ASTA Energy Solutions AG ($1AST)

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. My name is Karl Schacke, and together with my colleague and CFO, Daniela Klauser, it is a pleasure to welcome you to ASTA's First Quarter 2026 Earnings Webcast. Before we turn to the numbers, let me briefly remind you why ASTA is so exceptionally well positioned in a highly attractive end markets. ASTA operates at the very core of the global energy transition, a market where demand for mission-critical copper solutions continues to accelerate, driven by electrification, grid expansion and renewable integration. This strong underlying demand provides us with high visibility and a solid foundation for continued growth. What truly sets us apart is the combination of deep engineering expertise and proprietary technology. Our patented solutions allow us to operate in a premium segment with significant technological complexity and high entry barriers, which is why leading OEMs such as Siemens Energy, GE Vernova and Hitachi Energy and other regional players rely on us as a trusted partner. At the same time, our circular business model is a key strategic advantage. With ongoing investments into recycling capacity, we are further strengthening supply security while actively contributing to a more sustainable value chain. Finally, our global footprint with 6 production sites across Europe, Asia and Americas allow us to combine scale with proximity. This ensures reliability, flexibility and fast execution for our customers worldwide. To remind you, our mission stays the same. We are powering the energy transition globally. We're recycling copper, producing copper cores. We're enabling power transmission and generation, and we also power data centers, industries, households, e-mobility. And with more than 40 patents and a history of 200 years, we see ourselves as a global technological leader in this niche market. Driving innovation with ASTA's high-performance solution means that the majority of our revenue and output is linked to the so-called continuously transposed conductor. The application for these high-tech components is high and medium voltage power transformers. And our world is flat, not only the continuously transposed conductor, which is delivered to Siemens Energy, Hitachi Energy, GE Vernova, other regional players like such as GANZ, we will come back to this again. Also Roebel bar, where the application is power generators are based on flat wires. And to remind ourselves, our world is flat, and it's a one lot size business. We make to order. And in addition, copper windings are also applied to locomotives and electric vehicles. ASTA is at the heart of the energy transition. Our reliable products are mission-critical. To make it happen, we integrate all parties to the grid. We stabilize and we power the world everyday with our reliable components. The current environment is shaped by a fundamental shift in global investment priorities within the energy system. For the first time in history since 1945, more capital is being deployed into electrons than into molecules. In other words, into electrification of the world rather than into traditional fossil fuel infrastructure. This shift is driven by 3 powerful structural trends. First, the sharp increase in electricity demand globally. Second, the ongoing electrification across industries and mobility systems. And third, the rapid build-ut data centers, which is adding a completely new layer of demand on top. At the same time, there is a significant replacement cycle underway. A large part of the installed transformers and a transformer base is aging and therefore, needs to be replaced with more advanced, higher efficient equipment, which everybody is requesting. So we are not only seeing new investments, but also substantial reinvestment into existing infrastructure. Over 40% of Europe's power grids are more than 40 years old. By 2030, investments over EUR 580 billion will be needed in Europe alone. Globally, approximately EUR 3.1 trillion will be invested into grids and infrastructure until 2030. All of this translates into very significant investment programs across the entire value chain; effectively, a multiyear, if not multi-decade investment cycle. Now what is particularly important for us is, how this dynamic is reflected in the order books of our key customers. You see it up right there. If you look at the GE Vernova, they have just reported an order backlog of around EUR 139 billion as of February 2026, up significantly year-on-year. Also, Siemens Energy is at over EUR 154 billion as of May 2026, also at record levels, further reinforcing the exceptionally strong demand environment where we are operating in. Smaller ones are doubling their capacity. Hitachi Energy is requesting a significant growth, not only in Europe, but also in other regions. This is highly relevant for us as the backlogs provide a very strong cross suite for ASTA's own demand visibility. In simple terms, when a customer order book are expanding at this pace, it directly feeds into our volume outlook. And this is exactly what we are seeing, a market that is accelerating and moving into what we would describe as super cycle. For ASTA, this has several very tangible implications. We see increasing volume commitments with our customers. We see improving price dynamics. And ultimately, we see a structurally stronger profitability profile. At the same time, our business model continues to demonstrate strong cash conversion on the EBITDA level, which allows us to fund growth while maintaining financial discipline. So overall, this market environment is clearly playing to ASTA's strength as we are operating at the heart of this transformation with our mission-critical products, strong customer relationship and a high degree of visibility. And that gives us a very solid foundation for continued profitable growth. Building on the strong demand environment outlined in the previous slide, we are now clearly seeing this translate into very tangible commercial and operational momentum for ASTA in Q1 2026. What is important here is that this momentum is not driven by a single event, but by a series of developments across our key customers and across regions, all pointing in the same direction, all pointing in the same direction. Starting on the commercial side, we announced a new long-term agreement with Prolec GE Vernova in February. strengthening our commercial opportunity in Americas region and further expanding our relationship with the GE Vernova ecosystem. Further strategic talks are ongoing and further contracts to come. This is a particularly important milestone for us. Prolec GE Vernova is a key player in the global transformer market, and the agreement reflects not only increasing volumes but also a deeper level of strategic integration. We are supplying mission-critical components that are directly embedded in core transformer platforms also in generators, maybe soon, which means that ASTA is an integral part of the customer value chain. At the same time, agreements of this type provide us with very robust multiyear visibility and connect us directly to the strong demand reflected in GE Vernova's record order backlog. So this is not just incremental business. It is a structural strengthening of our position with one of the leading global OEMs. In parallel, also in February, we entered into a strategic partnership with a regional player with GANZ Electric. This is a highly complementary development. It is further strengthening our footprint within the European transformer markets, particularly in the high performance and specialized segment. GANZ is a well-established player with a strong engineering capabilities and the partnership focuses on long-term cooperation in transformer application. More broadly, it reflects a clear trend we are currently seeing across the industry. Customers are actively securing reliable supply in a tight market environment. It increasingly prioritize partners that can deliver both scale and highest quality. ASTA is clearly benefiting from the shift. And this partnership is another confirmation of our strong position. Importantly, we are not only securing demand, we are also already acting on the supply side. Following the IPO, we have moved very quickly to start deploying capital into targeted capacity expansions, fully aligned with the regions and core markets where we see strong growth. Also in April, we finished our first phase ramp-up in Bosnia in time and budget. We installed all machines. We ramped up with the employees, and now we are ramping up and preparing Phase 2 at this very moment. In April, we announced the expansion of our production capacity in India. India is one of the most dynamic markets globally in terms of electrification, grid expansion and industrial development. Investments into transmission and distribution infrastructure are increasing significantly and demand for transformer components as our mission-critical components is growing accordingly. By expanding our local production footprint, we are not only increasing capacity, but also improving our proximity to customers, shortening lead times and strengthening our competitive positioning, also upgrading technological expertise of the plant. This is very much in line with our local-for-local approach and our ambition to scale efficiently in high-growth regions. Shortly after, in May, we completed a further capacity expansion in China. This expansion allows us to better serve the strong and continuing demand overall in Asia, further optimize our regional supply chains. China remains a critical market, both in terms of local demand and as part of the global manufacturing ecosystem of ASTA. By strengthening our capacity there, we ensure that we can maintain high utilization levels and continue to supply our customers reliably even in a tight market environment. At the same time, these expansions are highly disciplined and focused as we are not building speculative capacity, but rather scaling in line with clearly visible demand, also, especially in the high-level demand of HVDCs all across Asia. Also in May, and very importantly, we even extended our long-term agreement with Siemens Energy. And now this year is really relevant until 2032. This extension is a strong endorsement of our long-standing partnership with one of the global leaders in the energy infrastructure space and especially in the grid solutions. Siemens Energy is a key customer with very significant exposure to the global transformer and grid market and extended the agreement over such a long horizon, increases our planning visibility. So overall, 2026 is not just a continuation, but clearly an acceleration of our commercial momentum, with strong end market demand translating very directly into long-term agreements, increased visibility and targeted growth investments for the whole ASTA Group. With that said, let's now turn to our first quarter 2026 results, which underscore the strength and positioning and the momentum ASTA is building on. Daniela, please go ahead.

