Sfc Energy Ag

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the SFC Energy Ag publication of the half-year report 2026 conference call. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star N1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star N0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Dr. Peter Podesser, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you very much, George, for the kind introduction and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for taking the time and joining us here for our half year results, but also for naturally the discussion and presentation of our second quarter results here in 2026. We are obviously happy to present a good set of numbers. We are looking back at the best six months of our company since inception. and we are looking at an exceptionally strong Q2 here in terms of revenue about 20% above our previous record quarter but also naturally translating into a significant improvement and strong increase in profitability. Some of the highlights here, doubling EBITDA on an adjusted basis compared to last year and also more than tripling the EBIT by itself is a positive fact. We also looked at an increase of revenue by about 12%, where we have to see that the second quarter was here having the key impact. Apart from naturally looking back, I think looking ahead, a significant increase in order intake to more than 108 million euros compared to 43.6 last year. and also a solid backlog still now at the middle of the year are also the basis for us being able to narrow the guidance upward here within the previously increased ranges. Before going now into all the financial details, I think, Let me put the results here in perspective. Very clear, the market entry into the Ukraine has and will have also within the year a boosting effect. but overall this is following naturally the strategic positioning here of ourselves in structurally growing energy markets. It also shows a scalability of the business model as mentioned with an acceleration in profitability. If we look at the background here, especially on the defense and security part of the business, what we are witnessing is A different format of combat, a different format of warfare. Strongly unmanned and most of it electrically powered. So all going electric if we put it in more generic terms. And at the same time in a very dynamic, agile and mobile way of implementation. All these requirements, all these changes are a very good fit for our fuel cell based energy supply. We are able to easy and fast deploy and move. We have a long lasting and longer lasting than conventional sources energy source and I think The element that we are not generating or we are virtually not generating signature neither temperature nor noise is the changing element. This means low to no detectability and therefore increase a significant increase of safety of all the operators. So what we've witnessed here and I think the examples we are getting here especially also from Ukraine but also other parts of our business is we are moving from a nice to have to a must have. But beyond the fact that we are naturally happy with, let's say, a successful market entry here in the Ukraine and the deployment is happening as we speak, and I'll get back to the next steps here in Ukraine in terms of what does it now need to perpetuate this kind of entry success. Let us also look into some of the other markets. If we look into our industrial fuel cell business, reliable, resilient, long-lasting, and commercially viable off-grid and backup power for areas like civilian security, all our CCTV customers, critical infrastructure backup power, and also all our sensing and monitoring solutions here looking into the European part of the business and also what we are witnessing especially for example in Singapore we are looking at the range of growth of 10 to 20 some of it 25 growth solid momentum solid demand there oil and gas for both segments The clean energy with the fuel cell powered solutions and also the clean power management with our frequency drive business there. Canadian oil and gas business based naturally also on the raw material and commodity pricing having a solid performance. Yeah, we have to also see some impact and Daniel will relate back to this later with some negative currency effect but solid development there. Still, with all the good news, I think it's even more important to look at the areas where we feel we are not at target, not at plan. Not happy with the power management business for the time being compared to the plan here in Europe, although we have to say we had a very strong first half year last year and we are not quite at this level, but we're also seeing a softer demand from our largest customer, them facing some soft demand in their end markets. Factoring this in for the remaining part of the year, we are seeing already an uptick in in their forecast here. So we are not expecting an immediate change here, but we are factoring this into our year-end forecast here. The other area, if we look at the regional business here in the US, customer diversification is the most important strategic initiative there