Knaus Tabbert AG ($KTA)
Earnings Call Transcript · March 31, 2026
Highlights from the call
In the fiscal year 2025, Knaus Tabbert AG (KTA:DE) reported revenues of EUR 1.002 billion, aligning with management's guidance, but faced significant profitability challenges, achieving an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 27.3 million, translating to a 2.7% margin, well below expectations. The company anticipates revenues of approximately EUR 950 million for 2026, with an adjusted EBITDA margin projected between 5% to 7%, reflecting ongoing operational adjustments and market normalization. Management emphasized the need for a cautious approach due to persistent pricing pressures and macroeconomic uncertainties.
Main topics
- Profitability Challenges: Knaus Tabbert's profitability was significantly impacted by 'continued pricing pressure across the market due to elevated inventory levels' and 'dealer insolvencies,' resulting in an adjusted EBITDA margin of only 2.7%. Management noted that these factors 'pushed us to repurchase many vehicles and remarket them on the market, generating often a negative margin.'
- Operational Adjustments: The company has undertaken 'decisive actions' to address operational inefficiencies, including a 'structural reset of our cost base' and reducing production levels to manage inventory. These measures are aimed at restoring a healthier operating model and are expected to yield results in 2026.
- Revenue Guidance for 2026: Management provided a cautious revenue outlook for 2026, expecting 'around EUR 950 million' and an adjusted EBITDA margin of '5% to 7%.' This guidance reflects the impact of previously implemented cost measures and a gradual normalization of market conditions.
- Market Stability: Despite a stable end customer demand, management indicated that 'the market environment remains uncertain' due to macroeconomic and geopolitical factors. They expect 'relative pricing stabilization' but remain cautious about dealer behavior and overall market dynamics.
- Inventory Management: Knaus Tabbert successfully reduced its inventory levels from over 16,000 vehicles to around 11,000 by September 2025, which was a key focus for the year. This reduction was achieved through 'low production' aimed at allowing both the company and dealers to sell off existing inventories.
Key metrics mentioned
- Revenue: EUR 1.002 billion (in line with guidance)
- Adjusted EBITDA: EUR 27.3 million (2.7% margin, below initial guidance)
- Free Cash Flow: EUR 46.1 million (significantly improved from negative EUR 34.5 million in 2024)
- 2026 Revenue Guidance: EUR 950 million (expected revenue for 2026)
- 2026 EBITDA Margin Guidance: 5% to 7% (reflects cautious outlook)
- Workforce Reduction: 22% (reduction since end of 2023)
Knaus Tabbert's performance in 2025 highlights significant operational challenges, particularly in profitability, but the company is taking steps to stabilize its operations and improve cash flow. The cautious guidance for 2026 reflects ongoing uncertainties in the market, making it essential for investors to monitor inventory levels, dealer health, and macroeconomic factors as potential catalysts or risks.
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
OperatorWelcome to the full year figures of 2025 earnings call of Knaus Tabbert AG. Also, a warm welcome to the company's CEO (sic) [ CFO ], Radim Sevcik, who will guide you through the figures in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat. And with that, I hand over to you, Radim.
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesThank you very much. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. It has been a few months since our Q3 results. And since then, a number of important developments have taken place, both in our own operations and in the broader market. Today, I would like to take you through where we stand after the full year 2025, what we've achieved, where we have fallen short and how we see the path forward. Let me start with the key message upfront. 2025 was a year of continued realignment. We have made tangible operational progress in a still distorted and competitive market environment, but we are not yet where we want to be, particularly in terms of profitability. From a top line perspective, revenue came in broadly in line with the expectations we had set for ourselves. However, profitability was materially below our initial expectations. This was primarily driven by the following factors: continued pricing pressure across the market due to elevated inventory levels, dealer insolvencies, supply chain constraints, most notably chassis availability and selected operational impact of our measures and one-off effects. At the same time, we've taken decisive actions throughout the year to address these issues, and I can comment on these later. As you know, at the start of the year, we have deliberately reduced production levels in order to bring inventories down across the system, both our own and at our dealers. We have made significant progress with working capital, which is reflected in the marketplace and also on our balance sheet and cash flow. And we have initiated a structural reset of our cost base, including adjustments to personnel and operating expenses to better align the organization with current and expected demand levels. These are not short-term measures. They are necessary steps to restore a healthier operating model and to rebuild the foundation for sustainable profitability. Turning now briefly to the market environment. End customer demand has remained broadly stable, but the system as a whole continues to adjust. Dealer behavior remains cautious. Inventory levels across the industry are improving, but still elevated, and pricing continues to be selectively under pressure. In that context, our focus in 2025 has been on control rather than volume, prioritizing inventory reduction and operational discipline. Looking ahead to 2026, we expect further progress, but we remain cautious. We expect revenue of around EUR 950 million and an adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 5% to 7%. This reflects the impact of the measures we have already implemented, particularly on the cost side, as well as a gradual normalization of inventories and pricing. However, we are not assuming a rapid recovery. The market environment remains uncertain and macroeconomic and geopolitical factors may continue to influence both demand and dealer behavior as well as our supply chain. So overall, our message today is a simple one. We've taken meaningful steps to stabilize the business. We're addressing the structural issues we identified. We are seeing results, particularly in our inventory situation, our working capital and cost structure. But the transformation