RENK Group AG (R3NK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome to the RENK Group AG FY 2025 Call. Please note that this call will be recorded. [Operator Instructions] I'd now like to turn the call over to Christian Weiss, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you very much, operator. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our financial year 2025 conference call. With me today are our CEO, Dr. Alexander Sagel and our CFO, Anja Manz-Siebje. Alexander and Anja will take you through the highlights of 2025, our financials and, of course, the outlook. Afterwards, we will open the floor to your questions. But now I will hand over to Alexander. Please go ahead.

Yes, Christian, thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, also from my side, a very warm welcome and many thanks for joining today's conference call. Before we go into many details, let me summarize the key messages upfront. RENK has once again proven that we can perform. We delivered what we promised we walked our talk first. We have fully delivered on our 2025 guidance on revenue and adjusted EBIT. Massive Kudos to all 4,400, RENKies worldwide with this tremendous effort. Second, we are proud to say that 2025 was once again a year of new all-time highs, record order backlog, record revenues and record adjusted EBIT. Clearly, a proof of our strategic focus and above all operational excellence and execution. Third, and this is important to emphasize, we delivered this performance despite facing several external headwind, exchange rate movements with a weak U.S. dollar tariff effects, a weak industrial market and most significantly, the Israel export embargo. Our results in 2025 are therefore even more remarkable. And I think they speak very clearly for the resilience and the strength of our business model. To sum it up, a very strong year. Having said, this let's move now into more details. Let me start with the highlights of the past 12 months by walking you through the four key takeaways on this slide. RENK has again demonstrated strong execution in the Q4 2025 year-end trade. We can perform on it constantly. As a result and as mentioned before, we have clearly achieved our 2025 guidance on revenue as well as on adjusted EBIT. We recorded a strong 2025 order intake of roughly EUR 1.6 billion plus 9% year-on-year versus 2024, which leads to a book-to-bill ratio of 1.2, let me be very clear here. This is a new all-time high in order intake despite the fact that we had a shift of approximately EUR 200 million of expected defense-related order intake from Q4 2020 into 2026. These are not loss contracts, they just shifted purely due to minor delays in the final contract negotiations. They have a budget, they are approved and they will come in 2026. So the underlying demand momentum is even stronger than the headline numbers implies. Our total order backlog reached a new all time high of EUR 6.7 billion, up from EUR 5.0 billion at year-end 2024. This corresponds to approximately 5x our 2025 revenues and providing a very high level of visibility going forward and underpins our confidence for the years ahead. Our Defense business was once again the main growth driver in 2025. Defense revenues grew by 24% and defense-related order intake by 4%, which should be put in context with a before-mentioned project shift. Let me also briefly walk you through some of the key order intakes from 2025, where the majority of the program should be very familiar to you, starting, of course, with the Store 3 contract where we realized approximately EUR 254 million as order intake. Then our large transmission and engine business with an international customer in the range of EUR 130 million. Various international naval programs of approximately EUR 110 million for the full year. VTA, or Augsburg spare parts for MBTs, IFVs and APCs in the range of EUR 90 million for 2025 including the first orders from a frame contract for spare parts between RENK Germany and the Ukrainian MoD during Q4. Furthermore, and not shown here, we also realized a service contract with the Ukrainian MoD and RENK America during Q4. And finally, the K2 platform for Poland which continue to be a very successful platform and driving our order intake also during 2025. Ladies and gentlemen, Slide 2 summarize the group performance for 2025. And as you can see in the 5 orange boxes at the top, all presented financial KPIs are showing a very positive development. We already talked about the order intake performance. So let's move directly to the revenue where we realized with EUR 1.366 billion or approximately EUR 1.4 billion plus 20% year-on-year, which is the result of our focused operational execution and conversion of our order backlog into revenues. The adjusted EBIT is with EUR 230 million plus 22% above 2024 level. The adjusted EBIT growth is once again outpacing revenue growth. And this despite low double-digit EBIT headwinds due to the factors mentioned before, which indicates the operating leverage in our business model. The quality of our growth and our disciplined cost management. The adjusted EBIT margin improved to 16.9% or 30 basis points. And last but not least, we will propose a dividend of EUR 0.58 per share for 2025 at the upcoming AGM in June, an impressive increase of 38% year-on-year, reflecting our confidence in the business and our commitment to deliver value to our shareholders. Regarding the end markets, we are currently at the Defense business share of 74%, which will further increase in the coming years to approximately 90% plus driven by our sector strategy. Finally, and looking at the revenue split between new build versus aftermarket, we see our typical current range of aftermarket business between 35% to 40%. Which is depending like always on the specific product mix quarter by quarter. You will see later in the outlook for 2026 that we will have a special focus this year on our group wide aftermarket strategy in order to further drive this important sustainable and highly profitable business segment on the short term, but also on the midterm towards 2035 to levels north of 40% to 50%. Let's move now to Slide #3. As you know, our Defense sector is the core of our business and the main driving force behind our group performance. On order intake, let me repeat the approximately EUR 200 million of order intake, which shifted from Q4 2025 into 2026. Adjusting for this effect, order intake growth would have been at approximately 19%, close to EUR 1.37 billion instead of the reported 4% growth of EUR 1.17 billion. The mentioned shifts include a larger international MBT program in the lower 3-digit million euro range to naval programs from international customers and finally, a German Navy R&D project. On the revenue side, our Defense business once again grew with plus 24% strongly, fully reflecting the ongoing ramp-up of our production out and strong execution on our existing backlog. Ladies and gentlemen, now let's move on and have a quick look at our segment performance, starting, of course, with our largest and most important segment, Vehicle Mobility Solutions. VMS continues to be our strongest growth driver in 2025. On the revenue side, VMS realized significant growth in 2025, both in Q4 and in the full year, exceeding current market expectations. As you know, we had a planned temporary slowdown in Augsburg during Q3 in order to implement our new modular production line. By Q4, the new line was simply up and running, and the global RENK team delivered an outstanding performance in the year-end rates. The order intake was for 2025 with EUR 1.129 billion and a book-to-bill ratio of 1.3 and plus 11% compared to 2024 which was driven by ongoing and wide spring demand for our high-performance Vehicle Mobility Systems across various land vehicle programs. Let me now turn to Slide 5 in our Marine & Industry segment. M&I also delivered a very solid performance in 2025, mainly driven by the Naval side of the business. Revenue came in at EUR 380 million, plus 15% versus 2024. Our strong naval business realized a new all-time high for the full year and could overcompensate missing revenues from our industrial part of the business, which was impacted by the GDP-related overall weak market environment in 2025. Strong execution on ongoing projects and the successful integration of our new U.S. operations, RAMI, were key for this performance, and we are prepared to fully leverage our strategic positioning in the largest navy market in the world, the U.S. market for future strategic programs such as the FF(X) Frigate program. Regarding the order intake of EUR 327 million, plus 6% versus 2024. You should please keep in mind the mentioned shift of 3 naval projects from 2025 to 2026 in the range of a mid-double-digit euro figure and missing order intakes from the industry business due to the mentioned market challenges. Last but not least, a few words on our Slide Bearing segment. 2025 was a very challenging year for our Slide Bearing segment due to a weak industrial market for the entire year and operational challenges during Q3. However, we managed to stabilize and improve our production and realized finally not only a very strong Q4, but also a solid full year 2025, with slight revenue growth and very solid results on the adjusted EBIT line. Anja will talk more about this. One fact I would like to highlight, December 2025 was the strongest month in the Slide Bearing segment, entire history in terms of revenues which is a great indicator for the execution quality of our team in the final sprint of the year. Now let's move to the last slide of my introduction in our total order backlog. For 2025, we have reached a new record level of EUR 6.7 billion in total order backlog plus 34% compared to year-end 2024, which corresponds to approximately 5x our current LTM revenue and providing us with an extraordinary quality of visibility for the years to come. Our fixed order backlog has continued to grow, driven by the strong order intake and including our strong conversion of existing orders into revenues. The soft order backlog has grown strongly mainly driven by German but also international programs. Having said this, I would like now to hand over to Anja for a deeper look into our full year 2025 financials. Anja, over to you.

