Fuchs SE

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the First Quarter Results 2026 Analyst Conference Call for Fuchs SE. This conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity for the analyst of Fuchs to ask questions. May I now hand over to Andreas Schaller? Head of Investor Relations at Fuchs SE, who will start the meeting today. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Heidi. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. This is Andreas Schaller speaking. On behalf of Fuchs SE, I wish you a very warm welcome to today's conference call on the results of the first quarter 2026. With me on the call today is our CEO, Stefan Fuchs, and our CFO, Esmal Zaglik, and the IR team with Teresa Landau and Maximilian Seidel. Maximilian is the successor of Niklas and is with us since two weeks now. So also a warm welcome to the conference call, Maximilian. We are very happy to have you with us. Thank you very much. As always, Esma and Stefan will run you through the presentation, which is then followed by a Q&A session. All the documents for this call are available on our homepage, and we assume that you have them in front of you. Please be also aware of our disclaimer on page two of our presentation. And now it's my pleasure to hand over the call to Esma. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Andreas. And hello and also a very warm welcome from my side. I will now walk you through our financial performance for the first quarter of 2026, starting with the key highlights. We can say we had a very good start into the year. Organic growth continued and even accelerated. In a volatile environment, we once again demonstrated operational resilience and financial strength. Sales reached $934 million, up by 1% year-on-year, which is mainly driven by an organic growth of 5%. And this result has been achieved despite significant currency hedging. Our EBIT came in at $125 million, up by $17 million, or 16% versus last year, which marks another new quarterly record. Additionally, it also underlines the quality of our earning and the effectiveness of our cost. Pre-cash flow before acquisition was very solid at $54 million, an improvement of $37 million year-on-year, and this despite usual seasonal build-up in net operating working capital during Q1. Earnings per share increased by 15% to 68 cents per share. Now, turning to the next slide, let me briefly comment on quarterly sales. As usual, you see a seasonal increase quarter on quarter, which is fully in line with prior years. Nevertheless, sequential sales grow by 8%, and at the same time, sales year over year increase, by 1%. Let me have a closer look at the main drivers behind our sales development. Sales in Q1 reached $934 million at that 1% up year over year. At the first glance, this looks rather modest. But the underlying performance was much stronger. Organic growth continued, organic growth contributed 42 million or 5%. With that, volume growth was particularly strong with mid to high single-digit range. This organic growth came from all regions, which reflects successful business wins and especially the strong demand in March. On the external growth side, the acquisition of IRMCO and Azurlin 2025 were the main contributors. Currency headwinds remained significant, with a negative impact of around 4%. We expect these headwinds to continue into Q2 and to ease thereafter. Overall, we can say that the underlying sales development was clearly positive. Looking at the EBIT on quarterly basis, we see the same seasonal pattern. However, what stands out is the strong EBIT improvement by over 15% both year over year at quarter over quarter. With 125 million, EBIT marked a new all-time high for a single quarter. This performance was driven by further improvement in our gross margin contributed cost discipline or continued cost discipline, and the $7 million one-off gain from the sale of our property in Australia. Let me now turn to the KPI summary, starting with gross margin. Our gross margin improved to 35.1%. That is an increase of 80 basis points year on year and fully in line with the development we saw in the previous two quarters. Functional cost declined by $7 million. This was mainly driven by the gain from the Australian land sale. As a result, EBIT reached $125 million, which is an increase of 16% year on year with an EBIT margin of 13.4%. Capital expenditures increased year on year as well, but it's still in line with our full year guidance. Net operating working capital showed the usual seasonal pattern, build up in absolute terms quarter over quarter. But at 21% of annualized sales, it remains stable and unchanged compared to the end of last year or last quarter. Finally, free cash flow before acquisitions was very solid with $54 million, an increase of $37 million year-on-year. Then let's have a look to our regional development. Sales in EMEA increased by 5%, driven by organic growth and stronger demand in March. Most countries in EMEA recorded higher sales. Particularly strong growth came from South Africa, Germany, Poland, Italy, and the UK. External growth was supported by the acquisition from our former distribution partner, Asiol, in Switzerland. EBIT improved significantly, mainly due to margin expansion and higher volume. The main contributors were Germany, Sweden, and South Africa. So in summary, the Q1 performance in EMEA was very positive. Now moving over to Asia Pacific. Organic growth remains strong at 6%, mainly driven by China and Australia, but also many other smaller countries contributed to it. This clearly shows the benefit of