Kardex Stock

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Kardex Half Year Results 2026 Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Shari, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] and the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Alexandre Muller, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. So good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and I welcome you to our presentation of Kardex half year results 2026.

My name is Alex Muller, I'm responsible for Investor Relations. And I'm joined by Jens Hardenacke, our Group CEO; and Thomas Reist, our Group CFO, who will present the half year figures.

After the presentation, we will have the Q&A session. And I would also like to remind you that the slides from today's presentation as well as our press release and the half year reports are all available on our website.

And with that, I would like to hand over to Jens, please.

Thanks a lot, Alex. Yes. Dear ladies and gentlemen, also from my side, a warm welcome to the Kardex Media and Analyst Conference for the first half of the year 2026.

Let me start with our key message. The first 6 months of 2026 were mixed. On the one hand, we are clearly not satisfied with our profitability in the first half of the year. On the other hand, the demand for Kardex intralogistics solutions remains very strong, and our booking development was significantly better than we had expected only a few months ago.

As we communicated 7.5 weeks ago, we had to adjust our expectations for the full year 2026. At that point of time, it had become clear that we would not achieve the communicated full year EBIT margin range. The reasons for these developments are visible in the numbers we published this morning. While especially bookings, but also net revenues developed positively, EBIT declined sharply compared to the prior year, mainly driven by the temporary underperformance of automated products, a changed sales mix on Kardex Group level with a higher share of Standardized Systems and continued significant growth investment in sales and marketing, research and development and IT.

It is important for me to say this very clearly, we are not satisfied with the EBIT development in the first half of the year. Kardex has delivered excellent results in the past year and especially last year, we were able to present very strong half year numbers. Against this high benchmark, the profitability development in the first half of 2026 is disappointing. At the same time, we should not overlook the many positive signals in our business.

Bookings increased by 20.8% (sic) [ 25.8% ] to EUR 571.5 million and reached a new record level for our first half year period. This growth was driven primarily by Standardized Systems and shows that our strategic direction is right. Customers continue to invest in warehouse automation and Kardex continues to win attractive projects across the business units and across regions.

Net revenues increased by 6% to EUR 440.5 million. This growth was again supported by the increasing contribution of Standardized Systems, especially Kardex AS Solution. The higher share of Standardized Systems is in line with our strategic ambition to grow our solution portfolio and to accompany customers from the first steps of automation to more advanced integrated warehouse solutions.

However, this mix shift also had a negative impact on the gross profit margin at group level in the first half of the year as especially Kardex AS Solution is still in the ramp-up and investment mode.

Automated Products had a weak start into the year. The comparatively lower order backlog at the beginning of 2026, longer lead times for increasingly complex projects and customer-driven delays resulted in a lower net revenues and underutilization of production capacity. These 2 effects had a direct negative impact on profitability. In addition, we continue to invest in our ERP landscape and in targeted marketing activities to strengthen future growth.

Despite disciplined cost management, the EBIT margin of Automated Products, therefore, fell to an unusually low level in the first half of the year. Standardized Systems developed very positively in terms of bookings and net revenues. Demand was particularly strong for Kardex AS Solutions and the integration of Rocket Solution further broadens our portfolio.

Kardex Mlog was impacted by a very strong comparison base from the previous year, but the overall momentum in Standardized System remains encouraging. We also see that the order sizes in this segments are increasing with particularly strong momentum in the U.S. The opening of a new sales office in Korea is another example of how we are expanding our international reach.

So all-in-all, the first half year was clearly not as strong as we had originally planned, and we were transparent about this when we published our profit warning. But the fundamental demand for Kardex solutions is intact. Our bookings are much stronger than expected. Our backlog is at a record high level, and our strategic investments continue to support our long-term growth path.

With this, I would like to hand over to my colleague, Thomas, for more details on our financial results.

Thank you, Jens. Hello, everyone, to this conference call. I have the pleasure to guide you through the financial situation of Kardex for the first half year 2026. So as always, starting with the overview of the key figures.

Key figures development of the last 5 years, years 2022 to 2026, starting with the bookings. As mentioned by Jens, the bookings increased very sharply by plus 26% compared to the first half 2025. This is supported by both reporting segments. So our Automated Products increased 7% versus H1 '25 and Standardized Systems even 61%. Very substantial increase also if we compare the increase with the previous years and also with the CAGR over the period shown here on the slide. What I also want to mention is that when we compare first half 2026 with second half 2025, even there, we see an increase of 8.4%.

Looking at the net revenues, here, the increase is not so sharply, so plus 6% compared to the previous year. This is rather a weak increase, also very substantially below the CAGR. But if you look -- have a side look to the GDP growth rate of 3% worldwide, 6% is not too bad. So 6% is quite a substantial increase to the -- in relation to the GDP growth rate.

But what we also have to mention is that the mix has changed. Jens mentioned it before, while Standardized Systems increased substantially by 43% compared to last year, Automated Products decreased by 11%.

And this also leads me to the EBIT and EBIT margin comparison of first half '26 versus the first half of the other years. There, we see quite a substantial decline of the EBIT down to EUR 30.1 million, a decrease of almost 40% compared to the previous period of the last year '25. And also the EBIT margin went substantially down to 6.8%.

This is not satisfactory. Jens mentioned it that we are not satisfied with these figures. Nevertheless, one has to mention that this is the fourth-best result Kardex has established in history. But we all know Kardex now is playing in another league.

Looking at free cash flow. Here, we have a slightly positive free cash flow of EUR 1.9 million in the first half 2026. Further details will follow on one of the next slides.

So now I would like to guide you through the income statement of the year compared with first half 2025. As mentioned before, bookings went up sharply, plus 26%, reaching EUR 571.5 million. This is mainly due to Standardized Systems I mentioned before, they increased the volume by more than EUR 100 million, and this has also an effect on the mix, respectively, the share. The share of Standardized Systems increased by 10 percent points. So last year, they represented 35% of total bookings volume, whereas this year, Standardized System represents 45%.

Looking at the order backlog, here, a sharp increase as well, 42% more than previous year, reaching an order backlog of EUR 727.2 million, a substantial increase, increasing our visibility of the backlog, which went up from last year of around 6 months to now roughly 9 months. Net revenues increased by 6% to EUR 440.5 million. The difference between bookings and net revenues very obviously leads to a very strong book-to-bill ratio of 1.3.

So I mentioned it before. Also here, the mix changed on net revenues side. Also here a shift of 10 percent points. Last year, Standardized Systems represented 32% of net revenues, now increased to 43%. This has also an impact on the gross profit margin. Here, we see a slight decline of 34.1% to close to 30% gross profit margin. This is clearly based on the net revenues mix mentioned before and also because of the underutilized factories in the Automated Products segment, so namely Kardex Remstar.

OpEx increased by 9%. Here, we continue our investments in IT, so our ERP landscape. We invest in digitalization. We also invested innovation, namely R&D and also in our growth initiatives, namely Sales & Marketing.

EBIT, as guided, went down by 40% compared to last year, reaching EUR 30.1 million and also reached an EBIT margin of 6.8%. So this is a decline of EUR 19 million in absolute figures compared to last year and very clearly and substantially below our financial guidance for the full year, which is on a group level, 10% to 14% EBIT margin range.

Now looking at further details in the income statement. Here, I can report a turnaround in financial results, so to say. So we have established a positive financial result in the first half year 2026. This is based on the positive contribution of the asset management, but also from the interest gains.

What is to be mentioned here on that slide is the tax rate, which went up quite substantially from 25.6% to 29%. This is mainly due to Rocket Solution. You all know Rocket has not yet reached the breakeven point, so contributed negatively to the result for the period, and this leads to an unfavorable tax mix. The guidance on the tax rate, therefore, slightly increases. So we expect the tax rate for the coming periods of between 24% to 28%.

