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Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Doerr conference call. Dr. Jochen Weihrauch, CEO, and Mr. Dietmar Heinrich, CFO of Doerr AG, will hold the presentation followed by a Q&A session. I'd like to hand the call over to Mr. Andreas Schaller, Head of Investor Relations of Doerr AG. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, George. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and good morning to those of you in the U.S., Welcome to our earnings conference call for the first nine months and the third quarter. Thank you for making yourselves available on short notice as we are one day ahead of our original schedule. The reason is the announcement of details about the capacity reduction program at HOMAC last evening in an ad hoc release. In order to give the complete picture and answer your questions in a timely manner, we decided to speed up publication of our Q3 earnings and provide all the information in one go. With me on the call today are our CEO, Jochen Weihrauch, and our CFO, Dietmar Heinrich. They will present the results of Q3 in the first nine months, some details regarding the planned measures at HOMAG, as well as the outlook, and we'll be happy to answer your questions afterwards. As always, our earnings presentation is available on our investor relations website, and we assume that you have it in front of you. Please be aware of our disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements on slide two. And now it's my pleasure to hand over to our CEO. Jochen, please go ahead.

Thank you, Andreas. Welcome to all participants on this call, also from my side, and thank you very much for joining. We made very good progress with the development of a roadmap for the capacity adjustments at HOMAC during the past few weeks and discussed them with the employee representatives at HOMAC yesterday. We defined the necessary steps that we need to do to cut costs to address the temporary lower sales volume that we expect in 2024. At the same time, we will use this situation to further strengthen HOMAC on a global level and drive profitable growth after the cyclical downturn. Before we get there, I would like to review our performance in the third quarter and talk about a change in the divisional structure that we have implemented following the BBS acquisition. Let us start with the overview of Q3 on slide five. The key highlight for us was the strong margin improvement, but let's work through the KPIs one by one. After the strong first half year, we saw a temporary decline in order intake to 922 million in Q3. This looks low, especially when comparing against the prior year's level of 1.3 billion euros, but it is explained by the timing effects in the automotive order intake. Project sizes in automotive can be very large, even almost reaching mid triple digit million euro amounts, and therefore it makes a big difference at what point in time a project is booked. In Q3 of 22, we booked two very large automotive orders in North America. This year, we booked large orders in the first two quarters, but not in the third quarter. However, the pipeline remains solid, and we expect a stronger Q4 with respect to automotive. Water intake at HOMAC dropped below 300 million euros in Q3. This was lower than expected and an important factor in the decision to go for the capacity reductions. Sales revenues grew by 4% year-on-year and quarter-over-quarter to 1.16 billion euros. This is a bit slower than the 7% growth we achieved in the first nine months. We have seen delays in the execution of a couple of automotive projects because the buildings were not provided on time by the customer. This is outside of our sphere of activity, and therefore we have to accept it as it is. For revenues, we also expect further growth in Q4. The order backlog increased to 4.5 billion euros due to the acquisition of BBS Automation. Now we come to a very important figure from our point of view. The EBIT margin before extraordinary effects rose to 7.1% in Q3. We will look at the divisions in a moment, but I would already like to mention the new quarterly record of 9% that HOMAG still achieved in Q3. Main drivers of the margin improvement on the group level were the execution of projects with higher margins in automotive, IR service share, and our continued focus on efficiency improvements. Pre-cash flow generation was positive with 15 million in Q3, despite the buildup of networking capital during the quarter. Based on the development so far, we confirmed the guidance for order intake, sales revenues, EBIT margin before extraordinary effects, and free cash flow for 2023. Based on the roadmap for capacity adjustments that we discussed yesterday for HOMAC, we decided that we will book the expected restructuring charges of between 35 and 50 million euros already in 2023. Accordingly, we've adjusted the guidance for the reported EBIT and net income. On slide six, we see the key financial indicators for the first nine months of 2023. Order intake declined 11% due to the weak demand at whole market. Sales revenues grew 7% driven by oil divisions. EBIT before extraordinary effects increased by 26% and the margin improved from 4.8 to 5.7%. Net income rose by 35% accordingly. Finally, free cash flow came in at 8 billion euros, which is below last year's level that benefited from high prepayments in Q3. We expect solid cash generation in the fourth quarter and remain on track to reach the guidance. Let's look at the order intake on slide seven. I already mentioned the lack of large orders in Q3 due to timing effects. The automotive project pipeline continues to look solid, and we are expecting a stronger Q4. New orders are coming in with improved margins for all divisions except woodworking, machinery, and systems. Looking at the first nine months, the book-to-bill ratio stood at On slide 8, we see the geographical distribution of order intake. Orders from China declined from the very high levels we saw in the past years. As already mentioned, we booked two large orders in North America last year, which explains the decline year-on-year after nine months. Orders from Europe outside Germany were up, and we are seeing a good demand from Asia outside China. our global footprint is a clear advantage for capturing demand. Now let's have a look at the changes we made to our divisional setup on slide nine. With the acquisition of BBS Automation, the automation business has now reached a critical mass and there are a lot of new synergy potentials within the business. Consequently, we decided to take it out of the paint and fine assembly systems division and combine it with the former measuring and process systems division to form a new