Gerresheimer AG (GXI) Earnings Call Transcript

This earnings call is based on preliminary figures for our second quarter and the first half of 2026. Wolf Lehmann and Achim Schalk will explain the Q2 '26 performance to you and will give you an update on the company development. On Page 1 of our presentation, you find the disclaimer. Please let me remind you that this disclaimer will apply throughout this earnings call, and we assume your consent to this. I will, therefore, not read it out loud. You can download the slide deck from our website under Presentations at our Investor Relations section of the website. Now let me hand you over to Wolf for the preliminary Q2 results and highlights. Wolf?

Thank you, Guido. Please turn to Page 3 with our recent company highlights. Our priorities remain unchanged, and we are executing step by step. First, on business performance. Recovery is on track with second quarter adjusted EBITDA slightly more than 50% up from Q1 or up EUR 35 million quarter-on-quarter. Q2 at EUR 102 million versus Q1 at EUR 67 million. This is as expected. Remember, in first quarter, we deliberately focused on cash. And in Q2, our transformation initiatives are starting to deliver results. All 3 segments contributed positively to this quarter-on-quarter improvement. We'll go into more details over the next pages. Based on the second quarter performance and our current expectations for the second half, we expect to come in within our guidance range. Secondly, on our divestitures. On selling Centor and Primary Packaging Plastics. This truly marks an inflection point for Gerresheimer as this solves our too high debt burden. As you know, both transactions we signed end of July. The closing of Centor and Primary Packaging Plastics are both well on track, with the first one, Centor, very much advanced and at its final stages for closing in October, thus ahead of our year-end November. The closing of Centor brings in around half of the gross proceeds stemming from the around EUR 1.5 billion enterprise value of both businesses jointly. The closing of Primary Packaging Plastics, we continue to target during the first half of 2027. Thirdly, on refinancing, which is highly linked to our divestitures. In parallel to closing Centor and Primary Packaging Plastics, we are preparing our new long-term capital structure. We're progressing well towards a sustainable leverage at or below 3x net debt to EBITDA, a leverage level we feel very comfortable with. This will put Gerresheimer back on an absolutely solid basis for the long term through the planned new capital structure. Again, this truly marks an inflection point in our recent Gerresheimer history. Fourth, on our transformation program, we continue to gain momentum. We're executing initiatives targeting around EUR 50 million to EUR 70 million of EBITDA improvement until the end of 2027 to ensure we realize the financial benefits in 2028 and beyond. The gto, Gerresheimer Transformation Offensive work streams include footprint rationalization, operational excellence and SG&A efficiencies, just to name some of the focus areas. During the quarter, we made great progress on closing our Moulded Glass plant at Chicago Heights, which we are completing this month, this week, quite frankly, yesterday, we closed the furnace successfully and safely. Next, we focus on the consolidation of our Forest Grove facility into Morganton. Also, we are progressing well on reducing and rightsizing our SG&A cost, finalizing a more than 20% cost reduction year-over-year heading into 2027. Finally, we remain committed to our rigorous Grow, Fix and Sell portfolio strategy. Referring to Grow. We continue to focus on growth of our businesses, Medical Device Systems, Syringe Systems and Tubular Glass North America. Here, we increasingly benefit from our growth investments we have made in the past, example given are our Medical Device Systems, local-for-local plant at Peachtree USA or our shared Tubular Glass and Syringes plant at Querétaro, Mexico, serving North American customers. Those are great investment examples. Our businesses in Grow have a clear high-value drug delivery solutions focus and correspondingly an above-average portfolio profitability. Referring to Fix. In contrast to Tubular Glass North America in the Grow bucket, we started to restructure our Tubular Glass Europe business to improve performance, yet this will clearly take some quarters. And additionally, in the Fix bucket, as said before, we are rightsizing our SG&A footprint and processes to reflect the smaller size of the company going forward and get closer to external benchmarks. Referring to Sell or a fix to sell approach is being applied to our Moulded Glass business with the target to improve the performance and the structure while preparing the business for future divestiture at the right time. This fix to sell approach is scheduled over the next quarters. Our forward-looking focus will be on the new Gerresheimer portfolio of high-value packaging and drug delivery solutions for the pharma, health care and biotech industries. Before discussing the quarter in more detail, please turn to Page 4. As part of the continuing effort to finalize and improve the quality of our financial reporting, we completed the quarterly allocation work relating to previously communicated full year 2025 adjustments. For the second quarter of 2025, the adjusted figures resulted in revenue increasing by EUR 13 million and adjusted EBITDA increasing by EUR 7 million compared to the uncorrected figures. We have transparently separated bill and hold related effects from other accounting adjustments. The BaFin investigation remains ongoing. We continue to cooperate fully with the authorities and respond promptly to all requests. While we cannot comment on timing or potential outcomes, we remain fully committed to accurate, transparent and high-quality financial reporting. Please turn to Page 5 for details on our second quarter 2026 performance. Before discussing the quarterly progression versus Q1, let me briefly address the year-on-year comparison. Revenue in second quarter amounted to EUR 578 million compared to EUR 614 million in the prior year second quarter. We cover the segment details over the next pages. Only a quick first overview. Containment and Delivery Systems continued its growth trajectory. However, this was more than offset by lower revenues in Primary Injectable Solutions, while Moulded Glass was broadly stable year-on-year. Adjusted EBITDA declined by EUR 20 million year-on-year to EUR 102 million. The main driver was lower sales volume in Primary Injectable Solutions, particularly in Syringe Systems and Tubular Glass. Free cash flow before M&A amounted to a negative EUR 92 million. This was -- this primarily reflects working capital movements associated with reduced reverse factoring facilities impacting payables and high receivables linked to the good quarter-on-quarter revenue increase. Importantly, we maintained our strict allocation -- capital allocation discipline, reducing net CapEx from around EUR 60 million to just below EUR 40 million, 35% below the prior year. I will cover the cash flow in more detail on the later pages covering the EBITDA to cash flow walk. Now please turn to Page 6, where the quarter-over-quarter comparison is shown. This slide highlights the operational recovery we expected and executed following the subdued first quarter. Revenue increased by EUR 55 million versus Q1 from EUR 523 million to EUR 578 million, with all 3 segments contributing to this development. Even more importantly, adjusted EBITDA increased from EUR 67 million to EUR 102 million in second quarter. This represents an increase of more than 50%, driven by improved operational performance across all segments. While free cash flow declined quarter-on-quarter, this was primarily driven by especially the reduction of reverse factoring lines, which I already explained during our Q1 earnings call rather than operational performance. Overall, we believe the second quarter demonstrates that the actions initiated earlier this year are starting to translate into improved operational results. With that, I hand over to Achim to discuss the performance of our segments. Achim, please.

