OC Oerlikon Corporation AG (OERL) Earnings Call Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Oerlikon Half Year Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I'm Matilda, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Aymeric Jamin, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Oerlikon's First Half Year Results Call. My name is Aymeric Jamin, Head of Investor Relations, and I have here with me Marco Freidl, CFO of Oerlikon. Marco will start the call with a presentation, providing an update on our end markets, financials and outlook. We will then follow up with a Q&A. With that, I would like to open our presentation and hand over to Marco. Marco, the floor is yours.

Thank you, Aymeric. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our H1 '26 results presentation also from my side. Oerlikon is able to report a strong financial result for the first half of '26. We continue to execute our strategic priorities to drive efficiency, strengthen our resilience and drive growth in a context of geopolitical uncertainties. These initiatives were supported by strong execution and positive market dynamics, in particular, in aviation, energy and general industries. I will start with an overview of our first 6 months, followed by an update on our end markets, the results, including the new segment reporting and will conclude with our outlook. Order intake in H1 significantly increased year-on-year at constant FX to CHF 920 million, up 19% versus H1 '25. Hereby, strong execution and dynamics in aviation, energy in particular, industrial gas turbines business and general industries acted as main drivers. This positively impacted especially materials and equipment business. Sales increased by 7% at constant FX to CHF 790 million. A key success factor, in particular, in the market just highlighted was that Oerlikon successfully leveraged strong demand and pricing power in the materials business. Hereby, we acted as a reliable partner to our customers despite geopolitical and supply chain uncertainties. Operational EBITDA margin was at 19.7% in H1, up 300 basis points year-on-year. In addition to operational leverage, this was supported by the cost-out actions launched in '25, business mix, volume and positive pricing effects. The H1 '26 numbers are an excellent result and confirm the successful progress in executing our strategy of diversification, both in terms of geographies and end markets. This strengthens the company's resilience and enables us to capitalize on the exposure to markets with positive growth dynamics. Looking into H2 '26. We remain committed to diligently invest in future growth while maintaining a strong focus on profitability and capital return. We also strive to further strengthen customer excellence, for example, utilizing last year's implemented shared CRM platform to maintain our role as a reliable and innovative partner for our customers. Finally, we continue our path to further improve efficiency and resilience. We achieved this through balancing stringent cost focus with leveraging of our global footprint. This enables us to deliver growth based on a stable and flexible local service close to our customers. With that, let me provide you with an update on our end markets. Oerlikon operates across 10 industries, and we are looking forward to providing you further details on dynamics and our solutions for customers in our Capital Markets Day on 8th September in Zurich. Particularly, the general industries and tooling markets show a close correlation to industrial production. In H1, the PMIs in all 3 main regions improved, moving above neutral level. At the same time, geopolitical risks and supply chain disruptions keep impacting customers' behavior. For example, with regard to precautionary stocking. Also growth dynamics in semicon, a key growth market for Oerlikon remains strong. Overall, H2 '26 is expected to remain balanced between improving fundamentals and ongoing geopolitical uncertainties. In automotive, global light vehicle production was flat in the first half of the year, with all 3 major areas showing a muted environment. In the EU, uncertainties generated by changing industrial policies continue to create a challenging environment for our customers and delay investment decisions. These dynamics are also relevant for our hot runners business, HRSflow, whose performance is closely related to car model launches, which experienced soft momentum in H1. Looking ahead, industry agency forecasts indicate potential for a slight improvement towards year-end. All that said, Oerlikon continues to drive innovation in the industry, leveraging its strong customer relationships to make the future of mobility more efficient and sustainable, be it in the vehicle body, braking system or the battery. In aviation, the industry shows a record high of new plane production and order backlog, supported by increasing traffic and demand for energy efficiency. At the same time, manufacturing capacities and supply chains continue to improve. In addition, the increase in flying hours is driving MRO activity and thereby, demand for our solutions. We also see aircraft manufacturers upgrading old equipment. Our products are supporting them to develop more efficient and more sustainable aircraft engine technology. The industry also expresses confidence in the ability to continue increasing production capacity over the coming years. At the end of June '26, the combined order backlog of the major aircraft manufacturers exceeds 10 years of production at current delivery rates, providing strong visibility. In energy, the industrial gas turbines market, which from an Oerlikon product offering point of view is close to aero turbines, experienced strong growth in the first half. This is driven by the surge in power demand for data centers, triggered by the boom of artificial intelligence