our investment in local production. However, strong negative currency effects almost fully offset the growth. As a result, reported sales increased by only 1% to 266 million. From a profitability perspective, the region developed very well. EBIT increased by 38%, with China and Australia being the main drivers. That said, the Asia-Pacific results include the 7 million one-off gains, as mentioned before. But anyway, overall, we can say Asia-Pacific recorded a strong organic growth and a high EBIT, which underlines the solid performance of the region. Now turning to North and South America. Sales declined by 6%, mainly due to significant depreciation of the US dollar over the past 12 months. At the same time, organic growth was 3%. reflecting new business growth, particularly in North America. External growth was driven by the acquisition of Irmkul. EBIT declined by 2 million, and that mainly due to negative ethics effects. We also saw positive business development in South America. Overall, the operational performance of the region It's more solid, and we expect FX effects in South America to fade after Q2. In summary, America's delivered a solid operational performance, which unfortunately was offset by currency headings. Now, moving over to the net operating working capital. Looking at our operating working capital, we see the usual seasonal pattern, a buildup in Q1 after a low point in Q4. Compared to Q1 2025, net operating working capital improved, both in absolute terms and as a percentage of sales, from 22.4% to 21%, reflecting disciplined working capital management and also the higher demand. Turning to net liquidity, we achieved the free cash flow before acquisitions of 54 million, driven by strong earnings and a moderate increase in working capital. CapEx in the first quarter was almost in line with our depreciation level. Overall, net liquidity increased by 52 million to 250 million at the end of Q1, a very solid result for the first quarter. But please keep in mind, there was no major cash out in Q1. In Q2, we will see the dividend payment and the cash out for our acquisition of OPEX Foods. Before turning to the material price development and the outlook, let me briefly summarize Q1. We had a very strong start into 2026 with positive organic growth development and the highest quarterly EBIT ever. We more than compensated for significant currency headwinds and once again proved our resilience in volatile market environment. Now moving over to the material development. As mentioned during our capital market day, since the conflict in the Middle East, oil and petrochemical supply chains have come under pressure. High crude prices, longer transport routes, and rising logistic costs are putting pressure on input costs, especially for base oil. We see raw material pricing increasing sharply, and to counteract, we have implemented price increases and expect further increases in Q2. Even if the conflict were to ease, Supply conditions are unlikely to normalize before year-end or even by 2027. Our sourcing setup is globally diversified, and this gives us flexibility. We are confident that we can secure volumes to serve our existing customers, who remain our top priority. And as a result, we remain cautious by taking new businesses. So in summary, the visibility regarding price development is currently not given. And it is currently impossible to give a clear direction how it will evolve. And as you all recall, in 2021 and 2022, we faced a similar situation. And we managed it quite well. We have proven that we can handle inflationary challenges and we are confident that we will manage this situation also successfully. Our key learning was to act faster on pricing, which we are currently doing. And now, let's move to the outlook. Based on the current market and pricing dynamics, and also assuming there will be no further disruptions to the global economy or supply chains, we update our outlook as follows. We now expect sales to increase significantly above $3.7 billion driven by price increases. As the final extent of the price adjustments are still uncertain, we refrain from giving a precise target. By significant, we refer to double-digit growth. The sales number includes the OPAT books acquisition, which we expect to close this week. And we have considered two-thirds of their annualized sales of $100 million. Our EBIT guidance remains unchanged at around $450 million. We expect to offset raw material inflation by pricing. With 125 million EBIT in Q1, we have laid a solid foundation. However, this figure should please not be annualized as Q1 includes the 7 million one-off gains. In Q2, we expect further one-offs related to OPEC folks, which will broadly offset the positive effect from Q1 in the P&L, but without cash assets. Please take into account when you are modeling your 2026 full-year numbers. FBA is now expected at slightly below $250 million, reflecting higher capital employed costs. Free cash flow before acquisition is expected to be significantly below $217 million, mainly due to inflation-driven working capitalism. For cash, the reduction should be modeled consistently with our sales price reduction. Based on our strong start into the year, we are confident that we will achieve our EBIT target as previously indicated. We remain committed to grow our dividend year after year as we have done it over the past six volatile years. With our FOX 100 strategy, we are well positioned and will drive for organic growth, margin improvement and cash generation going forward. And with that, I hand over to Stefan for some more company news.