Thank you, Wolf. Please turn to Page 8 for an overview of our segment performance. Let us start with Containment and Delivery Systems. The segment continued its positive development during the second quarter. Importantly, this provides further evidence that the growth investments made over recent years are beginning to convert into both revenue and earnings growth. Revenue increased to EUR 308 million, supported primarily by the continued ramp-up of our Peachtree facility in the United States. The facility is now making a meaningful contribution to the segment's performance. PPP remained broadly stable, while Centor was affected by foreign exchange impact and increased input costs. The strong contribution from Medical Systems more than offset these effects. Adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 74 million, representing a margin of nearly 24%. This improvement reflects increasing operational leverage from the Medical Systems business and benefits from efficiency measures implemented across the segment during the last year. Please turn to Page 9, our segment report on Primary Injectable Solutions. In Primary Injectable Solutions, revenue was below the prior year level, but improved meaningfully versus the first quarter and increased by approximately EUR 10 million, while adjusted EBITDA almost doubled. The year-on-year shortfall was primarily driven by lower sales in Syringe Systems. Tubular Glass also contributed to the decline, particularly from lower bulk vials demand. Our priorities for Tubular Glass remain unchanged with a strong focus on the European business. We have initiated restructurings and actions with an emphasis on operational excellence, footprint optimization and SG&A efficiencies. However, our objective goes beyond cost reductions. We intend to build a more competitive and higher-value injectable solutions business with improved utilization, stronger profitability and a better product mix based on a stronger product portfolio. Please turn to Page 10 for our segment report on Moulded Glass. For this, I hand you back to Wolf.

