Dürr Aktiengesellschaft (DUE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the Dürr conference call. Dr. Jochen Weyrauch and Dietmar Heinrich of Dürr AG will present the Dürr Group's figures for the first 9 months of 2022, followed by a Q&A session. I will now hand over to Andreas Schaller, Head of Investor Relations of Dürr AG. Please go ahead.

Yes. Thank you, Kevin. Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon or good morning to those of you in the U.S. Welcome, everybody, to our third quarter 2022 earnings call. With me on the call today are our CEO, Jochen Weyrauch; and our CFO, Dietmar Heinrich. They will present the results of the third quarter and the first 9 months of '22 as well as the outlook, and we'll be happy to answer your questions afterwards. As always, our earnings presentation is available on our Investor Relations web pages, and we assume that you have it in front of you. Please be aware of our disclaimer regarding forward-looking statements on Slide 2. And now it's my pleasure to hand over to our CEO, Jochen Please go ahead.

Thank you, Andreas, for the short introduction, and a warm welcome also from my side to all participants on this call. As usual, I will start with a review of our performance in Q3. After that, I'll briefly comment on the performance of our divisions before Dietmar will go into more details regarding the financials. At the end, we will have a look at the guidance for 2022, and we will have sufficient time to answer any questions you might have. The highlights on Q3 are shown on Slide 4. With more than EUR 1.3 billion, which is an increase by 22% year-on-year, we achieved another strong order intake. This time, we clearly benefited from being active in different end markets. While as expected, order intake for HOMAG slowed down from the peak levels of the last quarters, we experienced very strong demand from automotive customers and recorded a single order of more than EUR 200 million in North America in September. We also received a further remarkable order for solvent recovery equipment for lithium ion battery giga factory in Europe. In addition, order intake in our newly established automation business was stronger than expected. At the moment, we see solid demand for our product overall and a strong order pipeline in automotive for the rest of the year. And therefore, we decided to raise our guidance for order intake in 2022 by EUR 400 million to between EUR 4.8 billion and EUR 5.1 billion. This, let me be clear, does not mean that we deviate from our value before volume strategy. To the contrary, we stayed selective and focus on those orders that support margin improvement towards our midterm goals. The order backlog reached a new record level with close to EUR 4.4 million (sic) [ EUR 4.4 billion ]. This is a very solid base for sales growth in the coming quarters and even years. Sales revenues improved by 7% quarter-on-quarter and reached more than EUR 1.1 billion. China accelerated after the lockdowns in Q2 and supply chains have started to improve, even though there are still some electric components that need to be managed closely. Book-to-bill in Q3 remained above 1 with 1.17. Looking on the margins, we saw a recovery by 180 basis points after the dip in Q2. Consequently, EBIT margin before extraordinary effects reached 5.6% in Q3. Free cash flow was strong in Q3 driven by the earnings recovery, the strong order intake and disciplined net working capital management. Based on the development in Q3 and the current business outlook, we confirm our earnings outlook for 2022. The only update refers to the order intake target that we have raised, as mentioned, by EUR 400 million. On Slide 5, we see the key financial indicators for the first 9 months of 2022. We are making good progress towards our goals despite the challenging environment. Order intake increased by 23% and reached a new record. This includes EUR 171 million positive exchange rate effects. Sales revenues grew by 21% and included EUR 122 million positive foreign exchange effects. EBIT before extraordinary effects increased by 9%, and the margin declined slightly to 4.8% in due to the earnings effect from the China lockdowns in Q2 and higher material costs. The foreign exchange effect was EUR 10 million. Net income was 59% higher compared with the first 9 months of 2021 as our financial results improved. Finally, free cash flow declined compared to the prior year, but is already within our target corridor of between EUR 50 million and EUR 100 million. Let's look at the order intake on Slide 6. As already mentioned, order intake remained at a high level of more than EUR 1.3 billion in Q3 after the record level of the first half year. The momentum in automotive was strong with high demand from OEMs in North America. HOMAG received large orders in China and North America also because of a continued interest in production technology for sustainable wooden houses. On Slide 7, we see the geographical distribution of order intake. The Americas and Asia were the main contributors to growth in 2022 so far. In Germany, we see a decline in orders at HOMAG compared to the record year 2021. India is the main driver behind the growth in the region, Asia, Africa, Australia that does not include China. Now let's have a look at the