Schaeffler AG (SHA1.VI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our CMD. Welcome to all of you here in Frankfurt. Thanks for coming, and welcome to everybody who listens on the videos and on the connection. We're excited that so many of you have decided to listen to the Schaeffler story, the story about the Motion Technology company. We have 3 main objectives for today. I want to explain what that Motion Technology company is all about. We want to outline our strategic ambitions, but also our midterm targets for 2028 and in particular, explain how we want to achieve them. And third, we want to demonstrate to you that this group of executives is a strong team that is fully committed to deliver, to execute and to show that we can form a best-in-class company. Ladies and gentlemen, times are challenging. You all know this, in particular, in the automotive industry. As you saw, Schaeffler is more than automotive. Schaeffler is at the end of the day, all about technology, best-in-class products, best-in-class manufacturing technology. Technologies that we are able to leverage also for other attractive areas that may be even new to us. And this gives us not only strategic flexibility and resilience, but also strengths and confidence that we can make a difference as Schaeffler Group. Ladies and gentlemen, let me say again, we're here to win. The world is full of risk, but there's also a lot of opportunity. And we want to go after this opportunity. We, at Schaeffler, we like challenges. We like opportunities. We know where we want to be, and we have a clear plan how to get there. We're certainly committed to execute this plan as a team. Let me say it again, we're here to win. Now let me dive into my presentation. I have basically 3 messages for you. The first one, I want to explain what this leading Motion Technology company is all about and why the acquisition of Vitesco enabled us to start this transformation. Second, I want to focus on the 3 most important things that I see that are relevant for execution, order book delivery, performance improvement and the management of our business portfolio. And last but not least, I will give the frame for the midterm targets, doubling EBIT, as you heard in the film, and growing our free cash flow significantly. Let me start with a little bit of history. You all know Schaeffler is nearly 80 years old. It is a company that was formed in '46 by 2 brothers. They started into a global expansion based on their key innovation, the cage-guided needle bearing that is still there today. This cage-guided needle bearing is a result of very hard work on how to manufacture metal or steel at highest precision. And that's a theme that you will find also at the end of my presentation. That is all about long-term view, but also about technology that lasts. The company has grown through various acquisitions, as you all know, some less, some more spectacular. And we have then, in October 2023, announced the acquisition of Vitesco. With EUR 600 million synergies, but also when you listen carefully with a clear view that this acquisition is a transformational transaction that will change Schaeffler as it was before. We announced on October 1, the finalization of the merger, a very important step for all of you. And then also shortly thereafter, a range of additional structural measures with a headcount reduction program of 4,700 headcounts. And today, we're here for the Capital Markets Day. The key of this transformational transaction is that we changed our view from being predominantly sector-oriented, automotive versus industrial to a product-oriented view. That is also the fundamental basis for the Leading Motion technology. That starts with the 4 divisions that we have formed, E-Mobility, Powertrain and Chassis, Vehicle Lifetime Solutions and Bearing and Industrial Solutions. And it is complemented by something that we call the 8 product families. My experience is if you want to present a company, if you want to build a company, it is very important to be able to structure the product spectrum into something that people can understand. And here, you see how we have done it. We start with the classical Schaeffler products, bearing and linear guides into transmission engine components, one of our long-standing product area where we have really very strong market position into electric controls and sensors, actuators, power electronic units, e-motors, e-drives, battery hydrogen and then very important for Jens repair and monitoring services. This is the fundamental base for them allocating these product areas to the 4 divisions. And you see that some of these product areas are present in more than one division. Actuator as an example, electric controls an examples. It is fair to say that Vitesco did not only close a key strategic gap on the E-Mobility side, it complemented our product offering through power electronics, through ECUs and through sensors in a much broader manner, and we want to make use of that going forward. If you want to build a company, if you want to drive the motion technology concept, you need a clear structure. And this is a structure we have. We have decided to run this company by division. We run it underneath the divisions by 14 business divisions that you see on this slide. The typical answer to something like this is this looks like 4 distinct divisions that have nothing to do with each other. And that is different in our case. We see and you have heard that before, Schaeffler not as a conglomerate with 4 independent divisions, but as an integrated technology group with divisions that complement each other. And for that, we have started to think about what's the best way to explain it. And we have found a way that is quite unique. We're talking about 3 hedges. Let me explain these hedges again for you. The first 2 divisions, Thomas and Matthias, provide a hedge to the company because one is going more into the battery electric development of powertrains. And the other one has still the strong core in ICE that is absolutely necessary to build the future powertrain, in particular, when it comes to hybrid. So we are hedging ourselves against the development of powertrain solutions across the globe. We are big believers in a diversity of powertrain solutions. We believe that we have not seen the final solution. There will be more and more developments, as you saw from range extenders and other things. And we are perfectly hedged if things come a little bit quicker, the one division will benefit. If things go a little bit slower, the other division will profit as well. So that hedge is fundamental. We call it the ICE versus BEV hedge. The second one is the hedge that we call build versus repair. It's very simple to understand. The first 2 of our divisions are predominantly OEM divisions. And if people don't buy cars, they tend to repair cars. That's what you see at the moment. You see a significant growth in Jens' division from exactly that logic. And then there's a third hedge that we call the auto versus non-auto hedge. For sure, Sascha has in his division also automotive bearings, but the predominant part is with nonautomotive. And therefore, you have here sector-wide a hedge that helps us to perform. These hedges give us, and this is important in our current situation, resilience, but they also help us to become more powerful because the divisions complement each other. Just think about what you can deliver to customers, what you can deliver in a broader sense if the repair division that produces repair solutions is early on involved in how things are developed. That opens up complete new avenues of cooperation. And we want to use that. But we also want to be ambitious with our targets, and that's why we are proud to say today, we have set ourselves not only midterm targets, but strategic ambitions for the future. We want to become in all our 4 divisions, a top 3 player in the long run. And for sure, E-Mobility, powertrain and chassis go to some extent hand-in-hand because the predominant part of that business, the powertrain business is in the same sector. That's it for the first part. Motion Technology company, acquisition of Vitesco, a transformational transaction, and we are definitely on track to show that, that concept, in particular, in this environment, makes sense. But in a challenging environment like this, from my point of view, ladies and gentlemen, it's all about execution. And I'm not talking only about the integration that is necessary, but I'm talking about the effects of that transaction and of the merger with Vitesco and our normal running business. And here, I see as the CEO, 3 top priorities that we want to deliver. The first one is our order book. Our order book in E-Mobility and PTC. We have a huge order book since the acquisition, and we are determined to deliver that in the best interest of our customers. Order books are always a sign of customer commitment. Order books here and there are complex and operational excellence is absolutely key to make the difference for customers. The second one is we want to improve our performance. And that means we need to realize the synergies that we promised, EUR 600 million. And on top of that, the EUR 295 million from structural measures that slightly overlap with the synergies. And the third point is there's room to become less complex. We want to optimize our business portfolio. We want to be very disciplined in how we allocate capital to those areas that will grow and be very disciplined in managing capital across the company. These are the 3 main priorities, ladies and gentlemen, with a clear commitment and full focus on execution. Let me quickly go to each of these 3 topics and start with the order book. This is the order book as of end of June 2025 in E-Mobility and powertrain. You see that we started end of the year with nearly EUR 72 billion, generated sales of nearly EUR 7 billion, but also generated in the first half new orders of EUR 9 billion in these 2 divisions. That speaks for itself, 1.3x book-to-bill clearly shows that there's growth. What you have not seen so far is the split by powertrain type. It's more or less evenly split for the time being. We're still a little bit more in ICE, but the dominant parts, BEV and HEV will further grow, and Thomas will explain that further. And it's also well balanced from a regional point of view, 44% in Europe, 24% in the Americas, Greater China, 15%, Asia Pacific, 16% with a clear trend that China is growing further. That's a strong order book that gives us a lot of support for growing in the future. And for me, most importantly, it reflects the strong customer commitment we have as a combined institution. Let me go to the second point, synergies and structural measures. You know these numbers. We have promised EUR 850 million. I'm going to give you a quick update where we are. By end of June, EUR 81 million of these synergies are more or less realized. You can't see that in P&L. We measure this by the implementation of each of the detailed measures that are behind this, and this is how we calculate this number. The number is growing. We are on the right track. If I look at the numbers by end of August, it's already a 3-digit million number. And we are, for sure, committed to deliver our full target. Most of you remember, we said in 2023, 2/3 of the synergies should be realized and achieved. Headcount reduction is the flip side for this, always difficult. I think at Schaeffler over the last years, we have developed a way how to do that with least possible friction when you just heard about the latest plant closure announced, no strike, nothing in the press, done very smoothly, and this is how we want to continue this. Also here, we are very well on track with 4,700 target. We want to achieve this year annually 1,900, of which 838 are already realized and a significant number is contracted. So we are moving absolutely in the right direction to deliver on these promises. If we go to the third point, sorry, let me go one more slide here in terms of what does it mean for footprint. You always need the measurable things. We promised structural measures for 10 German and 5 other European locations, and the closures here are absolutely on track. Berndorf in Austria, Schöffel in the United Kingdom and lately, Steinhagen, that's all going absolutely in the right direction. HR does a great job here to get all of this negotiated. And we think we can say that by the end of this year, all the necessary contracts at the various locations should be finished. Let me go to the third topic, business portfolio management. Now if you want to manage a large business portfolio like ours, you need 3 things, ladies and gentlemen. First thing, structure and data. This is why I'm showing you this left part of the slide. This is how we have built our business portfolio. 4 plus 1 divisions, 14 business divisions, and then you have 48 portfolio elements and 7 portfolio elements in what we call the other division. That's the fundamental basis how we structure this. And this was ready now. It was not ready half year ago. You need data and certainly also accountability and responsibility. The second thing you need if you want to manage such a portfolio is a logic. The logic is on the right-hand side of the page. We have with, in particular, the very solid work that Matthias has developed over years, established a logic that we call the 4 plus 1 portfolio strategies, build, grow, harvest, exit and then a turnaround case. What is that? The build area is simply an area where the new businesses are in. It's typically above-average growth, where Schaeffler value-added is negative. The growth area is above-average growth where Schaeffler value-added is already positive and further growing. Harvest is typically below average growth, but SVA positive and the exit cases are not growing and are also not producing SVA positive returns. That's simple. We have a logic how we can allocate this to all our business units, and the logic behind that is called earn the right to grow. So if someone wants to get capital for further growth, he needs to be able to demonstrate that he's not able to grow only, but also grow and earn its cost of capital. And that goes further into our capital allocation logic with the reinvestment rate and also the Delta SVA as one of the key yardsticks in judging businesses. The third thing is discipline. For sure in such a portfolio with all the technologies, with all the great innovation, people want to test new things. But we want to also make sure that at the end of the day, we deliver on our promises, and that needs a clear logic how to do that. We have our portfolio management principles, where we normally say if something does not perform according to plan after 3 years, we need to look at that and then it can become a turnaround case. That can be a build case that was not successful, can also be a harvest case that turns into an exit case where you want to give it another try. One example here that I want to mention is hydrogen. Some years ago, everyone was super optimistic on hydrogen. We have meanwhile decided that we're not going to further invest into this. We're going to bring it to China where the prospects are much better, but we are basically leaving what we have developed here in Europe for Chinese applications to make the best out of it. But that's one of these examples. If you see for our 2024 sales, how this 4 plus 1 categories apply to our overall top line, and this, for those of you that know the segment reporting well, does not include the businesses that run off that were still there from the Continental and Vitesco experience. So it's slightly less than EUR 24 billion that is behind this EUR 24 billion number. Built for sure, is the e-mobility portfolio, as you see here, but also the new things that I will talk about in a minute, humanoid or defense, grow spreads across a variety of business units. Harvest is our classical very strong business that Matthias will present in a moment. We have 10 exit cases in our portfolio at the moment. And just to give you a sense here, these 10 exit cases can either be phaseouts or divestitures where we try to do something in selling these businesses. I could go into more detail. I don't want to do this here, but this is not just a number. It's a detailed list of activities that we are pursuing. I can say some of the sales have already been signed, but they are not closed yet. Some of them are in negotiation, but we are following very carefully this exit strategy. And for sure, I mentioned turnaround. We have to be flexible and market potential can be different. And therefore, it's always good to have a long-term view on our activities. Before I go to my third topic, let me add one more page. Order book, synergies and performance improvement portfolio management is one thing, but the real task is to make this company future-proof. And for that, we have to concentrate, and this is our firm joint belief as a Board on two overarching topics. One is sustainability and the other is digitalization, AI. For sure, for all of you, the hype on sustainability is coming down, but we still believe that it will be relevant, particularly in Europe. We think that it's relevant for customers and we want to play a role here, maybe not as the front runner, but as someone who delivers step-by-step on its promise, in particular when it comes to climate, but also when it comes to circularity as one of the two topics in our sustainability agenda. We see it as our license to operate, and we want to hand over a company to our next generation that is in good shape or the challenges of the future. And that goes, in particular, also to digitalization, AI. AI is a super important topic. It's very dynamic, generative, agentic, physical AI, you just name it, we want to capture that opportunity not only for the process landscape, but also when it comes to new products and new opportunities. We're definitely on our way to finalize our AI strategy for the next years. That only works if your infrastructure is in good shape. We are about to roll out SAP S/4HANA as the most modern enterprise system. And for sure, we are cooperating, as you know, in the field of digitalization and AI with big names like Microsoft, NVIDIA or AWS. Let me come to my last chapter, and that's the midterm targets. For sure, Christophe is going to explain that in more detail. I just want to give you a little bit of the thinking behind it. Some of you remember the last year, the last midterm target, it was a complex and complicated set of numbers. We decided this time; we want to make it as simple as possible. We want to be ambitious on the one hand, but also make sure that these targets are achievable. That's why we have concentrated on 3 main KPIs on group level: sales in absolute numbers, EBIT margin on a level of before special items and free cash flow before M&A. And you see here the group numbers, Christophe is going to explain later on the divisional numbers. EUR 27 billion to EUR 29 billion means that we think that a mid-single-digit organic growth is possible. You can easily calculate yourself. That is something that will need to be looked at against the developments in the various divisions, but it is an achievable number. 6% to 8% is what we said before. We want to double our EBIT in the 3 years to come. And one of the key drivers here, ladies and gentlemen, is the breakeven in e-mobility that Thomas is going to explain. And for sure, for me, most important, free cash flow. Christophe is going to explain this, the minus EUR 694 million from 2024 includes some one-offs. The EUR 400 million to EUR 600 million still includes some restructuring and integration cash outs. The key here is strict CapEx and working capital discipline. We want to grow, but we want to also use our capital wisely. This free cash flow number is also important for two other things, for the leverage. The company at the moment, end of June 2025, has a leverage ratio of 2.4x. That is, particularly for me as an ex-banker, too much. It needs to go down into the long-term range that we always articulated, 1.25 to 1.75. For the midterm 2028, we think 1.5 to 2 is achievable. And certainly, that goes hand-in-hand with dividend payout. You all remember from the past, I always said internal growth should be financed from internal sources. External growth can be financed by debt. Dividends should come out of free cash flow, but in years where you have a lot of restructuring and integration one-offs, that rule needs to be revisited for sure. We want to pay a decent dividend also in the next years, and we know that you are also expecting that. So that's the logic, doubling EBIT and growing free cash flow significantly until 2028. I could stop here now and say this is it. But ladies and gentlemen, we'd certainly look ahead. We have done something in our strategic dialogue that we have not done before. We have decided to also talk about what's happening in the next 10 years. Because as I said before, the world is full of risk, but it's also full of opportunity. And we want to exploit these new growth opportunities because we know that we have technology, that we have technological competence that others don't have that is needed to conquer some of these new growth areas. And for this, to drive the company in this direction, we have set ourselves a target that by 2035, 10% of our sales should come out of areas that we are not doing business in at the moment. This is the 10% other. And what is that? These are opportunities like the defense sector. These are opportunities like the electric vertical takeoff and lending sector. And these are things like the humanoid that you're all excited about. This list is not final. But what is final is our determination, our commitment that we want to build a company that is -- has a business portfolio that is even more diversified and that enables us to generate value from the application of our core technology. So you can see all of this as an option for the future, and you know better than I do, what option value is all about. Now let me come to one more slide before I hand over to Thomas to explain that in one example. The famous humanoid robotics. Humanoid for sure is an interesting proof point for our strategy and for our ambition to become the motion technology company. Why is that? This humanoid robotic ecosystem that is emerging is driven by the megatrends that we are experiencing at the moment, AI, industrial automation and also the demographic change. It is, for sure, a potential new growth sector that is at the beginning of its development, and it's a sector where we think we have all the necessary ingredients to play and not only to play, but to play to win. Humanoid robot makers, as you all know, are either start-ups or major automotive players, both in the U.S., Tesla, well known to all of you, or in China. Humanoid robot makers can only succeed with a solid supply chain. It's inconceivable that in particular, the start-ups, but also the bigger ones will build complete own supply chains. And they need products that enable motion. Just think about the humanoid. This is not the classical industrial robot that does 100 times a day this. This is a system; it's something that moves in very high precision. And that's exactly our core technology. For high precision, you need specific production and manufacturing technology that also allows you to scale things. This is exactly what we have been doing since decades. This is our forming technology, our deep draw technology that Schaeffler has perfectionized over years. This is the reason why we think, together with Vitesco where, in particular, the product families come into play and where we have much more focus on actuation, actuation in a sense that you combine linear or rotative elements with a strain wave gear, with an electric motor, with maybe a sensor or even power electronics, as you see on this page, this is exactly our product know-how. And from our point of view, it is a promising situation at the moment where we have what people need and where we can make a difference if we deliver that well. For sure, this ecosystem is emerging. It's not final yet, but we think there is high market potential. If you think about content per humanoid, it's a similar calculation like in cars. However, the content relative to what is important for us is much higher in humanoids than in cars. 50% of what a humanoid is all about comes from actuation, and that's exactly where we can make a difference. I'll leave the rest of the topic for your questions and would like to sum up. Here are my three core messages. We are on our way to create the leading motion technology company. We will focus on execution with 3 things: order book delivery, performance improvement and a very active business portfolio management. And we're absolutely determined to deliver on our midterm targets, doubling EBIT and growing our free cash flow significantly. Thank you very much. I now hand over to Thomas for the next presentation.

