Pfisterer Stock

Welcome to the PFISTERER Holding SE Publication of Half Year Report 2026 Call. The conference will be recorded. [Operator Instructions]

Let me now turn the floor over to Johannes Lindento, CEO.

Hello. Good morning to our earnings call and a warm regard from the southwest of Germany, fortunately, not so warm any longer from a heat point of view than what it used to be a few days ago, but we think quite hot from the business performance point of view, and this is what we would like to talk to you about today.

The presentation that we have prepared is structured into four different chapters. The structures are generally the same as in previous calls. In case you have participated, we will be giving a very brief introduction, in particular, for the ones who may be in the call for the first time. After that, we will be talking about the financial performance of quarter 2 and then also subsequently, this will be leading to information regarding half year 1 and the respective relative comparisons to the previous years.

We're going to be sharing a few insights on our threefold growth strategy in Chapter 3, business highlights. And lastly, there should be remaining 20 minutes approximately for questions and answers that we will be very happy to answer to you.

And if I kick it off and start with the introduction, Johannes Linden, my name. I'm the guy on the left. I am meanwhile, more than 30 years in the B2B industrial arena out of this more than 22 years, profit and loss responsible in a number of companies, amongst others, also listed companies. And I'm a co-CEO here in PFISTERER, and I'm taking care of the functional areas of finance and operations. And that gives me the chance to hand over to my colleague, who's sitting next to me.

Hello. Good morning, Konstantin Kurfiss -- everybody. I also have plus than 30 years in industry in various companies coming especially out of the, I would say, our industry we are working in electrical infrastructure. I'm more than 16 years here in PFISTERER, from 2005 to '13 and now from 2020 up to now. I'm also the co-CEO here and a Board member, and I'm responsible for sales and technology in the company. So welcome to our call.

All right. So if we take a look at the product examples, this will be illustrated on the picture in front of you. Here, we would see a typical transition from an overhead line. This is the wire cable type of element that you see in the upper half of the picture. And these overhead lines would be connected to an earth cable and/or a transformer station. And that's why we chose the picture here. This time, you see different products of PFISTERER, for instance, insulators would be illustrated here, but also terminations. And in the front of the picture, you see the person applying safety equipment of PFISTERER with which this worker can safely check whether there is any juice on the line, so to speak, whether there is electricity in the system or whether it's safe to be working on the system.

we have -- and this is illustrated by the picture. We have products and components that can be found in the electrical infrastructure. And there, we are connecting the grid and the mission of PFISTERER of the team of meanwhile 1,500 people here in our team is to be the preferred partner for innovative, reliable and also mission-critical electrical connection and insulation solutions. This is illustrated by the picture.

And on the next slide, there is another illustration. Of course, this is a very condensed view of reality. It's a condensed view on the electrical landscape. And you see here different steps of the electrical infrastructure, for instance, starting with the generation of electricity. This is more in the top area of this slide, onshore wind, offshore wind, nuclear, energy could also be gas turbine or it could be a solar photovoltaic electrical generation field that is seen here in all of these generation situations, electricity needs to be connected, and that's where PFISTERER comes into the game.

So we are connecting these generators with the transmission that can be taking place under the water or it could be overhead lines in the air, but it could also be cable -- underground cable systems. And again, PFISTERER is able to provide the connection and the insulation to all of these different elements. And after the transmission, then electricity needs to be distributed into the application arena. This could be a municipality or it could be radar mobility, it could be data centers, obviously growing very strongly, and it could also be e-mobility charging stations and so on and so forth.

So PFISTERER is agnostic with regards to the individual application of our products. We provide the products for generation, for transmission and for distribution. We provide the products whether they are applied in the air, under the water line or in the earth, and we apply the products whether they are on a low voltage spectrum that would be anything below 1,000 volts, whether they are in the medium voltage that is between 1,000 and 53,000 volts or whether they are in the high-voltage arena, which is anything above 53,000 volts and up to 1 million volts.

We are agnostic, and we think this gives our business development quite a robust profile. And speaking about that on the next slide, there is an illustration, again, of PFISTERER's footprint. This is demonstrated in the center area of this slide with the world map, PFISTERER being active through 19 different companies. 5 different production facilities in the U.S. and Germany and the largest one in Czech Republic. And in combination, in conjunction with our technical distributors, highly educated technical distributors, we are covering more than 90 countries from a sales point of view out of our 19 entities and 5 factories.

The revenue of PFISTERER, this is illustrated on the left, split into business segments that we are reporting by geography. This is starting with the largest region, Europe and Africa with 50% -- I'm sorry, 55% revenue share in the first half of '26, followed by the second largest region, which was the Middle East and India region with a revenue share of 25%. The Americas, which is covering Continental Americas, meaning North and South America with 40% and Asia Pacific with 6%.

To take a look at the share, maybe just a brief comment. Europe and Africa is the largest share, and that has also been the case in previous periods. If you compare the 55% of the first half of '26 with '25. Back then it was 54%; in '24, it was 58%. So the revenue share of the largest segment, Europe is more or less constant over the past years.

If you take a look at the segments regarding our products, this is the pie chart at the bottom left. Here, starting with the largest segment, HVA, high-voltage cable accessories, so connectors that are connecting cables to equipment, be it a transformer or be it the gas insulated gear switch station or others is the largest segment, HVA with 42%. Overhead lines represent 25% of our revenues. And from a voltage point of view, overhead lines are also typically high voltage. Number three is the components business, low-voltage applications with 21%, and then there is a medium voltage application with 11%.

If we add up overhead lines and HVA, both are high voltage, meaning above 53,000 volts, they are making up 70% from a segment share point of view. And that number has substantially increased over the past years. It was 62% and 63% in the past 2 years. Meanwhile, it has grown to 77%. And maybe I'm a little bit too early mentioning this, but we are happy about that for the time being because the higher the voltages, typically also the margins are the highest.

On the right, you see also selected customers. Maybe I can mention here that we have a very broad range of customers from a customer characterization point of view. There are reputed utilities worldwide to name just a few. is the one here on the top left, but there is also Swiss Grid or there would be in the more southern regions, but it could also be Edison in the United States or the SEC in Arabia. We are working with cable manufacturers. The second group here, Hellenic Sterlite from India now, we added this illustration here because this wasn't mentioned in the past, but Sterlite India is also a good growth region for us.

ZTT is also mentioned here newly. We've been working with ZTT already for a number of years. And we also want to illustrate there that we are working with Chinese cable manufacturers in China, but also in Asia and also to a growing extent outside of Asia. Softwire would be an American company, LS Cable is a Korean one. So you see the cable manufacturers across the globe are working and relying on

Technical distributors I mentioned the most prominent business partners from a reputation point of view, I guess, are the OEMs such as GE, Lenova, ABB, Hitachi, Siemens Energy and -- as a fifth customer group, we are working with the contractors. This is also represented by a number of reputed companies you see there.

The largest single customer of PFISTERER is in the area of 3% revenue share. We believe this gives us quite also some robust business exposure as we are not focused on one customer or one customer group, but it's well distributed across the groups, the customers and the segments.

