JOST Werke SE ($JST)

Earnings Call Transcript · May 13, 2026

XTRA DE Industrials Machinery Earnings Calls 48 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

Operator
#1

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the JOST Werk SE Earnings Call for Q1 2026 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Joachim Durr, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Joachim Dürr

Executives
#2

Yes. Thank you very much. Good morning, and a warm welcome to our Q1 2026 earnings conference. Myself and Oliver will guide you through what we think was a very strong start into this year with the Q1 performance. So let's look at the Q1 highlights from our side. The Hyva integration is on track and the synergies are ramping up. And with that benefit, we could return into our profitability corridor, our strategic corridor between 10% and 12%, a little earlier than we initially expected. We have inaugurated a new hydraulic plant in Brazil, and that strengthens our regional footprint in that important region and expands our capacity for the future growth that we have planned for the Americas region in general. We've also increased our share capital by 10% in Q1 2026. We issued 1.49 million shares at a price of EUR 62.13. And with that, we had gross proceeds of approximately EUR 93 million. From a market side, EMEA market recovered slightly. The APAC demand was quite positive. So with that, we could offset some of the challenges that we had, especially in the transport market in the U.S. And we've leveraged that market environment. And together with our drive in our organic growth pipeline, we were able to ramp up and use the organic growth and new customer gains to have what we think is a strong sales performance in the first quarter. So let's come to the financial numbers, and let's start with sales. We have a record -- achieved a record sales level of EUR 417 million in 1 quarter. That's the first time and the record level for the JOST Group. That was up 12% compared to previous year. And, as you know, with the Hyva integration and the divestment of cranes, that is a bit complex. So that's why it's also important to look at the organic sales numbers, and that is a growth of 9% versus the last -- first quarter of last year. All regions and all business lines have contributed to this organic growth of plus 9%. Also, adjusted EBIT is up 23% to a record level of EUR 44 million in the first quarter, and the adjusted EBIT margin improved to 10.6% back into our strategic margin corridor a little earlier than we initially expected in the integration planning. Our leverage improved to 1.75x. That was obviously supported by the 10% capital increase that I've just mentioned but also from a higher last 12 months adjusted EBITDA of EUR 204 million. So we're now well within the range between 1 and 2, which we consider the strategic or the target range for our leverage. The adjusted net income grew by 17% to EUR 28 million and the adjusted earnings per share increased 12% to EUR 1.81 per share, and that is with the additional 10%, so, the larger number of shares in circulation. Strong start into the year. So we -- with that strong start, we can confirm our outlook for the fiscal year 2026. I've mentioned that the markets have been a little, how should I say, weak in Americas and a bit positive in EMEA and APAC. So let's look a little bit at the details. For Europe, Middle East and Africa, we had supporting markets in truck and trailers, also support in the tractor market and slight support, I would say, in construction and hydraulics. So our performance in those -- in that market was 8.4%, which is slightly above the market average, and that supported our organic growth. If we look at Americas, I think that's an impressive performance. Markets were not supportive in North America for truck and trailers, which is an important part of the business. Also not in the tractor industry and the construction industry was more or less even. Our performance with a positive 5.2% on an organic basis is the win of new market shares, especially in agriculture but also some of additional trailer business in North America. But the vast majority of that overperformance comes from agriculture in North America and South America, new customers for our plant in Brazil. Asia Pacific, the markets were supportive. Truck and trailer in India, China, also Australia, with a positive development, tractors also with a positive development, same as hydraulics and construction. Our performance, organic 14.5% growth in that region. So I think this is a good example. We can go to the next slides of how our strategy that we are implementing contributes to the resilience that you see in the numbers. Our sales by destination in the first quarter has been 48% in Europe, Middle East and Africa. And then the rest is more or less split evenly between the Americas region and the APAC region. If you look at that from an adjusted EBIT, and Oliver can give you a bit more detail in that in his slides, we gained about 35% in our EMEA region, 25% in Americas and 38% contribution from APAC. So APAC is a very important region for us. If we look at the industries that we serve, we serve 50% to transport industry, 20% the agriculture industry, and that has been going up. It used to be 18%. So you see the ramp-up in agriculture in also in those numbers and the construction and hydraulics industry was 30%. So with that, I would like to hand over to Oliver for more financial details.

