Dürr Aktiengesellschaft

Welcome to the Dürr conference call followed by a Q&A session. The conference will be recorded. At this time, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to our host Björn Voss, Head of Investor Relations, Dürr AG.

Yes, hi, it's Bjorn speaking. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to today's call. Please apologize that we scheduled this call on short notice and outside business hours, but we think it's important to inform you about our Q2 prelims and optimization plans for BBS automation instantly and before stock market opening tomorrow. The presentation for the call can be found on our website and we assume you have it already in front of you. I would now like to hand over to our CEO, Jochen, who was joined by our CFO, Dietmar. Jochen, please go ahead.

Thank you, Björn, and good evening to all participants on this call. And especially many thanks for your availability at short notice. Please, let's go straight to page three. As indicated in our Q1 call in mid-May, we've prepared a comprehensive efficiency program for BBS Automation in order to shape the company according to the changed market environment to strengthen its operating excellence and to position it to make full use of market opportunities in the future. Our measures also reflect that demand in the first half of the year was weaker than for Siebel last year. I'm going to make you familiar with the details of the program in a minute. Before, I would like to run you through our Q2 numbers which were quite solid in our two largest divisions. Group order intake was up 13% in Q2, mainly based on year-over-year growth in automotive. Within industrial automation, measuring and process systems, balancing technology business also posted high order entry, resulting among other things from sound demands from the power generation sector. Here we are benefiting from High Energy Demand for AI Data Centers. Consolidated sales were almost on last year's level. While the automotive division accelerated project execution and sales generation in Q2, woodworking sales were down due to continued low demand in the furniture business. At BBS Automation, sales were also affected by Market Week. Despite the challenging environment and the slight sales drop, the operating EBIT margin improved on the back of a favorable business mix and recent cost cutting and efficiency measures. The fact that we were able to more than compensate for the unsatisfactory earnings performance at BBS Automation underlines the effectiveness of our self-help measures and the earnings resilience of the two large divisions automotive and woodworking, as well as in industrial automations balancing business. Due to the upcoming efficiency measures and related goodwill impairment in BBS automation, we expect unplanned extraordinary effects of 140 to 150 million euros in 2026. The impairment of 90 to 100 million euros is included in Q2, while the major part of the planned restructuring expenses will be considered in Q3. However, based on the robust development in H1, we confirm all KPIs of our group guidance for 2026. Slide 4 shows selective key figures for Q2 and H1 2026. You can see the sharp improvement in Q2 order intake over last year's tariff-induced Truff. Sales clearly gained traction in Q2 compared to Q1. And looking at the sales channel, this positive development should continue in the second half. As mentioned, the EBIT margin before Extraordinaries was slightly up, despite the negative contribution from BBS and the somewhat lower sales level in the group. Next is slide five. The automotive division posted order intake of more than half a billion euros in Q2, thus clearly beating last year's figure and Q1. The pipeline continues to be solid also because we see increased project activity in the US as foreign OEMs are speeding up capex plans there in order to increase local production and avoid tariffs. However, Given the demanding market and the high macro uncertainty, predicting the timing of contract awards continues to be a challenge. Automotive sales accelerated in Q2 as customer-induced delays in the execution of large projects have mostly vanished. Also for H2, we expect a favorable sales channel and potential for further improvement. The same applies to the margin that almost met last year's level in H1 and is expected to improve in H2 based on excellent order execution, higher sales, and the typical seasonal pattern. Industrial automation, page six, showed heterogeneous development. The balancing business under the Schenck brand reached double digit growth rates for the intake sales and earnings in H1. This was based on a fair loop environment in core markets such as aerospace, energy and also automotive. In contrast, at BBS Automation, business development was marked by low demand from the automotive industry, prompting order intake to fall below expectations year to date. BBS Automation's automotive business is in an extraordinary situation. On the one hand, we see e-mobility gaining traction with e-car sales surging. On the other hand, many assembly lines that were installed as part of the capex wave in 2021 and 2022 are still not fully loaded, so OEMs and tier 1s are hesitating with new investments. For BBS automation, this currently means decreasing sales, resulting in underutilization as well as cost margin pressure. Additionally, earnings were burdened by some extra expenses in project execution due to it. Part of this was due to a conservative approach to order assessment, so there is a certain opportunity to reverse extra expenses in the final stage of order execution in the future. The efficiency program developed by the new VPS management is called Vector and was designed to increase performance, make the business more resilient and resize it according to the actual market volume. As part of Vector, we will be performing a second non-cash goodwill impairment of 90 to 100 million euros that will be reflected in the Q2 financial statements. With this, The goodwill of the entity drops to some 25 million, which will significantly de-risk BBS Automation in the future. Page seven, please. The main message for woodworking is that the division is still exposed to the market weakness in furniture business, but was nonetheless able to increase the margin year over year in Q2. This was supported by the effective cost and capacity management as well as a favorable business mix that benefited from the successful marketing of the HOMAG Intelligence software platform. HOMAG Intelligence is unique in the market and seamlessly covers customers' complete order execution process from the point of sale to the final steps of production and logistics. Please note that HOMAX H1 earnings included operating one-off expenses of 6 million euros for higher R&D spending, the wrap-up of the new factory in Poland, and a major SAP conversion. Looking at the low level of order intake, I would like to underline that we are determined to protect HOMAX profitability and to take action if necessary. Page 9 leads us