Okay. One last comment from a more holistic point of view. We believe that the electrical infrastructure continues to have a very positive and sustained tailwind. And that gives us confidence that we will see PFISTERER also continuing to grow sustainably for the future to come. First, we think this is supported by the fact that the global electricity demand continues to rise. If the growth in electricity in '25 was at 3%, it is projected to be 3.6% in this year and even more 3.8% in 2027. We think the underlying trends, e-vehicles, heat pumps, air condition are robust.

And of course, data centers are being built. I believe the United States is investing $1,000 billion -- I'm mixing up billion -- yes, $1 billion next year into data centers. So there is a growth in electricity.

The grid investments are obviously correlated to the electricity consumption and demand. this is growing just as well. In '25, the growth in the grid investments was calculated to have been at 11%. For this year, the global grid investment is expected to grow at around 17% relative to last year. So this is a very fertile solid ground we are working on.

And maybe as a last example, speaking about Europe, we think that the political support in the European Union in accelerating permitting procedures is also worthwhile to mention. I don't want to talk too much about politics here. Everyone has its own opinion there. But if we look to the permitting procedures, we believe there is positive notice to be made. If you look, for instance, in Germany, the average approval time for onshore wind has reduced in the past 2 years from '23 to 17 months. And we immediately see that in an increased approval of capacities in '24, 14 gigawatts will be approved in '25, there was already 21 gigawatts. And maybe it's also worthwhile to put that into perspective.

So in those 2 years, Germany approved 35 gigawatts on onshore wind mill capacity, but Germany only installed 8.4 gigawatts. So that means more than 4x the capacity has been approved than what has been installed. And I believe that gives us confidence that we expect also major growth to be taking place in the future ahead of us. And I think this has also been confirmed for the most recent statements from the windmill companies such as Vestas and GE who increased their guidances, but also [indiscernible] are working as per their expectations.

And this would be leading me to Chapter 2, the financial performance of half year 1. But let's talk about the quarters first, and then we will be coming to the half year.

If we look at the order book and the revenues of PFISTERER in the quarterly view, looking back over the past 5 quarters, I think we see a quite satisfactory picture. Our order book increased year-over-year by 8.9% to a new record number of EUR 340 million. If we take a look at the revenues, we see that the revenue in the second quarter with EUR 129.8 million, once again reached a new all-time high. It is an increase relative to the previous years, a quarter 2 of 14.4% and EUR 129.8 million has never been accomplished by PFISTERER before.

If you look to the average quarterly revenue of '25, back then, it was EUR 112.5 million. So far, the first 2 quarters this year have an average of EUR 128.4 million, and we're going to be covering this later, but we have reason to believe that this number will continue to increase also in the second half of the year.

If you look to the product segment and our individual regions that we see here, then it can be observed that all 4 product segments showed a growing revenue year-over-year, all four. We can also state that three out of four regions showed growing revenues year-over-year and the strongest increase we have seen were in HVA. If you look to the individual regions, we see that the strongest performance in the second quarter was in Europe and Africa.

If we move on to the next page. and take a look at results. Information we are sharing on the presentation here. We have in the past and also we do it this time just the same as before. We are sharing gross margin and adjusted EBITDA data for the individual quarters. If we start with the gross margin, the second quarter is the second quarter in '26 with a gross margin above 40%. So we see a 4 as a first number, 40.4%. Gross margin is slightly down from the first quarter, 43.6%, which again was a record number on the gross margin in itself. The past 5 quarters have shown 4 quarters with 4% gross margin. We think this is quite an achievement. And if we then turn to the adjusted EBITDA, which is, of course, positively influenced by the good margin, but also by the good volume that we have seen then our EBITDA with EUR 24.7 million in the second quarter is an increase relative to the previous year's second quarter of 33.4%. And again, this is an achievement from our point of view that makes us look into the future quite positively.

We move on to the individual breakdown of order intake and order book in our reporting geographical regional view. On the next page, we will be sharing the same on the product segment view, but let's start with the geographical regions. We have seen in the second quarter somewhat softened order intake relative to an extraordinary prior year. I think that is worthwhile to mention an extraordinary prior year. If we, at the same time, look at the order book, which is the basis for revenues to come, we see that based on the extraordinary prior year's order intakes, the order book has continued to show growth on a year-over-year comparison view. And that, again, is our -- yes, comfortable situation on which we are growing the business.

If we look into the individual geographical regions, in the Americas, we have seen a decline in order intake, which is mainly attributable to a lower demand in Argentina. Nevertheless, the order book in itself is down less than what we see on the order intake. And the order book in the Americas is relatively low from a product segment characteristic point of view because the products that we are serving in the Americas have shorter lead times than in the other regions. So that is, I believe, also relevant to say.

If we look to Europe and Africa, we see that the order intake in the first -- in the quarter went down in Germany in OHL, but the order book in itself went up relatively strong, 9% plus. And that is primarily driven by the product segment HVA, which is going to be seen on the next page.

In the Middle East, we have seen an order intake that is down compared to quarter 2. That was a record number in quarter 2 last year, again, to be mentioned and the order book went up still in the second quarter relative to the second quarter last year by plus 6%. And lastly, in the Asia Pacific, we have seen a steep increase in the order intake, plus 94% and we also see a positive development in the order book with plus 42%. Overall, the order book went up by EUR 28 million, which is a plus of 8.9%, which is the basis for future revenues.

If we move on to the product segment breakdown here, there, we see that the order intake as such, of course, the sum is the same. So there is also a lower order intake in total relative to the super quarter 2 last year. And we see, in particular, now the breakdown in the individual product groups. That's the order intake had the strongest reduction in OHL. At the same time, we maintained a very strong order intake in HVA, and that results then in the order book overview with growth in HVA, in MVA as well as in overhead lines and a constant order book in components.

If we go more details into the individual elements, we see that in HVA, we had growth in Asia Pacific and in the Middle East. And at the same time, there was lower activities in America and Europe in the second quarter in itself. The order book increased, therefore, mostly in the Middle East, but also in the European region. In medium voltage applications, we see that the order intake improved, and that is reflected by high demand in Europe and Africa. And the order book nowadays is mainly consisting out of Europe.

In components, we see that the order intake declined slightly, which is connected to the Argentina effect. I was mentioning that on the previous page already. We see a very stable trend in the order book in the Americas and also in Europe. And if you look at the overhead line business, the order intake moderated that has been also shown on the previous page in the Middle East and there in Saudi Arabia.

We all know that in the second quarter, in the Middle Eastern countries, people had also other things to think about. And we recognize that some projects, the placement of projects with regard to order intake has been a little bit more hesitant. These projects have not been canceled, but they haven't been awarded at the speed that they used to be awarded. We believe this is a temporary effect, which will be washing out over the quarters to come.

And that leads me to the profit and loss or the KPIs in the second quarter of this year, the comparison quarter 2 '26 to the comparison quarter 2 '25. Starting with the order book at the top line, order book is standing at EUR 340 million here at PFISTERER, which is an increase compared to the second quarter of plus 8.9%. Our order intake with EUR 139.4 million is below the second quarter, which was a record number of EUR 146 million. Nevertheless, our order intake is positive in the sense of a book-to-bill ratio larger than 1, since we are showing revenues of EUR 129.8 million in the second quarter, and that is an increase of 14.4% relative to the second quarter in the previous year.

