Wacker Neuson SE (WAC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to the 2024 Full Year 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 full year results. As usual, we will first start with the operational and financial results of the fiscal year 2024 and give additional insights on the recent developments as well as our outlook for 2025. 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. 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. 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 Wacker Neuson Group. And welcome, everybody, to our earnings call today, 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 our key financials for the fiscal year 2024. Our revenue for the fiscal year 2024 was at approximately EUR 2.235 billion which amounted to a roughly 16% decline year-on-year. As explained in our last earnings call, this decline was primarily driven by the persistently weak market demand and excessive dealer stock in 2024. Our earnings before interest and taxes, EBIT, amounted to EUR 122.5 million resulting in an EBIT margin of 5.5% for the full year 2024. This reflects the impact of the weak third and fourth quarter. Looking at the fourth quarter more closely, we see a relatively flat development of revenues quarter-over-quarter from approximately EUR 518 million in the third quarter to roughly EUR 513 million in the fourth quarter to roughly EUR 513 million in the fourth quarter of 2024. Our EBIT margin fell from 4.8%, down to 2.7% due to additional onetime restructuring costs and higher R&D expenses. At the year-end, we saw a positive development of our net working capital ratio at 31.7%. We are well below our forecasted ratio of 34%, which is a direct result of the significant ongoing inventory reduction in the second half of 2024. This led roughly to a doubling of our free cash flow within the quarter from EUR 91.5 million at the end of quarter 3 to EUR 185 million by the end of the year. Christoph will later on explain that in more detail. Now let's take a closer look at our performance across regions. In all regions, we faced challenging market developments and lower demand in 2024. The revenues in our regions, Europe and Americas, were on the level of 2022. Revenues in the European region, EMEA, which makes up 78% of group revenues, fell by 14% to about EUR 1.732 billion. The decline was particularly due to a lower demand in our key markets. For example, countries like Germany, France and the United Kingdom faced decreasing customer demand. Although the markets in Eastern and Northern Europe showed mostly negative developments, some European markets recorded revenue increases such as the Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. Moving to the Americas region, which accounts for 20% of group revenues. We saw a decline of 19%, resulting in revenues of around EUR 451 million. End customer demand declined in the U.S. and Canada, along with excessive dealer stock was evident among our contracted and independent dealers as well as the key accounts. Additionally, the Latin American market remained challenging as well. In the Asia Pacific region, which represents 2% of our business, revenue dropped by 31% to approximately EUR 53 million. This decline in revenue was mostly driven by a significant drop in demand in Australia and in China. Other countries with growing demand in the region could not reverse this negative trend. Regarding our product segments, both Light and Compact equipment have experienced similar year-on-year declines. However, dumpers deviated from the overall trend throughout the year and saw increased customer interest and growth. While new machine sales have been challenging, our service business remained strong throughout the accounting for 23% of total revenue, our Service business, including rental, spare parts, maintenance and repair services grew by 4% year-on-year. This continues to serve as a stable foundation for our business, and we anticipate further positive development. In summary, while we were challenged with the complex market environment and weak demand worldwide, we are experiencing first positive signs for machine sales since the beginning of the year with increasing order intake. I will come back to this with the outlook for 2025 at the end of our presentation. I now hand over to you, Christoph, to give some more insights into our financials.

