Rieter Holding AG (RIEN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Rieter's Half Year Results 2025 Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Thomas Oetterli, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A warm welcome also from my side. Here's the agenda. We will briefly look at the key messages to review the market and give you an update on the planned Barmag acquisition. I will then hand over to Oliver for a deep dive into the financials. Let's turn to the key messages on Slide #4. I will discuss in the financial part, just order intake, sales and operating EBIT. Oliver will walk you through the details on sales, EBIT, free cash flow and net profit. So let me start with the green boxes. The first half of 2025 was challenging to say the least, marked by macroeconomic and geopolitical turbulences as a result of the Trump administration's trade tariffs. We got off to a good start in the business year 2025, seeing increased offer activity across the board, also orders were coming in smoothly. But then the massive disruption caused by the trade tariffs brought order intake to a grinding halt in the second quarter 2025. The uncertainty proved to be toxic for investment decisions. The missing order intake in the second quarter of 2025 consequently translates to missing sales volume in the second half of 2025. As you may remember from our annual press conference in March, we consider this as essential for our top line guidance. The hesitation of our customers in turn led to higher inventory for the first half of 2025. On top of our strict cost discipline, we introduced additional cost measures, which brought operating EBIT almost to a breakeven level. Even so, the CHF 336 million sales volume fell short of our breakeven point. The second half of 2025 is therefore set to remain challenging. On to the blue boxes, for the planned acquisition, we are on track so far. We have completed all filings for the merger control authorities and expect the takeover to be cleared during the second half of 2025. Strategic progress in the After Sales division led to a remarkable order increase of 25%. This demonstrates that our strategy is bearing fruit, and we can expect our After Sales business to shore up profits in the second half of 2025. Let's turn to the gray boxes. We were again able to save a substantial amount of overhead costs. This demonstrates that we are consistently implementing the defined cost saving measures. Health and safety. Safety got off to a disappointing start standing at 3.9 for the first 6 months of 2025 after reaching 3.4 (sic) [ 3.3 ] for the full year 2024. We are working across the company to enhance the company's safety culture and improve our performance in this regard going forward. Our goal is to get the figure below 3. Diversity. The share of women in management positions has improved considerably crossing the targeted 20% threshold and reaching 20.5% for the first time ever, up from 15.3% in 2024. This is a clear demonstration that our efforts to improve gender balance are working. And now to the market. Spinning mills showed a mixed picture in the first half year 2025. India remained resilient and China constant on an existing level. This also means that there is an After Sales market out there. Consequently, if we further improve our delivery times and parts availability and expand our network of repair stations, I am confident that we will see further growth in this higher-margin business. The rest of the world has remained flat. On one side, the rest of the world countries are mainly exporting their apparel and functional wear to the European Union and the U.S. The low consumer sentiment in these key markets as well as the U.S. trade tariffs have not allowed a substantial increase of mill utilization. And then in addition, some markets are increasingly struggling with labor shortages and costs. So we must further push our digitization and automation solutions to help our customers operate their mills efficiently and effectively. And now a deep dive into the market situation on Slide #7. This slide shows the volatility we face in our markets. Let's start with India. India remains resilient, driven by strong government support and increasing domestic demand. Customers are planning the further expansion of their capacities, but most of the potential orders are planned for shipments in 2026 and 2027. Then China. In China, more bullish activities are in the Western area of China, whereas the East and the South are suffering from higher labor costs. China is still among the strongest markets as the country modernizes its installed base and the demand for automation technologies is set to rise accordingly. We saw strong sales growth across the divisions here. We were able to close our first orders for air jet and then a larger one for ring spinning machines, which will translate into order intake over the next 6 to 9 months. Then the rest of the world. The Trump tariffs impacted many countries in the rest of the world. We were, however, seeing a silver lining in Latin America and Brazil, but we expect the latest round of tariffs to have a dampening impact. Turkey, we'll face a consolidation process with a higher demand for automation solutions as labor costs are becoming too high. But then also new markets are emerging. Some countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the Central Asian countries such as Turkmenistan, are planning to copycat the Uzbekistan story and want to develop their own textile industry. A prerequisite for a thriving textile market is a strong spinning sector, which provides the downstream yarn material textile manufacturers required. We are ideally positioned to help these countries expand their spinning sectors with our technology and our know-how. Southeast Asia was strong in the first quarter of 2025, but the second quarter faced project postponements for new orders due to the uncertain tariff situation. As mentioned earlier, the Barmag transaction is on track to be completed by the end of this year. So far, everything is running smoothly. We filed the transaction with the merger control authorities in India, in Turkey, in Portugal and Egypt in June 2025. And also completed the filing with Chinese authorities in early July. We expect the transaction to be approved before the end of the year 2025. This concludes my part of the presentation, and I now hand over to Oliver Streuli, who will give you a further update on the financial part of the planned Barmag acquisition.

