Durr Ag Spon Adr

Welcome to the DUR conference call for the preliminary figures of 2024. I will now hand over to Andreas Schaller, Head of Investor Relations of DUR AG.

Thank you, Anna. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon and good morning to those of you in the US. Welcome to our earnings conference call. With me on the call are our CEO, Jörgen Weiderhoff, and our CFO, Ludmar Heinrich. They will present the preliminary results for the financial year 2024, as well as the outlook for 2025, 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 refer to 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, whether from my side, and thank you very much for joining. Let me start with some short remarks from the past year on slide three before we go into detail. When we were talking with you 12 months ago, we promised to take actions to improve the group's earnings resilience and portfolio. And we have made some progress meanwhile. We achieved a solid operational performance in a challenging environment with a new order intake and sales record. and EBIT before extraordinary effects close to the upper end of the guidance, and a strong free cash flow exceeding 100 million euros for the fifth year in a row. This was driven by operational improvements. I would like to highlight a couple of them. The value before value volume strategy at pain and final assembly systems pays off, and we met our mid-cycle margins target. Our environmental business achieved a record margin, well driven by strong project execution. We successfully implemented our capacity reduction program at OMAC. The targeted cost savings of 50 million euros will become fully visible in 2025. With respect to our portfolio, we took the capital market feedback seriously that our group structure was relatively complex. We decided to focus more on our core competency of automating production processes with a focus on high resource efficiency and cost savings for our customers. We call this sustainable automation. As a first step, we sold the filling business of Akamco. Then we merged paint and file assembly systems and application technology in the new automotive division. Moreover, we put our environmental business for sale as it is not directly involved in the value-add process of our customers. This process is progressing well, and we are on track to reduce the number of divisions from five to only three after it will be completed. Last but not least, we updated our dynamic strategy and set our emission reduction target to 30% by 2035, in line with the 1.5 degrees goal. As the environmental business is headed for sale, we will show it as discontinued operation in our upcoming annual report. This also has an impact on the agenda of today's presentation that is shown on slide four. We will first present the highlights, the divisional performance and the financials for the DIR group as a whole in order to make it as comparable as possible to our guidance and past reporting. In addition, we will also show the financials of the continued operations and the divisional performance according to the new divisional setup. In the outlook, we will look at both the DIR group as a whole as well as the continued operations. We hope that this provides enough transparency for you. Let's first turn to the highlights of the Dirk Group as a whole on slide six. In our view, 2024 is a solid base year for profitable growth. We achieved a record oil intake of 5.14 billion euros. The main driver was our automotive business where customers continued to invest in modernization and replacement of their own painting lines. The order backlog reached 4.45 billion euros, with a majority consisting of paint job projects with an average reach of about 18 months. Revenues reached a new record of 4.7 billion euros. The book-to-bill ratio was 1.09 for the full year. The EBIT margin before extraordinary reached 5.5%, well within the upper half of our guidance range of 4.5%. to 6%. Net income came in at 102 million euros and was a bit lower than the prior year due to higher interest and tax expenses. Free cash flow was strong in 2024 and reached 157 million euros. The main reason for this high level were large payments of customers that came in earlier than scheduled in December. On slide seven, we see the key financial indicators for 2024. Oil intake was up 11% and includes a consolidation effect of 235 million euros related to the BBS automation in Jakarta. Sales revenues grew slightly by 2% and include consolidation effect of 230 million euros. This compensated for the 13% decline in sales at HOMAC. In addition, we achieved sales increases in the automotive and clean technology businesses. EBIT before extraordinary effects decreased by 8% and the margin was 60 basis points lower. The decline is mainly due to the weaker margin of HOMAC that was compensated to a large extent by the strong performance of the automotive division. Net income decreased by 7% year-on-year. 51 million euros, and we had higher interest and tax expenses. Free cash flow increased 21% due to the before-said early customer payments in a high double-digit million-euro amount. On slide 8, we can see the comparison of our actions against the targets for last year. We met and partly even exceeded the targets. Order intake exceeded the upper end of the guidance as we received two larger orders in Q4. The paint job contract from an American EV producer and the first Gigafactory order for battery coating lights. Some of the automotive orders have long lead times and do not directly translate into revenues in 2025. This is also reflected in our outlook. Sales revenues came in at the lower end of the guidance due to project delays and weaker demand for production automation. Margins and return on capital employed reach the upper half of all guidance. Earnings after taxes came in closer to the lower end of the guidance. This is due to higher interest and tax expenses, including a one-off from a tax provision in the low double-digit million-euro amount. Free cash flow and net financial status were both clearly better than expected due to already mentioned early payments in a high double-digit million amount. This timing effect will balance out in the current year, which is reflected in our outlook. Let's take a closer look at the order intake on slide nine. Compared to last year, the order levels were higher for each single quarter. A major driver was the large order we received in Q1 based on our partnership with a large German automotive OEM. In addition, we received many orders for multi-year refurbishment projects focusing on energy efficiency and comprehensive automation. In Q4, we booked the first order for battery gigafactory in Europe. At HOMAG, project business for cross-laminated timber lines, and service business held up pretty well, but the single machine business continues to be weak. While MedTech orders developed well in production automation, orders from Tier 1 automotive suppliers declined as they were adopting a wait-and-see approach. The project pipeline in automotive as such remains solid. Slide 10 shows that order intake was growing in the Americas and Europe, Orders in Germany reflect the large order already mentioned that we received in Q1. In China, we see a decline reflecting the current weaker economic development. The lower level for the rest of the world is due to a strong base effect from a large order that we received in the Middle East last year, actually in 2023. Let's turn to our portfolio management activities. We started in the first half of 