divisional development. We start with Paint and Final Assembly Systems on Slide 9. Order intake in Q3 more than doubled year-on-year. We received several automotive projects in North America from OEMs, including, as mentioned, one very large single order of more than EUR 200 million. In addition, Teamtechnik and Hekuma achieved a better-than-expected order intake for our automation business driven by automotive, medtech and solar module customers. This is, in many cases, a clear result of realizing synergies by approaching already existing customers jointly with new products and by winning new customers with the support of a strong global group. Revenues growth was picking up as more and more projects enter execution. In addition, the service business showed solid growth. The EBIT margin is in the recovery process, supported by successful price renegotiations and price escalation clauses, increased capacity utilization and the beginning phase out of low-margin projects. Currently, we see a very strong order pipeline, and that's why we have upgraded our order intake guidance. Let's turn to Application Technology on Slide 10. Order intake in Q3 reached a new quarterly record and was driven by large projects in North America. The order pipeline looks good, like at Paint and Final Assembly Systems. Sales revenues accelerated and reached EUR 155 million. Material availability and project execution has improved after the lockdowns in Q2. We're well on track to reach our sales target for 2022. The EBIT margin before extraordinary effects reached 8.1% in Q3 and was diluted by a high share of equipment sales. We expect a strong finish in Q4 with high service sales and therefore, a significant margin improvement. Next is Clean Technology on Slide 11. The order intake in Q3 was on a similar level as in the first 2 quarters. We recorded strong demand for air purification technology in Europe and South Korea. Additionally, we received in Europe another order for solvent recovery equipment for lithium ion battery giga factory. We continue to see good demand and business opportunities with producers of batteries and battery materials, also driven by our new cooperation with [indiscernible]. Revenue growth picked up across many regions with the highest contribution from China and North America. The service business continues to grow even faster. On the margin side, we have seen some improvement sequentially in Q3. However, we are still experiencing pressure from higher material costs. We will focus on margin recovery and see significant growth potential going forward. On Slide 12, we can see the summary of developments at the Measuring and Process Systems division. Order intake was very solid in Q3, mainly driven by North America and Asia. In China, we have seen a lot of demand for balancing equipment for electric drive trains. The service business developed very nicely. Sales revenues reached the highest level of the year in Q3. They increased by 14% compared with Q2 that was impacted by the lockdowns in China. Towards the end of the quarter, the supply of material has improved. If this is sustained, we see a good chance to further accelerate revenue generation in Q4, even though there are still electronic components that are tight in supply. The service share of revenues increased further. EBIT margin improved clearly Q3 driven by growing revenues, higher service share and price increases. We expect a further margin expansion in Q4. Last but not least, let's take a look at HOMAG on Slide 13. After a number of record quarters, we have now seen order intake slowing down to a still relatively high level of EUR 387 million in Q3. Demand from large furniture producers in China was still solid, and we have seen further orders for production technology for sustainable wooden houses in North America. Even though demand from the furniture industry has been cooling down, we are not expecting a hard landing. We see good prospect for demand for services due to the large installed base and has been building up capacities accordingly. In addition, we believe that the growth trend in wooden construction will continue unabatedly. Sales revenues remained above the mark of EUR 400 million set in the second quarter, and we expect to continue at about this level also in quarter 4. The EBIT margin before extraordinary effects improved sequentially and reached its highest level so far in the year at 8.2%. Price increases, high utilization and the strong service business are the main drivers on top of the efficiency improvements that we have realized during the past years. We're very happy with the progress at HOMAG and look forward to developing this business further with our ongoing capacity expansions and process improvements. Now let's move on to the service business on Slide 14. After the lockdowns in China, service sales have recovered in Q3. The share of service sales grew to more than 28% but is still below the 30% target as equipment sales were growing even stronger. The service mix on the right side of the slide still reflects the lot balance in China in Q2. We expect a strong Q4 for service and continue to focus on and invest into the growth of our service business. Service is a clear differentiator for the Dürr group. And now Dietmar, I hand over for you for the financials.