Thank you, Alexander, and a very warm welcome from my side as well. In line with our usual structure, I will begin with an overview of our full year group performance before guiding you through our segments. Followed by a review of net working capital, cash generation and the returns we have generated. Fiscal year '25 marked another year of strong execution and progress for RENK Group. Order intake remained at an elevated level, supported by strong demand in defense-related mobility solutions. Despite record high revenue conversion throughout the year, our total order backlog amounts to EUR 6.7 billion, underlining the current dynamics in the defense market and the long-term visibility of our business model. Alexander has already referenced the growing share of defense in our portfolio. Revenue developed in line with our growth strategy and reflects our focus on operational excellence across our sites. Most importantly, profitability improved disproportionately to revenue, confirming once again the operating leverage embedded in our business model. Moving to our group performance. Fiscal year '25 was characterized by persistently strong demand across our core end markets, most notably in defense-related mobility solutions. At the same time, we faced several headwinds including Israel export embargo, FX trends, volatile tariff schemes and a weak macroeconomic environment related to industrial applications. Nevertheless, we successfully mitigated these effects and maintained our positive growth for trajectory. Order intake came in at around EUR 1.6 million, plus 9% compared to prior year. and therefore, remained at an elevated level. With a look at Q4 '25 intake was significantly lower than Q4 '24. But as you know, already based on Alexander's explanation, the timing of contract sign-off is subject to market-specific factors like budgets and the speed of decision-making processes at the customer's end. And once again, it is only a shift in timing. The order intake will occur. With a book-to-bill ratio above 1 Order intake continued to exceed revenue conversion during the full year '25. As a result, fixed order backlog increased to around EUR 2.3 billion after EUR 2.1 billion at the end of '24. Revenue increased notably and landed at around EUR 1.2 billion, up around EUR 1.1 billion in the prior period. Q4 with EUR 438 million came in significantly better compared to prior year's Q4 revenue of EUR 362 million, an approximate 20% increase year-over-year in revenues reflects a successful scaling up of our production, efficient utilization of our installed asset base and significant employee engagement. I would like to repeat and take and extend our sincere thanks to our entire workforce, their dedication, professionalism and team spirit were the decisive factors in delivering this performance. Turning to adjusted gross profit. It increased from EUR 327 million in fiscal year '24 to EUR 391 million in '25 while the adjusted gross profit margin remained essentially stable at 28.6%. These outputs provide a clear indication of our earnings quality. We are scaling up the business in absolute profit terms without margin dilution. Nevertheless, our product mix continues to change from quarter-to-quarter as reflected in Q4. While the nominal amounts have risen from EUR 110 million in Q4 '24, to EUR 130 million in Q4 '25. The adjusted gross profit margin for Q4 '25 at 29.6% is moderately behind the prior year figure. Adjusted EBIT for the full year rose from EUR 189 million to EUR 230 million. And the adjusted EBIT margin improved from 16.6% to 16.9%. The Q4 '25 contributed EUR 89 million and was very strong compared to Q4 '24 at EUR 77 million. Our earnings growth is outpacing revenue growth with higher output translating into higher profitability rather than being bought through higher cost. On the balance sheet, net debt increased moderately from EUR 375 million at the end of '24 to EUR 391 million at the end of '25. At the same time, leverage improved from 1.7x to 1.5x, meaning the earnings base extended faster than the net debt. We see this as a constructive signal with growth is being financed with discipline while credit metrics improve through higher profitability. Let's have a quick look what all this means in terms of adjusted EPS and dividend and the payout ratio. Before I start with the figures, I would like to recap that the bottom line is affected by positive tax effects that came in Q2 based on our control and profit transfer agreement between RENK Group AG and RENK GMBH, we could effectively make use of tax losses carryforwards of RENK Group AG. In addition to that, we now can utilize until '27, our U.S. interest carryforwards due to a debt-to-equity conversion related to our U.S. entities. This actually translates into a strong decrease in the group's tax rate that will normalize over time. That said, our adjusted earnings per share sharply increased by 38% to EUR 1.42 per share compared to EUR 1.03 per share in '24. With our proposed dividend of EUR 0.58 per share, we intend to pass on the same growth rate to our shareholders. This would be equal to a payout ratio of 40.9% and in '25 after 40.7% in the prior period. Now I will move on to a detailed look into our segments. Turning to VMS. This segment again underlined its role as our key earnings machine. Order intake increased from around EUR 1 billion to around EUR 1.1 billion, confirming that demand remains strong and program-driven rather than short cycle. Our order intake is consistent with the broader defense spending environment. Q4 order intake was lower at EUR 225 million compared to EUR 467 million in Q4 '24. But as we have previously stated, these timing-driven effects do not reflect any reduction in our participation in the demands of the Defense sector. Revenue for the year rose from EUR 699 million to EUR 872 million, indicating continued conversion of the order book into delivery output and reinforcing that the current growth profile is primarily execution and capacity