2024 with the sale of the filling business of Akamco. We recorded a book profit of 17.5 billion euros and a net cash inflow of 27.8 million euros from the transaction. This was the first step to divest assets that are not considered to be core. Shortly after this divestment, we announced a much larger program to streamline the setup of our group. On slide 12, we can see the old structure with five divisions. As part of the program, we merged the paint and final assembly systems and application technology divisions to form the new automotive division. At the same time, we started with a review of strategic options for our environmental business. On slide 13, we can see the target structure and the progress we have made so far. The automotive division went live on January 1st. Effective the same day, we moved our lithium-ion battery business from clean technology systems to industrial automation. The sales process of the environmental business is running, and we keep you informed about major developments. Another important topic and part of our business model is the reduction of CO2 emissions based on the industry-leading resource efficiency of our solutions. We have updated our climate strategy and moved the base here to 2024. Slide 14 shows an overview of the emission levels in 2024 and the mid- and long-term targets we have set. The majority of emissions is generated in downstream operations by our customers who are using our machines. This is part of the so-called scope three emissions that we target to reduce by 30% by 2035. Our own emissions, called scope one and two, make up less than 1% of the total. Nevertheless, we have a strong focus and want to reduce them by 55% until 2035. The targets are in line with the 1.5 degree target of Paris, and have been verified by the German climate tech company with a name right based on science. We've already made a lot of progress with the reduction of scope into emissions, as can be seen on slide 15. Since 2019, we reduced them by 56% due to a mix of measures, including the shift of green electricity, investments in photovoltaic systems, and sustainable buildings, as well as the reduction of gas consumption. On slide 16, we see the targets going forward. We want to reduce scope one and two emissions by another 55% until 2035, with a focus on electrifying our vehicle fleet and further reducing gas consumption by moving to heat pumps, for example. With respect to the scope three emissions, we target a 30% reduction until 2035. This will be driven by an increasing portion in our sales of products and solutions that are optimized for lowest energy consumption. On top comes the general growth of the share of green electricity in the grids worldwide and at our customs. Now let's have a look at the performance of our divisions in the old structures. We start with pain and fire in the center systems on slide 18. Already mentioned the record order intake driven by modernization and related cost savings, including the very large order in July. Revenue growth was at the low end of expectations due to some delays at customers. The book-to-bill ratio was very high at 1.3. In Q4, margins were strongly driven by a high service share and we reached an EBIT margin before extraordinary effects of more than 7% for the full year. This is an excellent achievement and proves our value before volume strategy being successful. At application technology on slide 19, we note another record volume take of more than 800 million euros, mainly driven by modernization and replacement. Sales revenues grew by almost 10%, driven by equipment sales. At the same time, the service share remained high, but the bill stood at 1.2 in 2024. The EBIT margin before extraordinary effects reached the mid-cycle target of at least 10% after a strong finish in the seasonally strong June 4. Next, please acknowledge the systems on slide 20. Truth orders were up significantly year on year due to a large order of coding equipment for battery gigafactory. Sales revenues grew 3% with a high contribution from North America. The service remained stable at a good level. The EBIT margin before extraordinary threats surpassed the guidance corridor and reached our mid-cycle target driven by a very good service business and flawless project execution. Let's turn to slide 21 and the industrial automation systems division. Two-four orders continue to be slow due to delays in demand from immobility customers. The metric business, however, remained robust and we won large projects during the past quarters. Order intake and sales revenues in 2024 were driven by the full-year consolidation of PPS automation. Balancing business showed a very solid development. The EBIT margin before extraordinary effects improved slightly from Q3 to Q4, but was still below our expectations. In production automation, we are still busy with the integration of PPS automation and best practice transfers. The regional performance is quite diverse. We have businesses with a high utilization that achieve double-digit EBIT margins, for example, in China or Malaysia, and we have others with underutilization and weak legacy projects. All in all, we are convinced that we are very competitive in this market and will focus on synergies and operational improvements in 2025. Last but not least, Let's take a look at HOMAC on slide 22. Order intake was stable at the guided level. The market environment has not yet changed. We continue to see weakness in the single machine market in particular. However, the service business continues to perform well. The year-on-year decline in sales of 13% was as expected. With 3.6%, we reached the upper end of the guidance range for the EBIT margin before extraordinary effects. This reflects a good service business, but also our successful capacity adjustment that increased our resilience. We are well positioned to benefit from the recovering demand, which is expected to start in the middle of 2025. Slide 23 shows that Q4 was marked by a strong service business. Sales rose significantly and the service share almost reached the 30% target. In the full year, the service margin further improved. Revenues from spare parts for paint robots grew year on year. Now, Dietmar, and over to you for the financials. Yeah, thank you, Jochen, and a warm welcome from my side as well. We will first look at the financials for the Duke Group as a whole, and after that, at the continued operations. On slide 35, I would like to highlight the improvement of the EBIT after extraordinary expenses due to lower special effects. The net income declined due to higher financial and tax expenses, including a tax provision that we created with respect to an ongoing tax audit. You can already explain that the high free cash flow is due to a timing effect with respect to early customer payments that will reverse in 2025. Let's go through the most important KPIs on the next slide. We can see the typical development of sales revenues on slide 26. Q4 was solid and the strongest quarter of the year. Year-on-year sales growth came in at the low end of our guidance due to project delays and lower demand in production automation. Looking at the geographical distribution, we see only small shifts from Germany and North America to Europe and Asia, highlighting where the current project realizations take place. Let's turn to EBIT on slide 27. Here we can see the progress we have made since the beginning of the year. Major contributors were the automotive and clean technology systems business. OMAC mitigated the margin declines from lower