NORMA Group SE (NOEJ) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your patience. Welcome to the NORMA Group Q2 2026 Results Webcast and Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to Birgit Seeger, Chief Executive Officer of NORMA Group. Please go ahead.

Good morning, good afternoon, everybody. A very warm welcome, and thank you for you to join our Q2 results of 2026. With me, I have Okan Celiker, our Group CFO, who will give us some more insights in our financial performance. As usual practice, let us start with some key developments on NewNORMA on the results and also what we are going to do forward, create and strengthen NewNORMA Group. So before we join, please let's have a look quickly at our disclaimer, which is the usual disclaimer, and I want to note especially that the numbers we are showing refer to NewNORMA, which excludes the water management business unless we have specifically noted that it is former NORMA. And with this, let me start with some highlights of Q2 2026. What we see overall is that we have achieved a very good cost discipline, and this has improved our profitability significantly, and we are quite proud to have a positive net cash position here. The environment still is challenging also for Q2 and especially in mobility and new energy. However, industry applications offset the quite soft demand in M&E. What are the actions we have taken so far? It's the cost discipline to really work in this NewNORMA setup, and we see this in our results. The second key point, what I want to share is that we are absolutely happy that we could achieve major orders in both our business units in industrial applications and the mobility business, and I will come to this and share some concrete results with you a little bit later. So what is the result? We achieved in Q2, 3.6% adjusted EBIT margin, which is a really significant uplift compared to last year. What contributed to this was very nice EUR 2.3 million of transformation. Again, I will give you an update a little bit later. And the second point is that the AGM has approved all our resolutions, and this means also up to additional EUR 208 million as a shareholder return, and we are working with full speed to make this happen. With this, I can also summarize, we confirm the outlook for the financial year 2026. Moving on to NewNORMA to our strategic pillars, what we see here, and this is a reminder, I hope you still remember this. This year, we are focusing on the pillar #1, 2 and 3. Restructuring is really a simplified organization so that we can make fast decisions, and I can already say a significant sales in M&A and also IA, it was crucial that we have this new way of working that we make fast decisions, very business-driven decision and our customers see this and we see it in business wins in order intake. In addition, so we have been working and we are still working on our SG&A efficiency. We have made progress, and we are going to further work on this. So again, we introduced a much stronger performance orientation, really making decisions which are business focused. The second pillar is the footprint of our organization. So we are advancing on this. So currently, we are working especially in our Americas footprint. Also in Australia, we are progressing with the initiatives. So we have, for sure, our further operational and also structural measures, which are underway, and we will communicate to the given time. The third pillar is our sales push. And here, we really have activated a very good order intake. Of course, until it translates into sales, it will take a bit of time. However, it's very important for our future that we win this business, that we achieve this because this will safeguard our future. So with this, we are improving also our plant utilization. So we will see it also in our EBIT results further on. And this means we have strengthened our customer focus significantly. So we are really going to meet our customers. We are having in-depth discussions, and I want to share one specific event with you. We had customer experience days here in our headquarter, and we invited some of our customers who were very happy to join us. We presented really the innovations, and it was absolutely stunning to get direct feedback, and it was great to hear the interest our customers brought into this and asked for more and when can they use it, when is it in SOP or when will it be produced? It was a great insight for all of us, and it motivates us as a team fantastic that we are on the right way with NewNORMA. Another point, we had rolled out target costing. So we really focus what is the target