division, which we call industrial automations. This division consists of two business units, the former measuring and process systems and production automation systems with BBS automation, Teamtechnik and Tecuma. Jörg Brunke has taken on the role of CEO of the new division. Production automation systems is run by Josef Wildgruber, the CEO of BBS Automation. You might ask why we put the new division together like this, and I would like to mention some thoughts behind the new setup. Both, measuring and process systems, as well as production automation systems, are machinery businesses and will act together in certain market segments. Combining their solutions, they, for example, provide become the only supplier for e-mobility customers who can provide consulting, assembly, balancing, and testing of e-motors out of one hand. In fact, already before the acquisition, Schenck was a very relevant supplier of balancing machines for BBS, for example, regarding assembly lines for e-drives. In addition, some machines of the balancing portfolio provide a high degree of automation, for example, the automated tire fitting in tire and wheel lines. With the new division, we provide a sharper profile of our business activities going forward. On slide 10, we can see the new divisional setup. We stay with five divisions in total. In the different columns, we see the description of the areas of activity, the current headcount, and the sales volume of 2022, with the exception of industrial automation systems, where we show the performer sales for 2022. With the acquisition of BBS Automation, we've taken another step in our strategy for profitable growth. Now, let's have a look at the divisional development in the new setup. We start with paint and final assembly systems on slide 12. As we follow the new divisional setup, we have taken production automation system figures out of the prior quarters. I already mentioned the timing effects in order intake in Q3 and that the order pipeline remains solid. As such, we expect a higher order intake in Q4. I also told you that we experienced delays at a couple of projects due to customer-induced delays in civil constructions. This temporarily slowed revenue generation. On the other hand, the EBIT margin before extraordinary effects improved significantly in Q3 and for the first nine months. In Q3, we reached more than 6%, which is in line with our strategic target for this business. We believe that this is not the end of the story and that we can do even better as order intake margins continue to improve. You can also see how this margin translates into high ROC values due to the capital line nature of this business. All in all, we now start to see the benefits of our value before volume strategy. Let's turn to application technology on slide 13. Here, the same comments apply regarding order intake and sales generation like a paint and fine assembly system. We also see a strong EBIT margin improvement to 11% before extraordinary effects in Q3, which is well in line with our target for this business of more than 10%. The margin improvement was driven by a strong service business with solid margins. Next is clean technology systems on slide 14. Order intake in Q3 was a bit weaker due to delays in decision making at customers, some of them rethinking their regional strategy. Sales growth remained solid and was mainly driven by the execution of projects in Germany and the USA. Also, this division could significantly improve EBIT margins due to strong project execution and an increase in service margins. At 8.3%, we are well above the strategic target level of 6% for this kind of business, and this directly translates into a very high ROC. Now, let's have a look at our current, at our new divisional, sorry, at our new division, Industrial Automation Systems, on slide 15. The numbers include Team Technik and ECUMA that were formally reported under Paint and Fine Assembly Systems, the former division, Measuring and Process Systems, and one month of BBS Automation. Order intake in Q3 and the first nine months was lower than in the prior year, which is mainly due to timing effects. In the automation business, we are also looking at larger project volumes, and timing plays an important role. We expect a strong order intake in the fourth quarter, which has already gained momentum in October. Sales revenues grew by more than 20% in the first nine months in Q3, which was partly driven by the consolidation of BBS automation. But even without the consolidation effect, sales volumes were up double digit in the first nine months. The EBIT margin before extraordinary effects improved compared with Q3 and the first nine months of last year. The margin benefited from the acquisition of BBS automation and the solid performance of measuring and process systems. On the other hand, we experienced margin dilution due to some long run projects that are currently still being executed at one of Team Technic sites. They were taking on during Corona times when demand was relatively low and were impacted in addition by cost inflation. We expect them to flush out over the coming quarters. In addition, we expect synergies with BBS to start to kick in and at the same time, we constantly provide best practices from the DEER Group wherever it makes it. We are very excited about the new division and we will work hard to realize its potential going forward. Now we come to HOMAG on slide 16. Order intake in Q3 declined to less than 300 million euros. We only see limited downside potential from here and there are some larger projects in the pipeline. However, project timing is uncertain and therefore we took action. Sales revenues still benefited from the large order backlog and remained above 400 million in Q3. For the first nine months, we recorded a small sales growth of 2%. The EBIT margin before extraordinary effects further improved and reached a new quarterly record of 9%. Main drivers were the price increases conducted in the past as well as cost savings and efficiency improvement measures. OMAC is a strong EBIT contributor in 2023, and with the measures we are taking now, we want to strengthen the resilience and further improve the business. An important part of our strategy is a strong service business. On slide 17, we can see that service sales grew faster in Q3 than the overall sales, and the service share improved to 29.8%. At HOMAG, we build up service capacities in 2022, and we now see that this pays off as we could even slightly grow the service business in a market environment where some customers have very weak utilization. On the group level, service margins further increased and supported the positive margin development in Q3. Now, Dietmar, and over to you for the financials.