here, branching out from, I'd say, initial customer here in the CCTV sector. We are now seeing, let's say, half a dozen to 10 leading CCTV mobile security players being already repeat customers, also a first-timer here entering into Amazon MSU division here with initial systems, I think is an inspiring fact. but at the same time we have to see volume-wise we are lagging behind here. Means there is room to improve and we will focus here in the next six to 12 months to catch up and create the right momentum. Looking at India, After spending a couple of days together with our Indian partners here in July, I think we are seeing the right signs of call it recovery. We are seeing a reinitiation of procurement here in our existing programs. We are seeing new programs coming up. The expectation here is higher order activity now in Q3, Q4 and especially also in Q1 of 27. All factored in into our overall forecast. Coming back to Ukraine. As said before, the sequence is clear. We are right now in the phase of deploy. We are in the phase of crane. and we are building up training support and backup activities and structures locally. We are talking about the training elements here, including naturally standard activities like documentation, videos, all in local language, but we're also talking about different local structures, redundant structures. We are setting up separate locations here and well eventually in a case of emergency they also have to be mobile to a certain extent. This is happening as we speak and I think we are progressing well now in Q3 and the next step is a localization step looking at local supply chain as other companies do it there too and expanding our activities of sales also to other parts of the armed forces our team was there again now in summertime and we are planning to get back end of the month so This is where we see the need here in terms of further allocation of resources from our side in order to be able to continue with repeat business also in this market. Strategically, I think we have taken the time also to invest in our growth platform. We were on site in Singapore with our partner OneBerry. I think the investment is in good shape. We are seeing good activities. We are expecting 2026 on track. And there are some larger opportunities in the pipeline here on a local basis for AI-based unmanned security systems. The collaboration with General Dynamics, We published this together here at Eurosatory, the first platform where our Emily fuel cell is built in is the so-called Pandua. We went to see the general dynamics team last week in Vienna to talk about, let's say, marketing initiatives and the sales strategy here together with them. Last but not least, we are also delivering on our M&A. strategy. Just a couple of weeks ago, on 2nd of July, we announced the acquisition of assets of Sigmund, company active specialist in reform methanol fuel cell technology, a good complementary fit to us. So between one and five kilowatt solutions being positioned between our methanol direct methanol fuel cells and our hydrogen fuel cell solutions at the end giving us good access to to users who cannot who are not allowed or who are not willing to use hydrogen so higher power methanol systems Finally also a consolidation activity here with an upcoming competitor and besides the assets we are particularly happy to have a team of experts here who joined us now in July and integration is on its way. Target here is to get cost neutral with first projects being executed in 2027. The product needs some touch up and some finalization. I think that our experience from an industrial perspective is really helpful. If we look at the order part of the business, as mentioned before, we had an active first half of the year with about 108 0.6 million order intake. Well, compared to last year, a factor of 2.5x. But even if we net out the Ukrainian large project here, we would look at the factor of 1.5. So also here one can see that we have the business growing also outside the Ukrainian project. Obviously clean energy from a segment perspective is the growing element in the first six months as mentioned with 22.7% of Both with a significant impact also from shipments to Ukraine, about 22 million. So roughly half of the project was shipped by 30th of June. And the shortfall on the power management, I mentioned this already, like two sides of this business, very solid and growing with the oil and gas market in Canada and the shortfall here in Europe. But also here, I think factoring into the outlook and seeing also an improvement of the forecast of our key customer here, we see, let's say, the turning point happening as we speak. For the clean power management, there is also one additional element that is, I think, worthwhile to mention. We have our first OEM defense project in-house with a European OEM for high energy laser systems also for the defense use. Usually this is for drone defense, either platform-based or portable. So also there we expect some impact Maybe not in the short run here in the next couple of weeks, but then also over the next quarters. With this, I would like to hand over to Daniel to look into the earnings.