Thank you, Thomas. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The financing of the transaction is fully on track. Specifically on the debt financing, we are currently syndicating the CHF 375 million acquisition debt in the form of a term loan. In addition, we are refinancing and expanding our existing revolving credit facility in the amount of CHF 375 million to reflect the change in scale of the combined company. On the equity financing side, we are progressing with the preparation of the offering documentation and market materials and plan an extraordinary general meeting on September 18 this year. Following approval of the capital increase, we plan to hold comprehensive investor marketing activities in the second half of September. With regards to our anchor shareholders, both existing shareholders continue to fully support the transaction. Let me continue with the key elements of our financial performance in the first half year 2025. Let me start with the key messages on Slide 11. The first half year 2025 was a challenge from an operational point of view. Sales declined by 20%, more or less in line with our expectation on the back of low capacity utilization of our own sites at the beginning of the year. The decline was most pronounced at our division Machines & Systems followed by After Sales and Components. At this sales level, Rieter is structurally below our breakeven point. Only thanks to additional extraordinary cost measures and short timework at most sites, we were able to achieve an operating EBIT close to the 0 line at minus CHF 2.7 million. We continue to adjust the organizational structure and our capacity in line with our announced strategy. On top, transaction costs in relation to the acquisition of Barmag and extraordinary restructuring costs amounted to CHF 14.6 million. Our cash flow was negative at CHF 36.7 million due to the negative operating result and relatively high finished goods due to postponed orders, especially in the division Machines & Systems. Although sales developed according to our expectations in the first half year, a further market recovery remained absent, which is reflected in order intake of CHF 355 million, a decline of 12% to the previous year. Let me now deep dive into order intake and other KPIs on the following pages. The comparable order intake for the first half year of 2024 included a separately announced order intake of our Chinese customer, DIW in the amount of CHF 62 million. Excluding this big one-off order, our order intake in the first half year of 2025 remained more or less on a stable level versus the prior year in spite of the very challenging second quarter 2025. By division, order intake decreased by CHF 42 million in Machines & Systems, especially due to a low second quarter with many investment decisions being further pushed out by our customers on the back of increased uncertainties around the outlook of the global economy and tariff risks. Order intake at Components suffered most notably from lower demand for new machines and systems. While After Sales managed to grow year-on-year by 25% due to increased demand for engineered solutions and repair service. This growth is a confirmation on the strategic and operational initiatives taken to expand our aftersales business and clearly a highlight of the first half year. On Page 13, we see the sales development in the first half year. As stated earlier, the drop in sales in the first half year in the Machines & Systems division materialized according to our expectations, due to a low filling rate of our capacity with the existing backlog at the start of the year. What came on top were customer-driven delays in the delivery of finished goods due to the current market environment, which is also negatively reflected in higher finished goods inventories. The Components division showed a mixed picture with new machinery focused business units suffering while consumables and/or man-made fiber-focused business units developed more stably. The customers on the After Sales division in many of our core markets, especially Türkiye, are struggling with low capacity utilization. As a result, orders are not being called off, but often postponed. In addition to that, field service, including installation revenues are directly linked to the volatile new machinery business. This makes up a substantial portion of our aftersales revenue. The revenue structure as we see shows a growing share of repairs, indicating that more is being repaired than replaced. Strong growth in the area of modernization and retrofit involves longer lead times on the other hand, such as ROBOspin or compacting solutions. On to the order backlog on Page 14, where we see an order backlog of CHF 510 million, which still represents a solid level, but is more or less unchanged from the situation at the beginning of -- at the end of 2024, mirroring the absence of a more broad-based market recovery for the reasons mentioned earlier by Thomas. As can be seen on Slide #15, we were able to defend our operating EBIT and achieve a level close to breakeven despite the historically low sales level. Specifically, the lower sales level led to a negative gross profit volume effect of CHF 42 million compared to the first half year 2024. Again, additional cost savings in the amount of CHF 15 million in R&D and overhead spend and extraordinary measures led to an operating result before restructuring and acquisition costs of minus 2.7%. For the sake of transparency, related restructuring expenses and acquisition costs amounted to CHF 14.6 million resulting into an EBIT reported of minus EUR 17.3 million. However, this figure lacks comparability, and we therefore, would like to draw your attention to the operating EBIT when assessing the performance of our operations in this very difficult environment. For cash flow, let's move to Slide #16. Cash flow was adversely impacted by the negative operating result and headwinds from the development of our net working capital. More specifically, postponements of orders led to higher finished good inventories, while the lower amount of accounts payable and advance payments is a consequence of the low operational load and the subdued market activity in the first half year. On the CapEx front, we remained highly disciplined and spent only the absolute necessities for the time being, which is roughly half of the spend of last year for reference. On Slide #17, we see the summary of our debt and equity position at half year closing. Net debt increased mainly by the amount of negative free cash flow and the dividend. Rieter continues to be solidly financed and still a several hundred million of unused credit lines at our disposal for operational purposes, which is important to state. Our equity ratio softened due to negative operational results and on the back of the realization of cumulative translation adjustments, but remained well above the 30% mark. That's it for the time being on the financials. Back to you, Thomas, for the outlook.