With our gross result increasing by 9.4% to EUR 52.4 million in the second quarter, we are achieving a gross margin of 40.4% in the second quarter, and this then leads to an EBITDA increase of 42.8% mainly -- I'm sorry, EUR 24 million on EBITDA. The adjusted EBITDA, EUR 24.7 million. This is shown a few lines further down as we are typically referring to the adjusted figure.

As you may remember, the adjustment in itself is related to our virtual stock option program, which is a one-off based incentive program to more than 35 managers in the company. And as we do not intend to have another IPO anytime soon in PFISTERER, this program will be running out next year. And then the adjustment of the virtual stock option program will be history.

So our adjusted EBITDA was EUR 24.7 million, represents an EBITDA margin of 19%. And this translates into a positive EBIT development increase of 45% and even more into a super result for the period in the second quarter of EUR 19.8 million, which is an increase of 97.1%. Maybe here, it should be mentioned that EBITDA, EBIT, all of this is true business performance. On the results for the period, there is also a taxation element included, which goes back to the treatment of the virtual stock option program as on local GAAP, these elements are reducing tax. And at the same time, on IFRS group account, they are not reducing our profit. And therefore, we have a positive impact there on the taxation results on the group level.

Our net debt is at EUR 4 million and the net working capital was 24.7%, well below our guided 27% to 28%.

So if I summarize this, PFISTERER managed with 9.6% more employees to generate 14% more revenues in the second quarter, 45% higher EBIT and 97% higher results for the period.

And this leads me then to the overview for the first half of the year, illustrated on the table again in the same structure as before, half year 1 relative to -- half year 1 '26 relative to half year 1 '25. We see a revenue increase -- I'm sorry, we see an order book increase of 8.9%. We see the order intake with EUR 262 million at minus 9.4% relative to the previous year. We see the revenue growth meanwhile, in the first half of the year at plus 20%, 20.2%. And based on this revenue growth and the strong gross profit, we see an adjusted EBITDA going up by 32.7%. We see EBIT going up by [ 43 ], and we see the result for the period going up by 75.9%.

PFISTERER in the first half of the year managed to have an adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.4%. This is almost 2% higher than a year ago. And I think this is quite a good intermediate result that we are showing here for the first half of the year.

Our adjusted operating cash flow, maybe this is also worthwhile to mention, amounted to EUR 29.1 million. We believe also there EBITDA -- adjusted EBITDA is well converted into cash. And that gives us the room to maneuver and to continue to invest into the consecutive growth in the company as based on our growing order intake, of course -- I'm sorry, order book. Of course, we have to invest and increase our capacities in order to continue to grow also the revenues and also to show consecutive order intake growth in the future.

On the next page, our results for the period translates into earnings per share. And in the second quarter of this year 2026, we are seeing a significant positive development of EPS despite the fact that the number of shares on a quarterly basis in a relative comparison keeps on going up. There has also been a small capital increase in the second quarter, which is more a statistical effect. It doesn't show a big impact here on the figure, but should be mentioned just for reasons of total information. But with EUR 1.11 earnings per share in one quarter, we are seeing a year-over-year comparison, an increase of 73%, and this despite the fact that the number of shares went up by 25% approximately.

So we think that the results in the first half of the year, but also in the second quarter are very satisfactory. We believe this is a very solid basis for us to continue to develop our company. And we also believe this gives us the confidence not only on our midterm targets that we have expressed before, be it for revenues, EUR 800 million to EUR 900 million in revenues, be it from an EBITDA margin of 20-plus percent. This we have already seen in the second -- I'm sorry, in the first half of this year and in the first and second quarter of this year. We believe this also gives us the confidence that we will be hitting our revenue target for this year, which was a growth of 12% to 17%. We have seen 20% growth in the first half of the year. And this also -- and even more based on the order intake of the past 6 weeks. So this is not what you see in the first half of the year. We are very confident that we're going to be also meeting our guidance on the order intake for the full year, which has been the order intake that we have seen last year with EUR 550 million.

So now I want to touch our -- a few business highlights. In Chapter 3, the business highlights are structured according to the 3 pillars of growth strategy of PFISTERER, starting with our technological milestone development project where we are really and truly driving technological innovation in our industry. This is related to our HVDC market launch, which is knocking at the door. We have, this year, in the first half, earned a patent for our HVDC connector technology. As you know, we are continuing to build our HVDC laboratory here in Winbach, which is the basis for starting production based on the qualified products.

We have shared with you previously that we have meanwhile successful 320 kV tests with customer cable -- tests with customer cables, and we will be applying our patented technology in various applications up to 525 kilovolts. And this patent that I'm putting here prominently into the window, it's the latest one, and we are -- I think it's fair to say a little bit proud on it, but it's only one of 166 active patents that PFISTERER have today.

If we move on to the second pillar of our growth strategy beyond the technological disruption we are working on, we also have a number of innovations already in the market, recently introduced or on the way of being introduced, where we are expanding our business boundaries. This is an example here of a product called -- we call it OCA. This is an -- is a little bit of a technical term.

Innovation projects. PFISTERER has recently introduced this into the market. It's an application that you will find in wind turbines where PFISTERER now can also deliver a full system from the generator down to the bottom of the wind where then the transmission is starting. We are applying in these products, our mechanical connector technology that we also apply in other connectors. So we think this is from a core competency point of view, quite a smart approach as we apply the core competencies of PFISTERER into new product applications, and this is why this development is qualifying as a business expansion activity. We have already successfully introduced this in the United States, and we are seeing further opportunities, in particular in Asia, where the wind market in Japan and South Korea is very bullish and robust.

And then I would like to share with you a third slide that is also the third column of our growth strategy, where we are pushing our core businesses in our core markets where we see the biggest immediate effect when it comes to figures, order intake, order book and also revenues as these are introduced products. The way we are doing business, if I start on the top left, is, of course, meanwhile influenced by IT. And PFISTERER is, I think it's fair to say, is very dynamic when it comes to automation of individual steps in our business activities. And this is also reflected, of course, in efficiency gains. But we want to share with you here that approximately 5% of our revenues are investments into the IT and digitization into the group. We think this is a relatively high number if I compare it with peers. I think we are here quite progressive. And we are doing this in order to spend money, but we are doing this because we are counting on further efficiency gains due to these investments in future periods to come.

If I look to the bottom left, there, I want to share with you that we have invested into machine capacities, but also into working time models in operations and efficiency gains through automation on the shop floor. So tangible automation via robots and other elements. And by doing so, we have achieved to grow our output on the mechanical connectors, we call it -- in the two manufacturing facilities of PFISTERER in Rochester by prominent plus 46% within 1 year. I think this is quite an accomplishment, and we aren't hesitant there. We will continue in a similar way also for the years to come.

