the capex increase. It sounds like this is for capacity increase in tyres primarily. So can I just ask about the motivation here? Is this effectively shifting capacity out of higher cost locations or an attempt to win more volume share in total? The second question, I have a few really on Computech. The first one, just on the Q3 performance, is the industrial business now backed double-digit margins in Q3? And how far away from the mid-term target, the industrial business specifically now? And then finally, on the industrial separation process, now that you've been working through that for a few more months. Can I ask what you found out about potential dis-synergies between the separation? What proportion of the group's purchasing volume of rubber or sim-shared raw materials go to the tire business versus the industrial business? And what is your current thinking about how the segment margins may be impacted by that dis-synergy on the separation? Thank you.

I can take the first one, Harry, on the CapEx side, but what we've seen this year and what was the cause for the slight increase in the ratio is, first of all, our investment into two regions, that is, America and Asia, for the tariff business. So, we're continuing to invest now in China, and then we're in the second phase of expansion for our Thailand plan in Rayong. This was basically driving the ratio up. There's a little bit of a phasing element, as I already said in the beginning. So the motivation is explicitly not what you said, shift to best costs. It is more expansion into the two regions where we want to get stronger.

Yeah, looking for the industrial margins so we don't publish the full industrial margins. Keep in mind that Quantitech without the OSL still includes the surface solution parts, which has as well automotive business. For that, we published that we reached in the third quarter 8.5%. Looking for 2024, we have shown this on the capital markets. We have been at 8.0. So, we improved by half a percentage point, and this mainly comes from the industrial business now. With 80% industrial business, you can do the math and somehow see that this business is in a better shape than before. However, we are not where we are targeting to be. The 11 to 13 is the midterm target for this parameter, including SSL. And the market itself is not where it should be. It's still a weak market environment. When I mentioned that September has shown some positive signs, it's still on a low base. And the minus 0.6% organic growth was, as well, versus last year, already a reduced phase. So, we are still in a trough, but a trough which shows that slowly but surely we see some light of better trends. Let's put it that way. This energy is rubber. What we can say, so we are not there yet. So we have now separate options. We build up our purchasing on the Quantitech side, but this is a very small part only of same rubber materials from the same suppliers. This is really a minor part. We don't assume any larger dis-synergies from the material side. We even believe on the material side, we should have opportunities by having a Quantitech purchasing team, which fully focuses on a very, very complex purchasing part a high variety of materials, and the tire side with a lower complexity, however, a higher volume, those two parts, and that's why we are doing, as well as the independence, that's why we are convinced that both parties are better off in the separation. We clearly believe that we can eliminate those synergies and even create momentum and better purchasing conditions for the individual companies.

All right, Claire, thank you.

The next question is from Thomas . Please go with your question.

Thank you very much. It's Thomas . I have three questions as well, please. First, could you tell us whether you've decided yet what you intend to disclose in the future for the tar business as we get closer to the target of having continental business You're giving us revenues and organic growth for three regions, but you're not giving profitability. You're not giving passenger or truck sales. What's the plan there, please? Second question, when I look at Q2 24 versus Q2 25, Q3 24 versus Q3 25, I'm a bit surprised by the margin evolution. There was a strong decline in Q2. a much greater resilience in Q3 with relatively similar volumes, worse effect and a delta in price mix that's not sufficient to explain the substantially greater resilience in Q3. Could you explain what I'm missing, please? And thirdly, just to be fully clear on the base for the dividend, you're going to see to give proposed to shareholders for 2025. Could you tell us what is the clean net income base over nine months on which you're going to base your reflection, please? Thank you.

Yeah, I can take the first one, the tariff reporting structure. I think we wanted to already point out in which direction we want to report in the future by providing now a regional sales pitch. We believe this is the best way of creating transparency into the tires business by splitting it by region, not by product segment. At some point in time next year, probably between signing and closing, we will have to change our reporting and provide more details also per region. Then in the tires business, still to be decided what the right moment in time will be, but we cannot do that before that, because otherwise that would trigger the probably backward split, and we get into a problem for the auditors.

So, with the sequential improvement on the TIRES-I Q2, Q3, I mean, in Q2, we have mentioned that we had all the negative effects. And as Ix already started, we had the tariffs, which had been higher at the beginning, where you see now, as well as the lower base and then certain reimbursements, which were coming then within the third quarter. All our mitigation measures, which we implied due to the tariffs, only unfolded in the third quarter, as I mentioned. On the material side, we mentioned before, there was a certain tailwind, so has been small, but there was, sequentially, there was an improvement. And overall, the third quarter volume, so it's as well as the minus one versus prior year, but the third quarter volumes are a bit higher than in the second quarter. So those are all the reasons, the positives, which were the negatives in the second quarter. We're reversing them in the third quarter. That's the reason why our margin is substantially better than we've been there.