Now have a look at the balance sheet and the developments here. Here, we compare the situation by the end of June '26 versus the beginning of the year. And very obviously, cash and cash equivalents went down by 22%, quite substantially, but this is normal after the AGM. We distribute our dividends. This year, this was EUR 50.3 million we distributed to our shareholders, having an impact on the cash and cash equivalents as well as on the equity and equity ratio. Equity ratio went down from 53.6% to 47.6%.

Also to be mentioned here is our investments. This is visible in the noncurrent assets. So the property, plant and equipment went up by EUR 6.3 million compared to last year. Not here on the slide, but also to be mentioned is the increase intangible assets. Here, the investments in our software, so digitalization landscape contributed EUR 5 million on the balance sheet.

Again, I mentioned that every year, but it is worthwhile to be mentioned on our balance sheet, we have no interest-bearing debt. So we are purely equity-financed. This is to be mentioned. And also to be mentioned is our strong return on invested capital, which is 31%, slightly down compared to the first half '25, where we reported 37.6%.

Cash flow statement. Here, I mentioned it before, free cash flow amounted to EUR 1.9 million for the first half year '26 compared to the first half '25, a decrease of EUR 6.5 million. This is mainly coming from the lower result for the period. I mentioned this before on the income statement and also slightly negatively impacted by net working capital. Here, we invested net working capital. This is because we had a positive bookings momentum in the second quarter of the year, leading to higher accounts receivable because we raised invoices for the prepayments and also the accounts payables went up because the projects started.

Now I would like to guide you through the segment reporting, starting with the biggest segment, Automated Products, which is consisting purely of the business units, Kardex Remstar. Here, bookings increased by 7% on the geographical mix, mainly APAC contributed to this positive momentum. So APAC net bookings increased by 40% compared to last year. So a very strong comeback of the APAC region. U.S. contributed 8% growth on the bookings level. Also here, positive momentum. Jens mentioned it before, and we mentioned also in the last call that namely U.S. government's contract went down, but also other positive contracts we could book. The EU region also positively contributed this by roughly 2.5%.

Order backlog went up by close to 12%, reaching EUR 314.7 million and the visibility also went up by now close to 6.5 months compared to close to 6 months in the previous period. As the net revenues went down by roughly 11%, here, almost all regions contributed to this negative development, except of APAC. APAC was the only region contributed positively to the net revenues growth. Here, a plus of 4% can be reported. But due to the lower net revenues, the book-to-bill ratio increased quite substantially, reaching 1.25, which then gives us a very positive momentum for the second half of this year.

Gross profit went down by 14%. Also gross profit margin went slightly down from 39.5% to 38.2%. Here, we mentioned it several times, this is the underutilized factories contributing negative to the profitability, partially compensated by a higher share of the LCS business. This we will see on the next slide.

OpEx increased by 5% here, same as on group level, IT, R&D and Sales & Marketing. So growth initiatives contributed most. Also, EBIT went down by 42%, reaching EUR 26.4 million, 2 main reasons, as mentioned before, lower volume and underutilized factories, leading to the EBIT margin of 2.5%, which very obviously is below the target range of 14% to 17% on a yearly basis.

That we are cost conscious is very visible when we look at the employees development. So here, we increased by 16 FTEs compared to the first half '25, so an increase of 0.7%, despite the fact that the bookings went up by 7%, we are very cautious by increasing our sales force.

Now having a look at KPIs, KPI development, net revenues and EBITDA margin, I mentioned already. I will not go into further details, but to be mentioned is the development of the functional share, what I mentioned before, because of the lower performance of the new business area when it comes to net revenues, the share of LCS business increased from 31% to 36%.

The geographical mix, I mentioned before. Also here, we see a change. So the EMEA regions picked up from 65% to 68%. APAC region picked up from 8% to 9% increased the share, and by the lower share of the Americas region from 27% to 23%. Here, it gets very obvious that the volume went down. The bookings were not as good as we expected in last year. So the U.S. government's contracts were missing. They now are missing in the net revenues also in the first half year. And we also see here an FX effect from the U.S. dollar to the euro.

Now shifting to reporting segments, going to the Standardized Systems reporting segment. This consists of 3 business units. This is Kardex Mlog, AS Solutions and Rocket Solutions. Going into the details, success story continues, one can say in the Standardized Systems reporting segment, bookings went up very substantially, 61% more than previous year. So this means EUR 100 million more volume when it comes to bookings and main contributor is the sales engine AS Solutions being close to 120% above previous year.

Order backlog, plus 80% here both business unit group, so Mlog plus Rocket as well as AS Solutions contributed positively. They have increased their order backlog compared to last year and also net revenues here both areas, so Mlog, Rocket and AS Solutions contribute positively, plus 42.6%. The book-to-bill ratio in this reporting segment is very substantial, 1.36. So a very good situation for the order backlog and for the period to come.

OpEx increased quite substantially, 22.2%. And here, we have to invest, especially in the AS Solutions organizational setup. So with this high growth volume, we also have to invest in people, our organization and structures. The 22.2% is a substantial increase, but very substantially below the volume increase. Here, main areas we invest is the sales and marketing organization and innovation, namely R&D.

Gross profit margin went slightly down from 22.7% to 18.7%. This is due to some larger orders we had, but it is also a timing effect. Here, we are in the project business. So it really depends what kind of projects we can close. And in the H1 2026, the mix was not so favorable. This is the reason why the gross profit margin went slightly down. This is also the reason why the EBIT is slightly below previous year's EBIT of EUR 5.4 million, so it went down to EUR 5.2 million, reaching an EBIT margin of 2.7%.

Now what I would like to share with you is another success story. We sold in June, the biggest AutoStore project in France for all the AutoStore integrators. Our new customer Madrigall located in Paris is a leading French publishing group. So they distribute books and all different -- all the kinds of literature. They consolidate their 2 logistics centers into one highly automated distribution center with the core element of one AutoStore installation. This is representing 300,000 storage bins, to give you a picture what does that mean? This represents an area of 72,000 square meters if we place every bin aside of each other. And this, again, is an area of 10 soccer fields. So a huge installation we are going to establish for our customer, Madrigall. The volume of the contract is between EUR 25 million to EUR 30 million, very successful story we can share.

Now looking at the key figures also for that reporting segment. The net revenues increase is substantial, 43% up. We could not beat the increase from the year 2023, but there, we were at another level. EBIT and EBIT margin with EUR 5.2 million, quite a solid result, not the best we ever had, but nevertheless, a very solid result, EBIT margin of 2.7%.

The functional mix also shift to new business. This is very clear because AS Solutions business is contributing most for regarding net revenues growth, so 84% increase to 87%. Also on the regional mix, we see the impact of AS Solutions business. So we doubled the Americas business from a share of 11% to 22%.

This is an overview of the financial situation. Thank you very much for the interest. And with that, I would like to hand back to you, Jens, for the outlook.

Thanks a lot, Thomas. Now let us come to the outlook for the second half of the year 2026. As mentioned before, the first half year was not satisfactory from profitability perspective. The second half of the year is expected to be significantly stronger. The most important reason for this is the record high order backlog at the end of the reporting period. This backlog gives us a much better starting point for the second half of the year, especially for Automated Products, where the weak starting backlog was one of the main reasons for the temporary underutilization and the lower profitability in the first half year.

Based on our current visibility, the Board of Directors and group management expect full year 2026 order and revenue growth in the range of 15% to 20% with an EBIT margin of 8% to 10%. This is below the original expectations and below our group target margin range for the full year, but it also means that we expect Kardex to return to the targeted EBIT margin range of 10% to 14% in and for the second half of the year.

The profit warning was a necessary step because we saw that the original full year target could not longer be reached. But it does not change our confidence in the business model of Kardex, and it does not change our view on the attractive long-term growth opportunities in our markets. The structural growth drivers of our industry remain fully intact. Reshoring, labor shortages and automation continues to drive demand for intralogistics solution.