Thank you, Jochen, and welcome to everybody also from my side. I start with slide number 19. The positive sales and margin momentum has continued in the third quarter, and we are moving towards our targets for 2023. Let's have a look at the financial details on the next slide. On slide 20, we can see the revenue development over the last seven quarters. Sales in Q3 improved both sequentially and year on year. We expect further sequential sales growth in Q4, driven by the typical seasonality, solid project execution, and the contribution of BBS automation. Regarding the geographical distribution, we can see how the order intake development of the past year translates into sales this year. The Americas and Europe are gaining share, whereas China lost share. The overall distribution reflects a solid geographical diversification. Let's move to EBIT on slide 21. We can clearly see a strong improvement in Q3 compared to Q1 and Q2. Cross-profit was the main driver of the margin improvement. Important factors to mention in this context are the improved supply chain, the high service margin, and the realization of better project margins. the overhead cost grew about in line with sales. We actually expect a further improvement of the EBIT margin in the fourth quarter. On slide 22, we can see the free cash flow development. After the seasonally weak second quarter, free cash flow has turned positive in Q3 and the first nine months again. The improvement quarter on quarter was however limited as we experienced a strong increase in net working capital. In addition, capex and taxes increased. On the other hand, interest payments were lower. Based on a stronger order intake in Q4 and an improved margin, we are confident to reach our guidance of 50 to 100 million Euro free cash flow in this year. On the next slide, page 23, you can see the network in capital development. The increase looks quite high at first sight, but only 63 million euros from this increase are actually from an operational build-up. The rest is due to the consolidation of BBS automation, which drove up trade receivables and contract assets. Inventories declined quarter on quarter despite the acquisition as our focus on inventory reduction delivered results. Contract liabilities have come down sequentially due to the temporarily weaker order intake in Q3. Nevertheless, the day's working capital increased to 47.6 days, which is within our target range of 40 to 50 days. I can assure you we continue to manage net working capital very carefully and focus on the reduction of inventories in continuation of what we already achieved. The next slide, slide 24, we can see the increase in net debt at the end of Q3 due to the acquisition of BVS automation. The leverage reached 1.6 and it is our target to stay below two times net debt to ABTA. As such, we will focus on the leveraging going forward and will restrict M&A activities to smaller bolt-ons. Even after the acquisition, our liquidity headroom remains comfortable. Cash and cash equivalents amounted to about €950 million at the end of Q3, as you can see on slide 25. And we have an undrawn cash credit line of €500 million at our disposal. This indicates a bridge loan of €300 million that we used to finance the acquisition of BVS Automation at the maturity of 12 months. but it can be extended by another 12 months if needed. Our financing is not subject to financial governance when we look at termination rights and is based on standard documentation of the Loan Markets Association. We are actually convinced that we have a sound financial profile. Focus remains on generating cash from operations and stringent networking capital management. We are also reviewing our portfolio constantly. With this view from the financial side, I would like to hand back to Jochen for the outlook.