driven. Going forward, Execution will further benefit from our modular production system introduced mid-year. I should stress that the '25 revenue increase was achieved despite the embargo on planned deliveries to Israel. Looking at Q4, VMS contributed EUR 293 million to the total revenue figure in '25 compared to EUR 235 million in the prior period. So from a group's perspective, we can state that VMS is our strongest pillar for growth and profitability. The significant role of VMS for the group is also demonstrated by our adjusted EBIT improvement, reflected in an increase from EUR 140 million to EUR 178 million on a yearly basis and from EUR 63 million in Q4 '24 to EUR 74 million in Q4 '25. Margins were held at a high level with 20.4% at the end of the reporting period. Despite the Israel embargo impact. Again demonstrating that product mix changes quarter-to-quarter do not impact the annualized profitability trajectory. To sum up, Earnings expand in line with volume, while margins remained firmly above 20%, supporting our view that VMS continues to scale without sacrificing profitability. Now let's have a look at M&I. M&I continued to deliver a steady and dependable performance profile, combining marine resilience with more cyclical industrial exposure. Order intake increased from EUR 307 million to EUR 327 million, which reflects a steady activity level and indicates that demand remained intact over the year. Main drivers are the Marine business and aftermarket activities. Q4 '25 was weaker than the prior year's period as it came in at EUR 72 million compared to EUR 92 million in the prior year's Q4. As previously mentioned, the order intake shift included M&I Navy contracts that are scheduled for sign-off in '26. Full year revenue rose from EUR 330 million to EUR 380 million reflecting solid execution and continued throughput in the segment. And I would like to add, in addition to Alexander's earlier comment, that a portion of around EUR 20 million is attributable to RENK America, Marine & Industry. Our newly acquired Marine business in the U.S. On a quarterly basis, revenue increased by 14.9% and landed at EUR 113 million at the end of Q4 '25. This revenue increase of about 50% came with a favorable product mix that led to a corresponding profitability increase. Adjusted EBIT for the full year improved by around 30% and from EUR 33 million to EUR 45 million and the adjusted EBIT margin expanded from 10.6% to 11.9%. Q4, '25 added EUR 14 million to the positive development after EUR 11 million in the prior year period. On a full year basis, adjusted EBIT also benefited from onetime effects of approximately a low to mid-single-digit million euro amount. These included insurance payments received in Q3 and the release of warranty provisions in Q4. But the key takeaway should be that we were able to successfully mitigate strong headwinds related to the industrial market that had the potential to hold back M&I's overall development. The shift towards marine, especially naval applications helped to overcome that industry-related contraction. Turning to Slide Bearings. This picture is slightly different. Order intake soften on a full year basis while revenue and profitability remained stable. Order intake decreased moderately from EUR 133 million to EUR 126 million, whereas the weakened industrial environment is responsible for the general trend of softened order intake. The year-end picture is actually driven by delayed order placement from defense-related customers. As you see, Q4 nevertheless, showed a good order momentum of EUR 30 million compared to EUR 26 million in Q4 '24. Revenue for the full year increased slightly by around EUR 3 million to EUR 128 million despite the softer industrial demand environment. Q4 '25 with EUR 36 million made a remarkable contribution, representing an uplift of around 10% compared to the prior year quarter. The story behind this is straightforward. After the resolution of temporary staffing constraint midyear, we were able to sustain the prior year output level on a full year basis. Revenue was mainly generated from bearings for electric motors, generators and marine applications. On profitability, adjusted EBIT for the fiscal year 2025 increased from EUR 21 million to EUR 23 million, and the adjusted EBIT margin improved from 17.2% to 17.9%. Q4 showed an uplift of around 56% to EUR 8 million. The key takeaway is that the segment maintained and slightly extended its high margin profile despite the challenging industrial environment, underlining the robustness of its operating model. Overall, Slide Bearing continues to provide a high margin and comparatively low volatility contribution within the group as seen in prior years. Group operating profit came in at around EUR 169 million after EUR 116 million in the prior year. As Alexander has already said, the drivers continue to be our strong operational performance, higher output levels and the resulting operating leverage. After adjusting for the effects of purchase price allocation, operating profit before PPA, depreciation and amortization as well as income and losses from PPA asset disposals increased to around EUR 250 million compared to around EUR 160 million in fiscal year '24. Adjustment came in at a significantly lower level than the prior year and totaled around EUR 15 million down from around EUR 29 million and mainly related to global process and system improvements, whereas the corresponding period of the prior year was mainly impacted by our efficiency programs in Muskegon U.S. In total, we recorded an adjusted EBIT of around EUR 230 million, '25 against around EUR 189 million in the comparative period. Adjusted EBITDA increased to around EUR 264 million from around EUR 222 million. Let me continue with a detailed look at our net working capital development. Net working capital increased to EUR 345 million at the end of '25, up from EUR 284 million in '24 and EUR 248 million in '23. The increase of EUR 61 million in '25 was primarily driven by customer