Thank you very much, Klaus. So you have heard from our CEO our strategic ambition. A big advantage as a CEO, you can rely on your 4 divisions that they will execute this strategy. And it is my pleasure to introduce our next two speakers. Let me start with Thomas Stierle. Thomas began his career at Siemens and Siemens Video with global leadership roles in advanced -- in ADAS and actuator technologies at Continental. Before he finally took over the responsibility for the key business units, electrification and electronic controls. In 2021, Thomas has become a part of the Vitesco Technologies' Executive Board. And since October 2024, he is driving innovation and sustainable mobility at our E-Mobility division. Following Thomas, Matthias Zink will elaborate on the future of our powertrain and chassis division. Mathias began his career at LuK. After international assignments, and leading key divisions within Schaeffler, he became the CEO of Schaeffler's Automotive Technologies in 2017. Since October 2024, Matthias is heading our Powertrain and Chassis division. In addition, he also is the President of CLEPA, the European Association of Automotive Suppliers. So since I know that Thomas can't wait to share more, the stage is yours.

Thank you very much, Heiko, for the introduction. And yes, also a warm welcome from my side, dear guests and also to the viewers stream online. E-mobility, division E-mobility. My story actually is pretty short if you want to bring it. The market is still intact. Transformation is going on. Yes, there are some volatility, there are some uncertainty. But if you have the right answers to those challenges, you can make it in that market. And especially now that we are a joint company bringing two complement portfolios together, we have the opportunities to build the success story on it. But at the end, it is also all about execution. We heard that from the CEO and delivering. And clearly, as our ambition to be a top player in this market, we have to also improve our profitability. And there, we have set our target to '28. And talking about target, it's not just a top-down target. There is a plan behind, and I will give you today some glimpse about this. Before I go in there, I would like to start with the actual numbers, EUR 4.3 billion, we are already in this division in 2024. And if you allow me to share with you, when I started E-Mobility activities back in 2018, the E-Mobility business that I took over was less than EUR 400 million. Profitability was also a challenge. All I want to say is managing growth, handling growth, increasing profitability has been my business for the last years. And now in this joint company, it will continue, and we have the right recipes, and I will share with you in the next 20 minutes how. Let's quickly look at the organization, and I would like to focus on the right side because when you bring these two complement companies together, the question is how you do it. And we clearly went after technology, as you can see. So on the left side, you see the electric drive. So everything around a motor, but also the systems, the hybrid system, the e-axle systems. In the middle is all about our software, electronics, power electronics, charging systems; and on the right side, all about thermal management, but also components, which actually we are using in the other product groups. And one driver besides the technological proximetry has also been business continuity because both companies, they came already with a strong order book and project execution. And maybe some of you remember in the interaction I had with you; I talked in the recent years always about project execution. And when you bring this together and it was really excited because the team getting the competencies, which they did not have before were really exciting, but we had to make sure that we are running the project towards the customer and to the company's expectation. And out of this, we had to make sure we are not interfering too much, and that is the setup we are going forward. When you look at our distribution, you see 50% Europe, but we have published our book-to-bill ratio. And there you see that China is by far the strongest order book, and I will talk about this sooner. So clearly, the share in China will go up. Now when we are looking at the market, and of course, you can look at all kinds of analysis and so on. But what I wanted to show you with the left side here, the market is intact, and it is moving towards electrification. And while you see on the right side, there are different dynamics. And clearly, China is the leading market in that transformation. Meanwhile, in my opinion, also becoming more and more the gravity of the automotive industry. The other markets are also progressing, yes, with different pace, yes, with certain uncertainty in terms of what architecture coming from a pure battery electric vehicle, range extender, plug-in hybrids, full hybrids, mild hybrids and so on, but it's happening. And I will -- or we -- I believe strongly in order in this uncertain market in terms of where is the distribution, let's say, which models will prevail, which win, how you set up your portfolio, how you drive your product solutions towards, that will give you robustness. That will give you resilience in those uncertainties. And I will show you with some examples how we and Schaeffler are driving this forward. Clearly, when China is the main market, you need to have a strong standing in this market. And I will share you also where we are and how we are moving forward. And what we are doing to compete in this environment and to win in this environment. And just two days ago, the CEO of China of a major global player basically said, if you make it in China, you will make it globally. And if you allow me, that's something we are discussing in our company for more than 2 years, we call it. If you win in China, you will win globally. And that is exactly how we are driving this forward. And so far, we have a very strong order book. You saw it with EUR 43 billion. So that is a good foundation to drive this forward to further generate scale. But there's also the challenge, execution, we heard that, and that is something which also drives us forward in order -- towards our breakeven. Now on the left side, a little bit glimpse on the product portfolio. You see the similar classification as in the organization. And clearly, we are driving our portfolio to be used technology-wise, in each kind of architectures. And that is important because of that uncertainty, because of you need to have that flexibility in order to see where, let's say, the winning architectures will be, how the consumers are adopting to it, how they're accepting it. And that is, in my opinion, what you need today in order to drive forward. And that's exactly how we built up. Now I don't want to claim that if you have one product solution, you can use it 1:1, in the -- let's say, in the hybrid. But there is clearly the base technology, and I will show you some examples. What you see on the right side, that is the addressable content for architecture. And there you see when you find a way using the technology for those architectures independent on those, you are, by nature, flexible towards those, let's say, winners or hesitations. And that is the message I wanted to give, and that is how we are looking at the market and that is how we are setting up our product portfolio. Now every -- we talk now a lot about modularity. And I want to show you one example. That is how we are driving this portfolio forward. And when you see this from the left to the right, is -- there is no -- let's say, the logic is that if you understand system, if you understand architectures, and that is what we have done because we have more than a decade experience in this area. We have now and we are showing it in the back, you can see our fourth generation of e-axle. So we know how to build this. We're understanding the market, and we can build from that knowledge down to components in order to serve multiple solutions, to serve our customers in the different regions, to serve also in their strategies on how much they are insourcing or building in-house or not. And out of this, these pictures are not just an example. These pictures are concrete projects, which we are having in production with our customers. And there are even one customer who uses, for instance, these subcomponent as a power module. And the same customer, we are providing a full e-axle depending on what his strategy is in terms of platform A, B or C. And with that competence, that is what our customers are valuing with us, because we can supporting them in their strategies. And sometimes, we even starting with a component, and they are seeing the value they're having with us, they're seeing also the competitiveness we can bring. And then later, it turns out to become a more system. And we are open to that. We are not focusing on a system only. And this is just one example. All these product routes, we are driving in this philosophy. And then within the part, so -- and here, I take an example with the inverter. Now once you understand the market and you have this interaction with the customers, then you can build the right solution in a way that you can flexible, adapt or address the different use cases. And especially here, the power module or the inverter is a very good example because also that is where we started many years ago in order to drive it in this direction. And I take a lot of pride that we can use one production line and can serving all these customers in the different regions with the same technology. And there, you understand quickly, independent on how the market develops or certain platforms, you still can utilize the investments you have done. And yes, of course, it's not 100% ideal, but you see we are achieving 80% reuse capability and such that you can also, even from a geopolitical side, localization, you drive this depending on how the business develops. Staggered investment is here the key. Now I also want to be honest, on the inverter, that is really where we have, in my opinion, mastered that. We are not so good in other areas, but that is the philosophy which we are driving this portfolio to. And you can imagine when you bring two companies together, of course, now we have to bring it together. And that is really our focus because this flexibility, scalability, modularity, that is what drives or what helps us being flexible and being responsive to the market and to the customer needs. One thing. Maybe some of you might remember, I showed that in my last Capital Markets Day, maybe you remember, that came from frame module. Meanwhile, it's going in this direction. And you might have said, hey, it looks the same. And maybe for you, the most important parameter difference between this is 20% less expensive. And I'm happy to explain that a little bit later for you, if you like, back there, we have that show. Now China. China, I mean, I showed you how, let's say, important that market is, especially for the E-Mobility. I mean it's driving. It's the penetration. It's a whole ecosystem, which is very much geared towards speed, cost competitiveness, but even meanwhile also the liability. And actually, I take a lot of pride that already many years or many 3 years ago, we had -- we started focusing on that market in terms of giving the teams more autonomy, more empowerment, more let's say, freedom to drive solutions to drive innovations forward. And I'm very proud today that, that is really taking traction. And you have seen this with our book-to-bill ratio, which we have shown. And as towards August, out of our EUR 5 billion order intake, 40% is coming from China. And out of this, already 80% with Chinese OEMs. And we are focusing on the top 10 Chinese OEMs. And you see we have already in production today with 7, but in the order book, we have [Audio Gap] Chinese [Audio Gap] OEMs, they all want to go global. Now guess what? They are happy to have a partner already in the China market, which can easily can go globally. And this is the main discussion point these days. And that is why I'm so happy about the success we are making because that will help me -- remember what I said earlier, if you win in China, you will win globally. And now I put one highlight there, which is actually I'm very proud of because that has been a customer, let's say, doing a lot of activities themselves. It's actually the leading NEV provider in China, and we broke it with a gearbox now recently, and we are starting more and more discussing more business. And I'm very happy and also very proud of this. And why -- when I say winning in China, meaning winning globally, we see already that with the speed we can there -- that we can do there, we are now also a good solution for the rest of world. So the strategy is paying off. So we are providing already solutions outside of China's customer out of China and themselves, or we're bringing in these solutions to the regions the customers in, in order to support them for the localization. Now a word on the order book. And there, you find, let's say, structured our business fields, also a little bit the organization I had earlier. And when you look at how the order book is distributed, and that shows, in my opinion, also the power that this division has in terms of providing E-Mobility solutions is pretty balanced. And yes, on the thermal management, the value is not so strong. But also here, we have multiple projects globally. And now really, my focus is to the execution of this order book, executing it, bringing into the production to the expectations from the customer, but also to the expectations of the company. At the end, we want to achieve -- based on this execution, we want to achieve the breakeven in 2028. And there are 4 major levers, which I would like to touch in the last 5 minutes on. And of course, one portion is the growth itself. It's the scale you generate with that, and you can do. But at the end, it is -- as I mentioned, it is then the execution, which we have to do in order to bring that expectation up and then feeding into our improvement of profitability. And I want to give you some glimpse. At the moment, I'm in 18 launches right now, over 11 plants globally and 14 more to come. So you can imagine the stress level, you can imagine, let's say, the challenge. On the other hand, we have experienced now already also even very complex products like e-axles or complex X1 boxes. That is something which we are having experience collected and we are executing this. There are still things which we are learning, and that is how we are improving step by step. And at the end, that is also helping us improving our development and industrialization time. As I mentioned, in China, we are not doing projects anymore longer than 12 months. And you can imagine for a company like us, what kind of challenge this has been based on our processes. But nevertheless, here again, with the collaboration on our Chinese team being in this ecosystem, we found ways and we found solutions which we are bringing now globally. Operational excellence, of course, next to the growth itself and managing it, there is further activities, especially design to cost, pushing this platform approach, this modularity, which I showed, that is something which really is driving us forward and has also a significant contribution. And you will see later in the CFO section some numbers attached to that. R&D efficiency. What here, the focus is -- and you know Klaus touched on the structural programs. So there are out of this gravity shift globally, of course, we have to adapt to it. And that will also contribute to have a contribution in the R&D, and we are in the middle of it. So that is something, which also drives forward the improvement. But besides the capacity adaptation and besides, let's say, the balance globally in terms of our R&D activities, one topic which is driving us a lot, and there are actually multiple examples where we are driving efficiency improvements is by virtualization of our design. So we are going more and more into the digital world in terms of digital the design, virtual testing. Today, we are not writing code anymore. It's all auto generated. We are using agents and generative AI for our specification analysis and first proposals for design. So there's a lot of opportunities there to get better, and that is all part of the program R&D efficiency. And I touched very at the beginning on the organization where there was a strong focus on business continuity on making sure that the projects we are running are, let's say, smoothness continuing through the merger. But out of this, there are further opportunities to improve, to gain synergies out of the merger, which now step-by-step, we will implement and such, there is also a contribution on a leaner overhead structure within the division towards the breakeven. So we talked a lot about the breakeven, and I wanted to reemphasize, there is a strong commitment by myself, by my team to achieve it. And again, it's not just a target which we're setting, there is a concrete plan behind which we have to now execute. And along the way, of course, we have to manage the influences coming. And with that strong order book, you see strong growth ahead of us. But as I mentioned, meanwhile, we have good experience how to manage that. And here, it's also about the execution. And with that, we will contribute to the overall improvements of the company. That was all about E-Mobility, and I'm quite sure you are interested to hear now from Matthias about your midterm targets and strategies on Powertrain and Chassis. Thank you very much.

