Siemens Energy Ag

A recording of the webcast will be available shortly after the close of the call. Thank you. Thank you for watching! Please stand by. We're about to begin. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Siemens Energy's Q3 fiscal year 2026 analyst call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded. Before we begin, I would like to draw your attention to the safe harbor statement on page two of the Siemens Energy presentation. This conference call may include forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the company's current expectations and certain assumptions and are therefore subject to certain risks and uncertainties. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to your host today, Mr. Tobias Hang. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you so much, Moritz. Good morning and a warm welcome to the Siemens Energy Q3 Results Analyst Call for Fiske Year 2026. We publish our Q3 Fiske Year 2026 results Christian and Maria will take you through the major developments during Q3 FISCI year 2026. This will take approximately 30 minutes. Thereafter, Christian and Maria are available to answer your questions. For the entire conference call, we have allowed one hour.

Christian, over to you. Thank you, Tobias, and good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. Siemens Energy delivered another outstanding quarter with record orders, record revenue, and further margin expansion. I'm very, very proud of the Siemens Energy team, our team Purple, which is converting the strong demand environment into profitable growth, cash generation, and sustainable value creation. Special achievement this quarter. After 15 quarters, Siemens Gamesa has closed a profitable quarter. And there are the three messages I would like you to take away from today's presentation. First, the structural drivers behind our markets remain firmly intact. Second, our pricing discipline and project selectivity support profitable growth. And third, our capacity expansion projects are executed as planned. Allowing us to successfully convert our backlog into higher revenue and earnings. Our investment case is increasingly benefiting from the next phase of value creation. Stronger earnings, cash generation and shareholder returns supported by our growing backlog, capacity investments and structural market growth. The question is not only how strongly these markets grow, but also how effectively we translate these opportunities Thank you very much. The investments in capacity expansions and operational improvements over the past years are really translating into tangible revenue growth and improved financial performance. Profitability strengthened considerably. Profit before special items more than tripled year over year and the margin before special items reached 14.2%. And this reflects the improving earnings quality and operational leverage we are building across the portfolio. As a result, basic earnings per share rose to €1.28 from €0.71 in the prior year quarter, reflecting the significant improvement in profitability and the value we are creating for our shareholders. As mentioned, I am very proud of the progress that Siemens Gamesa has achieved. For the first time since the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2022, Siemens Gamesa delivered a positive quarterly result. And this is an important milestone and is based on the tremendous efforts of the entire team. While we remain focused on the work ahead, this achievement clearly demonstrates that the turnaround measures are delivering tangible results and breakeven for the full fiscal year is firmly on track. And cash generation remains robust. Year-to-date, free cash flow pre-tax reached approximately 7.2 billion euros, reflecting disciplined operational execution and working capital management. This robust cash generation provides significant financial flexibility and enables us to translate operational success into tangible value for our shareholders. Execution of the second 1 billion euro share buyback tranche is progressing well and is nearing completion. Together with the first 2 billion euro tranche and our dividend policy of distributing 40 to 60 percent of net income attributable to Siemens Energy shareholders, this underscores our commitment to attractive and sustainable shareholder distributions. Including the dividend paid earlier this year for fiscal year 2025, we remain on track to return up to 3.6 billion euros to shareholders during fiscal year 2026. Based on our performance in the continued favorable market environment, we reaffirm our fiscal year 2026 outlook with profitability trending towards the upper end of our guided 10-12% profit margin before special items. Before turning to the market environment, let me briefly address one strategic milestone that also supports the next phase of our journey. Siemens Energy has started preparations for its transition to an independent brand, and going forward Siemens Energy and Siemens Camista Renewable Energy will be united under a single name and brand identity. The name will be Omterra and the transition will begin later this calendar year and will be implemented in phases and currently the existing license agreement remains in place. Let me now turn to our capacity expansion program, which continues to progress according to plan and is increasingly translating into revenue and financial performance. The investments we have made over the past several years are coming into operational execution with additional capacity brought online, and we are seeing a growing contribution to revenue, especially in the second half of fiscal year 2026 and beyond. Starting with gas services, we successfully brought additional medium-sized gas turbine capacity online during the quarter. And this is an important milestone, increasing annual production capacity from around 50 units in fiscal year 2025 to approximately 80 units this year and further expansion planned over the coming years, as we had shown in our last year's capital expansion. The key advantage of products The additional capacity enables us to capture this growing demand while maintaining the same disciplined approach to project selection and execution. And at the same time, our large gas turbine expansion program continues to be fully on track and will begin Contributing from fiscal year 2027 onwards. It provides sufficient flexibility to support the demand outlook we have today. Equally important, every gas turbine installed today creates long-term service with substantial business opportunity in maintenance, upgrades and operational support throughout their lifetime. and as a result, the capacity investments we are making today not only support equipment revenue growth but also expand the installed base that will drive recurring service revenues for many years to come. Turning to grid technologies, we are executing our capacity expansion program across multiple product areas and the first meaningful brownfield expansions are now coming online, adding capacity for products such as large power transformers and Gas Insulated Switchgear. We continue to execute successfully the brownfield and greenfield expansion projects which we announced on the Capital Market Day to further expand our manufacturing footprint through the end of the decade. The increased capacity is needed to reflect the high level of demand visibility we experience across our markets. And based on the increased capacity, the revenue growth in the relevant business continues to accelerate and grid technologies delivered another significant step up in revenue during the third quarter. In short, the capacity we are adding today enables us to capture the market opportunities ahead of us. And let me now turn to the market environment. The overall demand environment remains very robust across our key markets and regions. And while the Americas was again a major growth driver led by the United States, Momentum was also solid in the other regions and I am satisfied with the balance of our project portfolio. In Europe, demand remains supported by structural trends such as grid expansion, electrification and energy security. And looking specifically at Europe, prior year order intake benefited from several large offshore wind awards. In contrast, and as discussed previously, we still expect a number of major offshore projects to shift into fiscal year 2027, In gas services, market demand is still exceptionally strong. We booked 15 gigawatt of orders during the quarter, including conversion of previously signed reservation agreements into firm customer orders. Demand is being driven by the need for reliable and dispatchable power generation in the United States. As well as by large combined cycle and independent power producer projects in the Middle East and Asia. In the Middle East we see several countries investing further in additional generation capacity to strengthen security of supply. It is important to remember that the conventional power market is our primary growth driver. It represents the largest share of our backlog and benefits from strong structural demand driven by electrification, Rising electricity consumption and the need for reliable baseload and dispatchable capacity. At the same time, our visibility is improving. Our backlog, slot reservation agreements, and project pipeline provide a clear line of sight well beyond the current fiscal year. Following the shipment of 6 GW during the quarter, our committed customer volume stands at historically high levels. And while order intake might fluctuate, From quarter to quarter, as we expected for quarter four, my view remains unchanged. The project pipeline for fiscal year 2027 looks very promising. Pricing remains attractive, and at the same time, we prioritize value over volume, maintaining strict project selectivity and pricing discipline. This supports the quality of our backlog and lays the foundation for further sustainable margin expansion. As our service business is expected to make a larger contribution to profitability over time. Turning to grid technologies, the market environment remains equally compelling. Auto momentum during the quarter was driven by the product business, primarily large power transformers, and demand related to data center infrastructure remained healthy and additional brownfield capacity investments supported further revenue growth. Regionally, growth was primarily driven by Europe and North America. Grid Technologies is really getting an execution machine. The business combines structural demand, improving margins, enhanced cash generation, and exceptionally backlogged visibility. So, the overall message is straightforward. Demand across our key end markets remains robust, and the underlying growth drivers are structural rather than cyclical. and our focus remains on converting this opportunity into profitable growth, stronger cash generation and long-term shareholder value creation. And with that, let me hand over to Maria for the financial review.

