Wienerberger AG

My name is Judith and I'm your operator for today. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in a listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may click on the raise your hand button. If you're connected via phone, please press star key nine to enter the queue and star key six to unmute yourself afterwards. We are looking forward to the presentation and with this I hand over to the Senior Officer Investor Relations, Alfredo Sebelia.

Thank you Judith and good morning everyone. Welcome to the call. Just a couple of words from my side. I just recently joined the Investor Relations team. I've been with the company for a little over three and a half years and I look forward to working with my interview on the call. Before we get into the results, I hand it over to the chair of the supervisory board, Mr. Peter Steiner, for some opening remarks. Thank you.

Thank you, Alfredo. And hello, everyone. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon, wherever you are joining us from. I know it is not the usual format. The chairman of the supervisory board does not typically open an analyst call. So let me explain why I'm here. Before Gerhard and Dagmar take you through the key developments and numbers, I want to address the announcement we've made the day before yesterday, and you deserve it to hear it from me personally. On Monday, we announced that our CEO Heimo Scheuch had asked the supervisory board to accept the early termination of his mandate to allow him to fully focus on his personal health. The supervisory board accepted his decision and we appointed Gerhard Hanke, who was deputy CEO of Wienerberger and will now act as interim CEO with immediate effect. Heimo Scheuch took the helm of Wienerberger in 2009. Think about what the company looked like then, a traditional brick manufacturer, solid but narrow scope. What is Wienerberger today? A leading international group, a business spanning the entire building envelope and infrastructure, a company with a clear and credible sustainability agenda, present across markets that matter. That transformation is his achievement. 17 years as CEO, 17 years of decisions, of resilience, of building something that lasts, and is well positioned to get to the next level. On behalf of the entire supervisory board, I want to express my profound gratitude for everything Heimo has built. We deeply respect his decision and sincerely hope that he can now dedicate all his energy to his health. So where does that leave us? As supervisory board, it is now our responsibility to ensure continuity and we are in a very solid position to do so. Let me tell you why. With Gerhard Hanke as interim CEO, we have exactly the right person to lead us through this transition until we have appointed a new permanent CEO. Gerhard has been with Wienerberger for over 25 years. He knows the company, he knows the business from every angle. Operationally, financially, strategically. As he served as CFO from 2021 to 2025, many of you know him well. In March 2025, Gerhard became COO Central and East, and in June 2026, he took on the role of Deputy Chairman of the Management Board. At the time, it reflected our commitment to strong operational leadership and the ongoing evolution of our management structure. As it turns out, that decision serves us very well today. The rest of the management board remains unchanged. Dagmar Steinert continues as CFO, Harald Schwarzmayr continues as COO West. The leadership team around Gerhard is experienced, stable and aligned. We are now conducting a structured search for permanent CEO successor and will communicate further and Jukos. So let me close with this. Today's call is about performance, about results, about what more than 20,000 people across more than 200 sites across the world have delivered in the second quarter of 2026. There is no doubt some markets are currently facing very challenging conditions. At the same time, I want to emphasize that Wienerberger is a company with a clear strategy and a strong team. A company that has pushed forward, evolved and reinvented itself again and again. That does not change today. Thank you very much for your attention and with that I will turn over to Gerhard and Dagmar. Thank you.