Thank you, Achim. Moulded Glass delivered a solid operational recovery during the second quarter versus the first quarter of the year. Revenue was broadly stable year-on-year. This is a result of lower revenues from the Pharma business impacted by the process of closing our Chicago Heights plant, mostly offset by higher revenues from our customers in the area of food and beverages. Compared with the previous quarter, revenue increased by approximately EUR 21 million. Our year-on-year adjusted EBITDA performance was impacted by inventory management measures and increased costs, including energy, net of hedging. More importantly, adjusted EBITDA increased sequentially from EUR 8 million in Q1 to EUR 25 million in Q2. EBITDA tripled. This was driven by improved utilization levels as well as a gradual normalization following inventory reduction measures implemented earlier this year. While EBITDA margin remains below our expectations, the sequential improvement demonstrates that the business is starting to respond to the operational actions we are implementing. As mentioned earlier, the closure of our Chicago Heights facility is progressing according to plan. Since yesterday afternoon, the furnace is down for good and has been shut down safely. Customer qualification and transfer activities to our plants, example, given at Italy and India remain on track and will continue. Let's take a look at the overall cash flow for the company on the next page. Page 11, please. While free cash flow before M&A was negative EUR 92 million in Q2, this was primarily a result of working capital, including financing-related effects rather than a weaker operating performance. Let me explain the main buckets only. On net working capital, around EUR 90 million use of cash, primarily driven by payables. Payables, around EUR 60 million is from lower payables related to the reverse factoring lines no longer being available to us due to the worse credit rating. I explained that already at our last earnings call. This is a financing, not an operations matter. Also, this effect is now behind us. This impacted Q1 and Q2. On receivables, around EUR 20 million quarter-over-quarter. This stems from EUR 55 million quarter-on-quarter higher sales, which is positive. On inventory, we continue to manage inventory well, rather flat inventory on higher sales. Tax interest, et cetera, is per plan and as expected. Let's move further on the right-hand side of the walk on capital expenditure. On capital expenditure, we continued our disciplined approach and reduced net CapEx to EUR 38 million. In Q1, we managed CapEx year-over-year down by half. In Q2 year-over-year, down by approximately 35%. Despite this disciplined approach, we continue to maintain our assets well and invest in selected projects that support future growth, productivity improvement and customer commitments. Around 60% of our CapEx spend is on growth. On the next page, Page 12, I will give you the usual update on our capital structure and financing status. On the left-hand side, you see our net financial debt at slightly above EUR 2 billion and our liquidity of EUR 249 million. Our liquidity remains solid and fully sufficient to support the execution of our business plan and transaction agenda. As part of our stabilization agreement with our financing partners, we have no debt covenant up and until November of this year. More importantly, going forward is closing Centor and Primary Packaging Plastics timely and implementing the new long-term capital structure at a substantial, sustainable -- at a substantial lower leverage and a sustainable leverage at around 3x. As mentioned earlier, on Centor, preparations are in the final stages for closing in October. In parallel to closing Primary Packaging Plastics, we are pursuing a dual track financing approach and remain focused on achieving a capital structure that reflects the significantly lower leverage profile of the new Gerresheimer. Please turn to Page 14 for a view on our final Q1 '26 figures, which we published this morning. As expected, revenues, adjusted EBITDA and cash flow in Q1 2026 are largely unchanged compared to the preliminary figures we presented to you on August 27. As communicated, with every quarter, we allocate the total adjustments made for the full year 2025 to the respective quarters. As a result of that, Q1 '25 revenues and adjusted EBITDA were up EUR 10 million and EUR 7 million, respectively. With our enhanced controllership focus, we perform a detailed impairment test for our cash-generating units every quarter in contrast to an annual-only assessment. As a result, we accounted for a noncash impairment of EUR 31 million, mainly due to increased interest rates and updated parameters. Also, as we execute our transformation road map, including footprint optimization of plant closures, a quarterly check makes sense to ensure assets are stated fairly. We will continue this rigor. Also, what needed to be taken into account for was the fact that the business unit Centor is considered as asset held for sale according to IFRS 5. Please turn to Page 15 for more details on this. We split out Centor as held for sale. And in the first 6 months of 2026, Centor contributed EUR 97.6 million of revenues and EUR 33.6 million of adjusted EBITDA to the results of the Gerresheimer Group. Free cash flow was slightly negative with EUR 7.3 million. Please turn to Page 16 for an overview of our upcoming events. We recognize that our reporting timetable remains behind of what is expected by the capital markets. We continue to apply the additional review and control procedures required to ensure our financial statements are complete, accurate and transparent. We expect to publish the first half financial report at the end of November and intend to return to the legally required reporting timetable with the publication of the 2026 annual report in March -- next year in March 2027. For third quarter, we intend to provide you with preliminary results ahead of the final report, just as we did the past 2 quarters. On the right-hand side of the page, we show selected Investor Relations events until the beginning of next year. We hope to meet some of you in-person at one or the other of the listed investor conferences. Please turn to Page 17 for our closing remarks. Achim, please.