On the top right, you see the new HVDC qualification center, already mentioned before. The construction is absolutely on schedule and will be finished and started up in the first quarter -- I'm sorry, in the first half of next year. And then on the bottom right, the -- we were touching the operating cash flow earlier. Operating cash flow in the case of PFISTERER is used in order to increase our CapEx. And in the second quarter of this year also to pay dividends to our humble shareholders. But if we look to the CapEx expenditures into machineries and also real estate in the production sites of PFISTERER, we have invested close to EUR 40 million since the IPO, and we are doing this because we see that PFISTERER has the right products in the right markets, has the right teams and is continuing to show positive development for the years to come.

And with this, it's exactly 40 minutes. I'm happy from a timing point of view, doing pretty well. The very last slide is upcoming events and conferences where you can be meeting -- please push for the next slide. There we go.

Where you can meet our Investor Relations team and also Executive Board members. We are present on a number of conferences in the remaining rest of 2026, August, September, November, December. We will be presenting our Q3 figures on November 18. And we will be publishing our Q4 figures on the 21 -- sorry, 24th of March 2027. This is 3 weeks earlier than this year. So there, you see also efficiency gains amongst other things in our admin team and the year-end results next year will be presented on the 12th of May, which is also 4 weeks earlier than this year.

And -- yes, thank you for your attention, listening to the presentation, and we are happy to receive any questions, and we will do our best to give you precise, honest and good answers. Thank you.

[Operator Instructions] And we have first questions coming in. First question comes from Yasmin Steilen from Berenberg.

I have three, if I may, and I will take them one by one. Just before I start, just please allow me one general comment. In my humble view, it would be very helpful to get more time on the Q&A while you might reduce the time for the general remarks. So on my first question on high-voltage AC. We have seen a rock solid development in terms of 29% sales growth in Q2, but the order intake was only up 1%, implying a book-to-bill of 1.1. So could you provide more color on the high-voltage A order intake? What was the reasons for the slower development? And what are your early indications from customer discussions on the second half also with the implied acceleration on your order intake guidance?

I think the speakers are maybe on mute.

I was muted -- there are two constant factors here. PFISTERER is a great company, that's one. And the second is you are the first person asking questions for I'm happy about this. The order intake in HD, yes, I agree, has been robust on a year-over-year comparison. But you need to see, if you go a little bit further back in the history, last year has been a tremendous increase in order intake. So this year, we are repeating this increase. If we look to the order book, in HVA, the order book a year ago was at EUR 155 million. Meanwhile, we are at EUR 182 million, and the order book needs to be digested before we will see further tremendous increases on the order intake. So the order book will be carrying us into continued growth on revenues. In the HVA segment, we have seen this on a year-over-year comparison. Quarter 2 this year was EUR 59 million. It was EUR 46 million last year. Half year 1 this year, EUR 109 million from the figures now. Last year, EUR 86 million. We will see a continued growth on HVA revenues based on the order book, and we will also see continued order intake growth.

So that was the first question. Could you repeat the second one, please? Sorry for this.

Sorry, I have -- so the second one is on high-voltage DC. So you have not reported any order intake so far. However, your customer, Hellenic Cable has been awarded for high-voltage electrical interconnection. So is it fair to assume first order intake on high-voltage DC for you also in the second half of the year?

Okay. I think we have finally completed several type tests with cable manufacturers also in Europe, also mentioning Hellenic cable. There are other cable manufacturers. And I think there will be an official publication even from one of our partners quite soon about the successful type test and the successful type test means now the system is ready to be ordered or to be executed for the market. That means then a PQ test can follow. And the PQ test will have the basis that there also will be an order coming up for PQ test because there is a project behind. So our ambition, and like we said, is '27 to have an order intake there. Whatever comes earlier, we are happy to publish. But I think for the HVDC projects, especially with the Europeans, but not only with the European cable manufacturers, I think we are on a good way. So I see a good perspective, I would say, end of this year or beginning of '27.

Okay. Very clear. And then finally, and then I step back into the line is just a housekeeping question. You mentioned on your tax rate that the treatment of the stock program had a positive impact. So how should we think about the full year tax rate? And also assuming the stock option program should phase out, is it fair to assume a normalization of the tax rate to mid-20s midterm?

Okay. So the effect on the tax rate in the second quarter is in the area of EUR 4 million. If it wouldn't have been for this, the tax rate would have been in the area of 20%. And that is also the range that we are on a, let's say, on a non-VSOP year, we would -- under the given conditions, we would see as a normal tax rate in our case. Now since the thing took place in the second quarter, maybe this gives us the opportunity to have -- on a full year basis to have a lower tax rate than the 20% as the other 4. In the next year, there will be -- probably there are -- the VSOP program from a guideline point of view, from a program point of view, leaves us certain freedom how we can reward the money value of the options, whether we do full equity, whether we do full cash or we do a mix. Now this year, it was a mix. assuming we would be doing the same and then this year, which was 50-50 and assuming we would have the same share price next year, we would see another EUR 4 million tax effect next year. And then that's it as the PFISTERER program will be finished after the third and last, installment. Is that good for vocabulary, third and last reward period.

And the next question comes from Cosmin Filker from

I also have three questions. If it's okay for you, I would ask them one by one. The first one is regarding the plans of the site expansion in You already communicated in the last call that there is an option to buy more land next to the production site now. What are the plans? When will the expansion will be finished? And is the target of EUR 65 million for '26 CapEx still in place now?

All right. So I would be taking this. We have, meanwhile, like you said, in two steps, we have acquired real estate. The one step was last year roughly 50,000 square meters. This year, roughly 45,000 square meters. This year's acquisition is also comprising warehouse and office buildings. Last year, it was only ground. Both of these acquisitions took place in the same industrial park where our today's rented facility is. And at the same time, we have also expanded the rented lease space. This year, it used to be 19,000. We have added another 12,000. So 19,000 went up to 31,000, and we have now the real estate of approximately 95,000 square meters acquired.

The building start of constructing a new factory on the acquired ground due to the fact that on the second acquisition, there is already buildings there. There is less pressure on executing this. But the building start is intended to be in '28. Now we are making up our mind how the design of the factory is going to be like, how the value stream, the material flows, et cetera, how this is going to look like, then we need to go into a building permission procedure. This is, to my knowledge, in Czech Republic, not really quicker than it is in Germany. Therefore, we should -- as we talk, we should believe that breaking ground, is that right, breaking ground will be in '28.

Regarding the investments for this year, we have in the first half of the year, invested. I need to look at that figure now. Full last year was -- we have invested EUR 20 million. We have in our optical quite a relevant amount of monies for finishing and continuing our HVDC laboratory, but also a number of machines, capacity expansions in manufacturing machines that we are -- will be adding in the second half of the year. And we are foreseeing an investment to be in the area of EUR 60 million to EUR 70 million CapEx this year.

Okay. So no change there. The second question regards the insurance payments. In the first half year, they sum up at around EUR 2 million, EUR 1.9 million. In the last call, you already explained us that there are two parts. The one is the and the other one, the [indiscernible] So are there still payments expected in the third quarter?

Let's say, in the second half of the year, absolutely, yes. Whether it's going to be in the third quarter, I would say this is like being on fee. You never know what happens, how long the experts take in order to get the final evaluation. I think there is a good chance of seeing more in Q3, whether it's going to be finished in Q3 or that there's going to be two more installments that needs to be seen.

