Autoneum Holding AG (AUTN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Autoneum's 2025 Earnings Call. Thank you for joining us today. I will begin with a brief review of our business performance in 2025, highlight our key achievements and then hand it over to our CFO, Bernhard Wiehl, who will walk you through the financial results in more detail. After that, I will return to outline our outlook for 2026 before we open the floor for Q&A. Please note that this conference will be recorded. We therefore, ask you not to make any recordings. 2025 was another demanding year for the global automotive industry. Market developments diverged strongly by region, volatility remained high and structural change continued to shape our customers' priorities. Against this backdrop, Autoneum delivered a resilient and high-quality performance. We achieved our full year guidance, strengthened profitability year-on-year and once again generated solid free cash flow, exceeding expectations. Let me go briefly into detail about our overall performance indicators. Despite diverging global market developments, Autoneum delivered resilient revenue growth in 2025. Revenue in local currencies increased to CHF 2.39 billion, supported by 6.4% of inorganic growth. At the same time, we achieved a strong order intake for the second year in a row, underlining the sustainability of our growth momentum. Profitability further improved year-on-year. Our EBIT margin increased to 5.5%, and the net result rose by more than 14%, reflecting continued operational and financial improvements across the group. Based on this performance, the Board of Directors proposes a distribution to shareholders of CHF 3.20 per share compared to CHF 2.80 in the prior year. We also made clear progress toward our sustainability benchmarks. In 2025, we reduced Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 5.3%, lowered water withdrawal by 8.7% and generated 1,743 tons less waste year-on-year. These efforts were once again recognized externally with EcoVadis Gold status and the CDP A rating. Growth in Asia accelerated significantly. Revenue in local currencies increased by more than 73%, driven by the 2 major acquisitions in China that expanded our access to leading local OEMs and accelerated regional development. As a result, 20% of our 2025 group order intake now comes from the Chinese OEMs, confirming the strategic relevance of this customer group for Autoneum. Finally, we continue to advance sustainable innovations across our portfolio. In 2025, we expanded sustainable products groups with new innovations such as NJOINT1, Flexi-Light PET and BEV-focused E-Fiber technologies, including flame shields and impact protection plates. At the same time, we strengthened our innovation capabilities through the Shanghai R&D center, reinforcing our ability to develop customer-relevant solutions close to key growth markets. This performance was not driven by short-term measures. It reflects strategic decisions taken early and executed consistently. Three factors made the difference in 2025. First, we continue to optimize our footprint and cost structure, aligning capacity with market demand. Second, we maintained firm but fair price management across all regions. And third, we consistently translated operational improvements into margin expansion. The implementation of our company strategy Level Up is on track and moving full speed forward. Order intake. Order intake was one of the key highlights for 2025 and remains our most forward-looking performance indicator. In 2025 alone, new business awards amounted to CHF 536 million in annual sales. This corresponds to approximately CHF 3.1 billion in lifetime revenue, including the new business awards coming from our new companies in China. As mentioned earlier, almost 20% of the group's order intake in 2025 came from our Chinese OEMs. This strong order intake underlines how well Autoneum is positioned with its customers as a market and technology leader and represents a decisive step towards our long-term sales ambition. Order intake was well balanced across all regions and all product families as well as continued strong momentum in commercial vehicles, underlining the strategic importance of this segment. Sustainability is a core pillar of our Level Up strategy and an area where we clearly aim to set the benchmark in our industry. In 2025, we made measurable progress across all key dimensions. We reduced water withdrawal by more than 8% year-on-year and implemented 140 eco-efficiency projects across our global footprint, targeting energy consumption, waste reduction and water efficiency. At the same time, we continue to scale circular materials in our products. In 2025, Autoneum used more than 25,000 metric tons of recycled PET, reinforcing our leadership in monomaterial and recyclable solutions for vehicle interiors and exteriors. Our progress is also reflected in external recognition. As mentioned before, we achieved again an EcoVadis Gold status and received a CDP A rating, confirming our strong performance in environmental management and transparency compared to our peers. Sustainability at Autoneum goes beyond environmental metrics. We were once again recognized as a top employer 2025, highlighting our commitment to a people-centric culture and responsible leadership in our key markets. For us, sustainability is not a compliance exercise and not a trade-off against profitability. It is a real competitive advantage that increasingly influences customer decisions, strengthens long-term partnerships with our OEMs and supports resilient value creation. Let me now briefly look at our regional performance. 