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining our call. Let me run you quickly through our earnings, through the margins, a bit on the cash flow and give you some highlights and background on some cost positions. I think Peter already mentioned it, the growth momentum in the second quarter as well as the first half year were exceptionally strong with regard to revenue but also with regards to earnings and marchings. And these are reflecting on the one hand side the strong growth and the performance especially of the segment clean energy as well as the attractive product mix that we had in the first half year and the second quarter with a high share of defense revenue. coming from the Ukraine order. The results for our key KPIs across the boards were very strong, exceptionally strong, I would even say. Revenue growth, Peter mentioned it, 12% half year and a half year. We had a gross margin on the group level of 47.1%, which corresponds to a margin expansion of 4.6 percentage points compared to the first half year 2025. The EBITDA adjusted margins increased to 22%, which is a 10.8 percentage point margin expansion compared to the same period last year. We had an EBIT adjusted margin of 17%, which is also a 10.7% percentage point expansion compared to the same period of last year. We had a cash flow operating activities, which were 4.6 million euros. And we had a very strong order backlog of 105 million euros. Looking at the gross margin on growth level, I mentioned before, very strong with 47.1%. This is also significantly above what we've seen for the full year last year. We consider this margin to be on a reasonably strong level. with apparently, and Peter already touched on that, upside potential in the segment clean power management, where especially the notable drop in revenues led to a higher unit cost due to relative higher production overhead per unit. So that really reflected in the gross margin per segment. The gross margin is a segment clean energy well above 50% with 52.6%. also well above what we've seen in the last year, whereas we had to realize a slight drop in the gross margin on the segment clean power management, which is going to 28.3%. That drop is really due to the lower revenue in the power management solutions, our Dutch slash Romanian business, and the Miller Revenue always leads or tends to lead to a lower dilution of the manufacturing overhead. If you look at the group operating expenses below the gross margin, we see that the functional operation expenses decrease slightly year-on-year by 1.2%. The biggest positive influence on the cost factors were in the G&A expenses and mostly due to lower spending on IT and the ERP implementation in the first half year. Remember in 2025, in the first half year, we really had a lot of spending on that one. We did streamline the cost where we made some advancement here. Of course, these costs will also occur in the second half of the year. We had some negative effects on our operating expenses in spite of the fact that they decreased slightly. One of them was an impairment of capitalized R&D expenses. The impairment was 500,000 euros. It is shown in the R&D expenses that why you see R&D expenses being slightly higher than what we expected and also what we've seen previously. and subsequently also that impairment is shown in the depreciation. That's why you would also see a slightly higher depreciation in the second quarter. And the other negative effect were consultancy expenses of approximately 600,000 euros in context with clothing, the Ukraine deals. These are shown in sales and marketing expenses, a lot of advisory, a lot of legal expenses. big contract, a lot of consultancy expenses in context with closing that contract in the Ukraine. If we look at the capitalization rate of our R&D expenses, so 13% of our R&D spent were capitalized. That is still on the lower level compared to 15% what we had in the last year, which already was on the lower level. But for the time being, we assume that this will not change. We won't have a higher rate of capitalized R&D expenses in this year. When we look at the exchange rate income and losses, and if you look at the net effect, so we had a balanced result. We had a net gain of 67,000 euros, so basically the result is zero. and that compares to 2.6 million of net losses last year. So there you see that this will also contribute to the margin expansion on EBIT and EBITDA level. Brings us to our adjusted EBITDA. I mentioned it, 22.4% is the margin, corresponds to 18.4 million euros. Solid, solid increase. The increase, in summary, one more time, It's the very good performance of the segment clean energy, driven by the product mix, by the revenue growth itself. The overall positive operating expense effect, operating leverage kicking in, especially in that segment, which also counteracts the lower margin of the segment clean power management, which went in the opposite direction. Depreciation, total depreciation is 4.4 million. Still the structure of the depreciation is the same as we've seen in the previous quarters. About 40% is IFRS 16, i.e. lease accounting related. Slightly higher than what we've seen in the last year simply because we are leasing or we have leased a new site in the Netherlands. which will bring these depreciation expenses slightly up. And on top, as I mentioned before, you see the impairment of an R&D project in those depreciation costs. That brings us to the EBIT, adjusted EBIT solid with 14 million and giving us a margin of 17%. CapEx, if we exclude the investment in OneBerry, which happened earlier this year, and the IPR-16 related CapEx expenses, we had 1.4 million in PPA in equipment and machinery, which is really a normal level, nothing extraordinary or special there. Cash flow, the operating cash flow before change in net working capital were 17.5 million euros, much stronger than what we've seen last year. If we look at the development of the working capital, the working capital ratio to last 12 months net sales increased to 42%. It's a little bit higher from what we've seen for the full last year, where we were at 37% with that ratio. And the largest impact on the net working capital had a strong increase in accounts receivables with a negative cash impact of 9.8 million euros. It has to do with the very strong revenues, especially towards the end of the quarter. Our days of sales outstanding increased to 139 days. We were looking at 122 in the last full year. That number will go down in the next quarters. As I said, it really has to do with the strong rollout of sales at the end of the first half year. We had a reasonable impact from an increase of inventory, about 300,000 euros. So by and large, inventory stayed at the same level. The inventory will decrease in the third quarter. Key reasons why the inventory stayed on the same level is that we purchased a lot of components in the second quarter. for delivering now the last part of the Ukraine order so really this is what has been driving raw material components and on the other hand we also purchased quite a bit of platinum in the second quarter looking in on the relative lower platinum prices that platinum will carry us towards the end of the year into the first quarter of 2027. So these are the key reasons why inventory has stayed more or less at the same level. Again, that will go down towards the end of this quarter and also towards the end of the year, and then we will see a release of cash. After tax payments and the change of inventory, we're looking at an operating cash flow of 4.6 million euros, much better from what we've seen in the last year. Cash flow from financing activities, most related for F-16 again to lease payments, was negative 1.9 million, slightly higher than what we've seen in the last year. and then the change in cash, we had minus 2.9 million euros driven largely by the networking capital development and also the capex, especially investment in OneBerry. So that brings us to our cash position. Cash freely available is 44 million euros. The financial debt has decreased slightly, never a big amount on our balance sheet as you know and have you seen. Our net debt, in this case net cash position, is 41.2 million euros at the end of the first half year. With a lot of payments coming in right now, we will see this position Thank you very much, Daniel.