Thank you, Karl. Now let me give you some flavor around our current net working capital management. First of all, we dare to say that we were successful in our continuous efforts to get net working capital levels down. In November, during our last call, the 9 months earnings call, we were still cautiously indicating a ratio of approximately 34%, which we were 31.7%, underscored quite a bit at year-end. And just to illustrate this development with absolute numbers, in the second half of 2024, we were able to reduce net working capital by roughly EUR 200 million, EUR 197 million to be precise, down to a level of; EUR 709 million. Now you might say, and this is partly a fair argument, well, in times of economic slowdown, reducing inventories shouldn't be an issue. However, it's not that trivial. There are a couple of factors to be considered. Firstly, you need to take the right assumptions when cutting down on production volumes. Secondly, you need to have transparency around dealer stock in order to manage the quantity and quality of finished goods inventories properly. Thirdly, when managing your raw materials and parts inventories, you want to strike the right balance between minimizing your stock of short and long lease items keeping maximum flexibility for adjusting to changing economic climate and remaining a reliable partner for your suppliers. And eventually, it's all about maintaining our capability to serve short-term customer demand with the right machines delivered on time. In this context, throughout 2024 our teams greatly enhanced their analytical and operational capabilities to dynamically manage our working capital. We have implemented many improvements over the previous months across the entire value chain. From smarter supplier management, more efficient inventory handling at our production site and flexible production planning, to more intelligent logistics, more dynamic finished goods management at our sales affiliates and eventually increase and share transparency around our dealers' inventory development. Therefore, I'm very confident that all our efforts and learnings in 2024 have not just contributed to and materialized in successful reductions of net working capital, but they also will have a lasting positive effect for our entire organization going forward. Now everything I've just mentioned consequently also triggered positive momentum for our free cash flow generation. At our Q3 call, our 9-months call, I indicated that further positive free cash flow generation in Q4, but again, I was on the cautious side. The generation of EUR 93 million of free cash flow in Q4 only exceeded my expectations and led to very satisfying EUR 185 million free cash flow at year-end. And last, but not least, as a result of all that, we are again looking at moderate net debt level of EUR 311 million, a very decent leverage ratio of 1.1 and eventually a continuously strong balance sheet with 60% equity ratio. Wacker Neuson group is known for its continuity in delivering attractive shareholder dividends. It's one of the main pillars of our financial policy. Despite the challenges of the past financial year, our focus remains clear to successfully manage our business in a year of consolidation through several cost-down initiatives and simultaneously prepare ourselves for the next growth phase. Against this background, we want our shareholders to participate in our results again. Therefore, we will propose a dividend of EUR 0.60 per share for the past financial year at the General Annual Meeting, which will be held on May 23 here in Munich. This corresponds to a payout ratio of around 58% of our earnings per share and marks again an attractive dividend yield of 4.1% based on the 2024 year-end share price. And with this back to you, Karl.