we can allow ourselves on our costing in our plants, in our overheads. So we are competitive for our customers, and we have really a good margin contribution for NewNORMA. The fourth pillar, you may remember, this is what we come to in the next phase. But for now, we mainly focus on the 3 pillars as described. So now let's move on a little bit more insight on our transformation progress. So as we communicated, we said we reduced up to 400 positions for cost saving and also for speed, for decision powers. So -- and this is nice on track. We are running on this and the voluntary leaver program in Germany is completed, and we delivered the results as expected. Again, we have introduced a performance orientation. So we give the business ownership really in the strategic business unit. So again, we are fast, we are focused in our 2 strategic business units. We have delivered measurable benefits. So you see in the first half of 2026, it's EUR 6.1 million, and we are striving for the EUR 15 million as planned for the full year. If we now turn our attention to new business wins to order intake, I would like to start first with the industrial application, one of our business units. So we have very interesting markets, really growing markets, basically in the infrastructure markets such as data center, sustainable energy, and we could secure nice orders in Malaysia, Thailand, Australia, so basically APAC here. So some were follow-on projects. These were sometimes customers where we had first projects. So they were new customers for us. They've given us follow-on projects, which is a great sign that we are doing the right thing. They like to work with us. They like our products. And we have gain also new business because the market is really big, and we are growing in a good way here. So what are we delivering sort of electrical connections, cable management, but also battery energy storage system and also backup power infrastructure. So these are all industries. They are growing tremendously and the addressable market for us as NORMA Group is bigger than EUR 3 billion. So we have a lot of potential to get more business and to deliver this business. Let's move on now to our second business unit, which is mobility and new energy. Also here, a fantastic achievement. Our team, we could gain the biggest project in the company's history, which is for one of our European customers. It's a lifetime volume of EUR 157 million spent over 10 years. Of course, we have a little bit delay until we start with the SOP is the usual practice in the mobility business. It's a nice mix. 80% was extensions and 20% really new business, which was awarded to us from this customer. So what are we delivering? It's about 100 variants for the thermal management system. And here, we could demonstrate that our sales push. You remember this was the third pillar in our strategic picture. It's delivering. And a big thank you to everybody in NORMA Group who really with a very fantastic energy contributed to this acquisition to the sale of this project, working already in the NewNORMA way. Fantastic. Thank you. So let's turn now our attention what was the results in the second quarter. And here, you see the overview. The net sales was EUR 211.8 million on comparable FX, 0.1% better than last year, so slightly better or basically the same. So this is really where we are fighting and working on to stay on this level. The really, really good news is, of course, on the adjusted EBIT, you see EUR 7.6 million, which translates into a 3.6% EBIT margin. So this is 2.5 percentage points better than last year. And here, I would say, we can say we are on the right track. We start to deliver here. Of course, with the net sales, this is where we are focusing on to really stay there on this level also for the second half of this year. Net operating cash flow, EUR 6.6 million positive. Please remember, last year, we had the former NORMA. So therefore, it's, of course, now a different level as expected. If we have a look in the first half of the year 2026, again, we see here that the adjusted EBIT is going absolutely in the right direction. Starting with the net sales, EUR 420.5 million. This is minus 0.6% year-on-year on comparable FX also slightly lighter. But again, focus for us on second half. However, we are working and we are delivering already the adjusted EBIT, EBIT margin of 3.3% in the first half. Net operating cash flow, minus EUR 13.1 million. Again, this is a former NORMA number, including the divestment of Water Management. So with this, I would like to hand over to Okan, who gives us some more insights in the financials.