Thank you, Peter. for your open remarks and also for joining us today. Also a lovely good afternoon from my side and the whole Wienerberger team. I'm glad to have you on the call today. First of all, let me also take a moment and wish Heimo a speedy recovery and all the best for his future. Also from my side, I would like to express my sincere gratitude for his vision, dedication also for Wienerberger during the last almost 30 years. You have received our trading update a few weeks back. We sent out on July 21st, where we informed you about the performance of the company. The next 30 minutes, we will focus, Dagmar and myself, on the most essential points. of the half year numbers respectively on the second quarter numbers. Let's walk quickly through the half year numbers and the second quarter results. In general, the first half year, 2026, was more challenging than we expected in the beginning of the year. On the one hand, you heard about we had quite harsh weather conditions in January, February. We had a Middle East conflict which started in the end of March, which led to a higher cost inflation and also to higher financing costs. and we had market developments especially in the US, UK and Canada in new residential housing which were further declining and all that resulted that the group's performance stayed behind expectations. Let me walk you especially through the second quarter. I mentioned it, we had this year Maybe a little bit a different start. We had on the one side the harsh weather conditions in January, February. By the end of the first quarter, the Middle East conflict started. So we had this year, let's say a little bit later, a good few, the markets and the quality of the markets and the market conditions, basically where we are in today. The market conditions, We see that the infrastructure and the renovation markets remained resilient. They are according to our expectations. We see that the renovation market was supported by the decarbonization projects on the old European housing stock, while in the piping segment, respectively the infrastructure market, We have seen a solid demand driven by the European water resilience strategy and also by upgrades of the European power grids. The activities in continental Europe, we have seen a normalizing after the first two months. We see a bottoming out, even if across Europe, continental Europe, we have different dynamics, but overall we see that The markets, the activities in continental Europe are bottoming out and coming back to a normalized level. In contrast, and it was mentioned also already in our trading update, the residential housing markets in North America and UK remained substantially below our expectations. We have seen even a further decline and this was definitely not foreseen or expected in the beginning of the year. And this at the end translated as a second quarter performance financially that our revenues increased by plus 13% to 1.4 billion, which reflects A 7% organic growth driven by volume and price and 6% came from the scope from the acquisitions which we realized in the second quarter. Operating EBITDA declined by 230 million. We have seen a 30 million headwind from weaker residential housing markets, mainly as mentioned in the US And we were also at the result is impacted heavily impacted by the cost inflation, which was driven by logistics, energy, and also the higher racing costs. Let me say some words on our strategic transformation as we also took significant steps in the second quarter. The portfolio is continually transforming. We are moving further away from our cyclical residential new built portfolio to a more resilient renovation and infrastructure portfolio. We have today, after the last two acquisitions, around about 60% of our group revenues. coming from these end markets, meaning renovation and infrastructure. So we are today structurally much more diversified, less cyclical and much better positioned also to navigate the delayed recovery in residential new-build markets. The last two acquisitions during the second quarter, especially Italchair, but also News Group, are contributing significantly to this transformation, as I just explained. But let me give you once more some insights on the Italchair acquisition. As most of you most probably know, the deal was closed in April this year. We bought a major stake in Italchair, an Italian specialist for ceramic wall and floor tiles. And we bought a strong scalable platform To further create value, it is complementing perfectly our strategic focus on the building. And I put also here two pictures, which I think we're very nicely reflecting where this company is also in. It's not traditionally the floor tiles and the wall tiles, what you have maybe in mind from the kitchen and from the bathroom. No, it is a strong footprint also in the facade. And this is also what we see after the first few months of integration. that we see especially in the markets Italy, France, US where we have a strong footprint and also Italy has a strong footprint or let's say a strong commercial network that we are realizing first commercial synergies by common customer basis. So we see that especially from investors, developers but also construction companies that we are able to benefit from Our strong commercial network, but also from that, what Italchair is providing to the group. So we are happy with this acquisition. Things are moving. We see already a strong contribution in the second quarter to our group results. And we're expecting basically the same also for the second half of this year. The second one is a significant smaller one. What we realized, we bought in April, The News Group, a Swedish company located in Sweden, which has a turnover of plus minus 20 million, EBITDA of roughly 3-4 million, so different size, more specialized, more specialized in the sense of water recycling and sewage treatment, and brings us or provides us a good footprint also, not only for Sweden, in principle for the whole Nordic region. So these two acquisitions were contributing also to the transformation where we are constantly working on. And let me also just to complete, we did a major step also in 2024 when we bought Terreal Group, A major investment in the roofing business, which has a strong footprint also there. I mean, it's about renovation activities around the building, especially in the residential building. We took a major step also here a few years back. The last slide before I hand over to Dagmar, for me, Peter asked me, respectively, the supervisory board asked me to take on or to step into this interim CEO role. It was clear for me. I do that with a strong sense of commitment, respectively, also with great responsibility and with a lot of respect. We are fully aware where we are in. We just sent out the trading update where we had to adjust the guidance. So it's clear what is needed and what is expected from us as managing board. We are basically facing a headwind in our EBITDA of around about 100 million euros, as explained due to the markets which we which I described before. When we did in the beginning our regular pricing measures, what was foreseen, and then was confronted with the Middle East conflict by the end of March, where basically the cost inflation started to increase, which we have seen then mainly in the second quarter, it was clear we have to take a second step on pricing, on a pricing measure. And we also see that we are realizing now by end of June, beginning of July, that our pricing level is almost 5% above the beginning of the year. And this is also needed for us to cover the cost inflation, what we have basically also in our books. Secondly, it was clear we have to Improve what to accelerate our program, our fit for growth program. We expect this year a contribution of around about 25 million, so roughly about 10 million in addition to that what we have communicated in the beginning of the year. Working capital management, there will be a strong focus in the second half year on the balance sheet. Part of it will be working capital management. Dagmar will say a little bit more about it. But we are expecting a 50 million organic reduction, and we will also reduce our CAPEX program to the most necessary things, what is needed for the company. Still, when we look to our balance sheet, I'm confident we have a robust balance sheet. A good and sound liquidity position and we have stable financing cost, which is important. Top priority for the next months will be or will remain to proactively manage the performance, but also the leverage. And that means that things like capital allocation and working capital management, other cash conservancy measures are basically on top of the list of managing boards. With that, I would like to hand over to Dagmar. Dagmar will provide you much more details also on the numbers for the second quarter and the first half year.