Thank you, Dietmar. Let's turn to the HOMARC measures and the outlook. Let's have a closer look at the capacity adjustment program on slide 27. In light of the stronger than expected cyclical downturn in demand for woodworking machines, the current capacities at HOMARC cannot be fully utilized in the coming quarters. We've defined measures to reduce capacities on a global level by about 600 employees, which corresponds to 8% of Womack's workforce. Roughly 60% of the cuts will be in Germany. The target is to achieve sustainable cost savings of 50 million euros by the end of 2025. Half of that amount is planned to be reached in 2024. Measures to cut jobs include volunteer programs and early retirement schemes. Enforced redundancies are not planned at the moment, but cannot be completely ruled out. We expect restructuring charges of between 35 and 50 million euros that will be booked in Q4 2023 and have considered them in the updated guidance that I will present in a minute. In addition, To the capacity adjustments, we also plan to make use of flexible labor measures like short-time work and the reduction of time accounts, as well as operational cost savings to bring down costs even further. Based on these measures, we now feel comfortable to give a target range for the BIT margin before extraordinary effects of between 2 and 4% for woodworking machinery and systems in 2024. Together with these cost-saving measures, we will further improve the efficiency, global setup, and product mix at HomeMark. We will continue to invest in our technology leadership, but at the same time, we will also strengthen our local setup in the various markets to develop and produce machines closer to our customers and optimize costs on a local-for-local basis. We've already invested in additional service capacities and we'll continue to focus on increasing the service share at HOMAG. On slide 28, I would like to address the topic of the 10% margin potential at HOMAG. We have seen some critical comments after the profit warning on October 19, and I would like to point out what we already achieved and what is still to come. In the past few years, we have implemented the measures we defined in 2019. We closed the production site in Germany, modularized the production portfolio for furniture production, modernized processes and IT tools, and invested into service personnel. As a result, we have achieved a new record EBIT margin of 7.8% in 2022, despite the significant headwinds from supply chain bottlenecks. Those who joined us at our last capital markets day in November 22 might remember the warehouse at Hohmark in Schopfloch that was packed with machines due to missing parts. If we could have shipped these, we would probably have already reached or been close to the 10% margin target in 2022. On the right side of the slide, we can see the further potentials going forward. Increasing the service share is one important lever. In 2022, the service share of sales was at 22%, which is clearly lower than the group's average and leaves a lot of potential. For each percentage point increase in service share, we add about 25 to 30 basis points to the EBIT margin. That's quite significant and is a key focus topic for us. We've also invested in modernizing the production environment, for example, in new logistics centers going into operation directly at the production lines in Schopfloch and Holzbronn in early 2024. On top come changes in global footprint and product mix. We will further grow the construction element solutions business and increase the localization of production and development with a focus on best-cost countries. Last but not least, we will reduce fixed costs through the cost-saving measures I just described. Taking all this into account, we're very confident that we will reach the 10% margin target going forward and become more resilient with respect to market cycles. We will be happy to discuss this further also at our analyst meeting on 21st of November. Let's turn to our guidance for 23 on slide 29. We confirm our targets for order intake, sales revenues, and EBIT before extraordinary effects, as well as free cash flow. With respect to order intake, we even see the chance to reach the upper end of the guidance and for sales revenues we expect to come out in the lower half of the guidance range. We have adjusted the guidance for the reported EBIT, ROSI, and earnings after taxes considering the expected restructuring charges. For ROSI, we also took into consideration the increase in capital employed for the last four months of the year after the acquisition of BBS Automation. On slide 30, we can see the breakdown of the guidance by divisions. We updated this overview according to the new divisional setup and the performance we have seen so far. Looking at order intake, we've increased our expectations for the automotive business, namely paint and fine assembly systems and application technology. At paint and fine assembly systems, the number is the same as before, but the scope is different as we have taken out the automation business. On the other hand, we have slightly reduced expectations for clean technology systems due to project decisions that are delayed, and we cut our expectations for the intake at home market. The revenue guidance reflects the new divisional setup. Pain and fine assembly systems is a bit lower due to taking out the automation business and due to the project delays we talked about. Clean technology systems is higher based on the very good project execution. The outlook for EBIT before extraordinary effects improved for pain and fine assembly systems and clean technology systems due to the solid performance and higher margin projects. At HOMAG, we have lowered the range due to the increasing headwinds from lower order intake. The outlook of the new division industrial automation systems includes the contribution of BBS automation for the last four months. Comparing this with the first nine months, we can expect a very solid fourth quarter from order intake and sales revenues as well as a double-digit EBIT margin before extraordinary effects. Now, let's summarize on slide 32. We introduced a new divisional setup to better reflect the automation business. We see a solid project pipeline in automotive and are on track to reach the upper end of the guidance range for order intake. The EBIT before extraordinary effects has improved significantly in Q3 and HOMAC, and even reached a new quarterly record at HOMAC with 9%. We have defined measures to cut costs and strengthen HOMAC during the upcoming cyclical downturn. All in all, we believe that we are on the right track towards becoming a competitive capital goods player with adjusting our product portfolio towards higher margins and with driving profitability of our business. The cyclical downturn at HOMAG might delay the process, but in the end, we believe that we will be successful. Thank you very much for your attention. Now, we're happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you very much, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your temple keypad. Please also ensure that your mute function is not activated until I see and reach your equipment. So once again, please press star 1 to ask a question. Our first question today is coming from Philippe Laurent, calling from Société Générale. Please go ahead, sir.

