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3/24/2026
And gentlemen, welcome to the Drägerwerk full year 2025 earnings call. I'm Moritz, your call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Stefan Dreger, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Well, good afternoon, and thank you for joining our conference call on our financial results for the fiscal year 2024. I have with me today Gertard de Gespo, CFO, as well as Tom Fischlach and Nikolaus Hammerschmidt, both investor relations. We would like to take you through the results with the presentation that we made available on our webpage this morning. Following the presentation, we will open the floor to your questions. Let's get started on page five with the business highlights. In 2025, we continued our successful course and generated the highest net sales in our company's history. Both divisions and all regions contributed to this. At around 3.5 billion euro, net sales were slightly above our last forecast and around 25 million euro above the level of the exceptional strong coronavirus year 2020. Unlike during the pandemic, this is a new record that we achieved entirely without a special economic situation. Thanks to the operating momentum, our earnings before interest and taxes also developed very well. EBIT rose by more than 20% to around $233 million despite difficult conditions. The EBIT margin increased by roughly one percentage point to 6.7%, also exceeding our last forecast. This shows that we are making progress in improving our profitability. Order intake also developed very well. As with NetSafe, both divisions contributed to grips. This underlines the continuing demand for our technology for life and gives us a positive outlook for the future. Positive is also the key word with regard to our cash flow development, which GetHub with Lesbo will explain later. We have also performed well on the stock market. Last year, our common shares rose by more than one , while our preferred shares even increased by almost half and were included in the tech stats. This means that we are once again one of the 30 largest listed technology companies in Germany. This listing increases our visibility on the capital market and could make us even more attractive to investors. In mid-January, we published our preliminary business figures for 2025 and our forecast for 2026. Our shares then rose significantly again and reached their highest levels since July 2017. This shows that investor confidence in Brega is higher than it has been for a long time. Our first goal remains to increase profitability such that our EBIT margin is the same as the last digit of the calendar year, as we have more goals that are strategic to steer the company. We are strengthening our innovative power and expanding our competence in the systems business and certainly expanding our services and business. In our medical division, We are particularly driving forward the marketing of network solutions. With this end, we launched a large marketing campaign in 2025. Our goal is to strengthen Spreger's position as the leading provider of connected solutions in the hospital sector. That said, we are also launching a big wave of SPC-based solutions, that is, service-oriented device connectivity the new standards for interoperability of medical devices according to IEEE 11073. It creates new functionalities, therefore added value. With our new silent care package, for example, it contributes to solving one of the biggest problems on the ICU by reducing the alarm noise fatigue. In the safety division, Connectivity is becoming more important, too. Our fire ground monitoring system, for example, helped us to win the Paris Fire Department as a new customer in 2025. Speaking of firefighting, we also received the important approval for our BSS Air Force CBA in North America. Reaching a milestone for strengthening our position In addition to our core business, we are consistently investing in new business opportunities in areas such as clean tech and defense. Last year, our defense business grew significantly. We are well on track to triple our defense sales to more than 300 million euro by 2028. I will talk about the other highlights on the past fiscal year, the dividend, and the outlook at the end of our presentation. I would first like to explain in more detail in page six what challenges we had to overcome last year. So, page six, Advent Compensated. Ladies and gentlemen, 2025 was a very successful year, particularly in light of the difficult conditions. In 2024, we have benefited from positive one-off effects from the sale of non-strategic business activity that was the smoke and fire alarm systems in the Netherlands and some real estate in the United States. This had boosted our EBIT by around 22 million. In the past year, we missed these effects and also faced strong from tariffs and currencies. imposed by the U.S. government had a negative impact of roughly 26 million on our EBIT. Around 21 million out of this was attributable to the medical division and around 5 million to the safety division. In addition, EBIT was impacted by currency effects initiated from the White House and propagated over the world, totaling to around 45 million euros. 28 million euros are attributable to the medical division and around 16 million to the . So, overall, we have to compensate opposing effects of more than 19 million euros. The fact that we even overcompensated these effects is a clear proof of our . We were therefore able to improve our profitability even under difficult conditions. Let's take a look at the margin development of . Following the significant loss in 2022, we have shifted our focus from net sales growth to earnings growth. We have thus set ourselves the goal of increasing our EBIT margin by an average of one percentage point per year from 2024. The focus on profitability in accordance with our corporate objective number one has worked well so far. After the strong turnaround in 23, we were able to improve our EBIT margin by roughly one percentage point in both 24 and 25. While positive runoff effects in particular contributed to the improvement in 24, the improvement in 25 came mainly from the operating business. This is a development that beat very much . And we have our strategic growth. Our corporate objective two is innovation, and our corporate objective three is systems, business, and recurring business. Now, I'd like to hand over to Gerd Hartwig to explain our business development further. I will then turn back with the dividend and the output.