And then the last one, basis for dividend and clean net income. I mean, you've seen our net income, it's minus 756 million negative. If you now would adjust this for the special effects, we also show on one of the first charts in our presentation, already 1.1 billion is due to the OTI recycling driven by the spinoff of Omobu. And then the second portion, 680. 680, sorry, 680 million. And 454 million is then driven by OESL. And this together would already most likely bring us to positive territory. So we did not do the math because it's a technical question, but it's certainly not negative.

And there's a fourth quarter to come. Sure. Yes. Thank you. You should get us at a reasonable net income. Let's put it that way. Yep. Thank you, Nico. You're welcome.

And the next question is from Ross McDonald City. Please start with your question.

Yes. Hi there. Thanks for taking my questions. It's Ross at City. My first question is just coming back to tires. And you mentioned the second half of September in particular was accelerating. Can you maybe give some commentary around whether that trend has continued into the fourth quarter? And obviously, we're tracking at the sort of midpoint of the tire margin range. So, just keen to understand if you feel like we're tracking in the upper half now for the full year guidance on the tires margin. My second question also, again, on tires. Given the weakness that we see in truck original equipment, could you potentially update on factory load or factory capacity utilization rates, please, and maybe comment on how big a benefit to group margins it would be if we see, let's say, the truck cycle at a normal level? And then my final question is coming back to Christoph's comment on the U.S. market. Obviously, Michelin have reduced their exposure to ATD. Could you comment on your exposure to ATD? I understand you sell to ATD. So just curious in the third quarter if there was any additional potentially one-off volume benefits as you took additional share with ATD. It would be very interesting in understanding the volume dynamics in the U.S. there. Thank you.

Ross, thank you very much. So, let me take the first one on Q4 trends in general. We already commented a little bit on it. So, ROMED slightly up versus Q3, maybe mid-double-digit million-euro amount. FX more or less in line with Q3. Volume also in line, potentially even flat a year over year, as we said. Price mix slightly below Q3 because the quality of business in Q3 was really very good. rather towards Q2 this year, and then fixed costs slightly worse than Q3. That's more or less the comment, our expectations going into Q4. We don't want to be more specific at this point in time with regard to the guidance for colors.

Yeah, and there's still the Q4 to come. So, obviously, many things can happen on the sales channel and so on with regard to the sales quality of our business. Let's see how that ends, and we referred already to the winter, which is not winter yet so much. On the truck tire plan to utilization, the OE part, we are largely exposed to replacement to the aftermarket than to the OE part. So, obviously, lower OE affects our plan to utilization, which is a bit lower at that point of time. However, we can replace it with, in a certain part, with the replacement business. We have, as well, some factories where we share PLT with truck tires, so we manage this quite well going through. which means on the other side, if Chuck obviously comes back, that helps to how much remains to be seen difficult to quantify.

Yeah, and on individual customers, sorry, we don't want to comment on individual customers. Obviously, ATT is an important customer for us and will remain an important customer for us, but there's all this we can say on this one.

And in other markets, and we have a substantial share overall in the U.S. market, means we have several, many customers where we are balancing our businesses carefully in order to balance as well risks and opportunities.

That's helpful. Maybe if I could phrase that final question just slightly differently then. Obviously, versus some of your peers, you're clearly gaining share, let's say, in the U.S. market. Is that a trend you expect to continue? And would that trend be at a similar level to the third quarter, obviously, just removing the individual but, you know, just keen to understand the momentum on market share gains in the U.S. that you expect in 2026.

So, we don't comment on gaining share. That's not the important part anyhow. So, looking on how our business continues, we are confident, and as Roland said, that we continue as well on North America and the Asian PLT replacement business where we have clearly seen positive momentum and we assume this going on. What our position is afterwards in the market, that is the result of what we are doing and not vice versa. Thank you.

You're welcome. And the next question is from Michael . Please start with a question.

Yes, good afternoon. I have two questions. Maybe first one on your statements in the pre-close call. Can you maybe explain the difference between the statements in the pre-close call and the margin development for both divisions, especially since this must be related to the development in September? And the second one is on the special items. Can you give us any kind of guidance what we should expect for special items related to the transformation process besides the stopped depredation on ODSL?