Yeah, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. So I've got a couple of them. The first one is on your remarks regarding the slower revenue recognition in PSS due to customer-induced delays in building construction. So is it due to just one project, or is it perhaps as well related to maybe trend signaling that potential customers are financially struggling and therefore wish to slow down the project's execution?

Thanks, Philipp, for the question. No, it's not one customer. Actually, it's pretty much close to a handful. And it's definitely not related to any financing issues. It is really related and, you know, not very unusual, but, you know, it's now maybe a bit of a higher amount of customers who just in different regions, actually in all three major markets that we have, are just behind schedule and then driving just slower execution of projects because we can expedite then at some point, so then we will speed up at some point once buildings are ready as customers typically urge us to catch up some of the time they've lost with the erection of their own buildings. But as a matter of fact, we currently have to face delays. Multiple customers, multiple regions, not at all financing issues.

Okay, yeah. But that's pretty strange, to be honest, because if it's like so many customers at once and also like in different markets, perhaps related to any trend in their own supplier base or something in common, have they commented on that or not?

No, honestly, I don't see a pattern. Of course, I cannot mention customers, as you might understand. But there is one project in the lower or the southern part of North America, not to mention a country, where there is specific reasons why the building is behind. And this is a very well-known OEM. Then another well-known OEM is building a new site in Eastern Europe. Similar issue. Then we have another project in, let's say, the Middle East. And different reasons, different customers, but just at the moment a matter of fact. But no pattern behind in terms of a common building supplier, one customer, or any financing issues.

Okay, quite interesting. Then the second one was just like based on the comment that you made, you know, that the group's order backlog reached 4.5 billion at the end of Q3, and that was also reflecting the acquisition of BDS Automation. Just out of interest, was the contribution from BDS Automation something like perhaps like 200 to 300 million, which is they would get from the back of the envelope calculation, or can you communicate a bit of a number on that?