is ongoing, and we remain focused on disciplined execution. With that, let me now walk you through the details of the year. This slide summarizes the highlights of the year when it comes to the key financial figures as well as many of what I now mentioned in the introduction. As mentioned, our revenues have reached EUR 1.002 billion in 2025, which is in line with our original guidance. When it comes to our profitability, our adjusted EBITDA in 2025 has reached EUR 27.3 million, which represents a 2.7% adjusted EBITDA margin. That is materially below our initial guidance and has been driven heavily by, as I mentioned, higher price pressure from industry-wide inventory overhang as well as many dealer insolvencies, which went above and beyond what we have expected and pushed us to repurchase many vehicles and remarket them on the market, generating often a negative margin. The other impact was the chassis shortage, which we have extensively reported to you also in our Q3 call as well as in the ad hoc that we had to publish that had a very substantial impact on our production levels as well as our production efficiency and production mix in Q4 2025. Thirdly, there were some operational elements that I'll get into a little bit later on as well, which have contributed to the weakness in our profitability. At the same time, we did make significant progress, both in our inventory situation and with our working capital management. We managed to generate significant cash flows. We've also adjusted our cost base, and I'll get to that on the following slides. And we are working hard in the background and to be shown with model year '27 to be introduced to our dealers shortly and to the market in the summer. We're working hard to make sure that we renew our product base and make sure that we come with more attractive products on the market to be able to defend our margins and generate more volumes. The free cash flow generated in the year amounted to EUR 46.1 million. The way it's calculated is, we sum up together the operating cash flow and investing cash flow, as such, netting out the -- or neutralizing the effect of capital structure. That is way above the result in 2024, where we achieved a negative EUR 34.5 million free cash flow. If we look at the segment split, you can see that both segments have been weaker than we would have hoped for. On the revenue side, we are pretty much where we were guiding to. But on the EBITDA side, we were impacted both in the Premium and Luxury segment by the effects that I've now mentioned. Now let's first look at the overall market. On the left-hand side, you see the development of the registration numbers at the top in Europe, at the bottom in Germany, which is our core market. On the right-hand side, you see our market shares. You can see that there is a very healthy level of stability in the market, both in Europe and in Germany, when it comes to the overall registration numbers. Also, in 2025, the market has remained stable. If we actually look at the individual segments, there are 2 big segments, the motorized vehicles and the caravans. You can see that the caravaning market, as multiple times discussed, is gradually going down, while the motorized market is actually stable or, when it comes to European numbers, slightly growing by 0.6%. When it comes to our market share, we have maintained our positioning in the market and maintained our market shares, both in Europe and in Germany. We are strengthening in the caravaning market. But given that, that market is decreasing, overall, our volumes there are relatively stable. And when it comes to our motorized market share, you see a slight decrease, but I think I've explained it already earlier. That is largely down to a relative one-off effect in 2024 related to registrations into the rental segment, which were extremely strong for Knaus Tabbert in 2024. Hence, we do not actually see this particular development as indicative of a shrinking market share, and we do see ourselves across the key segments that we're present in and the end customer market as being relatively flat. Moving on to the revenues and the inventories. As mentioned, our objective was really about restoring system balance. One can only look at the development of the charts of revenue and order book and inventories to be able to draw a pretty obvious picture of order book going up due to corona demand and dealers being very optimistic. That allowed the company to generate revenues against that order book, which then resulted in the order book gradually shrinking and at the same time, inventories accumulating both on our balance sheet, but mostly also on the balance sheet of our dealers. That was a very unhealthy situation that in 2025 was addressed by us decreasing our production very substantially to allow for digestion of volumes. One number that's not mentioned on this slide but is probably quite illustrative of what has happened in the marketplace, we had -- when we combine together the inventories on our balance sheet and on the balance sheet of our dealers, there were more than 16,000 vehicles in the market in the summer of 2024. Until September 2025, we managed to get that number to a level around 11,000. This decrease was only allowed for by low production, which had to allow for not only us to be selling our inventories, but also dealers to be able to sell products to the end customers. Moving on to the next slide. The only way how to sustain a low production and at the same time, how to prepare for a market that will be stable, and we're certainly not planning at this time that, that market will be substantially growing is to make sure that one structurally addresses the cost structure. Our objective was, from the very beginning, to keep and -- to reach and keep a long-term sustainable and efficient structure that can allow us to generate healthy profits on the back of the market that we're in. On the left-hand side, you see the development of our -- of the number of our group personnel. You see that between the end of '24 and the end of '25, we have decreased the number of employees by 16%. Now that is not the full reflection of the measures that we've taken. Point one. The starting point could actually easily be put at the level of the end of 2023 because the measures that we started to take started taking effect already immediately at the end of 2024. So the number of 3,935 (sic) [ 3,953 ] is already impacted by us having released a substantial amount of agency workers that have been included in the number that you see in 2023. So overall, between the end of '23 and the end of '25, the company has reduced its workforce by 22%. When it comes to our additional steps that we're taking right now, and you will see it in the EBITDA