Thank you very much, Karl, and good afternoon from my side as well. Let me briefly walk you through some of the key highlights of the first quarter 2026, to be honest, besides the successful IPO in January. We want to demonstrate the strength and the resilience of the ASTA business model. And with these numbers, you see that we delivered a very strong top line growth. Net sales increased by 15.3%, while net value sales, including change of finished and unfinished goods grew significantly faster at close to 36%. This reflects a very favorable product mix and a disciplined pricing in our core markets. This operational performance translated into a robust profitability with adjusted EBITDA reaching EUR 17.2 million in the first quarter, and showing a margin of 37.1% of net value sales, including change of finished and unfinished goods. Compared to the quarter 1 2025, we increased our adjusted EBITDA by around 69%. Once again, this underlies the structural attractiveness of our niche positioning, as Karl pointed out, the strong growth in the HVDC market and also our ability to convert the growth into earnings besides all investments going on in the first quarter. Our improved operating performance, combined with the phasing of certain capital expenditure outlays towards the later of 2026 resulted in a cash conversion rate of around 70%. Following the successful IPO, our balance sheet has been significantly strengthened. We ended at the quarter with a net cash position of EUR 38.6 million, which gives us sustainable financial flexibility and support our next steps in our growth. Finally, building on the commercial momentum we mentioned earlier, we are seeing some very positive developments. This includes extending our long-term agreement with Siemens Energy until 2032, which is a strong validation of our strategic relevance and the strength of our customer relationships, which -- since the decades. Now let's deep dive in our year-over-year achievement. Net sales reached EUR 196.4 million, representing an increase of 15%, driven by a higher copper price and the sale of products with higher margin. The net value sales, including change in finished and unfinished goods increased to EUR 46.4 million compared to EUR 34.2 million in quarter 1 2025. which demonstrates an increase of around 36% within 1 quarter. The increase of the net value sales resulted in an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 17.2 million. This implies that the previous year's quarter figures were far exceeded. EBITDA shows an overproportional growth of around 69% growth, driven by a mix of pricing power, volume growth in our energy business and efficiency in dedicated brownfield investments. ASTA achieved an adjusted EBITDA margin on net value sales of 8.8% and based on the net value sales, including change in finished goods and unfinished goods of 37.1%, outperforming the first quarter of previous year. I want to point out that adjustments are only related to the successful IPO, which we currently foresee as an adjustment through the P&L in the amount of EUR 2.6 million. The seasonality of ASTA of recent years regularly shows that the first and the second quarter of the year performance is better compared to the third and the fourth quarter, which is driven by preventive maintenance, especially in Europe and in South America. And therefore, the first 3 months cannot be extrapolated linearly to 12 months. As we have always discussed, our long-term agreements are always negotiated in a way that a margin increasement is included. Therefore, this margin increasement really drops from net sales to net value sales, EBITDA and onwards to EBIT and furthermore, to the net income. Here, you can see that although we have EUR 2.6 million one-offs for the IPO, our earnings before interest and tax EBIT achieved a 6.1% margin of net sales. The successful IPO in January brought us not only a stronger equity, but also more the flexibility in our financing strategy, where we have already used approximately EUR 25 million for the repayment of the outstanding related party loans as announced in our use of proceeds during the IPO process. Furthermore, we are working on optimizing ASTA's rating as a stand-alone group. The increase in the net income to EUR 6.3 million in the first quarter of 2026 reflects the combination of improved operating and financial results. Thus, EPS saw a strong increase from EUR 0.09 to EUR 0.49 compared to the last quarter. As Karl pointed out, the first quarter was driven by finalizing investments in ASTA China and in the first phase of ASTA Bosnia. Besides also announcing investments in ASTA India. This led to a CapEx paid of EUR 5.1 million and further investments are released in the execution late in 2026, fully in line with the midterm guidance to invest up to EUR 120 million in the next years. Free cash flow demonstrates disciplined capital expenditure as well as improved operating performance and thereof reflects the 70.3% cash conversion. First quarter was not only influenced in a positive way for ASTA with the IPO, but also influenced by macroeconomic events. Therefore, in order to secure our output and growth path, we increased our safety inventory stocks in all regions. In addition to -- due to the higher copper price, ramping up our recycling activities in Brazil as well as operations ramp-ups in China and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the trade working capital increased to EUR 83.2 million and reflecting 11.5% of net sales. We are clear we are a little bit above the guidance. But at the moment, the output and the realization of our order backlog is priority #1. Due to the successful IPO, ASTA now has a net cash position, which will support our expansion plans in upcoming quarters. Now I hand over to Karl to give you more flavor on the Iran conflict.