Thanks, Oliver. And now on the adjusted outlook. We expect a stronger second half of the year for the 2025 fiscal year. Though this depends on the continued market recovery. As the market recovery has slowed due to the macroeconomic uncertainties, we are adjusting our sales forecast for 2025 as a whole year. Without consideration of the Barmag Division, we now expect sales of around CHF 750 million to CHF 800 million, and previously, we said that we will land at the previous year's level of around CHF 860 million. Excluding restructuring costs and costs associated with the acquisition of Barmag, we expect an operating EBIT margin at the lower end of the range of 0% to 4% for 2025 as a whole. With that, I conclude our presentation, and I will hand over to Relindis for the Q&A session.

Ladies and gentlemen, we will now open the lines for the participants in the conference call. Then we will take the questions from the webcast. As usual, the Q&A session will be recorded. I kindly ask the participants to mention your name and the company you work for before asking your question. So Sandra may I kindly ask you to take the first question.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Walter Bamert from Zürcher Kantonalbank.

Your biggest earnings contributor in the first half was a nonoperational real estate sales gain. Why don't you adjust for it in the operating EBIT? And why do you think you don't have to mention that in the press release?

Thank you for the good question. In the past, we have always had real estate transactions. And we had bigger ones and smaller ones, such as Ingolstadt or the sale of the Rieter Real, which are really substantial. Apart from that, we always have other transactions which are of a smaller scale, and we considered the sale of a nonoperational office building as not material in the context of the operations overall. So that's why we did not mention it in the press release, but it is well explained in the annex of the half year financial report.

Is that the last real estate gain? And is that a house where we had the opera?

That was the former headquarter that we had as you might recall. That was not sold when we sold Rieter Real. Overall, it's now rented by a third party, not used by us anymore. And with regards to whether it is the last real estate transaction, we continue to review our footprint and there might be one or the other real estate transaction also in the future, but it's not to be expected that there are further major real estate transactions, such as we did in 2023 or in Ingolstadt.

The next question comes from Alessandro Foletti from Octavian.

Alessandro here from Octavian. I have a couple, if I may, and I would like to take them one by one. Maybe first on the -- a very quick one. You mentioned that Q2 was much weaker than Q1. Would you be willing to give a bit of an indication of what was the difference between Q1 and Q2?

Sure, Alessandro, happy to take that question. Normally, Q1 is a relatively weak quarter because you have the usual start into the year in Europe and then you have Chinese New Year, so it's normally rather soft. So in normal circumstances, actually the softest quarter of the year. Now this year, it was different. It was double-digit percentage amount, better than the second quarter. Normally, the second quarter is much stronger. So that is exactly what we elaborated before. I hope that helps.

Yes, it does. And then on the After sales, as you mentioned, I agree, this is really the good part of the result. Now I was wondering, you mentioned all this Turkmenistan and I was wondering, is there any sort of large order into this after sales? Or is it really just an operation advancement in that business segment?

I think it's both. So first of all, yes, we also mentioned that we had the first larger order in Turkmenistan. This is true. These were a couple of millions. So it does not explain the difference. The difference is really driven by more repair business and by more engineered solution business, whereas the value for installation of machines has been further reduced. So there are some positive and negative elements. But it's mainly driven by higher repairs and engineered solutions. And the engineered solutions are driven by Automation Solutions. That's the key driver there, our ROBOspin product. And repairs, we are opening more repair stations everywhere in the world to be close to our customers, and this starts to pay off.

Right. Okay. So -- and do I get it right that spare parts would be part of that business lines? Or would it be rather in components?

Spare parts is part of the After Sales business. There was a slight growth, but not yet the growth we would like to have, to be clear.

Right. And then my last question, if I may. I think, Oliver, you mentioned that -- I mean, you're still solidly financed in the CHF 700 million credit line. However, from my perspective, if I look at the balance sheet in just a few numbers, you have now almost CHF 300 million net debt. I understand part of it is exceptional due to working capital, it might reverse. But then after the capital increase and the acquisition of Barmag, I calculate like you will be above CHF 600 million net debt. Is that not high? At least it seems high to me. Do you have plans to reduce it further? What are your thoughts here, please?

I think it's premature to give you a guidance on the leverage levels post-closing and refinancing of the transaction. But as indicated also in our roadshow in relation to the transaction, the leverage will be too high for us over the medium term. So we will start rather on the high end, most likely above the 3x net debt to EBITDA, and we clearly plan to deleverage the business over the coming years. This is a must. But as you can well imagine, if you combine 2 rather cyclical business rather at the trough from the market, it's unavoidable that becomes a certain leverage with it. But clearly, we strive towards a much, much lower leverage figure over the medium term.

Okay. Good -- so -- but you -- the way I understand it is you sort of believe you will be able to reduce that leverage kind of operationally? Maybe the business recovering, customer advances, I don't know.