Thank you, Jochen, and welcome to everybody also from my side. I start with Slide 16. In Q3, we experienced a solid recovery of margins and free cash flow. We are well on track to reach new record levels for order intake and sales revenues in the full year, as Jochen already indicated. Let's have a look at the financial details on the next slide. On Slide 17, we can see that sales revenues grew year-on-year by 25%. This was also supported by the supply chain improving step by step. We have seen a fast business recovery after the lockdowns in China and strong growth in North America. Consequently, those 2 regions gained share from a geographic perspective. Sales revenues are on track to achieve the high end of the guidance for 2022. Let's move now to EBIT on Slide 18. Here, we can clearly see the rebound of absolute EBIT and EBIT margin after the lockdowns in China in Q2. We already talked about the recovery of service sales in Q3. On the other hand, we also see a little bit of margin dilution due to the strong sales recovery of Paint and Final Assembly Systems that still includes the realization of lower margin projects. Due to the long lead times, it will still take some time to wash those out. Overhead costs rose year-on-year mainly pushed by sales commissions due to the record order intake, higher research and development costs and negative foreign exchange rate effects. Extraordinary effects were EUR 8 million lower than during the prior year. All in all, the EBIT before extraordinary effects is on track to reach the lower half of the guidance corridor for 2022 of 5% to 6.5%. On Slide 19, we can see the free cash flow development. We recorded a strong rebound in the third quarter with a free cash flow of EUR 61 million. This was mainly driven by the higher earnings level, but also by a stabilization of net working capital after the buildup during the second quarter. In the first 9 months, we reached now EUR 69 million and are already within our guidance corridor of EUR 50 million to EUR 100 million. Compared to the same period last year, we recorded a reduction in contract-related provisions that are included in the line item, Other. Higher tax payments were almost compensated by lower interest payments. Now let's look at the net working capital development on Slide 20. Net working capital remained relatively stable and reached EUR 421 million at the end of Q3. Inventories and contract assets increased because of growing sales revenues and still elevated safety stock levels. However, this increase was compensated by higher trade payables and contract liabilities as well as lower trade receivables. With sales revenues growing at the same time, the days working capital declined from 38.4 days in Q2 to 36.9 days in Q3, which is actually better than our target range of between 40 and 50 days. Given the recent supply chain improvement, we see potential to return to a normal, more cash flow-oriented procurement policy with lower levels of inventories. On Slide 21, we can see the impact of the free cash flow on our net financial status. Net debt declined to EUR 55 million at the end of Q3, and you should be aware that includes EUR 101 million of leasing liabilities. Leverage stands at 0.2x net debt to EBITDA. We are very pleased with our solid balance sheet. Finally, let's have a look at our liquidity headroom on Slide 22. Available funds amount to almost EUR 1.4 billion. This compares to maturities of only EUR 50 million within the next 12 months related to a Schuldschein loan maturing in April 2023. We feel very comfortable with our liquidity headroom, which leaves us flexibility to further grow our business. And with this view from the financial side, I hand back to Jochen for the outlook.