So good day, good afternoon, and a heartfelt welcome to all of you, whether here live or in the live streams. So I want to talk about the PTC, so the second element on the former automotive business. And I want to start with a firm and strong statement. So we are the division who preserves margin and cash flow. You see the EBIT with 11.4% in 2024. We are on course, on track in '25, and we commit as well to nearly the same value or the same corridor going forward. We're going to do that or to underline the promise with strong products. So they are positioned to not only keep but as well to grow the market share. And there, we have some great additions as well from the former Vitesco. That portfolio, we manage very actively, Klaus said that with a very strict and disciplined capital allocation, but as well with a strong portfolio management. And hence, with that, I'm very certain and sure that we have a robust road map and measures in place to, as said, preserve margin and cash flow. How does PTC look like after the addition of Vitesco? So we did add here a value of EUR 5 billion turnover. You see that in the upper left pie chart, very strong portfolio. It's a good mix of being complementary, of being synergetic and even partially agnostic. And all in all, we have a pretty balanced global setup. Yes, a bit heavy still in Europe, but a strong footprint in China. Similar to Thomas, we have more than 60% with Chinese locals. We have a very strong footprint in the Americas and so have in Asia Pacific, mainly in India to support the growth or the relocation of our customers. Now I said it's synergetic, it's complementary and partially agnostic. What do I mean with that? 2 examples. And some of them, you can later on look yourself at the little exhibition we have here and many discussions we had last week with customers at the IAA, even on the combustion engine. If you imagine a combustion engine next generation, and there are customers talking about the next-generation gasoline engine on range extenders or hybrid, it's all about efficiency. It's all about emissions. And there, we have the best portfolio among all the competitors. It starts with the ECU. It continues with sensors, valve train technology, damper technology and even sensors for flex fuels or emission, all this you can now buy in Schaeffler. I guess there is, as I said, no other competitor out there with that portfolio, with that engineering, with that kind of global setup. So I call it a really enriched portfolio after the merger. So it's more than 1 plus 1. The same holds true for the business field chassis and body. That's the agnostic part of it. There, we participate the developments for autonomous driving for x-by-wire, mainly steer-by-wire, but as well some new products we have added with Vitesco here to sensors like the hands-free access sensor for trunk -- frunk or door handle. That's a very interesting product with an interesting growth rate. Now, let me elaborate on 2 or 3 products where we have really stars where we are the absolute market leader. That's -- the one is on the drivetrain technology, the tore converter, the dual mass flywheel and the NOx sensor. Those products, we have market shares above 70%. Usually, you say you should not have as much market share. But with all the IPs we have with the production technologies, with a strong engineering, it's very hard for our competitors to outpace us there. And there we have partially since decades, this strong position. And for sure, we are highly committed to keep that where it is. We are well prepared for dry cars. So what I'm saying with that is for non-hydraulics anymore for power steering with electric power packs and for x-by-wire drive. So that mechanical part the ball screw drives, that's as well a star product in Schaeffler, very global locally, meanwhile, in China, locally in Mexico and here in Europe with every carmaker, in particular, that's one of the products for the new starters on the battery electric vehicles. And last not the least, I already indicated those products for vehicle access, completely new to Schaeffler. I've even been a little bit surprised when this entered our place from Vitesco, but a great business, more than EUR 100 million already and a double-digit growth rate. And I'm not sure how many of your vehicles already have the technology. Next level is to come. That's with the ultra-wide band and then opening the door with a mobile phone, you will not need any key anymore. And there, Schaeffler is the market leader. Now what helps us and who we are and what is our value proposition to the customer. I guess, where we have a great reference is this global footprint, what the Schaeffler brothers started to develop 80 years ago. So we are in every country, the customer wants us or meanwhile, even needs us to be with all the geopolitical challenges. So we have very high value adds in those countries, 95% plus. Not saying we are completely independent of the hiccups, but we are very resilient, and we have not only execution of things in those countries. We have R&D footprint. We have industrialization and a very high vertical integration. And that's something, Thomas, where you and I collaborate very, very closely on realizing these launches. And that's a sort of benefit if you talk to a customer, whether you are ready to localize E-Mobility in India, yes, we are because we are there since 60 years with a great and strong presence of our teams. So it is in Brazil, Mexico, America, China, you name it. That's definitely an asset. Quality, we have a great reputation. We support our customers when they now go in their new footprints in India and other countries. Same discussion I had last week at the IAA. Many asked, give me your brochure, how present are you in those countries because I'm going to relocate or increase my production quota there. And last not the least, yes, we're going to preserve margin, but that doesn't mean we are not innovative anymore. The opposite is true. So we're going to continue to develop ideas and products, but always based on that foundation and always very disciplined. Now adding that thought to this pyramid where we as well are always working on this component and system level. That's more or less the key to success with our customers. So we can talk on a system level, but we can deliver down to the component level. We are known as a very competent engineering company. And we are at the same time known as the company who makes things happen. In Germany, I would say [Foreign Language] is one of our primary virtues, so realization of things, but as well taking challenging products with unique technologies. And with that, we are not only continuing to focus on the pass car sector. I guess that's as well a nice addition when we added the Vitesco portfolio, we added as well the sector portfolio of them. And with that, we have a much better access on the 2-wheeler market and so have we, with a lot of sensorics and other products and ECUs to the truck market. That makes Schaeffler definitely a stronger company. Now while you listen to Klaus Rosenfeld, he talked about this capital discipline, that's something we developed over the years under his leadership. I tell you that, that had to be disciplined, and we practice that a lot together. But meanwhile, it's a standard process. We apply that for all our activities. And I just want to give you a little overview how we run that in PTC and respectively, in whole Schaeffler in future. So we're exactly working along these 4 segments or these 4 clusters. And there you see, yes, my main business as PTC CEO is the harvest, but not only we take the liberty or respectively, combined with discipline to grow. We take the liberty to build. But yes, as well, we exit business where we say there is no projection, no perspective, no future anymore. This is going well. This is a well-established process. And I guess that's as well the key to success in times of transformation to not stick to products you love, but you can't sell any longer and the other way around to really be on a harvest mode, very disciplined to finance the one or the other build or grow activity. And I just want to give you a little glimpse on 3 examples. The one is what I already said before, it's not only harvesting this dual mass flywheel or torque converter. Those will be in the engines or hybrid topologies of the future anyway, and we are well set there on the other side from that basis on. We actually have great developments with customer for powertrains and hybrids up to or down to Kei cars of Japanese customers, where Schaeffler is the only one who can develop solutions for these tight spaces. And that combined with the electrification part of Thomas makes us more or less a unique seller or unique selling company on those products. And I think for the next probably 1 or 2 decades, we're going to see more of these challenging solution, great opportunity for us, needs a lot of customer trust and proximity, but that's what our teams in the market and in the R&D departments stand for. Second goes a bit into this other sector on the 2-wheeler. I said it, Schaeffler has been active in 2-wheeler, mainly with bearings or bushes for 2-wheelers. We now have engine control units. We have injectors. We have exhaust sensors. We have electrical control units and electro motors in even a JV, a little one in India for 48-volt drives. So there is all of a sudden a whole portfolio now merging this literally with our good customer access we had. We are in a position to serve from Harley-Davidson via TVS in India down to Japan, Kawasaki, Yamaha, all those customers are on our list, and we can as well there, make E-Mobility and partially even hybridization happen on powertrains of 2-wheelers. Similarly, this chassis body, that's something you can as well experience later at the exhibit. I'm completely convinced that the car of the future will look different when all these functionalities towards autonomous come in place when you do no longer have -- to have your hands on the steering wheel, when this automated parking and lane assist and all those topics will have even more momentum, then there will see x-by-wire technology. And now with the Vitesco on board, we have sensors, we have power packs, we have BLDC motors, so brushless, low-voltage motors, all that portfolio is in place. By that, we have now all the vertical value add and the opportunity to be much more competitive, to be much more innovative, and we have the access to all these different technology. That's nothing to be honest, I expected in the powertrain business. That's a great addition in this portfolio. That's how we right now set up the PTC organization, always in very line with how Thomas is running his business, high-voltage, low-voltage motors and so plenty of synergies we grasp there. And that's really a very, very interesting portfolio as well in the division who is about to harvest and to preserve margin and cash flow. With that, I would close that part here. Once again, the commitment stands. You're going to see that later as well in Christophe's our numbers, he's going to present. We will be the long-term -- the long-term deliver on EBIT and margin, you see the corridor here. Sales is going to be flat because we phase out business, but I'm a firm believer that these new grow and build fields will even drive us into the midterm future. Thanks a lot. Happy to all listen, looking forward to your questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Matthias. Thank you very much, Thomas. As you can see, the colleagues are changing the setup on stage. I'm in their way. Basically, means we are ready for our first round of Q&A. So I would ask Klaus, Thomas and Matthias back on stage.

Before we start, please keep in mind the presentations for Vehicle Lifetime Solutions, Bearings and Industrial Solutions and our CFO update are yet to come. So I would be grateful if you could focus your questions on the three presentations. So first.

Horst Schneider from Bank of America. First question that I have is what I missed on the slide. It was assumption on light vehicle production growth, what you assume is it the classic 1% to 2% growth? And then also, I mean, I know, especially for E-Mob, it's difficult to say how much you want to outperform the market because it depends more on the general growth of EVs and PHEVs. But yes, for PTC, maybe you could say what is your assumption on outperformance? Or is there rather an underperformance. The second question is on E-Mobility. It strikes me there is no range, right? For the other segments, you have got a range. And here, you have got revenue range, but not a margin range on the upside. So therefore, I want to understand basically, is that the absolute minimum you want to achieve the 0%? And what is then the catalyst on the upside that it could be also more. So just that we get an understanding or better feeling if the targets are conservative or not. I'll leave it at these 2 questions for now.

Thank you. So Matthias, you would like to take the...

Maybe I'll start with the PTC/S&P part also. So we assume more or less the S&P data or the former IHS data in the vehicle park or car parc growth. So as we see the EUR 90 million this year, so this flat growth, as you said, there is no fantasy, but as well no conservatism in. We rely Klaus or overarching with the BDM team on that number. Outperformance, it's a very fair question. We do outperform, but it's a multiparameter thing here. We are letting go a business like the turbocharger and others, you saw that. So some business fields we are letting go. If we focus on the remaining business fields, we are less declining on our ICE content as the ICE part is declining. That's because we see that already, and we assume that going forward in our multiyear assumptions that we get businesses of our competitors. That already started because we have been believing in combustion engine, at least this higher technology part on valve train and others, and that's the assumption. So yes, there is an outperformance while the market is declining for ICE.

But do you not want to specify by how much?

We could. We have the number, I guess, but by purpose because talking in a declining market on an outperformance, somehow a bit counterintuitive, but we have the number we could share.

Because at the moment, you underperform, right? You see that every quarter, So when does underperformance turn into an outperformance?

Because we're actually letting go more than EUR 600 million and this like -- like thing is difficult with the turbocharger and others. We would have to clean up the numbers and then state or elaborate on that. But we can come up with that number. That's there. Again, the assumption is we're taking competitors' business and with that we outperform.

Thomas, you would like to add to the breakeven.

Yes. I mean for us, clearly, the breakeven itself is, let's say, the major target. While we are not giving a range because we wanted to also give it a highlight. We have to see when it comes closer because there is -- and you see this also in the -- even in the guidance today, there's a big spread there because it's difficult to predict, especially so far out there. But I also would like to say that at that time, still, let's say, reimbursements and R&D spending is a major contributor, and that somehow, we can also, let's say, steer in terms of where do we invest. And out of this, we wanted to -- or at least I want to have some freedom. So that's why I'm sticking to the greater breakeven.

The last question that I have is when we compare revenue targets, E-Mob versus PTC. We see that E-Mob is targeted to generate more revenues than PTC, but the margin is 0 and PTC margin is 10% to 12%. I think it has got to do with D&A as well. But if you have got a 2035 ambition, when is E-Mob targeted to take over PTC in terms of profitability, or is it in general, a less profitable business?

Maybe I answer the question. I think it's fair to say that in businesses that Matthias run, where you have decade-long experience and very dominant market positions, you showed the classical chassis products from the past, you can generate margins that you cannot generate in a highly competitive business, in particular, with the China angle that Thomas has run. I think it's inconceivable even beyond 2035 to go to something that is -- has that margin profile. So when you combine the two things, I think we will end up with a decent margin for our powertrain supplier in 2028. That is somewhere in the typical range, somewhere between 4% to 6% if you combine the two. What happens thereafter remains to be seen. But there is a structural difference between these two businesses because we have at least at the moment, not comparable dominant positions that we have in ICE.