Exactly. Also a warm welcome from my side. Thanks for joining our conference call today. So let's move on and look a bit more detail into the numbers. Let me start with the top line development in the second quarter, where the underlying business remained broadly stable despite continued market headwinds. The group net sales amounted to EUR 211.8 million, which is a reduction of 0.6% on a year-on-year reported basis. On a comparable FX basis, as mentioned by Birgit, we are slightly above prior level with a positive volume and price impact of EUR 0.1 million, which leads us to EUR 213.2 million. This includes EUR 4.7 million of TSA-specific sales to ADS following the water management divestment. Looking at our 2 strategic business units on the next page, we continue to see different market dynamics with a strong IA performance offsetting softer mobility demand. Industry Applications increased net sales by 7% on a year-over-year basis, leading to EUR 70.6 million. On a comparable FX basis, this is a growth of 8.4%, leading to the EUR 71.4 million, which you can see in the middle of the graph on the left side. This graph also includes the EUR 4.7 million TSA specific sales to ADS, which are reported within IA. So if we move on with the right side with our Mobility & New Energy development, we see that sales declined by 4% year-over-year leading to EUR 141.3 million, reflecting the continued weaker demand in the automotive industry. And on a comparable basis, the reduction or the decline was 3.7%, leading to EUR 141.8 million for the mobility business in Q2. Overall, IA continued to grow while M&E affected by softer automotive demand. On our next page, we can get a bit more details on our regional performance, where we see that the demand trends are still mixed and yes, the profitability, however, across all 3 regions improved on a year-over-year basis. So Americas, starting with the sales on the left side, came in with the strongest top-line development with net sales increasing 8% on a reported basis and 10% on a comparable FX basis, leading to an adjusted EBIT of 5.8%, which is an improvement year-over-year of 3.4%. Important to mention here is also that the EUR 4.7 million out of the TSA sales are included in these sales. And this contributed -- these sales contributed EUR 0.9 million -- EUR 0.9 million to our adjusted EBIT. In EMEA, middle of our slide, we see that the net sales declined 3.9% year-over-year on a reported basis, whereas on a comparable FX basis, the decline was at 3.4%, again, reflecting the softer demand, especially in the automotive industry. Despite the lower sales, however, the adjusted EBIT margin improved significantly from minus 1.5% to 2.2% year-over-year. In APAC, net sales declined by 6.1% year-over-year reported and on a comparable FX basis by 7.8%, primarily reflecting, again, the weaker automotive demand in the region. Still the adjusted EBIT margin improved from 7.9% to 8.3% also in our APAC region. So, let's move on to the next slide, where we can see our adjusted EBIT bridge and development. So our adjusted EBIT increased, as mentioned earlier by Birgit from EUR 2.3 million to EUR 7.6 million in quarter 2 with an adjusted EBIT margin improving from 1.1% to 3.6%. The improvement in Q2 profitability was broad-based. Main contributions for the margin uplift were provided by the volume and price impact of EUR 1.3 million, material costs of EUR 1.7 million and personnel costs of EUR 1.5 million. Overall, the transformation program contributed by EUR 2.3 million in quarter 2 and demonstrated that the measures are now translating into measurable earnings. So on the next slide, let me briefly reconcile our reported adjusted results for H1. So starting with the EBITDA. Our reported EBITDA was EUR 32.5 million and includes adjustments of -- with adjustments of EUR 4.2 million relating to the transformation, severance and project costs. This gets us to an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 36.7 million. On EBIT level, we adjusted another EUR 2.6 million PPA amortization, which leads to a total adjustment on EBIT level of EUR 6.7 million and gets us to the adjusted EUR 14 million EBIT in the H1 compared to our reported EBIT of EUR 7.2 million. On net profit level, we -- the adjustments amounted to EUR 5.3 million, including a negative tax impact of EUR 1.4 million. This results in an adjusted net profit of EUR 5 million. For full year 2026, we continue to expect approximately EUR 24 million of transformation-related adjustments on EBITDA level, and this basically reflects the H2 accelerated transformation severance and project costs with certain measures partly pulled forward from 2027, as already mentioned during our Q1 call. Including the approximately EUR 5 million PPA amortization adjustments, we expect a total adjustments in the full year 2026 of EUR 29 million on EBIT level. Moving on the next slide. We can have a look at our cash flow development. Here, it is the new normal cash flow development. We generated a positive net operating cash flow, as mentioned earlier, of EUR 6.6 million in the second quarter. And starting from our adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter of EUR 19.1 million, trade working capital had a negative impact of EUR 5.7 million in the quarter, and this includes supply chain financing programs, which amounted to EUR 33.7 million. And on top of that, investments from operating activities amounted to EUR 6.8 million. This resulted in a net operating cash flow of EUR 6.6 million in Q2. And as already mentioned, be a bit important to distinguish here between new and former NORMA. So first of all, NewNORMA generated a positive net operating cash flow in Q2, while the year-over-year comparison reflects the changes in the reporting parameter, which are a result of the divestment. Now let's have a look at our NewNORMApro forma net cash overview. So we ended June with a strong net cash position, providing the basis for the planned capital allocation measures in H2. So as of June, we reported net cash of approximately EUR 304 million. In addition, we had approximately EUR 57 million of short-term deposits recognized as other financial assets. The deposits will mature during the second half and convert into cash. So this will get us to a pro forma net cash, including the short-term deposits of EUR 361 million as of June 30. Now considering the EUR 4 million dividend payment and the EUR 208 million for the second share buyback program to our shareholders as well as the expected approximately EUR 90 million of remaining tax payments related to the water divestment and the currently expected cash development of our business and other cash movements during the second half of the year, we expect to retain a positive net cash position of around EUR 70 million to EUR 90 million for the full year. And with that, back to you, Birgit.