Well, now looking at the forecast, I think at the end, adding up the performance in the first half year, seeing what are the expected deliveries, the current and the expected or the current backlog and the expected orders based on the order or project activity we are having. We see ourselves in a good position to, I'd say, narrow the forecast upwards on the basis of the raised guidance of May 12th. So revenue, 166 to 175 million. EBDA in the upper half here of the previous guidance, 31.5 to 34 million, and I'd say both EBIT and EBDA on adjusted basis as usual is now expected in a corridor between 21.5 to 25.5 million. Looking at all of this, you see us really confident with this framework here, but you see us also very focused and cautious and conscious about some of the areas to improve. I mentioned the power business. I mentioned also the acceleration here of the diversification and scaling in the U.S. We are expecting, I think, good order activity in Asia, mentioning India and Singapore here. And for the U.S., we should not forget that we are preparing for the reentry into the defense market. We will be present as of next week here talking to key parties there. So overall, I think a lot of activity. Ukraine, again, it's about deploy. It's about train, support and localize and new customers. And all of this, I think, also leaves us in a situation where we still need to work on supply chain availability, especially towards the year end. Because there's also one fact with, let's say, focus strongly on fast shipments here to the Ukraine in Q2, but also naturally partially in Q3. We were clearing out stock levels with a number of customers here apart from this business. And well, we did not leave any customer without products, but actually we brought down stock levels here in Ukraine. the chain to the customer and we are also expecting some catch-up effects here and all this together naturally leaves us with an element of assessment in autumn time to see whether there is still a headroom to work on the forecast. We have noticed that some of you have seen parts of it especially on the revenue side as conservative. Again, we feel very confident with this We have also sent out a safety date here for a capital market stay planned on the 7th of October in our Swindon facility. We would welcome you all. In best case, naturally, physically there to show our capabilities, the technological depth and breadth we have there here on the membrane development at manufacturing. But it naturally will be also a hybrid format here for those of you who cannot join us. An official invitation will follow. If you mark this in your calendars, we will be more than happy to welcome you there. With this, As always, we close here and open up the floor for Q&A. Thank you very much.