Jose, I think you were next, right?

Jose from JPMorgan. Maybe, Thomas, to kick it off with you back again to this path to breakeven. Should we think about top line or cost-cutting measures that is really ensuring the breakeven level? And then what is the ultimate sort of margin potential of this division when we take all the products that are within the division longer term? How do we think about that margin potential? And then, Klaus, back to you. If you compare the previous CMD to this one, which structural measures have you taken to ensure the company delivers these financial targets in the medium term? Which changes have you done strategically in the company? And also from a free cash flow perspective, what are you reinforcing within the company in the next 2 to 3 years to ensure also the free cash generation of the company? I'm aware we have to go through a few more presentations as well, which will address this topic, but maybe you can just give us also your view.

Thank you, Jose. Thomas, you would like to take the first one.

Yes. I mean, Jose, you remember, we discussed it a few times, let's say, the balance, how much you invest, how much growth you can generate versus the profitability. And clearly, I mean, as it has been in the past, I want to bring this business to a, let's say, self-funding position. And that is the main focus. When it comes then to, let's say, being selective or where do we bid and not, I mean, I don't know how much time you give me, Heiko, here, but let me try to keep -- we are looking how does it fit into our portfolio based on the, let's say, platform. And if it doesn't fit, then tendency is to say we are not bidding or we are asking customers to participate. So that's how we are driving it. And out of this, maybe you saw, I didn't emphasize it because of the time, but 80% of our midterm target is already in our books, yes? So there is upside potential. But again, we have to manage this versus the cost spending to acquire it. And out of this, the profitability improvement is the higher priority and that fits then to our plan, which we communicated today. But nevertheless, if, let's say, our platforms, which we are providing are finding more traction in the market than what we are seeing right now, there is upside potential.

On your structural question, I think Christophe is going to explain more on the drivers, but what is different than last Capital Markets Day that is way behind us, this is now a completely different company. It's a bigger company. It has a much broader product spectrum. But the key sort of beliefs, and Matthias talked about this are still the same. We are not managing this company by EBIT margin. We're managing it by Schaeffler value added. And that may also add to the point that was just made. If you have a capital-light business, you have different margin profiles, if you have a capital-intensive business. And therefore, just comparing things that are not equal on -- only on margin level is not how we do it. So strict focus on Schaeffler value-added and free cash flow generation has not changed and will not change. This is also part of our personal compensation on board level. The idea that you need a structured portfolio where you can compare things where you have the right data, that is certainly now more articulated than what we had in the past, also with a broader spectrum. The idea of accountability is also nothing new, but also very important to us. We want to make sure that we have the right persons on the right jobs. And now with a stronger team with the Vitesco colleagues coming, I feel very good that the general sort of framework is applicable to this new company. And if we drive this now forward with this in mind, I think we can also make a difference compared to others. Free cash flow is critical in the next 3 years because that's the main driver for our dividend and also for deleveraging the company.

Michael, I know you're a gentleman. So ladies first, right?

Vanessa Jeffriess from Jefferies. Just Thomas first, maybe on just the mix of the E-Mobility margin. So I think at the moment, 1/3 of it is already making kind of mid-single-digit margins, is that right? And then the rest is significantly loss-making. How do you expect that mix to change by 2028? Are you going to bring it all up to breakeven? Or do you think there will still be parts that are loss making?

No, I mean you saw -- well, the answer is I want to bring this on all. And you saw the distribution on the order book, so it has to be. And of course, let's say, in certain areas, you might have a stronger position, but this is more single-digit difference is and maybe more out of the execution, how well and so on. So clearly -- and you heard Klaus with the SVA positive, and maybe remember the chart he showed with the business units and that really each business even below, we are asking or we are managing each business field to contribute SVA positive. So out of this, it will be across the board.

And then you said about 80% of business is already being awarded for the 2028 book. I guess we know from the last couple of years that some of that business has been very volatile. Some of your competitors have seen massive cancellations, et cetera. How do you think about the volatility that you're seeing at the moment?

Yes. I mean, first of all, when we are taking orders in, in our order book, we are already doing some discount. And there is no, let's say, no lawnmower. So we are really looking customer, what kind of experience do we have, platforms? Is this a platform which we believe will succeed. So that is how we are managing, let's say, the downward risk. And then there are still, let's say, uncertainty, and we have seen this. But actually, I showed with you that because I have also projects which are running better than planned. So out of this overall conservative out of the experience. And then in between these, let's say, up and downs, which then equal out. So -- but of course, honestly, that's our plan. We believe it's a conservative plan. That's why the 80% is already booked and so on. And then we have to manage with the changes. But even if those changes are coming, then, of course, we are asked -- and that's a running process actually for quite some time now. We are asking our customer to compensate and that at least to limit the damage.

And then, Klaus, just on the group targets, I mean, I appreciate the simplicity versus last time. One thing I would say is different is the absence of return on capital employed target. So maybe if you could comment on a number or any general thoughts?

Well, we have agreed that we keep it simple, as I said. And -- if you have the top line, if you have the EBIT margin, if you have an idea of cost of capital and see what's happening with your projections, I think you will be able to do this. But if you want to achieve targets and break them down, I think it's better to concentrate on the 3 ones and make it too complex. So that's the reason why we decided against it. But I think you have the parameters also in terms of dividend payout, in terms of leverage, how to model that properly. And we're going to help you with capital employed if that's necessary.

Thank you. Christoph?

Christoph Laskawi from Deutsche Bank. The first one would be on PTC. You've shown around 19% of the business is currently in the exit phase. Could you share a comment on how that looks in '28? Are you running that down over that period basically to 0, also considering divestments? Or is it a longer process? And also to your point, you're outperforming in the rest of the business. Just to get a feeling for that, how would the ramp down curve would look like? That's the first question.

Yes, at least what is in the exit field today, and that refers to '24. That's why a big portion, 90% stands there. That's more or less done until '28. That should be -- that's exactly why we declined actually or supposedly decline on the top line, the main driver, turbocharger injector, partially as well the contract manufacturing, which still goes back to the county days. But what is in that box today should be then -- yes, that ship should have sail then, yes.

And the profitability level of that is also below par versus the rest of the business. Or...

It's a mix. It's a mix. It's on average rather below, but there are some good parts in still. And even there in the late days, we do repricing where we can, I guess, we make best out of it. So there are good part numbers in there, there are a bad part numbers in on average, a bit under profitability. By that, it helps the future here.

And then secondly, on E-Mobility, coming back a bit to the question that was raised before on longer-term profitability. It feels right now the innovation cycles in E-Mobility are quite short and intense. Obviously, it's different on the powertrain side. So should we think about more margin upside really materializing from R&D efficiency only if the business is, to some degree, more stabilizing and the innovation cycles are longer than they currently are? Is that another way to think about it? Or is it mostly really scale and other measures?

I tend to say it's more scale, but I would like to say when you look at the, let's say -- yes, let's say, E-Mobility, what is really, let's say, the innovation cycles we talked about. There is a lot of things going on in ADAS, connectivity, driver experience. When you look on the drivetrain, there is a strong -- the innovation cycles are more driven by cost. And that is something where you -- and I tried to explain this, you need to anticipate, you need to -- and that actually was helping us the global view such that we can build these platforms on what comes there and kind of future-proof. And I know it's easy said, but that's really how we are driving it in order to, let's say, not spend, let's say, for this innovation cycles you talked about or these cycles too much R&D and rather build the technology, which we already developed. Meaning that, let's say, like a base technology like our power module, we can use them for 1 or 2 cycles to come. And with that, we want to manage the investments going into those cycles.

And last question will be on the ambition to be top 3 or top 2 across divisions. I'm assuming that this is really a divisional target and not for every product group within that. So is there a certain hurdle rate that you want to achieve also on the product level where you said, okay, after underperforming a couple of years, it's put under review?

Well, I can't assume that you achieve this on every level. But if you look at the size of the divisions and starting with bearings later on, Sascha is going to explain this. This is already competing with 2 others in that size. So we are nearly there or maybe even top 2, how you look at this. But this does not apply to every single product in that division. I think Jens is going to explain it for his division and for the 2 others, this is -- when you put this together, with the product spectrum we offer, with the global reach we have with the customer base, Matthias mentioned it, this is clearly, as a division, a top 3 player. And this is not what we are saying what we want to be today. That's what we want to be long-term on a continuous basis.

Harry Martin from Bernstein. The first question I have is a follow-up to the top 3 target, particularly on the powertrain side. Can I push for some more detail there? Do you have an internal metric of your market share today? And by how much that would need to increase to get to that top 3 position? And then a second related question, just thinking about the market size, but how the development between in-house spending and in-sourced spending by the OEMs on the powertrain side has been developing versus the proportion spent with the Tier 1 suppliers, and how you think about that in terms of share of total bill of materials?

Klaus, you would like to take the first part.

I could take the first one. We measure market share on product level business to user. Is there a metric how you translate this into a final KPI, how that should look like? Not for an ambition like this. But are we able to say where are we a market leader? 100%, Matthias gave examples. If you look at the new ones, take the chassis thing, we're not a market leader in chassis. We're also not top 3 there. So look at this as a detailed product-by-product, business unit by business unit assessment. And then the sort of idea that these are the areas we want to push, where we want to gain and the others then follow, if we change the portfolio, overall, we think a top 3 is something that is possible. But it's not a formula where you can say, if I draw this, I draw this. It's always dependent on what others are doing. I mean we have a very competitive situation where a lot of things are changing. Look at our main competitors here in Germany, what's happening there. We have a more sort of offensive view on certain things and market share there is an important element, particularly on a global basis. We talked about China. We want to demonstrate that this is not a German company. We want to demonstrate that we are able to leverage our global portfolio and also the global footprint.

One little addition if you -- and adding to what Klaus said, when you later on are in the exhibition and you see what Klaus showed to the German chancellor on Wednesday, this kind of powertrain, they would even claim we are positioned #1 because if you count then valve train and range extender, it depends what -- it's a moving target, that's what we're saying. So some we are already #1. Some is still to be defined with inverter and valve train and so on. But what we have on board is products makes us very optimistic to definitely make it.

I think the second one, Thomas.

Yes. And of course, that's something actually we are investigating, let's say, for many years. For simplicity, I would like to say we are seeing changing actually strategy with customers. Actually, there are customers, let's say, going, let's say, more in-sourcing, others are coming back. And we have to see how it evolves. My working assumption is, let's say, it will go back to the suppliers based on also what I mentioned and where is the differentiation for our customers, and I see this actually even with a player who's -- let's say, known of high in-house because now with going global, it's also a burden on that side, to bring all this -- and that actually where that open up and that we have this project is not by accident in China because it's a preparation for what's coming. So out of this, overall, I would say the tendency will go more towards the supplier to generate the scale and to reuse investments and so on. But now when you would ask me when or when is the tipping point, we have to see. And then the final one...

Thomas, just to add one thing. Over the cycle, this can be very different. If you have very new technology at a certain moment in the cycle, customers tend to keep things in-house. They want to control the new technology. They are not sort of taking too much risk. But if something more normalizes or standardizes, if they see there's a next big technology, maybe autonomous driving is one, they say, okay, let's focus on this and give that to the experienced suppliers. So it's something that moves over the cycle. That's at least the experience over the last decade, I would say.

Now that we are talking so much about it, I showed it, yes, we are not concerned about that. Actually, we want to support our customers for that. That's because then there is no customer I can think of who does everything itself himself or herself. So it's -- there's always a portion of that. And since we are opening ourselves up through that modularity and providing these components or even subcomponents, that is where we also can participate in those platforms.

I think we have one second and then...

Yes. It's Ross MacDonald from Citi. I'm going to be that guy and ask about the humanoid business. I appreciate it's not material to the financials today. Can you maybe, Klaus, I guess there's 3 prongs to this question, but can you potentially size that market for us over the midterm? What does success for Schaeffler look like in humanoids from a top line perspective? And then secondly, in terms of for analysts, how we should think about customers' next catalysts and headlines. Obviously, it's not a major driver of your 2028 targets, but what should we be looking out for on the humanoid side over the next 12 months? And then finally, just the cost to the business, right, given we're still breakeven levels on free cash flow, and given the huge growth potential, how do you think about capital allocation with such growth potential, but obviously, a long-dated story.

Thank you, Ross. Thank you very much...

[indiscernible] bit out of it.

No, it's all fair questions, but you will appreciate that I don't have a crystal ball, and this is a different situation than the ones that we talked about. The size of the market here is one of the hotly debated questions. Let me give you, my view. If you think about 2030, I think consensus at the moment is somewhere around 1 million humanoid robots globally. The lower end is 500,000, somewhere in that ballpark. And there are people that speculate that it's much more. I'm more with the consensus absence of a better number. The ecosystem is just emerging. We don't know yet. And it doesn't matter whether we know or not. What matters is that we are prepared to sort of seize the opportunity here. And that has to do with your second question. Who are the customers here? If you observe what's happening there, it's very interesting that this is a deviation of the automotive industry to some extent. The automotive players are now thinking about, particularly the Chinese one, but also Tesla, what is in there for us. If you think about the customers, the customers are exactly those players, the bigger ones, name Tesla. You can go to the Chinese ones and look at who's building humanoids there, but you also have a range of start-ups, Agility, Apptronik, Vector, all you name them. For us, it's important that we find the right partners with who we can work. And I can say at the moment, we have much more inquiries than we can handle. These are over 100 inquiries; we call them opportunities. 20 to 25 real projects that are ongoing with prototypes, both in China and the U.S., less so here. But also in Europe, there's a German, French activity that is coming up. And at the moment, and that leads also to your next question, we are waiting when is the first serious contract coming. And that's an open question who is going to come with this and what that is. Mass production here is probably something different than the numbers that we're used to in the automotive space, but it can become big. Now in terms of cost and capital, what is interesting here, and that's what I said before, this is not something where we need to start from scratch to build new facilities or new technologies or come with completely different R&D. We are using what we have. And if you go to the product, and I don't want to go spend too much time, it goes again to what the colleague said. These are -- this starts with simple components, ball screws, things like -- maybe even a lash adjuster that we're using today for fingers. So these are things that we have already. We have, in particular, the technology to scale this. An actuator is, again, a little system, hopefully smart that you can decompose into various parts that we have. And that's the strength here. This is not an area where we need -- you need to completely new invest, you would leverage what we have. That also requires a lot of cooperation from the -- across the whole group, and that makes it easier to justify the case with all the uncertainty. The cost of the business, we need to see. What is important for us here, the content per vehicle is dominated by the actuators. The actuators make typically somewhere 50% of the total value. Now if the book-to-bill today is x, it will decrease over time because there will be requests from customers to bring it down. And let me stop here. As it looks, this can be a very attractive case Schaeffler.