to more details of the efficiency program Vector for BBS automation. On the left, you can see the initial situation in the two different markets in the automation business. Life Science used to be called Medtech in the past, but was renamed to better reflect the full spectrum of our activities in this segment. This market offers the strongest growth potential for BBS automation. In simple terms, the world population is growing and is getting older, which increases the need for medical treatment and personal care. Our life science business mainly focuses on Europe and the Americas and will be led by our US operations in the future. What is key here is more focus on the sales process and making full use of our expertise for larger projects that not all our competitors can handle. Looking at the mobility business with the auto industry, I've already explained the temporary mismatch between rising e-car sales and lacking investment in new production equipment for e-engines. We expect the next chapter or the next capex wave to start not before the end of the decade, meaning that The current task is to align our capacity to the current subdue demand. As China is the most important market for e-mobility, this business will be led by our Kunshan operations near Shanghai and no longer from Germany. In the center of the page, you can see that Vector encompasses optimization and capacity measures. We intend to adapt the workforce to current market needs and to cut some 500 jobs worldwide, thereof 200 in Germany. At the same time, we will be turning BBS Automation into a better, more capable and more focused company. With Vector, we will lift process excellence to the high dual levels and strengthen sales, service and R&D in order to better differentiate ourselves with USPs in terms of technology. The business locations will have a clear focus and belong to either the mobility or life science business unit and we will implement harmonized processes and tools as guardrails for order execution. We expect sales to be under 400 million euros this year and probably next year. Until 2030 we want to grow them to at least 600 million euros in a profitable manner. That means with a margin of 8% on a sustainable basis. This is a revision to the initial 800 million sales target as market volumes are smaller. However, starting from the current base level of 300 to 400 million euros, the new target of more than 600 million euros translates into decent growth rates until 2030. Parallel, we will bring down fixed costs with Vector meaning that volume growth will be accompanied by margin level that supports the overall group margin target of 8%. Page 10 summarizes the financial impact of Vector with the two upper boxes showing the composition of extraordinary effects. We foresee restructuring expenses of 40 to 50 million euros this year that will be mainly accrued in H2, whereas some 8 million were already included in Q2. Please note that the amount of 40 to 50 million euros will be mainly, but not fully reserved for Vector. There is a certain cushion for small adjustments that might be needed in other parts of the group, given the volatile business environment. The goodwill impairment will be between 90 and 100 million euros and reflects that BBS Automation's mobility business has been developing even weaker than assumed last year. Benefits from Vector will be recurring cost savings of around 30 million euros with initial single digit million euro cost savings already in 2026 and almost the full amount already in 2027. From 2027 onwards, we are expecting top-line growth mainly driven by the life science business, market share gains based on focused sales initiatives, as well as service growth. The mid-term margin target of 8% before extraordinary will be supported by volume growth and by efficiency gains resulting from better processes and the use of internal synergies. Moreover, Earnings will benefit by an increased focus on the service business as well as from innovation spending that will allow for more value-based pricing. We see great synergy between BVS Automation and the automotive division, especially in order acquisition, order execution, or claim management. Before entering into Q&A, some remarks on the outlook on page 12. We're confirming all group targets despite the challenges at BBS Automation, as we are benefiting from the resilience of the other group operations, from cross-savings in the admin sector, and from lower expenses for the one-do program. In our view, this is not a given considering the current news flow in our major end markets like automotive and consumer. However, automotive will benefit from seasonal effects and a strong sales pipeline in H2. Industrial automation is expected to see first positive effects from Vector and can rely on the strength of Schenck's balancing business. Woodworking will benefit from the execution of the almost 100 million euros timber house contract received in late 2025, which will support sales and profitability in H2. This will more than compensate for the around 10 million euros one-time burdens that HOMAG announced in March that are linked to the SAP transition and the new factory in Poland. Phase 13 is next. We are confirming the outlook for the automotive and woodworking divisions while adjusting the guidance for industrial automation that has been under review since May. I'm sure that you will have a closer look at this after the call, But to keep it short, I would like to directly jump to page 14 with a summary. The group's business and performance were heterogeneous in H1. Despite this, we are confirming all guidance KPIs on the group level. This is strongly supported by the stability of the automotive division despite the demanding market environment. Industrial automation benefits from the strength of the balancing business and with Vector it has laid the groundwork for future profitable growth. I'm fully convinced that we will turn BBS automation into an efficient and growing business and that we will benefit from the initiated self-help measures in the way we did when optimizing automotive, woodworking and the admin sector before. It has proven that we are able to make businesses better and we will put effort in repeating this with BBS automation. Moreover, we can rely on a strong balance sheet and our ability for high multi-year cash generation. So despite the extraordinary and mainly non-cash expenses, we see ourselves positioned to continue with our sustainably dividend policy. So far from my side, Thank you very much for your attention, ladies and gentlemen. Dietmar and I will now be happy to answer your questions.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 9 and pound key on your telephone keypad. If you would like to revoke your question, press star 3 and pound key. You can also use the dial-in function in the webcast and raise your hand if you would like to ask a question by phone. I repeat, to ask a question, please press star, nine and hand key. The first question is from Nikita Papaccio from Deutsche Bank.