Thank you very much, Christian. And good morning, everyone from my side. It's a pleasure to be here with you. As Christian mentioned, Q3 was another very strong quarter for Siemens Energy. And I will now take you through the group financials, the order backlog, cash flow and capital allocation and then briefly comment on the individual business areas and the outlook. So starting with group performance, Q3 was a record quarter across all key financial metrics. Orders reached $17.9 billion supported by strong demand in gas services and grid technologies. This translated into a book-to-bill ratio of 1.57 and lifted our order backlog to another all-time high of €162 billion. Over the last 12 months, our order backlog has grown by almost 20%. Revenue reached €11.4 billion, up 19% year-over-year on a comparable basis. Growth was broad-based across all segments, led by grid technologies and gas services. Q3 included only minor foreign exchange headwinds, Primarily driven by a weaker U.S. dollar, weighing on revenue by roughly 50 basis points year over year. To clarify, currency movements continue to have no material impact on our profitability. Again, this is due to our global footprint with strong local-for-local sourcing and effective hedging strategies. Profit before special items more than tripled to $1.6 billion. Corresponding to a margin before special items of 14.2%. This is the highest quarterly group margin in our history and the 910 basis points improvement year over year. This very strong development was driven by excellent project execution and supported by improvements across all segments. And again, noteworthy with Siemens Gamesa making the largest year over year contribution to the improvement. Net income also rose by more than 70% year over year to $1.188 billion. Free cash flow pre-tax stood at $2.3 billion, again very strong, more than five times last year's level. This was supported by improved cash effective profit and a higher cash conversion rate, as well as customer advance payments, including reservation fees associated with the strong order intake. Now let us take a closer look at our order backlog and move to the next slide. So from Q2 to Q3, we added $26 billion to our order backlog. And at the end of Q3, our order backlog, as mentioned, reached $162 billion. This provides an exceptional foundation for future growth. It also provides very high visibility for fiscal year 26 and fiscal year 27, with a significant portion of expected... Thank you for joining us. They also ensure that we are well positioned to capture the substantial service opportunities that will emerge from our expanding installed base and record backlog in the years ahead. In gas services, our long-term service agreements now have an average duration of 17 years underpinning highly recurring and predictable revenue streams. However, it's not, as you know, only about backlog size. is the combination of size, duration and improving market quality that count. New orders in almost all businesses continue to enter the backlog margins above the historical portfolio average, supporting future earnings expansions as these orders are executed into the future. Together, these factors strengthen our confidence in the durability of Siemens Energy's energy profile well beyond fiscal year 2026. Again, we look forward to providing further details on our order backlog quality with our midterm ambitions in our end of year call in November. So now let us turn to our cash generation, capital allocation and improved credit profile. So over the past years, Siemens Energy has significantly improved its free cash flow generation. For fiscal year 2026, we continue to expect around 8 billion free cash flow. Cash generation is a key pillar of our strategy. It provides us with the flexibility to invest in profitable growth, strengthen our balance sheet, and deliver attractive shareholder returns. The substantial progress we have made continues to be recognized by our rating agencies. In June, Moody's reaffirmed Siemens Energy's BAA1 rating and changed its outlook from stable to positive. In July, S&P upgraded Siemens Energy to BBB+, with a stable outlook. These ratings reflect the improved quality of our earnings, our substantial cash generation, and our significantly strengthened balance sheet. They further enhance our financial flexibility and support efficient access to capital markets. Again, at the same time, returning capital to our shareholders remains a clear priority. During fiscal year 26, we expect total shareholder returns of approximately $3.6 billion. This consists of our share buyback program in 2026, and the dividend paid in March of this year for fiscal year 2025. Our dividend policy remains unchanged, targeting a payout ratio of 40 to 60% of the net income attributable to Siemens Energy shareholders. As Christian mentioned earlier, execution of the share buyback remains firmly on track. We successfully completed the first 2 billion tranche in May and expect the second 1 billion tranche An update regarding Siemens Energy India On June 8, 2026, we completed the second and final Siemens India Limited and Siemens Energy India Limited share swap, increasing our stake in Siemens Energy India Limited by 1.02%. In addition, on June 23, 2026, we acquired a further 3.98% stake from Siemens Ag for $428 million. The transaction was structured to adhere to India's Thank you for joining us. and remain a core pillar of our equity story going forward. More to come in November. So now moving on to our BAs, let me start please with our gas services business, which delivered another outstanding quarter and continued its exceptional momentum across all key performance indicators. Orders were up by 62% year over year to 10 billion, making another record for this business. This resulted in a book-to-bill ratio of 2.7 and drove the order backlog to an all-time new high of $73 billion, again providing excellent revenue visibility for the years ahead. The market for gas turbines greater than 10 megawatt again exhibited remarkable strength during the third quarter. This quarter in total, gas services booked 73 gas turbines for power generation and oil and gas, including 25 large gas turbines, and 48 industrial gas turbines. Driven by the strong momentum in large gas turbine orders, our market share in gas turbines above 100 megawatts reached 42% in Q3. Revenue for gas services grew by 21% year over year to 3.8 billion, representing the highest ever quarterly revenue