Still today, a large majority of warehouses worldwide are operated manually. Companies are under increasing pressure to automate their warehouses to improve efficiency, to address the shortage of skilled labor and to make their supply chains more resilient. Kardex is very well-positioned to benefit from these trends. With Automated Products from Kardex Remstar, we offer the entry point into warehouse automation.

With Standardized Systems from Kardex AS Solutions, Kardex Mlog and now also Rocket Solutions, we offer more advanced and integrated automation solutions. This portfolio enables us to support customers along their entire automation journey from the first automation step to complex integrated warehouse solutions.

We also see increasing opportunities from acting more strongly as One Kardex. Customers increasingly value a partner who can offer different technologies, strong service capabilities and integrated solutions from one hand. We are, therefore, leveraging more sales synergies across our business units and expect this to create further profitable growth opportunities in the years to come.

We will continue to invest in sales and marketing, research and development and IT. These investments temporarily impact profitability, especially in a year like 2026, where revenue conversions in the first half year was not as strong as expected, but they are necessary to further strengthen our market position, improve our operational scalability and create the basis for continuous profitable growth.

To summarize, the first half of 2026 was clearly challenging from a profitability perspective, and we have taken the necessary step to adjust our full year expectations. At the same time, our bookings are at a record level. Our backlog is very strong, and the outlook for the second half of the year is positive. Kardex remains on its accelerated growth path, and we confirm our communicated mid-term financial targets for 2029 to 2031, including the group EBIT margin target range of 10% to 14%.

With these comments, I would like to hand over to the operator to start the last part of the Kardex Media and Analyst Conference, the question and answers.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Vijayakumar Vitushan, Baader Europe.

Just 2 or 3 on my side, please. So to start regarding the revenues and EBITDA. So compared to the estimate, it seems like obviously, you will need a better-than-expected performance during the second semester on these 2 figures. And obviously, it should be driven by the strong backlog. Do you have any visibility on the margins of those projects in the pipeline? And yes, if you can give us some flavor on that? And also if you can tell us in which regions you're expecting the best momentum for the second half? And I would like to take them one-by-one, if it's fine for you.

Okay. Yes, thanks for your questions. With regards to the margin, we think that they would be at the same level as they are for the time being. So there's no big changes. We saw that there was margin pressure in the -- so already starting second half of last year for all business units. And -- but it's -- we see currently that it remains stable. We see also, for example, for AS Solutions, we also have, as you have seen before, as Thomas presented this, also some bigger projects and these bigger projects normally comes along with a little bit lower margin. So therefore -- but there's no real changes compared to the first half of the year.

If you ask for where does the momentum come from for the second half of the year, we basically believe that the trend that we currently see continues, a stronger push from the Americas and from APAC and a difficult -- still difficult market environment for Europe.

If I may add here one aspect, not to be confused. The EBITDA effect, so the lower profitability is not necessarily coming from lower margins in the projects. Yes, there is certain shift, there is competition in the market, but this is not the main contributor for the low profitability. It is lower volume, leading to an underutilized factory situation. And when the net revenues go up, then also the profitability will go up. Just to not confuse these 2 things.

Yes, sure. And then the last question, please. So like you highlighted continued geopolitical tensions and trade uncertainties. So while maintaining the new full year '26 guidance. So what impact from the Middle East conflict is currently embedded in your assumptions, so particularly regarding the freight costs, component availability and also customer investment decision and project execution, please?

Well, we are not so strong in the Middle East region. So therefore, if you -- we don't see any -- or we don't anticipate any negative consequences for us with regards to bookings and net revenues. It's generally what we see that there are price increases that there's some insecurity also with regards to supply chain, with regards to availability of containers. So this is why we mentioned this. But for the reason -- for the region itself, we don't anticipate big risks for Kardex.

The next question comes from Lasse Stueben, Berenberg.

I had a question on the margin trajectory you're seeing in Automated Products. You obviously had the weaker start to the year. But looking into H2, you should obviously have a material step-up in revenue. So I'm just wondering sort of you mentioned you'd be kind of within the target range, I think, for the group for H2. But just wondering kind of what kind of step-up we should be expecting in the Automated Products margin? Any color you can give there? And if there's actually any limit to what you can deliver in terms of revenue because you clearly have a very big backlog. So I'm just wondering if you have any capacity issues?

And then the second question would be just on the EBIT margin in Standardized Systems at 2.7% in H1. Are you still happy with the kind of 5% to 8% range for the full year? Because that does mean you need a bit of a step-up in the second half. So just wondering if you have visibility on that already.

Yes. Thank you, Lasse, for the question. Yes, very well summarized. So the margin situation at Automated Products, this is coming from the revenue. So a very weak start. We mentioned it as well. So low backlog, longer execution time for the projects. This led to the situation that we have a very weak start also from -- which then also affected the profitability. So the outlook for the second half of the year is quite positive. I mentioned it before. So the backlog increased by 12%. We have higher visibility, and we know exactly which orders will be executed in the second half of the year.

We have certain constraints when it comes to factory utilization, but we are not there. So what we predict is that we come back to the financial guidance also for Remstar into -- during the second half of the year. This means that the net revenues volume will increase quite substantially compared to the first half of the year, and this leads then to higher profitability. So this is a very clear view we have on the second half of the year.

And perhaps to add to this, Lasse, we -- if you see the last couple of years, we always for Remstar, so for Automated Products, we had for the last 4 years, a book-to-bill ratio below 1. So therefore, we really struggled at the beginning of the year with our backlog. So now if you compare the backlog for new business for Automated Products from now to beginning of the year, we increased the backlog by almost 25%. So therefore, we now see that the factories are full, especially the Bellheim factory. So therefore, this is now an automatic. So now we basically broke this circle of book-to-bill ratios below 1. So now we are with Thomas mentioned, is 1.25 of book-to-bill ratio. So now we are confident just to realize the backlog that we will get back to the target range.

And to your second question, Lasse, you raised the question, are we happy with the margin of Standardized Systems? No, we are not. So the 2.7% EBIT margin is not within the target range, but we are not worried. So what do we mean with that? We are very confident that we get to the target range from 5% to 8% for Standardized Systems. We also see the ups and downs in the project business, not that we lose money, but it's depending on the project execution time. So at which stage a project stands, we have our projects under control, very much under control also to be said. So we are not worried about this 2.7% EBIT margin we are currently representing.

We're also looking forward a bit a couple of years into the future. We are very confident. We said that several times and we stick to that, that we see a very positive momentum and also potential that the target range can be increased in a couple of years from now. Hope that gives the answer to your question, Lasse.

Perfect. Maybe I can ask just one follow-up just on Standardized Systems. You mentioned it in the presentation, you had a very strong development in the U.S. I'm just wondering sort of what is driving that specifically for you? I mean, AutoStore generally has had a bit of a harder time recently, obviously. So just wondering kind of what's driving your -- the strength of your business in the U.S.?

And this is not only valid for the U.S., but what we are looking for, so if you also ask, are there any industries for AS Solutions who are particularly strong, not really. What we are focusing on is the customers that have the potential for multiple sites. And here, especially in the U.S., we are successful to have identified a couple of customers with whom we could do contracts not only for one project, but then for 3 or 4 or 5 projects. So that is one of the reasons this targeted approach in the U.S. to go for customers where we see the potential for multiple sites.

The next question comes from the line of Sebastian Vogel, UBS.

I have two questions. I would ask them one by one. And the first one is regarding also the guidance for the full year and for the second half. So to better understand it there, what would be the scenarios to bring you to the upper end of the guidance? And what would be the scenarios that would bring you to the lower end of the guidance?

Difficult to say. So we -- the guidance is now between 8% and 10%. So the range is not too big. So we know what we -- or we have a plan what we can realize from the projects that we have in our backlog. And so here, we have a clear view that with what we have in our backlog, we have very, very high possibilities to get within the range or we see it as almost certain.