So I want to be respectful of your time of our time. Horst, the question still on? One last.

Again, on E-Mobility, we hear a lot about these changes in regulation in the U.S., it's just happening. Europe discusses that in Q4, See, Matthias is even advising on the change. So maybe running against E-Mobility in that case. Is it fair to assume that you would been -- or Schaeffler would benefit the most basically from, yes, slightly more relaxed targets more in the direction of PHEVs, but in -- because in PHEVs, I think you have got the main content, right? You have got ICE; you have got an e-powertrain as well. You benefit more from the shift towards PHEV, is that right? And the second is more general political question. And I always hear in Germany, this noise about [Foreign Language] and they are struggling so much, and they try to dispose also E-Mobility business. I think sometimes the consolidation between Schaeffler and ZF would make perfect sense. I mean you cannot afford it probably. So maybe a question for Klaus. Would you agree that more consolidation is needed? Would that come ever on the agenda again for Schaeffler?

Maybe I'll start with the regulation, Klaus, because that's and horse really, not 1 minute since I'm the Kleber President, I think about my profitability when being there and discussing with the commission. What drives me in all honesty is how we can make reasonably E-Mobility happen in Europe. So that's the discussion we have, how we can even -- even do that similar like China with a new energy vehicle with taking plug-in hybrid into account, range extender into account to make it happen. It's not that we wanted that huge one towards ICE or because Schaeffler would have a better life or whoever invests into us. That's not the driver. The driver is really how we can make it happen towards 2035. So -- and if we don't, my view, and that's as well a discussion on [ Asia ] with all the OEMs and the suppliers. If we don't open up the technologies, we will simply run into a certain portion BEV and the rest will be either buys from China or the last time buy in 2032 or 2033 from ICE. And then we have a worse climate equation than we would have if we change it now. That's all it. So not any minute, it's about profitability.

I think the second one is...

Well, let me first clarify. We are definitely not going to change direction on this year and now saying let's team up with someone else who has its own problem. We are not going to solve the problems that [indiscernible] have from our end. We have our strategy. We're going to deliver on this. This is the direction, very clear. Is there more consolidation to happen? Maybe. We think that our setup now is unique. It's something that, as I explained, more resilient than for others. It's the motion technology company that has a lot of opportunities elsewhere and others need to decide how they position themselves. So I would say at the moment, clear no in terms of any other bigger transaction at the moment. We have our hands full here to deliver this. I'm happy to speak in some years where we are then. But the priority here is clearly on delivering that concept that we did show today.

Thank you. I think a very clear statement. So thanks for your questions. Thanks for you guys taking the time for the answers. And I guess we have already served now a short break to recharge a little bit. So please help yourself. Grab some coffee, some snacks. And don't forget, make use of strolling around through our tech exhibition, talk to our experts. We would restart in 20 minutes from now. So for the colleagues online, 5 minutes past 3 CET. Thank you very much. [Break]

Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you could use the break to recharge your batteries and are ready for the second part of our Capital Markets Day. So let me introduce our next two speakers, starting with Jens Schuler. Jens started his career at Deutsche Borse, but he is somebody that dedicated his entire career or most of his career to the aftermarket. After joining Schaeffler in 2002 -- 2003, he held various leadership roles in the automotive aftermarket across the globe. Over the years, he successfully led regional and global sales and marketing initiatives. In 2022, he became the CEO of the Schaeffler Aftermarket business. And in 2023, after we renamed our aftermarket organization into Vehicle Lifetime Solutions, Jens took over the helm there. Following Jens, Sascha Zaps will elaborate on the current status of our Bearings and Industrial Solutions business. Sascha began his career at Siemens and later held various management positions in finance, strategy and transformation in global companies, including McKinsey & Company. Since joining Schaeffler in 2019 as CFO Industrial and Head of Business Development, he has led key initiatives and served as Regional CEO, Europe. In May 2024, Sascha took over the responsibility for our Bearings and Industrial Solutions division, and he is bringing really deep expertise in driving innovation and operational excellence. So with this, I would like to hand over to Jens for his presentation. Jens, please.

Thank you very much, Heiko. And also a warm welcome from my side to everybody here in the room and online. I take you to a little bit of a different soccer field to our service business in Schaeffler. We sustain motion. And the 3 cars or vehicles on the slide that you see, that's what we like. We do business with older vehicles. We do business with vehicles that have high mileage. And you also can see a little bit there in the background, the electric vehicle is coming. And also here, we believe there is quite some repair business for us at Schaeffler, and I'll elaborate a little bit on that in a minute. Now -- by sustaining motion, we want to make sure that we keep these vehicles on the road for a lifetime, but service business in our case is not just putting some hard parts into a box and shipping it on time. It is also highly digitized. And not just with all the new vehicles coming into play, it is also happening already today, and it has already happened in the past. Our way to market is already digital. It goes from the way to market now into the car and at some point, from the car into the product. And I think one future outlook really is that we ship parts before they are getting ordered. Now with that business in 2024 and '24 is, I want to say, the third year in a row where we had some records in our KPIs from a top line. Also from an EBIT perspective, we do make money. Also here in that regard, we believe, or we see as far as that is possible, that we are living on a margin that is also higher than some of our peers, some of our competitors. We have grown with a little bit tailwind coming over the last 3 years, significantly improving our holistic aftermarket model. We invested into supply chain capabilities. It is important that our parts arrive at the right time at a mechanic today, a mechanic doesn't have any inventory anymore. And if you bring your car to a garage, what is basically a pain point to all of us, you want to have that repaired as soon as possible, you need parts. And we have millions of parts, not only Schaeffler, but in that industry that have to be there same day. Also on the Aftermarket Solutions, we have invested into our product portfolio, not only the part, but the appropriate data, software solutions to it, installation, maintenance installation information you need in that regard. The mechanic does some of the repairs once a month, maybe twice a month, you need to have good information to install those parts, and that's where we come into play as well. We don't have mufflers anymore. There's no wiper plates. These are easy products. We have complex products. Continued market outperformance. When we look to peers, we're above peers. We're above the growth of our customers. And also, I will show you a slide above the growth in the market, all comes from our investment again into the portfolio, into our capabilities and also in supply chain. And then the resilient EBIT margin, I think we improved that as well, but we are set up to keep that margin level or further improve. Now if you look into the distribution top chart, repair and maintenance is all the business that we are doing to independent garages. Specialty is basically everything that we are selling to the car manufacturer for repair solutions and then platform businesses where we have invested into e-commerce portals basically in growing markets in Asia Pacific. That business is picking up for us. When you look into the regions, in some of our business, we are the #1, #2 in the product space of transmission or engine, for example. We're also significantly growing in Asia Pacific on a lower base. We need to improve our product portfolio. But again, the growth areas are in the Americas, China, Asia Pacific, also Europe growth, but on a lower scale. Important is on the right side. It's good to be at Schaeffler. We have lots of products. The more products we have in our portfolio, the bigger our leverage towards our customers. The more our customers also like to work with us because they have a one-stop shop for certain categories. That's what we are doing. Also here a little bit, we take products, but for selling a product that we produce and that we bring into a new car, you need to have a complete solutions, and that's what we're doing. We are looking at what really needs to happen in the workshop, how a mechanic can repair. And so we are also adding some components to the repair that is potentially not produced by Schaeffler, but that's the repair solutions. And again, we're picking from all the product families from Schaeffler in order to bring that to market. Now if we look a little bit into the fundamentals of our business and outperformance is always a little bit more difficult maybe in that regard, but we are looking in the first instance to car parc growth and the car parc is growing worldwide. You can see that here, 2% on average. That's good for us. More vehicles are coming into the car parc. What we also like to see is that there's a certain aging of the car parc. Also here, we have an increase in age from 11.3 years up to 12 years, 2028. I also have to say, at some point, we also would like to have new cars. because if everything is old, then the repair also gets under pressure. So we need new cars, and we also hope that there will be more electric cars. Coming to the very right side, still ICE and HEVs are dominating the car parc, 1.7 billion, almost 1.8 billion cars around the world. We see an influx of that E-Mobility. We are preparing for that, but we can say that transformation technology-wise is definitely slower than on the OE side in those fundamentals coming to the powertrain shares and the car parc. Now with all of that, where is truly our expertise from an aftermarket standpoint at Schaeffler? It is definitely we have that technological expertise from our OE colleagues from the OE business that we are running. The strong domains of our repair business is there where we have OE sales. But as I already said, it's not only taking that OE part, it's enabling complex repairs to the mechanic, and that's where we add an expertise to the Schaeffler business. Aftersales sector expert, I also can say this year is the 50th year we are in that business. I want to call out that at least for the clutch, we have invented some of the repair solutions that we call a kit. Prior to that, the mechanic had to choose single parts. And as the car parc get more complex, there needed to be more information and more repair kits to do a proper repair as a mechanic. That's the middle column. So we believe we are an expert. We understand different levels. We understand all the value chains in that business, and we are maximizing our exposure here for Schaeffler to grow our business. Dedicated setup, also something where Schaeffler has already, over the years, over decades has invested into is that we really have a dedicated aftermarket business with all the relevant functions that we need to run our business. And again, coming back to that product portfolio, it's also the outlet for Schaeffler for all the automotive products. And there, we maximize, obviously, cross-selling in our customer base. To the right side, I want to come to that also on the next chart, but already here, we're also building on our strong brands. If you buy a Schaeffler brand, there is a commitment to that, that there is the right part, that it's reliable, high quality and that you have an easy installation, so to say, and you get also help once you need that. On the top, it's one portfolio. Years back, we were not sure how that E-Mobility business will evolve. But honestly speaking, a, we see some business; and b, we also like the complexity in the car parc besides more cars, maybe older cars, maybe e-vehicles, the complexity is just increasing, but whoever owns a car still wants to repair that as of today and also going forward. Simplify the repairs, it's already also digital. We are at the fingertips of a mechanic. Everybody, once you have identified the repair, once you have ordered our product, you get everything that you need for a repair. That's why the mechanic is really trusting in a Schaeffler -- in a Schaeffler solution. Our product portfolio over the last years has been a big restructuring for us, how do we go to market once it's not just an old product portfolio for an old car parc, it's the product portfolio for the relevant car parc. And we honestly don't really care what it is as long as we have a repair solution for it. We are in the areas of powertrain, of thermal management and chassis parts. That's also how our customers look at the product portfolios. Inside there, we have transmission engine. Clearly, here, we are the #2, #1 depending on what market you look. E-Mobility is to be set up, same as thermal Management. Thermal Management can be a part of E-Mobility. We believe that this will be a big area for repair and maintenance. That's why we carved it a little bit out of the E-Mob side. And then chassis, also very agnostic to the powertrain is our bearings business and steering and suspension. Now if you see that yellow column there, that's where we close the gap in our portfolio with Vitesco products. We have more electronics, more softwares, more sensors. And that also gives us a good exposure, and we are currently ramping up all those portfolios for the independent aftermarket. So there's a good benefit from the Vitesco acquisition for our aftermarket business as well. Now if you see the lower green portion there, 50,000 articles that are actually sellable from our Schaeffler portfolio. Globally, 2,800 for electrified vehicles. That's an area where I work closely also with Thomas on the E-Mobility side, that number definitely will go up that complexity in the car parc increases. We're not only working together where are we at Schaeffler supplying parts, how they can be repaired. We're also looking into what is potentially a more sustainable design for that repair or afterwards then also to recycle products that we bring to market. And we also have a high interest in the future aftermarket to get our products back once they leave the cycle. 2,800 parts, at some point, the world was not sure how will that business of repair develop in E-Mobility. Clearly, if you are in the e-axle, if you are in the thermal management, heating, cooling, battery management, power electronics are areas where we see in markets with a relatively high population of EVs, Norway, Sweden, that there is good business, but potentially a little bit lower in the count, in the amount, but significantly higher in the incident in price to the repair. The repair gets significantly more complex. Just look at window shields that get replaced. They all have a camera; they all have a sensor. They all need to be calibrated, and that's increasing the value of the repair. Now to the right side, what do we do differently and what do we have to do in order to market those solutions. You can see that here, we have a repair kit for an e-axle. We have been the first to bring that e-axle repair kit to market. And that's also a competence here. How does the customer know what to buy. We look at relevant cars in the car parc for what -- for which repair needs to be conducted. So we're starting here with a repair solution for a large -- or started for a large German car manufacturer, but also everything else, what we see as relevant for EV, we have a solution there as well. Then the services, again, those repairs are conducted as of now, not too often, you need to have the right tools for it. We also can explain that out there at the exhibit, the technical information, the online support. And we specifically want to make everybody able to repair the part, not just to exchange a part to a new part. And then on the market access side, also here, we have business on the OES side, works very similar to the independent aftermarket. There's a different solution, maybe a different brand in the play as a car manufacturer wants to have his logo on the box, independent aftermarket, our core business. But we also see with digitalization, that business is getting closer to the workshop. So we're also preparing already for the time where we potentially sell more and more, whether that's through customers or through us to a workshop as we do in our e-commerce business models in Asia Pacific. Now key drivers for our financial outperformance. I can just repeat that future-ready product portfolio. It goes in the right direction. We are getting ready for all makes and models going forward, all propulsion and engine types, multichannel approach, you see us already everywhere, and that is very well coordinated through a centralized approach so that we can steer that business. Customer centricity means not only to the distribution, but to the mechanic, that's core for us. We call ourselves meanwhile, a distribution powerhouse. We deliver really parts on time in the right quantity that we do globally. And once again, a workshop gets 3, 4 times a day of delivery, the part needs to be there and whoever delivers fastest makes the sale, and that's what we have shown with our new setup, whether that's here in Europe or around the world. And then Smart capital management, yes, we already have production plants that produce for aftermarket, close collaboration also there with PTC, where we are already in some very efficient small series production in order to make availability possible for the next years to come. And most of our products in our product portfolio, product categories yet have not peaked in a sense that they decline. Most of them are still on the rise. And with that, you can see there on the right side, performance, again, over the last couple of years, significantly outpacing in the combination of what we have done here as a result in growth. Now I could repeat the top ones, but the important ones are on the bottom. We obviously have still some way to go. Also, we -- in the footprint discussions with our PTC business, we are looking where do we have small series, where do we have to take over the one or the other plant in order to make sure that we can supply products over the next 15 to 20 years into the market. That works. We have inherited 4 plants across Germany, South Africa and Thailand. And as we continue in the discussions, it's a continuous process. And also very, very interesting as the repair market goes more and more into an ecosystem, there are electric vehicles, there is the battery. There is delivery topics coming up where we also look into how can we further grow into that ever-evolving ecosystem that also then has some new emerging businesses for us, where we believe we should be in, but that's still to come. In the sales outlook over here, higher single-digit growth until 2028 up to EUR 3.75 billion, EUR 4.25 billion in sales. The margin, we do see some competition, as you can imagine, that the aftermarket is attractive for many companies. We do some competition, but we have to set up to compete and strive for a margin between 13.5% and 15.5% until 2028. With that, again, we build our story on what we can, on what we have. We're adding new topics. We're not afraid of any EV business. There will be repair. And again, in the collaboration and in the outlook that you have heard around E-Mobility, there will be business from Schaeffler. We strive also for continued market outperformance with our customer access with the capabilities that we have. And I think the margin is pretty clear that we believe that's resilient for us to continue and add here to the all over Schaeffler success with our business. And with that, I stop here. hope for some questions, and I hand over to you, Sascha, for Bearing and Industrial. Thank you very much. Thank you.