receivables, which rose from EUR 268 million to EUR 370 million. The underlying explanation is our typical year-end acceleration in production and related timing effects when it comes to customer payments. Inventories also increased from EUR 391 million to EUR 436 million and therefore, contributed to the higher working capital leverage however, to a lesser extent than receivables and with a reduced growth rate compared to prior year's development. On the funding side, the increase in working capital was partly offset by higher liabilities. Prepayments received increased from EUR 258 million to EUR 322 million. And trade payables increased from EUR 117 million to EUR 144 million, both supporting working capital financing. The rise in payments has its roots in the first 3 quarters of the year, whereas the shift of major orders, Alexander already referred to, came with a corresponding deferral of prepayments. So on pure Q4 to Q4 basis, we were behind '24 million. Importantly, net working capital as a percentage of last 12 months revenue remained broadly stable at 25.2% compared to 24.9% at the end of '24 and below the 26.8% level seen at the end of '23. Overall, the chart shows a higher absolute working capital base in line with higher activity levels, while the ratio remains contained. On free cash flow, the starting point is our adjusted EBITDA of EUR 264 million, which reflects the strong operating leverage I already referred to. The latter also is true for the increase in net working capital that had an impact on cash per period end of around 20 -- sorry, around EUR 80 million. Please remember that a significant portion of that increase is attributable to customer receivables and so close to cash. The slippage of major orders from Q4 '25 to '26 and the corresponding absence of related prepayments negatively amplified that effect on the financing side. CapEx excluding additional M&A transactions amounted to EUR 39 million, representing 2.8% of revenues and so slightly below our reference point of 3% on average during '24 until 2030. Prior year's ratio was 2.7%, creating some headwind for our proposed CapEx increase in '26 and '27. Besides organic growth, we will pursue M&A opportunities that fit well to our financial framework. Not surprisingly, and given our earlier communications, our M&A focus is directed at potential growth opportunities in the defense sector. After considering income taxes of EUR 33 million, we generated an unlevered free cash flow of EUR 94 million. Free cash flow amounted to EUR 67 million for the year with an interest result of minus EUR 27 million as a reconciling item. Our net working capital increase resulted in a below-target CCR of 47.2% for fiscal year '25. The current year's figure negatively impacted the 3-year average of the years '23 to '25 that landed at 54.6%. If you add above factors together, you can see that our operating performance in '25 funded our investments and financing costs, resulting in a positive generation with sense on solid grounds. Now let me move on to our approach to shareholder value creation. With an emphasis on returns in line with our capital market discussion directed on return on capital employed, I would like to state or start with the key drivers of the denominator of that performance indicator. The #1 message is that we adhere to our CapEx target of 3% in relation to revenue in a medium time frame. For fiscal year '25, we are below that figure, namely 2.8%, benefiting from our preceding investments in our productive basis. Nevertheless, given our growth ambitions that are enhanced by significant increases in proposed defense spendings our message is that we foresee a CapEx increase beyond our average CapEx target in the year '26 and '27. As communicated earlier, we foresee a CapEx ratio in '26 below but close to 5% and for '27 below but close to 4%. Put differently, an average is an average and not meant to be a limiting factor for profitable growth that drives the numerator. And as already said, our capital allocation policy continues to embrace the potential for M&A activity as a driver of growth for the business. Secondly, deleveraging. In terms of net debt in relation to adjusted EBITDA is on its way with a ratio of 1.5x at the end of fiscal year '25. We are confident to bring that number down further and below our benchmark. Finally, we are committed to provide for an appropriate payout ratio, which we locate somewhere between 40% to 50% of adjusted net income. Our '25 dividend proposal mentioned by Alexander and addressed by me earlier, would equate to a payout ratio of 41%. We will balance these 3 elements to ensure our envisaged ROCE development over time and fiscal year '25 adds credibility related to that ambition. Now let's put things into perspective. When we reiterated our strategy at our Capital Markets Day in November '25, we laid out a clear set of building blocks that would drive financial returns and ultimately link the strategy to a valuation outcome. These building blocks remain, and I'm delighted to report the progress we are making in reaching our objectives. With a ROCE of 23.5%, we laid a sound starting point for our midterm goal. Key driver is the increase of our adjusted EBIT by 21.7% on a year-on-year basis. At the same time, we saw a relatively small increase in capital employed that ultimately amounted to 2.3%. Besides our net working capital development mentioned earlier, CapEx and M&A activities are accountable for that lift up whereas amortization of intangibles and negative foreign currency effects had a mitigating effect. Our current year's cash conversion rate is clearly below our midterm orientation mark. The same is true for net working capital in relation to revenues. As I said earlier, we need to acknowledge adverse timing effects that has driven these figures However, we are committed to manage the manageable, especially when it comes to inventory management. Now I would like to hand back to Alexander and thank you for your attention.