So it depends a little bit how strong then also the booking momentum in the beginning of the third quarter will be because whatever we book in the third quarter for Remstar and also for AS Solutions has high probability to also become net revenues in the second half -- in the full year. And this drives a little bit the question in where in this range we will end up. So basically, it depends on booking momentum in Q3. Normally, at the beginning of Q3, we have holiday season where it's not so strong. At the moment, we see very positive signals all over the world. So -- but this will basically drive where we end up.

Yes. And probably to add here also qualification, Sebastian, you're probably looking also for qualification of the range. I personally see it as very balanced. So 9% plus/minus 1%, this is quite a balanced view on the range -- target range we have given.

Got it. Second question is also on the margins, but this time, more specific on Standardized Systems. Just to have a little bit more granularity on the 2.7% of H1 in terms of the building blocks that gave you that brought you there. Was it pretty much only the projects? Or was it also a little bit of the consolidation of Rocket Solutions? Was it more of a competitive backdrop? Or is it really just only project size that were coming in? If you can add some, yes, some additional color there, that would be appreciated.

Yes, sure. Yes, the consolidation of Rocket for sure, plays a very important role. We don't want always to emphasize that because we decided to integrate Rocket and we stick to it. It is a good addition to our solution portfolio. But yes, it has put pressure on that reporting segment, even more than the project execution, to be honest. But nevertheless, in the end, it's a mix of both.

And that's a follow-up there. And that will continue, I assume, from Rocket angle also in the second half? Or do you expect some larger step-up into the direction of breakeven and beyond potentially for that business?

Well, the expectation in the second half of the year is that the negative contribution of Rocket is a bit slower. So it goes down with the increased volume we have in Rocket Solution, but it still contributed negatively in the second half of the year.

Got it. And if I may put in one small question regarding the CapEx side of things. I mean you initially guided for EUR 45 million, if I'm not mistaken. You had a bit of a slow start, so to say, into this number. Are you still fine with it? Or do you think that this year could be actually a bit lower than that?

It could be lower in our plan and the agenda and the road map, it's still the EUR 45 million, but it might be that certain delays leads to the situation that it slightly goes down.

The next question comes from the line of Walter Bamert at ZKB.

Perfect. So I come back to the Automated Products. I mean you have a backlog of EUR 314 million. You had an order intake of EUR 314 million. You talked about increasing order momentum. So that plays well for the orders in the second half. Is there any reason you can give me not to put at least EUR 314 million revenues into the second half?

It's a very specific question. And normally, we don't guide that specifically. As I said, I mean, in the end, it's the customers who accept the projects. Is it exactly EUR 200 million -- EUR 314 million? It's one of the scenarios for sure. I mean we cannot guide that specifically. But in the end, when you do the calculation, you probably end up very closely to that EUR 314 million, yes.

Okay. When we get very closely to that, we will all of a sudden have a very lot of gross profit contribution.

I didn't get the question, Walter.

When we have much more gross profit contribution from Automated Products.

Correct.

That's true. And therefore, we expect that we get back to the range.

Okay. And that leads to my -- so you said the booking momentum maintains very strong at Automated Products into the second half?

Yes, we are positive with this. We saw -- and you noticed also from the -- when we presented the numbers at the beginning of this year for the full year last year that we had a weaker second half of the year, and we also had a weaker January and February. But since March, we see a strong increase of what we have seen the 7 months before. So since March, we are very positive. This month also looks very positive. So we expect that this momentum that we have will also continue and carry us through the next couple of months.

Okay. Then you had OpEx of EUR 101 million in the first half. Is that basically stable at that level going forward? Will that increase further? Or are there one-off items in there, which will go away in the second half?

No, there are no one-off items. So we expect that we have a side effect. So no substantial ups and downs to be expected in the second half.

So also into the coming years, that's a good figure for the overhead cost for the IT cost and so on?

For the upcoming years, we will have an impact -- a negative impact on depreciation. So depreciation will go up as we invest currently quite substantially. This will increase the cost level just based on depreciation. We will further increase the labor force according with our growth initiatives, mainly in the Standardized Systems segment, not necessarily in the Automated Products. So you can expect further cost growth in the upcoming years. But as always, we are looking at profitable growth. So this meaning that the growth expectation of the OpEx level is below the volume increase.

Okay. My last question is regarding the project development. Is it correct to assume once you close a project that typically that should lift the margins a little bit if that is correctly executed and you tend to be conservative with revenue and profit recognition over the lifetime of a project?

This is correct. We have to distinguish between CCM or POC projects or POC. We apply for larger projects. This means that we recognize revenue in the course of the project. And also there, we see a small dip when everything went well -- goes well in the project execution, because we only in the end realize the risk cost. We have a risk cost in the project to cover uncertainties we have in the course of the project. Different to the CCM project, CCM projects, we recognize revenue only at the very end of the project. And with these projects, you see the whole profit margin only at the very end of the project execution.

Is there a -- so is it correct to assume the second half should rather benefit from this effect?

That's the right assumption, correct.

The next question is from Torsten Sauter, Kepler Cheuvreux.

I have a couple of technical questions. They are somewhat interrelated. So maybe I give them to you in one paragraph. Firstly, can you help me again with the revenue bridge? How much was organic, forex and M&A? Then tying into that, can you give me a feel for the Rocket Solutions contribution this year? And I know you're a little bit opaque on profitability, but what does it need for Rocket to be no longer dilutive? Let me say it like that. And then thirdly, could you clarify again, I didn't fully pick it up, the old and the new tax guidance, please?

Here's Thomas. Let me start with the first question. This is the revenue bridge. So there is hardly any M&A. So all the volume is organic. What we have on the revenues side is a minus of EUR 7.2 million FX effect. And this means that the organic growth, let me quickly calculate. So it's EUR 42 million. So the majority is organic. We have a negative impact on FX, and this is the revenue.

Rocket was the second question?

Yes. And here, so first of all, we will not give details on the contribution, but we can already see that we expect that in the course of 2027, Rocket will reach its breakeven.

And I must admit, Torsten, I have not understood the third question. Can you repeat that again?

Yes, I think there was also a bit of a misunderstanding on my side, but like you said something about the future tax corridor that you're expecting, which is higher due to the Rocket losses. Can you remind me of the old and the new corridor, please?

Okay. Now I heard it. Yes, the tax corridor was last year, 24% to 27%. I increased it slightly to 24% to 28% just because of the negative contribution Rocket. It's only a slight change of guidance.

But that's just for the current fiscal or for future periods? I mean...

Yes. That's for the periods to come. So you can count on the year '26, '27, '28, we will probably then guide -- give a new guidance.

So it's '26, '27. Yes.

Okay, Torsten?

Yes. Can I ask a follow-up? Yes, it's a small one actually. But I'm curious, you said you were entering slightly larger projects in Mlog and also you're tapping different geographic markets. Can you give us a feel for why the risk profile of this project business isn't changing? And how should we feel about questions like inflation escalation or what happens in case of a shortage of a component or delays? Is this business keeping -- defending its current low risk profile?

Yes, Torsten, this is Jens. I would like to answer this question. So what we do and what we do differently from some of our competition is we are not doing any one-offs. So we don't do any specialized projects for single customer requests. So if we do something new on the technical side, then we do it with the expectation that we can multiply this several times. So that in generally reduces the risk. So if we do an AutoStore project of EUR 25 million volume or EUR 5 million, it basically stays the same because it's basically the same technology and the same risk profile. It's just for -- yes, for a bigger size.

When it comes to our internal calculation, yes, we always have -- when the projects last for example, for 2, 3 years, then we have -- for our internal calculation, we always have a risk or an inflation part of this. We also have back-to-back contracts with our suppliers, for example, or we also have work with certain indices. For example, when we see that there's a huge amount of steel in there, then we work with a steel price index and vary the price accordingly. So therefore, we think that the risk profile stays the same, stays low. We also see this when we look at our comparison with calculated margins before the project and at the end of the project.