So the first part, I will do. So what was the difference? I already referred at the beginning, the second half of September was very strong. We came out of the July, August, which were kind of muted. first half of September took over momentum, and then in particular at the end, we've seen the markets much better. In terms of volume, there was more volume coming in. There was more favorable quality of business, so price mix. So clearly in the different regions, which are contributing as well to the better results, we have seen unexpectedly better. Once we came out at lower cost, lower fixed cost, as we have predicted the tariff relief, which was then in September, then published where we had to do the math back. So what have we paid before? How much, how do we reconcile and book for it? This effect has been larger. And then we had as well, additional service agreements with Omobi, which came in positive on the cost side on the IT license allocation. So you see, it was a month ending with many positives, which has resulted in more positives

result than we have foreseen it in the pre-close call so good news came relatively late yeah yeah that leads us to the second one so special items of the transformation let me refer back to chart four of the presentation where we try to list all of the effects in q3 We already touched upon the most important ones, so the impairment impact, $455 million, and the $680 million coming from the auto spin. And then there's some other carve-out related project costs for County Tech as well as auto, and also some tax-related special effects coming from the carve-out and from the spin-off. And then the only thing left is then the restructuring, 22 million in Q3, 111 million in total for year to date. There is more or less all the special effects which we explained on page four.

So that means there will not be any major part of a major additional special items in Q4 related to the transformation?

All that could well be that there is a little bit still in terms of app exchange related and then probably some half-out related project costs still coming in Q4, but it's not as big as you're seeing here in Q3. Q3 was the major impact of everything to do with the spinoff and the last portion of the current preparation for OESL and also for . Okay. Thank you.

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

Thanks. G'day. Michael from Jefferies here. Just one. You might not comment, but it's being discussed a lot, so I thought I'd ask directly. I'm wondering if you can give us any thoughts as to the value of Quantitech.

Yeah. Your assumption is right. We get value. We believe in a strong value of Quantitech, which is then underpinned by a strong interest in this asset, which we believe is a great one. evaluation as that we will not comment yet. This will come then later in the process. Sorry for that.

We're getting basically calls every week from potential buyers saying we're going to start the process and we want to be part of it. So we believe it's got to be an attractive purchase price, but of course, we don't want to be specific.

Okay.

And the last question is from Horst Schneider, Bank of America.

One minute left.

Please go ahead.

Maybe we get it done in 30 seconds. I'm glad that I can ask a follow-up. Briefly on price mix, because that seems to come down again, normalizing Q4. Ronald, I think you said also at the Munich Auto Show that going forward you would expect that 3% to 4%. So the 3% is a minimum number we can assume going forward, not for Q4, it more refers maybe 26 and thereafter. And on cost savings specifically and Quantitech, can you maybe quantify to what extent cost savings have driven the Contitech results year-to-date? And what specifically, not just on cost savings, but in general, any statement on Contitech Q4? Because I think Q4 is always the strongest quarter usually for Contitech. Also in terms of margin, is that going to be the case also this year? Thank you.

So I do it very fast. I start with the bank Q4. I mean, if you do the math, Q4 must be stronger than the year-to-date, must be the best quarter. Otherwise, to get into the margin corridor, As I said as well before, it will be more at the lower part, depending on how the Q4 will end. So, yes, and most of the improvement was clearly from the cost side. If you take this as a comparison, a bit we worked obviously as well on the quality of our business, repositioning and more focus on the higher quality business. Let's put it that way, but really a large portion of that is coming from our safeguarding measures. as obviously the sales part has not contributed a lot. To the price-made part, I mean, how Cush 4 will end remains to be seen. It depends on all sales channel mixes and so on, which we assume rather stable, and we only referred to that Q3 was on a high level. Everything was coming in larger markets, larger customers with larger tires contributed, which is great. Going forward, as mentioned at the Capital Market Day, Historically, a mix in the range of 2% to 3%, 2%, 2.5% has been shown. Looking at the trends in the market, EV, the new car park and the new cars which are registered with larger, higher tires suggests that such a trend should extrapolate for the future. And then it all depends, the additional one, how we perform in the different markets. Our main growth markets are the Americas as well as Asia Pacific. Truck tire might come back, which adds then to that. Okay.

Thank you. And with that, we have come to the end of the time. So thank you, everyone, for participating today. As always, we, the Conti IR team, are happily available if you have any remaining questions. And with that, we would like to conclude for today. Thank you very much, and goodbye.