2025 was characterized by diverging regional market dynamics. What clearly made the difference for Autoneum was disciplined execution and region-specific steering. In Europe, markets stabilized after several years of decline, creating a more predictable environment. Through strict cost control and continued footprint optimization, we improved our EBIT margin to 5.3% and laid the groundwork for future recovery while continuing to position the region for BEV-driven opportunities, leveraging our lightweight and sustainable technologies. We are confident and see further continuous improvement potential for the region of Europe. In North America, early demand strength was followed by a softer second half year, influenced by trade uncertainties like tariffs and decreasing volumes. Despite this, we increased our EBIT margin to 5%, driven by operational improvements and in strengthened cost base. This confirms the resilience of our turnaround and our ability to protect margins even in a less supportive market environment. Asia was our strongest growth region in 2025. Revenue increased by more than 73% in local currencies, reflecting the impact of our China acquisitions, which significantly expanded our access to local OEMs and strengthened our regional development capabilities. Asia is now a key driver of above-market growth and an integral part of our global strategy. In SAMEA, we delivered a stable and highly profitable performance despite a challenging inflationary environment. With an EBIT margin of 12.8%, the region once again demonstrated the strength of disciplined cost management and operational stability and local execution excellence. Across all regions, we continued to advance our Level Up strategy consistently. This regional execution capability is a key reason why Autoneum can deliver resilient performance in diverging markets. With that, I would now like to hand over to Bernhard Wiehl, our Chief Financial Officer, who will guide you through Autoneum's financial results for the year 2025 in more detail. Bernhard, please go ahead.

Thank you, Eelco, and good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to walk you through Autoneum's financial performance for the year 2025. While market conditions remained challenging in several regions, we could once again deliver a solid profitability, cash flow and order intake. I will now provide more details on Autoneum's key figures in 2025. Let me start with our revenue development. In local currencies, revenue increased by CHF 55 million to almost CHF 2.4 billion, right in the middle of our 2025 guidance. The main driver was 2 acquisitions in China. They contributed inorganic growth of 6.4%. In Swiss francs, revenue decreased by 2.1% to close to CHF 2.3 billion, driven by the strong Swiss franc, which led to a negative currency translation effect of CHF 103 million. Note that the biggest impact came from the U.S. dollar, the Mexican peso and the Chinese renminbi. On an organic basis, which excludes currency translation and fluctuations, the M&A impacts, group revenue declined by 4.1%. This reflects weaker production volumes in several key regions and ongoing structural market shifts in China from Western and Japanese OEMs towards Chinese car manufacturers. In Business Group Europe, revenue declined by 8.3% to just under CHF 1.1 billion. In local currencies, revenue fell by 7.6% or CHF 87 million. This result was mainly driven by 3 factors. First, production volumes in the region declined by 1.1% in 2025. Second, we are still experiencing some late impact from the Borgers acquisition. In the period before Borgers' insolvency in late 2022, Borgers was awarded only on limited amount of new business. This is reflected in our lower revenue from the former Borgers business in 2025. This impact will disappear over time as we pursue and secure new awards for the attractive Borgers product portfolio. The third and final factor is our focus on profitable growth. It means we carefully choose which business awards to pursue and avoid projects that don't meet our profitability or return standards, even if they could boost short-term volume. These 3 factors also weighed on the performance of Business Group North America where revenue declined by 8.9% to CHF 806 million, a CHF 27 million or 3% organic decline in revenue. This was slightly more than the overall market, which declined by 1.2% aimed trade policy uncertainty. Turning to Business Group Asia. Revenue rose strongly to 74% in local currencies, reaching CHF 326 million, fueled by 2 acquisitions in China. Organically, revenue fell by CHF 4.1 million or 2.1%, mainly because our largest customers in China, Western and Japanese OEMs continued to lose market share to their Chinese rivals. Going forward, we expect to reduce our exposure to OEM mix changes in the China market, thanks to our 2 strategic acquisitions that have significantly improved our access to Chinese OEMs. In Business Group SAMEA, we once again delivered a strong revenue growth in local currencies of 17.7% or CHF 21.5 million. This was preliminarily driven by the significant price increase agreed with customers to