So at the end, we -- what was asked also before, we see that we have a positive contribution. So that means that we don't always use or that we don't use our full risk part. And we think that it stays the same because at the end, the risk profile of the project stays the same. And for all the things that cannot be foreseen, we have put some provisions in our project sheets.

The next question is from Constantin Hesse, Jefferies.

Sorry, I joined a little bit late. And I was just wondering, so if I look at, obviously, there's a big increase in activity in the second half to deliver these numbers. And there is some comments in the presentation like for example, customer-driven delay -- sorry, longer lead times for increasingly complex projects. So how comfortable are you with execution in the second half around these projects? Would be my first question.

And then my second question is just I heard there were a few answers on order momentum, but I just wanted to clarify, right? So if we look at Remstar, 7% in the first half, do you expect an acceleration in the second half? Or do you expect similar momentum? And a similar question for Standardized Systems, Mlog was a little bit weaker in H1. Do you expect an acceleration there? And I'm assuming the AS Solutions momentum is probably something that is going to be a little bit weaker in the second half '26 order momentum-wise, right? Because it was clearly a very big acceleration in the first half. So any information you can provide here would be great.

Okay. Starting from your first question, how confident are we also with regards to the comments that we gave for net revenue realization in the second half of the year, we are very confident because we have a good overview of the second half of the year. When we talk about the first half of the year, there was some insecurity because we had a bigger part of wins and do's. So that means projects that we haven't won at the beginning of the year and that we needed to win and realize within the first half of the year. So now we have a much better situation.

We also see how many of these bigger projects come in the second half of the year and when they will come. We have a lower percentage of wins and dos that we have to do for Automated Products. So therefore, we are very confident. Because I think your question targeted mainly on Automated Products, what is still the main profitability driver of...

Correct. On execution. Yes, on execution...

Yes. We are very confident. With regard to your second question with bookings, when you -- we have a 7% increase, but until March of this year, we were still behind the bookings of last year because the last -- so the half -- first half year of 2025 was until -- sorry, until now the strongest booking half year that we had for Remstar. So followed by a weaker bookings in the second half of the year. And still, even with the weaker bookings in 2025, we increased our bookings in total for Remstar by 10% for new business. So now we have a different situation, 2 weaker month in January and February, then we caught up from March to June. And finally, for the first half year, we were 7% better than in the first half of the year 2025. So we expect for the entire year for Remstar that there will be an increase in the range of 2 digits, low 2 digits compared to 2025.

When we look at the other business units, Mlog, we saw there were a little bit weaker in the first half of the year compared to last year, but also based on good bookings in the first half of the year 2025. We expect that the second half of the year will be stronger because we already have a couple of also verbally agreed bookings that will come in this month or next month. So we expect a stronger second half of the year. With AS Solutions, you may be right, we had such a strong first half. It will be difficult to beat this in the second half of the year.

Yes. Can I just ask? On AS Solutions, was there -- I'm not sure if you answered this, but was there a one-off in there? Or was it really just sustainable strong momentum?

There was one big project, as we have mentioned, in France. But all in all, it was still a very good and solid mix of small and midsized and big projects.

The next question is from Tobias Fahrenholz, ODDO.

Well, not much left, but could you maybe follow up a bit on pricing. So what has been the concrete impact in the first half? And are there any additional price increases to be expected in the second half? So what do you see here for the 2 divisions? And could you maybe also comment to which extent rising prices could have led to some prebuying in the first half?

Tobias, here is Thomas. We have price increase. I'm not sure whether you talk about cost or price. Price, so our end customer price will go up for Kardex Remstar reporting segment or business unit. We increased our prices by an average 5%. So this will have a slightly positive impact, but also costs are expected to increase, namely steel and transportation. We see there a trend that also our cost base goes up. This has an impact on Automated Products, so Kardex Remstar, but we expect a slightly positive impact on the cost price ratio for the second half of the year.

When you look at the other reporting segments, this is a project business. So this is a bottom-up calculation, and we always calculate based on the existing cost level base, I'd say we will not have any margin dilution to be expected in the second half. Did I answer your question, Tobias?

Yes.

The next question is from Laura Bucher, Octavian.

I have really just one now. It's on net working capital. So I mean you're growing the business, and margins are not there yet. I mean that's all fine. But I really -- I want to get your vision on net working capital profile for this year and once you reach, let's say, your cruising altitude level. I'm interested in free cash flow conversion post margin normalization. So I mean, where do you see net working capital intensity and free cash flow generation levels realistically?

Yes. Thank you for the question. Net working capital is very difficult to predict to be very honest. This is because of the Standardized Systems reporting segment picking up a substantial element of the overall business volume. It really depends on the project, project execution, project lifetime situation. When I look on average net working capital intensity, I would rather expect that it goes down in the second half of the year, so the intensity. Why is that? Because we have a very strong order intake in June. And assuming that we have a better distribution in Q4, this will slightly go down. But when we -- again, when we have a very, very strong December again and all the orders are coming in December, then we will have the exact same picture.

So I am aware that this is not a very satisfactory answer to your question, but this is the best I can give. Sorry for that.

No, that's fine. And then on free cash flow, do you have an ambition on a group level, let's say, 2 years from now of what you think you can and want to deliver?

Yes. Free cash flow is quite heavily impacted by our investment activities for the time being. So it's at the lower end, to be honest, when you look a couple of years back, then we provided always very strong cash flows in the past years, and this is also our ambition that we go back probably not to the same net revenue free cash flow ratio as before because we were a bit also to be honest, bit underinvested a couple of years before. That's the reason why we now invest more into the organization. This will stay on a higher level than if you look back 5 or 10 years from now. But nevertheless, we want to go back to a strong cash flow organization.

There are no more questions at this time.

Okay. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our today's conference call. Thank you very much for your interest in the company and for taking the time to join us today. And if you have further questions, obviously, you can always call us up and/or write us an e-mail. So thank you very much, and have a good day. Thank you.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Thank you. Bye.

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.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Kardex Full Year 2025 Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I'm Vicky, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Alex Muller, Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Vicky, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I welcome you to our presentation of the Kardex Annual Results 2025. My name is Alex Muller, I'm responsible for Investor Relations, and I'm joined by Jens Hardenacke, our Group CEO; and Thomas Reist, our Group CFO, who will present final results.

I would like to remind you that all the slides from the presentation as well as the press release and the annual report are all on our website.

And with that, I would like to hand over to you, Jens.

Thanks a lot, Alex. Yes. Dear ladies and gentlemen, also from my side, a warm welcome to the Kardex Media and Analyst Conference for the year-end results of 2025.

Let me start with our key message. We are happy with the full year 2025 results. In a difficult market environment with geopolitical tensions and trade uncertainties, Kardex reached all-time high bookings, net revenues and EBIT numbers. Beginning of 2025, we kicked off the implementation of our accelerated growth strategy. We formulated the target to become profitable EUR 1.5 billion net revenue company between 2029 and 2031. And after 1 year, we can say we are well on track.

We made substantial investments in strategic growth initiatives with a clear focus on sales and marketing, innovation and digitalization. We invested into our sales force at Remstar, Mlog and AS Solutions.

In 2025, we exhibited our One Kardex solution portfolio on 73 trade shows all over the world. We have increased our investment into hardware, but even more into software solutions to further differentiate from our competition. And we have further invested into our digital infrastructure to make our processes more efficient. And these investments in difficult times already paid off.

In both market segments, automated products and standardized systems, we heavily gained market shares in a flat market environment. We increased bookings by more than 24% and almost reached the EUR 1 billion bookings mark for the first time. We were not able to transform the bookings quick enough into net revenues. Therefore, we increased our net revenues in 2025 by only 7.5%, which leaves us with a strong backlog for 2026.

In 2025, we were very cautious with spending money outside of our previously mentioned focused investment areas. This led to an EBIT result of EUR 101.2 million, which is the first time in Kardex history that we reached an EBIT result above EUR 100 million.