A warm welcome also from my side. Sascha Zaps is my name. I have the pleasure to present the Bearings and Industrial Solutions organization and our current status. When looking at our division, and you have followed that closely. Last year, we closed with EUR 6.5 billion in revenues and 6.7% in EBIT margin. That includes already some portfolio decisions we have taken. I think one number stands out here, and that's -- I want to highlight as well as we're not reporting that to the outside very transparent. But especially in our business, once comparing to our competitors, it's super important to also look at EBITDA. We have generated also last year already an EBITDA of 13.1%, which shows the significant cash flow generation power of that organization. We are globally leading from a portfolio point of view, Klaus mentioned it earlier, we are #1 or #2 in most of the sectors, except for one. We're in a position 2 or 3. There's quite a distance to the #3, which is Timken and also a distance to the #1, which is SKF, if you look at our bearing competitors, leaving the linear players at the moment aside. We are operating more than 40 factories. So we are truly global with our operations supported by more than 30,000 people in all those countries and also factories. Last year, and you have seen that we were faced in the industry, not just we, but also our competitors with a market decline, which we also have seen in 2023. We are flattening that out a bit at the moment. It's not yet that there is significant growth, but it's flattening out on the bearing side. And that clearly called for action in terms of profitability improvement. We have not been able in '23 and '24 to basically improve our cost structure to the extent that we wanted to, which finally led also to some of the margin deterioration for us. And for me, when I started in May, that clearly called for a transformation plan, a holistic transformation plan. We basically looked at the entire product portfolio. Every customer relationship needs to earn money. Every factory needs to earn its cost of capital. Every product needs to make money. And we looked at that from various angles to decide what will be part of our core portfolio in the future, what do we optimize, what do we fix? Where do we double down on things which run very well and what could that lead us to? And that finally, I'm going to show that in a few more minutes, led to the program we have outlined. But it's not only about cost, it's about growth, it's about innovation. And we have a couple of interesting examples of innovative products also with us in the presentation. At the end, we want to be one of the cash generation engines of the Schaeffler Group. And again, the EBITDA, which we have already in '24 shows what is already there and what is possible with further operational improvements, but also revenue growth. If we look at the -- sorry, if you look at the portfolio, and that's a similar page you've seen from the other colleagues. We have organized and Klaus has mentioned that with the integration of the Automotive Bearings division last year in April, our business into four business divisions, one with a clear focus on the Industrial Bearings part; number two, on the Automotive Bearings part, on the Aerospace Bearings part, which is operating in different factories and has different basics and the Linear Motion part, which also includes our Ewellix acquisition we have done in 2022. If we look at the sales by region, 42% is in Europe, while 58% is outside, a large part in China, a significant part in Americas and 16% of the revenues is currently being operated and dealt with and generated in Asia Pacific. Certainly room for growth, and that's also a key focus area to grow outside of Europe more than we would probably expect to grow in Europe in the years to come. If we look at the sectors, and we have now clustered it here in addressable market clusters, split in Automotive and Transportation, in Industrials and Energy, and they're all relevant in size. If you add them all up, it's a significant number of more than EUR 50 billion, where we are a player with EUR 6.5 billion. So we have around about 12%, 13% market share and actually operating and serving all relevant customers in a market which need guided or linear motion, either rotative or as I said, linear. We are -- if you just pick a few of them, and Klaus mentioned that the clear #1 on the Automotive side, we are the clear #1 on the Renewable Energy side to the right, on the Wind Industry, on the Transportation side, Commercial Vehicles, # 2 to #3 on the Rail side and also Aerospace, a very interesting growth market, not just on the civil part, but also on the defense part and the largest market plus clearly industrials, we are well positioned as a clear and strong #2 next to in most of the cases, SKF. I've picked three examples of defined highlights and high-quality solutions. Number one, Passenger Cars. And that's where -- and we heard that also earlier today, where our entire understanding of our automotive drivetrain, but also chassis business pays back. We are not just a bearing supplier who's supplying a bearing to an automotive supplier. We understand the entire system. And specifically, once you move to battery electric cars, understanding the system, understanding the friction requirements of bearings, what they can impact in terms of durability of the battery, reach of the car and also cost and total cost of ownership for a car, it's super important, and that's what customers value a lot, especially on the Automotive Bearing side. On the Aerospace & Defense part. And Defense -- for Aerospace and in that part, we are clearly one of the key players when it comes to engine and gearbox bearings with production footprints in Europe, but also in America, not just on the civil part, also on the defense part, and I guess every one of you is traveling a lot. So the likelihood next of your plane travels that you travel with an Airbus and Boeing or something else, which has Schaeffler bearings, typically aid in an engine is very high. And there are some of these customers, they are known and we have published that some time ago, which even buy 100% of their bearings from us, which clearly shows also that we are not just a reliable partner when it comes to technology, but also to deliver reliability and, of course, superb quality in a very, very critical component. If we look at renewable energy, another super important field for us, which helped us a lot to grow over the years, knowing that competition in China has increased a lot. We are clearly still the #1. Most of our competitors have lost significant market shares in China. Others have announced that they consolidate sites. We are the only global supplier who is delivering to everyone in that industry, typically gearbox manufacturers and the OEMs on the turbine side with main shaft bearings, generator bearings or gearbox bearing. We are opening in October, an important milestone, the largest main bearing test rig in Denmark. It will be able to simulate and test entire drivetrains up to 25 megawatt of turbine size, the current turbine size in the market around the 16 from the European ones and American ones, and there is the first one or the other Asian who is running with 18-megawatt turbines offshore. If you look at our Transformation program, as we called it, I cut that in three pieces. One is leveraging our customer value proposition. That's clearly about innovation. It's about growth. Second, operational excellence. If you don't optimize your cost, you will lose competitiveness, you won't win business, you don't generate cash, you won't be able to invest. So it's a cycle. I think we all know also capital management, of course, a very important topic in that as well. And rightsizing our core business. I think Klaus has also shown the locations we have announced for footprint consolidation, the largest part of the rightsizing of our core business that we are doing in the Bearings & Industrial Solutions organization. We plan to grow 2% to 3%. That sounds low, but we don't expect large growth on the automotive side. So we expect a larger growth on the Linear Motion, Aerospace, but also Industrial Bearings side with a target to reach 9% to 11% EBIT and you can do the math for EBITDA and at the same time, be a strong EBIT and cash contribution and also have a strong EBIT to cash conversion for the Schaeffler Group. If you look at number one, the growth part, levering customer value proposition, and I touched one or two of the examples already. That's a TriFinity wheel bearing, which we have designed, which is unique. And I mentioned the topic friction 10 years ago, probably nobody really thought at the first place, what is the friction in the wheel bearing. Is that really relevant? Once you move to battery electric cars, it's super critical as it has a huge impact on the range of the car. And as we all know, battery is one of the most important, if not the most important and expensive component in a battery electric car and working on CO2 efficiency with that, being able to reduce either the size of the bearing or the extent of the range extension is super, super important. On Aerospace, on the main shaft bearing for the engine, an interesting innovation we have done. We have basically integrated the cooling channel. You probably won't see that on the picture, but it has a huge impact on efficiency for the turbine with that, especially in the Aerospace industry, a super important topic, reduces CO2 efficiency, higher reliability and robustness. On the Electromechanical actuators side, and that's a part we have acquired with our Ewellix acquisition on the Linear Motion side. Today, we have many topics which are still operating with hydraulics. So hydraulics will be in most of the operations, especially in off-road, replaced by electromechanical actuators. We are well positioned there and want to drive that development going forward. The interesting growth rates, which we see already today, even in markets which in that business are currently or have been more declining over the last 2 years. Overall, we want to invest more than 10% of our R&D in innovation, and we'll continue to drive profitable growth with that in the future. If you look at operational excellence, the second part, and there are a few examples, and I won't go through all of them, but it shows you what we are doing and how deep we go into the organization and how consequent we are with the things we do. Optimization of our supply network is number one. We have been operating with too many suppliers in too many locations, and we are massively consolidating them over the next months and years. That's not something we can do overnight as, of course, we have thousands of parts and many suppliers, but the potential is huge. Just one example we have done, and we have staggered that in different categories where we run now different processes to basically reduce the cost for us when it comes to rings, when it comes to cages, when it comes to rolling elements, when it comes to packaging and other things with significant potential. We also implement the global sourcing hubs in India and in China for global sourcing, not for sourcing for China or India, and other potential to be closer to the market and also leverage the potential from China and India for our productions outside of those regions. Realizing synergies and there we have actually both two elements. One is -- we've integrated Automotive Bearings. So there are, of course, synergies on the R&D side. On the production side, we have been operating in the same production in two different organizations. So we leverage the synergies in R&D, on operational efficiency, also on the supply chain, that doesn't work for everything as the product range and the size of the bearings has limitations in automotive compared to the industrial part where we go up to more than 4 meter outer diameter for bearings on the wind turbines. And the second one with the integration of Vitesco, an additional element, especially on the indirect material to, of course, use the leverage of a larger organization when it comes to all kind of indirect materials as logistic costs, IT costs, et cetera, which, of course, helps us also in the division. Another one is capital management, and that for us has several angles. One is inventory management. And I had to last year, probably implement rather rigorous measures in terms of how do we steer factories. We have been piling up inventories over the first half, and we have reduced more than EUR 200 million of inventory in the last 6 months of the year, basically changed the entire management of how we steer factories and how we basically do the demand management. And I can say that for this year, we have, in the first 6 months this year, generated more than twice of the cash flow compared to the last year's first 6 months. And that's related to inventory management and to strict capital discipline. We have cut due to overcapacities due to a large footprint we had and to some extent, overinvestments due to also a shrinking market where capacities were not used significantly cut CapEx by more than 30%. We'll continue that also for '26 to basically grow out of this overcapacity with also -- and expected to grow market. At the end, delivering sustainable profitability and, of course, cash for the company. If you look at rightsizing of the core business, also there are three elements. Active portfolio management, Klaus mentioned one, we have decided to take out the electrolyzer business, which was part of the Industrial Business and had, of course, relevant ramp-up costs as defining them as non-core for the division. At the same time, we acquired a company, which we renamed afterwards in Schaeffler Ultra Precision Drives around gearbox activities, which we were not able to successfully really integrate and move to a direction we wanted to move to. So at the end, we said we're going to sell it. The process is currently ongoing. And we hope to close that latest by the end of the year. At the end of the day, focusing on the core from a portfolio point of view, which is focusing around bearings, around Linear Motion and innovation around our bearing and motion -- Linear Motion applications when it comes to condition monitoring, smart lubrication will be the key. I will limit ourselves to and basically grow from there into a higher profitability structure than we have seen it in the past. Footprint consolidation, I mentioned a part of it. We have actually touched 10 locations. I announced that on the 5th of November last year that we will massively rightsize and/or close locations. 10 production sites were affected. Steinhagen, we announced 3 weeks ago as this was a site where we said we're going to try to fix it. We came to the conclusion that we cannot fix it. And we announced now to close it and transfer the activity to Schweinfurt. Berndorf, is a site in Austria, which we are going to close by the end of this year, latest quarter or next year. So everything is in operation. Taoyuan is in Taiwan. That's an activity on the linear side, which we're going to close by the end of the year. And Homburg is, that we have three plants. The plant around the Linear Motion activities is also in preparation for a transfer to Eastern Europe and then closure as soon as we are done with that as well. In other large locations like Schweinfurt, Kysucké, just to name a few of them, we have significant right-sizings to basically further move to best cost countries and adjust our cost structures in that -- in these locations as well. Third element, streamlining the organization, and that focuses more on the overhead side and on the indirect production side, overall, we are targeting up to 20% headcount reduction in all indirect functions, while growing. We have reduced work time for all white collars in Germany by 10%, including a salary cut by 10%. We have short-time work. We basically reduced people with early retirement programs. So we're using basically the entire portfolio element, so to say, to optimize cost structure, especially on the labor cost side, relocating activities to best cost countries when it comes to R&D, when it comes to shared service activities and non-core functions in admin areas and of course, streamlining the organizational model. And one example there have cut down 20% of the hierarchy levels in the entire organization. So either the managers are leaving the company or they'll go back into a line function, which, of course, is not always pleasant, but needed and required to basically significantly drive also operational efficiency from an overhead point of view. This will -- and that's my target, my commitment here clearly lead to growth, growth towards EUR 6.75 billion and EUR 7.25 billion in revenues with a significant EBIT uptick. You have seen the first half year results. I expect to continue moving in that direction, and the target is moving to 9% to 11% EBIT by 2028. As I mentioned, our transformation program is fully on track, and we are absolutely committed to deliver that to drive operational cash flow improvement and significant EBIT contribution for the Schaeffler Group. With this, I'm at the end of my part. Thank you for listening and hand over to Heiko.