And the last to be on the same side...

I would expect November to be finished in November to be on the same side. But it could happen also already in Q3, but this is -- would be to determine.

Volume-wise, would it be the same amount that was paid in the first half year?

Well, I wouldn't be against it, yes.

Okay. So we will be asking for more?

Yes, we are asking for more.

Okay. And the last question is regarding the EBITDA in the region, North and South America. Compared to the first quarter '26, it fell down to EUR 1.4 million, yes. And in the first quarter, it was EUR 4.1 million despite a slight increase in revenue. Can you just explain what led to this development?

Yes. In the Americas, we had -- in the first quarter, we had quite a positive intermediate situation. There was a very strong margin project that we saw in Argentina, and there was also quite a good HA margin in the U.S. in the first quarter. However, in the second quarter, we had a project mix, which had a relatively high share of preassembled cables with the preassembled cables that leads to the fact that you have a relative high portion of third-party material that with only a short small markup goes through the books and that then reduces margin. So this is a one-off effect, if you want to say so. This preassembled cable project is finished and done, and we should expect to see things somewhere rather in quarter 1 level for the second half of the year than in the second -- than in quarter 2 level.

And the next question comes from Adrian Pehl from ODDO.

Actually, a question, first of all, on your order intake. I mean, you said already on the question of Yasmin basically on HVA that there's some digestion going on. On the other hand, to come up with significant growth for 2027 and taking into account your lead times, we should assume probably that in Q3, latest Q4, probably that the order intake accelerates from the existing levels. Is that something that you are confirming and looking at?

And a question linked to this, is there any capacity constraint? Because I recall a bit the answer on a question in the Q1 call that makes you reluctant on accepting orders, for example, in Asia Pacific, potentially on capacity constraints that might be an obstacle for an acceleration of the order intake? That's my first question. And then I have another probably.

Well, starting with the second half of your question, Asia Pacific, we have seen an increase in the order intake in Asia Pacific, and this is because we have somewhat prioritized businesses there. We weren't happy with the development before. So we believe Asia Pacific will be picking up based on the order intake and also the increase in the order book that we have seen. Amongst others, this is also HVA business.

Moving to the more general question, I believe, on order intake. Yes, absolutely. We are very confident that in the second half of the year, we will see a pickup relative to the first half of the year. That's just the logic with my previous comments. And maybe we should have stressed that in the written documents more than what we did. We confirm the guidance that we have given, that is a revenue guidance and an order intake guidance. The order intake guidance has been that we are going to continue what we've seen last year, that was EUR 550 million.

Right. That was also one of the reasons why I'm asking because I think that missing concrete guidance statements in the press release is probably contributing to the lower share price this morning. But anyway, a question on the...

[indiscernible]

Yes, yes, absolutely. So a question on the outlook for revenues. I mean just doubling what you did in H1 brings us to 14% revenue growth. Now you said 12% to 17%. So is there -- what's the element of uncertainty? I mean, given that you have probably seasonality going into the second half, the upper end of this guidance or revenue growth seems more likely or much more likely than the lower end. So I just want to hear your thoughts on this one. And then I have one or two housekeeping ones.

Well, the -- I mean, the general sentiment on this is that we do have the order book and we have also confirmed deliveries that would be justifying an expectation of higher revenues in the second half compared to the first half. At the same time, you know that there are global uncertainties.

Is it so that in October, you can still rent the boat to go to the Red Sea in Saudi? Is it so that somewhat in August, we will still be able to book ships going through the Rhine to Rotterdam or from Rotterdam down south. So there are, let's say, operational elements that are beyond our reach that we want to be cautious about. We don't want to overpromise relative to that. It's like you say. If we double the first half of the year, we will be ending up at [ 400 and what is it, 13 ], 413 and that will be the growth that you mentioned. 12% to 17% we have given as a guidance. We don't see a necessity to narrow this at this moment in time. But based on everything that we see and that was part of was, it would be more likely to be on the upper end than on the lower end.

Great. And then just two questions on the regional setup that you have or, let's say, the reporting there. On Asia Pacific, also the margin was very low, actually slightly loss-making in Q2 when I got my math correctly. Just want to hear your thoughts on that and how that is proceeding. And the second one is actually on the positive side of things. I mean, obviously, it looks like that Europe is accelerating a bit. Is that something we -- I mean, otherwise, phrased differently, your growth last year to a large degree, has been coming from the Middle East region pretty much. And Europe was fine in my view, but could have done better. Is that now the phase where we see Europe accelerating with more orders and then essentially revenues, which actually would be contributing to the margin and a nice top line development?

So let me answer first and then maybe Konstantin also wants to add. So I start. Regarding Asia Pacific, it's I prefer -- Asia Pacific is a small region, et cetera. And looking at EBITDA, you have in between the operational business, gross profit and the EBITDA, there is a lot taking place, which also has some statistical elements in it. So I prefer not looking at the EBITDA in Asia Pacific, but I look at the gross profit. And the gross profit in the second quarter is okay. It's not great, but it's okay. And we believe that based on the HVA project that we have recently booked that we will also see a positive continuation there.

If we look to the first half of the year, the gross profit gross margin of half year 1 this year compared to half year 1 last year is exactly the same. It's 0.5% better. So I would say -- I would call it the same. There is no trend from a negative point of view in Asia Pacific when it comes to margin. In Europe, you're absolutely right. We have seen last year a tremendous steep ramp-up in the Middle East. We believe due to the political situation, that may come to, let's say a halt. Halt meaning that may stabilize now for some quarters on a high level. We do not see any decline. We will continue to see an increase in revenues. This is just based on the backlog. But on the order intake, the order intake situation in the Middle East, we believe, will be stabilizing this growing -- this growth -- this grown is the right, I think, past perfect. This grown revenues we have seen and Europe will continue to be our supporting factor. Europe is very strong. With this, I hand over to Konstantin.

So maybe just three comments to Asia Pacific. We have to respect that the activities we are having in Asia Pacific also load in a certain sense on the other regions because our activities with cable manufacturers, even with wind pipe manufacturers then are materialized in other regions because we go to the country of destination where we then deliver the turnover to. This is one thing.

So there's also a positive effect from Asia Pacific into other regions. This is one maybe which is important than what we see in Europe, and this is also driving the Europe business. If you look a little bit into the legislation, how they are driving now at the moment, even the projects, the average, I would say, time for, I would say, bringing a project to life went down from 2 to 3 years now, I would say, from 1 to 2 years, that also will accelerate, I believe, what's happening in Europe on that side. And that also drives us.

What we see maybe as a third comment in the Middle East, we are on the project. We know the projects. I think we had a little bit of slowdown, which is clear on the impact we had on the Middle East situation. But what I see from the customer side, it means from the cable manufacturers and utilities, I don't see a downside for our continuous business there, just as a comment.

Yes, that's indeed very important because, I mean, if you look at the CapEx forecast from Saudi Energy, I mean, it seems that the peak is behind a bit. I mean, still they have very high levels going forward, but momentum is waning a bit. Is that something that makes you concerned in any way or not really?