Gerd Hartwig. Thank you, Stefan. I would also like to extend a warm welcome to everyone joining this conference call. for the fiscal year 2025. Please turn to page six for a view on the trading group. As usual, I will be stating currency adjusted figures whenever related, but referring to both rates. As Stefan mentioned, demand for our technology for life remains strong. Overall, orders increased by 7.7% to around 3.6 billion. In Q4, orders rose by 5.6%. Both divisions contributed growth in both reporting periods. Net sales climbed by 5.3% in the fourth year and by 8.7% in the fourth quarter. This was due to good development in both divisions and all regions. Like for orders, the Americas region and the Mayo region were the biggest growth drivers. At around 3.5 billion, net sales reached In addition to the high oil intake, this was mainly due to the strong year-term effects. Benefiting from the record net sales in December and the margin improvement in the medical division, our group's gross margin rose slightly by over 3 percentage points to 45.2 in the full year. Functional expenses rose by 4.6% in 2025, right after there had been positively impacted by one of the attacks of around 32 million euros in the prior year. These attacks included the net sale of a non-strategic business in the Netherlands and the sale of real estate in Spain and the U.S. Excluding these one-off attacks, the increase of partial expenses in 2025 was only 2.5%. This increase is attributable to a higher personal higher number of employees, among other things. Despite the missing positive one-off effects in 24 and the negative currency and tariff effects in 25, our EBIT increased by more than 20% to around 233 million euros. Consequently, our EBIT margin rose from 5.8% to 6.7%. The mentioned headwinds were overcompensated by the high order intake and the improved gross margin. In addition, the strong year-end business contributed to the resilient development. Our EBIT improved by around 37% in the fourth quarter, while the EBIT margin climbed to 13.7% from 10.6% in that period. The four-year EBIT development is in line with our medium-term goal to increase the EBIT margin by one percentage point. of the average. The IDA 2026 EBIT margin includes an additional margin improvement of the higher end of the guidance range. The results of the strong increase in earnings, our DBA of 2025, improved by roughly 36 million to around 9 million. Let us now take a closer look at the development of the two divisions, starting with the medical division, on page 10. Following a slight increase in the prior year, our order intake in the medical division rose by 39% in 2025. This was primarily due to the high demand for our anesthesia machines, ventilators, services, and consumables. In addition, we received the major multi-year order for hospital infrastructure systems for Mexico, which significantly supported the above-average growth in the Americas region. Demand also developed positively in the other regions, particularly EMEA. In the fourth quarter, order intake rose by 2.2% as the decline in APEC and EMEA was overcompensated by significant growth in North Africa and Germany. And by growth in all regions, net sales in the medical division increased by 7.4% in 2025 after decline in the prior year. In Q4, net sales rose by 13% thanks to considerable growth in EMEA, Americas, and Germany. Net sales in the APIC region were around 3% below the prior year level. Our gross margin in the division rose by 0.6 percentage points to 43.6%. The negative currency and tariff effects were overcompensated by the favorable product and country mix. In Q4, one, on the other hand, the gross margin decreased by 0.6 percentage points due to higher inventory write-outs. Functional expenses climbed by 5.7% in 2025, having been positively impacted in the prior year by one of the facts around 15 billion euros from the sale of real estate and the adjustment of the put-off. Without these effects, the increase in 2025 amounted to only 3.7%, with higher personnel expenses being the main cause. The EBIT of the medical provision doubled to 57 million euros after a decline in the prior year. Subsequently, the EBIT margin rose from 1.5% to 2.9%. In 2004, the EBIT increased significantly to around 40% to roughly 80 million euros, thanks to the strong year-end business. As a result of the strong increase in earnings, our EVA and the Medicare provision improved considerably in 2025 from around minus 50 million euros to minus 23 million euros. I will now turn to our safety division, which delivered another good We are now at page 11. Our