Thank you very much, Esma, for the positive update. My news will be relatively short because we had a significant exchange with most of you two weeks ago in our capital market day. I think if we go to the next slide, you all remember that about three months ago, we made a press release to take over the remaining 50% of our Turkish joint venture. And as it was stated in the press release, that's a company with about 100 million euros in sales and 250 employees. It's located in Istanbul. The plant is in Aliaga, nearby Izmir. and if everything goes well today and there's nothing to be expected differently we will close the deal tomorrow and we will be the proud owner of 100 of our turkish subsidiary which will also change the consolidation from an equity towards a full consolidation um moving moving forward so most likely you will see a press release uh tomorrow afternoon to just say you know that uh This will be closed as planned and we have a wonderful relationship with our partners. Our partner is OPET. uh oped you know run filling stations they run refineries in in turkey and they themselves is a is a champion between the large coach group and the earth's turk family so we have a good partnership and friendship with them but we both thought you know that we as lubricant specialists focus fully on on that company and i think that's what we execute them finally and then the other little update but i don't want to go deep we had i think a really good fox 100 kickoff two weeks ago most of you attended our capital market day you could see all of us engaged you know we had the six colleagues on stage on our on our focus areas In a few words, this is not a revolution, it's an evolution of Fuchs 2025. So whatever we have learned and done during the last seven years, we can now build on. So we really mainly focus on growth, but obviously also on people and sustainability. Two days before we met, we had the internal kickoff, and that's really cool because we had a 30-something minute video which was recorded with watch parties all over the world. So all our people got at the same time the same amount of news. And I think this was very, very welcome and gives our people direction, especially in challenging times like we have now. And if you remember, I said the last seven years were volatile. Since the end of February, we know that also 2026 will be volatile. So that's the eighth year in a row. So I always say volatility is the new normal, but I think with our business model, which is very resilient, we can cope with that. That was the update from Esma and I, and now I hand back to Andreas.

Thank you very much, Esma and Stefan. And now we can start with the Q&A session, please, operator.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1, 1 on your telephone, and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star 1, 1 again. We will take our first question, and the question comes from the line of Anil Shenoy from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line is open. Hi.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you so much for taking my questions. My first question is on any pre-buying that you have seen in Q1. we have heard a lot of other chemical companies say that they have seen some panic buying, which has led to some kind of upside in their Q1 numbers. So have you seen any kind of uptick in your volumes because of this pre-buying? And if so, in which regions? So that's my first question. And second question is on your guidance. If I look at the clean EBIT of 118 million in Q1 after excluding the 7 million one-offs, And if I extrapolate it for FY, I still get to about $470 to $480 million. But your guidance is still $450 million. So does that reflect the lag between the price increases and the raw material inflation? And is that why you are a little conservative? Or is there any other reason? So if you could just help us bridge the Q1 EBIT to the FY guidance. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your questions. I think they're very, very valid. The first one with the pre-buying, if you compare large chemical companies, you talk about a few products only, which are large bulk items, and normally their customers have significant tank capacity or they can rent tank capacity. Our customers are involved with a lot of rather small and medium-sized deliveries. They don't have the capacity. Even if you go to our larger customers, they have a few bulk tanks for the product, but this is it. When they're full, they're full. And we have maybe the automotive aftermarket or one or the other distributor who orders a little bit more. We have made sure that we do as much as we can do to not oversupply because we also want to have the pricing stick. But on over 100,000 customers and over 10,000 different products, I can't tell you whether there was no impact. But all in all, this whole pre-buying and to put large inventories aside is for us not a big deal. I would say the other opportunity for us that so far we have secured supplies of our customers, which is always more important than the pricing. And we see more of our competitors being in a limbo situation. And instead of saying overstocking, maybe I would say we probably have also picked up the other delivery which we would have probably not had in the Q1 in normal times. But all in all, I would say, you know, when we look back in 2024, we had, say, a lower digit amount of volume growth. In 2025, it was a mid-to-single-digit amount. Now we were in the higher mid-to-higher single-digit amount. So for me, this is still an outlaw of the Fox 2025 strategy. When you look on the guidance, I think we feel comfortable with the overall guidance because you can't just extrapolate a record quarter to the full year times four. You always have seasonal impacts. In some countries, it's in the summer. In some countries, it's more towards the Christmas time. So I would be careful with that. And I don't want to detail now all the single reasons. All in all, we feel comfortable. And I think we have made that The outlook in March, the situation has not done any better. It didn't come to a conclusion in Iran. Therefore, I would say that we keep and uphold it. It's a good signal to the market, but I would be a little bit hesitant to just accept it.

