Norma Group Ag Name Akt

Good morning, good afternoon, everyone.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your patience. Welcome to the Norma Group Q2 2026 Results Webcast and Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To ensure that the session runs as smoothly as possible and is easy for all participants to follow, we kindly ask that you raise your questions one at a time. In other words, if you have more than one question, please wait for the answer to the current question before moving on to your next one. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Birgit Sager, Chief Executive Officer of Norma Group. Please go ahead.

Good morning, good afternoon, everybody. A very warm welcome and a thank you for you to join our Q2 results of 2026. With me, I have Okan Celica, our Group CFO, who will give us some more insights in our financial performance. As usual practice, let us start with some key developments on New Norma, on the results and also what we are going to do forward, create and strengthen New Norma Group. So before we join, please let's have a look quickly at our disclaimer, which is the usual disclaimer. And I want to note especially that the numbers we are showing refer to new norma, which excludes the water management business, unless we have specifically noted that it is former norma. And with this, let me start with some highlights of Q2 2026. What we see overall is that we have achieved a very good cost discipline and this has improved our profitability significantly and we are quite proud to have a positive net cash position here. The environment still is challenging, also for Q2. and especially in mobility and new energy. However, industry applications offsets the quite soft demand in M&E. What are the actions we have taken so far? It's the cost discipline to really work in this new normal setup and we see this in our results. The second key point what I want to share is that we are Absolutely happy that we could achieve major orders in both our business units in industrial applications and the mobility business and I will come to this and share some concrete results with you a little bit later. So what is the result we achieved in Q2? 3.6% adjusted EBIT margin which is a really significant uplift compared to last year. What contributed to this was very nice 2.3 million of transformation Again, I will give you an update a little bit later. And the second point is that the AGM has approved all our resolutions. And this means also up to additional 208 million euro as a shareholder return. And we are working with full speed to make this happen. With this, I can also summarize. We confirm the outlook for the financial year 2026. Moving on to new NOMA to our strategic pillars, what we see here, and this is a reminder, I hope you still remember this. This year, we are focusing on the pillar number one, two, and three. Restructuring is really a simplified organization so that we can make fast decisions, and I can already say, Significant sales in M&E and also IA. It was crucial that we have this new way of working, that we make fast decisions, very business-driven decisions, and our customers see this and we see it in business wins in order intake. In addition, so we have been working and we are still working on our SG&A efficiency. We have made progress and we are going to further work on this. So again, we introduced a much strong performance orientation, really making decisions which are business focused. The second pillar is the footprint of our organization. So we are advancing on this. So currently we are working especially on our America's footprint. Also in Australia, we are progressing with these initiatives. So we have for sure our further operational and also structural measures which are underway and we will communicate to the given time. The third pillar is our sales push. And here we really have activated a very good order intake. Of course, until it translates into sales, it will take a bit of time. However, it's very important for our future that we win this business, that we achieve this, because this will safeguard our future. So with this, we are improving also our plant utilization. So we will see it also in our EBIT results further on. And this means we have strengthened our customer focus significantly. So we are really going to meet our customers. We are having in-depth discussions. And I want to share one specific event with you. We had customer experience days here in our headquarter and we invited some of our customers who were very happy to join us. We presented really the innovations and it was absolutely stunning to get direct feedback and it was great to hear the interest our customers brought into this and asked for more and when can they use it, when is it in in SOP, so when will it be produced? This was a great