We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and 1 on their touchtone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and 2. Anyone who has a question, may press star and one at this time. Our first question comes from Usama Tariq with ABN Amrodo. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning, Tim. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two small questions. Number one is mostly housekeeping. So for H2, the HSTP-BDAT, you still have 20 million I know it's a little bit early. but we have a very big order in 2026. Compared that to 2027, do you foresee any possibility that it would be repeated for other Ukrainian forces? Any color there would be really, really appreciated. Thank you.

Maybe I can start with the second one, Oussama. Thanks very much for joining us. Well, as mentioned before, there is a lot of focus here on making sure we are creating the short-term and long-term basis here for repeating and perpetuating the business also in the Ukraine. just making sure that users can make proper use of our products now in their day-to-day obligations. I think that's fully on its way. At the same time, we are, let's say, present there consistently and also travel there on a regular basis also to, again, look into expanding the customer base within the armed forces, but then also look at repeat possibilities. Financing from a German and European perspective has been, let's say, delayed over the last couple of weeks with all the changes in the leadership there, but The decisions are there, the resources and the financial means will be there also in autumn time. So here overall, I think we need to work through the next couple of weeks and months to really assess what is the situation really for 2027. Overall, looking also at the demand outside of the Ukraine and our initiatives here on We are looking at further growth there. So for the assessment of the situation then in Ukraine, bear with us a couple of weeks. I think September, October timeframe, we should have a better picture here.

Paisa, so with regards to the EBITDA guidance and the lower end or the more conservative version, as you said, well, the nature of the lower end is that it really reflects certain possible expenses and uncertainties that may or may not occur in the second half of the year. So if we take this a little bit apart, of course, lower end is always a function of also lower end of the revenues. also to the lower end of the revenues when we come to the segment clean power management. As I mentioned before, you know, the impact of production overhead on that segment is a little bit higher than what we see in the segment clean energy. So this is something we factor in when we look at the low end of the guidance. also we are looking at potentially certain impairments on capitalized R&D expenses which we will see or will not see in the next two quarters something that we test every end of the quarter potentially higher IT spendings always in the third and the fourth quarter I will most likely see a bit of higher IT spending and that relates to the introduction of the ERP system towards the fourth quarter. And of course, Peter mentioned it's also building up support functions, service functions in the Ukraine, which is an investment on operating expenses. So yes, could be conservative, but naturally the sum of those extraordinary X or whatever expenses is then reflected in that lower, more conservative and conservative That's really what we're doing.

Thank you.

Thank you for the answer. Our next question comes from Carsten von Blumenthal with First Berlin Equity Research. Please go ahead.

Good morning, Peter. Good morning, Daniel. Congratulations to the excellent results. My first question is regarding Q4. Peter, you mentioned in the last call that you may face supply constraints and in this call you again said that you are working on the supply chain. So what is lacking in Q4 and what could be the revenue impact of supply constraints?

Good morning, Carsten. Thanks for being with us. I think at the end, working on it consistently also since last time we spoke, it's not about our own production capacity. It is really specific components for our products where We still are in, let's say, the order phase, and some of the deliveries that, I'd say, have to land here latest by end of September are not here yet. But to clarify, with the current guidance, we feel very confident. And so there is, let's say, supply chain constraints on the lower end factored in. and whether we will see and have some headroom here. I think that's the element of change. So what we see as a forecast here and the ranges that we published or have published this morning, we are safe on this one.

Thanks for that. Next question is regarding the Ukraine contract. I was surprised to hear that you have already delivered 22 million, that is more than half. And so can we expect that the rest will be delivered in Q3?