Thanks, Wolf. Let me close with the priorities against which we expect to be measured. First, we remain committed to delivering a stronger second half than first half of 2026 and to executing against our confirmed full year guidance. We will complete the signed Centor and PPP transactions and use the proceeds to reduce debt and leverage sustainably. The Centor sale will be closed in October and the sale of PPP thereafter in H1 2027. Following completion of both transactions, we intend to refinance the remaining debt and establish a sustainable long-term capital structure for the new Gerresheimer. Next, we will deliver the operational transformation, executing our gto initiatives. This will lead to the targeted EUR 50 million to EUR 70 million annualized EBITDA improvement with implementation across this year and 2027 and the full run rate impact expected from 2028. Finally, we will improve the performance and structure of Moulded Glass and prepare the business for future divestiture. Our approach is clear: improve performance first and divest the business at the appropriate time. The new Gerresheimer will be smaller in size, more focused and higher in quality. It will concentrate on high-value Primary Packaging and Drug Delivery Solutions, supported by lower leverage, a leaner cost base, stronger cash generation and disciplined capital allocation. This is the framework against which we expect shareholders to measure our progress. With that, I pass over to Guido to open the floor for our Q&A session. Guido, please.

Thank you, Achim. Operator, Dana, please open the floor for the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Oliver Metzger from ODDO BHF.

The first one is, can you describe the current performance of the new Gerresheimer, meaning excluding Centor and excluding PPP. So where do you stand from a growth perspective and profitability side? Second question is on Moulded Glass. So on the revenue side, there is some stabilization visible, still on the bottom line, some headwind. So can you give us your idea when do you expect the bottom line also to recover? And the third one is, as we slowly approach calendar year '27, I have in mind that 5 years ago, early '22, you made the hedge for gas in Europe. And can you remind us where you stand and whether you see from this running out gas hedge some incremental headwind on costs?