Not really making concern. In good contact with Saudi Electricity on the project when it comes to cable projects, when it comes to overhead line projects and also how Siemens is driving that region in the intermediate connections with transformers and switch gears that shows those projects will be done in the upcoming months and years definitely. So I'm not worried there, to be honest. And for sure, the good thing we will see all the people next week on the in Paris. There will be all the cable manufacturers worldwide. And I think all the utilities we work with. And then we also will get, how you say, a certain taste what's happening.

From my point of view, the investment plans from SEC are stabilizing. They aren't going down. They are stabilizing on a very high level. That's our viewpoint. And that goes in line with my previous comments also and what Konstantin just said.

And the last question for today comes from Volker Stoll from...

I have a question regarding to order dynamics in North America. Could you give us, please, a dynamic in North America only so that you can extrapolate from bottom up, how we think about the order dynamics in Q3 and Q4 coming? And what -- which products are preferred in North America? Is a very famous product you already mentioned. Could you give us another example which products are running there really well?

Maybe from my side, a comment there. Yes, it's the is one of the main drivers. But what we see beside the if we come to data center, also the medium voltage connects plays a role there, which is a connector going from 10 to 36 kV, which we are producing and providing to the big OEMs when it comes to the connections of the data centers. We are also producing, I would say, for big factories when it comes to battery storage, the connections in between the batteries that will be a product where we have an order intake and will drive the business in the future and which is ramping up. And for sure, we see a little bit of differentiated, I would say, approach in the U.S. because there's on one side, there are a lot of utilities which are working together and driving, I would say, the energy transmission. And I think there's still a lot of potential when it comes to the high-voltage grid where we also see with our high-voltage products, I would say, a good drive into the next couple of months.

So basically, high voltage is still imported due to the manufacturing restrictions. And how is the capacity utilization in the North America in Rochester now evolving, so you're heading higher. Are there already some further expansion plans? Or are these more granular expansion plan?

Maybe one comment, and then I think Johannes can comment from the production side. So what we see there is more -- I would say there is more quantities are coming for the and also for other products for overhead line products, what we are seeing, so that's why I believe. Now I hand over to Johannes now it comes to the investments, and this is what we are planning for this year and next year to follow this higher demand in components in HVA, but also the insulator business.

Regarding the building premises, we have sufficient space in the rented building that we are operating in the U.S. And so there is at least nothing to be added there in the foreseeable future. Regarding manufacturing capacity for mechanical screw connectors, we have more than doubled the capacity through two steps in the first half of this year, and those machines will be -- or are -- did already start to produce products. This is -- the machines are sold out. So capacity is 100%.

And this then immediately will be also reflected in the revenues in the Americas. But the components business in the Americas is in the area of, I believe, 40% of the revenues of Americas is components, meaning it's not 1:1. You will not see an increase in components necessarily 1:1 from a percentage relative point of view also then in the Americas revenue. But things are developing well.

The customers are very happy with us being local because now for them, lead times are much shorter. They don't have to worry about transportation. There is less import duty than what used to be before when we were producing these products out of Germany. And one of the reasons also why the new machines are immediately sold out is the fact that we are moving production from Germany into the U.S. as well. So in the past, we did not produce last year, for instance, we didn't produce all the American connectors in America because we didn't have the ability to do so. So a portion of that was already -- was always coming out of Germany. Now we are shifting as we are growing the capacities in North America, we are shifting parts of these products from Germany into the U.S., and this is freeing up capacity here. which is then helping us in growing the revenues in Europe. This goes back to square one and also to an earlier question, I believe from a business point of view, the most prominent regions for the coming quarters will be Europe for us. And that's good news because it's a profitable growth.

Okay. So we have to think about double-digit growth rates in North America regarding the orders also in the coming quarters?

I didn't say that. And I don't want to give a precise information on segments and regions here. This is a little bit too much. We will see a good development on order intake on a group level. This is what we said before. And we are very happy with our business development in the Americas as well.

And that concludes our Q&A for today, and I hand back to Johannes Linden for some closing words.

Yes. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention and even spending 13 additional minutes with us as we are already a little bit over time. I think PFISTERER has shown in the first half of this year, a super development. We have grown revenues by 20%. We have grown our EBITDA by 33%, and we have grown our results for the period by 75%. I believe these are achievements that shouldn't be forgotten. And we think that PFISTERER is active in the right market. Electrical infrastructure is continuing to give us opportunities. Based on the growing order book, we will also see a positive development in the future. Thank you. RECONNECT

Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to the first Deutsche Börse Scale Summit. My name is Judith, and I am very pleased to welcome you on behalf of [indiscernible]. This new format brings together investors and high-growth scale issuers to enable a direct exchange on strategies, positioning and investment stories. Each presentation will last 20 minutes and will be followed by a 10-minute Q&A session. We warmly encourage you to actively participate in these discussions.

And with that, I'm pleased to welcome Johannes Linden, who will guide us through the presentation on PFISTERER Holding SE. And with no further ado, Mr. Linden, the stage is yours.

Thank you. Thanks a lot for the warm introduction. I'm very happy to have been given the opportunity of introducing PFISTERER to you today and we really appreciate your interest in the company and the following presentation.

PFISTERER is being organized and led by a co-CEO structure. We are 2 co-CEOs. My name is Johannes. I'm the one talking to you today. And from a functional point of view, I'm responsible for the functional areas of finance and operations with 30 years of industrial experience, always in the B2B business in different environments. I have gained international experience living and working in the United States and Italy and in China. And meanwhile, I'm in the southwest of Germany at the top of the world, so to speak, when it comes to electrical infrastructure, connection technology, and that's what I would like to share with you today.

Apart of myself, there is my colleague, Konstantin Kurfiss, he is a real industry expert in the field where PFISTERER is active. He's taking care of sales and technology. And in this particular industrial environment, he's been working for more than 20 years, meanwhile, more than 16 years here at PFISTERER.

Now what is PFISTERER all about? The electrical infrastructure is consisting of an indefinite number of individual pieces, which all have to be connected together for electricity to flow from one component to the next. And the picture that you see here is illustrating a product of PFISTERER. This is in the center of the picture. There is a metal connector where the fitter is fixing the connecting screw. You see on the very left, there is a tremendous diameter of cable. This is also true on the very right. And the connector is connecting these 2 ends of a cable in order to allow electricity to flow.

And due to the indefinite number -- well, of course, it's a definite number but it's an uncountable number of pieces that have to be connected in the global grid. In this area, we are striving to be the preferred partner for innovative, reliable and also mission-critical electrical connections. And everything that is connected also needs to be insulated, so also for the insulating solutions.

PFISTERER is quite a profitable company. We have seen in the fiscal year 2025 revenues of approximately EUR 450 million, which is representing a growth year-over-year of 17.4%. We have gained an order intake of approximately EUR 550 million, which in itself again was a growth of close to 30%. And we booked an EBITDA margin in the calendar year 2025 of 17.8%, which in itself again was a growth of 0.9 points relative to the previous year.

With an order book of EUR 334.4 million that we brought into the calendar year '26, we believe we have a very solid basis of also continuing good business in this year and of course, also for years to come. And the team at the change of the year was consisting of 1,378 people. Meanwhile, we are more than 1,500. What is PFISTERER a little bit more detailed. How is PFISTERER being characterized?

