Wacker Neuson SE (WAC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the 9 months' earnings call of the Wacker Neuson Group. My name is Peer Schlinkmann, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications. Thank you for joining today on the occasion of the release of our 2024 9 months' results. As usual, we will first start with the operational and financial results of the 9 months 2024 and give additional insights on the recent developments. Following this, we are happy to answer your questions in the Q&A session. If you are not able to follow today's call via the webcast, the presentation slides are also available for download at wackerneusongroup.com/investor-relations. Please note that the entire call, including the Q&A session, will be recorded, and a replay will be made available on our corporate website by the end of the day. And now, I would like to hand over to our executives, Karl Tragl and Christoph Burkhard, who will, as usual, lead you to this call.

Thank you, Peer. This is Christoph Burkhard, CFO of the Wacker Neuson Group. Welcome, everybody, to our earnings call, and thank you for joining.

Dear all, a warm welcome from my side, too, and thanks again for joining today's conference call. I'm Karl Tragl, CEO of the Wacker Neuson Group. I would like to start the presentation with a brief overview of the current market situation. Public business indicators and market studies show an ongoing and persistent sign of weakness for the rest of the year in almost every segment. We expect these developments to continue at the beginning of 2025. We cannot change the wind but we can set the sails differently. Therefore, we will continue to focus our efforts on implementing measures to be Fit for 2025. Christoph will explain this in more detail later. Now let us proceed with our key financials for the first 9 months of 2024. Our revenue for the first 9 months of 2024 amounted to approximately EUR 1, 722 million, marking a 14.5% decline year-on-year. This decline is primarily due to persistently weak market conditions and full dealer stocks. Our earnings before interest and taxes, EBIT, amounted to EUR 108.5 million, resulting in an EBIT margin of 6.3% for this period. This reflects the impact of a weak third quarter, where our EBIT margin fell to 4.8% compared to 9.8% in the prior year, due to reduced revenues and reduced production output. Looking at the third quarter more closely, we see mixed revenue performance between July and September. August marked our lowest third party and intercompany revenue point this year, largely due to seasonal factors like plant holidays and summer slowdown. The net working capital ratio shows a high 39%. However, this percentage has to be put in context with the lower revenues in Q3 and the absolute net working capital reductions in quarter 3. And as a result of this positive development, we could increase our free cash flow to EUR 91.5 million by the end of September. Again, Christoph will explain this in more detail later. So let's take a closer look at our performance across regions during the last 9 months. We faced a challenging market and a decrease of global demand. Revenues in the Europe region, which makes up 77% of our group revenue, fell by 12% to about EUR 1,324 million. This is a significant impact in our core European markets. It once again highlights the difficulties, which construction and agriculture industries encounter across the whole continent. Moving to the Americas region, accounting for 29% -- sorry, accounting for 21% of our group revenue. We see a decline of 20%, bringing revenues to around EUR 357 million. Reduced end customer demand and excessive stock is evident, both across our contracted and our independent dealers as well as our key accounts. In the Asia Pacific region, which represents 2% of our business, revenue dropped by 30% to [ probably ] EUR 42.4 million. As already mentioned in the course of the year, this downturn largely reflects the softened demand in Australia, a market where we had enjoyed robust growth in prior quarters and years. In terms of our product segments, both light and compact equipment have faced year-on-year declines. Nevertheless, certain products, like dumpers, were different from the general trends, demonstrating innovative products and resilient customer interest. And while equipment sales have been challenging, I'm pleased to report a positive development in our services business. Rental demand and spare part sales have increased in the first 9 months of 2024. Maintenance and repair services have also grown. This has led to a year-on-year increase of over 3% in our services segment, providing to be a steady foundation in these difficult times. In summary, while we are navigating a complex market environment, we are also seeing signs of resilience in specific areas, like, for instance, Switzerland or Spain. I will now hand over to you, Christoph, to give some more insights in our financials.