Thank you, Sascha. Thank you, Jens. So last but not least, it is my pleasure to introduce our new CFO, Christophe Hannequin. Christophe began his career in finance functions in North America and Europe. He was driving change in finance organizations at international companies like Plastic Omnium and Michelin. And prior to joining our company, he was the Group CFO of JCB. Now beginning of the year, Christophe joined the Schaeffler family. And 2 weeks ago, he officially took over the responsibility for finance and IT. So you will realize on paper, it's 2 weeks on the job, but Christophe already has a very deep understanding of our company. So with this, Christophe, welcome on stage.

Thank you, Heiko. As you mentioned, this is day 15 or day 16 for me on the job in this role. But I had the opportunity to join the company somewhat early, spent quite a few months visiting our regions, our plants, our teams, our tech centers. So before we dig into the financial numbers, before I try to pull together everything that has been presented so far, I thought I would share with you a couple of key takeaways from my time at Schaeffler. And the question that I'm trying to answer behind this, when I chose this opportunity, did I make the right choice. After you listened to four presentations, the road maps, the strategy, the energy behind, I hope you will agree with me that we are uniquely positioned to deliver value and growth over the next few years in the environment that we play in. Our products, our people, our regions all put us in a very, very unique point in this year. Our markets are changing. Our customers are changing, so is Schaeffler. If you look today at the setup that we have, the setup that we've chosen that we've been implementing, we are uniquely organized in order to tackle this. There's one topic that has not been discussed in a lot of detail today is the strength of our regions. Our go-to-market is rooted in the regions as well as in the divisions. We are adapting to this new setup, and we'll be able to take advantage of the first point. The third point that I want to share with you or communicate with you, performance focus is essential, and we will need a step change or a renewed commitment to performance management in order to deliver on the opportunities and on the targets highlighted in the first two. To the question, did I make the right choice? I'm absolutely convinced. The answer is yes. Up to me to then flip the question and prove to the group that they made the right choice by having me as Group CFO and delivering on the targets that you see here, doubling of EBIT by 2028, financial discipline, I keep going back to this, but operational excellence, restructuring, delivering on our synergies is a key component of being able to achieve the numbers, both top line and bottom line that we described. And doing so, while delivering a strong free cash flow, which is the key to an attractive dividend policy for our shareholders. Again, a lot has already been shared, but if I try to bring everything back together on a few key KPIs, sales, EBIT and free cash flow. On sales, overall, we aim to grow above market share -- above market growth, the average market growth rate. We'll do so in transforming market. Summarizing everything in one number when you understand our business, it's complex. So we will dig into it a little bit, but we can already see that it is supported by a strong order book, and it's not just wishful thinking. EBIT will double from 3.5 points to a range of 6 to 8 points, supported by the three key elements that you see here. E-mobility breakeven is the number one, delivering our structural improvements and focusing on performance management will be the second, unlocking the synergies and the addition of Vitesco into our ecosystem is the third one. Free cash flow will increase materially over time. We will dig a little bit into what is behind it and how to truly understand this improvement. If I first take a look at sales, if I first look at this 4% average growth rate for the group, we see that we have different dynamics. E-mobility, plus 15% compounded over time from EUR 4.8 million to between EUR 8 million to EUR 9 million is the strongest contributor to growth. Thomas highlighted the story behind it. It is completely in line with the market that we operate in, and it is about delivering. Powertrain & Chassis is more a story for us of resilience, as Matthias explained, and leveraging some selected growth opportunities that we have identified. VLS is about growth above market, not as strong as the previous years, but still significantly above the market growth rate. And there I say in a complex and increasingly competitive environment, we'll do that by leveraging all sales channels and leveraging an expanded portfolio of offers and services. Bearings & Solutions, Sascha just explained it, will focus on performance improvement, optimizing its portfolio, its operation and seek moderate growth in some selected sectors. If I now take you to the EBIT level, remind you on the left of the graph at the makeup of our profitability, you understand quite easily that E-Mobility is the first challenge to deliver. It is the must deliver in order to succeed in this improvement. But you also understand at the same time that we will target improvements in most of our other divisions or the resilience of the existing margin. Yes, yes, we can target some additional EBIT contribution. But in some cases, it is more important for us to ensure that we deliver the existing high level of contribution that are part of our profitability today. If I think about the levers that are behind these improvements, if I try to summarize them by division, you see that we have different dynamics. E-Mobility, as covered by Thomas, is actually a balanced mix of levers enabled by growth. Growth in the case of E-Mobility brings additional margin, obviously, but it's also the way to unlock what we can do on the cost side, be it in manufacturing, in R&D or overhead. Powertrain, I would call it a laser-like focus on making sure that every bit of margin lost due to volume is compensated by some strong work on our cost structure, on our efficiencies and our ability to again compensate the decline on the volume. VLS, summarized this as growth. Again, it's an above-market growth, trying to compensate both competitive -- both competitive pressure on the pricing side as well as the increasing impact of some channels where margins are differentiated. If you think about platforms versus direct distribution, that's what I'm referring to. On the Bearings & Industrial side, restructuring, operations focus and a slight growth is the key to the game. At group level, when you sum everything up or when you aggregate everything, you actually have a balanced set of levers from business growth to operational performance to R&D efficiency to SG&A and overhead improvement. If you add our hedge logic on top of it, you will understand that even though the future may not unfold exactly as we forecasted as we write it, we will be able to leverage one or the other in order to still deliver the 6% to 8% that we're targeting. Strong P&L, strong EBIT improvement for us will also translate into some cash flow improvement. You all know our reported cash flow numbers. They are listed here at the top. If I take you to underlying cash flow, so if I take out the one-off payments linked with the integration -- sorry, linked with the acquisition of Vitesco and Continental, if I take out integration and restructuring cash flow, we end up with a beginning point of EUR 43 million. This EUR 43 million translates to EUR 600 million to EUR 800 million in 2028 or in our targets for the reported cash flow, EUR 400 million to EUR 600 million. This is driven by improvement from our EBITDA, obviously, a moderate increase in our working capital over time. So we grow, but the related impact of our working capital will be less. A focused spend, which has been a recurring theme throughout the day on CapEx, EUR 1.1 billion on average at group level, which I refer you back to the numbers for 2024 or even if you go back pre-merger to the Schaeffler numbers, this is lower. So it's less spend, and I'm not going to say better spend, but more focused spend, very, very disciplined capital allocation in order to ensure value creation in our business. Integration and restructuring cash-out is still there. But even with this, we end up with a free cash flow conversion of 30% to 40%. It is not quite yet benchmark, but for sure is a step-up to where we are today and goes back to what Schaeffler was known for in the previous years. So there's some upside on top of this. We will see how we deliver in the years after. Strong underlying free cash flow, strong free cash flow allows us to do two other things: a, confirm our dividend policy, 40% to 60%, which in this period of transformation is important for us. And deleverage targeting a 1.5x to 2x. There's still some willingness or some desire to improve outside of the 2028 time frame. But 1.5x to 2x is what we're comfortable committing to, still a big step down or big step up depending on how you read these things. From where we stand, the number that you have here, by the way, it's not 2024. It's the first half of 2025. And combined with this investment-grade rating at some point is it's in the process. It's not just linked to these two KPIs, obviously, to the leverage ratio, but it is on the road map as well. If we're talking about cash flow, let's spend a couple of minutes talking about our maturity profile. If you look at it, you can see that it's quite evenly distributed. 2025 topic has already been taken care of. So no real issue there. And from '26 to 2030, we have maturities, but they're evenly distributed. We can also count on a pretty strong track record when it comes down to placing our debt. We demonstrated that again in the spring this year. Combined with good liquidity, we have what we need in order to execute our strategy and the numbers that you've seen before. I bring you back to the mid-term targets. Klaus already highlighted the group numbers. You've seen bits and pieces from the different divisions, but it's worth going through them again. At group level, we will target EUR 27 billion to EUR 29 billion, delivering 6% to 8% worth of EBIT and a cash flow as reported EUR 400 million to EUR 600 million. If you look at what part contributes to what, E-Mobility will have to reach breakeven as targeted by Thomas on a business that should be in between EUR 8 billion to EUR 9 billion. PTC will demonstrate the resilience that it needs to in order to protect its margin on a slightly decreased turnover. VLS will grow slightly or moderately above market growth while protecting its margins. And Bearings & Industrial will deliver on the restructuring, on the performance improvement as described by Sascha. Combined with this reinvestment rate of 1, a leverage ratio between 1.5x to 2x and a dividend payout ratio of between 40% to 60%. We feel quite comfortable that the strategy we have, the road maps that we have described to you today will allow us to target -- to deliver on these targets. In my role as CFO, I will be both an enabler and an enforcer making sure that we stay on track and that we deliver on these targets. In that sense, very much look forward to giving you updates on a regular basis over the next few quarters on how we progress and again, bring you back to the key commitments on which I will personally take care of doubling EBIT by 2028, making sure that financial discipline is front and center in the way we operate and ensuring a significant free cash flow and consistent with an attractive dividend policy. At this point, I'd like to welcome Klaus back on stage for a few closing remarks before we go to Q&A.

This will be very short and very brief. If someone clicks for me, I just want to sum it up and say this is a team effort. You saw all the members that have clear targets. We will deliver this only as a strong team. We are very experienced over the years. Most of us work since years together. We have industry knowledge that is, I would say, unrivaled. And on that basis, you can be rest assured we are fully committed to deliver on what we promise today. We keep it short. And I think the next part is then again, Q&A. All are already here. Thank you very much for listening, and thank you very much for following.

Thank you very much. So ladies and gentlemen, we wait -- I need my speakers. So I hope you found the information that we gave so far interesting and helpful. May I ask the remaining speakers of today back on stage. And then yes, you can directly shoot your questions. Okay, Michael, we missed you the last time. So please. You skipped yourself.

Mike Raab, Kepler Cheuvreux. When I look at the composition of the 2028 EBIT, doing a rough calculation, taking the bandwidth of sales for every division and then the margins, what is the contribution from others and eliminations roughly in comparison to what it was in 2024? It is more or less flat, up or down? And if so, for what reasons, please?

Christophe, you would like to do?

So others is still slightly negative by 2028. It's an improvement compared to where we are today, if you look at our numbers. It's a mixture of start-ups. We discussed humanoids. We talked about defense. We talked about hydrogen. It's also businesses that we phase out. So giving one specific point to explain the bridge is difficult, but the weight on the profitability of the group decreases slightly between now and 2028. By the way, when you look at the overall scheme of things in the group, the others division doesn't really impact the numbers too much.

So when you say slight, that's like what less than EUR 100 million? Less than EUR 100 million.

Yes, absolutely, less than EUR 100 million.

That was my only question.

Vanessa?

Vanessa Jeffriess from Jefferies. Just on Bearings first. Just if we look at that margin target versus one on the last Capital Markets Day, how much of the difference is attributable to Automotive Bearings being included? And how much is attributable to challenging end markets? Like how much is structural? That they were 12% to 14% and now 9% to 11%.

Automotive Bearings part remains to be at the level it is today. The uplift comes from Linear Motion and the Industrial Bearings part as well as Aerospace. We don't expect a further growing as we are anyway already the most profitable Automotive Bearings company. We don't expect a further growth as there's no revenue growth targeted with price pressure. So we'll need our operational excellence to cope with the price pressure we have in the market.

And if I can just ask a question that's a bit more hopefully, short term in nature. Obviously, the focus was on auto tariffs. And I guess now bearings have been added to Section 232 last month. What's the strategy to manage those? Just with the bearings added to the tariffs last month.

Bearings added to the?

Added to the Section 232 tariffs last month.

What the impact was on the tariffs?

Yes. I mean, what will be the strategy to manage those, because I imagine it's different.

Of course. I mean, on the Bearings side, we target to fully push that into the market. There is a limited impact for this year. We expect some due to time lag, right, of swallowing the cost on our side and giving that back to customers some movement into next year, but it's low double-digit million.

And then just a quick one on VLS perspective. If you could talk about the different offerings you have in each region and maybe the networks you have and what needs to change?

I mean, when we look into different regions, if the question goes in the direction, if I understand correctly, how are we distributing in various regions. Then I would say, if you look at the Americas, very traditional distribution. You can go to the U.S., big influx of e-commerce. If you go to Europe, traditional distribution. And then if you look into Asia Pacific and China, there, we see clearly that the market develops more to an e-commerce environment.

I think, Christoph was next.

The first one will be on the phasing of the earnings improvement. You've indicated the cash improvement by year. Should we roughly assume that the earnings improvement is following the same step-ups or smaller step-ups in '26, '27 and then a larger bump in '28? Or is there anything else driving the cash improvement to that degree in '28?

As I explained, you have many drivers behind the cash improvement. Some of them are related to specific events happening, us delivering on the restructuring or us starting a new program on the sales side, for example. So I would not take the linear profile that you saw on cash as something to use completely for the year-by-year modeling that you do on the B&I side. It's a little bit more -- it's not as linear as it covers, it looks.

And what would be a good indication then to think about the phasing of the earnings?

We discussed when we talk about guidance for 2026, you've seen directionally, we're talking about a 3-year time window. So the volatility can also be that big. But again, if you think back about what drives the earnings improvement, what drives the cash improvement, they are all related to different drivers. Not all of them will happen at the same. We still have a 2026 and 2027 where we're focusing a lot on integration and restructuring.

And then staying a bit with cash, there's still EUR 200 million roughly for restructuring or cost measures in the '28 plan. How is that split across the divisions? Is there anything particular that you can share on that or...

That's not a number that we share. It's integrated -- there are two concepts behind this, integration and restructuring. You've seen the programs that are announced. You know which plants are impacted, which division is more impacted than the other, but we do not communicate on this by division-by-division.

And one question for B&I as well. It looks like 2/3 of your earnings improvement is really stuff that you can do in-house, managing costs improve on your end. You already highlighted to the H1 margin as the first step to take. How quick can you get most of the stuff done? Is it really a couple of years? Or are there a couple of things that you can already resolve in the shorter term?

It goes back to what Christophe said. It's a phasing, of course. And we are a large organization operating in more than 40 plants. The restructuring takes some time to get it executed. I mean, there's lots on the procurement side. There's lots on the operational efficiency. There's pricing. So it's a variety of things. I would say you can count it step by step every year to get there. It will not happen overnight, but we expect contribution every year to gradually see that growing until 2028.

So I think it was Harry Martin, right?