Oliver Gantzert

Executives
#3

Thanks, Joachim, for the quick overview. And as usual, now let's look a little bit deeper into our performance KPIs and financials, starting with the EMEA region. We have seen a very solid growth momentum, and that is going to continue. The order book is quite nicely underway for EMEA, fully in line with the numbers that Joachim representing for the markets. And profitability has also significantly improved in EMEA through various regions. In detail, we have seen an organic growth in the EMEA region of 8.4%, which is also more or less the reported growth as the M&A impact more or less levels out. The strongest growth we have seen in the business line agriculture with double-digit growth rates in the EMEA region for agriculture but also transport and hydraulics remain very robust and also forward-looking quite promising for the moment. On the other side, we still see no significant negative impacts, at least on the order book side from the Iran Middle East conflict. However, we are used to be a little bit cautious here. All our products are investment goods. We need to see how that means. But again, I'll just confirm it for a moment, nothing visible here. No major FX impact in the top line. And when we then look for EMEA on the profitability, we have seen an increase in the EBIT margin from 6.1% to 7.7%. And that's partially driven by product mix, as I just mentioned, the growth in the agricultural business line is higher. That comes with higher gross profit margins and then turning into higher EBIT margins as well. We have seen the positive impact versus prior year first quarter from the Cranes divestment as a second big point. And also, we are seeing the ramping up of the synergies, both companies, JOST and Hyva, so to speak, have their headquarter functions with R&D, IT, HR, et cetera, in the EMEA region. And the efforts that we did last year in leveraging those cost bases by realizing synergies are now turning into EBIT here as well. On top, for sure, especially in transport, we see scale effects from the higher capacity utilization in our transport plants and partially also in agriculture. You might remember that last year for a certain couple of weeks in the first quarter, we were on short-time work in transport and agriculture. That's obviously gone, and that helps the overall P&L for EMEA as well. Yes. And my usual comment here is always keep in mind when you look into the EMEA region that the margins compared to the other regions is a little bit lower because of the headquarter burden. So that's EMEA. For Americas, also a little bit mentioned already by Joachim, we see growth supported by M&A, but especially by market share gains. And that's quite impressive. The organic growth has been 5.2% from EUR 98 million to EUR 104 million in Americas for a single quarter. It's partially driven by customer gains in the transport sector in North America, especially in the trailer segment. But the predominant effect likewise in Europe is here that we have a stronger start into the agriculture business in both subregions, North America and especially in Brazil. So that's quite helpful here. We had, on the other side, a relatively strong negative FX effect in the top line of minus 7.1% points, which is predominantly due to the USD versus the euro devaluation. And that's led to the situation that yes, the reported growth in organic growth looks more or less the same. On the adjusted EBIT, we have seen a more or less stable margin. Last year, first quarter, 10.8%, now 10.6%, which is firmly within our margin corridor for that region as well. We have here and there a little bit of a mix effect and also compared to last year's first quarter, a slight negative tariff impact here in the first quarter, and that explains that minor difference. Overall, we are quite happy with the performance. The integration is on track in the region. And we see, especially for the cross-sell synergies in the Americas reaching further potential ramping up throughout the year. And in general, overall in the region, we are quite flexible with our cost base. So whatever happens in the second half of the year, that might be one question. What is happening with transport in the second half, we are flexible enough to ramping up or ramping down whatever the market will tell us. So quite happy also with the Americas performance. Now looking into APAC, again, another very strong quarter. We have seen this beginning of mid of last year, especially China and then starting from September onwards also India is starting a recovery, and that turned directly into the first quarter numbers. We have seen a reported growth of 26%, if you adjust that for all the M&A and also a very strong FX impact coming from the Indian rupee. It's still almost 15% organic growth underlying our strong positioning in the region. Basically, that's in China. We had a very good start into the transport business in China, again, driven by huge export sales numbers from our Chinese customers. But we have also seen a very strong growth of the Transport segment, organic growth, the transport segment in India. Oceania with a very solid performance. The only, let's say, a little bit down light is the mining business in the APAC region. What we see is that especially the mining segment in Indonesia is struggling a little bit, still healthy, but that comes normally with a very high EBIT margin. So that's a little bit of a, let's say, yellow light at the moment. But also here, it looks stable for the rest of the year. Looking into the adjusted EBIT for the region, that has grown absolutely significantly from EUR 12.8 million to EUR 16.6 million, driven by that volume increase but also the margin is slightly up again, now from 14.6% last year to 15.1%, driven by -- obviously, by the synergies and also our very strong business in China in the first quarter. And also here, driven by a higher capacity utilization in our agricultural plant. As you may know, we have a big factory in India, producing agricultural parts, and this is export business to a certain extent into the U.S. And as we mentioned, the U.S. agriculture business is slightly picking up. That helps also the production in our Indian plant as well. So very happy with the APAC performance, again, another super quarter for this region. When we look then for the total group, some numbers already mentioned by Joachim, reported growth by almost 12% to EUR 417 million, record for the group. And even organically, and I think that's more important to look at is plus 9%. And as was mentioned, all business lines and all regions contributed