Well, I think that the element of urgency here is the need on the customer side. And if you recall, we also did compromise on some capacity already in Q1, expecting an even earlier closure of this contract. And that's, I think, why we were able to ship approximately half of it. The expectation here would be that we can execute on, I would say, virtually Most of it within end of September, give it some residual revenues also in Q4. This is not yet fully, I'd say, judgeable as some, as we said, some of the material is still on its way in. But we will see a significant part of it in Q3, which is already clear. So we are looking at, again, a very strong Q3.

and your capacity is sufficient to serve all your other clients?

That's exactly the point and what I mentioned before and tried to explain. I think we are managing this to the best we can. We cannot, I'd say, leave long-term growing customers here without the right level of attention and without the shipments of product. And that's why we are balancing this. But with this also, we are clearing stock positions here throughout the whole chain until the end user. And this will result in some catch-up effect also in Q4.

All right, understood. Thanks for that. You mentioned in your US business that you were successful in a broader customer base, but that volume-wise you are lagging behind. Could you elaborate on that? What hinders customers from ordering larger volumes? Do you need more time to explain the product or any difficulties in the market? What is going on in the U.S.?

No, I think if we look at the CCTV market, we are in the favorable position that we have, let's say, all the top players in the CCTV market already integrating our EFOI product. But at the same time, there is competition out there and they are at the end fighting for the same project. So it's less, call it regionally competitive, protected fragmented as we observe it in europe here where you have clear market leaders in different geographies going for for the business there it's more a head-to-head competition and we are seeing therefore let's say being uh um people being less um aggressive also than in their in their volume forecasts now we had a a a head start here with our largest customer, LifeView Technologies, but others are catching up and therefore I think that's an element that's on an intermediate basis I think slowing us down, seeing our integration in all their value chains here with the different competitors. I think we have a significant growth potential here ahead of us. It's not about being replaced by other technologies. It's at the end of the day a competition on our customers level.

Alright, that sounds rather promising. One last question regarding your defense business. You said that your product has become a must-have. So when do you expect further large orders, be it from Ukraine, be it from other armed forces? That would, of course, help to get visibility into 2027.

Well, I think we have a signaling effect out of what is being used in Ukraine, and this is not SFC-specific. If I look who, I'd say, is all going to there and get an understanding of this, let's say, new format of a combat situation, more agile, more mobile, I'd say electric and not so much a monolithic warfare. We are seeing all parts of armed forces from North America to Asia to the Middle East also being present in Ukraine watching and trying to learn and therefore we expect naturally also an impact on our business if we look at let's say what is in the pipeline I think on the OEM part we are expecting also for 27 the first programs to scale geographically in Europe. I mentioned already we are, as we speak, invited in the US to look at the development program here for a new generation of portable systems. Second element. And if we look at the activities now in Asia, I would say also most promising is the re-initiation and the refunding of our programs in place in India. So that would be, I think that The next question comes from Michael Kuhn with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. A few ones. I'll start with, let's say, backlog and visibility. Is your H2 guidance entirely based on backlog or is there some elements in the business that have shorter order cycles? And if so, what is the amount and what of the current backlog do you expect to carry into next year?

Good morning, Michael, Peter. Well, especially on the power side of the business, we have also part of the backlog naturally ranging significantly also into 2027. If we look at what you have here and if you see where we are at the mid-year you can say about a 25 million level of revenue is getting also into 2027 and therefore you also see that there is a residual part still let's say needed for the midpoint of the guidance but that is mostly the industrial part of our fuel cell business especially also the civilian security, the CCTV part. This is a business that in most cases is also intra quarter. So within, let's say eight to 12 weeks timeline, we are turning this around here with our CCTV customers. And that's why we have factored this also into our forecast. And that's actually also that part where we are working strongly also on, let's say, removing supply chain constraints also above, let's say, the midpoint of the guidance.