Harry Martin from Bernstein. The first question on VLS, just the guidance on revenue growth for an 8% CAGR versus that low single-digit vehicle park growth. If you could help us get comfortable with that number, how would you split the outperformance, the 8% growth between volume, price mix? And if you can compare that to how much of the recent very strong growth in that segment has been coming from pricing?

I mean, as already elaborated from Christophe, there will be -- we expect more competition in some of the areas where we are also strong. Second is with the influx of an older vehicle car park, we also believe that there's less pricing power in that segment. The older the car, the lesser residual value, then there is a pricing topic. But we still believe that we are, again, well positioned there in conjunction with what we can do in-house also to look to product costs and improve our margins. Also here, I think there is potential in having more aftermarket appropriate specifications to work on that margin. But in the next 2, 2.5 years, we see that there is more competition as more suppliers are trying to get their product into the market.

And then the final question I had is just on investments. The -- we've had a lot of qualitative discussion about which of the business units would get capital investment and investment in the future, but it wasn't quantified in terms of that EUR 1.1 billion CapEx number or the R&D number as well. So any sense on what proportion of the investment in the business each year will go to E-Mobility and the other segments as well would be useful?

Let me try to answer that question for the whole group. We are looking at CapEx, not as CapEx over sales as you normally do in your models. We are using a reinvestment rate, and that's CapEx related to depreciation. That number should be somewhere around 1. It can be 1.1, but in that ballpark. Then the breakdown on the divisions is something that we don't disclose, as you expect. But you can say that for sure, the ones that are growing faster need more if they are capital intensive, the ones that are more harvest need less because they have their capital already at work. As Sascha is different than Matthias and certainly, VLS is -- has a different capital intensity. But please understand, we're not disclosing the CapEx number on a division level.

Horst?

I have a few more questions. When I add up the divisional targets, there is no discount on a revenue level. But if I look at the some of the earnings, there seems to be a kind of 0.5% to 1% risk cushion baked into it. Otherwise, I would get to something like, what is that, I calculated 7.2% to 8.6% margin if I add up the various segments. So where is the risk cushion taken, where you see higher risk, lower risk? Is it just a general risk discount that you take because something can always go wrong. Maybe you can comment on that first.

We normally use our [indiscernible] cash, as we call it, and I don't remember that there's a big risk cushion here. I can't give you.

I just multiplied the revenue targets times the margin and added it up to the group.

Well, then you probably need to add a little bit on the other. That is...

Others is below 100, cannot be it?

You can do that. But you need to clarify. I don't -- I can't, we need to go through the calculation, but I don't see a 1% cushion.

Okay.

I know our plan, but I'm not going to give you the plan. But I can say we have been very diligent to say we give you ranges that are -- have some upside and some downside.

Okay. The other question is on dividend versus debt reduction and also structure. I think, when we look at it from a broader context, then of course, there is a Schaeffler family in the background. The holding also needs cash. The situation of the holding could change when Conti is doing more disposals, ContiTech get disposed, Conti talks about a special dividend. Family situation could improve. The holding debt situation could improve. Would that determine then also the dividend payout if it's 40% or 60%. So 5% was rather at the upper end because I think the family always needed the cash. So does the financial situation of the holding also drives then basically the payout ratio in the end?

The answer is no. The answer is, we are a company that is our typical focus is on value generation. We think that part of the value generation is a decent dividend. And we have always said it should be somewhere between 40% and 60%. At the moment, because of the acquisition and to some extent, due to the restructuring, we're going through a phase where our typical logic that dividend should be paid out of free cash flow, free cash flow before M&A doesn't work. Because there is a significant restructuring payout. That's what Christophe showed. So in this situation, we're not sort of 100% following this, but this is not driven by any means that the family tells us we need this dividend. We are looking at 40% to 60%. That's what we have agreed as a long-term range. And for sure, that's a function of net income. Whatever happens on holding, we need to separate from what we're doing at Schaeffler. But I can't tell you 1 year where Schaeffler family told us what we should do. That's why we have this range to give you a good guidance on where it should land. If there is, sort of, debt reduction, and this is not the topic for today, to whatever happens with other sister companies, then that's good for us, because it would probably also help the rating. We are seen as something that is more together. But our dividend target is separate from any debt reduction thoughts on IHO.

Then maybe just my last question. When you look at the structure of the group today, so you have good industrials out, you call it the three hedges. Makes perfect sense. But on the other hand, you would say that this structure of the group is now in a perfect shape or there could be more room for optimization. So when we look, for example, at BorgWarner, they did some time ago spin-off of PHINIA. So that would be aftermarket. Industrial is also something that could be separated. But that is something you would rule out for now? Or is it something long-term future that could become an option?

Well, I think, as I said before...

Or why not?

On your question for ZF, we have found our structure. We have a vision on what we want to go to. We have a plan. And again, at the moment, rethinking the structure again and separating something or selling something, that's not the plan. The plan is to keep it together. As I said, it's an integrated technology-driven holding. The topic on humanoids is one of the examples why it makes sense to keep things together. Because without the automotive customer relationship we have, without some of the technology that is in Automotive and Industrial Bearings, industrial and other things that come from Matthias' area like the actuators from Thomas' area, that's exactly where this makes sense. And I'm not going to change it now on short-term ideas. When you always ask us, are we now looking after AUMOVIO? The answer is no. We have our hands full to deliver this. We're not going to change course. This is now the target for the next years to get that good in shape and make it a very well-performing company.

I would have one question more, but I want to leave the other questions -- can I ask one more? Humanoid robots. I always thought we talk about that more in the context of industrials, but you said it's more automotive even.

No, it's something -- go ahead, okay.

I just -- because you were saying 50% of a humanoid robot is basically actuator, and you can deliver various parts. When we listen to Elon Musk and what Optimus in the end could cost, I think he talked about EUR 30,000, EUR 40,000. Price might decline to something like, I don't know, EUR 20,000 to EUR 30,000 longer term. You're talking about millions of robots, right? You talk about 1 million, I think. What is the value that you can -- that you contribute? Is it 50% of this EUR 30,000 or?

Well, I can't give you the value. I can give you the content for humanoid. There, you can say that's slightly different than in cars. In humanoids, the content per humanoid is 50% in terms of bill of material driven by actuation. Typically, you have in the legs, in the arms, you have up to 30 actuators, linear actuators, relative actuators. That is a significant portion. You don't have that in cars. So 50 -- our target sort of addressable market would be per robot much higher than per car. Now it's a function of how many robots will you get. We don't have that yet, but you can calculate, you can see there are various studies. And how much -- where can you play in this actuation thing? And that is exactly the story about components and systems that you heard today. We have all what we need. We don't need to start to invest now. We have the things that we could do. And therefore, as I said, getting ready for this opportunity, understanding how the market unfolds, being with the right customers, be it start-ups or existing companies, leveraging everything we have on this, that's the nature of the game here. And that is, from my point of view, a very promising opportunity. But we will not rush into this. We will do this very carefully. We are, from my point of view, at the moment, ahead of the curve with what we're doing. We get lots of questions because people more and more understand that sometimes the little things, the high-precision things will make the difference, in particular, if you can scale. Because that will be the nature of the game. This is not sort of 5,000 to 10,000 robots. If it takes off, it will be, as you said, 1 million plus.

Because I could imagine there's not one supplier to the robot, even if you could deliver 50% of the value, there's usually a bunch of suppliers. So therefore, when I did the calculation, I calculated potential business volume for you. And of course, I was sitting there was thinking, okay, the price could be EUR 30,000, but what is your share? Is it 5%, 10%? How many suppliers are on the robot?

What you can say is, if you take a typical calculation, target addressable market, that would be 50% of the bill of material of a robot. Today, the bill of material is a different one than in some years, because there will definitely be cost reduction and price deflation. What that number will be remains to be seen. But if you talk about EUR 30,000 per robot, you can then say what's the sort of value that someone generates, how much is the bill of material? Of that bill of material, 50% is ours. You can then say what's your market share for Schaeffler, how big is that? And then you get to...

Yes, what is the market share?

There is at the moment -- the business is just evolving and emerging. I can't give you a market share. What I can say, we are very actively approached by all the major players and say, can you help us. And I don't -- I'm not in the position to give you a market share. The only thing I can say is, this is a very promising interesting business, because we can leverage the existing technology and know-how that we have across the various divisions. We will organize this properly. That's what is at the moment the stage. The more that we get serious contracts, the more we'll see what's happening with that business. But we are in a very good shape at the moment to benefit from that trend.

Which market is for you larger U.S. or China in that context?

It's the next question. I can tell you, when you talk to the Chinese, they certainly think that they will develop this faster. When you talk to the U.S., and this is predominantly Tesla, but also others, they think they are ahead. Don't forget, humanoids is not just mechanics. It's driven by the AI concepts behind this. This is all emerging. The ecosystem is not sort of final. It's still a situation where the question, what kind of technology road map is going to unfold remains to be seen. You need to be agile and very close to what's happening, and it's driven by the AI development.

Michael.

Mike Raab, again, from Kepler Cheuvreux. I have to ask for your forgiveness if you provided earlier the information I'm going to ask for now, perhaps one after the other. I just didn't realize and didn't aggregate. But in 2028, which of the divisions is still going to be cash consumptive? Or are you going to be cash positive? Are you all going to convert earnings into positive cash? Or is any of you still going to be consuming cash, burning cash?

Well, I mean, this is a number that is not part of the guidance. But if Thomas' division reaches breakeven...

It should be all right.

It should be all right. But whether we need to see how that plays out in terms of cash. What you saw is that we will need cash resources to finance the restructuring and the integration over the next years.

Sure. But I thought on an underlying basis. And the rest is going to be fine, you're saying.

Sure. The big other divisions are -- maybe Matthias takes the question. He generates a lot of cash today. As Sascha talked about his high EBITDA ratio, he brings a lot of cash today. And if you make 15% margin, what do you expect?

Well, I've seen companies doing 15%, 17% margin yet burning cash. You're different.

Not always a VLS business like this.

You're different in that regard. I agree.

So I think in the last row doesn't come...

Klaus Ringel from ODDO BHF. I don't know if you actually can comment on this, but I mean, the idea of the conversion of the share class was also to increase the free float of the Schaeffler shares. And can we still expect the 30% free float? Or is this some discussion.

Well, what I can say is that Mr. Schaeffler, when we presented the successful case, he clearly said that's a target to increase the share price -- to increase the free float, but he didn't say when. So as we know, Mr. Schaeffler, our main shareholder, he is a long-term thinker. He understands capital markets. He also understands timing. So let's see what's happening.

Okay. Second one would be on your 2035 ambition. I mean, you shared, let's say, sales ambition or sales target. Is it fair to assume that you might, let's say, move up a notch in terms of EBIT margin from the 6% to 8%, maybe to 8% to 10% by then because of the mix, you're through the restructuring, all that?

We gave you targets for '28 for good reason, because the environment at the moment is very challenging, very dynamic. It's better to be on 3 years and deliver that properly than being out too much. The '35, I wouldn't call as a target. It's something that you should measure now. It's something internal. It's a commitment. If you want to move an organization forward so that it starts to think across the board and out of the box, what we could do as well, you need to give a little bit of direction. And that's why what we did in our strategy dialogue, we said we've allowed to think for 10 years. How would the structure look like in 10 years? And we can envisage that there is potential for around 10% of businesses that we have not even looked at today, like the humanoids, like defense and like others. That's more a strategic decision to move the whole company forward.

So is there any last burning question?

Ross MacDonald at Citi. This time on the bread and butter business, I think the key message is that you're reasonably well hedged from a powertrain perspective going forward. But just given the discussions that are going on with the European Commission around the CO2 targets, both 2030, 2035, how should we think about the up and downside to your margin targets if we see significant delay, let's say, to the ICE ban, for example. Would that be a driver of the 8% top end of the guide in 2028? But obviously, it would come with significant losses you would imagine in E-Mob. But...

Well, maybe Matthias can add something to this. I would rather be broad. I mean, we -- I think you all understood this concept of the hedge. You don't know what's going to happen with a, this regulation. Matthias is working hard on his Clipper job to convince the commission that this target is not achieving what they want to achieve. They want to achieve CO2 reduction. They want to achieve sort of more EV, but they're doing the opposite with regulation. That's what Matthias know better than I do. But for us, again, we want to be in a position that whatever comes out of this, and that's, at the end of the day, a consumer decision. At the end of the day, in Europe, it's still the consumer who decides which car he wants to buy and which car he wants to afford. And that's, again, a function of the offering. When you saw the IAA, someone said it, the Empire is striking back. The German ones are coming with all sorts of new cars that are attractive. So that points to competition. And there's clearly competition and also innovation on what is going to be the powertrain solution in 10 years. We don't know yet. Therefore, and then I hand over to Matthias, being open on technology, allowing for innovation, allowing also for a combination of technology that is existing and not banning it, is from our point of view a critical aspect to drive the automotive industry forward. And I'm hopeful that this has been heard in Brussels and that we find an interesting and targeted approach to go away from this tail pipe approach where you measure CO2 at the tail pipe and rather go to something that is life cycle oriented. That would give also the VLS business another interesting potential upside. So let's wait and see what comes. But I do hope, and I know that Matthias shares is that the openness in terms of technology is something that the commission will use going forward as a guiding principle.

Perfectly answered. And on top -- on your point, would that favor us in terms of profitability, too early to answer. Because there is a lot of pressure on the cost structures. Then if it would be concluded that there is plug-in hybrid or range extender on the A and B segment, there's immense cost pressure. And I guess, it would be too early to say, well, let's relax and rely on the PTC business and E-Mob will come later. It would not change the needle too much. That's something we should look at. But first, we have to get more rationale into the regulation, and then we see what comes.

Thank you. So since there are no more questions and since we made the miracle happen and we are perfectly on time after 3.5 hours, I would like to close our today's Capital Market Day 2025, but allow me some last remarks. As always, you will find the presentations today, a recording of today's event on our homepage. As always, if there are more questions coming up afterwards, myself, the IR team, we are happy to help. And also very important, let me once again invite you to still spend some time with us. There is a barbecue out there. There are very interesting exhibits behind us. There are drinks and there are product experts and very professional, knowledgeable Board members that are happy to answer your questions.

And let me, as the CEO, as always the last word, say one last sentence other than once again, thanking you for coming here. I want to thank Heiko and the whole team who has prepared this. You all know that this doesn't go over a weekend. It was a long journey. And I can say through this journey, we have learned much more about our company than we sometimes believe. So thanks for making this happen. Excellent job and give regards and a big thank you very much to the team.