Thank you, Christoph. Before diving into the outlook for 2025, I would like to give you an update on the implementation of our Strategy 2030. As a quick reminder, this slide outlines the main pillars and the 10 strategic levers that drive our strategy 2030. Let me highlight 1 important point. Despite the challenging 2024, which ended with lower revenue and EBIT compared to the previous year, our commitment to the Strategy 2030 remains unwavering. Our priority is to achieve the profitability target, which is why we are focusing on streamlining the organization and optimizing operations. The Fit for 2025 program is more than just a response to a weak fiscal year 2024, it's a strategic move to create a solid foundation for long-term sustainable improvements. On this slide, you see the achievements of past years and latest milestones of 2024. We delivered on all 10 strategic levers and are now focused on the planned actions, which we want to achieve in 2025. In the following, we selected a couple of operational highlights, which are targeted for this year 2025. On the one side, we are proud to announce that we have successfully started the delivery of first excavators for John Deere from Linz. At the same time, we are setting up our production line at our U.S. plant for further models. As part of our ESG strategy, we have set ourselves a 50% reduction target for our own CO2 emissions. With an achieved reduction of approximately 66% compared to the baseline 2019, we have already achieved this target for our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. In 2025 and the following years, we will work on new reduction targets, including Scope 3 emissions. The first thing I want to highlight is the Bauma trade fair. Preparations for the world's largest construction machinery trade fair, so-called Bauma, are in full swing. We are excited to showcase there our latest innovations, including brand-new reloaders and cutting-edge emission-free machines. Our customers will experience the future of construction technology with our solutions, which are designed for efficiency, sustainability and maximum customer performance. And finally, on the digital side, we are rolling out the brand new Wacker Neuson app. This app provides quick access to operating manuals spare parts catalogs, training videos and operating data anytime and anywhere. Its intuitive design makes it easy for users to find all the information they need about their machines. The app provides direct and fast access machine-specific data and instant answers to important questions. This makes machine management in maintenance, easier and more efficient than ever. Great service for our customers that will make their day-to-day use of our machines even more convenient. Let's now come back to the hard facts. Ladies and gentlemen, as we approach the end of our presentation, I would like to conclude with the outlook for 2025 and comment on some of the key topics, which are currently dominating the headlines. Starting with the outlook. The first quarter will still reflect the challenges of 2024, but we have a clear plan, a highly committed team and the strong support of our investors. From the second quarter onwards, we expect steady revenue and profitability improvements. The actions are all in place. We already see a gradual recovery of the order intake and anticipate normalization of dealer stocks. And we expect the Bauma Trade Show in April to provide additional stimulus for the business. At the same time, we will continue to reap the benefits of our Fit for 2025 Program launched last year. With stronger structures and increased efficiency, we are focused on profitability, the key pillar of our strategy 2030. So this is our guidance for 2025. We anticipate a constant revenue between EUR 2.1 billion and EUR 2.3 billion and an EBIT margin in the range of 6.5% to 7.5%. Our goal is to reduce our net working capital ratio to around 30% by the end of 2025. We also aim to invest around EUR 100 million. Now finally, let me comment on 3 key topics, which are dominating currently in the headlines. Let me start with the Ukraine and the potential impact of a ceasefire or the end of the war followed by a phase of rebuilding Ukraine. Ceasefire and potential peace negotiations, in general, could lead to an increased demand for construction as well as agricultural machines in Ukraine, but only if a sustainable piece could be achieved. However, as of today, both time line and financing conditions for any potential reconstruction efforts are absolutely uncertain. Therefore, this is a very speculative topic of discussion and in our opinion, positive earnings contributions in 2025 for us from such a scenario remain unlikely at the moment. The topic in the middle about U.S. tariffs. We take a critical stance on protectionism and tariffs because a fragmented global economy does not improve the living conditions of people. Wacker Neuson Group has an international production footprint with operations in Europe, the United States and China, which by definition, limits our tariff risk exposure. And finally, on the left side, we see a major opportunity for us, the Wacker Neuson Group, Germany's new infrastructure initiative. Just a few days ago, Germany's prospective coalition government unveiled a EUR 500 billion special fund for infrastructure and climate projects alongside a major defense package. The outgoing Parliament and Federal Council have already approved the necessary constitutional changes, paving the way for historic levels of investments. While the specifics, how much, where and when, are still to be determined by the new government, one thing is clear, this represents a major opportunity for Wacker Neuson Group. And it's worth noting that this significant growth potential is not yet factored into our 2025 guidance. First, we are very closely monitoring developments and proactively preparing to respond quickly to a rising demand. So let me summarize the key takeaways of our today's presentations. The improved cost position due to our Fit for 2025 Program will support our profitability in 2025. After a weak first quarter, we expect a steady market recovery in all regions. We are fully committed to our Strategy 2030. The weak year 2024 has not changed our expectations and targets, and we are fully on track with our actions planned for 2025. The opportunities of the German special funds will provide additional tailwinds. Finally, our strong balance sheet will support future growth. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you again for your confidence in our company and for listening to today's earnings call. We are looking forward to a thrilling year 2025. We're also very much looking forward to the Bauma fair, which will happen in April here in Munich, and we are looking forward to meeting you there. As a reminder, we will have our Investor's Day on the 8th of April at the Bauma. If you're interested to meet us, please reach out to Peer and his team who are happy to send you additional information on that. Jump into the Q&A session, let me send a sincere thank you to all employees of the Wacker Neuson Group, relentlessly are giving their best for our customers, our company and our shareholders. [indiscernible] is perfect, but the team can be. Thank you for listening. Operator, we are now ready to start the Q&A session, and we're very much looking forward to answering your questions.

And the first question comes from Stefan Augustin, Warburg Research.

Yes. My first question goes actually a little bit on to the tariff side. Could you elaborate a little bit on your current direct shipments between Europe to the U.S.? And also here, if -- let's say, if you deliver to Deere and we are in the ramp-up phase, is this, at this point, a fixed price for the Deere products? So if you would happen to have an additional tariffs on, let's say, the whole excavator, would it be possible to pass things on? Or would that happen to be a penalty on your side? And maybe that question first, and then I would go to my second question.

Stefan, Karl speaking here. Thanks for the question. So just to give you a number, the actual flow of goods between the 3 regions, because you have to take all 3 into account, Europe, U.S. and China, is less than EUR 100 million for us. So that's the first factor, which is limiting our exposure there, as I said in my speech. And on the other hand, the machinery is only partially affected because if you take the current one, steel and aluminum, this is mainly the portion of steel and aluminum and not all components, partly out of steel and aluminum, but it's just this content basically of our machines. And we have risk management in place where now for a long period of time, we are working on that, and we are preparing for that. As far as your question to what the John Deere contract is concerned? I mean, you have to understand I cannot disclose any contractual agreements, which we have there. But it's a joint effort, and it's in our own interest to balance that and shifting, so to say, the burden from the one side to the other wouldn't solve the problem. And it's important to know that we have split the machines in 2 packages where the smaller volume machines are delivered from Linz and the majority of the volume is going to be manufactured in Menomonee Falls. And that's why I said we are setting up the current manufacturing line at the moment.