for them. Growth was supported by strong execution in new units, while our service business continue to deliver healthy double-digit growth with both a key contributor to profitability. The service share of revenue stood at 60%. This was slightly below last year's level, but again reflecting the higher volume of new unit deliveries. As we indicated before, this is expected given the very strong new unit bookings in previous quarters. Profit before special items improved significantly by 60% to $648 million. Resulting in a margin of 17.3%. This is up 420 basis points versus the prior year. This demonstrates gas services ability to sustain strong profitability throughout the year underpinned by solid execution and a favorable business mix. Free cash flow reached 1.7 billion significantly above last year benefiting from strong operational performance Reservation agreements and advance payments on large customer orders. The combination of sustained market demand, expanding capacity, growing the installed base and long-term service revenues makes gas services one of our most attractive businesses and a key driver of sustainable value creation. Moving on now to grid technologies. Now, grid technologies once again delivered an outstanding quarter. Thank you very much. Renewable Integration, and Data Center Infrastructure. Revenue reached a record $3.6 billion, up 29% year-over-year. This is driven primarily by the product business. And profit before special items reached $722 million. This is a corresponding margin of 19.9%, an improvement of 400 basis points year-over-year. This was driven by higher volumes, an improved margin profile with the executed order backlog, and the positive effects of disciplined execution. This strong performance is the basis, as you know, for raising our full year margin guidance to 18 to 20% at the half year for this business. Free cash flow pre-tax amounted to 896 million, again supported by strong profit and milestone payments. So now moving to transformation of industry. This business delivered a strong quarter characterized by solid order intake, continued revenue growth and an improvement in profitability. Order intake reached 1.8 billion, up 32% year-over-year. The main contributor here was new units and compression, which benefited from large orders in the Americas and in the Middle East. As a result, the book-to-bill ratio reached 1.19, while the order backlog remained stable at around 8 billion. Revenue increased by 12% to 1.5 billion, with all businesses contributing. Growth was supported by both the new units and service businesses, again highlighting the balanced nature of the portfolio in transformation of industries. Profitability strengthened in the third quarter to $218 million. This resulted in a margin of 14.3%. Free cash flow pre-tax amounted to $180 million, broadly in line with the prior level, reflecting continued cash conversion and disciplined executions. and overall transformation of industry does continue to demonstrate its ability to generate reliable earnings and cash flow while capturing opportunities and attractive end markets. So now turning to Siemens Gamesa. Here, the third quarter marks an important milestone in the turnaround journey. For the first time since Q4 fiscal year 22, as Christian mentioned, Siemens Gamesa delivered a positive quarterly result. Reaching this point has required significant operational improvements, disciplined execution, and tremendous commitments from the entire organization. While the turnaround is not yet complete, the improvements delivered over the past quarters are clearly visible in the financial performance. For the quarter amounted to 1.1 billion and we're below the exceptionally high prior year level. It's important to note that Q3 last year benefited from two large offshore orders with a combined value of more than $3 billion, while the current quarter did not include any comparable awards. This has resulted in a book-to-bill ratio below one. Order backlog, however, stood at $31 billion at the quarter end. And now looking at revenue, this increased by 14% year-over-year to $2.7 billion, driven primarily by the offshore business. Growth was led by higher service revenues, while the new unit business also delivered a clear increase. Profitability, as mentioned, improved substantially. Profit before special items reached 75 million compared to a loss of 430 million in the prior quarter. The margin reached positive 2.7%. This is representing a year-over-year improvement of more than 20 percentage points. So free cash flow pre-tax was negative 518 million compared to negative 758 million in the prior year. As discussed previously, cash flow developments remains influenced by project and milestone timing effects. While we are encouraged by the progress, and we're very proud of that, we stay focused and keep our feet on the ground. Execution discipline in Siemens Gamesa, quality management, and cost efficiency remain key priorities as we continue to improve the business. That said, the direction of travel is clear. The return to positive profitability in the third quarter is a proof point that the turnaround measures are delivering results. Siemens Gamesa's continued improvement is becoming an increasingly important element of the Siemens energy investment case. As profitability improves and execution risks continue to decline, Siemens Gamesa will now contribute to the predictable, resilient, and high-quality earnings profile of the group. So now with that, please let me take a look at the outlook. So following the strong performance in the first nine months of the fiscal year, we are reaffirming the outlook that we just raised after the first half of the fiscal year. For Siemens Energy, we continue to expect comparable revenue growth of 14% to 16% and a profit margin before special items of 10% to 12%. Based on our performance year to date, we now expect to land towards the upper end of the margin range. We also continue to expect net income of around $4 billion and free cash flow pre-tax of around $8 billion for fiscal year 2026. The progress we have demonstrated throughout fiscal year 2026 is increasingly validating the assumptions that underpin our mid-term and medium-term ambitions. The operational proof points are becoming visible and again we will discuss the full financial framework in November. So with that, thank you very much for your attention, and let me hand now back to Christian for the closing remarks. Thank you.