to that organic growth. And a little bit more into details. Agriculture grew by 27% organically. Transport business line by organically 6%. And this includes the depressed -- still depressed transport business in the U.S. And also the Hydraulic business line contributed at least by 1% on a global level. We see here still potential for the Hydraulics business line in Europe. In Europe, we did a little bit of a supply chain change last year for the Hydraulics business and that capacity still needs to up from a demand -- customer demand, hydraulics in Europe for certain segments looks quite promising for the second half year as well. Overall, FX impact of minus 3.7% for the top line. From a profitability point of view, very proud to say, again, like Joachim mentioned, we are back in our strategic profitability corridor, which is at least 10% EBIT margin. Now by 10.6%, which is 100 basis points above prior year. For sure, we have to mention the ones that are following us longer, we always have in a, let's say, normal year of -- where we have normal seasonality patterns. The first quarter is usually one of the strongest quarters because of working days, other seasonality impacts like when do your cost base increases, that's probably throughout April and May and not directly from January onwards. So all those things help normally the first quarter to be a little bit better than the other ones. Nevertheless, 10.6%, that's indeed a little bit earlier into that range that we anticipated and quite happy to show those numbers. We see clearly the ramping up of the synergies. We see clearly scale effects from the high volume and the organic growth and also the overall higher share of higher-margin products help as promised on our gross margin then turning to EBIT. Yes. I think that's then for the overall group, EUR 44 million, again, is the total EBIT number for the first quarter. If we then look into certain other KPIs, starting here with the adjusted net income and adjusted EPS, we start with a reported net income of almost a little bit more than EUR 16 million, adding up our tax expenses, financial result, plus the usual adjustments for our PPA allocations and certain other effect, we end up with that EUR 44 million, and that turns then into EUR 28 million adjusted net income or an adjusted EPS of EUR 1.81 per share. And that means for both for the adjusted net income, a growth of 17% but even more important for an adjusted EPS growth of 12% despite the higher number of shares circulating after our capital increase beginning of the year, I think a very successful growth also in terms of adjusted net income and adjusted EPS. One last comment regarding the other exceptionals here. There is one exception that included of roughly EUR 3 million. We disclosed that a little bit more in our quarterly report. We are looking now that we are progressing with our integration of Hyva quite nicely, and that should be completed by mid of the year. We are also now looking in detail in each and every product line going forward from a more long-term strategic point of view, and we have seen the one or the other product line that we are questioning a little bit here at the moment, whether we want to continue for various reasons, right? And there's one product line that we detected in Far East and in India that we are ramping down at the moment, and that comes with one-off costs of roughly EUR 3 million that have been fully booked in the first quarter are included in the net income of EUR 16 million. From an outlook point of view, I don't expect from this point in time any material sales or EBIT impact in 2026. So that's for the adjusted net income bridge. And if we then switch to our balance sheet and capital intense ratios KPI slide, we see a slight increase of our ROCE versus end of 2025, now close to 16%, which is compared to the first quarter last year, 240 basis points up and already approaching our strategic corridor only 1 year after the acquisition, I think, showing that we are using the capital of our shareholders quite efficiently and are well underway to deliver here our strategic numbers. Equity ratio has raised up to 27.4%. There are 3 main reasons in here. Obviously, the biggest one is the capital increase with net proceeds of a little bit more than EUR 90 million directly going into the equity balance but also the EUR 16 million reported net income plus a positive FX effect of EUR 11 million helped to increase the equity in an absolute value of around EUR 120 million. So that means also here from a, let's say, from a CFO point of view, we are back in a stronger in a stronger corridor for our balance sheet figures, giving us financial flexibility for whatever comes going forward. Net debt leverage has decreased significantly, also driven by the operating performance but the capital increased down to 1.75x long-term LTM EBITDA. Also here, we are in our strategic corridor and are able now to use the next 12, 15 months to further build on our corporate strategy. Joachim mentioned that the LTM EBITDA is now EUR 204 million. That's absolute record for JOST. We have, for the first time in our history, surpassed the EUR 200 million LTM EBITDA mark here. And net debt in absolute amount is 30 -- almost EUR 360 million. Next page. Free cash flow, if you will, that's the one and only item where I'm probably not proud in the first quarter but it's okay. We are showing a conversion rate of more or less 0 at the moment and the free cash flow of also almost 0 at the moment. Why is this the case? It has nothing to do with the operating performance of the company. That's simply driven by the huge jump in business volume that we have seen over the last couple of months, especially versus the run rate of a very low November, December, seasonality low. And on top, when the Middle East conflict broke out end of February, we started immediately to look into our supply chain. Do we need to manage safety stocks here and there to be able to deliver going forward. And that's exactly what we did selectively, we build up a little bit inventory to be prepared for a potential longer conflict. And I think what we see still today is, I think that was the right decision that conflict will not be over very fast. CapEx is still in line with our disciplined corridor, 2.3% in sales, almost EUR 10 million this first quarter, nothing special here at the moment. And also from a working capital point of view with 17.5%. This is fully in line with our strategic corridor and also fully in line with the goals that we have for 2025. And then next page, I think that's then handing over to Joachim.