insight for all of us, and it motivates us as a team, fantastic, that we are on the right way with New Norma. Another point, we have rolled out target costing, so we really focus what is the target we can allow ourselves on our costing, in our plans, in our overheads, so we are competitive for our customers, and we have really a good margin contribution for New Norma. The fourth pillar, you may remember, this is what we come to in the next phase. But for now, we mainly focus on the three pillars as described. So now let's move on a little bit more insight on our transformation progress. So as we communicated, we said we reduce up to 400 positions for cost saving and also for speed for decision powers. So and this is Nice on track. We are running on this and the Voluntary Lever Program in Germany is completed and we delivered the results as expected. Again, we have introduced a performance orientation. So we give the business ownership really in the strategic business unit. So again, we are fast. We are focused in our two strategic business units. We have delivered measurable benefits. So you see in the first half of 2026, it's 6.1 million and we are striving for the 15 million as planned for the full year. If we now turn our attention to new business wins to order intake, I would like to start first with the industrial application, one of our business unit. So we have very interesting markets, really growing markets, basically in the infrastructure markets such as data centers, sustainable energy, and we could Secure Nice Orders in Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, so basically APEC here. So some were follow-on projects. These were sometimes customers where we had first projects. So they were new customers for us. They've given us follow-on projects, which is a great sign that we are doing the right thing. They like to work with us. They like our products. And we have gained also new business because the market is really big and we are growing in a good way here. So what are we delivering? Sort of electrical connections, cable management, but also battery energy storage system and also backup power infrastructure. So these are all industries. They are growing tremendously in the addressable market for us as Norma Group is bigger than 3 billion euros. So we have a lot of potential to get more business and to deliver this business. Let's move on now to our second business unit, which is mobility and new energy. Also here, a fantastic achievement. Our team, we could gain the biggest project in the company's history, which is for one of our European customers. It's a lifetime volume of 157 million euro, spends over 10 years. Of course, we have a little bit delay until we start with the SOP is the usual practice in the mobility business. It's a nice mix. 80% was extensions and 20% really new business, which was awarded to us from this customer. So what are we delivering? It's about 100 variants for the thermal management system. And here we could demonstrate at our sales push. You remember this was the third pillar in our strategic picture. It's delivering. And a big thank you to everybody in Norma Group, who really, with a very fantastic energy, contributed to this acquisition, to the sale of this project, working already in the new Norma way. Fantastic. Thank you. So let's turn now our attention. What was the results in the second quarter? And here you see the overview. The net sales was 211.8 million euro on comparable FX 0.1%. Better than last year. So slightly better or basically the same. So this is really where we are fighting and working on to stay on this level. The really, really good news is, of course, on the adjusted EBIT, you see 7.6 million, which translates into a 3.6%. EBIT margin. So this is 2.5 percentage point better than last year. And here I would say we can say we are on the right track. We start to deliver here. Of course, with the net sales, this is where we are focusing on to really stay there on this level also for the second half of this year. Net operating cash flow, 6.6 million positive. Please remember, last year we had the former normal. So therefore, it's of course now a different level as expected. If you have a look in the first half of the year 2026, again, we see here that the adjusted EBIT is going absolutely in the right direction, starting with the net sales, 420.5 million euro. This is minus 0.6 year-on-year on comparable FX, also slightly lighter, but again, focus for us on second half. However, we are working and we are delivering already the adjusted EBIT, the EBIT margin of 3.3% in the first half. Net operating cash flow minus 13.1 million. Again, this is a former normal number, including the divestment of water management. So with this, I would like to hand over to Okan, who gives us some more insights in the financials.