Hi, Nikita.

Hi. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Ah, great. Yeah. Hey, good morning. Good evening. Thanks for taking my questions and for the late call. Good evening. Yeah, three questions from my side. The first one on the industrial automation business, we saw now a minus 2.4% adjusted EBIT margin in Q2. Can we expect that this is a trough overall and it should improve from here on? The second question on the synergies you mentioned to improve BBS, could you maybe elaborate even more what we could expect here? And the third one, I mean, you mentioned the full year guidance for the group was confirmed while automation outlook was lowered. Can you maybe elaborate a bit more which division should mainly offset this and why? Thank you.

Thank you, Nikita, for your questions regarding industrial automation and whether the minus 2.4 are the troughs. If you look at our new guidance, which is minus one to plus one, that is our assumption based on the fact that we have on an operational level also crude for some of the projects, as I had explained. So at this point, we're assuming and for good reasons that it should be the trough on the synergies between BBS and the automotive business. There is a couple, especially on the project execution. I already also mentioned that during my information before. We are using the project management tools meanwhile that are used very successfully in the automotive business now also in BBS and we're already seeing results. That's one synergy. Second is especially also on the sales side. We have some overlap between customers, especially on the OEM side, and we're using our well-established sales network that we have around the world also to open opportunities for BBS. So I would say those are the two main elements that we are currently using. On the full year guidance, we benefit from the very strong business and also the profitability that we have in automotive, where in contrast to BBS, as I mentioned, we are very well executing the current projects and benefit consequently from the margins there. But also HOMAG, even though HOMAG is still at very low sales levels, Our cost measures are working and consequently also here we have potential which together with the cost reductions we have on a holding level especially compared to last year make us very confident that we keep the full year guidance.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Question is from Sven Weyer from UBS.

Yeah, good evening from my side. Thanks for the call. Hello. I got two questions. Can you hear me?

Yes, can hear you well, Sven.

Good. I got two questions, please. The first one is also kind of a follow-up question on the guidance question. Because if I take the midpoint of your divisional guidances and assume a certain holding other line costs, that would rather give me a margin towards the lower end of the guidance corridor. Is that fair or are you still aiming to achieve the midpoint of the margin guidance? And the second question is, did you see any benefit on earnings from tariff payback in Q2? We now had a couple of companies having had a refund in Q2 and was just wondering if you did see the same. Thank you.

Yes, we agree that I will answer your question and maybe start with the last one. In regard to tariffs, we get refund, but in certain cases we also have to refund our customers who have been willing to pay additionally for the US customers tariffs that have been exposed to us. So the impact on profitability, there is a little one, but it's limited. Actually, and in regard to the guidance, yes, you're basically right. We are moving to the lower area of the guidance, but we do see further opportunities then in the second half of the year coming up in the auto and in the wood area. And I'm sure you are aware that typically we are performing stronger in the auto business in the second half of the year. And we will see that towards the end of the year. project business is always exposed to contingencies that you need to maintain to what extent we can release and on the woodworking side I expect benefits now to kick in from the start of operation in Poland in the new factory that we did in May and that will then accelerate in the second half of the year the woodworking development in regard to profitability as well.

Does that mean the midpoint is still achievable?

Basically, yes. We still see chances to move to the midpoint, yes.