Thank you, Maria. And let me close with a broader message of today's result. Quarter 3 was another excellent quarter for Siemens Energy, with record orders, record revenue, record profitability, and excellent cash generation. But for me, the most important point is not only the level of these numbers, but what they demonstrate about the development of the companies. We are seeing more consistent performance across the portfolio. Gas services continues to benefit from a highly attractive market environment and disciplined execution. Grid technology is translating structural demand into higher volumes, stronger margins and robust cash flow. Siemens Gamesa has reached an important milestone in its turnaround, reducing volatility and execution risk for the group, and transformation of industry continues to show strong and consistent performance. And taken together, these developments show the transition we want investors to recognize. Siemens Energy is driven by structural growth, stronger execution, improving earnings quality, significant cash generation, and disciplined capital allocations. Our focus is clear, converting backlog into revenue, revenue into earnings, and earnings into cash flow. This is translating into higher earnings per share and tangible value creation for our shareholders. Our backlog gives us visibility. Our capacity investments support future growth, and our service base creates long-duration earnings potential. and our cash flow generation gives us the flexibility to invest in the business while returning capital to shareholders. And this gives us confidence for the remainder of fiscal year 2026 and provides a solid foundation for the medium term framework we will discuss with you in November. As Maria has underlined, we will provide more detail on the next phase of Siemens Energy's value creation journey. I would like Like every quarter, but this water particular, to thank all our teams across Siemens Energy. Great job, Team Purple. And the progress we are discussing today is the result of their commitment, their operational focus, and their execution discipline. We are entering the next phase of Siemens Energy's development from a position of strength, and we look forward to discussing that next chapter with you in November. Tobias, over to you for questions and answers.