sales with the capacity cuts and flexible measures. Slide 28 shows the free cash flow development. Q4 was stronger than expected due to the earlier customer payments that we mentioned before. Without this timing effect, Q4 would probably have been slightly negative as expected after Q3. The payments are reflected in the change in net working capital as shown in the free cash flow bridge. This is actually the fifth year in a row that we exceeded our cash conversion target of more than 80%. Net working capital, which is shown on slide 29, declined further in Q4 due to the high early payments. but also from active inventory management with a reduction of around €150 million compared to year-end 2023. Let's turn to slide 30 and look at the net finance debt. In line with the strong free cash flow and supported by the sale of Agramco, it decreased to €396 million, including lease liabilities of €110 million. The leverage declined to 1.1 times net debt to EVDA. All in all, we are entering 2025 with a solid balance sheet. On the next page, you can see that our liquidity headroom remains very comfortable. There are only 55 million Euro of financial instruments maturing in 2025, and we already repaid 12.5 million of those in January. Our maturity profile remains very well balanced over the next years, with a maximum of €250 million per year. Cash and cash equivalents were close to €1 billion at the end of 2024. Part of this cash was used, as you can see on the next slide, in the first quarter of this year to acquire HUMAC shares as the cash settlement offer came to an end in early March after a final court ruling in December of last year. A quick summary is shown on screen. Slide 32, and I want to give you some more explanations in that regard. The court confirmed the cash settlement at 31.58 euros and a gross dividend at 1.19 euros, as set by the regional court already back in 2019. This means that compared to the original offering in 2015, there were only negligible increases to both items, and we feel very comfortable with the court's decision. Also because the risk of a higher increase has finally dissolved. The ruling also defined an end to the period where HOMAC shareholders could tender their shares to their AG. Since March 3, we are not obliged to buy any further HOMAC shares that are offered to us from the free flow shareholders. We kept a high level of cash at hand during the past years as we were expecting this ruling to come. From the beginning of the year until March 3, in total, 2.5 million HOMAC shares were tendered, resulting in a cash outflow of 97 million euros. This also includes interest. As a result, the shareholding of Dürer and Homet AG increased from 67.7% to 83.8%. Due to the end of the tender period, the corresponding SunDrive financial liability will decline by about €109 million. The lower level of free-flow shareholding also has a positive impact on financial expenses, which we estimate to decline by around €2.6 million per year. Now we come to the presentation of the results of continued operations and the new divisions. On slide 34, you can see the financials of the continued operations, excluding the environmental business that is held for sale. Compared to the group as a whole, sales are about €400 million lower, while the gross margin drops by 50 base points and the EBIT margin by 90 base points. This includes cost allocation effects. According to the International Financial Reporting Standards, we have to put costs to the continued operations which occur in conjunction with the former Clean Technology Systems Division, but which will stay with the group from an accounting point of view. For example, administration services and grant for offices, which are being used by other divisions as well, but are especially used by the CTS divisions. such expenses are completely allocated to continued operations. After a potential sale, however, we would charge the rental costs, transitional services, and will then related people at least partially or to a big extent then transfer to the CTS division or they will join the CTS division so that this effect would be at least partially reversed. Until the carve-out, there is a temporary drag on margins by about 40% when looking at the continued operations. The cost allocation in absolute terms is about 17 million euros, so causing an EBIT impact of negative of minus 17 million euros. The allocation of cost and assets also have a diluting effect on return on capital employed. The free cash flow is about 25 million euros lower, but still at a very good level. So that's actually very complex accounting topic of how the cost allocation has to be done. And I'm sure it will cause some questions that we will have to answer later. Now, let's have a look at the new divisional structure. On slide 35, we can see the new automotive division. When you add up the numbers of paint and fine assembly systems and application technology, you will come to slightly different results. This is due to consolidation effects that are now considered in the merge division. A good example for the reduction in reporting complexity is the avid margin before extraordinary effects. You can immediately say that it is in line with the mid-cycle target of at least 8% for the Duke Group as a whole. The new industrial automation division on slide 36 includes now the lithium-ion battery, which increases all the intake by about €141 million and sales by about €87 million, compared with the old industrial automation systems division. I believe some iron battery business is not yet at break even on EBIT level due to the high R&D spending. There is a margin dilution of about 100 base points. There is a lot of potential to grow this business and its profitability going forward. Slide 37 shows the woodworking division. Here we can make it short. Only the name has changed. The restaurant remains as it was before. Finally, slide 38 shows the discontinued operation, which is clean technology systems environmental. You can see the opposite effect from the cost allocations to the continued business. EBIT benefits from the cost allocation topic that I mentioned before by about 17 million euro, showing then an EBIT before extraordinary expense margin of 15%. But even when deducting these cost allocations, the EBIT margin is excellent. We see good growth potential, but the core of this business is not production automation, and that is why we put it for sale. So with this view from the financial side, I hand back to Jochen for the outlook. Thank you very much, Dietmar. Let me first comment on our positioning in the current political and macro environment on slide 14. The changes on the political side, especially in the USA, brought back the topic of tariffs. Our strategic approach to be close to customers with our operations helps us in this respect because we have a local presence in important markets such as the USA. Nevertheless, we also import products into the USA, such as our paint robots that are exclusively manufactured in Germany. For woodworking machines, we follow a differentiated approach. Machines with strong local competition in the USA are produced there. Machines where there is no local competition are imported. With our operations in the US, we are flexible to make adjustments to our import strategy if needed. China becomes more and more an exporting country also for equipment and machines. We have strong operations there, and our plan is to further strengthen our local presence, for example, by building up product engineering and design capacities to