Thank you, Dietmar. Let's turn to the outlook and start with some general comments on current demand drivers. We decided to stop showing LMC numbers for light vehicle production as they do not really correlate very well with the orders pipeline that we see in general. As already mentioned during previous calls, we believe that the short-term view and production volumes can even be misleading at times. In addition, we will present an updated market outlook of production equipment for furniture and wooden construction elements during our upcoming Capital Markets Day next Monday and Tuesday. On Slide 24, we can see the fundamental demand drivers for our business. We regard them as long-term trends and as resilient even in the current difficult environment. We believe that the transformation towards EVs will continue with high speed and that this will drive demand for greenfield and brownfield projects among an increasing number of customers and throughout the world. This includes demand for these lithium-ion battery manufacturers, especially in Europe. At the same time, investments into sustainability and the decarbonization of production remains high on the agenda for our customers. Reducing Scope 1 and 2 emissions has been promised by many customers, and the price hikes for energy and tight supply of fossil fuels has increased the sense of urgency to become active. We provide consulting services to find the right solutions and have suitable products in our portfolio to electrify processes in the paint shop that used to be run with gas. Demand for affordable housing remains high and we could hear from the German government just a couple of weeks ago that modular construction is one of the enablers to solve this challenge. We see more and more activities to switch to wood as sustainable construction material, also for multi-story buildings. Based on these trends, we believe our demand drivers are intact for the next years, and that's what makes us confident regarding our future growth prospects. Now let's take a look at the guidance of the Dürr Group for 2022 on Slide 25. Due to the strong order pipeline in automotive, we now expect an order intake between EUR 4.8 billion and EUR 5.1 billion instead of the range of EUR 4.4 billion to EUR 4.7 billion we had expected since August. As we see more and more signs of an improving supply chain, we feel comfortable with reaching our revised earnings guidance from May. For sales revenues, we expect to reach the upper end of the guidance corridor, driven by improved parts availability and supported by positive foreign exchange effects. The EBIT margin before extraordinary effects was still below the guidance corridor in the first 9 months, but we are confident to reach the lower half of our target with a strong finish in Q4. Free cash flow was strong in Q3, and we are on track to remain in the guidance corridor of EUR 50 million to EUR 100 million also for the full year. On Page 26, we can see the outlook by division. We updated the order intake expectations for 4 of the 5 divisions based on our current view of the demand environment. Paint and Final Assembly Systems shows the biggest increase with EUR 300 million; Application Technology adds EUR 40 million to the midpoint of the target range; Clean Technology Systems, EUR 25 million; and Measuring and Process Systems, EUR 20 million. The order intake guidance for HOMAG was already increased substantially in August and remains unchanged. Before the summary, I would like to remind you on our upcoming Capital Markets Day next week. On Tuesday, the 15th of November, Dietmar and I will present the strategy update talking about margins and returns, growth prospects and resilience. In addition, we will focus on demand drivers such as e-mobility and sustainability and our finance management. Those of you who joined us in person will also have the opportunity to see the main sites of Teamtechnik and HOMAG. For those of you who are not able to join us in Bietigheim-Bissingen, we will broadcast the presentation from Tuesday morning and the Q&A session using Zoom. We're looking forward to meeting you in person or virtually next week, actually, preferably in person. Now let's summarize on Slide 29. The strong order intake continued in Q3, this time pushed by automotive customers. As the pipeline looks strong, we have raised our outlook for the full year by EUR 400 million. Revenues show solid growth, and we are well on track to reach the upper end of our guidance for 2022. The EBIT margin recovered in Q3. Price increases and improvement in the supply chain support the margin development, but we still see impact from higher material costs. We are on track to reach the lower half of the guidance corridor. Our fundamental demand drivers are intact, and our solutions help our customers to achieve efficient and sustainable production. We feel comfortable to reach our earnings guidance for May, and we are on track to achieve our midterm goals of at least 8% EBIT margin and 25% return on capital employed in 2024. Thank you very much for your attention. Now we're happy to answer any questions you might have.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question today comes from Sven Weier of UBS.

The first one, Dr. Weyrauch, is referring to the last comment you made regarding the existing midterm target of at least 8% margin. I think in the previous quarter, you said that you could potentially reach it next year at the earliest. Now I have not seen you mentioning this again. Has anything changed on that? Or is that still an option when you look at the margin quality of the backlog? That's the first one.

Thank you very much for asking the question, Mr. Weier. Yes. You've been very sensitive in listening. Thanks for that. Yes, we were saying '24 at the latest. And there is some uncertainty, of course, in the market, to some extent, which we're facing. And I would have liked to confirm, of course, '23, but to me, '24 is the more realistic time to achieve the number. If we -- if you look at how we've guided now, we see a natural, of course, a significant improvement next year. But from today's perspective, I think it's fair to say that '24 is the year of the 8%.

Okay. That makes sense. And then a couple of questions on the order intake guidance, right? When I look at Application Technology, even if I take the high end of your guidance, it does imply a relatively low figure for Q4. And I was just wondering, is there anything specific behind or is that just being conservative on that side?

I'd say the latter is probably the more relevant one. Yes. Application Technology, we will be definitely much closer to the EUR 620 million than to the EUR 580 million.

And even that one still sounds a bit cautious, I guess.

Puts you at risk, yes.

That's a nice risk to have. And then on the same slide on wood processing, right? When I take the high end of the order intake guidance range, even the high end implies a further sequential slowing. But just wondering on the dynamics for wood processing, right, maybe you can remind us about the regional breakdown there, how dependent you are on the U.S., how dependent you are on China. And so what that could imply maybe for next year then when we think about potential reopening in China on the one side and maybe a bit more recessionary environment in the U.S., how do you look at that pipeline at the moment?