Yes. Thanks, Anja. Ladies and gentlemen, let me come back with a few words on our outlook and guidance for 2026. Looking back on 2025 and as mentioned several times before, we are proud to confirm that we met our guidance 2025 for revenue and adjusted EBIT. Regarding 2026, we are guiding for revenues of more EUR 1.5 billion and an adjusted EBIT range between EUR 255 million up to EUR 285 million. Let me be crystal clear at this point. Like in the previous year, we will also do whatever is possible to position us in the upper half of the EBIT range. We see the overall market environment, including a potential peace deal in Ukraine for 2026 as strong and positive, and we do expect major order intakes, which I will touch later on in more detail. From the operations side, our modular production line in Augsburg is, as mentioned before, up and running and just performing well, while we are consequently executing our investment and capacity expansion program with a strong focus on our German production side. From our growing supply chain, we also do not expect major issues. And therefore, we are very focused on converting during 2026. Our strong order backlog according to our customer delivery schedules into revenues. Including our investment plan for 2026, which I will discuss on the next chart, we do expect a quarterly revenue profile with a stronger H2 loading. Fair to say that we also need to manage some challenges during 2026 similar to what we did, by the way, successfully in 2025. Besides geopolitical impacts on exchange rate movements here, we talk about U.S. dollar and tariffs, the export approval process regarding Israel is key. We have considered approximately EUR 80 million to EUR 100 million of revenues for 2026, and we are, of course, in very close and so far positive discussions with relevant authorities in Germany and in Israel, and we are currently preparing our production for meeting the production and delivery schedule for 2026. Regarding our midterm targets, we fully reconfirm what we communicated during our Capital Markets Day back in November 2025. Organic revenues between EUR 2.8 billion up to EUR 3.2 billion and adjusted EBIT margin above 20%. The underlying assumptions on CapEx, ROCE, cash conversion rate net working capital and leverage, as shown before by Anja, all of these remain unchanged. Ladies and gentlemen, to make it simple, we are on track in executing our strategy. Now let's move on to the next page and having a quick look on our operational priorities for 2026, which are very clear and concerning 4 focus areas. First, production and delivery according to schedule, full store. We have the order book, we have the backlog. Now we execute it. Second, the capacity ramp-up with focus on Augsburg and Rheine. The investments are on track, and we are preparing to almost triple our capacities for land transmissions in the coming years. Furthermore, Augsburg will increase 2026, the output north of 800 land transmission including additional capacities for the machining areas and still running most likely in a single shift mode regarding the modular production line. Third, and as mentioned before, growing our supply chain and increasing the resilient, robust, flexible and scalable. We work on this continuously, and we do not see for 2026, as mentioned before, major issues besides normal day-to-day operational topics. Further finally, rolling out our operational excellence program and the RENK production system from Augsburg, which started in 2024 and Muskegon started in 2025, now to Horstman for 2026. Slide 23 shows the installation sequence of new capacities in Augsburg and Rheine for land transmissions for 2026. In Augsburg and starting during Q2, new machining and heat treatment capacities will be installed and immediately starting production. For Q4, finally, a new test cell for land transmissions will also go live. Same for our former pure civil plant, Rheine, where we are installing new machining equipment for land transmissions during the second and third quarter of 2026. Very important. The entire capacity ramp-up performs according to schedule and will continue during 2027 and 2028. The strong focus on execution, plus a high level of standardization remains the key for our performance. Ladies and gentlemen, moving now to Slide 24. As I said before, we do see the overall market situation for 2026, very positive. The potential order intake pipeline is full, and we currently have a strong order visibility, I mean, order intake visibility of approximately EUR 2 billion for 2026. Just to give you some examples of key order intakes, we do expect for 2026. And we are only talking about OE business. For example, the various German programs for land and sea platforms. Just talking about land, we do expect the Puma IFV, Boxer Arminius, the Leopard 2 additional MBTs and plus some Leopard 2-based family vehicles and also some PzH2000. From the Navy side, we see the F127, the MEKO A200 and finally, a larger R&D program, which shifted from 2025 into 2026. We also see new transmission orders from the Store 4 contract, which is currently in the final phase of negotiation with the U.S. customer and worth of approximately EUR 800 million up to EUR 1 billion over 3 plus 2 optional years. Also, a larger MBT order intake from an international customer, which also shifted from '25 to '26 and further K2 orders for Poland. Also first orders from the Italian MBT and IFV programs and some additional larger INFV programs, for example, Romania and Austria. And as a kind of base business, more spare part contracts from Germany, Europe, Ukraine and international customers, specifically for land platforms. Regarding Navy, more international frigate programs from various customers, including the two frigate programs, which shifted from Q4 '25 to 2026. Fair to say that we might also see for 2026 some order intake shift into 2027, like, for example, the German F127 program. But we see, as said earlier, the approximately EUR 2 billion of order intake is highly visible. Looking on Q1 2026, we currently see an order intake range between EUR 400 million to EUR 500 million depending, of course, on the final time line of the specific programs. Ladies and gentlemen, the good news, we are almost done. So let's move to the next slide. The main priorities for 2026 are crystal clear and straightforward. First, execution, execution and again, execution. Our modular production line in Augsburg is running, and we are investing according to our CapEx guidance shown before by Anja into capacity expansion per our 2030 strategy. The foundation is set. Now we deliver on our financial KPIs and reaching new all-time highs. Second, we have for 2026, a very attractive hunting list with major programs from Germany, Europe and the rest of the world, but also for future key order intake programs beyond 2026, such as, for example, the M1 platform and the large FF(X) Navy program in the U.S. Third, the optimization of our portfolio Defense is the center of gravity, the core of our business and always in the focus of value-accretive M&A. Moreover, the execution of our next-gen mobility roadmap during 2026 wth important milestones through the entire year is key in order to develop needed future technologies and new product segments for the defense sector. And fourth, aftermarket RENK is today the peer with the highest aftermarket share in our space, but we want to expand this segment further. For 2026, we will review and define our new aftermarket strategy, including a better understanding aftermarket mechanics and analytics. We want to be more proactive, more systematic and more ambitious in order to build a strong and profitable resilience into our business model. Ladies and gentlemen, before we open the floor to your questions, let me take final, final 30 seconds to sum it up. 2025 was a strong year for RENK with new all-time highs across the board. The year-end raise that once again, has proven the true capability of our team. and a strong order backlog, which is providing us with a visibility like never ever before. The appetite for what we produce has never been stronger. Land, sea, newbuild aftermarket across all our core programs and geographies, the momentum is strong in driving our business. Furthermore, we are not just collecting order intakes. We have built up and are building up further the structure to convert them into revenues, Augsburg, Rheine or Muskegon, investments are on track. Capacity is growing and the operational performance is further improving. Finally, we are going into 2026 with a clear guidance a full order book and a proven ability to execute. Ladies and gentlemen, now really finally a few concluding comments regarding our final -- I mean, our financial calendar. Our capital market activities continue, as you can see, to be very busy, and we are very much looking forward to meeting many of you in the coming weeks and months at roadshows, conferences and by networks. Some of these key dates are shown on this slide. So ladies and gentlemen, RENK has delivered a successful year. We have delivered what we promised. The challenge is absolutely clear. The focus is clear and the team is ready. Thank you very, very much for your attention. We are now looking forward for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Sebastian Growe with BNB Paribas.