Exactly. Also a warm welcome from my side. Thanks for joining our conference call today. So let's move on and look a bit more detailed into the numbers. Let me start with the top line development in the second quarter, where the underlying business remained probably stable despite continued market headwinds. The Group Net Sales amounted to 211.8 million, which is a reduction of 0.6% on a year-on-year reported basis. On a comparable FX basis, as mentioned by Birgit, we are slightly above prior level with a positive volume and price impact of 0.1 million, which leads us to 213.2 million. This includes 4.7 million of TSA-specific sales to ADS following the water management divestment. Looking at our two strategic business units on the next page, we continue to see different market dynamics with a strong IA performance of setting softer mobility demand. Industry applications increased net sales by 7% on a year-over-year basis, leading to 70.6 million. On a comparable FX basis, this is a growth of 8.4%, leading to this 71.4 million, which you can see in the middle of the graph on the left side. This graph also includes the 4.7 million TSA specific sales to ADS, which are reported within IA. So if we move on with the right side, with our mobility new energy development, we see the sales declined by 4% year over year, leading to 141.3 million reflecting the continued weaker demand in the automotive industry. And on a comparable basis, the reduction or decline was 3.7%, leading to 141.8 million for the mobility business in Q2. Overall, IA continued to grow while M&E affected by softer automotive demand. On our next page, We can get a bit more details on our regional performance where we see that the demand trends are still mixed and the profitability, however, across all three regions improved on a year-over-year basis. So Americas, starting with the sales on the left side, came in with the strongest top line development, with net sales increasing 8% on a reported basis and 10% on a comparable FX basis, leading to an adjusted EBIT of 5.8%, which is an improvement year over year of 3.4%. Important to mention here is also that the 4.7 million out of the TSA sales are included in these sales, and these sales contributed 0.9 million to our adjusted EBIT. In EMEA, middle of our slide, we see that the net sales declined 3.9% year over year on a reported basis, whereas on a comparable FX basis, the decline was at 3.4%. Again, reflecting the softer demand, especially in the automotive industry. Despite the lower sales, however, the adjusted EBIT margin improved significantly from minus 1.5% to 2.2% year over year. In APEC, net sales declined by 6.1% year over year, reported and on a comparable FX basis by 7.8% primarily reflecting again the weaker automotive demand in the region still the adjusted EBIT margin improved from 7.9% to 8.3% also in our APEC region so Let's move on to the next slide where we can see our adjusted EBIT bridge and development. So our adjusted EBIT increased as mentioned earlier by Birgit from 2.3 million to 7.6 million in quarter two with an adjusted EBIT margin improving from 1.1% to 3.6%. The improvement in Q2 profitability was broad based. Main contributions for the margin uplift were provided by the volume and price impact of 1.3 million, material costs of 1.7 million and personal costs of 1.5 million. Overall, the transformation program contributed by 2.3 million in quarter two and demonstrated that the measures are now translating into measurable earnings. So on the next slide, let me briefly reconcile our reported adjusted results for H1. So starting with the EBITDA, our reported EBITDA was at 32.5 million and includes adjustments of, with adjustments of 4.2 million relating to the transformation severance and project costs. This gets us to an adjusted EBITDA of 36.7 million. On EBIT level, we adjusted another 2.6 million PPA amortization, which leads to a total adjustment on EBIT level of 6.7 million and gets us to the adjusted 14 million EBIT in the H1 compared to our reported EBIT of 7.2 million. On net profit level, the adjustments amounted to 5.3 million, including a negative tax impact of 1.4 million. This results in an adjusted net profit of 5 million. For full year 2026, we continue to expect approximately 24 million of transformation related adjustments on EBITDA level. And this basically reflects the H2 accelerated transformation severance and project costs with certain measures partly pulled forward from 2027, as already mentioned during our Q1 call. Including the approximately 5 million PPA amortization adjustments, we expect a total adjustments in the full year 2026 of 29 million on EBIT level. Move on on the next slide, we can have a look at our cash flow development. Here it is the new normal cash flow development. We generated a positive net operating cash flow, as mentioned earlier, of 6.6 million in the second quarter. And starting from our adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of 19.1 million, trade working capital had a negative impact of 5.7 million in the quarter. And this includes supply chain financing programs, which amounted to 33.7 million. And on top of that, investments from operating activities amounted to 6.8 million. This resulted in the net operating cash flow of 6.6 million in Q2. And as already mentioned by Birgit, it is important to distinguish here between new and former norma. So first of all, new norma generated a positive net operating cash flow in Q2, while the year-over-year comparison reflects the changes in the reporting parameter, which are a result of the water divestment. Now let's have a look at our new normal performer net cash overview. So we ended June with a strong net cash position, providing the basis for the planned capital allocation measures in H2. So as of June, we reported a net cash of approximately $304 million. In addition, we had approximately $57 million of short-term deposits recognized as other financial assets. The deposits will mature during the second half and convert into cash. So this will get us to a performer net cash, including the short-term deposits of 361 million as of June 30th. Now, considering the 4 million dividend payment and the 208 million for the second share buyback program to our shareholders, as well as the expected approximately 90 million of remaining tax payments related to the water divestment, and the currently expected cash development of our business and other cash movements during the second half of the year, we expect to retain a positive net cash position of around 70 to 90 million for the full year. And with that, back to you, Birgit.