Yes, thanks for asking this one as well. Currently, specifically hard to say. In China, we are typically depending on more larger orders, so they either come or don't come at any given time. But we continue to see in China, I would say, a relatively good market. What's been very good this year, and we will have to see how this turns out next year, is that North America has very well covered some softening in Europe. And for us, it's very positive to see that, especially there's been more orders than expected on the solid wood side. And in the U.S., everybody knows, especially after reports on a hurricane, that there is wooden sources in the U.S. But we have not seen the industrial production of living space -- wooden living space in the U.S. so far, and this is now picking up quite significantly. This is why we're living -- we are having quite a number of nice orders for construction elements, industrial construction elements for wooden houses in U.S. And this makes us quite confident that the trend there continues or even accelerate also next year.

Our next question comes from Daniel Gleim of Stifel.

The first one on your comments with regards to the strong order pipeline in the paint business. Maybe you could scale that for us. What I'm wondering about is, is the momentum in the order pipeline established? Or do you witness a sequential increase? That would be my first question.

Look, we don't expect significant further increase. We are -- despite the fact, as we've said a number of times now, that we've become much more selective, the market is -- continues to be relatively strong. I can tell you, we have really neglected in a number of cases to even quote for a number of reasons. And still, if we look at the pipeline right now, it looks very solid. It looks solid in all the regions. And that's what I can say. We don't see a slowdown short term in -- from a project pipeline. Despite the fact, as I said, we are careful in what we did and what we quote, we're not quoting any large order without price escalation clauses or any pricing related to indexed prices which makes us confident that the margin quality further increases. But still, on top of that, we have been a little bit positively surprised this year so far year-to-date on orders, but the pipeline also continues to be strong.

Very clear. I was looking for your woodworking end market chart in the presentation. Probably you have saved that for next week. But let me ask, is your view still that we see a roughly stable '23 woodworking end markets compared to '22? I'm looking at the second quarter presentation. And the chart you kindly provided, which shows EUR 12.1 billion for the upcoming year compared to EUR 4.2 billion to the ongoing year, is that still your opinion?

Daniel, first of all, you understood the point how we want to attract you to come because we're refusing a few charts today, which we'll show next week. On your projection for the construction elements market, solid woods market, I would say flat would be the very conservative or relatively conservative way to look at it. We believe that even after a good year this year, the demand would rather increase than slightly, at least, then be flat.

And for Woodworking Machinery and Systems, so for the equipment part of [ things ]?

You are talking the furniture market now?

Yes, furniture.

Yes. There, I would say, yes, we can expect a slight softening at this point.

So you also mentioned that you don't see a hard landing when you will look at your current order pipeline for woodworking. I must say I find the current quarter numbers actually quite firmly declining. Is there a one-off in there or anything that you would expect that in the coming quarters, order intake will be better? Or maybe you can put a little bit more flesh to the bone to your comment that you don't see a hard landing on the woodworking side.

It's always a bit tricky to just compare quarter-over-quarter, so we don't see any special impact. Yes, a softening overall, but not a hard landing. And yes, the quarter-on-quarter this year has been softening a bit. And do we see the average compared to this year on the furniture market potentially further softening? Yes, partially compensated by construction elements.

Our next question comes from Ingo Schachel of BNP Paribas Exane.

The first one also be on the Woodworking Machinery segment. Of course, it funded a very nice areas of growth in North America and China. Just would like to understand it better what exactly you're seeing in Europe. Of course, as wood work is softening on the furniture side, just curious to hear a bit more whether that's broad-based in the European countries or specific to certain European countries and also whether you see it across the board with your clients or whether it's rather smaller clients that are more affected now by the -- effectively with the demand decrease. It would also be great if you could shed a bit of light on pricing in that context, or you find it more difficult to get through with the HOMAG price increase in the softer European environment.

Yes. Thanks, Ingo, for the questions. Let me start with the latter part. We have significantly increased really strong double-digit basis in the last 18 months. And those prices are now, if you will, going -- starting to go through the P&L. Will we have -- this business lives with base price increases. And then for certain customers, you have certain rebates, to put it that way. Might there be a bit more pressure on rebates next year? Yes. On the other hand, we have significantly increased base prices, which, overall, our assumption is that still margins will increase because most of the price increases that we've made have not yet made their way through the P&L. In terms of the business regarding smaller or larger clients, it's quite heterogeneous. So we've seen last year maybe a bit more of single machine orders compared to this year where we have a bit more of larger orders coming in again, but not in a significant change, if I may say so. And then in Europe, overall, there's been some sort of a softening, which doesn't come unexpected because especially in Southern Europe last year and potentially the year before, we benefited from significant subsidies from the European Union for investment. So this doesn't come as a surprise. Actually, we've been quite positive. That's the reason why we had to change the guidance for order intake for HOMAG already a couple of months ago because we were positively surprised that this year was running stronger than we had initially anticipated. And consequently, some softening next year would still be, if you compare to the past, be a very good year.