Thank you Gerhard and a warm welcome from my side. I will guide you now through our numbers starting with the second quarter, then of course give you the picture for the full half year and more insights about our measures, what actions we take to deliver. So let's start with the overview and what you see on chart number nine is Wienerberger really shows resilience. And that is the result of our transformation. And what you see as well, the second quarter has really strong growth. It's 13% above previous year's quarter. Yes, 6% is regarding to scope, but 7% organic growth. That's really a great number. Unfortunately, on the results operating ABTA, as already mentioned, as below previous year's quarter, you heard about difficult market conditions, especially in new residential housing in UK, US and Canada. that really is a burden on our numbers but I can assure you we focus on the right topics to maintain our profitability. Looking slightly into working capital development in absolute numbers it's 1.4 billion and compared with previous year it's 60% up but of course due to acquisitions scope that is included in that numbers. So organic, we are below previous year, even with quite a high inflation in the second quarter. Coming now to the revenue bridge, and I would like to start with scope, these 6% or 77 million growth, because that is, it touches its new school, and Gerhard explained how it fits into our strategy and how it opens up our opportunities for further growth for the whole group. As already mentioned, quite strong 7% organic growth in the second quarter and despite these difficult market conditions for us. So, new residential housing remains under pressure and we've seen this weakness in our key markets. So looking at the 7% a little bit deeper, it's like almost two-thirds volume and about more than one-third price. Why do we just see a bit more than one third price in the second quarter? Because it's not on a full run rate, because the pricing effect in the second quarter is limited due to the lead times between announcement of a price increase and of course the effective date. There we will see more in the second half of the year. Our growth, our organic growth, volume growth, is supported by a strong performance in renovation and infrastructure. And that shows, as well, our resilience. Coming to the operating EBITDA bridge, chart number 11. SCO gave us an 8% growth. Higher Operating ABTA in the second quarter, mainly driven of course by ITELJA and the newsgroup. We show a negative organic growth of minus 15% or minus 38 million. And this is mainly the reason because we are missing a lot of contribution From our key markets in UK, Canada and US in the residential new build sector. And it's not only that the demand is weak, of course, as well due to lower volumes, we see underutilization, we have higher cost of idle capacity. and that there we have not been able to offset that by a stable performance in renovation and infrastructure, which is in line with our original expectations. As already mentioned, our price increases in the second quarter are of course visible, but not in a full effect. On the other hand, the inflation which is or higher inflation which was driven by the middle east conflict really showed up like the full effect in the second quarter therefore overall we have still in the second quarter a negative price over course and that's the reason why we show a negative organic growth overall with the inflation of around minus seven percent in the second quarter The working capital bridge, to give you there a little bit more insight, what we are doing regarding our working capital management and so on, as you can see, we see in absolute numbers an increase of 6%, but if we take out M&A, we see already minus 29 million or between 2 and 3% organic working capital reduction. Despite higher inflation, because there is quite a high inflation in plastic, in raising prices, in energy prices and logistics and all other commodities. So we have a strict working capital management in place. That is a key priority. And we want to see at least a net organic reduction by 50 million to support our net debt by the year end. Just a little bit of view on our operating sectors, you know, West, North East and North America for the second quarter. In Europe West, starting with Europe West, that includes UK, therefore, The operating EBITDA is below a previous year's figure. On the other hand, our acquisition ETAL share is partly included in the region Europe West and partly included in the region Europe East. So overall, looking at the performance, and having in mind the difficult market environment regarding new build, we see a stable performance in Europe East. We see, if you take into account the really double-digit negative development regarding UK, you see a stable development in Europe West and a significant decline in North America. And in North America, it's not only driven by the weakness in new residential housing, but it's as well there's a pressure on pricing for PVC products in the US. I will give you some more insights into the regions regarding the development of one or the other country coming to our first half year figures. A little bit just to sum it up about the inflation development. In the first quarter, 2026, we've seen 2% inflation, which was broadly in line with our expectations. We've seen a stable development of energy prices, and there was not more than any impact of the Middle East conflict, which just started by the end of February, seen. In the second quarter, everything of course shows up. We've seen resin market with shortages, plastic prices really increased. We've seen increases, especially in Europe, in raising between 60 to 70%. We've seen very high peaks regarding gas prices. And as you know, we always have a portion of unfixed volumes. And of course, Higher oil prices impact everything, all other commodities. Overall, we have seen an inflation in our second quarter by 7%, and for the half year, 2026, it sums up to 4%. I'm coming now to the development of our first half here and I would like to start a little bit with our volume and price development and you see here a slightly different picture because we excluded UK and North America and put the rest of Europe into one figure because it's just easier to explain. So overall you can see we have a really deep, strong decline in new residential housing in UK and North America. Volume-wise it's minus 12%. That at the end results in the group, it adds up to a figure by minus 4%. The rest of Europe in new residential housing, quite stable, Volume development of plus 1%. Renovation as well not as good in UK and North America as in the rest of Europe. Therefore, there we see a negative number of minus 7%. Positive continental Europe is plus 4%. So within the group, we see a positive figure plus 2%. And infrastructure as well, UK and North America negative, but that's mainly North America. Looking at the prices, price development. One number really pops up, that's minus 8% in infrastructure, UK and North America. And I would like to make really clear that's only North America and it's not UK. and the number of negative price effect in North America is a double-digit number. Overall in the group, we see a price effect of plus 2%, as well as in continental Europe, plus 2%. Coming now to the revenue and operating ABTA bridge for the first half year, starting with the revenues. We've seen a weak first quarter affected by bad weather conditions. We've seen a strong second quarter on the top line. And overall, of course, we see plus 4% in our revenue bridge as an increase. It's more or less attributable to our acquisitions, to scope, and just a really moderate organic growth. Therefore, let me say, or put it in other words, the week first quarter was compensated by the strong second quarter, and therefore organically it somehow leveled out in the half year. Looking at our operating EBITDA, the picture is a little bit different because our operating EBITDA was in the first quarter, it was below previous year in the second quarter as well. Therefore, overall for the first half, we report minus 15% operating EBITDA and come out with a result of 326%. Our negative organic growth sums up to minus 71 and that's driven by the weak volumes in the first quarter and the massive underperformance in new residential housing in our key markets UK, US, Canada and of course inflation. So these are three reasons why we have these negative organic growths. Coming now to our operating segments. And I would like to start with our region, European West, where you can see that we have an increase in our top line by 5% and minus 8% operating EBTA development. And just to remember, UK is included in the region, European West. So I would like now to give you a little bit more details about our markets in the different regions and new residential housing that remains in the region Europe West at low levels, even if you see increases of planning permissions, but they are not translating into more housing starts. And this is especially true for markets like France and Germany. I can't mention it more often, but UK is even worse. On the other hand, the housing starts in Benelux. They are stable to positive but we see as well a swing towards more multi-family housing and that is something which we see especially in Netherlands and that impacts of course our new build products as well. Renovation. Our renovation driven demand in Europe rests on grain solid. It's supported by energy transition initiatives and With the exception of Germany and UK, where we see really a lack of consumer confidence, funding programs driving the impact on the markets and it's really overall a stable development for us as expected. Infrastructure. is supported by, of course, raw material price increases. And we have seen stock building of one or the other customer. But underlying demand is still OK, and our price increases are working. I'm coming now to the region Europe East. And in Europe East, of course, As well, we've seen the difficult first quarter, but looking now at the half year figures, I would like to guide you through the markets. We've seen a new residential housing, a positive trend in building permits in some Eastern European countries. I would like to name especially Poland, but that is almost offset by declines in other Eastern European countries, Italy, Croatia, and the demand in Single family houses is largely stable, while growth is, as in Western Europe, more in multistore residential construction. Coming to renovation, in renovation, our roofing business is okay, and we see there as well an increasing trend The infrastructure business in Eastern Europe has been generally very stable in the first half of the year. And I would like to point out here, for instance, Poland, for example, where the public sector is currently the most important driver for the growth. In North America, our most difficult segment in the current year, we see, of course, these very high interest rates, marked uncertainty, which is really bad for housing demand. And in new residential housing, there's a double-digit decrease. If you make the split between US and Canada, Canada is even worse compared with US. Renovating or renovation is solid in North America and infrastructure has a difficult development as well because prices are And therefore, of course, that gives us as well a pressure on profitability and operating EBITDA. But overall, looking at North America, we have, on the other hand, a lot of initiatives to reduce costs and especially SG&E costs. Now I would like to give you a little bit more insight about our reconciliation of EBTA on group level to operating EBTA. Because you see there is a significant number of 17 million one-offs. Well, 7 million are related to acquisition costs, mainly etal chair. We see 17 million restructuring measures. That of course is, as in the past, to improve profitability in the coming years through optimizing our industrial footprint. In that case, especially in the piping and facing brick business, we took out one or the other capacity. But that's, I would say, not a surprise. What was, I guess, for you a surprise is these minus 47 million The US antitrust lawsuit and that is something where we had a lawsuit in the US at our Jetstream subsidiary that Jetstream is in the piping business and we agreed to a settlement in this antitrust class action and At the end, we have to pay a total amount of 52 million US dollars or 47 million euros. Why have we not been published that in our trading update? We haven't been allowed due to legal restrictions. Therefore, we want to apologize that you Get it presented today and not earlier, but it was not possible. Very important. We didn't do anything wrong. The question is, you are part of this lawsuit, this action class in the US and with other companies and other companies started to make settlements. And then the risks increases that no matter if you didn't do anything wrong, that you might face a high number of, yeah, that you will, you face a risk that you have to pay really lots of million, much more than 52 US dollars, million US dollars. and therefore the management decided to go for that settlement to take risk away from the company to avoid the uncertainty and of course to go out of that litigation. For us, we treat that amount as a one-off. But we will have to pay it in the current year, therefore it will reduce our cash flow. This brings me to my next point, balance sheet management, because besides profitability, besides our operating EBITDA, it is most important to keep a robust balance sheet, to have actions and management plan in place to reduce our net debt. Because due to first, we are missing 100 million operating EVTA. Second, we have an additional 50 million outflow from this settlement in the US. So we are missing 150 million cash flow roughly. and that of course changed our net debt position by the year end 2026 and therefore we were going to give you here an outlook on our leverage where we expect it to be by the end of this year unfortunately at 2.8 and there is a plan in place not only for the current year for the running year but as well how going forward forward like the next 18 months until the end of 2027 and the leverage 2.4 for us is the absolute minimum or maximum, the minimum target but the maximum where we want to come out. We want to show a lower number, of course. What are we doing? We have our cost management and saving costs, of course, fit for growth, which we contribute up to 25 million in the current year. We save cash as well. We have strict working capital management. We are... Analyzing our inventories to see how are we able to decrease our inventories, our stock to get a positive effect on the working capital. We have our departments like purchasing to even search more on the supplier side to optimize our procurement. We have a focus on capex. What do we need? When do we need it? And do we really have to spend it? Does it really have to be that much? And there are a lot of things in place to manage and to reduce our leverage. And I want again to repeat, This 2.4 by the end of 2027, that number is the maximum and would like you to keep it like that. On the other hand, looking at our financing costs, the financing cost will increase by 10 million in the current year. and our interest rate is stable. It will be 4% in 2026 compared with 3.8% in 2025. And that's just the result of financing the acquisition of Italchair. And Rosette, I would like to hand over again to Gerhard to give you the outlook.