Yes. Let's get back a little bit to the outlook after showing you the figures of the first quarter. Let me briefly address also with the conflict in the Middle East, the resilience of ASTA's business model. Overall, we see no material direct exposure to ongoing conflict in the Middle East. More importantly, however, our business model is structurally designed to mitigate volatility across all key dimensions. So first of all, starting with raw materials, our pass-through mechanism effectively protects us from fluctuations in copper prices. This means that short-term market volatility, does not translate into material downside risk at the profitability level. I repeat this. This means that short-term market volatilities does not translate into material downside risk at the profitability level. Second, on the sourcing side, our material supply remains robust and well diversified. The copper market itself is not materially depending on Middle East supplier. And our strategic sourcing strategy is built around multiple suppliers across regions with multiyear visibility. This provides a high degree of security and flexibility in procurement. Third, energy is another relevant factor. And here, we take a very proactive approach through a combination of long-term power purchase agreements and secured price contracts, we are able to largely stabilize our energy cost base even in more volatile market environments. Finally, from the demand perspective, the current environment is clearly supportive. The increased focus on energy security is prompting further investments into grid infrastructure and electrification, which is reinforcing the structural growth dynamic in our core markets. Overall, we are well positioned to not only navigate the temporary market challenges, but also to capitalize on our strong position, which continues to benefit from long-term structural demand drivers that supports our business. Let me close with our outlook for the full year. Following the strong start in 2026 and the continued positive momentum we are seeing across our key markets and customer base, we fully reaffirm our guidance for the year. For fiscal year 2026, we continue to expect net sales of more than EUR 790 million based on our underlying copper assumption alongside net value sales exceeding EUR 170 million. This reflects both the robust demand environment and our continued focus on value-accretive growth and disciplined execution. At the profitability level, we expect adjusted EBITDA to come in at between EUR 55 million and EUR 59 million, adjusted for nonrecurring IPO-related costs, thereby maintaining a strong earnings profile as we continue to scale the business. Overall, our outlook is supported by strong structural demand across our core end markets, the high degree of visibility we have through our customer relationships and the consistent execution of our growth strategy. Against this backdrop, we remain confident in our ability to deliver our targets and to continue building on the strong momentum we have established. In summary, again, let me briefly reiterate what defines ASTA's investment proposition. At its core, we operate in a market environment supported by structural tailwinds. This is clearly reflected in our resilient growth trajectory, which is driven by electrification, grid expansion and increased investment into energy structure. At the same time, our business model offers a high level of visibility supported by long-standing customer relationships and a robust sales pipeline. This gives us a solid foundation on which to plan and execute as we continue to grow. Importantly, this growth is not coming at the expense of profitability. Through operational excellence and our focus on high-value applications, we are able to continuously expand margins, which was shown in the first quarter and further strengthen the quality of our earnings. All of this translates into a robust cash flow profile supported by a capital-efficient asset-light business model, enabling us to fund growth while maintaining financial discipline. ASTA is committed to create sustainable shareholder returns. Thank you very much, and we are happy to answer your questions now.