Thank you. Thank you so much for those answers.

Thank you. We will take our next question. The next question comes from the line of Constantine Hesse from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you very much for taking my questions. Just a couple from my side. Can I just confirm that the guidance implies or assumes that you'd expect a price decline in base oils in the second half? So the question would be if they stay at this level because the conflict just continues dragging, Are you able to keep prices relatively elevated and you should be able to keep your EBIT or would that put further pressure on your EBIT? That's the first question. Second question is on, I mean, obviously you're holding back on new business, which is probably holding back your growth potential. So if I think about the current disruption even impacting your sourcing into 27, how should we think about these opportunities lost? would they potentially go to your competition? And as a result, they would have higher switching costs in order to go back to folks. So do you see this more of a temporary disruption with potential new customers, or could this disruption last longer because they would then move to your competitors as a result of it? Thank you.

Thanks, Konstantin. I think two good questions. Since it's fresh, I'll start with the second one. Nothing gets lost at the moment. Because all our competitors face the same challenges. But you have to understand when you have 10,000 products, there's also a lot of reformulating going on. So our procurement team is fully absorbed to secure whatever volumes they can get. Our product management and R&D teams have to reformulate and have to also then talk to our customers with regard to the approvals and the documentation because we can't do anything in the gray zone. And the other part is for our sales people to negotiate all the sales prices. All of that goes on and at that moment I think it's clear that the time of our sales people to focus on new business is limited compared to the other times what we have initially planned for but we don't lose any opportunity because all our competitors are in the same in the same area and as you see in the first quarter volume volume was good uh therefore this lost opportunity i do not see um this is keeping the prices up and the whole guidance um we do not see that the raw material will go down immediately there are always there are always two potential scenarios. The one is that people order now and then the consumption goes back in the market because the economy will suffer. I mean, this whole inflation and people now also talk about how higher interest rates potentially coming up, does the economy normally not good based on already existing tariffs and many other things. This is the one risk, you know, which where we need to be careful. The other risk that people You know, now do stock certain products and then the economy goes down and then the raw material prices fall sharply. That's the scenario we have seen in the Lehman crisis 2008-2009. But there's nothing we can do about it. The pricing we put in now will stick until the raw materials go down again. And if you really look back on the large two scenarios, the one was Lehman, the prices skyrocketed and then they fell back. It was like really a huge V. But in 21 and 22, the raw materials went up by 70% and they actually never came back significantly. A little bit, they came back in 25 and also in the first quarter. That's why Esma said, you know, the volume growth was bigger than the 5% because there was still in January, February, certain price adjustments downward. But that's all I can answer you with that regard.

That's great.

Thank you very much. Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Angelina Glasova from JP Morgan. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hello. Thank you very much for taking my questions. I just have one at this stage. Could you give us a bit more color on how the second quarter is shaping up so far? And maybe to zero in a bit more on the raw material price dynamics. So you have referred quite a bit to base oils, price inflation in your opening remarks, but how are you seeing the additives? Are there also price increases? And if you could compare and contrast the magnitude of those compared to what you're seeing in base oils, that will be helpful.