The first one is on VMS and sorry for being a bit picky here, but can you comment on what has driven the margin decline at VMS in the fourth quarter. It was down like 150 basis points. And how do you view the margin trajectory into '26? And I'm asking that question in the wake of having seen the shift in the production concept in Augsburg now behind and as you also labeled the importance of the aftermarket business. So how fast might we simply get to tangible results here. That's the first question I have. And then I have another One on the guidance, please.

Yes, Sebastian, I mean I will try, of course, to answer your question, if you talk about VMS margin. I think we always communicated this that we had as a result of the export embargo, we were missing profitable business from the Israelian customer in the last quarter. And this, of course, was one of the main factors. We could partially compensate the missing revenues from the Israelian business from the planned and scheduled deliveries in the final quarter but we could not compensate it with the same kind of margin quality like we were assuming for the Israelian orders. And talking about the overall margin projections of the VMS segment, I think you see -- and this is the first general answer, you see the potential, if the plant is running under full production, you see the 25%. And I think if you look in the year 2026, we also would expect further margin improvement, of course, driven by the operational leverage.

And then on the aftermarket parts. So how quickly might this really turn out to be even stronger from a contribution perspective?

I think here we need to be fair. And as you know, I'm always saying that so far, we have disputed for an aftermarket share in a kind of not really proactive business approach. We are waiting for the customer and that the customer is coming to us. And usually, we are the only source in order to support our customers. We need to better understand what will change in the market coming from more platforms, more training, more exercises and a different perspective from the customer side, from the end customer side -- from the end user side, sorry, how they will run their spare parts strategy in order to increase the mission readiness of the platform, the existing platforms, but also the new platform. So Besides this modeling of the markets, we will define in 2026 different improvement measures, which are for short-term perspective, but the majority of this business, when I talk about north of 40% or 50%, I think it's fair to say that this really change on the value and change on the share of the aftermarket business on the overall group performance will kick in beyond 2030.

And then to the guidance quickly, you at the Capital Markets Day said that you were striving for double-digit growth every year. Now your '26 sales target of more than EUR 1.5 billion implying just that. So it's just above EUR 10 million. So the questions that I'm having around this One is then what might lead to growth meeting the consensus expectation, which is EUR 1.55 billion as, you will know, billion? And can you also provide more color with regard to the growth rates by segments that you have in mind at this stage?

Well, I think the guidance and what we communicated on the Capital Market Day, I think it's consistent. So when we talk about double-digit growth, and this is clearly our target and approach for 2026. I think when we look on the current consensus of the EUR 1.55 billion. I think this is something what we -- I'm not waking up in the night and be full of sweat just referring to the question feedback of David Perry during the pre-close call. And I think the main growth driver, like on the segment level -- if you look on the segment level, the main growth drivers will be again on the VMS side. On the Slide Bearing side, we do expect a normal in the -- I mean, like in the past, shown a growth rate in the higher single digit, but this is from the total value is not a real driver. The real driver was is and will be our land and defense business for the next year.

And sort of a very quick follow-up, just on how the current discussions with Israel with the German government are going in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East. Can this unlock to get to that approval any earlier and eventually even then further boost revenues beyond the EUR 80 million to EUR 100 million? Or would that be going way too far?

I think it's a fair answer to say that and as I mentioned this during my little speech here that we are in good discussions with the German customer and the German government. We are in good discussions with the Israelian government in order to align delivery and production volumes. So far, I do not see that there is any negative impact from, for example, the current crisis in the Middle East, the Iran war. This might lead overall, and this is really a gut feeling to an overall increasing demand for defense capabilities in this region. This will be, I think, or I could imagine pretty much on ammunition on air defense capabilities. But it will also could impact land defense capabilities. Just a quick side note, and it's brand new. We just received yesterday the first orders for prototypes for a new IFV from a Gulf state which should be developed in the next 2 to 3 years. So it's a kind of indication. I don't know if this was an incidence, but it's a kind of indication that I think this conflict could drive further defense spending, not only on air and not only on ammunition and not only on air defense systems, but also on ground based. And you notice it's public Israel has strong demand for land platforms. Israel has announced to invest billions of euros into additional Markava tanks. So there should be on the midterm -- short to midterm additional benefit, of course, for the suppliers who are supporting these platforms.

Our next question will come from David Perry with JPMorgan. [Operator Instructions]

Can I just ask a couple of quick detailed questions and then one big picture question, please. The detailed questions maybe for you, Anja. On central cost line, I don't know if it's an elimination line or central cost line on EBIT came in at minus 16%. So it was much higher than previous years. Can you just explain why and what that will be going forward? Second question is and apologies if I missed it. Did you give any guidance on free cash flow in 2026. And then the big picture question, maybe for you Alexander is just if Donald Trump is successful in getting a big increase in U.S. Defense -- the U.S. Defence budget. What do you think the key opportunities might be for you in land?

Yes. Okay. Let me start with the central cost line. So this is basically the reconciling item for the segments for the adjusted EBIT. What we have in there is consolidation effects. And if we compare it '24 to '25 but it's not only consolidation effect, it's also central cost as said. So in '24 we had our IPO in February, and we had a newly set up AG. So in '24 the AG were starting to be populated. So the very first year is 2025, where we have the full setup of the AG. So that is partially due for the rising costs and what we have in there is we have central function costs, which we are not charging to the segments because these central function costs, they are providing stewardship work. Yes, so and stewardship work, which is related to a listed company in Germany, that cannot be charged to the operations. So therefore, that remains in that line, and let's not get charged out to the segments. And obviously, as we have the very first full year in 2025, where we have the full AG setup and also the full central function setup for a listed company in Germany, that increase and it increased significantly. And so going forward, so I would say, gut feeling at around -- we're staying at around that level.

So, it stays around the sort of mid-teens that grow in line with the business.

No, no, no. We have -- well, it would go up if we would have other regulative topics where we are required by regulation to do further work on stewardship. There are some new regulation coming out from listed companies in Germany on things like that. But it's not in relation to our operations or something.

The next question will come from...

Sorry, we have two more questions from David. Anja, I think a statement on cash flow.

Okay. So cash flow 2026, as you have seen, so we have parts what we can manage and that we will be managing. But we also have parts which are depending on our customer behaviors. So for 2026, we just stay in line as and I assume that we hopefully have a more favorable cutoff topics in 2026, and we will be at the same levels as in prior years.

David good morning. Sorry...