To a big part, yes. A key driver is certainly advanced payments. As you can also see in our balance sheet for the half year closing, we had another headwind from advance payments position. Payables in days, they increased. So we did a good job operationally, but in absolute terms, they increased due to the low operational load. And then if you have a couple of orders which shift and still sit in your inventories, you really have quite a strong headwind. Then you have the dividend and all other things. But really, the upside potential with the transaction comes from a recovery of the market, higher advance payments plus I have state again, we believe that Barmag has a structurally lower net working capital than ourselves. So together, it should be accretive also on the cash flow side.

The next question comes from [ Andy Schneider ] from [ Z Capital ].

I would be interested in some comments, not 1Q versus 2Q, but even monthly. What can you tell us about April, May and June. It would be interesting to see how it developed after Liberation Day?

Well, I think we can -- I do not want to share top line and bottom line figures per month, but I can give you an indication. So the indication was that in April, with the Liberation Day, it was worldwide, everything was coming to a halt. It was just a full break in the Machines & Systems business, but also in the Components business, I have to say. Then the first country, we started to recover, and this was important for us was China, after Mr. Trump and Xi Jinping somehow came to an agreement for the time being. The mentality now in China is the following that they say, well, it seems we have done a good deal. And the Chinese customers are more and more in any way supplying the Chinese domestic market. So we saw them in May, the first orders coming back, mainly in China. Then in June, the rest of the world was still quite at a stop because everybody was expecting what happens in July when then the final tariffs are coming. And then in June, what I saw was that besides China, now India is starting to recover. We anyway had in the first -- or by the end of 2024 and in the first quarter of 2025, India was very bullish then they stopped. And in June, I saw that India was coming back, and I can say now in July, this is not yet in the half year results, we booked the first bigger orders also in India. The rest of the world is quite damp, I have to say, not only for tariff reasons. Our third biggest market in the past was Türkiye, and Türkiye is just struggling to get out of the downturn because of this super, super high labor cost they have. And -- but also Latin America, somehow has not yet coming back. And when you look what kind of a tariff now Brazil got and Mexico got, which are somehow nearshore markets for the U.S., I think it will still take a couple of weeks and months until this is digested. So we are, of course, all waiting what will be in some key markets for us, final decisions by the Trump administration because this will have impacts on Bangladesh, Vietnam, Latin America not so much maybe on Türkiye. So it was a really super and stop. In April, China was coming first, India now was coming second. And in the rest of the world, it's still very, very, very low levels.

And I would like to get a sense of how you came up with the CHF 750 million to CHF 800 million in sales that implies a big improvement in sales in the second half. Obviously, you have the CHF 510 million order backlog. Maybe you can talk a little bit about the backlog. How much of that is set to deliver in 2H or longer-term orders? Or do you think would address that? I'm trying to get a sense how we came out with that guidance?

So the CHF 750 million to CHF 800 million are really solid. Of course, today's time, you sometimes never know what happens, but when we look at our order backlog, this CHF 750 million to CHF 800 million are more or less secured. It includes a growth in our After Sales business, which should be possible because we also had a strong increase in our order intake in the first half of the year, and it has the shortest lead time between order intake and sales execution. In the component parts, those elements, which are also more consumables, we have assumed just a straightforward continuation. And in those elements where it is more project-driven, so with Machines & Systems business, we do have the backlog to be executed according to the contract in the second half of the year. So definitely, this range of CHF 750 million to CHF 800 million for us is, at the moment, I don't see a reason we should not be able to achieve that. Now why do we have a deviation of up to CHF 100 million to the last year, last year's guidance or March guidance we had, we always said also at the press conference that we need a strong first half. We were confident that we will have a strong order intake in the first half. And we knew that certain products also in the Machines & Systems business and certain projects should be executed still in 2025 as those orders have not been -- we have not lost them. They just have been postponed. So they don't come into execution in the second half of the year. And this impacts us up to CHF 100 million, and that was the reason why we took down this guidance of our sales volumes.

So of this CHF 510 million backlog, roughly CHF 100 million were set to deliver this year, but will not be delivered? Or are these CHF 100 million not in the order of backlog yet officially?

This CHF 100 million are not yet in the order backlog because the order has not been decided by the customers. Some orders might come still this year, but they will not impact our sales. Some orders, I know the customers have said, for example, in Vietnam, we will only take the final decision in 2026.

Okay. And so if you would take the CHF 750 million and then take your EBIT guidance, am I right to assume that at EUR 750 million we will be at 0 for EBIT, and at CHF 800 million probably 1% plus higher. That's how we should think about that?

Well, excluding restructuring costs and transaction costs, as you may understand, really comparable figure, I think this is a fair assumption, yes. Of course, it depends on the mix development, but this is in line more or less with our planning.

Okay. Okay. That makes sense. And can you tell us about the operating leverage you have on any additional CHF 1 million in sales, how much EBIT margins do you typically make plus/minus?