That's very clear. Thank you. Then on clean power management, you mentioned some softness of your key customer. Do you expect this to persist or that a problem to dissolve over the next few months and also in that segment you mentioned new use cases like drone defense lasers. Maybe you could share some thoughts on timeline and the size of the business opportunity here.

Absolutely. I think here on the power management side we have a an extremely reliable industrial partner with a precise forecasting and we knew that it would be a soft year. I think let's say that the fact that this was also now getting into let's say Q3 still was something that we had not factored in. At the end we see Their end markets at the beginning of the year, still one of their core end markets, semiconductors did apparently not deliver the pickup. This is now changing. The mere analytical market from research institutes to universities impacted also by funding constraints, especially in the US. has an impact going further. And that's why I think having right now a conservative outlook for this year is the right approach. Seeing the latest forecast, we see also the first uptick here towards the end of the year. under control. I think also good communication here at the same time our biggest semiconductor company in this segment as the semiconductor customer in this segment is accelerating programs so we expect an uptick there and on the defense part I think we will see and first shipments here into programs by 27. I mentioned the first OEM partnership here. We have launched this program here on all the defense shows throughout the first half year. And we also seeing, let's say, beyond this OEM program here, serious interest because it's Not a new development. It's actually an industrially matured power supply platform that is adapted for the laser use and for the laser application in defense. So it is something that is ready to use with adaptions to the customer-specific requirements. And therefore, yeah, we expect shipments to start in 2027. As always with OEM programs, we are at the end exposed to timelines that are out there with our OEM partners. But as everybody is growing in this segment and the supply chain is limited, I think it's a real good upside.

Thank you. One more on your acquisition. So I think you elaborated that you are basically closing a gap in the portfolio here, also where H2 fuel cells are not usable. Maybe also a few words here on use cases on, let's say, the impact on your overall product offering, whether there's any

replacement changes and and let's say by when you expect this new platform to be fully up and running within ssc and and how much it could contribute yeah um with all let's say naturally the the limitations of just being in the process of finalizing the the acquisition and and and starting the integration i think strategically very clear. There are customers who cannot or who are not willing for whatever reasons, logistics, security, who are not willing to take, let's say, hydrogen as a fuel and they are reformed methanol, converting methanol into hydrogen onsite and then using the hydrogen in the fuel cell. and therefore also reduce the bill of materials in proportion to the output number in terms of watts or kilowatts is a compelling solution. We did a classical make or buy assessment here. Instead of, let's say, going there and do, let's say, all the R&D from scratch, it was a Very good opportunity to, let's say, make use of naturally the difficulties sequence faced here in terms of commercialization of the product. Setting up and establishing an international sales organization partnership structure, I think, was the major hurdle they had to face. combined naturally with some final improvements of the product stability, longevity, operations time. And I think in both areas we can help immediately at the end. Customer use cases range from defense to the CCTV area to the oil and gas area. We see the demand for this kind of power level. If you take CCTV, we are all looking at increased power needs because of AI-based camera systems and computing power already on site and therefore it's a logical reaction then to increase the power levels of the fuel cell as the backup power source here to battery and solar. So We see, I'd say, initial projects where in some of them few, but still some of them we were competing, where we would clearly favor now the new platform and offer this. And we want to have first systems out. We're actually working with those customers already. And we might even ship some of those products still in Q4 of this year. depending on how fast we are in recovering here let's say the supply chain and do the touch-ups but we definitely will be able to ship in 2027 but expect let's say a modest number here we are not talking about 10 million sales we are talking about let's say the first 20 to 50 systems and we are talking about let's say from a 1 million to a 3 to 5 million impact here in this period of time. And it is also naturally about testing the systems out there. But still, we are also consolidating the offering. We are the only one now having this consistent full stage offering here on a worldwide basis. And therefore, I think we are making ourselves more interesting for customers to go with us along the whole range of products.

