Interroll Holding Stock

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Interroll's Presentation of Half Year Results 2026 Conference Call and Live Webcast.

I am Shari, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Markus Asch, CEO. Please go ahead.

Yes. Very good morning, ladies and gentlemen, to our Interroll's Presentation of the Half Year Results 2026. It's a pleasure and honor for Stephan Scharer, CFO; and myself, to present to you our half year results.

Maybe let's quickly do an overview of our customer base. And for some of you who have been in the call oftentimes have seen this, we have updated the numbers. Today, we can report to have about 19,000 to 20,000 customers. We don't know the details yet because through the acquisition, we might have some double customers, but it's above 19,000, and we have added a few companies as well as 3 more factories to the footprint. All in all, what is a solid base for us is a wide customer base and an international footprint that is relevant in fast serving our customers.

Before we go into the figures, I would like to go with you through some of the highlights that we are doing. First of all, let's look at the market. The market is stable, and we see even some clear signs of recoveries. It is very clear that the market has its ups and downs like we have seen and we have shared with you in March, for example, EMEA, especially Middle East and Africa with some downturn. We also have seen that bigger projects in Europe are rather more hesitant to be awarded. But at the same time, we see a stable development.

Asia Pacific, we have seen an excellent development, both on order intake as well as sales. In North America, we are passing our way in building the necessary structure for a very sustainable also order intake as well as sales development. And FX, again, we have a substantial effect to be shared with you and to be reported to you as the Swiss franc again has risen against the major currencies.

On the execution focus, what is for us very important to share with you what is the main message for us. First of all, strengthen our product offering, product and solution offerings in terms of range and in terms of competitiveness. Second, get closer to our customers in terms of sales and service, but also application knowledge. And thirdly, provide the structure that is necessary in order to sustain growth in products as well as service.

Then when you look on the third-hand side, while we improve the quality, the competitiveness of our products, we also extend the product and solutions in order to serve our customers best. And basically, step by step, we extend our ecosystem that we can provide our customers and serve our customers so they can provide optimal solutions to their markets. So all in all, we can say the business momentum has continued to improve. We are executing our strategy and are delivering the first results in this direction.

Quickly, the organization update. Last time when we reported to you the full-year 2025, we also -- it was the outgoing CFO at that time, Heinz Hössli. In the meantime, Stephan Scharer is on Board. The team is almost completed. We have one more position to fill, that is the COO, which I am at presently acting as Interim.

So before we go more into the details of the figure, I would quickly ask Stephan Scharer to introduce himself to you that you know who is behind this name.

Well, thank you very much, and good morning, everyone. Pleasure to be here with you.

As a short overview of my past 20 years in the finance leadership areas, very quick, I've held international finance leadership roles across different industries, robotics, industrial automation, process industries. I've led in that time growth initiatives, business transformations, restructuring programs, acquisitions as well as post-merger integrations. And most importantly, always contributing to sustainable value creation across global organizations.

I think one of my highlights of my career I would like to point out here is my time in China, where I've spent close to 10 years, and I was part of the leadership team there in China that drove significant market share gains and profitable growth in what you can call a highly competitive automation market. Beyond the financial results, I think the experience there provided valuable insights to me into how to scale businesses, navigating rapid change and executing strategy in one of the world's, I think, we would say, most dynamic industrial environments.

Across all these experiences, my focus has always remained the same, connecting strategy operations and financial discipline to create sustainable long-term value for the customer, for the employees and even more importantly, for the shareholders. I look forward to engaging with you in the future. And thanks a lot for your attention this morning.

And with that, I turn back over to Markus Asch for the next section.

Thank you, Mr. Scharer.

So, let's go on and let's have a brief look at the major performance highlights that we want to present to you. First of all, order intake. And the order intake has increased by 3.9%, in local currency by 8.5%. And that's very important to look a little bit more into detail what is behind. So, we have seen in Europe, as indicated by you or to you in March that there are 2 effects relevant. First of all, the EMEA part, the Middle East and Africa part, we see a delay in orders, not a cancellation, but the delay in orders towards maybe the second half, we don't know the details yet.

On the bigger project side, we see there is a hesitance to move or to award bigger projects. They are also not being canceled, but there is some hesitance. That does not apply for the medium and smaller-sized projects where we see good activity. So in EMEA, we actually managed to overcome some of the weakness on the bigger projects and the Middle East, Africa part and have a very good development. We'll show that to you later on.

In Asia Pacific, the order intake is excellent. It's even better than the sales that we showed to you. Americas is today still behind, but that's exactly according to plan. Why? Because we are, since the end of last year, beginning of this year, rebuilding the organization or building the organization to be much lesser dependent on big single projects, but we have a much wider base of order intake and sales. And this is coming along according to plan. We are expecting to see the first results in the second half, maybe end of Q3 or beginning of Q4. That's the order intake.

And then when you look at sales, sales basically have transitioned or the order intake have transitioned into sales, and that was some of the indication that we have given you in March already that we would expect some of the order intake that happened in the second half last year would transition now into the sales, and that has developed with 9% increase in local currency, 14.1%. And that goes through all regions, almost all relevant countries. So there, we see a very stable and a very solid development.

On the EBIT side, there is a slight decline. It has mainly -- and Stephan Scharer will talk more detail about that. It has mainly 4 reasons. One is a more abnormal product mix that we have seen and you see it on the sales side, on the product side. And the second one is that we have shared with you already a year ago that we will substantially increase our investments into innovation and into market development. And third one is the one-term costs for the acquisition, especially of Apollo, but not only Apollo, we had 2 acquisitions in the first half in there. And then the third one is amortization, especially of the acquisition. They had some impact and maybe a smaller effect.

We had some ramp-up preparation costs of an acquisition of last year where the products have been industrialized and they have been prepared. And since beginning of Q3, we are shipping them to customers. Very highlight is the operational cash flow that not only comes from working capital, but mainly driven by working capital. If we look a little bit more into detail on the product side, how is the order intake being structured. And I would like to highlight maybe a couple of points.

First of all, Rollers is very stable. There was an effect of a couple of single customers, not relevant. Drives, very substantial. And that's very good because it's day-to-day business, and it shows our increase of market range and some competitiveness to make that happen. Conveyors & Sorters looks a little bit more difficult as it is because it's mainly driven from last year, a few bigger projects that were not repeated in the first half, but they are already on the fly in Q3. So, this is a rather stable development.

Pallet Handling maybe should give us an indication. Later on, you will not see it yet in sales, but we see it in order intake. There is a positive development after a couple of years of decline. It's not yet 100% sustainable, but at least it should give us an indication that we are moving step by step into the right direction.

If you look at sales and sales, basically what you see in Rollers and Drives on order intake in a few weeks later, you usually also see in the invoice sales. That's why both of them are positive. Conveyors & Sorters, there's quite a difference to the order intake you just saw before, and that's mainly driven by the orders of the second half of last year, but also some shorter smaller midsized projects that usually turn faster from order intake to sales, giving you an indication also driven by Europe that smaller projects, we can turn faster into sales.

Pallet Handling, as indicated to you before, is mainly driven by a time delay between order intake and sales. So, that should be turning into a more positive approach in the second half as well. All in all, 9% growth or in local currency, 14.1%, which should give us an indication that now after a couple of years of decline, the shift is turning into the right direction and gaining a step-by-step momentum into the right direction.

If we look at the sales by region, as I indicated to you before, that's basically the summary. Europe, pretty strong and completely compensating some of the weakness in Middle East and Africa. So, Europe is very strong. Asia Pacific, excellent with the development, as you can see, of about 30% and in Americas, it's not yet a huge and that will be driven by the organization. The more and more the organization is in place, we will see there some momentum. Also, what you should know, the currency effect in America is the biggest of about 7%. So in local currency, we also see there a reasonably good development.

EBIT, I will now hand over to Stephan Scharer, who will take you through the next slide before I will then go on again with the strategy.

Well, thank you.

So to the EBIT. The EBIT reported at CHF 27 million, corresponding to an EBIT margin of 10% and a change of minus 2.2% to previous year. This despite a challenging environment, continued investment activities and the underlying operational performance of the business remains solid. As communicated previously, profitability was impacted by targeted investments in research and development, innovation and the strengthening of our regional and key account sales organization, as Markus Asch just pointed out. These investments are an important part of our strategy and are designed to support sustainable growth and further strengthen our market position.

Additionally, we would like to highlight here that the year-on-year comparison was affected by approximately CHF 3 million acquisition-related costs as well as higher amortization, including resulting from the preliminary purchase price allocation associated with the Royal Apollo acquisition. These effects are not reflective of the underlying operational development of the business. It's important to note that the purchase price allocation remains provisional at this point and may be subject to adjustments as the valuation process is being finalized in the second half year. As you know, we integrated or we acquired Apollo 2 months ago, so we have only the first 2 months included here.

Looking beyond these effects, we are encouraged by the improvement in customer demand, the growth in sales, order intake and believe that the strong operating cash flow generated -- achieved during the first half of the year. Also noted here, as I mentioned, the acquisition cost and the amortization, the depreciation itself remained unchanged.

We go into the net results. Net profit reached CHF 19.8 million compared with CHF 21.2 million in the prior year. This is a change of minus 6.6%. Return on sales is 7.3%. The decline was primarily driven by higher tax expenses, partly only offset by more favorable financial results, including positive foreign exchange valuation effects that we have here. The increase in the effective tax rate reflects a different profit mix across jurisdictions as well as a non-recurring tax effect related to the property rights transaction.

We transferred IP rights into our Swiss holding and have related tax costs to that. This is a one-off impact that will not be repeated in the second half, of course. Excluding these items, the underlying tax rate development was more moderate. And we continue to expect the tax rate to normalize over time to the level that we had or historical levels we had before. Maybe I would like to highlight one more thing to the net result. The overall transactional currency exposure remains moderate as Interroll decentralized operating structure actually supports the natural hedge setup.

We come to the balance sheet. And here, I just would like to highlight the strength of Interroll. Looking at the balance sheet in more detail, you see here total assets increased to CHF 686 million (sic) [ CHF 668 million ], up CHF 67 million compared to the beginning of the year. And this, of course, is mainly related to -- driven by the acquisitions we've done, plus, of course, the continued investments and the positive net profit generation we have.