become even more competitive. Another important topic remains the fight against climate change. Our focus is to combine climate connection with savings in total cost of ownership for our customers through the leading-edge energy efficiency of our product. That's part of our claim, sustainable automation, which is used for this upcoming annual report for fiscal 2024. Another challenge, but also opportunity, is the increasing lack of skilled workforce, which results in a growing demand for automation solutions. We are very well positioned as a group, and especially in our industrial automation division, to benefit from this trend. We have the impression that political support for local investments is increasing in order to help economic growth. Subsidies to build on modernized capacities would naturally drive also our business. In summary, there are challenges, but also opportunities, and we believe that we are well positioned as a group to navigate in this environment towards profitable growth. Let me highlight once again the fundamental demand drivers on slide 41. Sustainable production is in the end not only more resource efficient, but also less costly. The same will be true for sustainable products such as EVs, wooden houses, or alternative energy generation. We support manufacturers to set up very efficient and highly automated production lines to scale up volumes. As just mentioned, there is a clear trend towards automation when it comes to reshoring production, for example, to meet the growing demand for healthcare and consumer products. On slide 42, I would like to give an update regarding the trends towards immobility. In Germany, we saw a significant slowdown in demand. Okay, we took that out. Now let's take a look at the guidance for 2025 on the next slide. First, we talked about the DIRC Group as a whole. These numbers do not include any effect from potential sale of the environmental business. With regard to our intake, we expect a relatively wide range of between 4.7 and 5.2 billion euros. The upper end corresponds to the extraordinary strong demand we have seen in 2024. The lower end takes into account the potential for the slowdown of the global economy. The midpoint is about in line with the capital market expectations. Please also remember that 2024 order intake included a very large order of roughly half a billion euros for German automotive only. A lot will also depend on the level of uncertainty regarding the future economic development and how governments act in this context. For our business, a lever could be the demand development at HOMAG, where we expect an improvement around mid of the year. For sales revenues, we want to reach at least the level of 2024 and see growth potential of up to 6%. The respective target range is between 4.7 and 5 billion euros. The guidance for EBIT margin before extraordinary effects ranges from 5.5 to 6.5%. This means that we see an upside potential of up to 100 base points and a midpoint of 6%. The extraordinary effects should decline slightly to 45 million euros in 2025. PPA effects should make up about $30 million if you expect some M&A transaction costs in the single-million-digit area. We also included some buffer for potential restructuring and optimization charges. This translates to a reported EBIT margin of 4.5 to 5.5 percent and the return on capital employed of between 13 and 18 percent. Interest expenses. are expected to remain flattish, and the tax rate should be assumed at between 30 and 35%. As a consequence, we forecast a net income of between 120 and 170 million euros. We are committed to achieving a positive free cash flow of up to 50 million euros in 2025, despite the early payments that we already received in 2024 and are now missing in 2025. we expect to spend between 3% and 5% of sales for balance. Taking into account the hallmark shares that were tendered to us, the dividend payments as well as the free cash flow guidance, we assume an increase in net debt to a range of between 500 and 550 million by the end of 2025 when looking at the current setup of the group. Our clear focus for 2024 For 2025, this is a margin improvement in the divisions industrial automation and woodworking by leveraging already implemented cost savings, synergies, and realizing potentials in your service business. The next page, we can see the outlook for innovation. Let's start with all the intake. For the automotive division, we expect a decline from the record level of 2024 that included the before-mentioned order into one of last year. Excluding this large order, we expect growth as we continue to see a solid project pipeline. For industrial automation, we selected a broader range between 800 and 950 million euros. This takes into account the delays that we have experienced since mid of last year in demand from automotive tier one customers, but includes some upside as well. For woodworking, we expect low demand momentum starting in mid 2025, but also includes the possibility of impact from global economic weakness on demand. For the environmental business that is held for sale, we see strong growth potential for order intake. Now let's turn to sales revenues. We see growth potential for automotive and industrial automation and expect stable year-on-year sales revenues for woodworking based on the order intake development over the last year. For the environmental business, we expect moderate sales growth. Last but not least, we take a look at the EBIT margins before extraordinary effects. For automotive, we target a relatively stable margin of between 7.5% and 8.5%, which is around our mid-cycle target of at least 8%. For industrial automation and woodworking, we expect an improvement of margins to between 4.5% to 5.5%. At woodworking, this is driven by the cost savings achieved in 2024, as well as a further increase of the service business. At industrial automation, the improvement should be driven by synergies, benefits from the integration process, and potentially a more favorable market environment. Environmental business is expected to repeat the very high margin of 2024. The next slide, you can see the guidance for continued operations. This includes the environmental business, but does not yet include any effects from a potential sale of this business in 2025. If a sale materializes, we will update this guidance, especially with respect to earnings after tax and net debt. The guidance for EBIT margins before and after effects are 100 base points. below the guidance for the group as well. This includes the cost allocation effects mentioned before that account for about 40 base points. On page 45, we confirm our mid-sizer targets and plan to provide an update after the potential sale of our environmental business. Let's now summarize on the next page. We achieved a solid operational performance in a challenging environment with record order intake and sales and an epic margin close to the other end of our guidance. Our free cash flow exceeded the level of 100 million euros for the fifth time in a row. We took action to improve our earnings resilience, especially with the capacity cut at home market. We are in the process of streamlining the group structure, reducing the number of divisions from five to three, and focusing on our core business of sustainable automation. By doing this, we address long-term growth trends and provide leading efficiencies and total cost of ownership savings to our customers. Thank you very much for your attention. Now we're happy to answer any questions you might have. With pleasure.