Thanks, Okan. It was great to receive some insights in our financial performance. To conclude, I think it's fair to say that as New Norma, we are gaining momentum. We have seen that our financial performance, our profitability is strongly improving. We have a strong balance sheet and a full rigor to implement our strategic initiatives. So with this, we are well prepared for the future of new NOMA. And with this, we can really confirm our outlook for the financial year 2026, which means 0% to 2% in net sales, adjusted EBIT margin of Two to four percent and net operating cash flow in the range of 10 to 20 million euro. And it's with great pleasure I can announce here and would like to invite everybody of you to join our strategy update which will take place on October 19th this year. It will be in Frankfurt for all of you who would like to join us face to face. For everybody else there will be a hybrid and online facility to join also online and I'm really looking forward to welcome you at this event. Thanks for listening and with this I give back to Sharon to open our Q&A session.

Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To ensure that the session runs as smoothly as possible and is easy for all participants to follow, we kindly ask that you raise your questions one at a time. In other words, if you have more than one question, please wait for the answer to the current question before moving on to your next one. Thank you. We will now go to our first question. One moment, please. And our first question today comes from the line of Nikita Papachow from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Yeah, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. And the first one would be on your Q2 revenue bridge. Typically, you gave us a split between volume and price. This is not the case this time. Can you maybe give us an indication how they develop in Q2 and what you expect for H2?

That is a right and good observation, Anita. Hello. Again, actually, we haven't broken it down this time and we will work on it, develop it and then share it with you in the aftermath. Hope that's okay for you.

Oh, sure. Thank you. The second one is on your full year guidance. When I take the midpoint of your current guidance, you're looking for a weaker H2 versus H1 in terms of margin, while the bulk of the transformation benefits should occur in H2. Do you expect a deterioration in market environment, or what do I miss here?

We basically still hold to the figures and variables that we've shared earlier also in our full year release of financial figures as well as Q1. So as of now and with everything we see in the market in terms of net sales, We are expecting to come out rather at the midpoint of our net sales guidance, probably even below. And if all other variables stay as they are, especially also the margin improvements out of our transformation program, which we again confirmed to be at a level of 15 million. we would basically expect for the full year to be somewhere around our midpoint in terms of EBIT margin guidance.

Thank you for this. And my last question is on your strategy update. Thank you for the invite. I'm happy to attend your event in October. Could you maybe give us a glimpse on what to expect from this event?

yeah sure it's my pleasure to do so and looking forward to welcome you Nikita on our event great to hear so we will for sure we give you like a midterm ambition we will talk about this we will detail this and we will also bring some insights on our products on our innovations especially in the exciting markets what we have in front of us on the infrastructure market data center but also white goods aerospace so we will really Support you and get a very good understanding about the potential we have in front of us. We will also detail what new norma means. I mean, we have the four strategic pillar, but there will be much more, let's say, meat to the bones for each of these pillars with numbers and also with content.

Thank you very much. Looking forward for your event.

Thank you.

Thank you. We will now go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Sebastian Hubert from MPCM. Please go ahead.

Hello, Sebastian here from MPCM and thank you for taking my questions. I was wondering with regards to your restructuring program, if you maybe can speed it up or accelerate even the program as we see the bad news now coming from a lot of European OEMs cutting jobs, cutting eventually even factories we see in ongoing. Drift from the Chinese OEMs pushing into Europe. So what is really your answer on the automotive business to get along with the reduced capacities of European OEMs and how do you deal with new joiners to the industry, especially Chinese OEMs, not only in passenger cars, but also in electric heavy duty trucks, for example?

Yes. Thanks, Sebastian, for this extremely valid question. I mean, we are working really on a speedy implementation on the restructuring program. Also on our October strategy update, we will give some more insights what we will do on this there. So therefore, it's very important for us that we bring speed and we will also present on our strategy update The model where we are convinced this will carry us in the future, incorporating exactly what you said, the challenges which are happening in the automotive industry, also the Chinese competitors. And we have fully taken this into consideration and we have also good answers in this. We have, of course, also operations in China who are doing quite well. And we have strengthened, by the way, this organization in China. We are a global player and we will be a global player to be able to answer exactly on such challenges which the market brings now. And I'm convinced there will be more challenges coming for the future.

Thank you. We will now go to our next question. And our next question comes from the line of Jasmine Stylin from Berenberg. Please go ahead.

Hello, many thanks for taking my questions. I have three, if I may. So the first one on mobility in the energy. So regarding your recent very successful project win, more than 100 thermal management system variants sounds rather complex. And in the past, inefficient project management was an issue. Could you walk us through the changes of the internal setups? What's the difference of the production location in Serbia that would prevent the issues Norma had experienced at the Meintal plant? And could you also shed some color on the structural agreements in terms, so are there any take-off pay clause agreements? Are there price escalation clauses included? Many thanks. That's my first question.

Thanks for this extremely valid question. So to start with this, I mean, yes, we will produce this in Serbia plant. I have also visited the plant and I have also experienced before in Serbian plants and I can say that the Norma plant in Serbia is a very mature one with very good Very good expertise and we are supporting this even with stronger expertise also project management I fully agree with you that project management in such variant heavy business is extremely important also to manage the changes to manage the timeline and we have basically Project Manager to manage this project who has the required competency and also with senior support and mentoring to be absolutely sure we deliver to our customer wishes and also commercially to our expectations. In terms of clauses in the agreement, we had a very long and intensive negotiation and discussion internally and many, many rounds with our customer. So I can say we have the clauses we can achieve, which protects us to a way how you can protect yourself. I was also myself very closely involved and supported the team. So we also worked on this in a new normal way, which was, by the way, the trigger why we could convince our customer to award us this business.