So it depends a little bit on the sales mix. If you take -- if you take our CM2 or our gross profit margin, let's take 25%, this also includes certain fixed costs. So you are probably right when you take, let's say, CHF 100 million top line impact something like CHF 40 million -- CHF 35 million to CHF 40 million EBIT. So if you have CHF 50 million, you can be CHF 20 million better or CHF 20 million worse. So it has quite a big impact. It depends a little bit on the product mix or on the divisional mix. So the impact on the After Sales business is higher and it is lower in the Machine & Systems business. But overall, you could take something like 35% to 40%.

Perfect. And then last question. So last question is an add-on question to Alessandro's question about after sales. You said that you opened more repair stations being a little bit closer to the buy-ins and getting some volume there. Any other measures you could tell us about that are -- that are already pushing this business higher, which is great.

Yes. So there are several initiatives. One is the topic of repair stations because recently due to not too much as a professor to elaborate on that. But repair means you take a part, you repair it in your repair station, this can be mechanical repairs or electrical repairs and you bring it back and you put it into the machine. So there, it's a lot about qualification, are you able to do such a repair. And the second is the speed. So for the most important part, we have now built up extra part. So we take a part to us, immediately fill in or replace it with intermediate part, repair the original one, go back and then exchange the part again. So this is one driver. Second drivers are engineered solutions. We are pushing a lot these automation solutions and especially in engineered solutions or modernization or upgrade of existing machines, it's mainly the topic of the ROBOspin. And there, we could sell even more, but we also don't want to make a mistake. We have to build up our field resources that we don't land at the end that we have promised a lot and then we cannot install these robots. So this is definitely another key driver. Then when you come to third big part is the parts, spare parts. And these spare parts, we have 2 topics. One is the delivery time and the variability in our warehouses. There, we have done a lot of analysis. We have not yet substantially improved our situation. But we know now what is the root cause. So I'm expecting more growth coming from spare parts due to the fact that we will be able to deliver faster the required spare parts. But then spare parts also is a pricing issue. And we have seen that in certain areas, we have completely outpriced ourselves. And so we were not even selling those parts. So we have done now certain pricing adjustments in areas where we were not competitive. It does not impact negatively our mix because we have anyway not sold those parts. But now we see that our offer and even order activity has increased. So these are the key focus points, opening repair shops, pushing ROBOspin and then working in the part on pricing and availability.

The next question comes from Leonie Zirn from UBS.

This is Leonie Zirn, UBS. The first question regarding the guidance would be a follow-up. You mentioned that you see or expect a slight market recovery or at least improvement -- gradual improvement into the second half. Does this imply that you see already a recovery in full swing in 2026? And also, do you see any other downside risks to the guidance except the slowest market recovery?

So downside risk to our guidance, I do not see. But the only thing what can happen is today, so many things are to a certain degree, unpredictable. I cannot tell you what happens in certain, let's say, thoughts the next week or the next month. Yes, we do see that the market activity has started to increase again. So besides China, I mentioned it has started in India. We now have booked the first bigger order again in Bangladesh. So this is a good sign. And in our discussions with customers, the projects have not been canceled. They have been postponed. So the decisions have been postponed. When I look on our offer pipeline, the offer pipeline is substantially higher than what we had by the end of 2024. So this is an indication that once, let's say, the confidence comes back, there will be quite a sharp market increase. And this should also translate into higher order intake. Now the higher order intake, it's a question of little bit of timing. When does it impact our top line in sales as normally our lead time in the area of Machines & Systems is somewhere between 6 to 12 months. Then it is the question when does it also start to increase our sales volumes. And my assumption is this will happen not right at the beginning of 2026. It goes more into the second quarter, third quarter 2026. But it's too early to do our guidance on top line for 2026.

Yes. Okay. And then the second question, also a follow-up regarding Turkmenistan. You mentioned that you had a big order there. Can we also expect a follow-up order. And then generally, on After Sales, you mentioned that this division is improving which reflects your improved customer excellence strategy, let's say. And so I guess, this improvement is also -- or can be interpreted as structurally, right? Or how should we think about this?

So Turkmenistan, I can confirm, we just had a follow-up order in July. So what we have booked in the first half of the year was an After Sales order, but they are also planning new spinning mills. So we just booked a small Machines & Systems order now in July. And according to my latest news, I received yesterday, we will get also more orders early '26 in the Machines & Systems business. So, yes, there are follow-ups coming there. And it's not only Turkmenistan, we see that also Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan are trying now to copycat this Uzbekistan story. And so I'm expecting over the next 1.5 years, more orders to come there. And coming back to after sales business, yes, in the Capital Market Day last autumn, we tried to show what are our key initiatives to improve our aftersales offering. And we are just following step-by-step this strategy. And these are structural changes, warehouse setup, more decentralized sales forces and installation people. And yes, this will have -- this will create a fundamental change in our After Sales business.