Thank you, Dagmar. Ladies and gentlemen, before we go to the outlook, let me say some words on the assumptions which we took in the beginning of the year as certain things really drastically changed also when we started this year and where we are today. And we tried to summarize this on this one slide. And in principle, there are two major effects that would make the world differently than what we have assumed in the beginning of the year. On the one side, we have not considered or foreseen the impact, the heavy impact of the Middle East crisis. This was not reflected. And this had also the consequence that we have seen quite some inflationary pressure in the second quarter and that we also will have some inflationary pressure also in the second half. As a consequence, and also interest rates were going up, financing costs are going up. So this was definitely not foreseen in the beginning of the year. Second thing is that we in the beginning of the year have assumed flat markets when it's about residential housing in UK and North America. And on the other side, we have seen a further decline actually. And considering these circumstances, this led to this 100 million on headwind, what Dagmar was mentioning before. I think important is the measures which are in place are clear. It's about discipline, it's about execution. We expect market-wise not a different picture in the second half. We expect that infrastructure and renovation and markets stay on that level where we are. Residential housing, independently if it is continental Europe or if it is UK and North America what we have seen in the second quarter we believe reflects also quite good what we expect for the second half. So it's about implementing consequently measures to secure the performance and on the other side also executing measures when it's about Capital allocation and also securing and controlling the leverage. I mentioned it, I just wanted to repeat once more one crucial point to reach the 700 million on operating EBITDA is the pricing power and we are confident there. As we are seeing already almost a 5% that this will cover our cost inflation, what we expect for the second half. Supported will be this measure by extra efforts out of our cost saving program, where we do an additional 10 million this year. And on the other side, we are focusing On our debt position to reach, as Dagmar mentioned, the 2.8 time till the end of the year by bringing working capital down and also reducing once more the capex for the second half to the minimum level. And this is the first step and the second step will follow then in 2027. The midterm goal, which we communicated already years before, the two times, is still valid, respectively, is a full commitment from the management board on this net debt leverage. And with these words, I would like also to stop here, and I would like to hand over to you, ladies and gentlemen, and to get the Q&A started. Thank you.