Thank you so much, Christian Maria. So now we will start our today's Q&A session. If you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Again, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you no longer want to ask a question, please press star two. Even though we have really hot weather outside, there are so many people sticking to our call right now. So I already see the queue in the line very long. So please stick to only one questions. I would call up the next three people. Asking question and then calling up the individual ones. So first three questions go to Max Yates from Morgan Stanley, Phil Buller from J.P. Morgan and Gail de Brea from Deutsche Bank. So, Max, please go ahead.

Thank you, Tobias, and good morning, everyone. I guess my question is just around the gas margins. So, you know, it's a really good step change this quarter in terms of the profitability. I just wanted to ask kind of bigger picture if we look at kind of the margin progression that you've been seeing More than 300 basis points in 2025. It looks like you're going to do another 300 basis points margin improvement this year. Just when you think about the composition of the backlog, how pricing has evolved in the last two to three years, and what you're going to be delivering in the next two to three years, I guess my question is, is there any reason when we think of operational leverage in the service business, the margins in the backlog, that that kind of progression can't continue at these levels? Is there anything... Thank you very much. Thank you.

Continuously growing over quarter by quarter by quarter. And this is why we hammer so much also on execution and operational excellence. Because it's important that we unleash this potential that sits in the backlog. And that is obviously something which is, let's say, in the plan. And we share this obviously on the November quarterly call. The execution of the project and of the backlog you always have to keep in mind takes two to three years. and in certain areas with the bigger turbines, no even longer. So it will obviously gives us a good base really to continue to expand margin.

And maybe just to add to that, Max, because looking absolutely in terms of midterm, but again, just to underline, we still do see seasonality in Q4, as mentioned at the half year. We see that less pronounced, of course, as new units, you know, even proportionally are higher as a percentage of revenue. But don't forget, I think absolutely as we continue, we see absolutely margin expansion. We see that orders we're booking today have higher margins than yesterday. But just again, just to underline that we still do see some seasonality in Q4. Thank you.

Very clear. Thank you. Thanks so much. Next question goes to Phil Bullard from J.P. Monk.

Hi, good morning, everybody. I'd like to explore this demand topic a little bit further, please, beyond what's already in the backlog. You mentioned, Christian, the 2027 pipeline looks very promising, and I hear you on the operational execution side. But can you share any subtleties on the nature of the discussions you're having on that 2027 pipeline? Is pricing still Trending positively. Are the payment terms for slot reservation agreements still favourable? Maria, I think you mentioned that the service contract duration is now 17 years. I think it was 15 years a year ago. So is there anything at all that's trending backwards as you look at 2027 at a contractual level? Thanks.

No, at the moment it's really not, right? And this is where we see positively into 2027 what are the things we're talking about. One thing, for example, is the German Kraftwerkstrategie, right? The power plants to be built in Germany. Obviously, this is in alignment agreement phase or reservation agreement phase now. It's not converted into orders yet. This will come into 2027. But these are these examples, right? And as I always said, I mean, absolutely, we had seen over the last quarter a lot of capacity going into data centers and the US. But also keep in mind that this led to the situation that a lot of other replications are have pushed out decision makings, and this is why we see Asia coming up, we see the Middle East things coming up, and absolutely this supports our positive view on 2027. Thank you.

Thanks a lot. So next question goes to Gerd de Bruyne from Deutsche Bank.

Oh, thank you. Good morning, everybody. It's obviously great to see Gamesa back in the green this quarter, But I'd like to get your thoughts on the recent new merger guidelines from the European Commission, which emphasizes benefits from corporate scale. So do you think further consolidation is required in the wind industry?

Do you still hear us?

From the Chinese audience.

Could you repeat the last sentence because you were cut off in the middle and we had a glitch here?

Sorry about this. I was just asking about the merger guidelines from the European Commission, the new one on the wind side and whether you think that some further consolidation would be needed eventually in the wind industry to better compete against the Chinese.

Look, I think this discussion is on, at least since I'm with Siemens Energy, and rightly so, because obviously competition is, particularly on the onshore side, super aggressive. It depends on the region in the world. And I do not see the boundary conditions at the moment in Europe. The Wind Airbus, which you sometimes hear, right? I mean, consolidating the whole industry. Is that something that's going to come? I don't know. That is more a political discussion than a business discussion. We need to think about how to position ourselves in a very aggressive market, onshore and offshore, absolutely clear. But I do not see anything at the moment changed from a regulation environment in that regard. So this is not where we are at the moment. And I also would see it a bit different in offshore and onshore. In offshore very clearly, and I think you indicated it, We are really trying also to convey to regulators and governments, you need to get these offshore projects off the ground. Projects are slipping. That's not good. There's need to come. And in onshore, it's more about really what is the most competitive setup, not only from an onshore unit perspective, new unit perspective, but really also from a service perspective. This discussion will be with us for the next years to come, I would say. But at the moment, I don't see the environment yet in the regulatory market.

Understood. Thank you very much.

Thanks so much. So the next three questions go to Alex Jones from Bank of America, Sebastian Grover from BNP Paribas, and AJ Patel from Goldman Sachs. Alex, please go ahead.

Thank you. We'll talk a little bit about capacity, please. You seem quite emphatic this morning that you're not adding more gas capacity, but your messaging today and in prior months has been that demand's higher than you expected at the CMD last November, and clearly your two largest peers have reacted to that by announcing more capacity. Is there a reason why you wouldn't follow them in announcing a little bit more debottlenecking or brownfield expansion into 2030? And can you comment on how much of the capacity you're already adding to 2030 will be required for aftermarket needs as you move into the middle of the next decade? Thank you.