adjustments, we have taken a further provision for further severance payments that we have also executed in the first 2 months of this year. And currently, the headcount that the company has is around 3,150 employees. If we then move on to the other operating expenses, there, you can see a very substantial decrease of more than 30% in total. That is partially, and I've explained that before, I think, partially down to certain elements in 2024 being elevated. But at the same time, you see the decrease also compared to 2023, and the level is roughly on the level of '22 if you take into account inflation. We are working further to make sure that, that item goes down. There is -- there are more efficiencies that we can generate, but a lot of the items that are left are tied to our revenues and not that easily influenceable. Now moving on to the profitability. I think we have been informing you throughout the year where we stand. And we've been always very transparent when it comes to explaining how our business is developing and what our business is being -- what assumptions we're building into the guidance that we're providing. As you know, the first half of the year has been about truly decreasing the production to a maximum level that we can still hold to make sure that we digest the volumes. And at the same time, after the Dusseldorf show to be able to go back to regular production and generate the profitability that we were guiding towards at the beginning of the year. There were a few effects that happened, which we've described in our Q3 report and Q3 call. And the most important, ultimately, was a missing supply of chassis, which resulted in us not being able to generate the profitability, which was, for the whole year, largely back-ended into Q4, and we were not able to generate that profitability in Q4, resulting in a material miss towards the guidance that we provided at the beginning of the year. Overall, when one looks at our profitability and compares where we were guiding towards and where we ended up, one can probably look at 3 different drivers. Driver number one is overall price pressure and inventory overhang. That touches both the Luxury segment and the Premium segment. The Luxury segment was not immune to this. And on the opposite, we actually have experienced a larger impact on our margin in the Luxury segment relatively to the Premium segment. The Premium segment was more impacted by the insolvencies where the vehicles that we had to buy back, and there were multiple hundreds of vehicles that we had to buy back, were then sold into the market with a negative margin. As a result, the price pressure and the overhang, which still continues in the market but is now normalizing gradually also from our competitors, has contributed to us not delivering the marginality we expected. The second effect, and I mentioned that already, were the missing chassis in Q4, and that was very substantial to our ability to generate the profitability we indicated. And then the third effect was an effect of our cost cutting, which impacted the productivity of our workforce, both organizationally in terms of once you release 20% of your employees, largely on the back of a social plan with very little ability to impact the selection of employees, you end up then moving employees around your factory to retrain them for positions that they maybe didn't do before. That was one impact. The other one was partially motivational probably because we have been struggling with relatively elevated illness rates in our factories. That situation is gradually improving, and we're working hard to make sure that it improves further. Now on this slide, one last thing I'll comment on, and it might -- it is actually quite important is the bridge. The bridge itself is probably relatively self-explanatory. From the reported EBITDA, we have adjusted for the weight-related litigation that we've published with an ad hoc before Christmas, where we found an agreement or we agreed to a fine that we then paid and settled that particular issue. The EUR 3.4 million is then the net effect on top of the provision that we had on our balance sheet before. Then personnel measures are the ones which I mentioned before, which are related to the further personnel measures that we're taking this year and many of them we have already implemented in the first 2 months of the year. And then IBR update, that probably deserves -- definitely deserves more attention. We have reported to you and told you on the call at the end of Q3 that we are holding our covenants. That was true. At the same time, once we understood that the Fiat deliveries were being delayed, we understood that at that point, it might be very difficult for us to hold the covenants until the end of the year. That's when we engaged immediately with our banks to start discussions about next steps. We then hired FTI-Andersch to update their IBR, which has been prepared for the amendment of our credit agreement already in the beginning of 2025. And as a result, we have -- we then embarked on an update and renegotiations of our contract with our consortium banks. That contract has been successfully amended earlier this month. And as such, we have had our covenants updated as well as some other items in the contracts have been -- in the contract have been amended. But overall, the structure -- the capital structure that we have remains in that context intact and the situation through these measures that we've taken has stabilized. Now the IBR is important also for another item, and that is in the context of the IBR, but to be honest, mostly in the context of our budgeting for 2026, we have defined a further set of measures that we would aim to implement in 2026, many of which we've already started implementing. As I mentioned, some of the cuts that we had to do have already been taken. Many of the negotiations with our trade unions, et cetera, have already taken place. And this package of measures is then also the basis of the -- of our planning for 2026 and is also implemented in the IBR. Now moving on to the balance sheet and cash flow. This is largely a rearview mirror type of perspective, but it still highlights what we've done in 2025 to be able to stabilize our balance sheet to the extent that we can influence it in a competitive market. Point one, you see the substantial decrease in our inventories, which is across the board from finished, unfinished products as well as raw materials. You see a relatively stable situation with trade receivables. That is largely down to the fact that at the end of 2024, our receivables were reflecting a company that has stopped operating or stopped producing for 6-plus weeks. And as such, the level of receivables that you see at the end of '24 is largely artificially lower at the end of 2025. This reflects a normally functioning company. And then trade payables are lower. That, as you understand, is something that then requires us to have more funding coming from other sources. The explanation there, and I think I've mentioned it probably on every call that we've had is that we currently do not have enough and we also do not expect that situation to change. We don't have enough lines from the credit insurers. And as a result, the payment terms that we receive from our suppliers are relatively limited. Notwithstanding that, our cash flow generation when it comes to our operating cash flow managed to create EUR 54.6 million. Despite the negative earnings, you see that both the changes in working capital and other effects, mostly depreciation, amortization and other elements typically in that bucket helped us generate that result. We've been very conservative when it comes to our investing cash flow, having spent only EUR 8.5 million on investments, significantly down from the prior years. And as a result, the operating free cash flow that we've generated as per the initial pages has been quite healthy. A lot of it has then been used to pay the interest on our leverage. And then you can see the change in financial liabilities, part of which has been the EUR 20 million tranche of the Schuldscheindarlehen -- of the loan note that we paid in, in June 2025. One number is not included here, but it's obviously quite important is that at the end of 2025, the company had a net debt of EUR 309 million. Now, how do we plan to improve our profitability? We are extremely focused on making sure that in 2026, with a different, much better backdrop when it comes to our distribution channel, when it comes to the overall market situation, when it comes to us having adjusted a lot of the structural costs that we've been carrying and with a clear plan, we're extremely focused with a clear plan of measures to achieve the profitability that we're guiding towards. We've highlighted some internal initiatives that we have control over. And we've also highlighted some external assumptions that we have a little bit less control over. As we've mentioned on multiple calls, we are focusing on our products because that's the basis to make sure that we're providing attractive options to our customers and can defend our pricing. We're heavily focused on the cost measures to be implemented across all of the cost items on our P&L. We're carefully managing our supply chain to navigate the situation that we've had, not the least what we've learned from Q4 2025 and the missing chassis situation, but at the same time, the situation that we now see developing geopolitically and how that could potentially have further impact on us. And we are very focused on the operational efforts to increase the efficiency and productivity in our production. What we control a little bit less, and I think it's important to mention this just to understand what really is the basis of the guidance that we're providing is we expect the customer demand to be relatively resistant to the current macro and geopolitical headwinds. We do not expect the market to grow substantially, but we also do not expect the market to decrease substantially. We are working on the basis of relative pricing stabilization because we do see that the situation with inventories has largely normalized, certainly when it comes to our inventories and inventories of our products at our dealers, but also our industry competitors have taken steps throughout the year to address the situation, and we do believe that the pricing stabilization assumption is a reasonable one. And we also expect the dealer confidence to not deteriorate any further. That is also an important assumption because in reality, we're not expecting dealers to be much more bullish. That is not underpinning our guidance. Our guidance is conservative to the extent that we assume dealers to remain conservative and careful, but at the same time, open for business. And then thirdly, that probably goes without saying, and you must have heard it on multiple calls in the past week or a few days, the situation -- the geopolitical situation developing in the market with oil prices, but not only oil prices, but oil-related prices and commodities increasing, that situation is evolving. We're trying to stay flexible and react to that situation, but we are not assuming a material impact from that situation to impact our guidance. If that were to be the case, that would obviously have potentially an impact on us as well. So just to repeat the guidance that we've provided in the ad hoc last night. For the financial year 2026, we expect to achieve around EUR 950 million in revenues and an adjusted EBITDA margin in the range of 5% to 7%. Now to the last slide. We, as you know, stepped into our roles at the end of 2024 with Willem de Pundert and myself. Alongside us, we've had a stellar team of senior management that we could rely on that helped us execute on many of the initiatives that we set for ourselves and for the company. At the same time, we were looking how to strengthen the management team further. I would just introduce some of these people just very briefly. You have Karin Topisch, who has been in the COO role as of the end of 2025. She's done an incredible amount of work in the past months, and she's spearheading our effort to implement the operational measures that we've set for ourselves. She's been with the company for multiple years already and is trusted by the employees as well as the management and the shareholders. When it comes to Matjaz Grm, he's been with us since early 2025 in his role as adviser to the company, formerly with Adria Mobil. And currently, as of the summer 2025, he's taking up the role of CSO, and he is absolutely instrumental when it comes to driving our product strategy as well as distribution strategy and other topics. And we've now had a new addition to the management team, to the wider management team. It's [ Thomas Nickel ], our Chief Transformation Officer, who we decided to take on board due to his extensive experience in implementing difficult measures in the context of operational companies because we believe that we -- the company would certainly benefit from additional bandwidth to have somebody 100% focused on implementing the difficult measures that continue to lie ahead of us, and that should bring us to the level of profitability that we set for ourselves. He's been on board since several weeks ago, and his role is becoming quite instrumental in complementing the expertise of all of us together to drive the company forward. So this concludes my presentation part, and I would now like to open the floor to questions.