At the same time, you will see the shareholders' equity remains strong with CHF 501 million and an equity ratio of 75%. So while we have expanded the asset base to support future growth, you see that Interroll continues to remain and maintain a very solid capital structure. Another important indicator of our financial strength, of course, is our net cash position. You see it here at the end of June.

We reported CHF 172 million compared with the CHF 186 million in the beginning of the year. I think the decrease is, of course, reflects the strategic use of cash for acquisitions. Acquisitions include Apollo and Interroll AS Norway and the investments, of course, we do. And I think even though all these activities, you can see that we still have a very strong flexibility and a strong cash position there.

If we go to the cash flow, you see here, on one side, the operational cash flow -- operating cash flow with CHF 39.4 million. Of course, here, we do have the result and a positive development in the net working capital. So here, we have really strong support, and we see cash flow ending at 14.6% of sales. The difference to the free cash flow, of course, reflects our investments. The free cash flow is mainly impacted by the strategic investments we've done. The underlying operating cash flow performance is very strong. And yes, I think what we can really see is that on one side, we have investments. On the other side, we also have an increase in capital expenditure in the first half year in our structure, and this reflects the cash outflow we have in the first half year.

Finally, to our value creation slide. The returns have normalized over the exceptionally high levels we had, of course, during the post-pandemic period. For the first half of 2026, ROE stood at 8%, while return on net asset was at 10.3%, compared with a WACC level of 9% shown on the slide. What is important is to say that we were looking here at the half year results. This is usually distorted and I think will be more meaningful at the end of the year when we have the full effect of our acquisitions in, as well as the business profit from that.

The development reflects current market environment, higher capital employed following acquisitions, of course, as I said, and the impact of strategic investments made to strengthen the platform for future growth. I believe as market activity improves and acquisition synergies gradually materialize, it is our ambition to recover returns towards the historical levels we had over time. So for us, the key point to highlight here is that we remain focused on a disciplined capital allocation approach. We have strong cash conversion and a sustainable value creation throughout the cycle.

And with that, I hand back over to Markus Asch.

Thank you very much, Stephan Scharer, for leading us and going through the key performance indicators, the details, what caused what and what was caused by, what was the result.

I will then take you to our next chapter and say, what are the underlying business models behind strategy, key focus areas, why are we doing the things that we are doing, and they are producing the results that some of the effects you already have seen in the first half. First of all, I think what's very important, we are a product and solution supplier, not a system integrator. We do not manage complexity, and we do not integrate systems to end customers because we don't want to do it.

Our task is not to manage complexity. Our task is to reduce complexity by offering systems to our customers, end customers, but mainly system integrators that are like a legal principle that are modular, that are platform-based. And we have started that with the first product with Rollers and Drives. We are moving -- we have moved that pretty much to conveyors. We are now moving sorters, but also we are moving it to hardware and software, the same principle. So, everything that is a modular that is a scalable business and technology, that's what we provide to our customers.

So as we see more and more and both system integrators as well as end customers are telling us and are sharing that this complexity is one of the biggest challenges. Our task is to simplify that, to simplify basically material handling. And that's what we do through the modules that I just introduced to you. So if you look a little bit more into detail on the product side, we provide Rollers, Drives, pallet management, Conveyors & Sorters. We then enrich them towards solutions by combining some of those like Conveyors & Sorters, for example, but also by combining them with controls and software. And we have shown you here MCP PLAY that shows some of the indication what we are doing in modularizing and standardizing controls as well. And that has following effects, and I will later on share with you a little bit more in detail.

The effects on the system integrator, again, simplifying intralogistics is ease of integration and commissioning. So, those systems, typical commissioning times, at least on the projects that we have completed has been reduced by 50% to 70%, 80%. On the operations side for end users, usually the output goes up because we have systematically changed the approach more from 0 pressure accumulation to like the digital twin that is moving through the conveyor and adapting the conveyor accordingly to its requirements. So for both as system integrators as well as end users, we are driving value that is a sustainable value to the product and it's a value beyond just the product. It's a system innovation approach.

Let's quickly have a look at our market. And maybe some of the markets -- of the end markets that you see on the top of the slide, I would like to highlight a couple of them. We have seen some weaknesses on the airport side, especially in Middle East. At the beginning of this year, we will see an increased momentum in the second half also in some other regions, for example, in Americas. And airport, which is a vertical for us very relevant between 10% and 15% of our business, we see that solid.

And then we have an other area, we call it e-commerce. It's basically part of the CEP business, part of the supermarket, e-groceries and part of warehousing and distribution in the verticals. It's an overarching topic. There, we see good momentum. And we see a very stable development in food and beverage. It's never growing very fast, but it's also not declining very fast. So it's a very stable and a positive business. Especially with the Apollo acquisition, looks like we will have a better footprint into the manufacturing side and especially into the fast-mover consumer goods production where we traditionally are rather weak. So, maybe that's the bigger picture on the verticals.

If you look at the market in total -- and let me just summarize, you have seen on the right-hand side some of the overarching trends, but let me summarize it in my own words, what's relevant. First of all, it's a sizable market, sizable for us. So, we talk about CHF 8 billion to CHF 10 billion. Second, it's a market that is structurally growing. It has its ups and downs, as just shared with you, but it's structurally growing. It's a solid market. And certainly, what's also very important, it is a market that is open for innovation. So for good technical solutions that provide value to system integrators to end users, that market is open.

And then that leads us immediately to the question, why are we well positioned or why are we convinced we are well positioned? And that's what we show you a little bit at the bottom of this slide. We have a good portfolio, and we continuously work on improving that portfolio, both in terms of competitiveness; second, in terms of scope; and thirdly, in terms of adding additional capabilities that we didn't have today like the Sortteq acquisition last year, the Apollo acquisition this year. This is very important. Sometimes we are asked that maybe we have not been good enough in communicating that in the past. We are not a system integrator. Our business model is a scalable business model. It always drives modules, industrializes modules and scales modules, hardware control and in the future, even software, and we see the first results.

Our global footprint is unique. You almost or hardly find anybody with a similar footprint in the world. That infrastructure is built, is done, so we can serve our customers fast, local in the similar quality around the world. And maybe when we look at our different types of customers, for system integrators, we are a technology partner. We provide them with technical solutions through their applications they need it. But for the end user, we generate value that are beyond a product. So, basically higher throughput, easiness of service and lower maintenance costs, the typical areas that for us are relevant.

And what is very important for us? We are not dependent on 5 customers or 10. We have, as we shared with you, 19,000-plus customers that are very important for us because they are a solid base, and we further develop that customer base. And we usually share with you once a year how our customer base develops, which is very essential and very important for us.

Let's look at our key execution priorities. And I can combine those priorities very simply. First of all, market closeness. And last year, we have shared with you that we have invested in substantial structure in the Asia Pacific region and they actually are turning now step by step into reality. That's why you see some of the growth that is happening there. I mean, yet finished? No, but we're continuously working on that. And the same we are doing this year in Americas, both in North as well as Central and Latin America. And also, we are building there additional substance that is required to be able to generate momentum on order intake and sales, and we are there on our way as planned and we will see the results step by step coming in.

It's important in Asia, not only to continue to expand our resources, but I want to point out and maybe the right-hand thing, what you see is our Innovation Hub. We have the first projects running, and they will have a time to market of about 11 months. So, they will be launched in November this year to the market. There are products and solutions that fit that regional markets in China and Southeast Asia well and that provide us with the basis for additional growth and additional momentum in the future. So, what you see is innovation and market closeness that are our major drivers to developing our business further.

And give you a little bit detail on -- because you have seen in this -- for example, with MCP Play, what value we provide and it's different values to system integrators as for end user. Now, I'd just take you to the example and take you through the example how different the values are, but how relevant the values are. For a system integrator, installation or planning, installation and commissioning is a very part -- a very solid part of their value proposition to the market and of their costs. And our task is to simplify that business.

So basically, from mechanical layout to software configuration to commissioning, we simplify that approach. And as I shared with you, in the last, for example, 6 projects that we have done, we have, on average, reduced commissioning times of about 70% to 80%. On the end users on the other side, and they only see the result maybe of a faster installation. But for them, we provide additional value. And that value is usually a higher throughput on the same mechanical layout. And then that reaches then to different values in the future where we can monitor and measure uptime and can help them to improve their operations. Here, we see the first results coming in, and we further develop that capability to serve end-users as well.

Maybe some more details on the Apollo acquisition. Remember, last year, we have acquired Sortteq. That was mainly a product part where we had an open spot in our sortation between 3,500 and 8,000 parcels per hour. We have completed that Sortteq acquisition. We have industrialized the product. So, we are running in -- already in production and the first product is out of serial production, has been shipped to the market and will be shipped to the market in the next while.

On the Apollo side, there is more to that. First of all, we are also extending again the value proposition that today we didn't have, and that's vertical conveying -- spiral conveying. And that's very relevant into fast-moving consumer goods into some industrial applications, but also in the typical intralogistics applications. But secondly, Royal Apollo has, by their natural approach, a better access to markets where we are today not so strong. That's in an industrial environment and especially in the fast-moving consuming goods environment. So through Royal Apollo, and we take that leverage in the future, we can leverage that customer access.

At the same time, Apollo can leverage the customer access of ours into the typical intralogistics application, mainly e-commerce. And the third point of Apollo that is very relevant for us is their service share. They have traditionally a higher service share than we. And so in some of the regions, we can combine the capabilities and the possibilities to move forward and to combine our strengths and to increase our share of service that is relevant for customer proximity during the product life cycle, but also to increase our business there. So basically, on the example of Royal Apollo showing you 3 different areas: extension of our product line or product offering and better or different access to different customers and increasing our Global Lifetime Service share that is relevant for us in the future.

Now, let's look at the outlook. And we want to give you a differentiated and always a very balanced and realistic outlook. Again, we have -- as mentioned before, we have seen that the business momentum increases and we have managed to get additional momentum in an existing market. So step by step, we are increasing our efficiency and effectiveness in the market to generate momentum in the potential that is out there.

And what is very encouraging is to see that our strategic investments, especially in customer proximity, application knowledge, key account management are step by step generating traction, generating momentum and are leading to results. But it was very important that we continue to execute this very consistently, further, as mentioned in Asia, very consistently in Europe and especially in the Americas, where we have a lot of momentum to gain. And as indicated to you, we are in a sound and safe market in a sense that the market is strong and is open for innovations to develop in the future.