Thank you, Karl. As already mentioned by Karl, let me put the actual net working capital ratio of 39% in a broader context. As displayed on this slide, applying our year-end calculation method of the last 12 months already shows a significantly reduced ratio of 34.2%. And in order to adequately assess the recent net working capital development, we need to specifically focus on the category most relevant in the current business environment, hence, the development of our inventories. Year-on-year, between September 2023 and September 2024, we reduced our inventories by EUR 154 million, down from EUR 890 million to EUR 665 million. So within 1 quarter, total net working capital came down roughly EUR 100 million since the end of Q2, and I do see the trend continuing towards year-end. And as indicated during our last call, eventually, a sustainable reduction of inventories has started and is contributing significantly to the free cash flow generation. In Q3 only, our free cash flow went up by EUR 87 million to EUR 92 million, and I'm confident that we will see more of a positive free cash flow generation in Q4, albeit probably not with such a big jump again. And in hand with this development goes the reduction of our net debt, and our equity ratio remained stable at it is in 58%. Now in our last earnings call, we provided an overview of the measures we are implementing to achieve a sustainably reduced cost base by the end of 2024. Since then, we have further increased our efforts throughout the entire group, creating cost-cutting measures, both in the SG&A as well as in the manufacturing area, plus, of course, in the sales and services field. First and foremost, for 2024, we initially targeted about EUR 40 million in earnings contributions after restructuring costs. And since our last call, we have aimed for an additional EUR 8 million, bringing our targeted earnings contributions to now EUR 48 million in total for 2024. We continuously reduce our quarterly SG&A costs and managed to bring them below the EUR 100 million mark per quarter, from around EUR 107 million in Q4 2023 and still over EUR 100 million in Q2 2024, now down to approximately EUR 94 million in Q3 2024. And for the fourth quarter, we plan to further intensify our cost-reduction measures. This includes additional short-term work, further FTE reduction and continued trimming of administrative expenses. As a consequence, this will also lead to higher one-off restructuring costs in 2024. Since we are talking about a big variety of measures in terms of date of effectiveness, structure and nature, for example, one-offs like short-term work versus sustainable measures like SG&A headcount reduction, it is hard to specify already today the exact contribution for 2025. However, we're targeting a sustainable minimum contribution in 2025 of 1 percentage point of margins. And with this, back to you, Karl.