Operator
Operator[Operator Instructions] And the first question is coming from Ellis Acklin.
Edward Acklin
AnalystsCan you hear me?
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesI can hear you.
Edward Acklin
AnalystsI'll kick things off with just two topics right now, one backwards looking and then one looking ahead a bit. So starting looking back at last year, I was wondering if you could maybe give us some hints as to the margin quality for the vehicles that were produced and sold in 2025. And maybe some guidance on how we should think about a normalized gross margin going forward. And then my second question, touching on your comments regarding the IBR and negotiation with the banks, debt maturities due in 2027. Can you maybe talk a little bit about what sort of concrete milestones you might have for the end of 2026 in terms of liquidity, covenant headroom refinancing preparations? Just a little bit more in depth on how that's going to be handled. So I'll just start with those two for right now.
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesThanks, Ellis. So when it comes to the first one, the margin, and I tried to address it also in the presentation. Overall, when it comes to the products that we've been producing in 2025, certainly in the Premium segment, we have actually been not far from our budget. So there, our planning was actually quite correct. What became more difficult to manage were the higher-than-expected returns of vehicles from insolvent dealers, which we have created a provision for. We have taken some vehicles away from them already at the end of 2024, et cetera, et cetera. But remarketing those vehicles at higher numbers than we had expected into a competitive market became a big drag on the marginality in the Premium segment, much less so our ongoing production. That was running quite well. When it comes to Luxury segment, there, the market is smaller in size and dominated by a few players. And there, the situation has been much more competitive when it comes to the existing players working against a relatively high -- as far as we can tell from public information, a relatively high level of inventories, which then resulted in quite a bit of price competition that our brand had to react to in supporting also the existing sales. But that situation has also developed throughout the year. And we don't expect such a heavy impact to be had in 2026. So overall, when it comes to our '25 numbers, I would say insolvencies and very heavy pressure in the Luxury segment have been the 2 biggest drivers when it comes to us achieving our margin. Now we're not providing guidance on gross margin, and I would probably refrain from commenting on that. But I think, hopefully, the explanation I gave you now as well as some of the assumptions I highlighted when it comes to why we provide the guidance that we provided should give you some insight of how we're thinking about it. When it comes to the banks -- so the bank agreement has adjusted the covenants to our new planning. And so as would probably be reasonable to expect that as long as we deliver our planning, we should be fine on the covenant level. The covenants have been adjusted until the end of the maturity of the credit line. And as such, we simply need to deliver. When it comes to the capital structure as such, what we're planning to do starting pretty much immediately after this call has concluded, we want to start engaging with the various capital structure providers to start discussing with them the -- in general, the situation in the market. And we have a very clear plan of what we want to achieve, and this we will pursue that proactively starting already in Q2. So our target would be to make sure that we take all the necessary measures in time to avoid any nervousness in the market once the maturities are approaching.
Operator
OperatorAnd we will move on to the questions from Ingo Schmidt.
Ingo Schmidt
AnalystsThis is Ingo Schmidt from Montega. I have two brief questions. First, your equity ratio has decreased to 14.9% following the net loss in 2025. What specific steps are you taking to strengthen the balance sheet again while funding the necessary transformation? And second question is fuel and gas prices are rising significantly in 2026 due to new CO2 taxes and the Middle East conflict. To what extent do you expect these higher cost of ownership to reduce the demand for new vehicles? And is this trend already factored in your revenue guidance?