Thank you. Thank you. Our next question comes from Malte Sharman with World Book Research. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning, guys. This question is on... The gross margin. We had a pretty strong mix in the first half of the year. So what are your thoughts about the second half? I mean, product mix might look almost the same with still a big chunk of the Ukraine order to come into the third quarter. So what are your thoughts about gross margin development in Q3 and Q4?

Hi, this is Daniel. So gross margin development for the second half of the year Apparently, as you just mentioned it, we are looking at strong orders or a strong delivery in Ukraine in the third quarter. So we would have a very strong cross-martial again in the third quarter, probably around the level of what we've seen in the second quarter, plus minus, of course. because we have some effects in there. And then the fourth product, it kind of depends. I would see still a very good cross-motion, but there is a big dependency, remember, on what we deliver, what we can deliver, in which markets we can deliver, mostly because of, you know, making sure that we have all parts available, less because of auto backlog, more because availability of parts. So to make it short, Third quarter, very strong and good. Third quarter, there is a bit of a variety from good to strong.

Okay, sounds good. Then on the clean power business, we are down almost 15% here in the first half of the year. I mean, Q3 does not look like it would pick up immediately. Maybe Q4, but Q4 last year was also strong. So is that minus 10, minus 15% sales growth, sales development, the right view to look at this business for the full year in 2026 and then hopefully pickup will happen next year?

Well, yeah, I would say we expect an improvement in H2. As mentioned, there are some signs of recovery here in the European part, and especially also from oil and gas customers, we see consistent investment. So I think a range of up to 10% is what we would see as our assessment today in our year-end forecast.

Okay. Platinum, did you implement some hedges earlier in the year or towards the end of last year? Is the hedge position still in place?

No, there's no hedge position. We did not implement any hedges, luckily, because we've seen the platinum pricing decline. So the answer is no. We just bought quite an amount of platinum, which is physically are physically staying with us to lock in on the lower prices.

Okay, that's good. Then you mentioned the adoption of your power supply platform for defense applications. Can you elaborate on the opportunity? What revenue contributions might come out of that in one, two, three years?

Yeah, as I said, there are a number of OEMs out there who are really looking for, let's say, an acceleration of their supply chain, an expansion of their supply chain. We have a classical dual-use product here of high-tech industries using it. And therefore, we are fast to market. And if we look at it, and if you look, let's say, on a midterm basis, yeah, this is a business where we would expect, let's say, lower double digit business coming out of this, but we are also looking at Procurement cycles that are, I'd say, usually slow at the beginning and then start to scale. So that's why we started with a conservative approach here for 27 and then we see how fast scaling goes there. But yeah, the market is there and I think we have a proven platform that is, let's say, The Clear Advantage of Our Dual Use Product Strategy.

Okay. Then on the business in India, will that be to gradually get your order intake or do you expect kind of a bigger order at some point in time in the third or fourth quarter?

Well, I think we are looking at really a re-initiation of those programs. That is at least what we also learned from our partners when sitting together a couple of weeks ago. We also see, let's say, the activities on what we do on the support contracts where we see our products are fully in use. We are out there with all our service capabilities, supporting them in the field. and therefore, still, for the outlook, we are looking at a higher backlog than revenue impact in 2026. But as their fiscal year goes until our first quarter in 2027, I think this is where we will see, let's say, the biggest part of the impact, not going back to, let's say, the level immediately of where we were two and a half years ago, but catching up and getting back to those levels, I would say within a period of 24 to 36 months is absolutely realistic because we have to install base out there. They need to refresh, they need to restuff. And as far as we see it right now, funding is back in place. Okay. Thank you, Malte.

As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, you may press star and one. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I would now like to hand over back to Mr. Podesser for any closing remarks.

Once again, you see ourselves here very confident for the remaining part of the year, addressing what needs to be addressed. And for the time being, if there are any further questions on a bilateral basis with Daniel, myself, also Suzanne, we are at your disposal. And we thank you very much for your time on this nice mid-August morning here. Thank you very much. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Thank you.

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