Okay. And then the last question would be on the restructuring costs and CHF 14 million nonrecurring effect that you mentioned. Can you maybe explain a bit what is included in those CHF 14 million? Is it a restructuring in preparation of the acquisition? Or is there also advisory costs included or lawyer costs? Or is it mostly only the stand-alone business that is included here in terms of restructuring expenses?

Sure, Leonie, I am happy to give a bit of color. Roughly CHF 10 million is related to restructuring costs. That is spread across the biggest manufacturing sites that we have where we did some capacity adjustments, as you may understand, in the light of the lower volume and a bit over CHF 4 million is related to the acquisition of Barmag. This includes adviser costs and other OpEx in relation to the transaction. Obviously, there is expected more costs to come in the second half of the year on the restructuring side. There will also be a bit more restructuring still to be done, but most likely not in the magnitude of the first half year.

Okay. So in some, can we expect this to double for the full year? Or a bit less?

The costs in relation to the transaction will most likely double perhaps even a bit more. And on the restructuring side, it very much depends what measures we will undertake on what volume we will adjust the company for the coming year. There we are in the middle of the preparation works, and you may understand that we cannot give an outlook on that yet.

We have a follow-up question from Alessandro Foletti from Octavian.

You mentioned that in one slide, I think that your profitability -- or sorry, that your customer profitability is not really top. And I was wondering why is that really? Because I saw the cotton prices have been coming off the bottom and they're going up. So your clients cannot push through the price increases?

No, it is -- that's not the main reason. It always depends a little bit on the buying strategy of the customers. Our customers are also to a certain degree, speculating on the cotton price. So some of them buy cotton in advance when they expect that cotton price will maybe still further increase. So they buy cotton on stock. Now they are sitting on that stock. And even if the cotton price goes up, goes down and the so-called spinners margin, so the difference between the cotton price and the yarn price might go up, they still first have to use the cotton they have bought. So -- and this, to a certain degree, is a little bit speculation on their side. In the long run, of course, if there is a structural improvement of this spinners margin, then once the stock is used, then they start to benefit from that. And what we look at is we look on the spinners margin. We are investigating into this, and we also look on the top line and bottom line development of the bigger companies. And interesting enough, the bigger companies they have an improvement in their profitability because in many cases, they are vertically integrated or downstream integrated, they do not only spinning, but also more weaving, knitting, dyeing, garmenting and they have an increase in their margins and the small ones, they are suffering.

Okay. So do you have a bit of a guess, maybe when this profitability could start improving when we consider all sort of elements?

Well, what I believe, but this is now, let's say, our hypothesis. My hypothesis is that our customers, they have to make a strategic choice. One is the small ones will only survive if they are in the niche. So they make very specific yarns where they have a high price for the yarn and they can somehow occupy a specific niche. The small spinners, which are in the, let's say, mainstream business, they will not be competitive anymore. So I believe that there will be a consolidation happening. So bigger companies will survive, and smaller ones might struggle in all fairness. If they are not in a very specific niche, they will sooner or later disappear, and there will be a consolidation happening on our customer side. Then I can say what is now the impact for us? The impact for us as much as this is, of course, sad for the smaller customers is good because we have a strong relationship with the large customers because 2 years ago, we started to set up a key account management program in our organization where all the top customers worldwide have an executive sponsor in the Executive Committee. So if Oliver Streuli has his own customers, he is visiting a minimum once or twice a year. So we see that our top customers, the top customers, they have a substantial share in our sales volumes. Not the top 10, but if you go to the top 50, then you already crossed the 50% line in our top line development. And so this means if smaller ones, they are much more price-sensitive. They usually go, for example, in India and in China, they go for very local competitors of us, whereas the bigger ones, they have a long-time relationship with us and they trust in our technology. They trust in our service capability. So for us, this trend is a positive trend.

Okay. Understood. Maybe if I may, one final follow-up. Are there major differences on a regional basis. So somehow this story is sort of valid, let's say, in Asia and Türkiye, really?

So you mean the...

This consolidation and changes between large and small customers and the profitability of them.

So biggest consolidation, in my opinion, will happen in Türkiye because there the customers will have to invest into automation because labor costs are so high. So the smaller customers don't have the funds to invest into the existing spinning mills. So they are suffering a lot. And I know that our customers in Türkiye, we have mill utilization of roughly 60%. And it was once at 90%. Now this difference is driven by lower markets in the European Union. But more than half of this difference is because they don't -- they can't finance people or they do not even find people. Now the bigger ones are more putting money into automation. So the relative labor needs are lower. So bigger customers of us in Türkiye, they have a mill utilization of above 90%. So they will survive. And what then happens, these small mills, which will disappear, the overall production capacity will go down. So the bigger ones will invest into expansion, which then will drive order intake for us. That's our forecast going the way forward. And this is valid for other markets as well. This is valid for Latin America. This is also valid for other countries in the Orient, whether this is Pakistan or Bangladesh or also Vietnam. And India and China is different because there, especially in India, the labor costs are still very low. So this disadvantage of not finding people or they are too expensive is for the smaller ones, not so dramatic, so they can survive. And in China, it's very obvious. There is a move from the coastal area to the Western area because there, there are government incentives and also labor costs are lower than in the coastal area. So even within these big countries, you will see movements.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question on the phone. I hand back over to Relindis for the written question. Please, you may proceed.