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesThank you, Ingo. Thank you for the questions. When it comes to the equity ratio, there, the answer will be relatively short. The best way how to address the equity ratio is via profits. And that's exactly what we're planning to achieve. Right now, we're focused on making sure that we realize the operational restructuring that we're going through. We believe that '26 should bring many more fruits of the steps that we've taken than 2025 necessarily has. And as a result, we believe that the best way to address that situation is by generating a positive net income, which will then gradually improve our equity ratio. When it comes to the fuel and gas prices, I think there are multiple channels how these could potentially impact us. One channel is the direct cost to our company, but we are not -- gas prices, et cetera, are not a large part of our cost structure. So there, the impact is relatively minimal. And then it comes via the demand and the supply channel. In the demand channel, we -- it's difficult for us to assess whether the impact will actually be positive or negative. While even though the prices -- increase in prices in fuel could have a negative impact on the demand of vehicles that drive on the road, at the same time, the reason for that spike is geopolitical instability, which then could result in people focusing more on domestic holidays or European holidays. And at the same time, via the channel that I'll describe as a third one, which is the supply channel, it could actually end up supporting, at the very least in the short term, the demand for leisure vehicles because it could lead to a general inflation, which, as many customers have experienced during the corona times, has then led to people rather purchasing those vehicles earlier than later. So that would be the demand channel. The supply channel is then related to all the commodity prices and everything that comes into our cost structure indirectly via our suppliers. Currently, we are -- and as far as we've discussed with our suppliers, none of them are planning for these impacts to be long term. And most of them are indicating that if this were a short-term impact, they will be able to smooth it over. But clearly, if that impact is more medium to long term, this could result in an increase in our inputs, which we would pass on to our customers to the extent that we could. And that would then result in potentially higher prices, which, assuming the same volume would result in higher revenue but assuming decreased volume, could result in stable or lower revenue. So again, the impact of the situation that we're now all observing is relatively multifaceted. And we don't see it as a purely negative impact, to be clear. At the same time, it's very difficult to assess. And we're simply making sure that we're flexible enough to react to anything that comes in our direction.
Operator
OperatorAnd next line is Alessandro Cuglietta.
Alessandro Cuglietta
AnalystsI have just two questions. I'm just curious about the full year sales outlook, which implies a 5% decline. What's underpinning that assumption because end consumer demand is not bad. I think it's slightly positive. Is it still due maybe to high inventory levels or further normalization needed? Or maybe is it more production related from your side? Curious to have your view on that.
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesSure. So yes, you're absolutely right. It does imply a bit of a decrease compared to the numbers that we reported in 2025. The drivers are, let's say, threefold. Partially, we do expect a further inventory decrease in -- sort of on our balance sheet, but overall. And so we are being relatively careful assuming the same sales as we assume registrations, right? So that's point one. But that impact is not material because -- it's material, but it's not the biggest one of the 3 that I'll mention because in reality, we have actually quite significantly normalized our inventories already, both on our balance sheet and the balance sheet of our dealers. The other two are related to the model year split and then the product mix. As you will have seen, we have strengthened in the caravaning segment, but obviously, the value of those vehicles is smaller. And at the same time, we have a very good visibility on at the very least our current order book. And we are also introducing new products in the first and second half of the year, where we're also making certain assumptions on what is going to be the split of motorhomes and van conversions and caravans. So that is more the driver. We are also of the opinion as you are that the market will remain or should remain healthy or, certainly, that's the indication that we have right now, subject to nothing wrong happening in the prior topic. But it's mostly a product mix topic and a little bit still a certain level of inventory normalization.
Alessandro Cuglietta
AnalystsOkay. That's helpful. And the second question, can you give us the volumes of MORELO? Because you give the motorhomes volumes, but we don't have the split. Just to understand the negative price effect you had this year on MORELO.
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesI think that should be included in the annual report when it comes to the number of vehicles that MORELO sold. Is that the question you're asking, the number of vehicles that MORELO sold? Let us look it up, and then I'll come back to your question once we've looked it up, and I'll give you the answer to that.
Alessandro Cuglietta
AnalystsOkay. Okay. But the pricing effect, you have a range of what the negative pricing was for MORELO? Because you said it was more competitive, you had to reduce prices.
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesI'd be relatively hesitant to be providing these numbers. But let's just say that the impact that we've had was almost as significant as the whole chassis situation in the Premium segment. And then there is the -- yes, we have the [indiscernible]. Okay. We'll look further and we'll let you know.
Operator
OperatorAnd next line is Johan van den Hooven.
Johan Van Den Hooven
AnalystsA few questions from me, Johan from Value8. Shall I do them one by one? It's easier to think. If you look at the forecast for 2026, you expect somewhat lower revenues to EUR 950 million. If we're looking further in the future, can we take that as a sort of bottom level going forward?
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesJohan, so we don't provide the guidance to the future. At the same time, I can probably say that as we assume the market to remain stable when it comes to the demand in the midterm as well and as we are introducing new products into the market, which should increase our level of competitiveness in the market as well, we -- that would probably be a relatively reasonable assumption to make, yes.
Johan Van Den Hooven
AnalystsOkay. Other question about net debt level. Net debt was a bit lower than in 2024. Can you give us an indication or your sort of budget for 2026 because net debt is lower, but still a bit high, as you all know.
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesYes. The -- we obviously have the planning and what we're targeting, but we're not providing that guidance, and we're being relatively careful with that. But ultimately, it's -- and this would sound trivial, but if we take the EBITDA, you can assume that our interest expenses are probably not going to differ materially. Certainly, I would not expect them to be much lower, let me put it this way. And our working capital situation, we've done what we -- a lot of the measures that we could have. There is still quite a bit of space in the payables, but that's subject to the credit insurers extending their lines. So yes, ultimately, the leverage situation needs to be addressed via profitability.