Thank you very much for your presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now start the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, you may click on the raise your hand button. And if you are connected via phone, please press star key nine to enter the queue on your telephone keypad. And with star key six, you can unmute yourself. And we already have a few hands raised. Daniel Kayenuri from Morgan Stanley, the stage is yours.

Daniel, cannot hear you.

Daniel?

Hi, can you hear me now?

Yes.

Perfect. Thank you. Thank you. First of all, thank you for taking my questions. And I do want to send best wishes to Heimo and his family given his recent health challenge. Just back to my question on performance. It would be useful to start with the Q2 EBITDA bridge. It does look like you experienced quite a lot of cost inflation despite the hedging program. Is there anything in last year's comparison base distorting the year-on-year movement? Am I wrong to assume you were benefiting from CO2 credit sales last year, which were included in the operating EBITDA, and you are now missing that benefit? Am I wrong there?

No, there are no material CO2 credits in the last year's figures, and of course there are not any in the current year.

Okay, okay, thank you. And just a question on the four-year guidance, the update to the guidance. There's an implied pickup in H2 versus H1, and I know you walked through some of the working assumptions on the slides already, but it would just be useful to understand expectations around volumes, and perhaps if you could talk to the updated phasing of the cost optimization program. I know you added some... So just the working assumptions behind the new budget and the phasing of the cost optimization would be useful.

Well, the working assumptions behind our H2 in the running year is it's quite simple because we will see the full effect of our price increases which been just partly coming through or visible in the second quarter of the current year and therefore we are looking towards a balanced price over cost number and we don't expect that the new residential housing market especially in UK, US and Canada is going to Thank you very much. A performance as expected in continental Europe regarding our renovation and infrastructure business. And inflation, which counted for minus 7% in the second quarter, of course, that will stay at a higher number in the second half of the year, because 4% for the first half of the year is not a run rate. Thank you.

Thank you for your questions, Daniel. And we will move on to Isaac Otio from On Field Research. You may speak now.

Hi, thanks for the presentation and best wishes to Heimo. First, I wanted to follow up on the Q2 EBITDA bridge and kind of trying to break down the organic decline. So correct me if I'm wrong, but prices were kind of up 3% in Q2. So that would imply 40 million positive impacts. And we've cost inflation of 7%, which implies maybe a 70 million hit. And then you've got currency and scope adding 16 million. So putting these together, we get to an EBITDA decline of around maybe 14 million, excluding your volumes. And you had a positive volume impact. So we would have expected some offset from that. So we're kind of struggling to reconcile that against your 23 million decline. So could you maybe help us understand the gap? Is that the volume impact was lower because of geographic mix? Could you give maybe some color on that, or are there some additional costs beyond the 7% inflation you disclose, or am I missing something?