Thanks, Alex. We always convey the clear message. We're expanding existing sites. And the other thing is on gas. And we are... And this journey we continue. As we communicated in the Capital Market Day, and I see no reason to change that, absolutely we're trying to squeeze out everything out of existing sites in terms of driving productivity measures. We do a lot about robotics at the moment and thinking about application of AI on the shop floor. And these will obviously be things which hopefully drive more productivity and with this, We get one or two more turbines out, but this is all about productivity, productivity, productivity, and leveraging the existing footprint, what we have. We do investments, obviously, in the gas service, as we announced in the Capital Market Day, but this is all about making existing sites more productive. And that is an important pillar to keep, and I see at the moment no reason to change that.

Thanks a lot. So the next question goes to Sebastian Grobe.

Hi Maria, Christian and Tobias. Thanks for taking my question. It would be on the segment as opposed to the group margin guidance for the year, so the 10-12% range has been confirmed. I was wondering if you could provide more color with regard to the views on the assumptions for the four segments, which are seemingly a bit more heterogeneous here to date, with what you have then guided for the full year, and particularly if you could comment on grid technologies and what you see for the fourth quarter.

Hello, Sebastian. I have to admit the quality wasn't good. I hope you hear. Do you hear me? Hello? Okay. So I think your question was regarding the overall margin development looking at Q4 and based on what we've seen so far this year and essentially what to expect. I think, again, correct. and what I said earlier is that we do expect Q4 again to have a bit of a moderation effect rather than if you think about it Q3 was quite strong exceptionally strong let's say based on a number of factors and if you look at Q4 we're looking at it rather around the level if you have from the first half and I think this reflects more of this phasing and mix effects that we've discussed year over year But as I mentioned, it's a little more moderate this year. And Q3 did benefit from a few favorable project timing. And this is typical in our business, as you know, for example, in TI and or in other areas. And of course, don't forget, we do have the seasonality in the service environment and gas services predominantly where we see typically a weaker Q4. And also, there's also other seasonality, not to get into more detail, but things like corporate costs. Also, with respect to cash, right? I mean, CapEx is a lot of its back-end loaded. So all of these factors, if you'd like, kind of come into play in the current quarter in Q4. Again, but I do want one last point, please. Q3 is by no means a peak. That's not what I'm saying. And there's more info, of course, to come in November. Again, we see margins further expanding. We absolutely see the orders that are being booked today with margin expansion. and of course that will come into play in the next quarters and years. But again, as mentioned, more to come in November.

Thanks so much. So the next question goes to Ajay Patel.

Good morning and thank you very much for the presentation. Mine's just on the cash flow. I was looking at the cash flow statement at the back of the presentation and there's an other line of about 1.1 billion of positive flow just under I just wanted to know what that was as in you delivered 90% of your free cash flow for the full year. So I'm just trying to understand what reverses maybe could happen in Q4 that keeps you to that $8 billion target because on the performance you're delivering, I would have maybe expected to even overshoot.

No, again, I hope I got everything, but Again, when you look, we're in a very good position on cash, no doubt, right? At 7.2 year to date. But don't forget, there are other things in there that from Q4 perspective that are still to come. I mean, on CapEx, I do have to underline, we have a very heavy Q4. And of course, and don't forget, there's also in the other line in the cash flow statement, we have things like reservation fees included, etc., and things like other related accruals, which perhaps are profit negative, but not cash effective, like personnel related accruals and so on. So it is a bit of a mixed bag. But again, when you look at cash for us, I've said around eight. Yes, we're in a good position. All things remaining equal around eight also means above eight. So maybe that kind of puts it into perspective. But we do have some, like I said, puts and takes to consider.

And that 1.1 billion in Q3 and the Q3 numbers on the other line? Yeah, and that's what I'm saying.

The 1.1, again, in the other line, you do have reservation fees included and also other personnel-related accruals, like I mentioned, again, having a profit impact but not cash effectiveness.

Thank you.

Okay?

Thanks. Thanks so much. So the next three questions go to Chris Leonard from UBS, Vivek Milla from Citi, and Will Mackey from Capital Perseverance. Chris, please go ahead.

Hi there. Could I focus maybe on the slot momentum you showed, the incremental new slots in Q3 going up to 11 gigawatts, and could you maybe update us as you spoke to a strong pipeline for water growth into 2027, how you anticipate Those slots will perform through Q4 and how it's going to date in Q4 and equally any further commentary on sort of pricing and how that's progressing on those slots between the quarters so far this year. Thank you.

I'm not sure whether I understood everything because honestly it was very difficult to understand. If it's about, I hope I interpret correctly, right? I mean obviously looking on the fourth quarter we believe the fourth quarter will be lower not unexpected and then we look positively into the first half of of 27 in terms of orders but definitely with all the trajectories what we've seen quarter four a little lower than we are let's say somewhere around what is it 100 giga right towards the end of the year this is what we're trending towards and as you also look into our bookings what you potentially notice is that obviously We try to keep the, let's say, reservation agreements in terms of gigamount relatively limited is the wrong word, but we obviously more look on orders than on the piling up the reservation agreements. And this is how the structure looks like. I hope I got everything because, as I said, quality was not good.

Yeah, sorry, I was focusing on the slot reservations and how you expect those to trend into Q4. And I guess you sort of answered it there, but equally...