[Operator Instructions] And we have the first question coming from Adrian P from ODDO BHF.

And actually, I've got 6 questions, but I ask 3 and then jump back into the queue and maybe return later on. First of all, on the regional revenues, I spotted actually that Brazil was down year-over-year versus Q1 last year. And I was just wondering what kind of effects did we have here? And was it just a phasing? Or how should we think of it? And the second one, I mean, you've been saying, Daniela, actually with respect to your full year guidance that maybe it's not a linear development. But just to be clear, I mean, if I was taking the adjusted EBITDA performance by far, I would actually then end up at closer to EUR 70 million for your adjusted EBITDA. And that said, I mean, should we expect actually that Q1 was kind of a very strong quarter because you had obviously this tailwind from inventory changes, and that is fading this tailwind and then you have higher costs as you are building up the capacity? Or how should we think of the phasing going forward? And then a third question, maybe also for Daniela, I guess, is related to your statements on Page 17 and the report where you talk about the one-offs. Obviously, you have kind of offsetting one-offs in other operating expenses and other operating income. But I was just wondering if you could provide a bit of clarity on those effects? And is there anything to come in the next couple of quarters? I mean I understood that in Brazil, you're obviously paying a bit more due to the new agreement, but you booked a gain. And should we expect this to be consumed going forward? So anything on that matter would be helpful.