Well, we have the negative effect from new residential housing in UK and Canada and US, and that counts for more than 20 million. and of course that includes as well underutilization in that area. We have a positive volume effect in continental Europe and a negative price over cost of the figure in the mid-30s. Okay, thanks.

On volumes, have you seen any pre-buying? And how is July tracking against Q2?

Well, volumes, of course, there might be one or the other pre-buying, especially in infrastructure piping business, because due to the Really high increase of raw material prices. Of course, customers expected on our side increasing prices as well. But we can't, of course, identify what is pre-buying and what not. Therefore, it's a little bit difficult to make any statement regarding that. And July is always not the strongest month in the summer. It's more or less everywhere, holiday time and so on.

I think the pre-buying effects, what you have seen or what we have seen, we have seen more or less in March, April when the Middle East crisis started and it was clear that we will be hit by some cost inflation and therefore there we have seen some of them. As Dagmar mentioned, July, August are rather, let's say, months which are maybe what you anyhow have Thank you very much. And maybe finally, last question, sorry, but you had

3% pricing in Q2, so what would be your exit rate in Q3 and maybe H2? Could we get to 5% pricing in the back half?

Well, just looking at Q3, Q4, it's not a number which is totally out of range. But maybe to your former question, I would just like to add, we've seen, of course, in July, a very hot temperature, a very extreme summer, and that might even impact one or the other building activity.

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you, Isaac. And we will move on to Michael Marschallinger from Erste Group. Michael, please.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. Also, all the best to Mr. Scheuch and the speedy recovery. I have three questions. Firstly, given the scale of the profit warning and the much weaker than expected residential new build markets in North America, how should we think about the midterm targets you presented just a couple of months ago at your CMD? Are these targets still valid or delayed or need a reassessment?

Maybe if I may start with the first one, the scale or let's say the delay in the recovery. Yes, we confirm the billion. It is linked to the recovery of new housing in Europe and in the US mainly. Keep in mind, we are running our production sites today with a capacity utilization of plus minus 60-65%, bringing this back on a normalized level to 80-85%. And this is also what we have communicated in the past. This will give already quite a leverage. In addition to that, you remember all the initiatives, what we have taken on restructuring costs, taking costs out. I strongly believe we will emerge stronger if housing comes back where we were before. So yes, this mid-term target is confirmed.

Okay, thank you. Then could you please comment on further possible one-offs in H2, either on structural adjustments or sale of non-core assets?

Well, of course, we intend to sell one or the other non-core property as already announced. And we will see there one or the other in the second half.

Major restructuring costs are not... We will see smaller things across the portfolio. We see some smaller things in East. Also, we have some smaller things in the West. We just discussed yesterday about US, the plant network in the US. So I would say, yes, we will see some of the one-offs, but I would say maximum to a 10 million one-off of restructuring.

Okay, thanks. And then my last question. With Netbed operating EBITDA now guiled for 2.8 times at year end, and if you take reported numbers, maybe above three even, does this higher leverage in your view affect the timing or timing or likelihood of exercising the call option for the remaining Etulcher shares in H1-27?

No, we will continue because buying Italchair in two steps was to like make it a little bit easier for our net debt and Italchair fits perfect into our strategy and therefore, no, we will, it doesn't defer debt. And on the chart, 22. You see these roughly 180 million amount, which is outstanding for acquisitions to buy first like minorities of retail share, which will be a number of 160 and the 20 million are other purchase price liabilities we have to pay. So that's all included.

Okay, thanks a lot.

Thank you very much, Michael. And we will move on to Julian Radlinger from UBM.

Yeah, thanks very much, guys. Appreciate it. So two from me. First of all, if we could dig in a little bit on that neutral price cost assumption you're making in H2. So you sound on this part, you sound quite confident. And I just wanted to double check, is that Is that based on an assumption of oil and gas and as a result of oil, obviously plastic resin input staying at the current levels? Or are you assuming a little bit of a drop off or something over the course of the second half of the year? Thank you.

Well, the assumption is, of course, that it is neutral or balanced, but for renovation and infrastructure and the negative price over cost we see in new build in UK, US and Canada is, of course, part of the 100 million we are missing.

But maybe if I may add here, we have. Considering the hedging levels, what we have on the energy and what is open positions, this is why I think we feel comfortable to show a balanced price-cost spread in the second half. We have basically a clear understanding based on the long-term contracts and also on the hedging levels what we have for the second half.

Okay. And then my second question is, so in Eastern Europe, your sales were up 29% year on year all in. I think you said that ItalShare is sort of partly in Eastern and partly in Western Europe. So if I split it down the middle, I'm left with double digit organic growth in Eastern Europe in Q2. And based on what you're saying about pricing, I guess, The bigger part of that will be volume. So my question here is, first of all, is that correct? Did you have double-digit volume growth in Eastern Europe, which would be really strong, obviously, in Q2? And I know what you said about customer stocking, and maybe you had some here and there. It's hard to say, but Are you factoring any kind of a reversal of that into the guidance? Are you seeing any reversal of that? Has that continued so far? Would love to understand that a bit better. Thank you.

The volume growth in Eastern Europe is not double-digit. It is a high single-digit volume growth. The rest is pricing in Eastern Europe. And the second part of the question, you said, if we reverse...