It's very clear as long as we focus and continue to develop our customer values, we see that this momentum that we have now generated will continue. We have been criticized by you, especially in March, that we are not giving a clear guidelines. We have never given. And so we will not give clear guidelines, but the guidelines we can give you is what you have seen on order intake, we will probably see a slight increase in the momentum of the second half and what you have seen in invoice sales. There is no reason why this should slow down in the second half. So, that's roughly a direction that we -- I want to give you.

And maybe if we move on to the last one, we have our Investor Relations web page with the half year report on. That's all the details that you can refer to. And then we are basically through and are open for questions.

[Operator Instructions]

The first question is from Walter Bamert, ZKB.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Okay. Could you give us some guidance what you mean when you say the conveyor, sorter business is on the fly? Is that regarding to order intake in the second half? And would that be early enough to lead also to higher revenues in the second half? Or is that more into the next year?

That's a differentiated answer. What we see on the conveyor -- what was partially missing was bigger projects. Some of them are now coming in when I mentioned on the fly, and they will step by step also even this year, turn into some of the sales. When you look at the sorter business, we also see them, some bigger projects coming in and they will probably not materialize. The majority will materialize next year.

Okay. When I look at the customer prepayments, they are up 70% year-over-year. Is that a meaningful figure that says something? Or do you just require more prepayments?

I think it's a reflection, a, of our contract situation. Of course, also the -- mainly actually, it's a question of product mix and the higher part of projects currently in execution. But nothing in particular that changes to the normal development.

There was no substantial change in strategy, Mr. Bamert.

Okay. And could you please confirm the figures for order and sales organic growth in local currency?

Yes. We have an FX effect in order intake of 4.6%. So the organic growth in local currency of order intake is 5.5%. And we have an FX effect of 5.1% in invoiced sales. So the organic growth in local currency is 3.5%.

The next question is from Tobias Fahrenholz, ODDO.

So, a follow-up on the outlook. You mentioned there for the second half that you expect order intake to show a slightly better momentum. Growth momentum should not slow down. Of course, you have a little bit more revenues from Apollo coming up in the second half. So is your indication also true when you exclude M&A? First one.

Yes.

Okay. And the second one -- and the second one on...

You don't have to be long if they can be...

Yes. And on e-commerce, I mean, you indicated a good momentum. Could you speak a little bit more here about this important end market and rough supply-demand ratio? So do you hear from various clients now they are fully back to a normal investment mode as we might have seen before the pandemic? Or are there just a few clients and most still have lots of overcapacities. Maybe you also have any statistics or figures for this?

It's very difficult to share the statistics as there are not typical statistics. But what you can do is when you talk to many customers, you get some feeling. And definitely, it would be not right to say that the majority of the customers are back to an investment mode. Yes, there might be some specific reasons why they will not go ahead with a huge one or not. But in total, customers are basically back to a normal investment mode and want and will invest. You see some differentiated approaches.

You see maybe the big babies also going into their last mile activities. So, there are smaller projects and more and higher volume projects. That means more projects, but smaller, which is very good for us because we are not a system integrator that is fighting for those very few big ones. And there's also some interesting technology approaches where we are anchoring ourselves step by step into the right solutions also into the last mile. So all in all, that was a long answer to a short question. The momentum or -- there is a stabilization in that business all across the globe, not only in Europe, not only in Asia, not only in America, and there is some technology advanced approaches where we are in the middle of the discussion with our customers and the end customers.

The next question is from Vitushan Vijayakumar, Baader Europe.

I have a question on the margin dynamic for the second half. So it's clear that obviously, you need a stronger performance, especially thanks to the pickup expected in Americas maybe. So how -- can you just elaborate on the margin driver ahead, please? So, I know it will be kind of volume driven. But is there any other underlying factors, maybe mix in terms of products or regions that may contribute for a more favorable outlook within margin mix, please?

What do you see -- we have -- first of all, we have no differentiation or a different development on the margins in the various product groups. So, what we have seen is a differentiated product mix in the first half that will more likely stabilize a little bit in a more balanced direction in the second half. But all in all, there is no substantial differentiation in our margins. You have seen a very, very special approach in the first half, which will more stabilize.

Okay. And on the cost side, what do you see in terms of inflationary pressure that is coming following the geopolitical conflict? Were you able to increase prices? Or is it in plan?

So, we have seen maybe on 2 areas, critical development. One is steel. And steel, actually not in Asia or China, slightly in Europe or partially in Europe and a lot in the Americas. And that has a relevance that we had to adapt the prices in the market, and we have done that already only partially where it's necessary.

And the second one is where we are very nervous or very sensitive, and that's the electronics side. We've seen there is some development mainly driven by automotive electric vehicle industry. That's where we -- the first priority is to make sure we can deliver. So, we're increasing our bookings or our orders just to make sure we can deliver, but we also see there are some strange development when it comes to pricing. So, 2 major drivers is steel and it's electronics. And what we need to do? We can transfer that to the market.

Okay. And just last question. This is purely modeling purpose. So, can you give us some dynamics and guidance that you may see for the whole year 2026 in terms of CapEx, tax rate and net working capital, please?

I can say CapEx. CapEx for us, we are increasing. Normally, we are in the CHF 20 million range. This year, we will be a little bit higher because we drive multiple productivity tasks in production, but we also have some ramp-up preparation for new products that will be launched in 2027. So, CapEx will be higher.

What was the second one?

Tax rate.

Tax rate, I think...

We assume to go back to historic levels because, as I said, we had one-time effects. We have absorbed those now in the first half. So, we don't see any change for the second half any longer.

And the third one was...

What was the working capital?

Working Capital.

I think we do have a very strong working capital in H1, but we stay committed to work on working capital to make sure. As Asch has pointed out, we might have to do some stocking on some selective commodities as they are critical that might have an impact on our inventory levels overall, but that is, I think, a limited impact that you will see there. Unless, of course, any geopolitical changes that we can't foresee, of course.

Unfortunately, we cannot predict the future.

The next question is from Constantin Hesse from Jefferies.

I want to talk a little bit about momentum order-wise and profitability. Now, I understand that you don't want to give guidance. I understand that the fundamentals, they have been in place for years, right, but we still haven't seen growth in quite a while. So, what I'm trying to -- what I'm trying to understand, right, is what is the new growth level of this industry, right?

Historically, Interroll has always told us 6% to 8%. You want to grow 50% ahead of the market, so 8% to 10%. Is that a growth figure that is still valid, you think? Because if I look at consensus, right, consensus today has orders growing over the next 2 years at 8.2% CAGR, right? Very similar for sales. About 8% CAGR over the next 2 years and about 12% CAGR on earnings. So, what I want to understand is, first, is this number still correct from an industry perspective?

And second, how comfortable are you with these consensus estimates?

So, there are 2 messages. First of all, when you look at the industry, the industry was affected by ridiculous investments in '21-'22 that then basically eased off in the next few years. So the typical stable development you did not see. So, there was an up and down that basically confused a little bit the market and also confused us. So, this is a more stable one. Now, there are tons of market researchers that you can evaluate. Is it realistic that the market grows with 6%, maybe 4% to 6%? Probably yes. You will always see ups and downs in different regions, but that the market solidly develops, we are convinced.

And now our task is to outgrow the market with good technological approaches. That's what we're exactly preparing the foundations for with adding products, adding competitiveness and adding market access. So is our task towards the future correct and are we having there substantial concerns? No. That is the direction we will go and we will have to go. And we are just preparing the grounds. And you have seen now some of the momentum restarting from the success of the past with different capabilities and different approaches to the market.

I completely understand that Interroll is obviously doing a lot from a strategy perspective. But I'm trying to really understand from a growth perspective, right, Markus, you just said 4% to 6% now. We're talking about a consensus outlook of about 8%. So if I'm...

No, no, no. We talked about the market.

Yes. Absolutely, the market. 4% to 6% of the market. But I want to understand, right, from an investor perspective, if I look at these numbers and I think, okay, we're looking at about 8% growth in terms of order intake for the coming years, is that a number that you feel comfortable with? Or do you think that is still too high?

I mean, it's -- at this point of time, it's difficult to say. Let's put it the other way around. We do not feel very uncomfortable with it.

Okay. Perfect. And then for 2026, I just want to understand, so just for clarification, you said you expect momentum to improve in the second half. Can I just understand on top of what base that is? Because last year, order intake in the second half was about CHF 260 million. So, a bit of an improvement over the 4% reported growth rate of orders in the first half would imply a sequential decline in order intake. So, I just want to make sure that I'm understanding this right. Does that make sense from a dynamic perspective?

So, we just want to give you a guidance on the direction as our order intake was driven by some of the bigger projects not coming in and some of the regional challenges that we shared with you, that should ease in the second half. So, we do not expect an order decline compared to the previous year in the second half.

Not compared to the previous year?

The momentum compared to the relative growth momentum from the first half will rather increase. That was the message.

Fine. So sequentially, we still do expect a decline though. On the margin very quickly because consensus is expecting a very big jump in profitability in the second half. I think for the full year, EBIT is currently being modeled at about CHF 80 million, which would imply about -- almost a 17.5%, 18% margin for the second half, which is clearly quite high up there. So if we think about -- clearly, this level feels a little bit high.

If I think about the margin development in the first half, you already mentioned there were some specific impacts, specific one-offs that impacted the margin in the first half, which we won't see in the second half. But with the acceleration in sales, what kind of a drop-through would you expect to see in the second half? So if I look at the margin of last year, 16.6% in the second half, is that a level that you feel comfortable with for the second half of this year? Or do you think it will be a little bit lower because of less volume?

We usually do not give clear guidelines on EBIT, and it's also too early to see all the details. It is clear that we will have to get our first consolidated acquisition approaches that has some effect, especially on amortization. And all in all, our additional investments that we are doing in sales and technology that we have shared with you will cost some of it. So the consensus is probably rather on the high side.

Understood. And then just the last question, just on capital allocation. I mean, CHF 172 million in net cash. Question is, I mean, the shares have been performing quite poorly for a while now. Just wondering if there could be an interest in maybe starting a share buyback or anything of the likes, given the performance of the shares?

We have been there very clear to you also in March and also before, we right now look at opportunity to grow our competitiveness in the market. And there are still others that we evaluate, that we look at it. And if we do not have the capability to use the money wisely, then this is the last resource that we look at. But it's not an immediate approach.

The next question is from Sebastian Vogel, UBS.