Joachim Dürr

Executives
#4

Okay. Yes. Thank you, Oliver, for the details. So that was a strong first quarter. So how -- what do we expect for the rest of the year? If you look at it from a market perspective, the expectations for the industry are for Europe, Middle East and Africa that we will have a slight recovery of the demand versus the prior year in trucks and in trailers. And also in tractors, we see a slight recovery for this market, and the same is true for hydraulics. But it's all on a very low level. And of course, it all depends on the geopolitical environment. If you look at Americas, we have the effect that the expectation for Class 8 has been going up because there is an emission regulation that kicks in at the end of the year, beginning of next year. And so we expect that there will be a prebuy effect that will hit the trucks. Therefore, a more positive judgment for the truck development in Americas in general. Brazil is continued to be expected at a low level like last year. For trailers, there could be a slight decrease because of the truck investments that the fleets will have to make or will want to make. They may postpone some of the trailer volumes, and therefore, there's a slight decrease expected tractors and hydraulics still suffering in Americas, a little bit from the trade situation from the tariff situation that does not give the necessary stability, but overall, more or less on the level that we've seen in the previous years. Looking at Asia and Pacific, truck demand, a slight growth, trailer demand also somewhat stronger growth. We see India more or less on a stable, slightly recovering level and China exports to the global south are also supporting the Chinese domestic environment is not growing, is not expected to grow, just put it like this. So for trailers, a little better, as I mentioned. And for tractors and hydraulics, we also see a slight improvement versus last year for APAC. So let's come to the outlook in numbers. We can confirm the guidance that we have given. So for sales, we expect a single-digit growth on the basis of the EUR 1,534 million that we had last year. Adjusted EBIT should grow a little stronger, and you've seen the first quarter very promising on that. But there's also some certain effects that will not translate throughout the year. So -- but we still expect that to be higher than the sales growth, mid- to high single-digit growth. And the same for the adjusted EBIT margin that will obviously, by dividing the 2 numbers, will increase versus last year. CapEx to be expected around the 2.8% of sales that we also had last year in 2025 and working capital range between the 17.5% to 18.5%. So let's sum it up. We had a strong start into 2026. We achieved new records for sales and for adjusted EBIT in the first quarter. The Hyva integration is on track and delivers the expected synergies, and that is helping our profitability to bring it to the range -- to our strategic range between 10% and 12%. We have achieved strong organic growth in a very mixed market environment, and that is because of our global positioning that we have developed over the years and also the diversification or rather the coverage, the broad coverage that we have across the relevant industries and the regions. Since we're back in our leverage range, we are now more actively working on M&A pipelines and expect that the market environment could create some attractive offers so that we are now in the range where from a finance point of view, we are able to act. The robust order intake continues with the possibility to further recover from the market. We, however, remain a bit cautious because of the macro and geopolitical framework that is more or less changing on a daily or weekly basis. With that, we confirm the outlook for 2026. And that concludes our presentation, and we're looking forward to your questions.