Okay. The next one is you talked about an improvement in the order intake over the last current month. I assume if you indicate Q2 to be above Q1 in the sales that we have reached a very -- a positive book-to-bill ratio right now. Could you, let's say, indicate a little size? Is that 1.1 or 1.2-or-so what we currently see? And an add-on here. So I assume that you already plan for your production volumes in the second quarter. And this is likely to increase versus Q1, is that correct?

Stefan, let me start from the beginning. We see, as I said, since the beginning of the year, we see book-to-bill ratios of larger than 1. And just for 1 month, for instance, in February, it was 1.3. Now we have to be careful because revenue is lower. As you know, we speak about weak quarter 4 and quarter 1. So talking about book-to-bill ratios, you always have to have in mind that we refer that to lower volume than the years before, but we are above 1. So that means clearly growth. And yes, we are confident in the growth in the second quarter, and we are preparing for the ramp-up at supply chain and in our locations.

Okay. So I take from that, that you're more or less finished with your dealer inventory destocking?

I wouldn't say it's finished. We just see that it is slowing down, and it is giving positive effect on the -- on our order intake, but it's still -- I would say it's still not on normal level. We need more time to come back on normal stock levels. And Chris...

Stefan, it's a dynamic development. I mean we do expect, as mentioned, the recovery starting Q2 onwards, meaning that Q1 will still be rather weak. And that's also an indication that we are not across all regions and all dealers there. We have been monitoring, let's say, the curve, the inventory reduction curve coming down, and we have a few dealers where it's always meeting, let's say, the normalized levels where you then would expect demand kicking in, but it's a dynamic development. And it is still partially a projection what we're doing, just to be fair, but it's a confident projection.

Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.

The next question comes from [indiscernible] Capital.

Yes. My first question is, again, related to Q1. You mentioned that you expect a weak Q1. But I was just wondering, is this both related to revenue and also the margin? So will the positive effects from your Fit for Future program will be just visible from Q2 onwards? Or will be also seen already in Q1 a better margin versus last year?

Yes. Christoph here, [ Lucas ]. To be fair, Q1, you won't see a positive upturn due to those savings. I mean there are now 2 ways to look at it. You could see without those savings would come even worse, that's the negative view. I would rather say the overriding impact in Q1 is still the decreased volume and it's simply below average, and that's why Q1 is going to be not super.

And I would like to add a small point there. We mentioned that we had higher restructuring costs in Q4 and we will also see restructuring costs in Q1. And if you talk about personnel head count reduction, it's -- at the point of decision in communication, we have to book the restructuring costs and then it needs 3 months, roughly at least, until we have talked to the individuals that we come up to an agreement. If you do a voluntary program, what we did -- what we did or do. So this is explaining why there is a time lag between the restructuring costs and when do they kick into the profitability. And as Christoph said, this is the way how it happened in Q4 and Q1.

Okay. So can you quantify these effects for Q1 and the full year restructuring?

Well, I would -- what I can tell you is -- and maybe this is even the better number. We do expect for 2025 a contribution of approximately 1 percentage point of EBIT margin out of our cost reduction programs. And that's, of course, partially explaining why we are looking at an increased profitability guidance at the same level of revenues.

But this is already within the negative restructuring costs, so if we would exclude this, it would be even higher, right?

That's correct.

Okay. And then on the German infrastructure program. So as you are not the construction or the building company, it will -- there will be some delay when the order intake and the orders will come to you. So also the projects from the government, but to the construction companies will take some time. So what is your expectation in terms of time frame when this infrastructure program will be visible in your order intake? And then also related to this topic going forward, not just for 2025, but for the next few years, what is the possible boost for your business you would assume or you could imagine?

Okay. Let me try a little bit to cut the elephant here, like the elephant. I think your description is absolutely right. In terms of timing when we will basically appear in the food chain because we first need, of course, planning and then we need basically our customers to get the orders and then we will get the orders. So this is perfectly right. That's also why we do distinguish between, let's say, the aspect of a -- in general, a better business climate in 2025, plus the very specific upside out of concrete infrastructure projects. So with respect to the effect of a brighter business climate, we believe this will start with Bauma and then it will continue. And hopefully, that will already provide us with a boost because there, of course, the previous months were very much also tainted by kind of a very reluctant view on the market. As far as the specific impact is concerned, we believe you will see rather towards 2026. We would agree here. With respect to the midterm impact, that's a tough call, to be honest. I think we are still missing the facts going beyond the statement of, yes, we do -- sorry, Karl.