Thank you, Christoph. Before we now concluding with the updated outlook, I would like to give you a brief overview of the progress in our Strategy 2030 implementation. Just to remind you, this current slide shows you the big picture while the next 2 slides give you more details on recent developments along our 10 strategic levers. Our strategic lever, time to market and innovation, aims to secure our market leadership through product innovation. We are thrilled to announce that we have been once again rewarded for new products within the Wacker Neuson Group. First of all, we are excited to share an innovation we are particularly proud of, our fully integrated dynamic weighing system featured in our new Kramer telehandler KT316. Traditionally, weighing systems for loaders have significant limitations. They require the operator to stop on flat surfaces, consider the load center of gravity and go through specific lifting motions for accurate measurements. With our telehandler KT316, we have changed the game. This is the first telescopic loader with a dynamic weighing system that works seamlessly during operations. No need for stops, no recalibration and no adjustments for loading positioning. This advancement is highly valuable, for instance, for biogas plants where accurate and efficient documentation of materials is crucial. Our system allows for highly accurate real-time weighing, making operations much more efficient. The German Agricultural Society praised this innovation for its practical benefits, the time savings and the precision. Secondly, we are also thrilled to announce that our new electric Hoftrac 1190e, equipped with the innovative follow-me function, has earned an award from EuroTier. This feature is also a common problem for operators who frequently need to climb on and off the machine to perform their job, a process that is not only time-consuming, but also carries risks of injuries. With our new follow-me function, the operator can walk in front of the machine and have the loader autonomously follow them to the next work location. A virtual safety zone around the machine keeps the operator protected. This system makes farming jobs far more efficient and safer by reducing the need to repeatedly climb on and off the loader. And finally, we're excited to share that our Weidemann telehandlers, T7035 and 7042, were awarded the Innovation Farm Machinery prize 2025 in the material handling category at the Innovation and Agricultural trade fair in France. These 7-meter telehandlers represent a new generation of agricultural machinery with our unique Best View Cabin, truly setting them apart. With a 4-pillar design, panoramic rear window and a large curve front window, this cabin offers unmatched all-round visibility. This makes maneuvering easier and greatly enhances safety by helping operators work more efficiently every day. And those 3 innovations for me also very visible because they show a very practical and easy-to-understand advantage directly for the operator. Last, but not least, we continue to optimize our sales network and market coverage through M&A activities. Thus, we acquired 100% of the Belgian dealer company, Compact Machinery B.V. as of 1st of October. By welcoming Compact Machinery into the Wacker Neuson family, we're strengthening our presence in Belgium. This means that customers of Compact Machinery and Wacker Neuson alike can now access a richer and broader portfolio of products and services tailored to their needs. We are bringing together the best of both companies and enhance the level of support and products across the board. It's a powerful alliance for the Belgian market that allows us to serve our customers with even greater strength, agility and focus. And it's another testament to our general commitment to building one of the strongest and most customer-focused networks in the industry. Let me conclude the update on our strategy 2030 with following slides. As usual, we would like to show the overall view of progress, which we have made along each lever. For 2024, we successfully reached the milestones we have set for the year. And in addition, you also can see our planned milestones for the upcoming years 2025 and 2026. We will continue to provide you transparency with regular updates and further information on our strategic progress in our forthcoming earnings calls. Ladies and gentlemen, we are reaching the end of our presentation, and I would like to wrap up with a view again on the broader market environment and an updated outlook for the Wacker Neuson Group. Unfortunately, the news on market developments remain unchanged. Main business climate indices are still showing a negative picture. Both construction equipment index, CECE, and the agricultural machinery index, CEMA, continue to indicate declining revenues with no signs of stabilization in all of the year. As I mentioned earlier, we observed a more volatile revenue trends between July and September and a further depressed market environment. But in addition, we have further increased our cost -eduction activities, as Christoph has explained, leading to additional one-off costs in 2024. Therefore, against the background of very low visibility and increasing risk, we have adjusted our revenue and EBIT guidance accordingly. For 2024, we now anticipate revenue between EUR 2.2 billion and EUR 2.3 billion and EBIT margin in a range of 5.5% to 6.5%. Our investments in net working capital ratio guidance remains unchanged. Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on our Fit for 2025 actions to strengthen our profitability foundation for the coming year. And we're also very much looking forward to the bauma fair in April here in Munich next year, where we expect to see positive impacts for our industry and an increased engagement from our customers. Before we now jump into the Q&A session, let me send a sincere thank you to all employees of the Wacker Neuson Group, who relentlessly are giving their best for our customers and for our company and this, even more, in challenging times. Nobody is perfect, but a team can be. Thank you for listening. Operator, we are now ready to start the Q&A session. I'm very much looking forward to answering the questions.

The first question comes from Stefan Augustin, Warburg Research.

I have a couple of questions. And actually, the first part of -- and say merge a bit into one. Last call, you outlined that you expect to be over with the destocking at your own dealers largely or, let's say, partially by the end of the year. Is it fair to conclude that this has been pushed out, at least, to the end of the first quarter? And on top of that is, let's say, how much short time work that you have so far in Q3? And do you expect to increase that in Q4? And lastly, maybe how would you compare at least from today's perspective, maybe the third quarter production versus fourth quarter and beginning next year? Is it all roughly on the same level? Or are there some changes? That will be the first part.