Well, first of all, we look upon ourselves, and this is based on the feedback that we receive from customers and other market participants that we do have a leading market position. This is reason amongst other things, by the fact that we are cable agnostic. You have seen earlier in the picture where the fitter was connecting 2 cable ends. We have a cable independent connecting technology. That means every cable that is out there in the world can be connected using PFISTERER technology. This is not the case with the majority or even up to all of the market participants next to us.

So we believe this is giving us a very strong position. PFISTERER has a global market and also production and sales setup with 19 international companies, 5 factories in the United States, in Germany and the largest factory in the Czech Republic. We are in connection with our global supplier network, we are able to provide secure technology at the same time with the footprint of an internationally acting company.

PFISTERER is in the area of connection and insulation technology, meanwhile, since 105 years, the company was founded in 1921. And over these -- yes, more than 1 century, we have earned a reputation of being technologically excellent. We are counting 166 patents as ours, and we cover with these patents, the technologies and the experience over 105 years, we are covering the entire power value chain. And with this, I mean from the generation of electricity over the transmission up to the distribution to the individual consumer from low voltage over medium voltage to high voltage, you will find the connecting and insulation solution from PFISTERER if you are looking for a reliable and mission-critical connection.

This is illustrated also here on this condensed landscape. You see on the upper area of the landscape, examples of electricity generation. For instance, at the 12:00 position, there is a nuclear power plant at the 1:00 position, there would be an onshore wind farm on the 11:00 position. It's an offshore wind farm. In the center of the picture, there is illustrated a solar PV field.

As long as electricity is being generated, it needs to be connected somewhere because it is not exactly consumed where it is being generated, but it needs to be connected to the consumer, which typically takes place through transmission lines. They could be underground systems but they could also be overhead, cable lines at the 7:00 position. It could also be an under-the-water connection where PFISTERER is supporting the transmission of electricity and after the transmission then comes to the distribution. And again, you will find products from PFISTERER from the low voltage over the medium voltage to the high-voltage area, even up to the highest voltage areas and with the highest, I'm talking about 1 million and more.

Now we think that with our leading market position and also superior technology, we are in an absolute growth market underway. Why is that? On the one hand, we are convinced that we are living in a world where the electricity demand is growing. And at the same time, also the need for electrical resilience or energy resilience and the answer to that is electricity in many cases, where this energy resilience is also being asked for more and more.

The global population is growing. There is a trend to decarbonize, decarbonization. We do see the consumption of electricity growing for e-mobility, for heat pumps. Maybe those 2 factors are more Asian and European focus. It is growing also very strongly for the reason of data centers driven by AI investments and business perspectives, maybe this is, at this point in time, even stronger in the United States than what it is in Germany or in Europe right now, but it's also growing very strongly in Asia.

So there are a number of factors which we already see today, which are pushing electricity, which is causing the demand to grow, and this is expected to continue also for decades to come. That's the demand side.

Now this demand is meeting an electrical infrastructure that is characterized by a couple of supply changes. These changes have to do with the fact that now there is a growing demand but it's meeting an overaged infrastructure because there was a relevant underinvestment for the past 30 to 50 years in this electrical infrastructure. At the same time, also the technical situation in the grid is changing. If in the past, there was always a hierarchy from the generation centrally, it was flowing to a decentralized consumer nowadays with localized electrical generation, but at the same time, even bigger centralized power generation, for instance, offshore wind parks, you have a totally different situation where electricity is flowing sometimes from left to right and sometimes from right to left.

So a different technical demand where the outdated and overaged grid is simply not capable of dealing with. At the same and very last argument, due to these even bigger power generation factories, now you have the need of longer distances to be covered through electrical transportation, which then technically leads to higher voltages, also to a trend in favor of DC technology, direct current instead of alternate current AC technology.

And again, that is pushing the investment behavior. And what that means is illustrated now on the S type of a graph on the left here. On the vertical axis, you see the investment -- annual investment into the electrical grid. On the horizontal axis, you see a time scale. And it becomes evident that the investment in the grid until the year 2020, '21 what it has been in the area of GDP growth, this is now picking up, picking up already since a number of years and expect it to continue to pick up even steeper for the years to come and to last for at least the next 10 years, other people say for the next 30 years.

So we think this increase of investment is a substantiated hyper cycle of investments into the electrical grid amongst electrical generation. And yes, that's why we are convinced that we have a very good prospect of market development for products of PFISTERER for many years to come.

So how are we doing this? How do we want to capture the market opportunities that we are identifying. Well, we have developed the PFISTERER strategy house, an integrated strategy for the coming 5 years, lasting until the year 2030. And amongst a couple of pre-requisites that we are working on as an organization, we have -- from a product market point of view, we have developed 3 individual programs, which are characterized by the 3 pillars of the strategy house that you see here.

First of all, on the very left, we have a program in place where we are pushing our today's core markets and the core businesses. If you look into the details of the product segments and the market regions we are reporting, you will see that not every product segment does have the same relative strength in every of the regions we are dealing with. While this has historical reasons, we believe there is a lot of potential due to the technical superiority of the solutions that we offer that we can grow the existing products in the regions where at this moment in time, they appear to be lower than what we think they could be. So this is pillar #1 left.

Then second to that, we believe we have relevant room to expand our boundaries. By this, I mean expanding the boundary of existing technological solutions, adapting them to international markets slightly, bringing them closer to the individual requirements in the geographical region where possibly we see growth for us to grow but also to expand our program in terms of sales representation. For instance, last year, we opened a company in Riyadh in Saudi Arabia in January of this year. We opened up a training center in Saudi. Last year, we acquired Power CSL, which is a specialized company in providing connecting solutions for subsea applications. So we believe by continuing on the same path, there is also potential for PFISTERER to continue the growth track.

And then there is -- finally, there is a third growth pillar that we see. This is future trends and real innovation. For PFISTERER, that is at this moment in time as the lighthouse project for us. That's the entering of the HVDC market space on cable connections. PFISTERER has been providing solutions for overhead lines in HVDC already for decades. But now we are adding, and this is going to take place next year. We will be adding a complete program for already proven 320 kV and still work in progress 550 kV on the cable accessory market for HVDC interconnector and electricity highway solutions. This is a global trend.

We see a tremendous growth potential in the HVDC applications, and we believe this will be giving us further tailwinds on the development of the company. If you now look into the past, I was referring earlier to the numbers of '25. If you look over the past 4 years, you see already a quite positive revenue development with the growth rates of 15% or 17% as it was last year. And if we take the consensus that the analysts we have been explaining our ideas to, the consensus revenue that they have determined on their own, we should be seeing another growth year of 15% this year.

Within the midterm planning until the year 2030, we are looking for an organic growth in the area ending at EUR 800 million to EUR 900 million. On the right graph, you see the profitability development characterized by the profitability mean of EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA. Here, we have managed to develop the company starting from 15.6%, all of this is IFRS to 17.8% over the past 3 years. Based on the backlog that we have, also looking at our, I believe, quite successful quarter 1.