I will ask my questions one by one. The first one is just a quick clarification on the organic order growth and organic sales growth. So excluding FX and excluding M&A, was it on the order side around like 1% and on the top line, around like 5% in H1?

So to be clear, so the -- in Swiss francs, the order intake growth organically was 0.9%. And on the sales side, it was 5.4%. In local currency, the growth in order intake organically was 5.5% and in sales also, again, in local currency, it was 10.5%.

Got it. And my second question is regarding also on the profitability side, just to have a sort of a clear-cut picture of your H1 margins. So, you had like, if I understood it correctly, this CHF 3 million related to PPA and to M&A costs. And these are sort of costs that were only taking place in H1, and there will be nothing taking place like that one in H2, right?

No.

That's not correct, entirely correct. So, CHF 1 million above -- a little bit above CHF 1 million is the transaction costs we have for the acquisition. The CHF 2 million relates to amortization related to the purchase price allocation. There will be an impact, of course, from that amortization that feeds through to the entire year. We assume that additional cost is somewhere between CHF 3 million and CHF 4 million for the second half year.

So the last number was a little bit unclear. Can you repeat the last number?

CHF 3 million to CHF 4 million.

CHF 3 million to CHF 4 million. So the PPA...

That's the increase in the amortization coming from the acquisitions.

Got it. And one last one. The M&A will be allocated mainly to conveyors from a segment perspective? Or is it -- any sort of split or something in that regard?

Today, it's basically the Apollo M&A is in conveyors. The other M&A is in all product groups.

The next question is from Remo Rosenau, Helvetische Bank.

Yes. I'm getting a bit confused now with these different organic order growth numbers. I'm sorry for that. But for me, by definition, organic growth means in local currencies, ex-acquisitions, like-for-like?

Yes.

So is the like-for-like organic order growth now 0.9% in the first half?

We have been confusing you there. We also learned this morning the like-for-like organic growth in local currency is order intake 5.5% and invoice sales 10.5%. This is the right figure. Organic order -- organic growth in local currency.

Okay. Which is like-for-like. I mean, for me, organic means like-for-like.

Absolutely. Correct. Absolutely.

Okay. Because that is, of course, then a better number. And listening to you, it seems that you expect this momentum to rather increase in the second half, this like-for-like number. However, in the previous year, we had an extremely strong second half with, I think, 17% organic growth in orders. So the comparison base is quite high. But you still expect this like-for-like number to get rather better than worse in the second half concerning orders, right?

That's our understanding today.

Okay. Okay. Now, on the margin, I mean, obviously, there was no operating leverage despite the strong growth in sales organically like-for-like. I understand that has to do with the costs related to acquisitions, increased amortization on the EBITDA, that had no impact. But there, you mentioned strategic investment in innovation and so on and so forth. But could you quantify that a little bit? I mean, how much more did you spend for these investments into the future? I.e., what I'm trying to get at, I mean, what would have been the underlying margin development without these kind of extra spendings?

We have shared with you that we will spend maximum or it will cost us maximum 1 percentage point in EBIT what we invest in additional market and innovation, and we are roughly in that range.

Okay. But if you would adjust that, there would still have been no operating leverage. I mean, then the EBIT margin -- the EBITDA margin would have been roughly 100 basis points higher, which is around the same level as previous year. However, you had a strong underlying sales growth. So, shouldn't there be kind of an operating leverage somehow?

Yes, it should. But also what we mentioned to you, there was a very special product mix that has another effect there.

Okay. I hear you. And again, there, you expect in the second half an improvement as well, right?

So basically, the main question that is behind you is our business scalable? And our business is scalable.

Exactly. So, what are the capacity utilization rates roughly?

Sorry, could you repeat the question to make sure I understood?

Yes. When we talk about operating leverage, what would be interesting to know is how high is your utilization rate at the moment in your plants? I mean, how much more volumes could you get through without investing anything significantly in addition?

We have shared that with you already in the past that nothing substantially has changed. We are today roughly at 50%, 60%, 65%, whatever percent you want to name it. And of course, if we go substantially bigger, we'll have to invest into assembly and some automation, but the basic infrastructure is in place and there's enough capability.

Yes. So the big, big leverage is more volumes.

Correct. And that's what we're preparing exactly as you see.

We have a follow-up question from Sebastian Vogel.

It is probably then the last one, right, or?

Yes, the last one.

We have passed the target time-wise.

Yes. Sorry for that. Just one follow-up with regard to the point of the one-off cost that I got that right. So, you had like CHF 3 million in H1, you will have CHF 1 million in H2 and then CHF 3 million to CHF 4 million for the full year. Is that the right cadence? Or did I get that right there?

Yes, correct.

That was a rather short last question. Sorry for that.

I'd like to be quick.

That was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Markus Asch for any closing remarks.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you again for giving us the time and listening to our webcast and to the presentation about the half year results.

For us to summarize again, we are extending our market coverage. We're executing our strategy, and we are seeing the first results and that exactly very diligently, we will continue our work in order to generate the results for the company and for the shareholders that you now are seeing step by step coming in.

Again, thank you very much for your time and all the very best. Have a good summertime.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

Good morning ladies and gentlemen, and a very warm welcome to the SIX Convention Point here to our Interroll Media & and Analyst Conference 2025.

For us, it's a huge pleasure and an honor to have you here this morning. Also, I want to extend a warm welcome to the ones that are listening to this media conference online.

So ladies and gentlemen, for the next while, we will introduce to you the following content. First of all, I will introduce to you how we have restructured, reshaped and refocused the company on markets and growth. We will then talk, Heinz Hossli, our CFO, will introduce to you what has this led to? What are the results, the first tangible results that we could generate. We'll then do a deep dive on sales through our CSO, Maurizio Catino, on technology through our -- through Ulrich Engenhardt, our CTO, me on operations side, and we will then conclude with how we see our achievements, but also a first glimpse on the outlook for the year 2026.

So let's go into a little bit more detail. And for us, what's very important that we want to start from a bigger picture and then more deep dive into our own markets and into our own capabilities. What you see on the macroeconomic time, and we also talked outside here, it is a difficult situation. It's an uncertain situation. We see messages like de-globalization, and we have also experienced that in our own market. And for you, I think 2 messages are very important. First, we, as Interroll, as a business, we are almost not affected. Why? Because we have an international global supply operations and operations footprint with about 16 factories. So we can compensate those changes very well.

On the other side, our customers are affected. And that's what we have seen. That's what we have seen that especially on bigger projects and mainly in Europe, customers are very hesitant in awarding those project because they really don't know how things are developing. If we then dig deeper in our own industry, in our own market, we would say that material handling market is continues to be a dynamic market, a market that is open for innovation, a market that is required because of automation needs in order to compensate some lack of people, it's an open market.

If we then look a little bit more into detail of that market, we see e-commerce rather showing momentum of growth. We see airports being strong. On the other side, we see some on the industrial landscape, especially automotive being rather weak and continue to be weak. All in all, our customers are very open for good innovation. Our own business -- and remember, a year ago, when we were asked at this point, what do you expect for this year? We said at that time, it's probably very difficult to change the sales side already because our order backlog was slow. But if we do our job well, we should see a reverse of trend in order decline. And we should stabilize that or even show some growth. And what we have seen 5% growth we have reported to you in local currency, 9.2% and especially a strong development in the second half.

Maybe a couple of own spotlights before we then go more into detail. We have seen a reverse of trend in China. We have had 2-digit growth now in China after some declines over some years. And Global Lifetime Service have increased its share and will further increase its share because that's a very important business, how we maintain customer relationship. But this was only possible because we restructured and refocused and reprioritized some of our companies and some of our company's footprint in the market.

So before we go into more of these details, I would like to again get some clarity on market. What is the market we work in? What is the market we play? And how do we understand today the market? And there are some of the statistics that you can read, so they are very common knowledge. All in all, for example, Fortune Business talks about material handling market of about $278 billion in 2026.

If we then dig more into details, and we look at the warehouse automation and internal logistics for manufacturing market, Interact Analysis shows here a market of about $36 billion.

If we now go even further into detail and say, what is the addressable market for Interroll for where do we work? Where do we play? We see for 2026, the market of about $8 billion plus, and with a market that is growing and a market where we are shooting for a market share of about 8% plus. That's mainly the areas where we work on.

And ladies and gentlemen, now to say that's the area where we work, where we play. What is our value proposition to the market? And we also wanted to be simple, clear in how we position ourselves in the market. And what's very important intralogistics by their very nature are complex installations. Our value proposition, our brand value, our promise to the market is we reduce complexity for our customers by offering modular and platform-based hardware that means products, software and controls. And through this, we basically serve with our main brand promise: quality, speed, simplicity. And those products are not just individually produced products, but as they belong always to platforms. The system is a proven system. That's mainly how we position ourselves in this market. That's what -- that's our value. That's where we gain momentum.

Being asked a year ago at this point, what do you see this year? Year 2025, I reported at that time, it will be a year of transition, but we should see the first results. We can report to you, it was a year of transition, and we saw and we see the first tangible results. And what -- and before we now -- before Heinz Hossli goes with you in what is the results generated, I would like to briefly share with you what was necessary to make that happen. And we looked at the company on the 3 major areas: strategy, structure organization and culture.

And let's first look at the strategy side. And we basically moved into 3 waves. First of all, strengthen what we know we are good at. What is our value proposition around quality, speed, simplicity? And second, then how to leverage our potential in the market, our customer relationship. And thirdly, what is necessary to lay the foundation, to see substantial growth to come. And I will -- in the next slide, I will show you a little bit more detail what we mean, what was happening behind that.

On the structure side, we needed to restructure the organization, the company in order to make happen what we have decided on this strategy. And culture, and we cannot underestimate the value of culture in the company. It's the foundation. It's the way how we act, how we behave, how we interact, how we lead, and that's why we also have focused some of our efforts on the culture in order to build the foundation and to further develop the foundation.

So let's a little bit go into the strategy and say what is the 3 main areas: strengthening the core, leveraging marketing potential, and laying the foundation for sustainable growth, what is behind there.

On strengthening the core, we looked at the way how we quote, especially on project in order to improve speed, and order improved hit rate. And that's some of the results that we also generated on increased project business. We improved product quality where necessary in order to fulfill our promise quality, speed, simplicity. And we have driven -- on the operations side, the efficiency programs and some of you saw on the gross margin, and also, we have streamlined customer interaction. What I mean is that, the way how we manage project, how we interact with customers, how we execute, that's areas where we are focused on strengthening the core.