applications. On oil and gas, we see the market broadly stable. In luxury, end markets remain subdued, mainly due to soft demand in China and to a lesser extent, tensions in the Middle East. On the more positive side, Swiss watch exports were flat in H1 '26 year-on-year, with an improving trend towards end of H1. Midterm, the growth drivers for the luxury market remain well intact, with product quality, economics and the trend towards more sustainable products. Oerlikon with its unique offering is well positioned to capitalize on this trend. Summing up, we all see a generally improving industrial environment. With that, let's move to Page 4, where we discuss the financials. Overall, our performance was supported by the generally improving market dynamics as just described. So, both our tooling and general industries businesses benefited from PMIs increasing above neutral level. Also, aviation, energy and general industries-oriented materials and equipment businesses performed very well. Hereby, Oerlikon leveraged strong customer demand and pricing power. Despite geopolitical and related supply chain challenges, we showed strong execution by being a reliable partner for our customers and meeting their increasing demand. Automotive business showed a mixed performance with positive development in Coating Services versus muted performance of our hot runners and friction systems businesses in Components. Overall, our diversified end market exposure and balanced regional footprint were key enablers of these strong results. As a result, H1 '26 order intake and sales were up significantly year-on-year at constant FX at CHF 920 million and CHF 790 million, respectively. The book-to-bill ratio remained well above 1 at 1.2, which is expected to support sales in the second half of the year and beyond. Operational EBITDA in the first 6 months of '26 amounted to CHF 156 million, representing a margin of 19.7%. The strong performance was the result of several positive effects, including volume, mix, pricing power and inventory revaluation effects based on the strong increase of critical mineral prices. Additionally, the progress made in our cost-out actions initiated over the last 2 years led to a reduction in admin costs of 7% year-over-year. As a result, operational ROCE increased to 6.2%, primarily driven by higher profitability. Through our strategic and financial initiatives, we are committed to further improving our return on capital to a level that enables strong long-term value creation. As part of our pure-play transformation, we have also implemented segment reporting, enhancing transparency and providing greater visibility into the performance of our business. We will discuss the individual segments in more detail at the Capital Markets Day in September. Our first-time financial reporting is available as of H1 '26. With that, let's move on to the segment, Coating Services. The Coating Services segment comprises our coating activities that enhance performance and durability of demanding applications. Through a footprint of more than 100 coating centers in 38 countries, we deliver our large variety of coating technologies, ensuring the optimal solution for our customers' products. At constant FX, the segment sales increased by 5.5% compared to H1 '25, with all regions contributing. FX remains a headwind. Looking at the markets, sales in general industries, in particular, semicon and tooling grew. In automotive, the Coating Services business showed positive signs of stabilization. Performance in the second half of '26 is expected to follow the usual seasonal pattern and to remain broadly in line with historical trends. Operational EBITDA increased to CHF 57 million. This represents a margin of 18.8%. Hereby, margin improvement was supported by volume, mix and pricing. In addition, the cost-out actions launched in '25, including footprint optimization, strong cost control and efficiency improvement further supported margin development. With that, let's move on to Materials & Equipment. Materials & Equipment segment provides coating systems, related aftermarket services and materials for thermal spray and additive manufacturing. Our broad portfolio of equipment ranging from single hand-held spray guns to fully integrated system platforms, enables us to deliver solutions tailored to our customers' needs. Combined with our strong R&D expertise, deep material science engineering knowledge and close collaboration with our customers, we consistently provide best-in-class materials and application solutions. At constant FX, segment sales increased by 19.7% year-on-year, driven by strong dynamics and execution in aviation, energy and general industries. This strong performance is mainly driven by our materials business in which we proved our ability to meet increasing customer demand despite challenging supply chain conditions. In addition to volume growth, we also leveraged our pricing power, including surcharges for critical minerals, in particular, tungsten and yttrium. In equipment, against the backdrop of the strong development of the before-mentioned end markets, order intake was strong. This is expected to support sales in the coming quarters. Operational EBITDA rose to CHF 66 million, corresponding to a strong margin of 23.8%. The improvement was driven by operational leverage from higher sales volumes, complemented by pricing power and effects from inventory revaluation. With that, let's move on to the Components segment. The Components segment engineers and manufactures precision parts for demanding industries. We improve customers' product performance, safety and efficiency for diverse sectors. This includes automotive with hot runner systems from our HRSflow business, TIS, our thermal insulation solutions for batteries and components for the luxury industry. In addition, we serve the aviation industry