Johan Van Den Hooven
AnalystsYes. Clear. Other question about the dealers. You've seen a high level of insolvency, especially in the end of 2025. How is the current situation and also the sort of financing position of the dealers into 2026?
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesUnderstood. The situation is currently much better than it was a year ago. The big insolvencies that have happened have gone through, and we had to assume a lot of those vehicles and remarket them. We still have a, I would call it, handful of individual dealers that we are carefully monitoring. We are making sure that our exposure to those dealers is minimized, be it via using consignation vehicles or, in general, keeping the stock of vehicles extremely low towards those dealers and making sure that we support them in other ways just to make sure that they can fix their situation. So there is still a handful of those, but our exposure is much smaller and the big impact has happened earlier last year. Now that -- the overall situation of the dealers is obviously not easy. They have gone through a couple of years of very healthy profits and then a couple of years of very difficult losses. Some of them have not used the profits to build a buffer and due to the losses are now in difficult situations in discussions with their banks. But we do see and monitor the situation very carefully. It is limited to a handful of dealers at this point, and we're decreasing our exposure to them. So by and large, we don't expect the film to rerun in '26 that we had in '25.
Johan Van Den Hooven
AnalystsOkay. That's good to hear. Last question from now. Last week, I looked at the results of Trigano and they sound a bit more positive than you or -- well, at least expecting higher revenues and you are expecting lower revenues? Or is that comparison too simple?
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesI think that comparison is a little bit too simple, but it's fair. I understand the comparison. The -- I wouldn't want to comment on competitors, to be very clear. They run their own business. They have their own markets. They also have other segments. Trigano is not only present in leisure vehicles, they also have other segments which generate different margins. By and large, we're focusing on our business. The only thing we can really influence is what we do here and how we work with our markets and our dealers, and that's what we see. We're careful when it comes to our planning to make sure that we can deliver it. And that's probably as much as I can say to the overall situation in the market. Maybe just to come back to -- very briefly to the question Alessandro asked on the MORELO volumes. So I don't think we're actually publishing that number. But I can mention that the number of vehicles that MORELO has sold last year is very close to the number that they sold in 2024. So very minimal difference in amount of vehicles.
Operator
OperatorThank you very much for getting back to this. And we are moving on to the questions of Rizk Maidi.
Rizk Maidi
AnalystsJust a follow-up on the previous question. Perhaps how much of your 2026 forecast in terms of top line and bottom line is based on dealers rebuilding that buffer in '26? And secondly, how do you assess the overall inventory levels in the market? And what gives you confidence in price stabilization in '26?
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesThanks. So when it comes to dealer buffer, we don't actually expect any buffer to be rebuilt. So I don't know if you meant buffer when it comes to dealer stocks or buffer in terms of their capital strength. But let's just say, we believe that when it comes to the stock of our vehicles, bar certain smaller segments where slight adjustments still need to be made and they will be made in the first half of the year on the back of what we expect to be strong end customer demand, we have reached a level that is quite normal for the market, maybe potentially even more prudent than normal, which is down to the careful ordering behavior of the dealers. And we do not expect a material change there, meaning we do expect the dealers to continue to be careful, we do expect them to hold relatively lower levels of inventories, and that is what we have built into our planning. So that's when it comes to the dealers' buffers. We're not assuming that suddenly we'll be able to push more products on to our dealers and hence, generate revenue. That's not the assumption that we have underpinning our planning. When it comes to the inventory level in the market, that is difficult for us to assess because we do not have the detailed numbers of our competitors, clearly. What we, however, do have is feedback from our dealers, which -- some of which are multi-brand dealers. We have discussions with the dealer financing banks, which finance all dealers, including dealers of our competitors. And in general, we obviously have a relatively good feel for the market. So overall, the feedback we're getting is that Knaus Tabbert has probably taken the most decisive steps towards normalizing the situation. Many of our competitors have as well. Some have done less so. The feedback we're getting is that many are making the assumption that the situation should then normalize via the, as I said, relatively strong end customer market in the coming months. And that is also what we assume should happen in the market. Now when it comes to how do we then retain pricing in such a market, ultimately, we are assuming such volumes to be placed into the market, which would correspond to a reasonable market share that we would keep in that particular market. We don't have extensive inventories that we would need to place of old model years that would need to go with large discounts. And as such, and also on the back of my prior answer, i.e., the delivery of the margin on the products that we produced during 2025, we are relatively confident that the margin that we have included in our budget is achievable. But obviously, there is an element of elasticity of demand. And if some of the geopolitical or some of the competitive pressures should materialize more than we expect, then a certain level of reaction capability would need to be built in.