On the next step, necessary to leverage what we have. Basically, we use our market access, our market capabilities, and we further strengthened that with clear focus on key account management and vertical market management to grow together with our customers, to help our customers to grow their business and to serve our customers better and some of the results we already see in our figures.

And the second part on leveraging market potential is we have differentiated our approach depending on the structure and the readiness of the market. So highly developed markets are more measured by sales and key account management, while a developing market needed to be -- needed to have development structures. I will show you in the next slide what I mean with that.

Laid foundation, that's the third point. Maybe just a few glimpses Ulrich Engenhardt will talk a little bit more about that. We have established the first development hub in China. The first -- it's fully running. The first 3 projects are running, a Chinese engineering and development speed with a time to market, which is about half of typical time to markets that we know, but that we very well known in China are today a standard on high-speed development. We have also reversed our perspective on innovation.

So we look today at innovation that generates value for our customers in their value chain, so beyond a product. So we combine products and software, hardware and software. And thirdly, we have closed some of our product gaps through the first acquisition of Sortteq, and you have -- and we have been communicated that. And already, we see a good positioning of those products -- of this product in the market.

So what I mean with structure, we have adopted the structure. When you look at today at Asia Pacific, it's China. And there's a high focus on China, both on the domestic market, serving those customers that not only for the domestic market but also for their market then abroad as they export. But also when you look at Southeast Asia, it requires market developments, skills and capabilities, and we have established those.

The same you see in the Americas, United States as the biggest single market focus on sales structure, but at the same time, on Central and Latin America focus on market development capabilities. So we have established those structures. Just to give you a glimpse how we see today market and market development and market approaches.

Lastly, the culture side. Culture is very essential to us. And in a time where we have more autonomy in the region in order to serve market needs, global collaboration is crucial. In a time where knowledge is not so important anymore because it's commonly available, execution excellence is essential. And at a time where transitions happen, accountability is very dear and very important to us. This only happens through people, through development of people as we're helping to fostering people and to helping people grow into their roles and into their responsibilities.

Let me quickly summarize a couple of just glimpses of the substantial work that has been done, some of the results that have been generated. We have put in, for example, positioning ourselves in the battery market. What we mean with that. We have developed the capability to adapt fast to a growing vertical that we didn't serve in the past. We have developed a solution. We have won the first orders, and we are now serving the market, which is mainly driven by China.

When you look at the next one and the e-commerce side, with the acquisition of the Sortteq product, we have an additional solution into a growing market on the e-commerce side. And we are already in listing discussion with some of the important players on this product. But also with cooperating and partnering with IMA E-COMMERCE, we have managed that our products are in their solutions standard.

On airports, with the expansion of our strategic partnership with Smiths Detection. We have secured this business and can further develop the airport business. What we want to show you on the bottom left, MCP Play and the subsequential win of the IFOY Award shows our focus on value chain innovation. So we drive innovation, productivity, efficiency into our customers' processes.

What we mean with showing you the Rolling on Interroll industry event is we are building partners and capabilities into verticals, into markets that we did not serve too well in the past. And we are building and Maurizio Catino, will talk to you about that. We are building our capabilities to develop this more into an ecosystem into a partner network. And with the setup -- and Uli Engenhardt will talk about with the setup of the R&D Hub in China.

We are not only adapting to market needs in China, but we are also leveraging today's ecosystems that are built in China on fast and precise innovation, needing for market development and needing to serve the markets and to grow with a dynamic market that is happening also in our industry.

With this short summary on our priorities, on our structure, on our strategy and our culture, I will then like to hand over to Heinz Hossli, who will now go with you to what did this end up? So what are the results of the work that has been generated?

Thank you very much, Markus. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Also a warm welcome from my side. It's a pleasure to present you the financials of '25.

I start with the order intake as usual. Order intake, CHF 545.3 million, a plus of 5% in Swiss franc. Also, the year of '25 had a very strong FX effect on us and the growth in local currency of 9.2%, which basically came in the second half of the year is encouraging and also looking positively into '26.

What I'd like to highlight here is that this is not coming from one big project. It is broad-based. It's basically from the 3 regions, less APAC, but all 3 regions have contributed to this. It's in the area of Conveyors & Sorters, where the project business rebounded, a lot is related to the e-commerce sector. The same sector where we suffered in the past the order intake and in conclusion, also the reduction in sales.

So on the order intake, clearly, we see a rebound. We mentioned this last year that it's probably too early to have a rebound in sales. One year later, I think I'm pretty confident to say, we will see the rebound in sales in '26. We have now the precondition of a strong sales growth, strong growth in order intake in the second half year of '25, and this will provide the base for a revenue increase in '26.

When we look into the 4 product groups, the product really did well. Rollers, plus 6.8% in Swiss francs did very well. Drives is a minus 1.9% in Swiss francs. Drives has 2 effects in '24. We got a very big single order in the U.S., about USD 6 million, which we knew will not repeat in '25, but also this in local currency is good growth. When we come to Pallet Handling, this clearly is the area where we did not -- we suffered. We did not perform good, and it's also the smallest segment.

What is also good news is the book-to-bill ratio. After 3 years of having a book-to-bill ratio below 1, we now have with 1.06, a positive 1, which clearly means also that we have a stronger backlog starting into '26. And this is really important. This is the base for the future.

Now I come to the sales. Sales by region. Here, the picture is very diverse. EMEA grew in Swiss franc 1.4%. Americas lost 9.8%. And Asia Pacific decreased 3.5%. If you just look at the pure number in Swiss, you could say Americas has a big issue. The FX effect clearly was much higher in the U.S. and in APAC than it was in EMEA.

So when I talk about the FX effect, the overall, you will see later, this is a mix. And the mix is also considering the heavy weight of the EMEA, but clearly, the big, big impact has been in the U.S. dollar, and you can see this also from the exchange rate, how it went down. And considering this as well as that we had a very low backlog, which also the U.S. suffered the most with a very low backlog starting into '25 and then the project orders came too late to turn them in the same year into sales. So also a big portion of the increase in the backlog is in the Americas. This also affected the share.

Now you can see the share with 62% EMEA, even 3 percentage points higher than last year. Americas lost 3% and APAC is stable at 11%. The long-term target, what we always say, of 50% should come from EMEA and the other 50% should come from the other 2 regions remains in effect. And we are deeply convinced that Americas, but especially APAC region has big potential for overproportional growth, and we need overproportional growth to change this picture.

We clearly assume that all 3 regions will grow, but over proportional growth should come from the other 2 regions so that we should go towards this 50-50 split.

On this slide, you see the 6 -- last 6 years. And you see the FX effect on the sales. It is, besides '21, it's considered quite a bit. And this is a compounding effect. And this you see now on this slide. I've shown this slide in a different form also last year, but the compounding effect is really big. It's now almost CHF 110 million sales from '19 to '25. The lines -- the form of shapes is exactly the same. It went up. It went down, but the delta is getting bigger and bigger, and this is coming from the compounding effect of the negative FX difference. And you see the yellow line, which is the nominal figures we publish. And you see the gray line with constant exchange rates from 2019. So it has a big impact. And if you consider that we are now CHF 514 million in sales, CHF 100 million or almost CHF 110 million is huge.

Now I come to the profitability. I'll start with the EBITDA, down 6.3% to CHF 94.1 million or in percentage of sales as EBITDA margin, 18.3%, down from 19.1%. This is mainly driven by the reduction on the sales, but it would be much more if we did not have tailwind from the product mix. So we sold more products, less projects, which gave clearly tailwind. We had announced this already at the half year webcast that we have spent more in R&D and in marketing. This is an investment for the future. And besides that, we still had a very strong cost discipline, which we upheld during the year. Only with this, the 14.0% EBIT is possible.

If we look at the EBIT reduction, 7.8% to CHF 71.8 million, but the margin reduced from 14.8% to 14.0%. This was only possible to the 3 actions I mentioned before. We already said at the webcast end of July last year, that we will increase the spending in R&D and marketing. This is necessary. We need to go for it because it is an investment into the future. We continue this and we in my view, we delivered quite a good EBIT considering all circumstances.

Also the circumstances, what Markus has already mentioned, that we are really in a challenging world. We have a lot of chaos, political issues to tackle. We have President in the United States with changes opinion from day-to-day, which causes a lot of unsecurity, uncertainty and uncertainty is never a driver for big projects, and to release big investments.

The depreciation and amortization is stable, will also be stable going forward. There is not a big change to be expected.

Then I come to the results. The results suffered 10.5% below last year. The reason is quite simple. Last year, we had a positive finance result. This year in '25, we had a negative one. Interest income has been lower due to the interest rates going down. But on the other hand, we had quite significant foreign exchange loss and the delta, the difference from '24 to '25 is CHF 3.2 million adjusting the finance result, which is quite considerably if you look at the total profitability.

On the other side, we had a tax rate of 21.9%, which was lower than in previous years, and it is also lower than the average going forward what we expect. So we said, in average, the group is around 22.5% tax rate. The net result is a margin of 10.9%, exactly 1% point below last year. Overall, I repeated I think it was quite okay year if we consider the external circumstances and then also the transition Markus, as he was talking about and that we had invested clearly into the future, which is visible in the costs with the 14.0% with the decline in sales, we can be not happy, but we can be satisfied. It could have been much worse.

Now I come to the cash flow. The operating cash flow has decreased 41.2% to CHF 54.1 million. The reason is net working capital. The biggest 2 positions is inventories and trade receivable. For you, this is known, but for the general audience, this is difficult to understand that you have huge swings in cash flow, because in '24, the decrease in inventories of CHF 11.5 million and the decrease in accounts receivable of CHF 16.8 million boosted the cash flow. This year, we have CHF 3.8 million more inventories, and we have CHF 10.3 million more accounts receivable. So this decreases the cash flow. And this is not -- you cannot compensate. So this is just as it is, as it works.

The -- especially the trade receivables, this is because we invoiced quite a lot towards the end of Q4. This is just a snapshot end of the year. This has already been changed drastically in January when we got the payments.

The inventory is also with WIP considered. It's not only raw material, but we had slightly higher WIP which is actually okay, also considering that the business on the order intake side has rebounded, we will have more net working capital when we start to grow again and invoice more.