Operator

Operator
#5

[Operator Instructions] Our first verbal question comes from Nicolai Kempf from Deutsche Bank.

Nicolai Kempf

Analysts
#6

It's Nicolai from Deutsche Bank. Congrats to a really strong quarter. Let's start with Europe. Your message on European transport demand is similar to what peers have said, basically that the Middle East conflict has so far no impact on demand. I'm just wondering because of the higher diesel prices and because not every customer can pass them on, do you expect to see some impact going forward? That would be my first one. Second one, on the U.S. market, also impressive that you showed growth here. And given that the base will likely get easier and the strong order intake we had from the Class 8 trucks, it appears that your guidance is rather cautious. Is that just a reflection of the potential macro headwind or anything other we should keep in mind?

Joachim Dürr

Executives
#7

Nicolai, yes, thank you for your questions. Indeed, we do not see any negative impacts yet in the call-offs that we get from the OEMs and also in the dealer orders, we don't see that. But we do believe there is probably a slight buildup in inventory on both ends. So that when the high fuel prices, the high energy prices, the high transport prices may affect the overall volume that we'll probably look at the higher stock level. I think everybody is increasing a little bit the stock level just to make sure that with the uncertainties, they are able to act and to deliver to their customers. So indeed, we don't see any of that, any downturn because of that at this point in time. But in the long range, we do expect that higher energy prices and higher transport costs will have a negative effect on the overall industry. U.S. Class 8, indeed, we also expect the prebuy effect, I mentioned that in the presentation. We have a market share in North America of about 30% to 35%. So we will benefit from that to a certain degree. However, Brazil is still low. And you could see that maybe as an upside as compared to our guidance because when we developed the guidance, that was not in. But on the other hand, we are somewhat cautious with the effect that I've just mentioned that the high energy prices and the Iran conflict is not solved and that, that could have a subdued effect. So we stick to our guidance. And if you would put the one on the -- that could be better than expected. The other one could be worse than expected because when we developed the guidance, there was no Iran conflict at this point in time. I hope that answers your question, Nicolai?

Nicolai Kempf

Analysts
#8

Yes. Understood.

Operator

Operator
#9

The next question comes from Yasmin Steilen with Berenberg.

Yasmin Steilen

Analysts
#10

I have 3, if I may. So the first one on the supply chain. You've increased your safety stock already in Q1. And just to understand, is this a cautious approach? Or do you experience already really a tightness in your supply chain from the Middle East conflict? And how should we think about the working capital ratio in '26 with Q1 ratio at the lower end of your guidance range for the full year? Then the second question is on European agri. You have seen strong momentum in the first quarter. But looking at the sentiment, so business climate for agri machinery in Europe is deteriorating. So do you see or experience already any indications in your discussions with your customers or order intake dynamics from this? And the last one, just coming back to Nicolai's question on the guidance. I also try to get my head around the guidance. So this is -- or kind of the only reason for you not becoming more optimistic on your outlook is just the Iran conflict and the little visibility you have. Is this the right kind of takeaway?