Thanks, Angelina, for that question. I think I answered the first half, and then maybe Esma answers the second half a little bit to give you some light on this consolidation change in Turkey, because she made a comment earlier that there will be a one-off charge in Q2, absorbing the one-off gain in Q1. With regard to the trading, so far we see it unchanged. Obviously, you are right. First of all, the base oils go up. Then the chemicals go up with a certain time delay. and and then we are out you know the second round of price increases all over the world and we do it based on product type based on on on region because some regions it's not only the raw materials but it's also the currency fluctuation because they have to import certain petrochemicals but base oils they jumped up immediately and now that the rest of the of the petrochemical supply chain follows but with a slower cadence but the one thing is you know we We always explain to you, and I want to emphasize this is not a normal time, but in normal times, if prices go up, we run behind for six months to a certain extent, and then three to six months, and if they come down, we have the tailwind. What we have learned in 21 and 22, we can't have this period of running behind too long, and therefore the sequence now is much shorter compared to 21 and 22. So I see that... That run behind thing a little bit more limited, but obviously you always say the larger impact probably comes end of Q2 and in Q3 and then to be seen how the economy develops and maybe Esma put a little bit of light on this Turkey acquisition.

Let me start this way, Angelina. There will be three key drivers for Q2. Number one, like Stefan said, it's the sequence of the price implementations we are doing to counteract on the material price increases and the inflation. Other than that, we expect actually a good Q2 as we have performed in Q1. And in regards to the OPEX folks, as you know, right now, OPEX is in our ad equity results. We will take that from the ad equity results up, and it goes into our normal EBIT, where you will see higher costs because we have the full consolidation of the costs, but accordingly, the sales and then the profitability. In Q2, due to the, that we are consolidating now 100%, We expect some accounting topics. Like I said before, it will be a negative in our profitability. It's a balance sheet cleanup, but it has no cash implication for our financials. And summing up, all in all, we expect Q2 to be also solid. Of course, nothing changes all of a sudden, a solid performance. But as Stefan mentioned, the main kick in the raw material prices, et cetera, we expect towards June, July, I would say, kicking strongly. I hope that answers the question.

Great. Thank you very much for responses.

Thank you. We will take our next question. And the question comes from Christian Bell from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes, hello, and well done on the really strong result this quarter. I've just got two questions, thanks, and my first one relates to your guidance. So, yeah, obviously you've started the year really strongly. Underlying margins improved this quarter, but the guidance implies a meaningful margin compression over the remainder of the year, obviously. So just given the strong demand backdrop and the pricing power you've highlighted, can you just help us understand what is driving the conservatism a little bit more? Like, is it an assumption that not all cost inflation will be passed through? Is it the timing lag or is it sort of more caution around feedstock availability? So just trying to understand that given how much sales will be going up. Thank you. Sorry, I'll wait for the second question.

Thanks, Christian. This is for me crystal ball reading. I can't tell you how much sales go up, and especially this year will be a transition year. So let's say you go up a certain percentage in April, a certain percentage in May, and then maybe in June, July, and then again in the fourth quarter. You will only get a pro rata increase for this year, but the impact will be fully there, and therefore also ESMA made a comment with the free cash flow because this is the year and number only, and you get a full hit on the, let's say, on the receivables and on the inventory from whatever the December increase stands at. But we have some very high increases in certain countries on oil-based products already now. But I have really no visibility on where we go. And therefore, you know, we say, yes, sales will go up. The EBIT will stay in line. I think that's a solid statement, you know, bearing in mind where we are, you know, with all the risks in the market. But I can't really put more light on this. I also sitting here, I couldn't say, you know, how much sales price increases we will have at the end of the year.

Okay, fair enough. And then my second question, are you able just to comment on volume elasticity at current pricing levels? Are you seeing any signs of resistance as some of these price increases that you're talking about are flowing through? And also, if possible, could you please break down where you're seeing the strongest demand by in-market, auto or industrial, and by regions?

I think ESMA has lined it out by region. I mean, we saw good growth in the US or in North America, but in the region of America, we were hit by 12% currency headwind in Q1. But also in Asia was good. Europe was good here. With regard to certain industries, I don't think anything has changed, what we told you at the year-end analyst call or on the capital market day. You know, so far, I think we're in a good situation that we have the stuff available. We see some smaller and larger competitors who have fallouts, you know, and therefore, as I said before, to keep our customers running is the most important. And many of our customers in 20 or most of them in 21 and 22 were really happy with our performance. Not all the price discussions go through easily, but we push them through, even if it has to be up to the board level. But we don't hold back. As I said, it's not normal times. And in times of availability, price increases normally go through easier than in normal times where the availability is fully given.