The consensus of the analysts has determined that this year is good for 19.2% EBITDA margin. And while PFISTERER itself hasn't given the guidance on that number, we have shared our conviction that by the end of the decade, we're going to be in the highest teen or the low 20 percentage margin on EBITDA. And with all of this, I would like to close the presentation and sharing with you our belief that PFISTERER is active in a large and fast-growing market that we have a unique positioning and a superior value proposition based on the cable agnosticity on the one hand and a tremendous amount of experience and technological backup through the patents I was talking about earlier.

We have a global operational footprint, and we are serving our customers in more than 90 countries. And based on the multifaceted growth strategy, we are convinced that we will continue to push our financial profile even more into elevated heights than where it is already today.

Thank you for the moment, and I'm happy to answer questions if there are any.

[Operator Instructions]

I think Mark is with team here. I think he check the raising hand function. I believe that has been...

Wonderful. And then [indiscernible] also raised his hand and you may be able to unmute yourself now, Mr. Haino.

And we first move on to the questions in our chat box. What are the main competitors, Mr. Linden?

Well, there is not one main competitor, I would say. It depends on into which of the product segments that we are working in you want to look at. There is for cable connectors, in particular, on the high-voltage and super high-voltage arena, the main competitors would be integrated cable system manufacturers, we call them, Prysmian, Nexans, NKT to name them, they are offering the cable and also the integrated cable connector solution. So that's a system that they are offering. The downside to that is they aren't providing the connector to anyone else, but only to their own.

And other cable companies who are looking for a connector wouldn't like to buy from their competitor, but they would really like to work with independent cable agnostic companies such as PFISTERER. So this would be one area of competitors. Then there is a second category. These are also cable connecting companies such as TE or 3M to name 2 American companies. In the overhead line business, again, would be an American company such as Hubbell or MacLean, they would also be providing solutions that could be doing a similar job that what PFISTERER is providing. All of the companies I was referring to are listed companies, stock-listed companies.

And what do you see as the key structural risks to your business model? And how are you imagining them mitigating?

We don't see any significant structural risk in the sense of there is a realistic scenario where the electricity demand is collapsing. We think electricity is requested, and there is no scenario foreseeable other than the world is going down, that the electricity demand will be collapsing.

So this being said, of course, in our growth plans that we have, we do have risks, simply in the sense of that we are not managing the growth in a proper way that we are trying to eat more than what we can digest that we are maybe doing premature merger and acquisition as we do have the financial funds to act in that way. So I think it's more from a managing point of view that we could be, yes, getting too aggressive. So how are we managing this?

I think with 2 experienced co-CEOs, which have seen a lot in their professional experience and also by committing to the market that in the coming 2 years, there won't be any significant merger and acquisition, but we are focusing on developing the company, on investing into growing our capacities in growing these capacities by brownfield expansions instead of building new factories in new countries with new management and new governmental conditions. This is not what we are doing. We are focusing on continuing what we have been doing in the past. And by doing so, we think we are mitigating the risk of biting off too much. We think we are mitigating this successfully.

And how has becoming public actually changed the company? What have the real benefits turned out to be? And how do you plan to leverage being listed for your growth and strategy going forward?

Well, the second half of the question, by turning into a public company, including the capital increase that was connected to it, we have collected monetary funds inside of the company that is securing our investments for the coming years. So including the investments and the funds that we have collected, the positive operational and also free cash flow we are generating, we can invest for the coming 5 years, our investment program, which is adding up to a number in the area of EUR 270 million.

So for a company of the size of PFISTERER, I think quite a reasonable investment program in the sense of this is relevant, needs to be managed well. I was talking about that earlier. The first element of your question, this public company, I mean we all know that the stock market can get slippery once in a while, yes. So you need to do things with caution. You need to try to improve your predictability. You need to be accountable on the predictions that you give. And we are raising the bar inside of the organization in order to meet all of these expectations. And this is of course, this is a new expectation we have to deal with. So this is changing the company, turning into a more professional company at the end of the day.

And who are the main customers?

There are so many. Where do you want me to start? We do have a heck of a lot of customers, leading to the situation, I think, a quite positive situation that the largest single customer's revenue share at PFISTERER is in the area of 3%. So it's very well distributed. And the individual customers are coming out of different customer groups. There are the transmission system operators in Europe, TenneT, for instance, to give an example, or Con Edison in the United States, SEC in Saudi Arabia, just to name a few.

Other customers would be coming out of the cable area, people who need to connect their cables, a company such as Hellenic would be an example in Europe or Southwire would be an American company or DUCAB, Dubai Cable, again, would be a cable company from the Middle East.

There are customers from the original equipment manufacturers, OEMs, such as Siemens Energy is a large customer of ours, ABB, Hitachi and so on and so forth. And then there are 2 remaining customer groups. One would be EPCs, so project management companies. And last not least, there are the technical distributors with whom we are working and who are supporting us in order to cover the 90 countries I was referring to earlier.

Thank you very much. And we have 3 minutes left with 4 questions. I will see that I can put them all into this time. Do you have products to participate on high-power charging like HPC from 800 to 1,000 volt stations for electric cars?

Yes. We would call this low voltage though, as everything up to 1,000 volts, we call low voltage. But yes, we do have these products, yes. Not the total solution, but we are providing the connectors that are needed.

And in which regions of the world do you generate most of your sales? And do you grow more by volume or more by price increase?

The regional split shows that the largest single region is Europe and Northern Africa with approximately 55%. It depends a little bit on which time span you are looking at. The second largest meanwhile is the Middle East and the Arabic countries with in the area of 30% and then comes the Americas and then comes Asia Pacific. We are growing in all regions. And we are growing in all product segments we are talking of. So as we are adding another product segment, I was talking about HVDC cable accessories earlier, we think that we will also continue to see the growth in all regions. I think I missed an element of the question, though, if you could ask that again.

Yes. Do you grow more by volume or more by price increases?

It has -- recently, it has really been more by volume, but also price increases playing a role in our favor.

And can you elaborate what are you known for versus your competitors? Is it technology superiority, lead times and flexibility or price?

It's certainly not price in the sense of cheap. PFISTERER is not known to be a cheap supplier in the market. But people come to PFISTERER because they are looking for 100% reliability and accountability. That's why they come to us, they turn to us. And as the demand on the grid is growing, the voltages, the higher -- the higher the voltage, the higher the electrical sophistication in the solution needs to be as this is growing. So the stress on the products to be provided is growing, people are turning more and more in our favor and yes, looking for solutions from us.

Wonderful. Thank you very much. This is on the point, and we, therefore, come to the end of today's roundtable. Thank you very much for your interest in PFISTERER Holding SE. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to Investor Relations. A big thank you on this point, Mr. Linden, for your presentation and your time. I wish you all a successful day around the world and handing back over to Mr. Linden for some final remarks.

So PFISTERER is a provider of mission-critical connections for the electrical grid. We are convinced that the investment into the electrical grid are going to grow for decades to come. And with a history in this market of 105 years, a worldwide reputation of being a technologically superior solution provider into the market, we believe that despite the fact that the company is already in a pretty good shape, we are convinced that the best is yet to come. So thank you very much for considering to look even deeper into the PFISTERER. Thank you.