Thanks, Okan. It was great to receive some insights in our financial performance. To conclude, I think it's fair to say that as NewNORMA, we are gaining momentum. We have seen that our financial performance, our profitability is strongly improving. We have a strong balance sheet and a full rigor to implement our strategic initiatives. So with this, we are well prepared for the future of NewNORMA. And with this, we can really confirm our outlook for the financial year 2026, which means 0% to 2% in net sales, adjusted EBIT margin of 2% to 4% and net operating cash flow in the range of EUR 10 million to EUR 20 million. And it's with great pleasure I can announce here and would like to invite everybody of you to join our strategy update, which will take place on October 19 this year. It will be in Frankfurt for all of you who would like to join us face-to-face. For everybody else, there will be a hybrid and online facility to join also online, and I'm really looking forward to welcome you at this event. Thanks for listening. And with this, I give back to Sharon to open our Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question today comes from the line of Nikita Papaccio from Deutsche Bank.

The first one would be on your Q2 revenue bridge. Typically, you gave us a split between volume and price. This is not the case this time. Can you maybe give us an indication how they develop in Q2 and what you expect for H2?

That is a wide and good observation, Nikita. Again, actually, we haven't broken it down this time. And yes, we will work on it and develop it and then share it with you in the aftermath. I hope that's okay for you.

The second one is on your full year guidance. When I take the midpoint of your current guidance, you're looking for a weaker H2 versus H1 in terms of margin. While the bulk of the transformation benefits should occur in H2, do you expect a deterioration in market environment? Or what do I miss here?

We basically still hold to the figures and variables that we have shared earlier also in our full year release of financial figures as well as Q1. So as of now and with everything we see in the market in terms of net sales, we are expecting to come out rather at the midpoint of our net sales guidance. Probably even below. And if all other variables stay as they are, especially also the margin improvements out of our transformation program, which we again confirmed to be at a level of EUR 15 million, we would basically expect for the full year to be somewhere around our midpoint in terms of EBIT margin guidance.

And my last question is on your strategy update. Thank you for the invite. I'm happy to attend your event in October. Could you maybe give us a glimpse on what to expect from this event?

Yes, sure. It's my pleasure to do so. And looking forward to welcome you, Nikita, on our event. Great to hear. So we will, for sure, give like a midterm ambition. We will talk about this. We will detail this, and we will also bring some insights on our products, on our innovations, especially in the exciting markets, what we have in front of us on the infrastructure market, data center, but also white goods, aerospace. So we will really support you and get a very good understanding about the potential we have in front of us. We will also detail what NewNORMA means. I mean we have the 4 strategic pillars, but there will be much more, let's say, meat to the bones for each of these pillars with numbers and also with content.

And your next question comes from the line of Sebastian Ubert from MPCM.

Sebastian from MPCM. I was wondering with regards to your restructuring program, if you maybe can speed it up or accelerate even the program as we see the bad news coming from a lot of European OEMs cutting jobs, cutting eventually even factories. We see an ongoing drift from the Chinese OEMs pushing into Europe. So what is really your answer on the automotive business to get along with the reduced capacities of European OEMs? And how do you deal with new joiners to the industry, especially Chinese OEMs, not only in passenger cars, but also in electric heavy-duty trucks?

Yes. Thanks, Sebastian, for this extremely valid question. I mean we are working really on a speedy implementation on the restructuring program. Also on our October strategy update, we will give some more insights what we will do on this there. So therefore, it's very important for us that we bring speed, and we will also present on our strategy update the model where we are convinced this will carry us in the future, incorporating exactly what you said, the challenges which are happening in the automotive industry, also the Chinese competitors, and we have fully taken this into consideration, and we have also good answers in this. We have, of course, also operations in China who are doing quite well. And we have strengthened, by the way, this organization in China. We are a global player, and we will be a global player to be able to answer exactly on such challenges which the market brings now, and I'm convinced there will be more challenges coming for the future.

And our next question comes from the line of Yasmin Steilen from Berenberg.

I have 3, if I may. So the first one on Mobility & Energy. So regarding your recent very successful project win, more than 100 thermal management system variant sounds rather complex. And in the past, inefficient project management was an issue. Could you walk us through the changes of the internal setup? What's the difference of the production location in Serbia that will prevent the issues NORMA had experienced at the Maintal plant? And could you also shed some color on the structural agreements in terms? So are there any take pay clause agreements? Are there price escalation clauses included? That's the first question.