Definitely, you're right. The number that you mentioned in a range of 200 to 300 million euros is correct.

Okay, that's good. And then I've got like two more questions, to be honest. The first one relates to HOMAG. It's actually two related questions. So first, the comment on the pipeline at HOMAG saying that a few larger orders are in there. Do you see any trend in the gross margin for that specific pipeline? So is it weakening a little bit or is it kind of stable versus what you've seen in the recent quarters?

Look, we have, and actually we've booked one of the larger projects. On the margin, very difficult at the moment. On the one hand, you know, we have increased prices in general. On the other hand, we see bit more headwind in the market, of course, with lower projects in the market, and we will have to see how that turns out. But at the moment, I would say, at best, it levels out. There's a little bit of a headwind. On the other hand, cost reduction measures, for example, we're now seeing the trend of reduced material prices for the first time after a long period, and we will have to see how that whole equation works out.

Okay, perfect. And regarding HOMAG again, the cash-out for restructuring, will it all be in 2024, or is it going to be spread across many years?

I would say the biggest part will be in 2024. There might be still some into 2025, but beyond that, there is nothing to be expected.

Okay. And the last one for actually for Dietmar, you mentioned that I think the financing is not subject to covenants. So did you mean actually all the promissory notes that you've got out? And can you elaborate a little bit on that piece?

We don't have, let's say, a restriction coming from the financing when we talk about covenants in that regard. And there is – let's see how, what I say, there's no adverse impacts on how coming from the financial market. So the promissory notes, then we collect in time or we use them sometimes to forward them, especially in China, then to our customers or to discount them. So that's a normal course of business.

Perfect. I'm back in the queue. Thanks.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Jay. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you have any questions, please press star 1. We'll now move to Marta Bruschka calling from Barenburg. Please go ahead.

Hi. Hello. Thank you for taking my question and apologies if some of them are a little bit basic as I'm still learning about your company. So I was just wondering, you know, I made comments a few times about the strong order booking automotive projects. We've expected stronger order intaking before. What drives that in your view? And what are your thoughts on 2024? And, you know, what drives also the margin improvement that you expect there? Thank you. And then I have one more.

Thank you, Marta. We have, all in all, we have a very good pipeline overall in automotive, when it especially comes to BFS and APT. And we are also, and that pipeline remains very solid into 24. We have pretty good visibility for the first quarter and beyond, and that, at this point, We have very solid projects there where we have a very high probability of booking them. And the same is true now for Q4, where we had a few delays which are not untypical in the business. And the pipeline, if we look in our CRM, remains solid at this point. And we've been quite successful in really now translating Not only, by the way, in PFS, but also in APT on the new equipment business, our value before volume strategy.

Yeah, I understand that you see those projects, but what do you think, why do you book them? Of course, I mean, what drives it? Is there a link still to the investment in automotive because the car makers have a bigger budget to spend on? On the capex, is that because the optics was high for them? If you can give a little bit more information, that would be helpful.

Yeah, most, actually, most, if not pretty much all at the moment of the orders that we get are not to increase production volumes as such at customers. They are, with a few exceptions, we've, for example, talked about that one project we booked in the Middle East during the course of the year. So new customer, new volume. But a few exceptions. But the rest is with respect to making our customers' production sites either convert them from the internal combustion engine to immobility or help them to achieve their own sustainability targets. We were, for example, talking about the strategic partnership we've concluded with Mercedes. This is not about, per se, increasing production volumes, and this is public information because Mercedes has published it as well. This is to convert their sites, number one, improve their share of immobility, but in this case, even more importantly, that they achieve the sustainability targets they've given themselves until the mid 2030s. So this is why we're actually not showing in our investor presentation any more production volumes, because this is misleading for the CapEx profile of our customers in our direction.

This is actually very helpful. And if you were to guess, you know, for the next year, how much do you think, because some parts of your sales and order volume will be still linked to probably, you know, the production volume in some degree. What would be the split in between that and the sustainability and EV conversion type? Would that be like 70-30 or something like that?