compensate for very high inflation on several countries. From a volume perspective, this business group developed broadly in line with the steady market. Let me now turn on our operating results. The group's EBIT margin increased further in 2025, reaching a 5.5% compared to 5.3% the year before. In line with our Level Up strategy to enhance cost competitiveness with a dynamic global market environment, we made structural adjustments in our European footprint and implemented reductions in head count across all regions. These measures, combined with the disciplined cost management, enable us to achieve an improved EBIT margin. We view this outcome as a noteworthy success, especially given the performance of our peers and the challenging market conditions. Despite lower revenue in Business Group Europe was almost able to maintain its EBIT, which fell by just CHF 1.8 million in 2025. The region's EBIT margin rose by 0.3 percentage points to 5.3%, reflecting ongoing resilience. This progress resulted from our commitment to operational excellence and the ongoing optimization of our regional footprint to better align our cost base and manufacturing setup with current and expected regional demand, while strengthening efficiency competitiveness and long-term sustainability. In the U.K., for example, the plant in Halesowen was closed and its activities relocated. While the Heckmondwike site was also shut down to better align capacity with the market demand. Additionally, we reduced our head count in France, Germany, the Czech Republic and in Spain. While we incurred one-off charges in 2025, these actions are expected to deliver recurring savings, strong operational leverage and a sustainable uplift to EBIT from 2026 onwards. Additionally, the sale of real estate in France generated a book gain in 2025. In Business Group North America, we made further strong progress. Our EBIT grew by CHF 8.2 million with the EBIT margin reaching 5%, now at the lower end of our target range for the business group. Relatively stable production volumes, efficiency gains such as lower scrap and higher labor efficiency as well as improved supply chain management all contributed to this encouraging development. In Business Group Asia, EBIT increased by CHF 7.6 million, mainly due to the 2 acquisitions in China. The EBIT margin declined to 7.6% from 8.6% in the prior year. As we explained last year, the acquired business in China are dilutive to the Business Group Asia's EBIT margin, largely due to the additional amortization charges on assets capitalized as part of the PPA. However, the acquisitions are still accretive to the group's EBIT margin. After an exceptionally strong year in 2024, Business Group SAMEA's EBIT fell by CHF 2.2 million. While the EBIT margin declined to 12.8%, it remains remarkably robust given the challenging economic conditions in the countries in which we operate. thanks to our disciplined cost management and effective inflation mitigation. For Corporate & eliminations, EBIT fell by CHF 10 million, mainly due to 2 factors. First, lower revenue in Europe and North America affected the level of earnings from the group charges. Second, we had expenses related to the acquisitions in China. Overall, we achieved an increase in our group EBIT and EBIT margin, thereby successfully delivered on our full year guidance. Now I would like to turn our income statement. We have already discussed revenue and EBIT, so we can start right away with the group's financial result of minus CHF 17.9 million, a significant improvement over the prior year. Interest expenses were reduced by CHF 3.2 million, benefiting from lower money market rates and reduced credit margins. The largest positive impact, however, came from the less negative foreign currency loss, mainly driven by valuation gains in 2025 on lease liabilities denominated in foreign currencies, particularly in Mexico and in Czech Republic. Overall, net foreign exchange losses were almost CHF 8 million less than in the prior year, falling to CHF 2.4 million. Additionally, the net loss on the net monetary position from hyperinflation accounting decreased to CHF 2.2 million compared to CHF 4.9 million in the previous year. Income tax expenses increased by around CHF 4 million in absolute terms, while the tax rate of 26.5% remains on a level comparable to the prior year. Consequently, the group's net result improved once again year-on-year by 14.6% to CHF 80.2 million. Basic earnings per share rose by 15.2% to CHF 10.34. Now we come to my favorite. As you can see on the -- we achieved another year of strong cash generation in 2025. Our group's free cash flow, excluding M&A effects, increased to CHF 121 million, an improvement of CHF 11 million. This is particularly noteworthy given we have implemented structural adjustments that impacted our cash flow. It confirms our resilience of our operating model and our ability to generate strong and sustainable cash flows over time. The higher net result and slightly lower investments in tangible assets in certain regions positively contributed to this result. However, net working capital was somewhat above previous year's level. This is mainly due to the strong order intake, which led to higher tooling inventories as well as the accrual for the unpaid insurance recoveries from the wildfire incident in Spain in August of last year. Cash flows used in investing activities