Okay, Stefan, let me start with the -- your first question on inventory. I think we should differentiate here between the toughest part here, being on the one hand, karma because karma is, as you know, with the large proportion going through dealers, obviously, and also through joint dealers, to be more specific, and here, we -- still do we see a very sluggish reduction of inventory. And therefore, I would basically agree with your statement that we would rather see that slipping in towards the end of first quarter until we will see a relaxation here. And the second area where we still see progress to be made is generally in the U.S. I think the U.S. is working behind, and also, here, we are still confronted with the high dealer stock. And I would, from a timing perspective, basically see it equally, as just stated with karma. In the -- in our core markets, on the other hand, direct markets, I would rather see that happening earlier, if that helps.

So that would still be end of the year then?

Yes, yes. I still -- now if we expand your question into the topic more generally into inventories, I would certainly say we will further now continue on the path of inventory reductions, but the dealer stock topic will certainly go on until the end of the year.

And Stefan, I would like to answer the question as far as I understood it, production level quarter 3 versus quarter 4. Quarter 3, we always have August with closure of plants in the quarter, and we had a very weak August this year, which led to the numbers and also to our risk adjustment at the moment. Now normally, the quarter 4 would be at that level because we have a December where we also have closures for 1 or 2 weeks of plants over the Christmas period. We had, in October, a slight uptick for 1 month in order intake, which now we have to look into what does it mean in order of production. And this is basically all leading to the fact that, therefore, we have left the corridor of the guidance where it is, and we are currently analyzing what does it mean now for production in December what we have seen in orders of October.

All right. The second one I have is on the acquisition you made in October. Is that, let's say, by any part, meaningful to the financials or CapEx?

Not really, not really.

Relatively small acquisition for us.

Okay. So all the CapEx items from the last call is still valid.

Yes.

No changes on that one. All right. And then that is simply from -- when there would be a cease fire in the Ukraine it would -- as Trump wants to achieve very early, that should be definitely beneficial for the construction part. But what would be your assessment on the agricultural side from such a move?

Okay. I have to say that we don't make any scenarios towards that topic because nobody knows how long it really takes. Definitely, if there would be a peace, there would be need for more construction, and there would be then hopefully also need for more production of grains and fruits. How long that would take until everything is financed, dealers are ready to give machines and the machines are really sold? That's something which is -- which cannot be predicted from today. We are prepared to support the Ukraine at any stage in getting up to economical and good speed again, but I cannot speculate around what that means and when it will happen.

Okay. But you would see it beneficial for both parts, the agricultural and construction part.

Yes.

Next question is from Alexander Galitsa, HAIB.

First one is actually 2 related more -- when you look into 2025, I just wonder what are your thoughts around the sort of planning of the production for next year based on your current assessment of the underlying market dynamics and, possibly, customer negotiations you're having? And what also -- what is the pricing dynamics in the industry, given the sort of challenging environment currently and whether you're expecting that pricing may get more competitive as you go into 2025?

Okay. So as far as production is concerned, we are currently on a specific level. And I explained that there is quarter 3, quarter 4. This is the level we are considering at the moment, and we are working towards that we get the book-to-bill ratio up to 1 for this level that we're working for. How this could speed up in a positive way/or how this would have more risk? That's something we have to see at the end of the year. But we are currently -- the business level we have, that's the one we are continuing to work on in our planning. And as far as pricing is concerned, one of the main topics is -- I mean there is pricing pressure, but one of the main topics is that dealers are making their business. We are just not getting orders from the dealers. That's one of the big effects, and this cannot be changed by however much price reduction there would be. This can just be changed by supporting financing to speed their sale up and then to be able to refill their stock by new orders. So there is pricing pressure, but it's a limited pricing pressure. And we are just doing as much as we can on supporting our customers in financing.

Understood. And then also a question or a couple of questions around your savings program, just to make sure I understand it correctly. So basically, you outlined the -- on the table, the savings you're kind of expecting to realize based on the measures you introduced in 9 months, and then additional -- there is contribution in Q4. That adds up to EUR 55 million. So those are prior to restructuring charges. So this is something that you're expecting to take over into 2025. But obviously, as you mentioned, that the timing of certain measures is different, then part of it will be realized in 2025. And I think you mentioned around 1 percentage point of margin. So are we looking at sort of net benefit from cost savings of around EUR 20 million for next year? If you can kind of confirm that or refute. And then also basically, those savings have to be then annualized into the -- in 2026. Is that how one should think about it so that presumably you're not going to have any more restructuring costs and the measures by 2026 should be contributing annually, sort of annual benefit to earnings? Is that the way to think about it? Or correct me if I described it the wrong way.