I cannot perfectly understand you, Marta. I try to repeat your question. If it's not correct, let me know. So you want to know in terms of the capex, how much is conversion to immobility and how much is sustainability?

The two together versus the run rate and your scorecard, the maintenance that would bring more to the production volume still.

I would say at best... 30 in new volume, probably even lower.

Perfect. Thank you. That's very helpful. Okay. Okay. I'll go back to the queue. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I'm sorry to interrupt you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, once again, if you have any questions or follow-up questions, please press star 1 at this time. We do have a question coming in from Christian Kors, calling from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.

Yes, hello. Good afternoon. Also from my side, I have three questions. First, for clean technology, you mentioned some customers struggling with their investment decisions since they have not yet decided where to invest. Is this of any relevance for you since they might opt for regions where you have no presence? Secondly, when do you expect first orders to from the Mercedes partnership to materialize? And lastly, can you provide us with an idea about the PPA expenses you will book for the BBS acquisition? Thank you.

Thank you, Christian. On CTS, we are, you know, first of all, in terms of the regions, we cover all the regions. But We see a lot of customers currently, and I mean, we're all aware of the energy costs in Europe, especially in Germany. And what we are seeing is some of our customers who typically are very global customers to rethink their CapEx strategy, not to really cut CapEx, but to reallocate it. And that leads to delays. So we still assume to catch the orders, But we have delays of maybe three months, six months, because some of the customers are basically going through their own planning cycles once again to see where they best allocate the project. So we don't assume that this will in the midterm have an impact on the projects that we book, but short term this creates delays in decision making. On the Mercedes partnership, we will not book the first project this year, but not too far into next year. Then on PPA.

Let me take it over, Jochen. Actually, for the DBS acquisition, we expect with a PPA impact for this year of 8 to 10 million euros and for next year of 25 to 30 million euros.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, sir. We'll now move to Holger Schmidt, call from DZ Bank. Please go ahead, sir.

Hi, good afternoon, everyone. I have two questions, and the first is on the new division, industrial automation systems. How should we think about the future growth prospect, so the annual sales growth potential for this division, and also what kind of margin evolution can we expect here? And the second question is with regard to China. So the proportion of your business related to China has come down. How do you see the business prospects in China, and what kind of impact can this have on your profitability?

Thank you, Olga. On the new division industrial automation systems, we have the PAS, production automation systems, There, our assumption is to grow around 10%, 9% to 10%. The remainder, which is MPS, which is mostly our traditional shank business, that business typically grows at 3% to 5%. So I would say, and this is one-third of the division, roughly two-thirds is now the new PAS. So I would say as a mix to do 7% maybe into 8%. should be the metrics here. Then, on China, there is, we see a mixed picture, to be quite honest. For PFS, we have a very good pipeline, very strong looking forward for APT. PFS, it's been a bit slower, yes, we have competition in all areas. We're used to that. We're in China for quite a long time. And we are, yeah, mixed picture, PFS, a couple projects. We'll have to see how it turns out. APT, quite strong. By the way, our PAS business, especially through BBS, very strong in China because we have high market share with the very successful players in China who As you can read in the newspaper, some of them now already plan new production sites in Europe. This is actually where we also assume to be in a very good position as we're serving them already in China. At HOMAC, we have been strong in the past. Business has been a little bit weaker overall. I would say a mixed picture in China. I'm not enthusiastic, but I'm also not concerned. That would be a general statement.

Okay, thank you. Just one follow-up to the new segment. You outlined the growth prospects, but what about the margin profile, the margin evolution that we can expect here?

The margin target is clearly 10%. With our new kit on the block, We're pretty much very close to that already. We still have some homework to do, as I mentioned during the call at TeamTechnik, from some past projects that we're still executing. Hekuma is performing very well, a small company that we have in Munich, and we have significant synergy potential, as we had described in an earlier call when we acquired BBS, through the very good Asian footprint of BBS, plus the sales synergies for some customers who are already working on one project where we would get the first combined order between Team Technic and BBS.