Operator
OperatorAnd we move on to our two hands up. The first one is a follow-up by Alessandro.
Alessandro Cuglietta
AnalystsYes, a follow-up question, maybe a bit more broad question. Coming back to what you said about the expectation for the market to remain stable for the midterm. I'm just wondering if you're talking about the German market. And if -- is that because you think the market maybe has matured now? Because we -- that was a growing market over the past 10, 15, 20 years. Do you think we've reached a maturity level? Or is it more because of digesting what happened over the past years, macro related, that you're cautious, specifically for the motorhomes market? That's the first question. I'll ask the others after.
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesSee, I wouldn't want to be interpreted as saying that, that market is mature or it has reached a certain level of stability. That is not what I believe or what I think is the expression of how we see the market. The market keeps on being supported by strong tailwinds when it comes to demographics. I think the situation overall globally is probably additionally being supportive of the market, et cetera, et cetera. So there are good reasons to believe that, that market has more potential. At the same time, why I was mentioning the midterm stability is that is what we're working with internally because we do not want to be adjusting our cost structure. Ultimately, many of the cost structure initiatives that we are implementing have relatively long-term effects and are relatively costly as well. So if we do these adjustments, we need to have a relatively high level of conviction that we would not need to do this again and again and again. And so the stability that I was referring to, I think that was in relation to whether the EUR 950 million that we're guiding towards is the bottom. I think it's more to say our planning is working with stability. And -- but we do believe that there are factors that could drive the market higher, but I'm more focused on making sure that my cost structure respects that stability because I can always increase then my capacity. That's a relatively simple thing to do.
Alessandro Cuglietta
AnalystsOkay. That's very sensible. The following question is on the caravan market. What's your view on the caravan market? Because we -- for -- to quote Trigano, they say it's maybe a stable market, maybe slightly declining. Do you also view that market as maybe more mature, less dynamic? And are you already -- I know you already plan to increase motorized production capacity instead of caravans, but curious to have your view as well on that.
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesSo maybe just to correct you a little bit, we're not planning to increase capacity of anything at this point. We have plenty of capacity. The caravaning market has been shrinking gradually over time, as we've shown on one of the prior slides, we can probably look at it quickly. The caravaning market has been decreasing. But we do feel that there are certain segments which remain quite strong, where we are well represented and those are not moving. And, also, let's say, the demographic that the caravaning market addresses seems to now be gradually stabilizing. So we don't expect the market to disappear. We simply are reacting to the market being on a bit of a decreased trajectory. But at the same time, the level of competition in that market is also decreasing, which is allowing us to keep a very healthy level of sales into that market. And that's what we're working with when it comes to projecting our future revenues from that market.
Alessandro Cuglietta
AnalystsOkay. And the last question is on working capital for full year 2026. How do you expect that to develop? Are you expecting further decline in your inventory levels? Should we expect a decrease in the working capital?
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesThe short answer would be no. We're expecting stability. We have relatively limited space to improve our inventories. We have relatively limited space to improve our receivables. And we have quite a bit of space in our payables, but that is down to us having the availability or higher availability because we do have some availability, but higher availability from credit lines from our credit insurers, and that is not what we're assuming to happen in the planning period 2026.
Operator
OperatorAnd with an eye on the time, I will unmute now [ Edwin de Jong ], the last questions for today.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsCan you hear me?
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesYes, we can hear you.
Unknown Analyst
AnalystsSo the previous question from Alessandro answered my biggest question, to be honest, on working capital. But I have one left maybe, and that's more a general one on Q4 -- Q1. So we're now at the end of Q1 already. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit on the developments that you've seen in the past quarter?
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesYou're putting me on the spot on something I should not answer, but thanks. Right now, let's just say we do not have any reason at this point to be changing our view on the year. The numbers are developing as we -- certainly, the first 2 months because I don't have March, but the first 2 months have developed, and we certainly have explanations for all of the developments there. And none of the results that we're looking at would give us doubts about the guidance that we've provided to the market.
Operator
OperatorAnd with that, we come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you for your interest in Knaus Tabbert AG. A big thank you also to CFO, Radim Sevcik, for your presentation and your time. Should you have any further questions, ladies and gentlemen, afterwards, please feel free to contact Investor Relations. I wish you all a successful day around the world and handing over to you, Radim, for some final remarks.
Radim Sevcik
ExecutivesThank you very much, and thank you for your attention today. So to summarize, I think we did make clear progress in stabilizing the business and addressing the structural challenges. But admittedly, our performance in '25 was not yet where we wanted to be. We're entering '26 with a much more disciplined operating model, much healthier distribution channel and also a clear view on where we need to improve further. We also remain mindful of the uncertainties in the market, and we will continue to manage the business with a high degree of caution and flexibility. Thank you very much for your attention. Thank you for your support, and we will hear ourselves in 6 weeks probably to respond to the last question in more detail.
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