Absolutely. And I just think the SG&A area, as an example, what happened -- we -- during the very dynamic 2023, we certainly saw a surge of administrative SG&A costs in a sense that, of course, everybody got involved into the dynamics and the huge growth after a couple of years. And for us, this program is more than kind of a firefighting. This is much more the structural thinking here. And we absolutely want to turn the entire exercise in something sustainably positive, meaning, yes, 2025, EUR 20 million plus, absolutely, in sustainable SG&A reductions and, yes, of course, for the subsequent years as well. And of course, we have been now in so many discussions and dialogues with our organization that we need to acquaint ourselves to a sustainably lower and more competitive cost frame, so to say, so 2x, yes, from our side.

And then maybe around free cash flow. I think into 2025, assuming that you don't see further major deterioration in the market condition, further reduction of net working capital, in particular, inventories, so -- is on the agenda for you?

Yes, absolutely. And I think -- well, while I don't want to hand out our free cash flow guidance for 2025, I still would say that we want to see a continuation of cash -- free cash flow generation or positive free cash flow generation in 2025, maybe not at the same scale, but still positive free cash flow generation. That I can already say.

Makes sense. And then maybe 2 quick ones. On R&D expenses, I noticed that Q3 was quite a bit slower down than you had in prior quarters and last year. Just wondering whether it's sort of some forced or deliberate reduction. And what does it mean for, I guess, R&D expenses into following quarters? To what level sort of we need to think for our models?

Okay. So Karl speaking here. In the -- in our SG&A programs and our cost savings, we went through all areas, and we also went through the R&D area. We have one of our levers, which is time to market, which means -- it means to become more efficient. That's an example for what Christoph has said. We don't just only cut purely, but we also do like time boxing and a few approaches in R&D projects to get structurally more efficient. On the other hand, we also have to adjust our road maps to our -- to the market conditions because some developments, like electrification, has some impact on our road maps. And so we had to or we could do -- push out a few of the road maps without losing our innovation focus, what we have shown clearly here with the awards which we have presented. And the third one is there is always this activation part in R&D, which is depending on milestones reached at specific projects. And this can go awry from time to time and can absolutely not be influenced. Whenever we hit a specific phase, we have to activate. And if we don't have projects who are hitting that phase, we cannot. So there's nothing we can choose or nothing we can influence, and this is a certain [indiscernible]. And all those 3 effects, systematically working downwards, adjusting our road maps to the market needs, which have changed, obviously, the last 18 months, and the third one, this phase achievement activation, this is leading to the lower [indiscernible] we have at the moment.

Understood. And the very last one is around debt. I think your short-term debt in Q3, it was around EUR 220 million. Can you remind us when do the bigger maturities occur? And what is your plan for refinancing or whether you'd be able to pay off gradually from the free cash flow generation?

As you recall, we have -- we took a short-term promissory note on our books just in June with a 3-year tenor. Equally, all our short-term debt is short term in the sense that we are refinancing that within existing -- within an existing frame with short-term loans. But of course, the entire credit frame is not short term in that sense, no? So you see always the replacement of the short term -- of the term loans. However, the frame, as such, is until 2027. So we are actually fully refinanced here, and there is no need for short-term refinancing at the moment.

Ladies and gentlemen, as we can see, there are no further questions left from you. That brings us to the end of our conference call. As usual, if you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to contact me or the entire Investor Relations team via phone or e-mail. If you would like to meet in person, please let us know or check our website and financial calendar for all relevant roadshow dates in the coming months. Thank you again for joining our call, and we wish you all a wonderful winter and Christmas season. Have a great day.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Have a good day.