Sorry, can I just clarify sort of a same level as prior year, you're talking an absolute amount or a conversion, you're saying that you're suggesting...

We're talking cash conversion rate.

But what is your reference here? Because we only have a limited history, you had a very good '24 and a much weaker '23. So I don't know what normal is. When you say prior years?

No, David, I think the message is clear, and we always communicated that we are looking driven by the nature of the defense business on an average cash conversion rate over at least 2 or 3 years and what we communicated always in the past to be on or above the 80% is our targeted average cash conversion rate. So we had in 2024, I mean for 2025 if we would not have these kind of EUR 200 million of order shifts and if you take from this EUR 200 million, to be fair, there's one R&D project in the range of EUR 20 million to EUR 30 million, which was not with advanced payments. But if you take an average of 20% to 30% for these international programs on EUR 180 million and at this resulting advanced payments before the fiscal year end on the 31st of December on our EUR 67 million, we would be in a very favorable range also in relation to our consensus. We could not -- I mean, you know this, on the defense business, unfortunately, we cannot finally control our customer. So we had this shift of the projects with this shift in the order intake. The advanced payments will also shift into 2026. And so our target, and this is underlined is to have clearly on the average, our target is above 80%. And David then, now finally myself. Good morning, and talking about the bigger picture about U.S., I mean, we had this discussion and Mr. Trump, I think, has set a very ambitious but also, I think, fair target to increase significantly today's defense budget of around about EUR 1 billion to significantly higher values, EUR 1.5 billion in this range. I still do believe that the main -- the main benefit, if you talk about domains will clearly be on the Navy side. The U.S. Navy has since 70 years the lowest number of vessel or fighting vessels. And if you see the geopolitics especially in Asia or when you see the number of vessels 2 aircraft carriers striking groups now in the Middle East, they need to build up and to ramp up through frigates, destroyers and whatever. It's the same if you talk air defense, if you talk about cyber and space capabilities. On the land side, I still see that the budget will be maybe not so much under constraint, but I do not expect major moves. So I think in our today's positioning by serving the majority of the legacy platforms, except the M1 fair comment. And seeing that if you talk about in M1 future, I think we talked about repowering. I think the RENK is in a good position. RENK is in a very good position from my personal point of view, if you're talking about the naval programs. I mean, with the acquisition of Cincinnati Gearing Systems today, RENK America Marine & Industry, we have the needed footprint. the needed footprint in U.S. on top. If you talk about the large FF(X) program, I think there are numbers between 50 to 65 over lifetime. It's a huge number I would consider RENK in a very good position, but we need to book it, of course, because the reference vessel of this FR(X) is the so-called national c-cutter from the Coast Guard and the supplier of this transmission is RENK today .

Our next question will come from Joe Orchard from Rothschild & Co Redburn [Operator Instructions].

Just a quick clarification to begin with. Please, could you just confirm that you have included that EUR 80 million to EUR 100 million of potential revenue from Israel in your FY '26 guidance? And then secondly, please, could you talk about how you expect your revenue by region to evolve in FY '26? And it looks from the annual report that you had very strong revenue growth in FY '25 in Asia and the U.S., whereas in Europe, it was a little bit more muted. How do you see your revenue growth by region evolving in FY '26?

I will do my very best to answer your questions, of course. If you talk about, first, our guidance, of course, we have in our guidance, we have Israeli included EUR 80 million to EUR 100 million, and there is nothing to talk more about it. As I just said before, we are in positive discussions with both authorities. I was last week also in Berlin. And as I said in my presentation, we are currently preparing our production and delivery schedule according to the needs of the Israelian government. So from my side, yes, full stop. The second point, if you talk about regions, I think we will have pretty much a similar pattern that in Germany, in Europe and in U.S., we will have a growth mode. Asia, if you talk about an end customer in Korea will also contribute. But I would assume pretty much a similar effect like or a similar pattern like in 2025.

Our next question will come from Sven Sauer from Kepler Cheuvreux [Operator Instructions].

The first One is, could you maybe provide some more color on the comments you made regarding the tax rate in the coming years? You mentioned a strong decrease of the tax rate that will normalize over time. Yes, it would be great if you could maybe quantify this a bit more? And my second question is on the main ground combat system. There is some news out that it's looking like it's going to be even more unlikely to materialize. Just wanted to hear your thoughts on this, what this could mean for RENK in the long term?

Yes, and I would start with the easy question, at least for me because I'm not a tax expert. So I would like to start with your main ground comment question. I think we talked about this at least 2 years now. And I always said I do not believe on the main ground combat systems. And if we read carefully the current planning of the Bundeswehr, the German Army and talking about the so-called -- bridging solution based on Leopard basis, it's kind of Leopard A3 or whatever, I think if the German customer and is our understanding is procuring beyond 2030, quite significant numbers of these so-called bridge solutions. I think from my point of view, this makes it even more unlikely that then 10 years later, there will be a new main battle tank platform. But this is my own personal judgment on this. Now I would like to hand over to taxes.

Okay, taxes. So our effective tax rate for '25 is around 18%. And in prior year, it was around 40%. So what happened in 2025 is we were able to implement the loss the control and profit transfer agreement between the AG and the GMBH and we did a debt-to-equity swap in the U.S. These two measures actually enabled us to activate on losses carry forward. So we are only talking about the deferred taxes. So we're not talking actual taxes, so there is no cash impact related to that. That is important. And that was -- and why did we have this huge increase in 2025 because that was a catch-up effect, which accumulated over the whole year where we increase the interest on the debt-to-equity swap in the U.S. and where we weren't able to deduct that. So we were, for the first time in 2025, able to really capitalize on that. And obviously, it's a catch-up effect, and it will not recur in any going forward years. So that will basically defer out. So when you talk -- when you talk about going forward, tax rates, it will further flow out, and we will be very soon based on a normalized German company tax rate of 30% to 32%.

Thanks, Sven. Just to really complete my answer, I forgot your question. You do talk about the implications on RENK. There are no implications. I mean, main ground combat system is from the original planning beyond 2030, 2040 somewhere. If you talk about the pitching solution, it's RENK. So for us, there's no implication.