On the free cash flow side, CHF 40.3 million, minus 47.9%. This is just the effect of what goes down. The actual investments with CHF 17.5 million has been lower than in the previous year, and mainly the investments have gone into modernization of manufacturing units, into new machines with higher efficiencies and some very small part into IT.

When we look at this now, considering the reduction in sales, the profitability, which has been lower, the operating and the free cash flow, in my view, is still quite good. It's very strong. So we have now quite a weak year, if you look at the last 5 years, and we still generate a free cash flow of CHF 40.3 million.

Now this slide we show for the first time. I know that this will cause more questions than answers. Fully aware of this. But I think we show it and we clearly want to show it how this has developed over the last 5 years. On the left side, you see the cash and cash equivalents. To mention that the financial liabilities we have in the balance sheet, they are just capitalized lease under IFRS. So we have no bank debt. This is the cash situation, what you see on the left side. How it's developed from '21 to '25.

And on the right-hand side, you see the equity and you see the equity ratio. How this has developed over the same 5 years. We have now ended the year '25 with an equity ratio of 82.0%. So very strong cash and equity position in the balance sheet.

Now I'll come to the other 2 value creation KPIs, return on equity, 11.6%, return on net asset, 18.7%. Both KPIs clearly below last year. Return on equity, more driven by the very high equity in the balance sheet. Return on net assets clearly because of the reduction in sales and the underutilization of the assets we have. We have assets to go almost to CHF 1 billion. For the CHF 1 billion, we will invest into machines, but the manufacturing footprint, if the mix is not changing a lot, we are ready for a very big upward trend on sales. And these assets are clearly underutilized with CHF 514.2 million sales. So this picture will change when the sales are going up again.

Now to the dividend. The Board of Directors has proposed or approved the proposal to bring it to the AGM to keep the dividend stable at CHF 32 per share. This is an increase in the payout ratio. It goes from 43.7% now to 48.8%. And this is also in line to what we said now for quite some time that we want to move from the earlier 1/3 payout to 50% payout as other peers we look at are also on the 50%. And the cash situation clearly allows to make this dividend payment.

This shows the dividend development over the last 20 years from 2005 to 2025, starting with CHF 6 to the CHF 32. And you see the plateau of the CHF 32 from '23 to '25. And with the higher sales expected in '26, and the payout ratio going towards the 50% the dividend should also in '26 go then slightly up. What is remarkable is that there was only one dividend reduction, and this was for the year 2008 due to the financial crisis. Otherwise, the dividend has always been increased or remained stable.

For the sustainability report, not many words. Like last year, we just published this later. We do not publish the sustainability report at the same time. Publication will be on May 22. Some words on the EcoVadis assessment. We showed this also last year. The good news is the 20 companies, which participate, they all got again medal award. Overall, we even outperformed the last year. We have now 7 with the platinum, 9 with the gold, versus 7 last year, 3 with the silver versus 7 last year. And then we have 1 with a bronze, which had a silver last year, and this is the group. For the group, it's very difficult to get into a higher rank even though the individual legal entities, which participate have an average or they have all higher ranking, but it's difficult to bring the group up. But overall, I think this is an excellent achievement.

We have now participated with this assessments over many years, and we were able to improve year-over-year, which is not a given because it's not that you approve, you approve against the average. If you remain stable, you will decline because the average of all the participants at the EcoVadis assessments, they will improve. So remaining stable means you decline, and we could really improve. So we did not only improve against ourselves, but we improved against the mass of companies which participates at the EcoVadis assessment. So this is a great achievement.

Now I come to the end of my presentation. I just would like to highlight that we have more content on the Investor Relations web page. We have also the presentation you see here as a download since this morning ready on the web page. Also the annual report, you can download on the web page. We will also release a video from the CEO around noon. It's not yet released, but this will be released around noon, and you have additional information like chart generator and or the data where you can have a look at.

With this, I would hand over to Maurizio Catino, and he will talk about markets and customers. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you, Heinz. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I will give you a brief overview on our 2025 from a sales perspective, what we see in the market and in the different accounts.

So we have invested during 2025, a lot of efforts into transforming our sales organization. This was due to the fact that we are experiencing the material handling environment, different approach from 2 main sites. One is from our customers, the system integrators and the other one is from the end user side, so the final user of our products.

What's going on is clear, there is a lot of consolidation going on in the market. So especially some group and system integration started to merge and acquire other companies. And the fragmented scenario that we have seen and experienced in the past is dramatically changing. And these customers are now asking us to be more present in the location and in the countries where they are active. So most globally.

On the other side, the end user was approaching integrators in the past with, let's say, a neutral position. They were not so much interested into the details of what they were buying. But basically, they were interested in the outcome, the final, I mean, outcome of the automation. Now especially the big end user, the global groups are starting to be more and more interested in the details. And obviously, they want and they pretend companies like Interroll to be directly connected with them and discuss directly with them the solution they are implementing. Therefore, our decentralized organization, which was very, I mean, successful in the past required some fine tunes, and we have implemented this during 2025, as I said.

So what we have done. On a local level, we have now splitted the sales team into 3 pillars: the product, the solution and the service. Physically having different people let's say, taking care of these 3 pillars. This provides much more focus, of course, but also this increased our competencies into the people into the sales that they are now more able to discuss at the probable level with accounts, and obviously increase the accountability. So giving them strong -- I mean, and a narrow focus on their product range creates much stronger, I would say, knowledge into their area.

On top of this, we have added, let's say, a solution management team. This is for the system integrators to take care of their needs. So they're asking us to, I mean, keep our promise to be the supplier of choice in material handling equipment. And this is exactly the case, but they want us to be present at least at a regional level. So not acting just in one country, but spread into the region. So this team is obviously a functional team. It's not located in a single country, but can act at a regional level.

On top of this, to taking care of these big accounts now, we have, let's say, developed this strategic team. The strategic team is acting globally. So we have people now assigned to this global account, and in parallel on some verticals, the verticals you well know where we are basically present. And this creates, let's say, 2 advantages. One is, of course, that we can coordinate the, let's say, global business in a much better way. But on the other side, I mean, now having new CTO in place. This gives us the possibility of being closer to the final needs of the end customers.

So the problems are there -- and I mean, having always a system integrator in between, not having a direct contact in some cases, let's say, does not help us to really understand what kind of products the end users need. So this is also a very strong outcome that we see.

So we said we have different scenario. Of course, we have these verticals, and end user one side, system integrator acting globally. But I mean, what we can leverage, what is our real value into this new scenario in the material handling equipment. But this is pretty clear and whole big end users and big system integrators knows this. It's our global presence. So Interroll is everywhere. Interroll is able to produce, to sell, to support our customers in all the regions of the world. We have 16, I mean, production plants in the globe. And this is a tremendous asset that cannot be easily copied by our competitors. I mean consider if a system integrator wants to expand their operation in a different region. Of course, their manufacturing capability cannot be the same as the one they have in the location, but they are historically present.

And then they ask us to support them in the region where they are not having this capability, things now actually, I mean, global situation with tariffs. I mean this is a great advantage that we are producing and manufacturing locally. So in this way, we are strengthening our ecosystem of products, of solutions but also the service. I mean, service is becoming more and more important. Obviously, finding the proper and the right service technician around the globe is not an easy task also for our customers. And I mean our global presence is, in this sense, a very big asset because we can provide direct service with our people globally, but also we can use the ROI partners that can support us also in a very remote location of the globe. And the ROI is the last point, where we want to also, I mean, implement into the program, a different approach.

I can show it here. So first of all, you know that the value proposition for us is still there. So for us, ROI partners are one of the core of our strategy in sales. And therefore, we have decided to invest more into that. We want to expand the program. Already in 2025, we are present in 50 different countries around the globe, and we have increased the number of partner 14 and more to come in 2026. This serves to us also as a early adopter of new technology. Last year, we have presented the MCP Play at LogiMAT. And the first, I mean, sales of this new technology went through an ROI partner.

Last point. This is pretty new in the program. We are asking -- we have been asked by our customers to act as a one-stop shop globally. So therefore, taking the responsibility on technology, which we are not manufactured by ourselves, but some of our partners are doing. Therefore, we have now introduced, and we will trading this in 2026, a technological partnership program into the ROI.

What does it mean? We will basically make some agreements with third-party companies, which are complementing our solution portfolio. This will be obviously branded as Interroll and will be, I mean, sold to our customers together with our solution. So giving to our customers a single point of conduct globally. This is what they need.

So just to conclude my presentation, I want to show you some facts about this new strategy. I showed you this graph already last year. I'm a strong believer that sales is always a consequence, but the pillar of sales is the number of customers that the company is able to develop. And therefore, the number of customers is the basic KPIs for understanding whether we are doing the right things and the things are going in the right direction.

You can see further on, we have increased our customer base in both product and solution business. And as a consequence that you have seen in our order intake in 2025, the growth is coming also linearly up with this increase of customers. So we will keep working hard on this and obviously, increasing our customer base because, obviously, when you have a bigger customer base and the market is rebounding, you are taking advantage of both area, more accounts, but more sales per account in average. This is obviously granting our future growth.

So that's it from my side. I pass to Uli, our new CTO. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you today and share how we're shaping Interroll's innovation and technology agenda now and for the future.

In order to deliver on our promise, to drive customers' efficiency and simplify their operations, we will focus on 3 areas. Those are stronger customer focus, value chain innovation and global capabilities. And these are not abstract concepts. We already translated them beginning in 2025 into concrete actions, which we follow through in the time to come.

So let me take you through them. First, stronger customer focus, mainly means appreciating that we're serving different verticals globally and that the speed of change is increasing. Thus, we need to be close to the market, close to the customer, listen carefully in order to derive the right conclusions for our modular system, because we still want scalability in our solutions. And that's, for example, why we built up regional teams in product management, why we granted them greater authority and why we're also then looking into our portfolio mix, what is needed in which region of the market of the world and in which markets.

Secondly, value-chain innovation. We are doing world-class components, and we will stick to our approach because quality is of essence and this is one of our brand promises. But value-chain innovation means to have a more holistic view on what solutions we do provide. And it's looking at the process of the customer and where we can by interacting with software, hardware and controls provides step innovation, because this innovation jumps nowadays do not come from component getting incrementally better. It comes from the interfaces and between software, hardware and controls. That's why we focused our approach.