Where and how, in which direction this is really.

It will stimulate. It will help, but please understand that we are today a little bit cautious in putting a number out here.

Yes, that's fair. So we need to take some time and get some more clarity.

Yes.

And the next question comes from Alexander Galitsa, HAIB.

I guess, first one, just to avoid misunderstanding on the restructuring expenses. Could you provide the sort of clean EBIT number for 2024? I think in the first 9 months, you had some EUR 5 million of one-offs negative, then there were some in Q4. Can you just quantify how much was it for the full year? And then related to that, also you mentioned one-offs in Q1, how much could we expect roughly and whether those one-offs are part of your guidance from the margin for the full year 2025. That's the first one.

Thanks, Alex. This is Christoph. For the full year, you can calculate around EUR 8 million altogether and for Q1 additional EUR 3 million. And this has been factored in our numbers.

Perfect. Then maybe staying with the guidance, what I did notice is that when you compare the low and high end of the guidance on sales and EBIT, this basically works out to less than 20% incremental margin, which is a bit -- quite a bit lower than gross profit margin you have and also I think hardly ever you've had such low incremental profitability embedded in your forecast. So, I guess, I'm just wondering what explains your cautiousness in the event that the top line pans out better and you do reach sort of the upper end of the guidance?

Well, it has a lot to do with the dynamics of this year and the distribution over the quarters. I think you need to put yourself in our shoes going through the quarter 4 as we have seen it followed by rather weak Q1. And then, I guess, having all good reasons to guide quite an upturn, yes. But if you make the math and you take a weak Q1, we really need to get back to the previous levels that you have been hinting at. And therefore, I think the calculation again makes sense because you need to look at the blended year with a very sluggish start, and that's the main reason behind it. We didn't -- we really didn't want to overstretch it by, let's say, constructing a guidance, which would immediately see kind of 3 quarters in a row with very, very substantial double-digit EBIT margin. So we thought we are well advised to start like that.

Perfectly clear. Then also a couple of questions related to maybe Q1. I mean it's no secrete, you already, on a number of occasions, mentioned that it's going to be a slow start. Could you maybe somehow quantify, qualify, so nobody has caught off guard how weak Q1 could be? Are we looking into a sequential decline versus Q4? Or what kind of top line range potentially we would be looking at?

Now we are coming down to a very, very specific Q1 guidance here.

I'm not asking for a guidance, it's just, if you're able to qualify...

I fully understand that. And I think it's also more than a fair question. Let me put it like that. If we repeat the Q4 numbers, then we are certainly very happy.

Understand that. That's clear. And the 2 last ones I have is regarding the R&D expenses. You mentioned that they were running higher 2024. Could you give any sense of what are you thinking in terms of R&D expenses for 2025?

This is -- well, we shouldn't operate this impact. It was a pure timing effect. I think, in a normal quarter, so to say, we wouldn't even have mentioned it because it would have been insignificant. It's just because Q4 was low. We saw a timing effect of a low-single-million number flipping into 2025, but now we are back to normalized capitalization levels for R&D. So this is -- I think you can disregard [ what we said ] 2025.

Okay. And the very last one regarding John Deere. The U.S. manufacturing, could you give a rough sense idea as to when this could be operational? And then also, if you could update us on the expected first deliveries for this cooperation time line-wise? And whether those would be first coming from Linz plant?

Yes, Karl answering the question. It's basically, I would say, roughly, you can think about every year 1 model. We have 4 models. The lower volume started right now. So the first one starts this year for Linz. The other one will follow end of this year, beginning of next year. And then 12 months later, the -- so we talk about end of '26, beginning of '27. Then, the first U.S. model, which is a much higher volume and then 1 year later, the other one, the fourth one, again, with the same volume as the third model will again start in U.S. So we have roughly something like 70%-30%, 80%-20% distribution of U.S. manufactured and Linz manufactured.

As there are no further questions from the audience, I'd like to hand back over to Mr. Schlinkmann.

Ladies and gentlemen, as we can see, there are no further questions in line, this brings us to the end of our earnings call. As usual, if you have any further questions, please do not 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 days in the coming months. Thank you again for joining our call, and we wish you all of you pleasant Easter holidays. Have a great day.

Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you. Bye-bye.