Okay, excellent. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, sir. We'll now move to Andreas Ruf of EUWID. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

I would have some questions regarding the capacity reduction program at Hallmark. Up to now, the capacity utilization at Hallmark shouldn't be that bad because Hallmark is still working on the order backlog. When do you expect the first negative effects on the capacity utilization?

So there is a bit of a turning point pretty much at the beginning of next year. However, having said that, in some of the businesses or some of the sites, we have already seen a little bit of a reduced utilization even during the last quarter, and we've balanced that overall. It has already started. Still, we were defending good margins. But most of this reduction in volumes will be in the first and second quarter of next year.

Okay. You said that you want to reduce the number of employees by around 600 worldwide and 350 of them in Germany. which sites in Germany will be mainly affected by the program, and are you planning to decrease the number of employees, or are you also investigating on possible closures of existing sites?

Yeah. Now, at this point, that's not an issue, and on the sites, you might have some understanding that we are now in close discussions with the employee representatives, And for good reasons, we've now given a total number. In fact, next year, including the flexibilization of working time, we will, of course, reduce the capacity more than the equivalent of 600 people.

Okay. Okay. And one last question. If I got it right, you said that there will be some changes in the product mix due to the capacity reduction program. Which changes will be that?

Look, what we assume is that the construction elements business will pick up quicker, so we will have a bit of a different mix within what we're shipping. Actually, If you have followed the news, we were already assuming for this year the furniture business to come down. Now it's coming down more than we expected. However, we were assuming the construction elements business, so especially wooden houses, to pick up, which we are still very confident it will. But it had received so much headwind by the industry, by construction costs, by interest rates, that we basically have a double dip here. We assume, consequently, that the mix towards, especially on the solid wood houses and construction elements, will improve over time going forward.

Okay. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Lu. Ladies and gentlemen, if you have any questions, please press star 1. We have a follow-up question coming from Marta Bruschke from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Hi, thank you. I would like to go back to China. Could you please let us know more or less how big part of your automotive business is China today? And if you can comment in an extent, how many new paint robots have you so far sold in China this year? Just roughly whether this is a growing part of the business this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Marta. China, on the automotive side, I'm just guessing, is roughly 20% of the volume. And in terms of the robots, I could not tell you from the back of my mind, but I can assure you that we have a very good market position in China, similar to what we have in the rest of the world. The number... I could only speculate and follow up. We can follow that up. The world market for paint robots is somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 a year. We roughly do 50%, and we have an adequate share in China. So that's maybe good enough for rough calculation, but we could give you the precise number or more or less precise number after the call if you want to follow up with Andreas.

Thank you very much, sir. We have another follow-up question, this time from Philippe Laura of Societe Generale. Please go ahead again, sir.

Yes, thanks for taking my follow-up. It's just a very simple one. With regard to your new division, like the IAS margin target at 10%, and knowing that you have still some headwind at Team Technique, So how long do you think it will take to process all these headwinds that Team Technique can see basically an improvement there? Because I buy your view on combining with BBS is supportive and the rest of MPS doing actually fine. So it's just for me to understand what's the timeline there.

Yeah. Thanks, Philipp. Simple questions always concern me, but now I'm good. On team technique, we will still have to use a part of next year, if not the biggest part. And we assume team technique probably not to be at 10% in 2025, but have made the longest way. And in combination with The fact that BBS, if we take our BBS business today, BBS is like, you know, 60% plus, and the team, you know, then you add Hikuma, the largest part of the business comes from BBS. We believe that we are not too far away from this anyways in 25 overall for the business. with a bit of homework still to be done for Team Technic.

Okay, that's clear. Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Okay, ladies and gentlemen, as we have no further questions, I'd like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Andreas Schaller for any additional or closing remarks. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you very much, George, and thank you very much, everybody, for attending the conference call today. Let me remind you of our analyst meeting on the 21st of November. That's Tuesday. In the afternoon, we start at 4 p.m. German time. Definitely, it's some time to discuss further and present also further news and insights in the strategy update. So once again, thanks for your attention. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate also to ask the investor relations team, and we now wish you a nice rest of the day. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, gentlemen. There is a gentleman that will conclude today's presentation.