safety business continues to grow, for the intake rose by more than 6% in 2025. This was primarily due to the high demand for energy institutions and gas detection devices. In addition, respiratory and personal protection products, as well as alcohol and strike-testing devices contributed. The EMEA and America's regions recorded a significant increase in orders, while the APEC region also developed positively. In Germany, demand declined after we had received a major order for NBC protection filters in the prior year. However, industrial demand in Germany is also generally restrained at present. The sales increased by 2%. In Germany, net sales were roughly on par with the prior year, while the Americas recorded a decline. In 2004, net sales rose by just under 3% as the decline in the Americas. Germany was overcompensated by the growth in the bear and the elk. Our gross margin in the division remained stable at 47.3% in 2025 with a negative currency meeting. effects being offset by the more favorable product mix and price adjustments. In Q4, the gross margin slightly decreased by 0.2 percentage points. Functional expenses went up by roughly 3%, having been positively impacted in the prior year by one of the facts of around 17 billion euros from the sale of the non-strategic business area and from the sale of real estate. Excluding these effects, functional expenses fell by 0.4%. The capitalization of development costs led to a reduction in functional expenses in the reporting year. The EBIT of the safety division increased in 2025 by 6.4% to around 176 million euros, while the EBIT margin rose from 11.3% to 11.9%. EBIT climbed by around 33% to roughly 77 million euros as a result of the strong year end business. EBIT margin also improved significantly by 4 percentage points to 16.5%. Our DBA and safety division increased by around 9 million euros to around 113 million euros, coming from around 104 million euros in the prior year. All in all, a very positive development in our safety business. Let's move on to some key ratios on page 12. Thanks to the strong growth in earnings, our cash flow from operating activities improved significantly by around 71 million euros to around 238 million euros in 2025. At the same time, our flow from investing activities rose from just under 55 million euros to around 98 million euros. Among other things, this was due to a supplier loan granted at the purchase of further shares in an investment. Moreover, the sale of our fire alarm systems business in the Netherlands and the sale of the property in the U.S. had led to a considerable inflow in 2024. All in all, our free cash flow amounted to around 140 million euros, which is a considerable improvement of around 60 million euros compared to the prior year. Since free cash flow was on par with net profit, the cash conversion rate amounted to 100%, a level we also expect for the current year. As a result of the decrease in free cash flow, Cash-to-cash equivalents rose significantly by about 22 million euros to 282 million euros. This led to a considerable decline in net financial debt by around 25% to 123 million euros. That said, the ratio of net financial debt to EBITDA declined from 0.5 to 0.3, keeping our leverage at a very healthy level. With regard to net financial debt, We expect the figure to increase in the current year. A large distribution center is currently being built in Lübeck, where we intend to consolidate various logistics warehouses in the future. will rent the property on the long-term basis, which under IFRS results in a higher lease liability. This, together with higher investments, is in turn a key driver for the higher expected net debt in 2026. With an increase of around 4% to 1.7 billion euros, capital employed rose much lower than our EBIT. Therefore, our 12 months return on capital employed went up from 12.1 to 14.2%. Net working capital was around 2% higher than in the prior year, at around 755 million euros. roughly 50% at the end of the prior year. Let's take a closer look at our EPS on page 30. With the increase in earnings since 2022 that Stefan Dreher mentioned at the beginning of his presentation, our EPS has also improved continuously over the past years, coming from around minus 3.50 per share in 2022 earnings per At the same time, our district per share rose from around minus 3.40 to roughly 7.50 euro per share. Again, this clearly underlines the progress we are making in improving our profitability. Now, back to Stefan Lueger for the outlook, starting with our dividend proposal on page 14.
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