Oliver Gantzert

Executives
#11

Thank you, Yasmin. I'll take the first one and the other 2 ones are with Joachim. Regarding supply chain, I would say to the vast majority, it's still taking a cautious approach just to be prepared. Here and there, especially in Far East Asia and in India, we see certain challenges in the supply chain, right? And predominantly, that's not us but these are suppliers for the whole industry here and there. The Indian economy is dependent highly on liquid gas and liquid gas comes out of Middle East, and that is affecting here and there the industry. And we see driven -- partially driven also by political decisions, prioritizations and who gets liquid gas in India. And this is one reason why we want to prepare and try to, wherever possible, to use the current, let's say, financial strength that we have also versus competitors, especially local competitors in the region to use that in order to be more stable and to be able to deliver because also now we are delivering from India out into U.S., as an example, for agriculture products. So even in case the local demand is down and everyone would struggle from this, we could benefit if we can deliver our international customers still out of India. So that's the biggest reason at the moment that we are investing here and there in stocks. I would say still it is a mid-single-digit number. So it's not a super huge number but we have a logistics task force in place, and this is looking basically every day or every second day in those situations. And yes, the most, let's say, regional focus here is Far East and India at the moment. For the rest of the regions, we don't see material impact. Regarding working capital, I think with the 17.5% in terms of sales, we have seen the growth that I already anticipated for this year. I mentioned that in various calls over the past months that we will see organic growth of the JOST in 2026 despite the macroeconomic environment just because we have won projects and that need ramp-ups in inventory but also in sales, and that's obviously what happened in the first quarter. And I expect now that we are going to stay stable on that ratio in terms of working capital sales.

Joachim Dürr

Executives
#12

Okay. Then to your questions about European ag development. Yes, the sentiment is fluctuating. We have the sentiment index, and that is sometimes a bit more positive, sometimes a bit more negative. Overall, I expect that the market will be rather stable. We have a lot of effects that play a role. Crop prices are still very good, except for potatoes. Meat prices and milk prices are also still good. So our customers, the end customer still is gaining money, earning money that he can invest. Of course, high fertilizer prices, he needs to invest in fertilizers but most of them have that already booked for this year. So it will more or less hit them only at the end of this year. And with that, we think that there will still be the capability to invest if they need to invest. So I would say we can follow the market and the market prediction that I've shown on this slide for the European ag. Outside of Europe, we are still ramping up some new customer projects and gaining market share. So there, we will be a bit more positive in North America and in APAC with the market shares that we're winning. Concerning the guidance, yes, the year has started very strong. So we will probably see ourselves at the upper end of the guidance at this point in time. But certainly, on the sales level, there are uncertainties that come with the Iran conflict. And therefore, we were not planning to adjust that. And if we look at the earnings and the EBIT, we had a very strong quarter but you have to remember our overall seasonality that you have seen also over the course of the last years. And we also had a very positive mix in regional mix, as Oliver explained during the presentation. So we believe that we are still in that guidance. Probably from this point of view, depending on how the Iran conflict and other global trade implications and impacts will develop, we would see ourselves at the upper end of that guidance but still within the guidance that we've just repeated.

Romy Acosta

Executives
#13

Okay. We have 2 questions coming in from the room chat, from Robert [indiscernible] from Opportunity Tree Capital. Given the recent capital increase, which appears value destructive at this stage, could you update us on the M&A pipeline? We are looking at a situation where dilution is set to effectively wipe out any organic earnings growth this year.