Thank you, Sandra. The question comes from Dennis [indiscernible]. In view of the considerable increase in net debt expected in the future, would you consider discontinuing the dividend payment?

Well, maybe I -- now I answer that first as a CEO, and then I answer as the Chairman. So yes, it is true. We will have an increase in net debt, but I would like to add one comment to the explanations Oliver has done in 2, 3 questions before. It's the ideal timing for structural acquisition, because when you look on the cyclicity of our business, when there is an upswing coming in the market, we are highly cash generating. So highly cash generating for 2 reasons. First of all, and this is our absolute ambition. It will improve our profitability because we have done so many things, and we still will continue to do a lot of cost measures. And then the volume is coming, and I come back to the question of Andy [indiscernible] from Z Capital, then you have an operating leverage, which will boost our profitability. Secondly, we also then have much more down payments to come in. And especially on the bar mark side, this is even more impressive and on our side. So it will generate more cash inflows. And when we presented our acquisition in May, we said that plus/minus, and yes, give me a year plus, maybe not a near year minus, but it could be a year plus depends when really the market is coming back within plus/minus 40 years, we will be debt free, because of cash flow generation through net working capital and cash flow generation through improved EBIT and EBITDA margins. So that's -- first of all, I do not worry about cash generation in the future. Now the second topic is dividend. Dividends are decided by the Board of Directors or proposed by the Board of Directors and then decided by our general assembly. And we have a clear dividend policy. We would like to pay out above 40% of our net profit, we would like to pay out to our shareholders. And now we will see what we have to decide in the year 2025 because it's a special year. We have some restructuring costs, okay. This is maybe not so special, but I think it is more special when you have a tough year. And then, of course, we have this huge acquisition. And yes, we will have substantial costs within the EBIT, but also in the financing area. And I'm not sure, and we will have to discuss whether we should punish shareholders who agreed to do such a major transaction that we then say, but now we have to save the money and we don't get a dividend because of that. So this will be a delicate discussion we have. We want to be attractive as an investment case. And this also means we have to take care about our employees. We have to take care about our customers, and we have to take care about our shareholders. So we will see how we decide at the end of the year.

Okay. There's one additional question from Walter Bamert. So back to you, Sandra, again.

We have a follow-up question from Walter Bamert from Zürcher Kantonalbank.

I'm referring to the CHF 100 million revenue slippage into the second half or the next year. I understand that rather into the next year, mainly related to Türkiye and not a fault of Rieter. So is it more a financing issue that the client wants to pay late? Is it project development? I try to find better out when we can assume that and what is going on in the market. Is that a general theme with the delays? Or is it just single projects, which have the usual delays?

So thank you, Walter. This is a nice question than the first one you asked. So let's talk to these revenues. To be clear, this is not only Türkiye. It's very important. This was not only a Türkiye case. That would be too simple for us, I have to say. It was in April, we needed until May. We needed order intake in machines and systems that we can still execute until the end of the year. We knew those projects. We knew all the projects. Yes, there were 2 projects in Türkiye, but there were also projects in Egypt. There were projects in Vietnam, and there were projects in Bangladesh, Pakistan and to a smaller degree also in India. So it was much wider. It was not only Türkiye. But we need those projects to be booked until May because we selected the projects. We still can execute until the end of the year. So we have a list of all the major projects where we believe we can still get sales in the year 2025. And none of them we have lost. Not a single one. All of them have been postponed. And they have been postponed either they say, well, maybe in the second half of 2025 when we know how much the tariffs are or the one or the other even has said, listen, at the moment, I'm so uncertain, I only decide in 2026. So it's important to know it was mainly the hit in April and May, which did not then allow us to still execute in 2025. None of those projects have been lost. And they either should be decided in the second half of the year or in the first half of 2026. And that has impacted our sales recognition. And you might remember, in March, we said we need order intake until May, so we can deliver still our sales volume in 2025. And this was not happening. And in all fairness, yes, it's not our fault, but we have not managed to reach the breakeven level. I think we have done a lot, and you mentioned correctly, we try everything whether this is now direct business, restructuring, whether this is the one or the other opportunity to sell a piece of land or whatever. We want to be positive by the end of the year in our operating profit.

Exactly. And regarding that, also, you have a lot of momentum in your order book. I mean it seems that you had more orders at the beginning of July than in the first half of the year. Can you add that up? How much is it in this in July already? And when will you give an update on your recent development in the second half. We do you have a 9-month figure? Can you make an update before you have the EGM because I think you can use some momentum for the capital increase.