And then maybe if I might just chip in one final one on the woodworking business and the order intake. I mean, there seems to be also a bit of seasonality, right, in Q2 that the order intake was a bit weaker. Then Q1, you also described, because it was obviously quite a bit of a sequential decline there, but do you think that's largely seasonality also, or is what has fundamentally changed between the two quarters?

Sven, I'm trying to make a joke, I would have to call my lawyer to give a proper answer, but it's very difficult to say at the moment how much there is seasonality, yes, We sometimes see that as often we have price increases for some standard components in the second quarter. So typically first quarter is stronger than the second quarter. But to be quite honest, it is currently very difficult to guess. This is why we continue to make homework in HOMAG and see what's happening where. I would say we're prepared for the worst and hope for better.

Understood. Thank you.

Thank you Sven.

The next question is from Philippe Laurent from Bernstein.

Good evening. I hope you can hear me well. Very well Philippe. Perfect. So it was just first to confirm with you that BBS within industrial automation is 300 to 400 million of sales right now? Yes, the answer is yes. Okay, that was 300 to 400 or 350 to 400? More 350 to 400. Okay, perfect. Then the second question I had was to bounce back a little bit on what Sven was asking as well. So the run rate or the intake for HOMAG per quarter in H1 was somewhere between 315 and 320 million, which is a bit lower than what we had last year. So any chance that we move back towards what we saw rather last year, or would you consider that to be quite stable for the rest of the year, i.e. below the 350? Yeah.

We probably see a bit of improvement further down the road, but if year on year for the year, I don't expect a real upswing. Okay.

And what are the implications maybe then for 2027, because you will come out of that with some reasonable visibility, I guess, between the mix of short-term orders and a bit more long-term orders as well. So how could sales look like a bit next year? Could there be growth? Would that be more flattish? and you were saying as well that you were ready to take action at OMAC because you want, first and foremost, to protect the profitability there. So if you could elaborate a little bit on that, it would be great.

Thanks. Yeah, that's a tough one, Philipp. Honestly, I cannot give you a professional answer. It's really a bit like we prepare for the worst and hope for better. That's why we continue to increase cost savings as we speak, step by step. We have the means in our hand with the new facility in Poland that is now in operation that gives us more leverage possibilities in terms of, you know, also labor arbitrage and we just continue our homework but I'm not here to say that 27 will be a tremendous upswing. We all hope that things are becoming better, but I cannot, at this point, give any indication.

Okay. And the last one is more on, basically, on BTS automation. So, is there any issue arising in hindsight, maybe, with regard to due diligence on the deal? Because it's not the first time that you mentioned that there are some project costs that are weighing a little bit on that. I wanted to ask you, because you mentioned as well that there are some synergies with automotive, especially with regard to project execution and project management, and that they can learn from that. But since now you've had VGS Automation for nearly three years, would you have done the deal knowing a little bit better perhaps what could happen to demand?

Yeah. That's a fair point, the comment on BBS. And to be quite honest, not all of what we have been now reporting in terms of some project accrual goes back to the time of due diligence. Some really also happened while we already owned the business. And this is why we have taken consequences with the new management, with new tools. in order to make sure that this does not happen in the future.

Okay, point taken. Thank you very much. I'm back in the queue.

Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, you still have time. You could do so by pressing star, nine and pound key on your telephone keypad. You could also use the dial in function in the webcast and raise your hand. Star, nine and pound key. At the moment, there seems to be no further questions, so I would hand over to Bjorn again.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, thank you once again for joining us at this late hour. and of course Mathias and I will be available for follow-up questions tonight and of course also tomorrow so please don't hesitate to contact us. Our management is also available for investor calls in the next couple of days if you are interested. And finally I would like to highlight the save the date announcement for our Capital Markets Day on December 9 and December 10. We will probably start the event on December 9 in the evening and really hope to see you all in person then. For now, we wish you a pleasant evening and a successful day tomorrow. But before we end this call, I would like to hand over the mic to Dietmar for some very final remarks.

Thank you very much. Very final is not yet final. Still a couple of weeks to go. But I think you're aware I would like to add a personal note. This is my final quarterly call as CFO of Dürr, as I will be retiring end of September. Honestly, it has been a pleasure to interact with you and I would like to sincerely thank you for your interest in our company, for your thoughtful questions that always have inspired meaningful discussions and for the constructive dialogue that we had. And I have to admit there have been sometimes questions where I thought, yes, this is what I have to ask my management colleagues as well. So I'm grateful for the relationships that we built over the years and I hope you will continue to follow Dürr with interest. Thank you very much and wishing you all the best for the future. And Björn, with this, giving back to you.

Yeah, thank you very much. Have a good night. Bye.