Okay. Maybe just quickly on your cash flow guidance, which, of course, also doesn't imply much of a Q4 cash flow compared to EUR 50 million to EUR 100 million in a normal year. Apart from the fact it might be conservative as usual, any specific thoughts behind that? Or have you also been seeing [indiscernible] probably conservative order intake guidance? And if order take is a bit higher, pretend it's a little bit higher, you could also [ deter ] your cash flow guidance.

Yes. Actually, very good development. Ingo, as mentioned, in the third quarter. Of course, we are cautious as usual. But for the fourth quarter, it's kind of offset between, on one side, there is still a good order intake level with the initial payment coming from our customers. But you could also see that we did significant investments into capital expansion and productivity improvement, and that will offset. But we will continue to manage the net working capital tightly. And that's overall finally leading to the guidance, EUR 50 million to EUR 100 million. And of course, I, personally, as CFO, strive to get more to the upper level of the cash flow guidance.

Our next question comes from [ Marianne Bulo ] of Bank of America.

This is [ Marianne ] on behalf of Alex Virgo. I was just wondering if you could maybe comment a bit on pricing and volume in the order intake for this quarter.

Thanks, [ Marianne ]. Yes, we -- let me go one step back. In terms of pricing and margin, a big -- our automotive business is well -- is run on a single order pricing. So we quote each project. And consequently, we try to achieve a certain margin. And the -- and this is where we are now managing the business with price escalation clauses. And then we have the machinery business, which is based on the price development that we have shown. What -- I'm just looking at the [indiscernible] positive -- we had some positive currency effects of around 5% or 5% in the third quarter. Okay. So that has a certain impact. But in general, looking at the margins and margin improvement, we've been increasing prices in HOMAG, I would say, an average 15% to 16% in the last 18 months, which now starts to make its way through the P&L with lead times between 1 and 2 years right now. We don't see much of that yet in the EBIT, and the same is basically true in Paint and Final Assembly Systems, where we will see effects a bit faster as we are having most of the orders' percentage of completion. On the other hand, we've renegotiated some orders and were quite successful in repricing orders, which also makes it way now into the P&L.

Next question comes from Nicolai Kempf of Deutsche Bank.

Nicolai Kempf from Deutsche Bank. Kind of [ piggyback ] from the first question. You mentioned some uncertainty still in the market, especially next year. It looks like you're on track with order intake and also the pace of lower-margin projects. So just to give some more color, what kind of headwinds do you see next year?

I mean, we hope that we have enough gas not so much for us, but for our supply chain and maybe more -- you can -- and I'm more a salesperson, so I'm, in general, maybe more on the optimistic side. It's difficult for me to paint a very bad picture. Nevertheless, of course, if recession as a result of whatever complication on this planet becomes stronger and consumers becoming depressive, this, of course, might have an impact on investment decisions of our customers. As you know, we're not directly dependent on consumption, but we're dependent on how our customers see the future in terms of making investment decisions. This, of course -- they might delay making decisions. All of this could, of course, lead to a reduction -- a significant reduction of order intake, which if you look at our backlog right now, we have time to manage because our concern in terms of volume or sales, in this case, would not be so much the year '23, but following year. So we have enough volume to maneuver at this point. But with all sorts of crisis we're currently facing and the world still being relatively resilient, of course, you can always try to make it even worse. And in the end, we might be relatively resilient, but we're not completely resilient either. That would be blunt.

Okay. Understood. And maybe speaking more near term, I understand the shift from natural gas heater in the PFS division to electric heater is an interesting opportunity for you. How fast could this be visible in your P&L?