includes a CHF 54 million net cash outflow related to the acquisition of Jiangsu Huanyu Group and Chengdu Yiqi-Sihuan in China. Even including all these items, free cash flow came still in at a solid CHF 67 million. Our strong profitability and cash generation also had a positive impact on the balance sheet, with the group's total assets reaching almost CHF 1.8 billion at the end of December. As a reminder, with 76 of 77 production activities located outside Switzerland, most of our assets are held in subsidiaries, denominated in currencies other than Swiss francs. This exposes our balance sheet to currency fluctuation, which are clearly visible as of December 31, 2025. For example, our total assets lost CHF 108 million in value due to the strong Swiss franc and shareholders' equity dropped by close to CHF 48 million for the same reason. It's also important to note that the acquisition in China impacted almost all balance sheet items as shown in the table's M&A column. Nevertheless, the shareholders' equity ratio still exceeded 45%, considering the negative currency effect and the acquisition in China, this represents a moderate decline of 1.9 percentage points compared to the prior year-end 2024. Turning to net debt. It remained almost stable year-on-year despite a significant impact from our 2 acquisitions in China and the dividend paid during the period. As we already discussed, free cash flow amounted to CHF 121 million and provided a strong underlying offset of these cash outflows. M&A consideration paid totaled to CHF 65 million and relates to the acquisition of the 70% majority stake of Huanyu Group and the full ownership of Yiqi-Sihuan. In addition to the purchase consideration, we assumed approximately CHF 36 million of net debt from the acquired Chinese legal entities. Dividends paid in 2025 amount to CHF 31.4 million in total, including distributions to Autoneum shareholders and to minority shareholders in our joint ventures. Finally, with the strengthening Swiss franc had a negative impact on our P&L, it helped to reduce net debt with a positive impact of CHF 14 million. This is mainly driven by the lease liabilities denominated in U.S. dollar and in euro as well as some smaller bank debts denominated in Chinese renminbi. Let me conclude with a look on our leverage, one of our key financial KPIs for the medium term. As a reminder, we are targeting net debt to EBITDA of less than 1.5x. As you can see on this slide, we have continuously improved the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio since 2022 through disciplined cash flow management and sustained profitability improvements. Despite the acquisitions in China, we increased our debt levels, we maintained the ratio at 1.6x in 2025, which is already very close to our midterm target. In conclusion, this financial strength, our technological expertise and our reputation as a reliable supplier form a solid foundation for Autoneum's future. It supports both our organic growth ambitions and leaves some room for selective strategic transactions should attractive opportunities arise. Thank you, and I will hand now back to Eelco.

Thank you, Bernhard, for the detailed overview. As you have seen, our financial results clearly reflect the progress we have made over the past year in terms of profitability, cash generation and balance sheet strength despite a challenging and volatile market environment. Let me now turn to our outlook for 2026 and outline how we plan to build on this solid foundation as we move forward. Our focus in 2026 will remain firmly on execution of our Level Up strategy with clear priorities. Our growth ambition remains selective and profitable. We will continue to focus on high-quality order intake, prioritizing programs that meet our margin and cash flow requirements. A key growth lever will be the global expansion with Chinese OEMs, building on the strong momentum we achieved in 2025. At the same time, we will further strengthen our position in commercial vehicles, where demand dynamics and content per vehicle offer attractive growth opportunities. We will continue to integrate our recent acquisitions and actively evaluate additional M&A opportunities where they create strategic value. Growth for Autoneum is not about volume alone. It is about value-accretive growth. In a volatile and structurally changing market environment, cost discipline remains a decisive success factor. In 2026, we will continue to actively manage our footprint, adjust capacity where needed and ensure that our cost base remains fully aligned with market conditions. We will further optimize SG&A structures, leverage scale effects and continue to improve productivity across our operations. At the same time, we will increasingly use digitalization and AI-based solutions to streamline processes and enhance operational efficiency. Our objective is clear: to drive margins and cash generation even in a softer market environment while actively preparing for profitable growth. We also continue to actively shape our product portfolio toward long-term structural trends such as electrification, lightweight construction, recyclability and thermal efficiency. In 2026, we will further expand our offerings for battery electric vehicles and trucks and accelerate the industrialization of cost efficient and sustainable solutions. Innovation remains a key value driver, supported by our global