Yeah, it's a little bit honestly looking out of the window, right? I mean, I don't see any different trend in terms of the reservation agreements as we have seen in the last quarter. It depends more in terms of, okay, when finally decisions comes. So I would not really quarterly plan this.

Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Now going over to Vivek, please.

Thank you very much, everyone. Good morning. My question is again on gas. I was just wondering if you could elaborate on the rough split between new units and service orders in the quarter. You said in the report that both new units and service orders grew substantially in the quarter, but I was hoping if you could give us a rough indication as well as around the pricing within the new units you've booked and any mixed effects that may have been within that. Thank you.

Thank you. I'm trying now just to do it from the top of my head. Maria is looking for the exact numbers, but I would say overproportionately new units.

Yes, correct.

And this also has a consequence because obviously the service... Okay, thank you. Two-thirds is new units. And obviously this has a consequence because obviously going forward, it means service agreement is going to be booked later. Correct. And this is still to come.

Correct. But the good news is, as mentioned, that the margins on new units continue to expand, as mentioned. So even with a higher proportionate share of 2 thirds and 1 third in this particular quarter, we still see that as, let's say, accretive today and for the future in our backlog.

Thanks so much. So the next question goes to Will Mackey, please.

Yeah, good morning Maria, good morning Christian and everybody. Thank you for the time. My question comes to capacity expansion and the execution of your plans. Thank you for the details on slide 5 of the presentation and the update from the CMD. Very useful. You said you delivered six gigawatts in Q3, so could you at least put a rough estimate of what you expect to deliver in terms of gigawatts for the full year and against the backdrop of the big step up in LGTs and the expansion in MGTs, What we should expect roughly as a delivery achievement into 27 given your current planning and then any additional color you could give on how you're finding progress with your suppliers in the supply chain on long lead time items like forgings or castings. Thank you.

Thanks Will. Obviously, let me start with the second point on the forgings and castings. And this has really made good progress. I mean, it was a big area of my concern six to nine months ago. A lot of things have been Thank you very much. and this is something but where I would say that's good it still obviously has to grow further seeing this enormous amount of new units and keep in mind at the end when all of this is in place we the vast majority of these parts will go into service business not into the new units and this is why it makes so much sense in terms of investing into that. And on the capacity delivery this year, I would scratch my head a bit, around 15, maybe 16, something like this, gigawatt type of range, I would believe you're going to see.

Okay, thanks. Thank you so much. So the next three questions go to Alex Virgo from Evercore, Richard Dawson from Bernberg, and Alistair Leslie from Bernstein. Alex, please go ahead.

Thanks, Tobias. Morning, Christian. Morning, Maria. I wonder if I could just push you a little bit more on selling prices. I guess optically, it's a bit difficult to gauge given we don't have the details specifically, but optically, it looks as if pricing has come down a little bit. Thank you very much.

No, it did not come down. Absolutely not. But it's very difficult and I'm not sure whether you are doing this. If you look on order intake and try to divide it by gigawatt numbers and seeing a trend in it, that is such a convoluted number because so many different things go into this. Don't interpret too much into that. This is what I always have to clearly say because it combines frame size, frequency, scope, balance between new units and service and all the likes. So no pricing trend is intact in gas. Absolutely. We see this. So no change compared to last quarters.

Very helpful. Thank you. So next question goes to Richard Dawson, please.

Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my question. I wanted to ask about the name change to Ontario. Does starting the transition to the new name now mean you can end that trademark license agreement with Siemens AG earlier than 2030, which I believe was when that agreement is due to end anyway? Thank you.

Look, that is so early in the process and we just started it. We've not even launched the brand. So we said we start the preparation. The reason we announced it was that we don't want to put everybody under NDA who's working on it and openly say it's too early in the process. We're working on it.

Okay, thank you. Thanks, Nord. So the next question goes to Alistair Leslie.

Thanks. Good morning. Question on gas services and the service opportunity. You touched upon it earlier in your prepared remarks. But last year, I think you quantified the lifetime service opportunity of around 400 million euros per gigawatt of backlog, I think. Just given how that backlog is kind of evolving, potentially in terms of mix, duration, possibly pricing, is that still the right number now? Or should we be thinking about maybe a meaningfully higher service opportunity per gigawatt going forward? Thank you.

No, thanks for the question and also for kind of reminding us about our statement on that because it's very relevant. We don't see, it's still around that mark, of course. I think you're absolutely right. The average duration going up by two years is a positive thing. This is something that we see with the momentum that customers are opting for a longer, a long-term service program. But around the 400, more or less, mark still remains intact.

Okay, thank you. Thanks so much. So we got another five people in the queue. The next three will be Ben Uglow from Oxcap, Lucas Farhani from Jefferies, and then Sean McLaughlin from HSBC. Ben, please go ahead.

Thank you. Morning, Christian, Maria, and Toby. Thanks for taking the question. It's a big picture question around how you guys are seeing the kind of capacity situation in the market. If we look at large gas turbines first, In the olden days, we used to think about every company having a natural market share. But at the moment, we're seeing big increases kind of across the board. Do you see the capacity plans of the bigger companies and indeed some of the smaller ones too in gas turbines as kind of orderly? And then secondly, on the On the engine fuel side, on the non-large gas turbine market, we are seeing some dramatic expansion, 60 gigawatts plus. How do you think about that two years from now? Does this all simply evaporate when your capacity comes on stream because of efficiency, or is this going to be a sort of persistent issue as we move forward? Thank you.