It's -- we have to be very careful because now as we are in a, let's say, transition phase until we have the capital increase, we have to take care that from a governance point of view, we are behaving absolutely correctly. So the type of messages we are giving, of course, are very important that we do not somehow manipulate anything. This is not our style at all. What I can say July was -- I think it is -- so it's not yet over. So I can say, yes, we had some good orders in July. I mentioned the follow-up in Turkmenistan. This was not so big. But there, I believe bigger ones will come. And we also had a very good order in India. And we are expecting another good or large order in China. And if this happens, it would be the best month so far this year. On the other side, orders are huge, but the question is when are they executed and they are not executed. An order in July, it's difficult still to execute in 2025. However, one of these orders will be executed in 2025, but this was also planned in our figure of CHF 750 million to CHF 800 million.

Okay. Then a small question on the restructuring cost of CHF 10 million in the first half. That is not yet cash relevant. That will happen later or what's the cash out?

Yes. Part of it was already cashed out. Part of it was not cashed out. It also will not be cash out. If you do, for instance, an impairment on a machine because you don't need the machine anymore. So it's rather difficult to give you a precise figure on that. But it's mixed. Part of it is and part of is not yet.

Okay. Then you restructured the EBIT of the first half of '24. Will there also be a restatement of the full year figures?

Yes, there will be. Because it's very important for us to provide you with comparable figures, apart from, of course, the naked reported figures, but comparable figures, which allow you to assess the operating performance of the company. There, we continue to take out any extraordinary transaction costs and also any extraordinary restructuring costs.

Okay. And last but not least, the Trump trade. I mean, direct tariff impacts you have none?

Well, there is -- it's not none, but -- so we -- when you look on the U.S., shipments of our machines are coming to the U.S. either out of Germany, out of Czech Republic or out of China. All our preparatory machines are produced in China. Our rotor and air jet machines are produced in Czech, and our binders are produced in Germany. But there is not a lot of business for machines in the U.S. So this is very limited. But our spare parts and our components coming out of Switzerland and Germany, they are, of course, impacted by the tariffs. But the good thing is this is the same story for everybody. So everybody has that issue. And with the actual tariffs, which are very moderate, and we will see what at the end will be there. The yearly annual direct impact is -- would be a mid-single-digit million maximum because it depends a little bit who is the importer. If the customer is importing directly, the customer has to pay the tariffs. If we first ship the material to our company in the U.S., then, of course, we are, by ourselves, be importer and have to pay the tariffs. But what we have done immediately, all our contracts now have a clause in the spare part area that the change in the tariffs we will increase or decrease the prices to the customers. Whether we can push that through all the time is another question. But direct impact is limited. The indirect impact is much more important. Because our customers are exporting their products directly or indirectly to the U.S., and the U.S. is money-wise the biggest garment market in the world. So it's by far, the biggest garment market in the world. The whole European Union is slightly larger. If you take all the countries together, but the U.S. is the biggest market. And our customers, especially in Southeast Asia, in Egypt and Türkiye are mainly exporting either to the European Union or -- and/or to the U.S. So they are not knowing whether they can sell their product still to the U.S. because when you have like in Vietnam, the first round of tariffs, 67%, nobody buys you the clothes anymore. And that was the reason why they said, "Well, I first have to manage how is my business going on, before I do a CHF 20 million investment," and you have to know a very simple calculation. If you make a medium normal expansion of spinning mill, you invest about CHF 20 million into machines, you invest CHF 20 million into the building, air conditioning and so on, and you invest CHF 20 million into the -- at the beginning into net working capital, because you have to buy the cotton, you have to train your people. So if someone invests CHF 20 million for us, the real investment for the customer is CHF 50 million to CHF 60 million. And in all fairness, in such unpredictable time, I understand that someone says, "Hey, wait a minute, give me some months' time. I'm not willing to do now -- I first have to check what it really means for us." So it's the indirect impact, which has created this hesitation.

There are no more questions.

Very good.

Thank you very much.

So ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for attending this call. Thank you also for the questions you have raised. I just want to say our ambition is to strengthen further our resilience in the current market environment. Even if markets are coming back, it does not hinder us to work on our cost structure, and to work on our supply chain footprint, to work on our customer service and on our technology leadership. Because independent of where we are in the cycle, we want to deliver as committed and we have committed that we want to deliver a positive EBIT even in a year, which is, again, very, very challenging. And this is in line with our disciplined execution of the strategy, which is even more important in turbulent times. So besides all the day-to-day operational activities, we have to drive our strategic agenda forward. And besides that, we have to capture market opportunities. And last but not least, we will stay further cost conscious, and we will do our homework to become super, super fit in order to get then the operating leverage once the market is coming back. Thank you so much. With this, I close the semiannual media on the investor call. Once again, thank you for your interest, and goodbye from Oliver and myself and, of course, from Relindis. Thanks a lot, and have a nice day. Bye-bye.

Thanks.

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