with aero engine components from Eldim and our additive manufacturing business is targeting mainly the aerospace and defense as well as semicon industries. At constant FX, the segment sales declined 4.4% compared to H1 '25. From a regional perspective, the main business areas negatively affected were APAC and Europe. The main drivers for the decline in the segment are the friction systems and hot runners businesses, which were impacted by the automotive headwinds. Despite this, HRSflow is continuing to successfully diversify into PMCL, so packaging, medical, consumer goods and logistics industries from a lower base. In our luxury business, we are seeing stabilizing -- stabilization in sales. On the positive side, we see clearly improving momentum in our aviation-oriented Eldim business. Moving to profitability. Our operational EBITDA declined to CHF 26 million. This represents a margin of 11.9%. Cost-out measures implemented in luxury in '25 contributed to a year-on-year improvement in that business. In addition, the continuing ramp-up in Eldim for large aero engine programs, automotive diversification into thermal insulation systems for batteries and additive manufacturing show increasingly positive contribution. Profitability in components remains below our expectations. Accordingly, we will continue to focus on optimizing the cost base, driving growth and thereby, restoring target margin levels. With that, let's move on to cash flow. Cash flow from operating activities of minus CHF 8 million as per our H1 report includes discontinued operations, means Barmag. Focusing on Oerlikon, excluding Barmag, pro forma cash flow from operating activities amounted to CHF 32 million in H1 '26, up CHF 25 million versus H1 '25. This underpins the strong cash flow management, which contributed to absorb higher inventories, which were significantly impacted by increasing critical mineral prices. In this, increased advanced payments from customers also acted as countermeasure. Overall, the usual seasonal inventory buildup in H1 is expected to support cash flow in H2. With that, let's move on to the balance sheet and capital structure. The leverage ratio at the end of June '26 stands at 2.5x, reaching this level already 6 months ahead of the schedule communicated with our full-year results presentation. Both EBITDA improvement and net debt reduction contributed. We will continue with deleveraging towards our mid-term target of below 2x. Throughout H1, we maintained a tight focus on cost control, working capital and CapEx. In the first half, we also actively managed our debt profile by repaying CHF 475 million term loan with the Barmag closing, leading to an interest rate saving of CHF 13 million per year. In addition, we issued a CHF 200 million bond in May and repaid a maturing CHF 220 million bond in June. The coupon is 75 bps lower, resulting in an interest cost saving of approximately CHF 2 million per year. This was supported by the reconfirmation of all of our ratings at investment grade in spring. Our liquidity position remains strong with around CHF 900 million of cash and available credit lines at the end of June '26. In addition, we report an equity ratio of 41% for H1 '26, up from 24% end of '25. With a strengthened balance sheet and enhanced financial flexibility, we are well positioned to support strategic execution. Next, to our '26 guidance. Based on a strong first half year, we are increasing our full-year guidance. We now expect a mid-single-digit percentage sales growth versus the previous guidance of low single-digit percentage increase. This reflects the strong H1, especially in aviation, energy and general industries as well as an encouraging outlook for H2. Furthermore, we now guide for an operational EBITDA margin of 18.5% to 19.5%, up from around 17.5% previously, assuming broadly stable tungsten and yttrium prices. This also builds on a strong H1, supported by market momentum, strong operational as well as commercial execution and our confident outlook for H2. Let us now recap the first half year on the next slide. Despite a backdrop of significant geopolitical uncertainty and ongoing trade tensions, Oerlikon delivered a strong performance in the first half. This was driven by aviation, energy and general industries, with Oerlikon successfully leveraging strong demand and pricing power, particularly in the materials business. Throughout the period, we acted as a strong partner to our customers, supplying mission-critical products and ensuring production continuity. We are also making good progress on our efficiency measures and cost-out initiatives. These actions are on track and will further enhance our agility, improve our operational leverage and support profitability and value creation in the years ahead. At the same time, we remain committed to driving innovation and growth across the company. By continuously improving our competitiveness and investing in new technologies and growth opportunities, we are laying the foundation for further sustainable long-term growth and strengthening our leadership positions in attractive markets. Looking forward, while the external environment remains dynamic, we are very confident in the attractiveness of our products, the strength of our business model, the quality of our customer relationships and the dedication of our teams worldwide. Our priorities are clear: supporting our customers, executing with discipline and creating sustainable value for all stakeholders. Ultimately, our objective is to deliver long-term value through profitable growth. With that, thank you for your attention, and we look forward to sharing with you further details on the business and outlook at our Capital Markets Day on 8th September in Zurich. With that, let me open it up for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Tobias Klöpper from Zürcher Kantonalbank.