We opened basically our scope in order to find out what serves customer and customer values. We set up this R&D Hub in China, not only for increased speed and greater market access and solutions there but also to provide us with different perspectives that we probably being a Swiss company might not have just in Switzerland or in Europe. So opening up the scope and then deriving the right solutions for our integrated ecosystem based on modularity so that we can scale is key.

Now what does that mean? We talked about MCP Play already in the course of our presentation. And MCP Play is the perfect example where we combine our engineering expertise for hardware but also on software and controls. And we came out with it in the LogiMAT 2025 with the promise that this will improve, for example, commissioning.

Now the question is, have we delivered on that? And I'm very happy to report this is the last installation, for example, we did 2 weeks ago in Barcelona. And we not only increased the throughput by 40% with this customer, but also made commissioning come down from 2 weeks to 2 days. That's step innovation. And that's what we want to achieve even more so in the future. So it's on us. It's pretty clear what we can achieve, but we need to be very consistent and very precise and having a close ear to the customer in order to come up with those solutions.

Lastly, global capabilities is of essence nowadays. I talked about the speed of change. I talked about in changing environment. So we need to be up to speed on that. What has made us successful in the past needs to be complemented with new capabilities. And those new capabilities on a global scale and on a global level, so we are hiring talent where talent is. And we also strengthened our platform and the platform management by granting them more entrepreneurial freedom, but still governing not in order to having too much complexity.

So we are on our way. And let me please conclude with a personal remark. Tomorrow, marks the 50th working day of me at Interroll. And I expected a strong company, especially on the engineering area, CTO. I'm happy to report that it was exceeded. So we have deep technical expertise. We have great commitment, and we will drive innovation. That's why I'm generally optimistic about our future. Thank you.

Thank you, colleagues, for the overview. Is it -- am I hearable? Okay. So I will now take a moment to quickly inform you about where we are today in operations, what are our major focuses, and then we'll go to the summary and to the outlook.

Again, let's start on our operations network, where are we today? What is our value? What are our assets? And as already briefly introduced to you at the beginning, our unusual assets in our industry is our global operations footprint of 16 factories around the world. So we manage to serve our customers from the region into the region locally. And therefore, our business model, again, is speed. One of them is speed. So speed and delivery is important because in the intralogistics environment, there are many variants to be served.

So we can manage to serve those complexity, those variances at a fast speed locally to our customers. And this we have further developed by improving our proximity being faster in our actions and our reactions to serve the market. And now the big -- and the additional task is now to combine that local availability of resources, that local availability of components, that local availability of competencies, and we now combine them with global standards. And that's why we are building, so we call them a global operations network of experts around the globe, serving this network and serving them in mainly 4 areas. One is industrial engineering. The other one is quality control. The third one is global supply chain. And the first one is digital production.

Let me give you a glimpse on industrial engineering. What is very important that we differentiate between a location with EUR 6 labor cost or CHF 6 labor cost to a location with CHF 60 labor cost but still we follow Interroll standards. And therefore, we can leverage the automation level, the quality, the approach to the market to serve our customers in a unique way in their various locations. The same applies to how we organize our global supply chain, especially in times when factors that were solid in the past, supply chains that we are solid in the past are no longer solid in the past. So we're changing a lot to regional supply chains, but still maintaining global quality. And digital production will help us to even speed up our market requirements in the future, not having to add resources, but adding systems that help us to maintain our quality approach and our speed approach towards the market. So that's a network that we have started to build, that we continue to build in the next while in order to even better serve the market in the future.

I would like to conclude to summarize quickly what has been achieved in the year 2025. This what you have seen on sales, on technology, on the financial results. It was announced. It is a year of transition. However, where we had clear targets and clear priorities. We strengthened the core. We leveraged our capability what you then saw in our order intake. And we have started to build the structure for substantial growth where we have seen the first results. All of this always feeds and serves into our major promise: quality, speed, simplicity and this proven in the market.

I would like to finalize with our outlook. We see signs of market stabilization that have brought it over the course of 2025, supported by growing demand in project business. And feedback from our customers and end users have been more optimistic across most verticals. At the same time, the macroeconomic environment remains challenging and geopolitical tension that causes issues on our customer side could affect the business performance. The long-term trend, ladies and gentlemen, towards automation, driven by productivity requirements and labor shortages continues to support demand for automated solutions making our market attractive.

With this, I would like to conclude our annual analyst and media press conference, and we will now go on to the question-and-answers session. Thank you.

First question. Front?

Remo Rosenau, Helvetische Bank. You have given a general outlook basically on the market a little bit, but you haven't given any outlook on your company specifically in financial terms, whatsoever, none, whatsoever. Why? I mean you could have said we expect slightly higher sales and profits for instance. But you didn't give anything. Could you elaborate on that?

Also online, there is a similar question in this direction. We have a tradition not to giving a clear guideline in which direction it goes, but you have first indications that also Heinz firstly shared with you. If an order intake increases in 2025, that should result in a sales increase in 2026. So that's a logical consequence. Whether this is in the first or the second half depends on the project life or the project timing and running. But this, of course, has to materialize in some effect in year 2026.

On the profits, we have also been asked online a similar question. It is clear that we will maintain our cost discipline on one side. So sales increase develops profitability. At the same time, we will continue. And there we are very clear and very bold. We will continue our investments in innovation and market access. So in this balance, the direction is for 2026.

I agree with you. So...

That's good. That's a good news.

So you could also have said it, but let's leave it there. Moreover, on the more mid- and long-term view, there are also no kind of targets. I mean, you explained quite in detail what you have changed, how you did set up the company now to be more successful again in the future as it has been in the past. That should lead somewhere, right? And don't you have a vision where to it should lead and why don't you share it with us if you have one?

Of course, we have a vision, but we have a best practice in this company led by Paul Zumbühl, in the past. He was not promising, but delivering. And that mindset, we will continue. Is that correct, Paul?

Okay. Then quite interesting was on the culture side, accountability. Apparently, there was a lack of accountability when you started, and that has changed now. I mean, could you give a few concrete examples what you have changed in order to reestablish the culture of accountability in the company?

Yes, happy, it's -- I don't want to focus on the people side whether they're good or bad, that's not the point. We have good people. Accountability also starts with having clear structures. So for example, and I'll take you one example, that's a very obvious one. By establishing a global product and platform management, we based now the structure in one single accountability. So there is somebody responsible for products, somebody responsible for conveyors, somebody responsible for sorters, somebody responsible for pallet handling, somebody responsible for controls and software.

So what that means ? It's not who is maybe sales, maybe product management, maybe production. There is product management responsible for it, specifying the right product, talking, of course, to the regions, and involving and implementing their feedback, but be owning the topic. So individual owning of topic is important. So one is setting the structure and then secondly, helping the people to develop in this direction. That's maybe one example.

And that's a principle that we apply to the whole company. Clear structures, clear accountabilities and then helping the people to develop and own it and grow as they develop.

Tobias Fahrenholz from ODDO BHF. Let me follow up on this a little bit. Could you speak about the start into the year. So the first 2 months, have you seen again, higher orders, higher margins? Just looking back. And when you speak about a rebound of sales without providing figures, does it mean organically or also on reported level?

And last but not least, on the margins, you speak about continuous investments, growth investments. Would that mean that they could come down a little bit? Or should they stay comparable in percentage of sales?

Maybe your -- to answer your first question, how did the year start? We saw a continuous strong development on the product side. On the project side, it's more a question of timing. And so a month or 1.5 months or 2 months are not relevant representative. What we can tell you is that the order pipeline or the opportunity pipeline is strong, remains strong. And now we will see the next few months how this develops.

Maybe I can add here. Now, what is already very clear is that the '26, the FX effect will be on the high side again. Nobody is expecting a strong rebound from the euro nor from the U.S. dollar. The rest is denominated on these 2 currency pairs, and the Swiss franc will most likely appreciate against these 2 or at least keep it stable at this level of today. And with this, a negative FX effect, a considerable negative FX effect is already given.

Okay. But when you speak about the rebound of sales, that means including this FX headwind?

The FX, we cannot calculate no. we see clearly that this can be now minus 4%, minus 5%. In the first 2 months, it was even higher. But this clearly will go down if the currency pairs stay at the level which they are now, if they are not really going further down. But you -- what is clear now the sales in local currencies, they will increase. On the FX, we cannot judge today how the year will end. We will have a negative FX effect. This is clear. How much? We don't know.

Okay. And you did not yet come back on the margin question. So I guess you also hope to see the margin improvement, but the growth investments and percentage of sales, should they be comparable?

Yes, this is what we said. Now the investment -- if the investments stay not in percentage, but they stay in actual spending more or less the same with an increased sales, there will be less, and with an increased sales, we will have a quite big leverage coming from the increase. If you look at what we disclosed, what is the material expense for the turnover we make, and you can add a little bit of the personnel, then you see that our not shown gross margin is rather on the high side, which means we have a very big leverage if we get the rebound in sales. And this will overcompensate the higher spend in R&D.

Any other questions in the room?

[ Thomas Funk ] from [ GAM ]. So because it's difficult to calculate what has been local currency growth in H2? And were there any meaningful price effects from your pricing strategy going into it?

From pricing 0 effect, we did only keep the prices stable for some products. We even reduced the price beginning of '25. So no impact from the pricing. We also kept the prices stable now going into '26. The growth, I cannot even give you the detail how much we had the currency effect for the first 6 months. I don't have this in mind now, but we published the currency effect in the half year report, and we published it now for the full year. So this is -- you will -- you can calculate it, but I don't have it in mind. But clearly, it was higher.

[ Stefan Gaechter, ODDO ]. Can you maybe just come back on the situation in China, how you tackle competition in China? Both in China and maybe Chinese trying to sell their products also on a global basis?

So what -- let's quickly look at China. China is considered from many market players as they call it [ bloodbath ], a strong word. But basically, what is happening, there is overcapacity in China. And so Chinese players are very strong, trying to defend as much as they can. So what is our approach? We look where we generate value on applications where we have strong positions. And we increased our -- basically our pressure in the market with the way how we approach our customers, the way how we approach the applications and the way how we start to differentiate some of our products to serve those markets. And it has generated already to the first positive effects as I introduced to you.

Then when we look outside of China, we right now see, for example, in Southeast Asia spillover effects, of this bloodbath in China that many players are moving outside of China in order to capture their market. So what we do, we have -- we build or we again leverage our competencies. So we invest into markets, market access in terms of sales and service and project competence in order to capture our share. And we see the first steps coming.