Thank you very much. So, dear ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press 9 and the star key on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. If your name has been announced, you can ask your question. To cancel your question again, please press 9 and the star key again. One moment, please, for the first question. I repeat, the combination to ask a question is 9 and the star key. Let's wait a couple more moments. I repeat, please press 9 star now to enter the queue. All right, so the first question is from Felix Kosen of Haug Aufheuser Investment Banking. Over to you.

Yeah, hi. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. So the first one would be about the environmental solutions business. I believe this business had revenues of around $430 million in 2024. and I was just wondering whether you can give us an impression of what level of proceeds you expect from the investment. I believe there is a similar asset listed in the U.S., and that one I think is trading at about two times EV sales at the moment. So I think that factors in the strong growth opportunity that this business has, and I was wondering whether this range of 1.5 to two times EV sales is what you hope to achieve. And then the other question is with regards to your sales expectations for next year. So it looks to me like you're ending the year with a backlog that's up about 11% year-over-year. And in your guidance, you have revenue growth at about 6% for next year. So could you just comment on that differential? Has the duration of your backlog been extended? Is this due to capacity limitations? have customers started ordering further ahead or what factors are playing into that? Thank you.

Thanks very much, Felix, for the question. First of all, on the potential sale. As we mentioned, we are in the midst of the process and, you know, so far, so good. It's very difficult at this point to give any guidance what the proceeds in the end might be. You know, you can have a pretty good picture on the profitability and you can obviously apply different multiples, but we can at this point not really give any number. On the sales guidance for the year, which might look a little bit conservative, it probably is. However, what you said is very true. We have a little bit more of a length of the order backlog. Customers are ordering earlier. We have bigger projects of which some are not fully materializing already this year. as they are more in the engineering phase where there's not so much POC happening. And all in all, with a bit more cautious view on the market, we've defined the sales guidance where you can see it's also a little bit of a wider gap because we will have to see what happens next. Further down the year, as we mentioned, we now expect the hallmark business to see more momentum at the middle of the year, the automation business picking up. So all in all, it's early in the year, and this is what we see with respect to the projects and especially with the fact that we have a very nice backlog in automotive, but with a little bit of a longer lead time. Thank you.