Could you give us some more insights regarding the effect that the inventory revaluation had compared to your cost measures? What was the effect on your operational EBITDA margin? How much of the inventory increase was due to the higher raw material prices? And then maybe going forward, what effect do you expect?

Thank you, Tobias. The effect you see on the margin is a mix of effects. So it is about volume. It is about mix. It is about the effect from the restructuring measures, which you saw in the last year and also previously. And on top of that, it's inventory revaluation. So it's a mix of effects and not just the revaluation that you mentioned. When you look at the guidance, which assumes stable prices for the critical minerals that we referred to, you can work on that basis with regards to modeling.

The next question comes from the line of Alessandro Foletti from Octavian.

Can I ask one understanding one and then my 3 questions? I know I'm maybe exaggerating, but you tell me. The understanding question is on the ROCE calculation that you made, you show 6.2%, but this is not annualized. Is that correct?

Can you please repeat the question, Alessandro? I didn't understand that completely.

The ROCE calculation that you have shown 6.2% on Slide 4 of your presentation.

Yes, the...

So I was wondering 6.2% is not annualized, right?

It is the balance sheet as of period end and it is the last 12 months for the...

That's the last 12 months. Okay, good.

Yes.

That's the question. So I wanted to ask you on Coating Services and component coatings. Can you explain me how you sort of split the business there between what is purely servicing, I guess, servicing on tools and what you used to do on coating components for the automotive industry. Do you have like separate factories or separate lines inside your valves? How did you split that?

Yes, happy to provide the details on that. So on one side, the one segment, Coating Services is what you have to think about as the globally spread centers that provide coating services ranging from tools, that's coating tools, that's forming tools, that's precision components, which also go into semicon, which go into medical. So it is a very local for local coating center-based coatings business. In Components, it's as the name states, it's much more about the component where we leverage synergies in terms of industries. As I stated before, we have very good dynamics in aviation through the aero components for aero engines from Eldim. We leverage synergies in the automotive industry into the thermal insulation systems and we have Luxury and HRSflow. So the coating element in that segment is partial whereas the coating element in the segment Coating Services is ultimately the business model. So that's the key differentiator. So when you think, for example, about Luxury, Luxury does coatings, but it's only part of the component offering.

So in this sense, like the value-add is bigger in Components or you have to manufacture more. Coating is only one element, one step of what you do. That's the deal.

... That's exactly correct. Yes, exactly. In Coating Services, it's about the coating itself, of core which we develop, which runs on our own equipment. So I think we believe we have a very strong USP here combining these business models that's very unique. Whereas in Components, it stretches beyond the partial coating into whole components, which show our strong engineering capabilities. Yes.

Right. And my final question is on the Materials & Equipment business, which obviously had a very strong result. Typically, in the past, when you had the surcharges, et cetera, it didn't have a big effect on the bottom line actually. It was just more like passing on the input price increase. What is different here in this current situation?

Yes, it's a very good question, Alessandro. And I think it relates a bit to my answer to Tobias' question. What we have seen over the last half year and also before is the dynamics in the industries that I mentioned. Aviation general industries really allowed us to push our offering to beyond just pass-through of prices. We developed, I would say, into a much more strategic partner to our customers or we were before, but now it became much more independent and visible to our customers. So it's literally a mix of volume and also the quality of our offering and the value that we can demonstrate to our customers. So it is a combination of factors that we have not seen in the years back. So it's a combination.

So if I may add on here. Obviously, the margin increase from 16.8% to 23.8% is huge, right? But are you telling me that because of this increased value add, the 28% is now the new level that you can keep? Or I should be maybe between the 2 numbers?

I mean what we guide for is stable prices. So in H1, and I'm sure you have looked at the tungsten and yttrium prices, they increased significantly. So if we assume stable prices, then at least that effect will not repeat unless prices start climbing again. But the fundamentals, which range from operational leverage, how we operate the business, how we steer it from sourcing to shipping, I think that's a really comprehensive improvement that we have developed over the last couple of years.