research and technology footprint, including the R&D center in Shanghai, which enhances customer proximity and speeds up development. Sustainability is another core differentiator with continued scaling of recyclable and low-emission solutions alongside progress on our zero waste and zero CO2 road maps as detailed in our 2025 corporate responsibility report, which was also published today. Finally, execution excellence is underpinned by engaged teams with continued investments in leadership and a strong culture of accountability and collaboration. Looking ahead to 2026, our focus is very clear. We will continue to execute profitable growth and efficiency actions across all regions, fully aligned with our Level Up strategy. In Europe, our priorities are continuously centered on operational discipline, improvement of plant utilization and cost measures. We will carry on pursuing for truck and BEV-driven opportunities as well as leveraging our lightweight and sustainable technologies while ensuring that the cost base remains fully aligned with market conditions. In North America, our improved cost base provides margin resilience. In 2026, we will further strengthen operational stability and focus on continued footprint optimization and structural adjustments. The focus remains firmly on execution and margin protection. Asia will continue to be a key growth driver. In 2026, we will fully leverage our 2025 acquisitions further strengthening customer access and launch local innovations to enable above-market growth. At the same time, we will continue to integrate our businesses in a disciplined manner, ensuring that growth is profitable and sustainable. In SAMEA, our priority remains managing highly inflationary markets to secure our strong margin profile. Disciplined cost management and operational stability will continue to be the foundation for resilient performance in this region. Taken together, this action plan reflects our commitment to disciplined performance, regional accountability and consistent execution, the key levers for delivering sustainable value creation in 2026 and beyond. Let me address our medium-term outlook. We have adjusted our revenue ambition to reflect currency effects, most notably the continued strength of the Swiss franc. Compared to our original 2024 assumptions, currency translation reduces our midterm revenue outlook by around CHF 300 million, resulting in an updated revenue target of CHF 2.7 billion at the current February 2026 exchange rates. In addition, we factor in a reduction of around CHF 100 million due to weaker underlying market development. This impact is, however, fully offset by approximately CHF 100 million of outperformance versus the market, driven by our organic and inorganic growth. As a result, our updated revenue ambition reflects both a more cautious market view and our ability to outperform on our growth ambition. Importantly, our fundamentals remain very strong. Supported by both organic and inorganic growth, we expect to outperform the market while our medium-term targets remain fully intact, an EBIT margin of 6% to 8%, free cash flow of at least 5% of revenue and a net debt-to-EBITDA below 1.5x. In addition, we remain firmly on track to deliver on our 2027 sustainability commitments, including a 20% reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 CO2 emissions and a 40% reduction in nonhazardous waste compared to the 2019 baseline. Before turning to our outlook and our guidance, let me briefly address the market environment for 2026. According to the latest industry forecast, the global automotive market is expected to stay flat in 2026. Production volumes are anticipated to decline in the first half of the year, followed by a recovery in the second half, resulting in a small overall decrease on a global level. The picture remains regionally diverse. In Europe and North America, we continue to see ongoing differences driven by ongoing trade uncertainties, cost inflation and a more cautious consumer environment. In China, domestic production is expected to moderate, while Chinese OEMs continue to expand their international footprint, particularly across Asia and other global markets. Looking ahead, the outlook for 2027 appears more constructive, supported by stabilizing macroeconomic conditions and a gradual recovery in vehicle production. Autoneum enters this environment with a more competitive cost base, a clear strategic focus and a resilient business model. As our products are not tied to a specific powertrain or drivetrain technology, we are well positioned to manage volatility across different market scenarios. Our strong regional execution, diversified product portfolio, continued emphasis on operational excellence, improvement of plant utilization, footprint and headcount optimization position us well to navigate this volatile market while continuing to deliver profitability and free cash flow. Let me now turn to our outlook for 2026. As mentioned, according to the latest market forecast, global light vehicle production is expected to basically remain flat in 2026 with continued pressure in Western markets. Against this backdrop, we expect group revenue of CHF 2.2 billion to CHF 2.4 billion in 2026. Based on this revenue range, we anticipate an EBIT margin of 5.5% to 6.1% and a free cash flow of more than CHF 100 million. Thank you very much. Goodbye.

Thanks a lot.