Wacker Neuson Se Namen Ak

Good afternoon everybody and welcome to the Q1 2026 earnings call of the Wacker Neus. My name is Pär Schlinkmann, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Thank you for joining today on the occasion of the release of our Q1 2026 results. As usual, we will first start with the operational and financial results of the first quarter of 2026 and give additional insights on the recent developments as well as our outlook for 2026. Following this, we are happy to answer your questions in a Q&A session. If you are not able to follow today's call by the webcast, the presentation slides are also available for download at bakanoisgroup.com slash investor minus relations. Please note that the entire call, including the Q&A session, will be recorded and the replay will be made available on our corporate website by the end of the day. And now I would like to hand over to our executives, Karl Drage and Christoph Burckhardt, who will, as usual, lead you through this call.

Thank you, Peer. This is Christoph Burckhardt, CFO of the Wacker Neusen Group. Welcome everybody to our earnings call and thank you for joining.

Dear all, a warm welcome from my side too. And thanks again for joining today's conference call. I am Karl Drage, CEO of the Wacker Neusen Group. I would like to start the presentation with a brief overview of our key financials for the first quarter of 2026. Six weeks ago, we presented our figures for the fiscal year 2025, including our guidance for 2026. And we gave the first feedback on our start into the new year. As expected, our first quarter of the year was much stronger than the first quarter in the previous year. Our revenue amounted to 591 million euros and therefore increased significantly, almost 20% compared to Q1 2025. Our order intake kept growing in Q1 2026 and our book-to-bill ratio in the first months of this year also remained above one. Supported by higher revenue and unchanged operating costs, our earnings before interest and taxes, the EBIT, grew to 42 million euros. This means that profitability growth exceeded revenue growth, resulting in an EBIT margin of 7.0%, which is 4.5 percentage points up compared to quarter one of the previous year. Our networking capital ratio in Q1, 2026 decreased by 2.1 percentage points compared to previous year, and amounted to 30.7%. Due to investments in networking capital, our free cash flow was slightly negative and amounted to minus 3 million euros. Christoph will explain the financial details in more depth later. Now let's have a look at the development of our regions. Revenues in Europe representing 80% of growth by about 27% to 472 million euros. We recorded significant demand increases in our key markets. Furthermore, our brands Kramer and Weidemann, with a focus on machine solutions for the agriculture industry, grew by an astounding 65% compared to quarter one in 2025. In the Americas, revenue reached 108 million euros. While this represents a nominal decline of 2%, revenue actually grew by 8% when we adjusted for currency effects. In Asia-Pacific, revenue rose to approximately 12 million euros, amounting to an 8% increase. And adjusted for currency effects, the growth in this region amounted to 12%. This was driven by increased demand in Australia, partly offset by lower demand in China. In summary, despite headwinds in some markets, we made a strong start into 2026, supported by recovery in Europe and our solid order book. I will come back to our outlook at the end of our presentation. Now, how does this regional development translate into our business segment? The business segment compact equipment, accounting for 60% of group revenue, reached 356 million euros in revenue, which translates to a substantial growth of 40% year over year. Demand for telehandlers, wheel loaders, and excavators increased significantly compared to previous years. Light equipment, accounting for 19% of group revenue, remained essentially at the previous year's level. However, it increased by 6%, adjusted for foreign exchange effects. Accounting for 21% of our group revenue, our services business declined slightly. This was mainly due to lower rental revenue in the DACH region compared to previous year's level. This was due to adverse weather conditions and the delayed start of construction projects from economic stimulus programs, which are releasing the funds slower than initially planned.