Our next question will come from Charles Armitage from Citi [Operator Instructions].

A couple of quick ones. Unfortunately, I dropped off at the critical moment and you're answering David's question, so you might have answered this already. What do you typically get on as a customer prepayment on orders? Does 20% sound about right?

Alexander here. This depends really on the customer contracts. I mean it depends on how we negotiate with the customer, of course. But I think it's fair to say in the range of 20%. It's a good average indication.

Excellent. And again, I think you mentioned this previously, but I've mislaid my notes. Israel sales last year lost were about EUR 80 million, is that right?

No, no, no. Last year sales, I mean, when we talk about the impact of the export embargo, which was materializing in form of missing revenues in Q4 was in the range of EUR 20 million. This were EUR 20 million. But if you look on 2026 we have, of course, included and we communicated this, I think, several times in the range between EUR 80 million and EUR 100 million. And as I just said before, or what I can say is, we are in positive discussions with both authorities. And as I just said it, I think it was Sven or I don't know exactly we are just preparing our production and our delivery schedules according to the needs of Israel.

Our next question will come from George Mcwhirter from Berenberg [Operator Instructions].

I have 2, please. Firstly, on order pipeline, can you provide an update on the Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Abrams M1A2 repowering contracts? And the second one is on aftermarket. I think aftermarket growth revenue growth in FY '25 was 8% versus OE at 28%. Was there something specific in the aftermarket business to explain the lower growth? And do you expect aftermarket growth to be quite similar to OE growth this year.

I mean I would like to start with the second -- with your second question, if I got it correctly. I mean the aftermarket growth in general, I mean if you look on 2026, I think I mentioned this in my speech. We're looking forward to receive more aftermarket, and I really talk about aftermarket spare parts. We are looking forward to receive more of these orders from the German customer, from the European customers from international customers as well. We also do see that the -- so what we started successfully for the very first time, by the way, during Q4, 2025 to start to have direct contracts between the Ukrainian MoD and RENK entity to continue this also in 2026. And if you talk on the long run, I mean, all the new business, which is kicking really in from the rearmament in Europe from the 3.5% plus 1.5% increase all this new business coming 2028 for following is, of course, adding up transmission by transmission, engine by engine, drive system by drive system, additional aftermarket layer and that's the reason why I'm saying if you look really on the mid- to long term beyond 2035, I see our business model and developing more with a higher aftermarket share north of 40%, where I cannot tell you is, to be honest, for this reason, we need to make and do our homeworks this year. But what is clear is really, so far, RENK was more in a really reactive mode in driving the business. This means organization maybe needs to be aligned. This needs to be much more activities even in our Industrial segment, if you talk about branding strategies, et cetera, et cetera. more and new service ideas, also if you talk to our end customers. So it's a broad spectrum. Coming to your first question on the order intake pipeline you asked about Egypt and Saudi Arabia. So we talk about the FMS repowering idea and potential program of the M1 Abrams, the M1A2 current model. Well, as I said earlier, we do expect from our potential customer GDA decision during the summertime, we are preparing a quote from the physical setting of this repowering. As you know, the turbine should be replaced with a diesel engine, and there should be a new transmission the only supplier who has a transmission besides Allison, who is capable to run this 70-tonne tank is RENK. So we do see us in a good position, but Unfortunately, we need to wait a little bit more for the summertime. And then during the summertime, of course, there should be a guidance for this FMS business towards Saudi Arabia and Egypt. And as I just said before, if you look on the current crisis, my gut feeling tells me it will accelerate on defense spending in this region simply.

And we have a written question from Marie Therese Grubner from Cantor Fitzgerald. The question is what are your expectations on German orders in FY '26? Do you have any visibility on when major orders will come in, meaning of which quarters or seeing anything hinting at delays on that front?

Marie is not here, otherwise, I would welcome here. But nevertheless, I mean, first of all, the orders and the expected order intakes are pretty much exactly what we had on our radar in our expectations since months and quarters. So to be more precise, you have seen in the presentation, we talked about Puma, the additional batch or the additional to around about 200 Pumas for the second batch. We do expect, and this depends really on the timing, Q1 or Q2 in 2026. The Boxer Arminius program in the range of 1,800 Boxers, somewhere during the summertime, Q2, Q3. What else do we have? The Leo additional main battle tanks, 75 to 80. I would see this more in the second half. Leo family, if you talk about Buffel, LEGUAN Bridge layer, WiSENT, they will come scattered throughout the year. The PzH2000, Q2, Q3 and I think I covered, if I'm correct, the current land programs. If you talk about the Navy programs, we do expect to have F127 in Q4. Why? Originally, we expected the order intake somewhere at the end of Q2. But as you know, the German Navy has currently quite some topics to manage the F126, the exhaustive negotiations regarding F127 and on top to include somewhere the MEKO A200. So there's a lot of work for the German government and the buying and we do see that for this new missile destroyer air defense destroyer, we would expect simply ongoing discussions. And so it could happen that this might slip into 2027, but we have it in our visibility for Q4. And the MEKO A200 as a bridging solution on the sea side, because F126 will have a delay, a massive delay. This first feeling of the first vessel will be somewhere beyond 2030. So there's an urgent need for the German Navy to have mass and capabilities in 2029, 2030. So we do expect that the MEKO 200, 4 plus 4 ships somewhere Q2, Q3.

Thank you very much. Well, that concludes the Q&A session. I'll now hand back to Dr. Alexander Sagel for closing remarks.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for this open discussion and your patience. It's a little bit longer than usual. But please take it as granted we are fully aware about your expectations. We are well prepared not only to collect orders to execute these orders. We are just precisely following our capacity expansion plan, always staying in our targeted CapEx range, and we will execute. We are on track in executing our strategy we have for 2026, a fantastic total order book. I think we have proven in the year-end and through the entire year 2025, by the way, that, again, operational execution, including supply chain, we have under control. And for this reason, again, I would like to reconfirm if you talk about our adjusted EBIT range we do feel well to position us well in the upper half of this range. Having said this, thank you very much for your patience, and see you soon. Bye-bye.

This concludes today's call. Thank you, everyone, for joining. You may now disconnect.