Thank you, Adrian, for your questions. I start with -- is it okay for you -- why is Brazil down? -- clear answer. First of all, we have to shift from the round wire business to the energy business. That's the first point. And the second point is that all regions besides Brazil also grew overproportional to Brazil. And the third point is the higher recycling output also influenced this going down in the percentage of the total because you always have to see it's a percentage of the total revenue. So that means when the absolute number goes up and Brazil is staying stable, the percentage drops down. The second question, full year guidance, that's the clear topic from our side. The first and the second quarter, we don't have any maintenance or shutdowns in any regions. So that means the whole 6 months, we are producing. And with our capacity, every -- we have it in some discussions, every day output is a clear view for our performance. And the first and the second means we have 4 weeks more production compared to the second half of the year. And when you take the guidance, that's the reason we always count -- when we take the first quarter, we have to be careful, then we always count to 10.5, 11 months and not linear with 12 months. That's clear. Otherwise, you would come to EUR 68.8 million EBITDA, but we stay with our guidance EUR 55 million to EUR 59 million EBITDA. And with the ramp-up, there are extraordinary costs for the ramp-up, which are not reflected in the EBITDA in the first quarter, what is coming. Statement 17 regarding the one-offs. So far, we only know one-offs from the IPO, the EUR 2.6 million. It's Karl and my behavior that we don't have really only extraordinary one-offs. And regarding Brazil, in Brazil with the escrow account, everything reflected in the first quarter. There won't be any one-offs so far we know right now and everything is operational. What we have in the first quarter with the EUR 2.6 million for IPO costs, they are estimated because it's not closed or invoices are not closed so far. That's the reason why we stated estimated.

That was helpful. Actually, a quick follow-up on this one question. So should we assume actually that for this roughly EUR 4 million you booked in other operating income, the respective cash out will be in the second quarter? Or how should we expect this to phase?

The respect, it was a cash in. That means with the escrow account, we released it and we got the money. And with the EUR 3.9 million tax credits, which have been booked, there won't be any cash out so far. It can be that there will be a cash out in the next 5, 10 years or no cash out.

The next question comes from Yasmin Steilen from Berenberg.

I have also 3, if I may. So the first one, maybe coming back a little bit on the profitability coming back to Adrian's question. So on your EBITDA margin, it was slightly inflated by the release of remaining purchase price liabilities. So looking at kind of around 7% EBITDA margin, is a reasonable run rate for the remainder year? That would be my first question. Then the second, on the extension of the Siemens LTAs, you already mentioned that pricing environment is very favorable. So is it fair to assume -- to expect some tailwinds on also profitability effective '29 as the new contracts should reflect a higher underlying profitability or better pricing? And then the last one, just to clarify with regards to the 33% decline on -- in CapEx in the first quarter. So that's all intentionally by phasing towards the year-end, and it's not related to any bottlenecks in machinery availability?

Okay. I started with the first question. With the 8.8% of net sales regarding the high copper price, to be honest, we assume that 10% is possible, but it always depends on the copper price. If the copper price goes up another 20%, the percentage is dilutive. But when the copper price stays as it is at the moment, there are rooms to achieve it.

For the remainder year, kind of 10% EBITDA margin?

Yes. We will see.

It's not the 10%, it's 8%.

The 8.8%.

Okay. So even if the first quarter was inflated by the release of the purchase price liability?

Tailwind was the second question for 2029. What is it referring? There are 3 years in between. We cannot guide for 2029. We can reaffirm that the contract we have, let's say, closed is meeting all criterias, also including that we negotiate heavily with Siemens Energy on a price increase above indexation. So it will be a favorable, very positive contract for ASTA Europe. And the last one was the question if the cash out was lower than last year? I can only say it's all is in line with our plans. We clearly do not pay if a machine is not completely fully accepted even if they're putting the output already. So sometimes our technicians are very picky with this. But reaffirming is, no, there are no bottlenecks with the delivery of machines and installments. They are all in line with our plans.

The next question comes from Ramon Huber from Limmat Capital.

You can hear me?

Yes.

I just have one question. You mentioned that you don't have any problems for sourcing. How does it look on your client side? We hear sometimes that in India, some transportation is difficult. Do you see any markets where there is an issue?

At the moment, we are not, let's say, forced to have any additional measures. Then we have built up with a dual source multiyear contracts in all of the categories. We did not face this. So far, we could manage everything even if there's a challenge maybe are there or the other one. This you are facing every year that you have maybe a bottleneck of transportation for a week of a year somewhere. But so far, we could manage well with, let's say, our stocks and the replenishment of stocks and raw material in all of the regions.

Okay. So it's like for you, no difference to a normal year, even with the wars we had.

Not. There was -- to the war, if you're referring to the war, there was a very limited small topic of some metric tons, which where we found a new delivery way, and it was cleared within minutes. So no obstacles out of this in transportation logistics.

We have another question from Adrian P from ODDO BHF.