Sorry, I was more trying to understand I guess the auto versus industrial by end market, but are you basically saying that demand is strong across both auto, industrial, I guess in equal amounts?

I would say so. As you have spelled out also in the capital market, auto is for us a lot of aftermarket. Fuchs branded, customer brands, industrial is also specialty, rotary motion. So I would say the answer is yes.

Great. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Thank you. We will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Julia Winkleman from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. You said that you already did several rounds of price increases. How does this work for your larger contracts, for example, with the OEMs? Because these are typically indexed, so then pricing increases usually come with a lag. What kind of lag can we expect here? And can you indicate how large the share of indexed contracts is, just to give an idea? And my second question is on the guidance. The $7 million one-off, was it included when you initially guided the $450 million EBIT for this year? Or have you just included it with your you confirming the guidance?

Okay, maybe. Thanks, Julia. Maybe I come back on the price variation clauses. We don't have the one price variation clause, but we have definitely a number of them, always based on is there more base oil in the product, is there more chemicals in the product. What we have done, we have shortened the cycles. I can't really give you more details on that, but we have shortened the cycles compared to 21 and 22, which is really good now. I would say, Andreas, how much of our total business is under a formula price variation clause? The standard answer normally is around about a quarter or so. So that's a number I would look at. Normally, you have it with large mining customers or with large OEM or industrial customers. So if you count about on a quarter, it's good. But we have significantly shortened that cycle time. That was the important part. And to the 7 million, I think Isra can come back.

Yeah, I mean, the 7 million, as I've mentioned, is the one in regards to the sale in Australia. It is cash relevant, Julia, and The OPEC, we have imported as well, which is a similar amount, more or less, which is not cash relevant. So it will balance out each other with the positive side that we are actually getting cash in, but they need to feed energy.

Other than for the 50%.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1, 1 on your telephone. We will take our next question. And the question comes from the line of Michael Schaefer from OdaBHF. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yeah. Thanks for taking my questions. First one, I want to come back on your implemented price initiatives. And I think, Stefan, you also at the CMD, you said that you have implemented two price rounds in the meantime. I'd like to understand when we look into the respective regions, whether there is a kind of different speed of implementation to be expected in the quarters ahead. So this would be my first question. The second probably goes to Esma. I think your networking capital to sales ambition is 20% or remains 20% as outlined at the CMD. 21% was the rate in 2025. So I wondered whether you, given all the constraints, whether we should think about maybe a kind of extra security buffer in raw mats or finished products, which you allow and have baked into this kind of significant free cash flow or significantly below the 270 million type of new guidance. This would be my second one. And the third one, last not least, I want to come back on the Americas performance statement. I mean, you posted 3% organic sales growth in the first quarter. Obviously, this is significantly below what you have at the group level. So I just want to understand what holds back there, the kind of organic sales growth, if you compare this with other regions. Thanks.

Thanks, Michael. I start with the last question. What holds us back there with regard to other regions is the economy. When you read about certain large customer segments in North America, they're still not at full throttle. And then also what we had is we had a significant freeze, especially in January and the beginning of February, where we have a lot of water-based products, either for metalworking or for the mining industry, which really shut us down for few weeks for those product lines so those were the main part of it price rounds i would say the speed is the same around the globe but it's it's it's different steps we we take in different regions because The U.S. is also hit, but a little later, and they are not as much hit from the three to four months than other countries. Then you have certain countries where you need to increase more because the currency is a secondary impact, not only the raw material oil-based price, so to say. So I would say speed is the same, but different timing and different amounts in the different regions.

And if it comes to networking capital, Michael, we said the 21 or the 20 is our target, but we know in such volatile times, we cannot actually drive for additional reduction in the inventory. It's more about securing raw material and make sure that we can deliver to our customers. But what we are modeling or what we have modeled in, and I said that also in my speech, please have a look how the sales is evolving and model that in your cash. Accordingly, we are looking, of course, how we think the pricing increases will be and model that in our inventory and respectively to our receivables and payables. We haven't put in our networking capital any assumptions of office stock or anything.