Joachim Dürr

Executives
#14

Yes. I would not confirm the statements that it will effectively wipe out any organic earnings because we've seen the earnings per share go up, and that is even with the higher share numbers that we have. But certainly, as I mentioned, we are now back in the range where we are able to work on deals. The most important deals that we've made that was the acquisition of our agricultural business and also the acquisition of our hydraulic business. were acquisitions that -- and discussions that we have initiated more or less outside of an existing process. And the big discussion with the vendor was, do you have the financial capability and do you have the strategic capability and the integration capability to act. And that's why the capital increase was important for us because we're now back in a position where we can act. And out of that position, we are investigating and we are talking to potential targets. And as I said, to us, in the last 2 important acquisitions, that has been an important situation to be in. And since Q1 of 2026, we're back in that position. And we will, with all due respect and with all caution that needs to be taken, we will enter into those discussions and are already at the beginning of some of those discussions. Oliver, you want to contribute?

Oliver Gantzert

Executives
#15

I totally agree. I don't see the value destructive point at this moment in time.

Romy Acosta

Executives
#16

There is another question from Sebastian Ubert from MPCM. Do you see the potential to remain above 10% adjusted EBIT margin for 2026 as a whole, which could be positive if adjusted EBIT is growing 9% at limit top line growth? How big was the impact on inventories due to the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz?

Joachim Dürr

Executives
#17

Thanks, Sebastian, your first quarter, welcome to JOST universe. Second part of the question, I think I did mention already with Yasmin question. So that's a mid-single-digit safety stock increase that we did at the moment. That's basically the main impact that we see at the moment. Regarding the first part of the question, yes, that's definitely possible, right? We have seen a strong profitability momentum. And in case there is the right ratio between sales growth on the one side, then we will definitely see or could see an adjusted EBIT that is at least close to 10%, if not slightly above, yes. But still in line with the guidance, potentially with the upper end of our current guidance.

Romy Acosta

Executives
#18

Yes, I don't see any more written questions.

Operator

Operator
#19

[Operator Instructions]

Romy Acosta

Executives
#20

Okay. We have one more question from [indiscernible]. Could you please provide a full year guidance for exceptionals, financial results and tax rate?

Oliver Gantzert

Executives
#21

Yes. [ Claudio, ] normally, we don't give guidance for those numbers but just give you a rough range. Regarding exceptionals, we guided, let's say, with beginning of the acquisition of Hyva that until, let's say, the closure of the PMI, we would may incur EUR 20 million, EUR 24 million of one-offs to do the full integration, restructuring, closing plans, layoff of certain people, and so on and so forth. We have consumed last year EUR 15 million. So there is another, let's say, mid- to high single-digit euro number going to be expected for this year. I would exclude a little bit that EUR 3 million that I mentioned in the call regarding that portfolio optimization in Far East and India that has nothing specifically to do with the integration. Adding this on top, yes, it might be up to EUR 10 million. Again, for our guidance going in 2026, no impact. That's already everything what we do there is for our profitability in 2027. Regarding financial results, we had a slight positive impact of FX in the financial result of first quarter. So that I think it's roughly EUR 6 million in the P&L for the first quarter. You cannot times four. It's probably a little bit more. I would expect between EUR 28 million up to EUR 30 million of financial result from interest, lease rates and so on and so forth for the full year. And regarding tax rate, tax rate, because we are doing M&A because you have PPA, you should always look into the adjusted net income and then the tax rate -- calculate your taxes versus the adjusted net income. And that rate is typically between 27%, 28%. I hope that answers your questions.

Operator

Operator
#22

Ladies and gentlemen, this was our last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to the management for any closing remarks.

Joachim Dürr

Executives
#23

Okay. Thank you very much for your interest in JOST. I think with the 2 records in sales and adjusted EBIT, we have had a very strong start into an interesting year 2026. So we'll see how it develops. But I think, as I mentioned, we're well positioned in the right industries, in the right regions and with the right customers to make this a successful year for JOST. Thank you for your interest, and have a good day. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Operator

Operator
#24

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

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Programmatic access to JOST Werke SE earnings transcripts and 32,000+ others is available through the EarningsCalls.dev REST API. Plans from $24.99/month — full transcripts, speaker segments, full-text search, and the recently-added /api/v1/transcripts/recent polling endpoint for ETL pipelines.