The question was, I think it was asked already before, basically whether you're assuming any kind of reversal from what might be stock building in the second quarter, basically. If you're factoring any of that into the guidance.

No.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you for your questions, Julian. And we will move on to Markus Remies, who is currently via the phone in this call. Yes, you're already unmuted. Welcome, Markus Remy from Odoo.

Yeah, hi, good afternoon all. The first question relates to the investment volume that you have baked in your net debt target for the full year. Can you give us an update here and related to that? I see 130 million out for ETA share. If I'm not mistaken, the equity value was 160 mentioned at the capital market today. So is there still 30 million then coming in the third quarter?

No, it's what you see like in the cash flow statement. It's 160 million minus 30 million net cash in hands on Italchair. So the purchase price for the 50% plus one was 160. And there's nothing more to come in the second half of the year.

Okay, very clear. And on the CapEx figure for 2026, can you give us an update?

Well, on the CapEx figure 2026, we are... Working on it, we have a program initiated and in place to reduce it. We have strict control of every capex, not only growth capex, but maintenance capex as well. And you will see a lower number than originally communicated.

Okay. Staying on the net figure, you had quite a A positive contribution from factoring at the end of last year. What's kind of the level you're currently running at the end of the first half? And is that cash inflow that you guided from working capital? Is there also a share of rising factoring?

Well, working capital management is, of course, what we do. We focus on inventory, reducing inventory to have the real cash effect. Regarding factoring, of course, we do factoring. We increased factoring in 2025. Of course, we integrated terrials. into our factoring programs. We integrated one or the other country. And yes, there's a level of factoring in the half-year figures, of course, as well, but less because we are changing a partner regarding factoring. Therefore, there's less factoring in June 2026. And on the other hand, of course, the strong increase in receivables is due to the strong growth we've seen in sales, especially in May and June.

Okay, and 2.8 times net debt target, just to make it clear, does it include an increase Thank you very much.

Can I then turn to the energy topic again and ask for an indication on the

On the level of forward buying into 2027 and maybe you can give some preliminary kind of assessment what it would do to your cost base if energy prices, natural gas prices would stay at the levels where they currently are.

Well, that's a difficult question, because I'm sure you're aware of our fixing or hedging strategy regarding energy prices. And we have there always like, it's further, it is a way as less Can you share which percentage is already hatched at this stage? Well, at that stage, we are talking about 60 to 80 percent in some countries. Overall, on average, it's about, yeah, between 60 and 70 percent.

60 to 70 percent. OK, thank you very much. And one more question regarding the jet stream. Can you shed some light on the reason for that? Is it like price fixing or is it other related collusion? You were saying you made the settlement despite no wrongdoing and I understood it was more like a pressure because the others have made settlements.

I think we tried to explain it. We did nothing wrong here and also to move, and I don't know how deep you are in US legislation and how such a civil legal procedure works, but it was in our case. A clear rational decision to secure the business, because these kind of settlements, what you have could create quite a big impact, financial impact on the company. So it was from a business rationale, it was a clear decision which was taken between the supervisory board and the managing board. To go that way, even if it is clear that we have nothing, that there was no any wrongdoing from our side and it would take too much time to explain you all the details. But it is something which was really a business decision where we said we take this 50 million and close with that the whole thing of this legal case. Okay, but the original was like price fixing or anything? It was basically providing a price data to an independent portal. And this was basically the trigger point in the US, which was used by every resin producer and also piping producers. There's also the big ones, the Westlakes and the Otterdales. I don't know how good you know all these names, but basically it was... driven around this portal which was installed under a safe harbor regulation of the DOJ. So it is something what would need more time to understand, but for us it was clear to go for a settlement and where we can take off this risk from our balance sheet.

Okay, thank you very much. And the last question is more of understanding that The market headwind, how you came up with this 100 million coming from the new residential built market. Is that essentially the volume of downside deviation times a contribution margin? Or how is the 100 million?

It is a combination. If markets are dropping and take a look at the US, where we are actually on a market level like we have seen last time in the years 2009 and 2010, where we had housing stats clearly, I think, around 1 million. This is a combination then. You have to adjust your capacity. You are running your plants on 60%, 65%, 70% maybe. But your fixed cost coverage is simply poor at the moment. Then the consequence is some overcapacity on the market and then you get price pressure. So it is, I would say, you get simply pressure on your margin and on your fixed cost coverage. So it is, you know, our business long enough. It is a heavy asset market. Business. And therefore, if you not run the plants, you got hit by the fixed costs. And what we immediately has done is to bring down the shift pattern. We have taken out as much as possible on fixed costs. We took out capacity. We went into moss spalling, all these measures, what we normally do when we see that there is really a cut in the market. And this we have really All right, understood.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Markus, for your questions and we will move on to the person with the phone number ending 2809. You should be able to unmute yourself now and please tell us your name and your institution.

Yes, this is Miro Zusak from JMS. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you. Just two quick ones. The first one was already touched before, the split of the Italchair sales into the three segments. Can you please help us there? It was mentioned 50-50 before, but maybe you can provide us with the actual figures.

What you are interested in, in the revenue number between the regions, what is the region east and the region west, how much revenue goes into east and west, or what is exactly the question, Miroslav?