Thanks very much. Then on the CFO position, I'm aware the supervisory board is currently conducting such process on a permanent basis, but what are the main criteria or qualification you think are required for the position to maneuver normal through the transition?

Thanks for this question. And yes, our supervisory board is conducting a really professional and well-founded search process. So the criteria for search are I would summarize this as a CFO who is very experienced and very good at managing transformations and restructuring, which is exactly the topics what we need for new Norma, which is, of course, very important for us to find an experienced person who can contribute exactly what we need now for Norma and for our new Norma.

Perfect. Thank you. Housekeeping Question Could you share what's behind this and is there anything we should also expect for the second half?

I'm not sure if you broke up for a second, but I assume you are referring to the referral of provisions. Exactly. Yes, there's nothing you have to adjust for or change. We've basically adjusted for this reversal. Now in our Q1, it was related basically to a provision built in 2025. We released it in 26. And as we had the new information at hand related to the transformation program, but this release has been adjusted.

Okay, perfect. Thank you. I'll step back into the line.

You're welcome.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Thank you. We will now go to the next question. And your next question today comes from the line of Klaus Ringer from OdoBHF. Please go ahead.

Hello, everybody. Good afternoon. First of all, to start with, can you please remind me of the timing of the planned capital measures, i.e. the capital reduction and the buyback of the shares?

Yes, for sure. Thanks for the question. So just to recap, the AGM has approved our resolution fully on this. So we are full speed working on this is a major priority. And in terms of timing, I can say August is a hot month. So I would say stay tuned.

Okay, thanks for this. Secondly, would be your view on the adjustments between the adjusted and the reported EBIT line. I mean, you're guiding for around 29 million for 2026. So the question for H2 is, will you rather book it in Q3 or Q4 and then maybe also already looking to next year? Would you expect that these adjustments are already going down significantly, or should we just expect kind of stepwise going down? That's the second one.

Mm-hmm.

So yes, correct. So we are planning a 29 million adjustment on EBIT level for the full year 2026. Currently we are at 6.7 million as mentioned earlier. So as already touched by Birgit, related to a previous question. So we are obviously working also on additional measures in order to accelerate our efforts to transform new Norma. And with that, we basically pulled forward some of the costs we anticipated for 2027 into 2026. um so in in our original um publication with regard to our transformation program uh we communicated at seven million um costs for 2026 uh and now and and then 15 to 20 for 27 and basically with this acceleration we pulled forward some of the initiatives um out of 2027, which will be most probably booked in 26. But we haven't yet, let's say, really decided on when exactly we will book the provision for it. So that means we have to, first of all, work on the items and initiatives and finalize them. And once we have clear information, maybe already with our strategy update, or then later in our Q3 publication, we will of course let you know.

Okay, thanks for this. And yeah, last but not least, a question regarding your free cash flow power, or let's say adjusted free cash flow power. What would be the levers for higher free cash flow here again? Is it just higher profit margins or is it just that we need to see the fall away of restructuring cash outs, things like that? So I would be interested to hear your thoughts, how we should think about it looking ahead.

First and foremost, let's say our free cash flow power, from my point of view, will be supported by our, let's say, ongoing efforts to improve our profitability. Of course, there will be also, or there are already other Financial parameters we are also reviewing and trying to steer and balance as far as possible to make sure that we develop our business going forward the best way we can. But the Group Ag Name Akt Name Keeping a sustainable top line level in the mobility and new energy sector and our efforts to basically extend our activities in highly attractive markets and industry applications area, we are confident that we will be able to, let's say, improve our EBIT results significantly going forward.

Okay, perfect. Thank you so much. Have a good day. Thanks, you're welcome.

Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. That is star 1 and 1 to ask a question. There are currently no further questions. I will now hand the call back to Birgit Sager, CEO of Norma Group, for closing remarks.

Thanks, Sharon. Thanks, everybody, to join today's call. Thanks for the great questions. And again, to remind you, 19th of October, we are very much looking forward to welcome you for our strategy update that we can also give you some more insights about new normal, how we will make this potential happen in the interest and for our shareholders. So thank you and have a great day.

Thank you very much.