Great. Oliver, thank you very much for your questions. Maybe we start the other way around. So your last question was on energy and hedging, et cetera. So absolutely, I think just like the rest of the world, we experienced the energy crisis. In this year, in 2026, we are more than 75% hedged on our energy. As such, we don't feel the full impact of the energy crisis due to the strong hedging position. For next year, we are, like many other industry players, less than 50% hedged. So as such, that is headwind that we're facing. On the other hand, obviously, like the rest of the world, I think we're expecting one or the other energy crisis to be resolved hopefully next year. We can't bank on it, but that will obviously be very much beneficial. If you go into Moulded Glass, I think it's fair to say that, yes, you call it stabilization, correct. I think in Moulded Glass, as mentioned, the first quarter was subdued results of EUR 8 million. Remember, in the first quarter, we managed for cash, including inventory reduction and the low capacity utilization. Moulded Glass in the second quarter was EUR 25 million. So that's a EUR 17 million improvement quarter-over-quarter, of which I would say roughly, Oliver, 2/3 of that EUR 17 million improvement was driven by higher sales. I think we spelled out there the sales improvement, plus then 1/3 comes of the EUR 17 million EBITDA improvement comes from better cost leverage or better capacity utilization. Since even so we increased sales, we managed our inventory more or less flat. So again, of the EUR 17 million improvement, 2/3 was driven by higher sales of volume and the other 1/3 by higher cost leverage, better capacity utilization. When you look at that, I think putting it all together, currently, we're more at a run rate or so of maybe 80-ish EBITDA annualized. And obviously, step by step, we want to get to that to back to EUR 100 million and beyond. So that's what the transformation and/or carving out Moulded Glass as a stand-alone company is all about, and we're making good progress on that.

Let me take the first question, Oliver, performance of the new Gerresheimer. As we transition Centor and PPP out, the company will be standing on 3 strong legs, still including the Moulded Glass business. And our aspiration is with completion of the transformation program to get in reach of the 20% EBITDA and targeting a 2x GDP growth rate.

The next question comes from Oliver Reinberg from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Three also from my side. One on the guidance. The guidance requires, I think, an acceleration, obviously, in the second half. Can you just give us some kind of color and flavor for the phasing? I mean, normally, historically, Q3 has been below Q2 in terms of EBITDA contribution. Is that also what you would expect this year? And can you provide some kind of color how much of the kind of targeted cost savings you have realized in the first half, please? That would be question number one. Secondly, can you just talk to the syringe performance, which was down, what was driving it and how sustainable that is? And finally, just on the GLP-1 franchise, do the target for 2027 remain fully in place? And any update where you currently stand?

Great. Oliver, great to talk again. So I'll take the first question on guidance. So Oliver, the latest guidance is, as you know, on revenue, lower half of EUR 2.3 billion to EUR 2.4 billion of revenue. On adjusted EBITDA percent, a margin around 17% to 18%. And on cash flow before M&A, a negative EUR 50 million to negative EUR 100 million around. First, I want to make sure we all understand. Please note our guidance is provided organically and before M&A. Organically means we normalize revenue and adjusted EBITDA for foreign exchange. Before M&A means we normalize out the impact of M&A. So quick 2 examples. On before M&A, obviously, receiving the proceeds for Centor, for example, this will impact our cash flow very positively, yet is not how our guidance is stated. On organically, normalized for FX, if you go to Page 5, we transparently show our adjusted EBITDA percent at 17.6% as is and also at 18.0% organically adjusted for foreign exchange. So you have that transparency. On the phasing, I'm not going to go into too much detail. As mentioned, we do expect a stronger second half versus first half, which puts us within the guidance range. Thank you. I hand it over to Achim maybe on syringe and GLP-1.

Yes. Thanks, Wolf. Thanks, Oliver, for your questions. First off, on syringes, please understand we do not disclose detailed financials on BU level as part of the segment. There may be individual quarters that show a decline in revenues due to timing effects. However, the business as such is intact and is expected to continue growing overall for the full year basis. Looking at the GLP-1 franchise question, which we used to report a target of around EUR 350 million annual revenues from GLP-1-related businesses across the different business units and segments. What I can confirm you is that we have strong contracts in place, including take-or-pay clauses with our customers. So depending on the execution of these contracts, we will see more or less revenue, but still strong profitability from the GLP-1 franchise.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question comes from Ed Hall from Stifel.