If you compare the performance of the second half of the year with the already very strong performance of the first half of the year. You can see that in all three categories, bookings, net revenues and EBIT.

The second half of the year was even stronger than the first half of the year, which is exactly what Thomas and myself have indicated during the presentation of the half year numbers 6 months ago.

The booking performance of standardized systems in the second half of the year was just extraordinary. In total, standardized system increased bookings in 2025 by more than 50% and that was driven by the performance of both AS Solutions and Mlog.

For our automated products, we saw a more moderate booking performance in the second half of the year compared to the very strong first half of the year. But we already see in the last couple of weeks that also here, the demand for the products and solutions gradually picks up again.

Normally, when you hear that bookings increase heavily in a tough market environment, you assume that margins go down. But we do not see this with Kardex in 2025. Our gross profit margin is still at a very high level and only diminished slightly due to our sales mix as the percentage of standardized systems is now relatively higher than before and due to higher personnel expenses.

Our return of invested capital reached 35% in 2025 and remained on a very strong level. End of 2025, we added a fourth business unit to our portfolio when we acquired the majority shares of Rocket Solutions. From December last year onwards, we will report Rocket Solutions under our Standardized Systems segment. Rocket complements the solution portfolio of Kardex. I will talk about the reasons for the acquisitions later on.

Due to the good financial results of the year 2025, we proposed a dividend payment of CHF 6 per share, which would be a dividend payment at the same level as in 2024. So all-in-all, we are very happy about the results of the year 2025.

Despite a challenging market environment, we are growing and gaining market shares. And we see already that our investment in sales and marketing, research and development and IT infrastructure starts to pay off.

With this, I would like to hand over to my colleague, Thomas for more details on our financial results.

Thank you very much, Jens. Welcome also from my side to this conference call. As always, I would like to start with the key figures with the development of the last 5 years. Starting with the bookings, as mentioned by Jens before, bookings increased quite substantially by 24%. This is not above the CAGR of 30%, and the reason was also mentioned by Jens before. This is the systems business.

So mainly Kardex AutoStore and Kardex Mlog increased the volume, mainly in second half of the year. So more than 50% of additional volume. But also Kardex Remstar contributed to that good result by plus 9%.

When we look at the net revenues here, Jens mentioned that net revenues increased by only 10.5%. This is true, but this is below CAGR with roughly 17%. But here, we also have to remind ourselves that the years '22 and '23 were heavily affected by price increases we had to apply into the market.

And also an additional effect mentioned by Jens as well. The systems business was very strong in regards to bookings in the second half of the year. And therefore, we lacked a bit time for the execution of the order intake.

Looking at the EBIT and EBIT margin, here a loss of roughly 3% on the EBIT level, far below the CAGR but we remain more or less on the same level. When we look at the EBIT margin, so a similar level with the 11.9% EBIT margin achieved. This despite the fact that the share of systems business has increased and our investments continue. But I also allow myself to mention it, first time in the history of Kardex, we achieved an EBIT of above EUR 100 million.

Free cash flow dropped significantly compared to last year to EUR 20.5 million. Here, the reason is that we had an extremely strong 2024, so positive impact on that level. CapEx were not invoiced to the very last extent. And also, we had cash inflow because of POC projects we won by the very end of the year. And this year, the contrary happened. So CapEx was invoiced, and we had a very strong order intake in Q3 and mainly also Q4, where the cash inflow did not happen. And in addition, net working capital also increased, but we will go into further details in the cash flow slide.

So now having a look at the income statement to more detail -- in more details. Again, bookings increased by 24% or in other words, by EUR 190 million. Of this EUR 190 million, EUR 150 million were contributed by the systems business and EUR 40 million by Kardex Remstar, respectively, automated products. So this increased the share of the systems business. So the share increased from 35% to 43%.

Order backlog increased also quite substantially by 26%. Here, only systems business contributed. When we look at the visibility on a group level, this increased from roughly 7 months to 8 months because of the higher backlog in the end.

Book-to-bill ratio was at 1.15 overall. Net revenues mentioned before, 7.5% or in other words, EUR 60 million in addition. Here, both reporting segments contributed positively to the net revenues growth, whereas a stronger contribution from the systems business, also here, the share increased from 30% to 33%.

Gross profit margin remained more or less on the same level, slight decrease from 35% to 34.1%. Main reason for the slight decrease is the mix between the automated products and systems business and due to minor effects in Kardex Remstar. We have a further look in the later slide.

OpEx increased by 6% or in other words, EUR 10 million. Here, our main activities continued. So growth initiatives continued in our sales organization, marketing activities, IT and R&D. The resulting EBIT is roughly 3% higher than previous year. EBIT margin 11.9%. And as mentioned before, the EUR 101.2 million EBIT reached in the year 2025. And with that, very much in the middle of our target range of financial target of 10% to 14% on group level.

Allow me one word on the FX impact. Here, we saw higher impact than in the previous years. When I go through on bookings level, we had a negative impact of roughly EUR 12 million, net revenue as well, minus EUR 12 million, gross profit, minus EUR 4 million and EBIT minus EUR 1.2 million.

Now let's have a look at the income statement below EBIT. As you here, most of you have seen that already that we had a negative impact on the financial results. But first, allow me one word regarding the positive impact. So we have positive impact on our financial asset investments and interest gains, the smaller positive impact. We had a negative impact because of FX and the bigger impact is the impairment of the loan of -- we provided to Rocket Solutions.

Here, the situation is as such that Swiss GAAP FER does not give guidance when it comes to a combination of pre-existing relationship and a debt acquisition. So that's the reason why you have to apply for this transaction IFRS.

And for IFRS, it is a technical requirement to settle pre-existing relationship, and this led to a technical full write-off of this loan of EUR 39 million.

To remind you, this is a non-cash item, so it has no impact on our cash and cash flow, and it is also a non-operational transaction. So there is no effect on our dividend payment. Because of the settlement and write-off, also our tax rate went up because it is also non-tax effective this write-off and the tax rate accordingly went up by 37%.

The result for the period also dropped to EUR 41.8 million and the margin also achieved roughly 5%. When we deduct the non-operational effect, then we achieved more or less the same results than in the previous year.

Now having a look at the balance sheet. Also here, we see an effect of this non-operating transaction of the settlement of the Rocket loan. When you go to the equity, the equity went down by EUR 15 million, affected by this write-off of EUR 39 million and also the equity ratio went down by roughly 4 percentage points compared to last year and also to the neutralized equity ratio.

Additional effects we see on the cash and cash equivalents. This went down mainly because of high net working capital. You see that on the accounts receivable and inventory side as well as on the accounts payable.

But let us have a look on the cash flow statement. What really happened here, the result of the period is negatively affected by this non-operating transaction. You see that with minus EUR 39 million. But we have here in the cash flow statement a counter effect, a positive counter effect on the change in non-cash items because, as I mentioned before, the settlement is a non-cash effect, and therefore, it's neutralized here in the cash flow statement.

The real effect on the cash flow comes from the increased net working capital. Here, we have a cash effect of the net working capital increase of EUR 15 million, mainly coming from the accounts receivable. They increased because we had a strong net revenues in Q4, where we did not receive all the cash already in the reporting year 2025.

Inventories also went up here mainly because we increased the security stock levels because of the geopolitical tension, and a slightly positive impact on the accounts payable. And also a negative side effect on the CapEx. Here, we increased our investment activities. You remember, we are in the transformation program. So it changed to one ERP system, SAP S/4 HANA. And we also invest in buildings and equipment. And here, we have a negative cash effect compared to last year of roughly EUR 21 million. Resulting free cash flow, as mentioned before, EUR 20.5 million.

Now having a deeper look into the segments, starting with the Automated Products segment, consisting solely of the business unit, Kardex Remstar. Here we have increased our bookings by roughly 9%. Allow me here one word in regards to the geographical split of this effect.