Thank you very much also from my side. Then the next question is from Christian Kors of Barbrook Research. Please, over to you.

I have two actually. First on HOMAC or woodworking machinery. You mentioned your expectations regarding a possible pickup in momentum in H2. I wonder, reading the press, the construction downturn is coming to an end. And do you maybe already see some very early signs of improvement, like non-financial KPIs, for instance, increasing customer inquiries that underpin and underscore your expectations for better or pick up a momentum in H2? And secondly, given the low leverage in your balance sheet and potentially some additional proceeds from further investments. Any thoughts about distributing extra cash to shareholders? Thank you.

Thank you, Christian, for your two questions. First of all, I think you've phrased it very well. Non-financial signs or something like this, you mentioned, yeah. We see some more activity from customers. We have seen so many quarters now of a downturn, the longest period ever, and customers saying that they see momentum. We will have the most important trade show in woodworking in May. I think a lot will be there in terms of probably understanding a bit more the market dynamics But I would summarize it pretty much like you said it. It's more non-financial and talks and some inquiries that we see that make us a little bit more positive, I would say. In terms of the low leverage, in terms of distributing money back to shareholders, actually that's not being high on the agenda yet. Okay, understood. Maybe I can just say, of course, we will consider this, but I would say let's do it in a conservative way. First of all, let's hand prepare, and then we talk about how to divide the fuel.

Okay, okay, understood. I'll be patient. If I may, a brief follow-up regarding your, yeah, ESG ambitions to reduce the CO2 footprint So mid to long-term, do you also evaluate the use of green steel in your products in order to further improve your footprint?

We are watching it. So far, quite honestly, everything that we've seen on a – qualified basis looks challenging, let me put it this way. You know, when you read the news, and I'm sure you've looked at this as well, the models that were very optimistic in the beginning do not seem to gain so much momentum yet. We will have to see what happens and where it happens. And obviously, we are always looking at the border adjustment, all the mechanisms. But it's not yet too much factored into our costs, I must say. This is Christian in regard to the, let's say, CO2 reduction, so I guess all contribution. Looking to the customer is the much, much more important part compared to the material that we are using. So the variance, I think you're also aware, the high portion of CO2 emissions coming from the energy consumption that is caused by the pain in the production. This is at the very end our contribution to the, let's say, strategy of our customers to reduce CO2. So that's our contribution at the very end to becoming a carbon neutral society or carbon neutral industrial activity. Steve, I said it's 90%. The supply chain is less than 10. Yes.

Okay, understood. Thank you.

Are you sure, Christian? Operator, I think we can take the next question.

Yes, absolutely. Thank you very much. The next question is from Nikita Lal of Deutsche Bank. Over to you.

Yeah, good afternoon and thank you for taking my questions. I would have also two and one quick one. So the first maybe just on the sale process of the environmental business. Could you remind me of the planned timeline and when can we expect further updates? The second one also on your revenue guidance. I would like to understand more What will drive this year and what should happen that you will reach the lower end of the guidance and thus have no growth in revenues and what will rather drive the upper end? And the third question regarding your capex, it increased over the past years. Could you give us more color on your investment planning for this year and for the midterm? Thank you.

On the sales process of our environmental business, I would say we could expect news latest by mid of the year, roughly. So the plan is to complete the transaction during the course of the year, which consists of signing and closing. Obviously, the signing would happen before the closing, and this could be something, let's say, around mid-year. On the revenue guidance, the lower end, of course, would be based on a a bit more conservative view of the sales realization from the backlog, especially in automotive, as well as a more muted view on what orders we would book and ship this year, which is then more in the direction of HOMAC and industrial automation. The higher end of the guidance would include amounts of book and ship in the year, significant amounts, which means that would assume really some significant momentum in the woodworking business, but also in our industrial automation business. Then we have the question. Okay, cut. The capex spending. Dietmar, do you want to say something about it? Yeah, what we mentioned in the guidance, actually, then we had the capex spending of 4% last year, and we expect a 3% to 5% for 2025. And then the focus being on further development technology here in Germany, but also I think we announced this also to the outside that we did a groundbreaking ceremony for the new factory of HOMAG in Poland where we will generate a better cost mix then for future production. This then basically from the building being completed towards the end of the year and then starting the interior work and moving then into the new factor, which will provide extension potential, significant potential, then in 2026. The long-term goal remains to be developed.

Thank you.

Thank you, Nikita.

Thank you very much, Jose, from my side. So the next question is from Peter Rotheneicher of Baader Bank AG. Please go ahead.

Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. One question regarding your margin expectation for the automotive business. So the guided range is more or less at the upper end in line with the 2024 result. Overall, this means a little lower margin than last year. What is the reason for this? I think... The quality of the orders you received was still quite good. Your service business might perform favorably. What is the reason for this more cautious view on the margin?

Thank you, Peter. Yeah. First of all, I think we've had a great achievement for that business last year. If you look at, you know, in a differentiated view, still looking back for PFS above 7% for the old APT business, significantly below 10%, I think it was 10.4. I think as you follow the business for a number of years, I think this has, you would also say that it's a very good result. Is this conservative for this year? Let's see. I think we've had very good effects kicking in already this year. Let's see how we manage this year, how the service business especially develops in a challenging environment. And I would say it's a fair guidance. It is more possible in best case probably. Theoretically also against the midpoint there might be the downside like, you know, service would become more difficult. And we consider this at this point a fair balance of, you know, both sides.

Okay, then, at automation, you're still far away from your targets. Clearly, the environment is not good, particularly for EV businesses. Nevertheless, also, the margin guidance for 2025 looks somewhat disappointing still, which was around 5%. Is there a risk of some necessary impairment for BVS?

When you look at the performance for this year, please, first of all, also consider that the LIB business is part of automation, which is still not generating positive ebits as we're investing for good reasons, especially in technologies like dry coatings. So there is, I think Dietmar mentioned before, about the impact of at least 100 base points. At this point, we don't see the impairment as an issue, and we assume at this point, looking forward, that there won't be one. You never know. There's never a guarantee for any of the businesses in a changing environment, but at this point, No. And as I mentioned, the business environment in EV is not very strong at the moment. There's still been a significant part of the automation business. On the other hand, we've had record orders and projects last year in MedTech and we are further building on this. We have more conservative customers there on the one hand. On the other hand, we have a number of customers who tell us that now that we have a significant size of the business together in production automation systems as such, and also the Dirk Group on top, we are now awarded projects that customers would have never awarded BBS before, being considered too small as a supplier to this multi-billion dollar customers in METEC. Still challenging in mobility, but positive momentum in medtech and all in all. We also have in that portfolio, as you know, Benz. Also Benz being in the same investment cycle as HOMAC because they are the tool supplier also to HOMAC. also don't show significant results this year. This is where, all in all, we come to a margin of 5%, which already includes good progress in our BDS business.

Last year, you had an automation, some necessary value correction of projects. Is this already overcome, or are there still some risks in the order backlog?

No. The recent order backlog is covered derived from this. Of course, when we take higher costs for a project, the margin will be influenced later on when being realized. But the biggest portion, and Jochen already indicated this, and you might have realized our extraordinary effect as a whole has been higher than we thought. And due to the weak shop load situation in what Jochen mentioned, in tooling, but also in the production automation business unit, we reduced headcount there and we had significant expenses adding up to around €12 million for headcount reduction, which highlights that the shop load utilization is currently lower. And that's also what we then actually put into the budget and accordingly into the guidance.

Then the question on expected financial result and tax rate on the ongoing structure of the company. Can you give us here some help? Is the financial result, to what extent the financial result is improving?

The financial results last year was still on a... So, which means higher expenses at the very end due to the fact of the additional loans that we took as a bridge loan for the acquisition of BBS. And finally, we repaid them with the lower net financial status as a basis. Of course, we will have a positive impact. Then with the tax rate, you could see that the tax rate in 2024 was higher than the typical tax rate that we are having. And we mentioned then as well that we had pre-booked or then pre-cautionary in a way Here we did a provision actually due to expected results from a tax audit and that's why at the very end the tax rate was higher and for this year we expect them getting back towards the level of 30% that we are typically targeting.

Okay. And then the last point, your medium term EBIT margin target of 8%, clearly it is based on the current structure. So far, I think there was the estimation that at the latest by 2027, you would be able to reach this 8%. How is your view on this currently?

Yeah, I would not change this view, even including the divestment of the environmental business. As you see, our automotive business is already there. homework at HOMA so when HOMA comes back in a a normal environment, we have the chance, obviously, to pass the 8%. Our target, as you know, is even higher for the long run. And the same applies to the automation business, where we've set the target in the long run to touch the 10%. So if you put it all together, I don't see why we shouldn't be in a position to be there in two plus years. Okay, thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you. The last question is from Sven Weyer of UBS.

Good afternoon. Thanks for taking my questions. Hope you're well. The first one is actually because you talked about tariff risks. I was wondering about opportunities, right? I mean, wondering what kind of activity you see from the German OEMs potentially considering more local production in the US. Do you think that could be also then an opportunity for you? And the second question is just when we go back to Germany, I was wondering what your sense is of demand, how many clients are holding back investments because of the previous uncertain political situations and now could move ahead if we get all the stimulus that is being envisaged. Thank you.