Have I answered the question?

Yes.

So it's clear. It's -- I mean, China is going to be a challenge, but there is no alternative. If we -- it's not only because of China. It's because the spillover effect into the other regions. And some of the technology centers now happening like electric vehicle happening in China, you have to be there. You have to succeed. If you're not there, if you do not succeed, you do not succeed in the world.

More questions here? If not, we would turn, we have a couple of online questions.

One, it's maybe more interesting question from Walter Bamert from ZKB. If you take, Page 4 and add the figures, are you moving from CHF 500 million to CHF 781 million? That's an interesting approach. That's a creative approach. You can look at markets and market share is also different. You can also calculate CHF 8 billion times 8% market share in dollars and transfer them to francs, then you are probably at a more realistic approach, but thank you for keeping us up on our toes.

Mr. Bamert. And the second point, we had a question on expected recovery in 2026.

From Constantin Hesse.

Can you give us an idea of the magnitude?

I think we have talked about it what we believe what has come in and order intake should result also in sales. Profitability was a question. I think we also given there no guidance, but at least an indication of how we see.

And there was a third question on capital allocation. We can -- if you're there because it's clear, the question is totally valid. And we have there a very clear understanding as a company, as entrepreneurs, our task is to generate value of the money that is given to us. And that means we have 2 ways of generating additional access or success in the market. One is the product side, increasing our competitiveness and the other one is the market access.

So what we do? We have introduced to you that we invest into our market access already, and we invest into our product. We fill gaps or we do additional engineering developments. Now this also includes acquisitions. You have seen last year already in September the first acquisitions and so for us, acquisition -- and it's very clear message to you, acquisition is now part of our strategy in order to position ourself more successful, more competitive in the market. That's one. The second side is growth requires cash. And that's why a growing company will get additional or will take additional cash resources. And third one, we are moving what Heinz firstly has introduced to you more and more towards the 50% payout. And if above that, we do not have good ideas of generate values we will take the normal methods that you know in order to take care of the liquidity that we have. And this -- with this, we would leave it right now because we -- our task is to generate value with the money that we have being given. So that's on that side.

Then -- there was a question on the order momentum second half of [ Sebastian Vogel ]. I think we have answered that, that there was a strong -- a much stronger order intake in the second half and also in the last quarter.

CapEx plans, you want to mention something on CapEx?

Yes. On the CapEx, I think also going forward, we will clearly stay in '26 below the 5% threshold, more in the range of the previous year or the year before, also still going a lot into modernization of factories. So the footprint is there. There is no investment required for growth in the footprint. It is more that we invest into new machines, higher efficiency and keep the equipment and the production plans on a good level.

There's a question -- an additional question on -- can you remind me what percentage of share we are -- revenues are coming from e-comm and airports?

We always said e-com is between 30% and 40%. E-com is not really a vertical, we show as a vertical because e-comm has components in warehouse distribution, courier Express parcel, fashion and also food. So this is -- in 4 of the 8 verticals we show 30% to 40%. Clearly, it has been on the lower side. Now it's second half year, it has rebounded. This is where the growth is coming from on order intake, and we don't expect that this is really going out of these boundaries.

So there is -- another question from [ Pascal Bendinger-Schmidt ]. Can you quantify the potential impact on German fiscal stimulus on your orders and sales in 2026?

No, we cannot. What we can say, they will make it complicated again. That's the strength of German politics. And when this arrives at our customers and turn to orders, I would not expect this, there's a lot of that happening in 2026. We have not heard -- Maurizio have you heard anybody who says, look, I'm now getting subsidies. I'm now getting support. I want to place orders with you. We haven't seen that.

We got the same questions under the Biden administration of this huge program and with the same output. There is not something really visible what you can say you can allocate this order 100% because of this, not the case. It's also not that you see a pattern that you have suddenly a spike in investments, clearly not the case. Then from there and there, maybe there is a project which benefits, this might be the case. But then you see an explosion of business because of subsidies, it's not the case with us.

And there's another question from Baader on market shares and what we show and market potentials that we show.

Let us be there very clear. First of all, even the ones the twos that we show you as officially published dates and figures on markets, market shares are always estimates. We do not work in a market that has statistics that are aligned like in automotive industry today, Daimler Truck can tell you exactly how many trucks not only they have produced but everybody else and they can tell you the share because an official statistic on automotive. We don't have that.

So we have good estimates, and what we have done is taking those estimates that always, they also change from year to year. Also their increases change from year-to-year, and we have transferred them into our addressable market. And that's today our best guess, and as we develop our market intelligence further, we will get some additional insights. And it could very well be that we modify that again.

In general, the message is the market is there, the market is substantial. The market is growing and the market is open for innovation. And that should be good enough.

Yes. Just one additional remark to this question, because it is stated in the question you stated before, CHF 6 billion to CHF 8 billion worldwide. We clearly now relate to U.S. dollar as all the studies are done in U.S. dollar. So Slide 4 shows U.S. dollar and not Swiss franc. It's not such a big deviation from the past.

Then there was a question from Constantin Hesse from Jefferies. Can you confirm that this recovery a sustainable trend?

We would not add more to what we have said.

So another question from Constantin Hesse, my question on growth are mainly related to order momentum. Can you elaborate how orders have performed so far this year?

I think I've mentioned something to that question, and that's enough.

Another one from Constantin Hesse, 12% on second H, can your momentum continue in first H 2026, we will be able to report that in our half year call, whether this momentum has further developed.

It's too early to say after 2 months, especially as a product side, very stable project side, it depends on the closing date.

Then another question from Mr. [indiscernible] Kumar. Just to come back on margins. I'm not mistaken, you mentioned no increase in percentage of sales of costs but to remain stable in terms of absolute numbers.

I think we can repeat again. We will see some increase in markets and innovation, product activity. However, while they -- while, at the same time, sales will increase, they should be properly compensated.

That is what I mentioned before. Higher sales, big leverage will contribute positively to the EBIT margin despite ongoing R&D investments, which will be higher than in the past years. But clearly, the EBIT margin should see a positive momentum.

And there was another question by Mr. Bamert. Are we saying that we are -- that our sales would be at CHF 500 million?

This is, of course, not right. So this is -- if you add up this map, Mr. Bamert, that's not -- that's not what we're saying. Not at all.

Constantin Hesse talks about cash again.

Yes, we can clearly say we have a lot of cash. There's no question. I get these questions all the time. So what are you doing with the cash? Markus have said it very clear. First of all, we try to invest this to generate an added value for the shareholders in the company. Last resort what many other companies are doing, what -- [indiscernible] also mentioned this morning, this is the last resort. The last resort is a share buyback program, but this is only if we cannot invest it in the company.

What I also mentioned to a lot of you in the past is a special dividend is not considered because some always ask about a special dividend. And to make it clear, a special dividend is not considered by the Board of Directors.

And there has been another question by [ Andreas Ulrich ] from Alpha Capital. There has been unusual instability in your management position in recent months. Some thoughts about that.

It can be very simple to lead on our general management, our executive management, you basically have to serve 2 major capabilities. One, you have to be top in your function in what you do. And secondly, you have to be culturable, aligned or in a sense, fit into the culture of the company. If one of those areas are not good enough, you're not good enough to develop this company further.

And in the 2 places that we had to replace those -- one of those key elements were not there. And so we -- in clear communication, we had to do there the necessary correction. Another question.

There is another new one.

I have another observation. In the past when we were talking about Asia, it was more the tone that technologically, the integral products are a little bit too advanced for the market. And now you are talking about that Asia is morphing into a growth region for Interroll. So something seems to be changing in the market or in your product landscape or in your way going to the market? What has changed for Asia and probably emerging markets on a whole.

Maybe it's worthwhile to differentiate that a little bit in a couple of answers. So first of all, what do you see -- there is almost brutal change in technology and own understanding in the Chinese environment since the COVID times. And before that, China was organizing -- the Chinese markets were for many industries, a little bit the same. The good enough product came from China. The more advanced products came from Europe, or from outside.

And what you are seeing in automotive industry, in some of the machinery industry, that has radically changed after COVID. China did their homework and started to build on Chinese speed innovation capabilities. Today, technologies on electric vehicles, on batteries are happening in China for the world. So one to say, I'm just going to serve a niche market that is becoming less and less is no answer.

Second, our task is to understand where we, in our products and solutions have capabilities to serve the market. And that's what we are focusing on. And that's where we're gaining momentum and not try to position ourselves in the niche and hope we will survive. But to go into the applications with growth potential, where we add value on products, controls and software and serve the market and competence, project planning competence. And it's going to be a fight. That's very obvious like the others, but we will face the fight and we will find our way. Is that answering?

Partly. So the change is more that you're really attacking these markets now going into the market, find the parts that are interesting for you that you can serve probably they are there and just need to be better addressed.

And the market -- totally right, fully, but also in the markets that will not be only important for China, but have spillover effects into the world. There is another one. I guess another one. Maurizio?

Yes, I mean, [indiscernible] he's asking, looking in 2026, which are the verticals you are expecting the most to grow, I suspect, this missed, and which one will drive the growth for the upcoming years?

Well, I would say that looking into 2026, for sure, our verticals are stable and growing in the area of warehousing distribution and the CEP business, so the Courier, Express and Parcel. We see still the momentum there. The automation is needed more and more. I mean workforce is not easy to find, and it is a tough job. So I mean, the automation driver is there.

Airport business is still solid. Of course, we are closely looking at the situation in the Middle East because I mean, when it comes to airport business, this is, of course, a part of the world, which is pretty much important and developing quite strong. In general, let's say, industrial automation, especially when it comes to automotive, you all know is not surprise, where anyhow, our exposure is not so high like other markets.

There are a couple of trends that we are still monitoring pretty close. One is the e-grocery. So grocery has not really yet able to, I mean, move into the e-commerce because, I mean, the cost related to the delivery of grocery is still too high, and their margin are pretty small. So there, there is several attempts from some of our customers and integrator. And in general, the FMCG, so the fast-moving consumer goods market is stable growing. We have accounts in that area. And yes, we believe that this area will provide us with some good business for next and coming years.

So we have no more questions online. Are there any last questions from you? If not, we will then also close the Q&A session. We again want to thank you very much for coming, for honoring us with your visit, for your questions, for your support. And we will now close the session here and see each other outside at the [ airport ]. Thank you very much.