Thanks, Ben, for your question, and congratulations to be the first one with a video out in the morning on the results.

I'm always impressed by that.

Well, is it an orderly increase? I believe yes, right? If I see a particular about the big players, I think we literally all do the same in terms of really driving productivity, as I see from the colleagues, and that makes sense for me. and so in that regard so far so good and there's also investments with short payback times. Will there be a point in time when potentially the market is not 120 or 130 giga? Yes, at one point in time might be but I think I see it all orderly in that regard. Now you see obviously particularly this quarter you have seen let's say two smaller sized turbine frames coming and pushing big orders which was obviously to new players or not to to and other players which you not always have listed there. And that is something which I see influenced simply by the high demand and I would absolutely believe that is impacted afterwards once the total capacity is on stream and maybe the demand is a bit more balanced in there. Absolutely, absolutely agreed. How much the smaller companies now expend capacities, Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thanks so much. I mean, as we are almost out of time, let's do a really quick round of questions and answers. The next one will be Lucas.

Hello, everyone, and thanks for the time. I just had one on grids. I'm just wondering on Your EPC capabilities versus the full year 26 base, are you also increasing capacity there to do more kind of HVDC project or is it only on the product side? And then when we think about the margin progress as those new volumes come, I think you talked before about pricing kind of normalizing a bit more in that segment. Are you still able to price kind of ahead or well ahead of inflation and still push margins or is it only a productivity story in goods? Thank you.

Yeah, thanks for the question very quickly. Increases also in the solutions part or EPC part. Yes, we started this three years ago because obviously the wave was visible. Obviously, this also means execution capabilities, for example, in the US, which is a strong growing market we will continue to build. While we continue also to be interested to be a strong products company. But yes, we have increased also on that side. Margin development or pricing development, not margin development, pricing development on that side The pricing is intact. It's plateauing on a high level, as we have said. And there's always opportunities, particularly on the data center side, if you can deliver things fast. I mean, that is an opportunistic element, but it's obviously also the same message as in the quarters before, plateauing on a high level.

Thanks a lot. Very quick question to Sean McLaughlin, please.

Thank you. Good morning. You had flagged previously a weaker Q4 in gas services with a pickup in Q1 or certainly early in 2027. How should we think about this quarter on quarter fade from such a strong number? And particularly given your comments around pipeline, should this be just a one quarter blip? with several quarters of similar strength ahead, thank you, in gas services.

Hello, Sean. Thank you for the question. And yes, I think I said that before. It's great to have a billion slice, but we don't expect that each and every quarter. So there will be, let's say, a moderate or like a bit of a soft landing in Q4, as mentioned. So you should think of it that way. However, the pipeline remains super strong for fiscal year 27, especially in the first half. And so therefore it is kind of indeed in line with the rest of the seasonality for Q1 and then fiscal year 27, strong pipeline indeed.

Super, thank you. Thanks so much, Sean. So the last two questions go to Kavina Rajpal from Barter and Vlad Zagievsky from Barclays. Thank you so much for your quick question, Kavina.

Good morning everyone. I just wanted to dig a little bit around the backlog margin development particularly on transformation of industry. So wanted to understand what the moving parts there were and then wanted to reconcile this with Maria's statement about that we have not seen peak margins yet. So does that also apply for the TI business?

Thank you.

I think the question was around the confirmation of the expansion of the backlog margin. It was really difficult to hear you, but perhaps I'll just reiterate to say that, yes, when we look at, especially in both gas and grid, the orders that are being booked today are at higher margins than yesterday. We will give, and please come and dial in for November, we will give, as we always do, Thank you very much. I appreciate you squeezing me in.

You increased your forecast for addressable market for gas turbines to about 110 to 120 gigawatts per year going forward.

Based on pre-closed call, would you be able to give us some rough color on the geographical split of this addressable market? And in particular, what proportion of this 110 to 120 could be coming from the U.S.?

Yeah, that's a simple question. At the moment, if I look on it, the 120 giga would probably see around half as U.S., right? I mean, so it will be a substantial market. Thanks so much for your patience and staying with us so long. Are there any final remarks from you, Christian? I hope a lot of you still have the vacation ahead of you. If so, then I wish you a great summer vacation for those of you who had it. I hope you enjoyed it. And thanks for being with us and looking forward to see you all in the quarter four call for a longer discussion then.

Thanks so much, Christian. Also from my side, everybody have a great summer. The IR team is available in case you have any questions within August from September onwards. We are on several roadshows and conferences. So looking forward to seeing you then. And with that, we conclude today's call. Thank you so much.

Thank you, everyone. Take care. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's conference call. Thank you for participation. A recording of this conference call will be available on the investor relations sections of the Siemens Energy website. The website address is www.siemens-energy.com slash investor relations. Goodbye.