So the 23.8% is not necessarily the new sustainable level, but you are away from the 6.9% (sic) [ 16.9 ] of last year, basically.

Right.

We now have a question from the line of Louis Billon from Baader Europe.

So my question is -- so when we take your midpoint guidance for operational EBITDA, it's at 19%. So it implies a H2 at around 18.3%, depending on sales. But should we consider that it will be the new standard going forward? Do you feel confident to reach 18.3% EBITDA in 2027 and beyond?

Thanks for your question, Louis. At this stage, we don't comment on '27, right? We will have a Capital Markets Day in 1 month where we will look into the midterm. There were the effects I just described to Alessandro. But overall, we are very confident that the actions we took over the last couple of years that they have a sustainable effect and enhance the quality of the profile of the individual segments and the products we deliver. So yes, we don't comment on '27, but we have a sustainably positive development, which we control.

Okay. And maybe a second question. Could you give us more detail on the order in H1? Is it mostly prebooking from your customers? And also, is the lead time changing? So should we expect those orders to be converted in sales a little more later than it used to be?

Well, I mean, on the order intake, what is important is here that we have a very strong contribution also from equipment, right? As I said before, on the sales level, it's mostly materials. But on the order intake, we see very good dynamics in equipment as well. And this is driven by the same industries in aviation, but also in energy. I mean if you observe the industrial gas turbine markets, the OEMs, the order books, how deep they are, how, I would say, stable for the next couple of years. You can assume that on the order intake one, this is also significantly impacted by equipment. And here, one element to consider also looking a bit ahead is that we have a significant share of aftermarket business in our equipment business. So any system we place is an opportunity to generate aftermarket business after sales and also to generate materials business. So this is the power of the combination of these 2 businesses is to create a sustainable and very sticky demand after you place a system in the market.

Okay. And maybe a last question. Like your stock of the tungsten and yttrium, has that changed since the full year 2025 as you -- maybe do you have less stock? What are the new rules for the stock of tungsten and yttrium?

I mean, overall, we don't go into details on the volume as such, but the supply situation in these materials is something that you need to be very capable of in managing. So it's about securing and being able to ship to customers. So yes, there is an effect of volume because volume grows on the sales side. But yes, that's about it.

Next question comes from the line of Leonie Zirn from UBS.

I have 3 follow-ups. I'll start with the first one regarding your new segments. You mentioned Coating Services and that you expect for the second half to follow the typical seasonal pattern. If I look at the H2 '25, then this looks a bit softer than the H1. So is it fair to assume that coating service revenues will be softer as well into this year?

Thanks for the question, Leonie. The seasonal pattern we referred to is not about the underlying dynamics of the fundamentals. We are very confident on that end. It's just a simple fact that with the summer break in the H1 and with the December holiday season, you have naturally a lower share of, let's say, working days. But the fundamentals are very much intact, and we see actually good trends in the underlying business.

Okay. And then the second question, I think, on free cash flow, it is very important to clarify. You mentioned that operating free cash -- that the reported free cash flow contains like CHF 42 million impact from Barmag. Will this impact be limited only to the first half, I assume, because you consolidated also in the first half? And then what are your expectations also around net working capital normalizing? What would be like a good ballpark range to assume where inventory and receivables end by end of the year, so we can make an estimate on free cash flow?

Thanks. So first, we still report Barmag within our financials because the closing only took place in February, right, beginning of February. That's why on the cash flow statement, you still have the whole group, including discontinued operations, whereas in the balance sheet and the income statement, it's Oerlikon only. And we'll see that for the rest of the year to come. The effects that we observe here, I mean, is the effects from the January result of Barmag. So after the closing, there is nothing to be expected anymore. When we look at the working capital, as described before, we have at the moment, obviously, a high impact on inventory buildup. This is materials, but also very important to mention also when you look at the last couple of years, cash flow-wise, H1 was usually weaker because we build up also inventory and prepare for shipments of equipment in the second half. So the end of year cash flow profile and also working capital profile will look different than from H1 as it did in the past couple of years. In the working capital, there are some one-offs at the moment due to the factors I described. We work on countermeasures. I think we were quite successful on generating advanced payments and we keep our focus on that.

Okay. So is it fair to assume a similar cadence that we've seen in free cash flow last year, where we've seen around minus CHF 50 million in the first half and then plus CHF 150 million in the second half? Is this fair to repeat this year as well from what you've just described?