To some extent, Nicolai, it already is today because on some new orders already today, we supply instead of gas-fired purification equipment, or gas-fired heaters, we are selling electric equipment. For example, for one customer who is building a completely new plant in Hungary, as we speak. What we will see more in the next years is conversion projects, brownfield projects, because all our customers have announced their own sustainability targets and by when they want to be CO2 neutral. And like Christmas, some of them will suddenly feel that this is now 2 weeks before Christmas, and now have to buy the gifts. So we expect in the next years an acceleration. How quickly, in some cases, this will come, we cannot perfectly say. But most of the customers have significant reduction goals kicking in somewhere between 2030 and 2035, which means they will have to make investment decisions in the next 1, 2, 3 years towards this equipment. And there is no way out.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Peter Rothenaicher of Baader Bank.

Firstly, on your unchanged sales guidance. Clearly, as you stated, you are expecting now to see the upper end of the guide range. Nevertheless, if I think about your usual seasonality with Q4 always a strong quarter, now this year, also the effect that price increases will kick in increasingly, even the upper end of your sales guidance would mean that you would not see a sequential sales increase. So is it fair to assume that there might also be a good chance that you can surpass the upper end of the sales guidance?

Thanks, Peter. I mean, you know the company for quite some time, what shall we tell you? Look, we think the third quarter has been relatively good already in picking up of the sales, maybe much -- maybe better than we were assuming. So will we be back loaded as usual? Yes. How much that will be, we will see. And is there a risk that we might not meet the upper end by overshooting it? Probably, but let's say the upper end is quite a good orientation.

Okay. Then regarding your midterm margin target of at least 8% margin. You are now seeing extremely strong activity in the Paint and Final Assembly business, where margins are usually considerably below your group average margin. Might this be perhaps a risk not to achieve this 8% target in 2024? It's -- definitely, it would be some kind of luxury problem because the other businesses are not disappearing or not going worse, and the absolute volume might increase. But in terms of the margin, it might have a dilutive effect.

I couldn't have said it better than you just did. That's exactly why we've been a little bit rephrasing the latest buy into '24 because we're seeing -- quite honestly, we're seeing a better development on the PFS side or Paint and Final Assembly side than we were expecting. We're seeing this despite the fact that we're becoming more selective. And exactly what you're saying, the risk -- the luxury risk of dilution by better-than-expected development of PFS technically has an impact on EBIT. Nevertheless, the target is what we described. On the other hand, the beauty of PFS is that, of course, we are very much looking at our [ heads ]. But I know everybody in the financial community is also looking at ROCE, and PFS always has a nice influence on a positive ROCE. So let's take that as a good one. And the rest, we have to manage. But it's exactly what you said. PFS, currently, the larger PFS is, the more it is dilutive. This is why we're so keen in bringing margins up for PFS, in order to make it not too much dilutive for our overall target, but it has an impact. But again, to some extent, a luxury problem.

And then the last point is on M&A. So given now the sort of reduction again in net debt and I think also good prospects for cash generation, is there any news you could share with us in potential M&A? Do you intend to continue to the recent strategy of some smaller acquisitions? Or is in this environment here perhaps even good opportunities on the market?

Yes. We're always looking at acquisitions, and we do the same right now. Is there anything I could say more precisely at this very moment? No. We are looking at both small acquisitions, but also, I would say, significant potential acquisitions. We believe that it could be an interesting point in time. I'm not saying that we'll be successful. But with valuations having been overheated maybe in the last number of years, with a low interest, what we're seeing is for companies that we look at, at the moment and the potential interlopers in processes, we're seeing that especially from the financial investor side, there's less pressure on valuations, which if we're lucky, might help us to do what we anyways would do that we don't overpay and rather let something go than putting ourselves too much under pressure. The overall environment could be to our favor, let's say, at the moment. Again, nothing very precise at the moment. But overall, I think the situation right now in M&A is not just challenging, it might offer opportunities.

[Operator Instructions] As there are no further questions, I'd like to hand the call back for any additional or closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much, Kevin. And thank you very much to all of you for your questions and your interest. We are looking forward to see, hopefully, a lot of you next week then at our Capital Markets Day. I think there will be a lot to see actually also looking at the operations, I think, gives you a much better insight what we are actually doing and working on. In case you have further questions or would like to register still on short notice for the Capital Markets Day, please let me know. And otherwise, we wish you a nice rest of the day and rest of the week and look forward to seeing you next week then. That's it, and goodbye.

Thank you.

And that does end today's conference call. We thank you all for participating, and you may now disconnect.