Yes.

I'm afraid we have to provide you this in a second step. I think we do not have it now. If you don't mind, you send us a short message. We would provide you with this number just by email in... After the call.

Okay, thank you. And the second one would also be on Ital Chair. So you consolidated 49, sorry, 50.1% for two months. And I didn't see any minorities there. So you consolidated the profits and the revenues, but the minorities were still zero. Can you explain this? Why there are no minorities?

You see the minorities in our equity and of course you see the minorities in the P&L after like in the report, in the financial report for the first half of the year. Hold on.

Okay, I'm on page 18 of the report. It's a German report. There is zero. Is this just a mistake in the report or is it?

Well, from ITAL Chair, we have in the presentation our contribution of operating EBTA. Then you have to take into account That Etal Chair is a business which was highly financed by private equity and they had net debt with double-digit interest rates and therefore, of course, the result after tax is not really visible. On the other hand, we refinanced the whole net debt or the whole debt, but to be precise, the whole debt of Italchair already and therefore we will see in the second half of a year a positive figure For earnings after tax and the earnings after tax within the first two months of our consolidation have been around below 1 million, but positive.

You will find the number in the second half, Miroslav. It is plus minus Syria, as Dagmar just explained. So you will find the number back in the second half because then you will see a larger impact, let's say that way, of eight months of Italcher.

Very clear.

Thank you. Okay, appreciate it.

Thank you very much for your questions, Miro from JMS Invest. And we will move on. and Daniel Kajinuri again with some follow-ups. Daniel, please.

Hi, thank you for taking your third question. I do appreciate it. Just on the ETS news and the broader carbon framework developments, are there any changes to your business planning? It'd just be useful if you could update us on your inventory of the carbon credits and your plans around selling or buying and

In principle, you know that there are negotiations ongoing on the ETS scheme. So far, we are positive and happy with the developments, which are coming from Brussels. We also sent out, I think last week, a short press release to that topic. There's one topic pending, that's the ETS allocation for clay blocks, where we do our necessary lobbying work in Brussels. And we're also confident there that we keep the allocation, what we get today, also for the next years.

It's just too early to give you now a better update, but we will keep you informed.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Daniel. And we will close now with a follow-up question from Julian Hartlinger. Please, Julian.

Julian, we cannot hear you.

Can you hear me now? Yes, now it works. Okay, sorry. Thank you for taking another question from me as well. I appreciate it. I just want to get back to the H2 price cost one more time. I know we're Overlaboring this topic a little bit maybe, but I think it's really important for investors to understand this new guidance. So my question is this, the 4.5% pricing and the sort of the 5% that you've talked to, that's just Europe and you've got negative pricing in the US. So the first part of my question would be, Are you thinking about five-ish or let's just call it mid-single digit pricing for the group in the second half of the year or just for Europe? And on a group basis, it's going to be a little bit lower than that, maybe three, three and a half, something like that.

Am I reading that correctly? Daniel, I can already exclude. This is the impact what you are mentioning about Jetstream, because I think Dagmar mentioned it. The negative price impact what you see in the US is mainly out of the piping business. And it is not so big and impactful that you would basically create at 1, 2, 3 price notches down. So it will have an impact. The 5%, what we mentioned before, is on Europe level. We will see for the whole year in the US or in North America still a slightly negative price impact. But this will not harm, let's say, the total number of the group, simply the business itself. The piping business itself is too small.

Okay, but North America is negative as a segment, even though it's just coming from piping there. Is that right?

Yes, in pricing, talking about the first half, the second quarter, what do you want to... Yeah, well, both Q2 as well as what you're assuming for H2.

Let's move on to slide 16, because I think this is what you refer to, where we have the pricing effects for new residential housing in the UK and North America, which is slightly positive. Renovation is small in the US. And as Dagmar explained, the minus eight, what you see is mainly out of the piping business in the US, also not in the UK. And this is what Dagmar said, it is double digit. It does not mean that we erode the margin because also resin prices went down in the first half year. So we are not expecting that this negative impact is harming, let's say, the full year forecast on pricing for the second half of the year.

Okay, that's clear. And then my ultimate question then is, so if we're going to have, again, something around 5% or so in the second half of the year, And you're talking about neutral price cost. Unless my numbers are wrong, to get to neutral price cost with 4.5% or 5% price means that you have less inflation than the 7% in Q2. You have more like something like 5%. Again, just to understand that, is that what you're implying? And if so, why? Or is there a base effect?

We only can confirm what you calculated. It is. It's maybe a little bit the 5%. I expect that the 5% maybe will be 5.5%. And the 5% what you mentioned on the cost inflation maybe is more in the direction of 6%. But yes, we are talking about the same numbers.

Okay. And why is that lower than in Q2?

As we have seen this significant impact out of the Middle East crisis, there was simply a spike which is already now disappeared in the piping business. The level of the resin prices today is below the level of the resin prices what you have seen in Q2.

Okay. All right. That's really clear and I really appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you very much and thank you all for the extra time you've put in. I would now like to turn the conference back to Dagmar Steinert for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much to all of you for your valuable questions and looking forward to our next call and I'm sure we made it quite clear. We are resilient, our business model works and We have a plan how to move forward. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over and you may now disconnect your lines.