Here, main contributor was EMEA, so the European region with plus 12% compared to previous year, followed by Americas, plus 6% and APAC contributed negatively with minus 8%.

Order backlog here went slightly down by 6% or EUR 17 million. That's the reason why we have a book-to-bill ratio below 1, so 0.98. The reason for this reduced backlog is mainly because we improved our execution. So we have the possibility to deliver our machines faster and the visibility went very slightly down from 5.8 months to 5.3 months.

Net revenues went up by roughly 3%. Also here, I would like to provide you with the geographical split of that impact here, Americas contributed most with plus 8%, followed by EMEA, plus 4%, and also here, APAC contributed negatively with minus 5%. The mix between the functions remained more or less stable, but there we have, on the next slide, a better view.

Gross profit increased slightly. Gross profit margin remained more or less on the same level, slightly down by 0.7 percent points. Here, we have a tariff impact, U.S. tariffs with minus EUR 1.1 million, FX impact of minus EUR 3 million, and we also have slightly lower the business in the U.S. market.

EBIT margin, on the other hand, remained exactly on the same level. So within our financial guidance of 14% to 17% and here remains at the upper end of our financial corridor.

Now as promised before, development of the KPIs for automated products, specifically with Kardex Remstar, here, we see that net revenues grew slower than the CAGR with roughly 3%. But here again, we have an effect on the price increases of the years '22 and '23, which increased the CAGR. And as mentioned by Jens before as well, we have a slight slowdown in H2 due to the geopolitical uncertainties, but also customer-related project delays.

On EBIT level, mentioned before as well, EBIT margin remained quite stable on the same level. EBIT increased slightly, but below CAGR.

Net revenues by function. Here, we see a very slight increase of the upsales business, so 1% point higher than in the previous year and also a very slight change in regional split. So Americas increased their share to 25% at cost of APAC with 8% to minus 1% for the APAC region.

Now let's have a look at the Systems business to the 26.5% we have already. So we currently own 87% of Rocket Solutions. This happened in the very beginning of December. So first consolidation happened 1st December 2025. That's also the reason why the impact of Rocket Solution is very insignificant, no substantial contribution, whether positive or negative to the results. And therefore, we also included it in the Kardex annual results. The remaining 13% of the shares are with the former founders of Rocket Solution, and we have the option right to acquire this 13% in the future.

So now let's have a look at the income statement, the financial highlights 2025. Here, the very substantial increase of the bookings level, so more than 50% more volume on bookings. Very impressive, in my opinion, a book-to-bill ratio of 1.52.

And here, I would like to give you some insights regarding the geographical split as well. So from the bookings, EMEA share is the highest. We realized 75% of the bookings in EMEA, roughly 20% in Americas and the remaining 5% in the APAC region. When we look at the growth pattern compared to last year, the highest relative contribution comes from the Americas market, plus 160%, followed by EMEA, plus 40% and the APAC region with plus 60%. You see the split between Mlog together with Rocket and AS Solutions, so it is not at that time, not only AS Solutions contributing a very high portion of additional bookings, is also Mlog, which contributed a lot of additional volume.

The order backlog increased by roughly 70%. Here, I don't go into the split, but just to remind you what is the visibility of the two areas. So Mlog and Rocket, they both have a realization period between 9 to 18 months. Mix is around 12 months of realization time, whereas for the AS Solutions or for the AutoStore project is an average 9 months.

Net revenues increased by roughly 19%. Here also the split highest volume by EMEA, 76%; Americas, 17%; and APAC roughly 10%. Gross profit increased by roughly 20%. Gross profit margin slightly increased from 22.6% to 22.8%. And this despite the period we are in where we are investing a lot into both organizations, Mlog as well as AS Solutions.

This investment, we also see in the OpEx. So OpEx went up quite substantially. The main areas of investment is the sales and marketing area. So we invest in growth in marketing and also R&D mainly for software activity. That's also the reason why the EBIT went down minus 4.2% compared to last year and also the EBIT margin went down to 5.0%, so exactly at the lower level of our financial target range of 5% to 8%.

Here also a look at the development of the most important KPIs. Net revenues increased by 19%, substantially below the 33% CAGR, but it is always easier to grow when you're on a low level. So in absolute terms, we grew a lot and also net revenues were affected because bookings were very, very strong in Q3 and Q4. So we have not enough time to execute the project. This will happen in the year 2026.

Then EBIT and EBIT margin, I explained already. One of the main reasons for this dropped EBIT margin is that the share of AS Solutions went up and AS Solutions is heavily investing in sales and marketing and also the organizational maturity.

Net revenues by function here, hardly any change, only 1% point where the LCS business went up. Here, AS Solutions contributed also the first time. So the AutoStore business is more and more increasing, whereas on a very low level, it's still below 4% points of the total volume.

On the other hand, net revenues by region. Here, we see a clear impact of the AS Solutions business. So we see a better distribution on the global scale. Americas share went up from 9% to 17%, plus 8% points. The APAC share went up from 2% to 7%, plus 5% points. So far higher international split of our Standardized Systems share.

Thank you for the interest. I would like to hand back to you, Jens, for the outlook.

Thanks a lot, Thomas. Before I want to give you an outlook for the year 2026, I would like to explain our reasons for the acquisition of the majority shares of Rocket Solution, as already indicated during the beginning of the Kardex Media and Analyst Conference.

Kardex was already very well positioned in the market for warehouse automation before the acquisition of Rocket Solution. With our portfolio, we are able to accompany each customer from the first steps of automation with our automated products from Remstar to more advanced Standardized System Solutions of AS Solutions and Mlog. But here on this slide, you see that with the multi-shuttle solutions of Rocket Solution, we will get a better coverage in the handling of light goods, especially if customers ask for the combination of high performance and midsized capacity requirements or if the height of the building is more than 8 meters, a multi-shuttle solution is often the most preferred storing solution.

So therefore, we decided to invest into a multi-shuttle solution as this would complement our solution portfolio and would help us to cover the entire automation journey for our actual and potential customers in an even better way than before.

There are already a couple of multi-shuttle solutions in the market. We invested into Rocket Solutions because we see a couple of advantages compared to these other multi-shuttle solutions. With the up to 6 deep bin storage and the space optimized rack design, we can clearly say that the Rocket multi-shuttle is the most dense multi-shuttle in the market.

Also, the load handling process is different from other multi-shuttle technologies and minimize mechanical stress, which leads to lower maintenance costs. We are convinced that the Rocket multi-shuttle is the ideal technology that complements our existing solution portfolio.

In 2025, we've seen a lot of occasions that customers appreciate to work with suppliers that can offer different technologies out of one hand. Suppliers that offer a combination of simple solutions and advanced solutions, suppliers that can offer light good solutions together with pallet handling solutions. And this is one of Kardex's core strengths.

More and more often, we win the trust of customers as One Kardex. In 2025, we generated around EUR 150 million of bookings with projects in which more than one Kardex business unit offered combined solutions to our customers. In most of the cases, in the combination of Mlog and AS Solutions, but we also saw joint projects from Rocket and Mlog from Remstar and Mlog as well as from Remstar and AS Solutions.

This means that we see more and more synergies between the different business units. And therefore, we are sure that the acquisition of Rocket Solutions will further strengthen the already very strong market position of Kardex.

And this is also the way we want to continue. We have individual business units with strong positions in the respective markets. We are the market leader for entry-level automated products of Remstar. For Advanced Standardized System solutions, we offer AutoStore Solution, Rocket Solution and combined technology solutions by Mlog. By combining the strength of the different business units, we are able to offer everything out of one hand from entry-level solutions to more advanced solutions.

The customer does not have to work with several different suppliers to get different kind of automation solutions, but can find everything from Kardex. The strategy towards a more customer-centric organization was one of the main reasons for the accelerated growth in 2025 and will also be one of the main reasons for our future growth.