These are now the remaining 3 I announced. So actually, on the sale and leaseback option with your main shareholder, I mean, I understand that this has to come, obviously, in Q2, if it comes finally. So I just wanted to hear if there's some sort of update that you can provide on this one. And the second question is also a little bit on housekeeping financials. I mean if we strip out the one-off that you had in other operating expenses, then other operating expenses are still up 30% versus Q1, I was just wondering if we should include any effects for our models that could be sticky or whatever kind of decomposition of these positions in there would be helpful from your end. And then the last one is on long-term agreements. I mean, obviously, congrats to those agreements that you struck so far. Is there anything in the pipe? I mean, you mentioned in your presentation earlier, companies like Hitachi. Is this something you're striving for at the moment? Or are you happy with actually what you can get on the spot market and on framework agreements?

First one, answer to sale and leaseback, there's no update. It's an option. I cannot give you more information that this option is valid and people are working on it. So we will see if it comes true. There are a lot of little topics also to have to be cleared until it can be executed. Second, I hand over to Daniela again.

Regarding the increase of the 30% of the other operating expense, it's related, I see we have to ramp up now the whole organization to being a listed company. So there are some consulting fees compared to last year, but also with the pressure to perform on the market, we have a very strong maintenance program in place because every minute losing in the production is pure net income. That's the reason why we really make preventive maintenance, what is possible during the production and also regarding the legal topics, we have external consultants in-house that we fit to the market that we comply with all the governance we gave. But out of this, no other extraordinary topics.

I come back to your sixth question. Long-term agreements. We have a logic of first to explain why the long-term agreement, the bigger it is, it has a flexibility up and down to run through the month. We are limiting this to the maximum we can negotiate. So if there's a downside of 5% and upside of 10%, you have to take it in consideration if you're in your production planning and you have to fulfill the contract. The second is if you add up now several long-term contracts in the capacity planning of your site, the negative impact could be that the flexibility is adding up, let's say, 5 plus 10 plus 10 makes 25% of the volume you are taking into this long-term agreements. This is the reason why our strategy is to have not more than 55 to 60 is depending on the flexibility of the portfolio and depending on whom you are talking to and how big it is. So how big is the fluctuation per month would you agree with a long-term customer. Coming back, we are underway of negotiating at the same time a bundle of long-term agreement which I cannot reflect on. Several ones worldwide I pointed out that we are asked to increase with all the bigger except we have done already with Siemens, but we are in ongoing talks in other regions. We are ongoing in talks with GE Vernova. We are in discussion with Hitachi. I'm satisfied at the moment, but we want to add, let's say, after '27 other ones. So it's a long-term perspective. they learned that if they come early enough that we can do strategic moves together, which we would not be able to do if they come at the latest time. So we are happy with the current portfolio. And within the next 2 weeks, you will have a new release on the next signed long-term contract.

The next question comes from [ Thomas Adolff from ExodusPoint ] Mr. Adolff your line is open, you can ask a question now. He dropped off the line. Would you like to give him reminder?

Maybe we jump because we are running out of time. Maybe we jump to the written questions we have received.

Yes. Now the first written question from [ platform Liberation Capital. ] Can you please give us some flavor on the impact of potential demand due to AI-based grid upgrades for your data center implementation worldwide?

Yes. We can give a flavor. The real installment of the data centers is driving especially also demand of electricity, meaning indirectly is always favorable. The more data centers are installed, the more reliable grid connections for distributing electricity to the data centers is there. Direct connection to data centers, for instance, with solid-state transformers, which are on a medium and low-voltage area, which is not our business. There are no -- not any CTCs included in these transformers. We are now making a study on the bigger data centers who have a connection or own generation. having even 9 gigawatts installed. And therefore, it's a clear target for us to provide them what we do. For us, it's an upside in the business planning. We are -- let's say, we are prudent about speculations until '29 and 2030, but we take it into consideration in the next upcoming years and months.

Okay. Now we have the written question from Thomas Adolff from ExodusPoint. Given the relationships you have with GEV and Siemens Energy, have they encouraged you to enter the U.S. market?

To say we also are in discussions with GE Vernova Prolec, especially because with the purchase of Prolec, there are now 3 more plants in the region of the U.S., including Canada and Mexico. And yes, we have -- we are in talks about how to enter the U.S. market. And if we want it, I think I pointed out in the first earnings call this year that in the fourth quarter, we want to come to a conclusion how we address the increasing demand in the U.S. So this will be integrated there.

Okay. There are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Karl Schacke for any closing remarks.

Yes. We thank everybody who was listening. We hope we could answer well the questions. I reaffirm again, ASTA is very much committed to creating shareholder returns and value, not only this year, but also in the upcoming years. The whole management teams and the employees of ASTA are very much engaged to this favorable growth trajectory ongoingly in the next couple of years. Thank you very much.