Sven, on your first question, I totally agree on the two sides of tariffs. And we have seen also during the last administration of the current US president, some activities. For example, as a counter reaction those days, China implied taxes on vehicles and we've seen OEMs investing in China and we've been benefiting from it. So tariffs basically mean, in the end, reshoring one way or another, and consequently the need for customers to reallocate their investments. And it might well be that there is more momentum in the US from which we believe that we can benefit. So there's definitely the two sides. In general, tariffs as such are, on a global perspective, not necessarily helpful for world trade. But in a micro perspective, typically it helps us because it drives investments, it drives automation, because it also brings production typically into environments with high labor costs. For Germany, it will be interesting to see what we've been seeing, especially in Germany, but also in Europe, especially when it comes to the the consumer climate and if the new German government and hopefully some momentum also for Europe becomes active very quickly and we might see some signs for that, we believe that there will be more investment activities and hopefully an increase in consumer confidence which definitely would help if you just look at the fact in terms of furniture and hopefully in the end also construction activities where we believe our solutions could add and we could benefit from it. So yeah, that's our view on it.

Maybe just coming back on my US questions, I mean, I would guess that especially the German OEMs want to be ready for any outcome. So I would suspect they're already, you know, planning this on a high urgency, even if they don't need it, maybe. So would you be involved in those plannings already, or do you come in then at a later stage?

We are typically involved. relatively early because it is obviously infrastructure and whatever they plan, those plans have to suit the demand and when there is a demand for local activities, we are typically involved. sorry go ahead i think that does that mean that at the moment you have a lot of conversations then with your customers obviously given that what's going on or is the phone still not ringing so much oh we we actually propose some projects in the uss we speak for local car manufacturers but also for for global players, if I may call it like this. And there is always discussions. There's always discussions about different scenarios. And, you know, you've probably also seen some news of the OEMs, what they intend to do. But I believe many of the OEMs are currently still in their scenario phases. Let's see what comes out of it, but I assume that there will be some momentum coming from this.

Understood. Thanks for the call. Thank you very much.

Thanks a lot. We just received a new question from Holger Schmidt, DZ Bank AG. Holger, please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on the industrial automation business. You mentioned that the overall operating margin was burdened by the processing of legacy orders. Will this also be the case in the current year, in 2025? So that's the first question. The second question, your guidance is for a drop in free cash flow. Hello, can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you well.

Your free cash flow guidance is for only about 25 million at the midpoint of your guidance. That means a major drop as compared to last year. I mean, you are guiding for moderate top line growth. You are guiding for an improvement in the operating margin. And therefore, I'm wondering a bit why the free cash flow should be down in the current year. And then certainly, and my last question is on the environmental business. I mean, you are suggesting here strong growth in terms of order intake, moderate growth in terms of sales, double-digit EBIT margin. I mean, if you divest the business, this will be dilutive to the overall group margin and so on. Does it really make sense to divest the cleantech environmental business?

Thanks. Volker, for your straight questions, on the industrial automation business legacy orders, we've cleaned up the business last year. Will there be, you know, all of the business that we do always has certain risks and opportunities, but from today's perspective, we are in a fully going concern mode, I can really say. Let me answer your last question first, and then Dietmar will comment on the cash flow. On the environmental business, we are convinced that the strategy should not depend on necessarily the current profitability, etc. We see on the one hand potential going forward, but also the need to invest in the business. There is areas like CO2 capture, like heat storage, things like this where the environmental business has potential for the future. we also are obliged to focus with our funding on the business that we consider key to our strategy. And we sharpened our strategy based on what we have presented in consolidating the business. Also, I would almost say make life easier for the capital market. And this is where we decided to divest the business, which we still consider the right solution because I'd say it's easier to well divest a very profitable and also a business with future perspective rather than a business that is very muted because then in the end there wouldn't be a good result. And for the free cash flow, I will hand over to Dietmar. Yeah, talking about a free cash flow, then we had one impact in 2024 when we came out in this excellent way that actually customers paid then. in ahead of how the payments have been due, payments that have been due scheduled for 2025 that have been paid already in December, and this amounts to a mid to upper double-digit amount. million euro amount that we received earlier. If you eliminate this, then, Olga, from the free cash flow last year, and then add this potentially in 2025, then it's easy, or we can see that originally we would have targeted to continue with what we managed or what we achieved already and what we managed with the 80% cash conversion. So it's really a timing impact, just shifting cash inflows From expected rate 2025 into 2024. And that's what we need to consider when we look to the free cash flow guidance. And you should just add in the amount that we have seen in our guidance last year and add it into this year. I think all would look good. And we have the true picture.

Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Understood. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you very much also from my side. There are no more questions in the queue, so with that, I would like to hand over the floor back to you.

Thank you very much, Anna. Thank you very much to all the participants for your interest and for the questions. In case you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact either me or the Investor Relations team.