With the acquisition of Rocket Solutions, we have enhanced our solution portfolio with the most dense multi-shuttle solution in the market, which helps us to further expand our addressable market.

We will continue to invest into sales and marketing, R&D and IT infrastructure to get more feet on the ground to further strengthen our position in the market and to continue to drive profitable growth. Therefore, our outlook for 2026 stays positive. We expect the demand for Kardex intralogistics solutions to remain strong.

The geopolitical and macroeconomic challenges will remain, but we will continue our path of profitable growth also in 2026. On the one hand, global trends like reshoring, labor shortage and automation will drive the general growth of warehouse automation. And on the other hand, Kardex is so well positioned across all business units to capitalize from these trends and to outperform the market in both segments, Automated Products and even more in Standardized Systems.

We will further invest into sales and marketing, R&D and IT to further outperform the market and to create the basis for continuous profitable growth. As I mentioned in the first part of this Kardex Media and Analyst Conference, in 2025, our bookings grew a lot, while we were not able to transform most of the bookings into net revenues. Due to the strong backlog at the beginning of 2026 and the good project pipeline for all four business units, we expect that the net revenue growth for Kardex for 2026 will be above the projected average, while we confirm the general financial midterm targets as shown here again.

With these comments, I would like to hand over to the operator to start the last part of the Kardex Media and Analyst conference, the questions and answers.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Sebastian Vogel, UBS.

I have three questions. I would ask them one by one. The first one relates to your outlook and coming back to your last statement there. So does it mean actually you expect that net revenue growth in 2026 should be above the 14%?

Yes.

That's clear. Second thing is on the margin guidance. In the past, I got the impression that you sort of aim for something around 12%, potentially a little bit less than 12% for -- also for 2026. Is that also still a decent ballpark? Or do you think a different number would be sort of applicable?

Yes, Sebastian. Actually, we believe that it is around slightly below 12%.

Got it. And then the last question is on the current trading side. I mean, you have alluded in some of the initial remarks already. But nonetheless, if you could share a little bit of thoughts across the sort of portfolio would have increased, including also AS Solutions, Mlog, what sort of order momentum you have seen on a year-to-date basis for each of the different subsegments? That would be appreciated.

Sorry, Sebastian, we didn't get question. Can you please repeat the question again?

Yes, if you can sort of share your insights on how order momentum was for AS Solution, Mlog and Remstar on a year-to-date basis.

Okay. On a year-to-date basis, we currently see a very strong order momentum or booking momentum for Mlog and for AS Solutions. As we have said before, the second half of the year of Remstar was not so strong. We also saw this in January and also in the beginning of February. Now in the last 2, 3 weeks, we see that this is picking up again.

The next question from Constantin Hesse, Jefferies.

I've got actually one question. Just on the free cash flow profile into '26. Can you just remind us again of the CapEx dynamics that you expect? And what kind of free cash flow generation we can expect over the next couple of years based on -- so I think you said the CapEx -- you still have elevated CapEx between '26 and '27. Is that correct?

Yes, that's correct. Well, CapEx will further increase, to be honest. And our guidance says that we will be between EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million, depending a bit what happens with our Asian factory because EUR 50 million includes a fully fledged factory in Asia. And here, we have different options. So we probably go not for a fully fledged factory there, and this will reduce the capital expenditures requirements in the year '27 accordingly. But for the year 2026, we expect higher CapEx in the year 2025. Was that your question?

Yes, sorry. So EUR 40 million to EUR 50 million for '26 and the same for '27. Is that it? Sorry, because the line is a bit bad.

Actually, it's -- yes, correct. That's correct.

[Operator Instructions] A follow-up question from Sebastian Vogel, UBS.

Yes. Sorry, me again, two quick follow-ups. With regard to net working capital, I just wondering, do you see there's more of a headwind or a tailwind in 2026? And then I would have another follow-up.

I think there are more tailwinds to be honest, because we are at the lower end. So we will have higher cash inflows because of the projects we have won. So we had quite a bad momentum by the end of the year. So invoices were raised, but the cash was not inflows. So for me, we have rather a positive momentum in the year 2026.

Got it. And the other question is with regard to the Remstar order intake in the second half. I would assume also from your mentioned numbers on U.S. growth, that the U.S. was definitely one of the weaker ones regarding the order momentum over there. Is there some sort of pent-up demand that you would expect that would come back somewhere in 2026? Or is that like gone forever, so to say? Or would you -- do you have any thoughts there with sharing?

No, we think, as you mentioned before. So the U.S. was on the weaker side, and we believe that we will see a much stronger year in 2026. As you may have read between the lines, so in the past, the U.S. government was the strongest single customer from us. And due to the delay of the so-called big beautiful bills, we haven't seen a lot of spendings there in the year 2025. So this we expect in the first half of 2026 and basically also for the entire year 2026 and also for other industry segments, because there was also this uncertainty and this for the tariffs. We at least have now most likely for the next 150 days, we have a clear scenario. So therefore -- and we see this already that customers try to make use of this short-term security about tariffs. And therefore, we expect a strong year of the U.S. for Remstar in 2026.

Got it. And sorry, one last question, if I may, as I'm already speaking. Not just a little bit far away, but 2027, the EBIT margins. I mean, by the time your investment program should be finished, potentially top line is also coming in further. Is it like that you have then a step up directly by whatever, like 100 basis points that we could expect there? Or what is your sort of thinking how margin should be then developing, assuming the top line would be doing what you're expecting?

Yes. Actually, our investments also continue into the year 2027. So we are not through with our investment in the transformation. So also in 2027, it might come back slightly, but it's a bit far worry, to be honest.

A follow-up question from Constantin Hesse, at Jefferies.

And just a quick follow-up. I'm curious because like when I look at what's going out there, right, if you look at KION's reporting, Interroll reported this morning, everyone is reporting numbers that are clearly not exceptional as you're reporting.

Now you obviously have the benefit of seeing some regional growth for Mlog. But if you could maybe comment a little bit on the market dynamics that you are seeing, what are some of the key segments where you're seeing all this growth coming from?

It's not so much about the key segments. I think we have a very good position in the market because we see this more and more. So this was one of the slides that we have shown consulting that customers are looking for getting everything out of one source and not asking for three or four different suppliers. So therefore, I think this is something where we have a unique position in the market that we offer entry-level solutions as well as advanced solution.

For sure, we also see some good momentum in e-commerce, for example, we see some good momentum for defense. But these are not really reflected in the 2025 figure so far.

So we really see that one of the biggest advantages that we have also compared to the others that you just mentioned that we have this broad portfolio and we can basically offer everything from entry level to advanced solution out of one hand. So this is one of, I would say, 2/3 of the growth that we have seen in 2025 has the origin in this -- yes, in this relative good position of CapEx covering entry level as well as advanced automation.

Yes, that's great. And then if I may, I think you mentioned that the order intake into the year-to-date already is showing, it's already pretty promising, at least for Mlog and AutoStore. Now look, I'm not assuming that 52% that you reported last year are going to be sustainable. But when you say strong, do you think that there is still a possibility that we could be seeing something in the teens in '26 growth-wise order momentum?

I think the question was raised before already. So Jens confirmed that we see at least in the range. So the order intake momentum is good, and in the range of our financial guidance, it's slightly above.

But you -- Constantin, you mentioned that whether we will expect another 50% or so growth, now most likely the growth will be below this.

No, not 15%, sorry. As I said, if it's going to be something around the teens area. So basically assume something around your medium-term guidance growth-wise. Okay.

[Operator Instructions] Gentlemen, there are no more questions at this time.

Okay. So thank you very much, Vicky, and ladies and gentlemen, that concludes our conference. And thank you very much for your interest in the company and taking your time to listen to our webcast. And if you have any further questions, obviously, we are always available to whatever with e-mail or phone, you can always contact us. So thank you very much, and goodbye.

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.