I think mathematically, there will be an increase in the percentage. I mean, ESMA takes it very seriously at the end of the first quarter, but you just have to bear in mind that the inventory and receivables at the end will have the value of the inventory and receivables in the month of December, or maybe in November also. will still be in the dynamic stage because you know if you have increased certainly at the beginning of november another 20 you only have let's two months in so you you look at the lower sales number with a tough balance sheet number of the of the cash and then the nowc so mathematically you will get such a year a higher percentage at the end of the year the denominator will actually change okay good that's understood thanks

Thank you. We will take our next question. The question comes from the line of Martin Rodiger from Kepler Chevro. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Yes. Just one question left for me regarding Asia-Pacific. If we take out the $7 million one-time gain from the disposal of this property in Australia, the underlying EBIT margin in Asia was good, close to 15% margin. Is it fair to say that you now have exceeded a certain threshold in your business in China and Australia, which are the two most important countries in Asia, so that any additional sales is falling down to the bottom line, so you have a big leverage effect? Is that the right understanding?

I would say, Martin, my understanding is that They perform very well, especially with regard to China and Australia, but that things just fall through. It's never the case because you need a manufacturer still. You need to ship it still. But I think they run at a very good dynamic at the moment. This is for us the high-performing part. But aside of that, also really India is worthwhile mentioning and a lot of other countries in Southeast Asia as well. This is at the moment our positive horse in the stable. We are also proud of our European and American business, but definitely from an efficiency standpoint, they do very well.

And let me maybe add one thing that was also mentioned in the capital market day, which Andy said, that's one of our key elements. We are going to use our existing asset base, which will automatically bring a better conversion of additional sales into our profitability. And that's what we are seeing right now as well. Thank you very much.

Thank you. We will take our next question. Your next question comes from the line of Lars von Kless from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you very much. Good afternoon. A quick follow-up question for Esma, and I have to apologize in advance that I did not properly pay attention. You quantified significantly as above 10%. So above 10% with regards to revenue, if I take the 3.7 billion you were guiding for, you would already reach the lower end of your 2031 targets this year. Or was significantly 10% meant as a year-on-year change with 25 sales being the basis?

Thank you, Lars. Number one, with significance, I said it's a double digits. It can be 10 plus, plus, plus. We don't know where it will end. We know it's unforeseeable what the dynamics will be. But you are right. But when we put the guidance out with the 3.7 million, there was no inflationary increase and not such a volatile market environment considered. For us, it's right now important that we hold our profitability, and yes, the sales will be inflated due to the market dynamic. And probably you are right, it can hit the four million, the lower end of our guidance, or even. I don't know it yet.

Lars, I think also you know what is true. If you look at what Timo said at the end of books 100, there is a small print. And the small print is the assumptions we have taken with regard to hooks 100 for the financial targets. And one assumption was, you know, stable currencies based on August 2025 and stable raw material prices. And we also said we will review, you know, each year, you know, where we stand. It's much too early now, but I think every year we will review it, we compare to our plans, and we are also willing to do updates at a certain time. That's what we missed in Fuchs 2025. I think it's only fair if you make a six-year projection that you put it under certain assumptions. And obviously, we are way out of the assumption on raw material price stability.

Yes. Completely understood. It was neither meant as criticism nor... It was just for me to understand... And I mean, Esma, you're still relatively cautious, but 3.7 billion multiplied with at least 10% easily brings you to above 4 billion. That was the only point I'm making.

And you're right.

Thank you. I'll go back into the line. Thank you.

This concludes today's question and answer session. I'll now hand the call back to Andrea Schenner for closing remarks.

Yeah, thank you very much, everybody, for your questions. I think we had a very strong start into 2026. And it will be a lot of work now going forward to manage all the supply and demand. But we are very positive that we can do that based on the experience from the past. If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact the IR team. And with that, I would like to close the call. Thank you for your interest and participation. And you may disconnect now.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.

Thank you.

Bye-bye. Thank you.