Bossard Aktie

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Bossard Holding AG presentation of Bossard Semi-Annual Results 2026 Conference Call. I'm [indiscernible], Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

And at this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Dr. Daniel Bossard. Please go ahead, sir. Mr. Bossard, I think you might still be muted..

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our semi-annual results webcast 2026. Stephan Zehnder and I are happy to guide you through the following agenda.

Good. I try again. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our semi-annual results webcast 2026. Stephan Zehnder and I are happy to guide you through the following agenda. After a few words on the highlights. Sorry, the Echo is still here. Can we restart again?

One second, ladies and gentlemen, we have some technical issues. Please hold the line. We will continue shortly.

Ladies and gentlemen, sorry for the issues. We will now continue with the conference. Mr. Bossard, please go ahead.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our semi-annual results webcast 2026. Stephan Zehnder and I are happy to guide you through the following agenda. After a few words on the highlights of 2026, Stephan will navigate you through the financials. I will then follow up with an update on our Strategy 200 developments and our focus for 2026, followed by our financial targets and an outlook.

So let me start with the highlights. I would like to split this into 2 sections: The general market perspective and the Bossard view. From a general market perspective, we have seen the following. A positive structural demand. Trends continued across railways, semiconductor and electronics, data center infrastructure and aerospace industries. Demand continued to improve during the first half of 2026. Europe returned to growth, the Americas recorded accelerating growth, while Asia maintained its robust growth trajectory. We have seen Swiss franc appreciation versus most currencies. Demand for automated data-driven [indiscernible] parts management solutions sustained.

From a Bossard, we can highlight the following: We seized opportunities and gained market share in growth industries. We successfully executed our growth initiatives. Targeted procurement measures helped to retain margins and reduce product cost. Our operations and sales engine initiatives enhanced internal efficiency and customer value. This includes the rollout of our global ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics 365 and our AI initiatives. We continue the implementation of Smart Factory solutions, reinforcing customer relationships and differentiation.

With these highlights, I'm happy to hand over to Stephan Zehnder for the financial review. Stephan, please.

Thank you, Daniel. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The first half of 2026 was characterized by an improving market environment, shaped by ongoing geopolitical uncertainties and changing trade policy developments. Against this backdrop, the Bossard Group generated sales of CHF 575.7 million in the first half of 2026, corresponding to a growth of 9.7% in local currency. In Swiss francs, sales increased by 5.3%. Currency effects reduced the reported sales growth by 4.4 percentage points, mainly reflecting the recent appreciation of the Swiss franc. Based on the current exchange rate levels, the negative currency impact is expected to ease in the second half of 2026.

All 3 market regions delivered positive sales trends, although pace and drivers of the growth differed by region. Europe returned to growth, supported by a broader recovery across key customer industries. America recorded accelerated growth momentum, benefiting from the continued improvement in demand as well as additional support from the pass-through of import duties. Asia maintained its robust growth path, driven by sustained demand in several growth industries and continued positive momentum in selected local markets such as India and Malaysia. At the same time, the demand normalization observed in the second half of 2025 continued and gained further momentum during the first 6 months of 2026. The encouraging growth continued in rail, aerospace, semiconductor and electronic industries, reflecting sustained demand and benefits Bossard's strong positioning in these attractive growth markets.

Overall, the development demonstrates the resilience of Bossard's business model and the benefit of its geographically diversified market presence. While currency effects continued to weigh on reported sales, the underlying business performance showed signs of recovery and improvement across the regions.

The further look at the income statement shows that gross profit margin increased by 11.7% to EUR 198.3 million in the first half of 2026. As a result, the gross margin improved from 32.5% in the prior year to 34.4%. This positive development was supported by targeted purchasing measures, selected price adjustments and a favorable customer product mix. It also reflects the group's continuous focus on margin quality and disciplined commercial execution despite a still demanding market environment. Selling and administrative expenses increased moderately by 2.7% from CHF 124 million to CHF 126 million and therefore, remained clearly below the sales growth rate.

This development demonstrates continuous cost discipline across the group despite additional expenses related to the higher number of full-time equivalents, which increased by 1.6% to 3,178 FTEs. Salary adjustments and the ongoing rollout of the new ERP system in the group. In particular, the higher license fees arose as more users were brought on to the new platform during the implementation phase. In addition, investments under the Strategy 200 continued as planned with a particular focus on digitalization, process standardization and efficiency improvements. The ERP rollout remains a key element of the transformation agenda, supporting the group's ambition to harmonize systems, improve transparency and strengthen operational scalability over the long term.

The combination of higher sales and improved gross profit margin and continued cost discipline had a clearly positive impact on profitability in the first half of 2026. EBIT increased to CHF 72.9 million compared to CHF 55.5 million in the previous year. As a result, the EBIT margin improved from 10.2% to 12.7%. This development demonstrates the group's ability to convert sales growth into stronger operation earnings. The financial result amounted to CHF 2.4 million compared to EUR 5.6 million in the previous year. This improvement was mainly driven by lower interest expenses, reflecting a more favorable financing cost base and positive currency effects. While a negative contribution of CHF 1.7 million resulted from the foreign currency revaluation in the previous year, we experienced a positive impact of EUR 0.2 million in 2026. Overall, the development of the financial results contributed positively to the group's earnings performance compared to prior year.

Net income increased significantly in the first half of 2026, rising from CHF 38.7 million in the prior year to CHF 54.7 million. Return on sales increased from 7.1% to 9.5%. As already mentioned, we experienced different sales developments in the 3 market regions. In America, Bossard recorded sales of 17.3% in local currency in the first half of 2026.

Next slide, please. Reported in Swiss francs, sales increased by 7.9% to CHF 123 million compared to CHF 114 million in the previous year. The region benefited from the continued recovery in demand that started in the third quarter of the prior year and gained further momentum during the first half. Sales growth was additionally supported by the pass-through of import duties. Positive developments were seen across several customer industries, including mechanical engineering, energy, electromobility, data center infrastructure and agriculture with the agriculture sector further supported by the acquisition of a new customer. This positive development was partly offset by the appreciation of the Swiss franc against U.S. dollar, which weighed on the reported sales.

In Europe, Bossard delivered solid sales growth in the first half of the year. Sales increased by 5.8% in local currency and by 4% in Swiss francs, reaching SEK 349.7 million compared to CHF 336.3 million in the previous year. This positive development was supported by Bossard's strong market position in the region and its ability to further strengthen customer relationships across the key industries. As a result, encouraging growth rates were achieved in the aerospace, rail, electronics and mechanical engineering industries. The performance in Europe, therefore, underlines the resilience of the business model and the benefits of a well-diversified customer and industry portfolio.

In Asia, Bossard achieved strong sales growth of 15% in local currency and 6.8% in Swiss francs, reaching SEK 103 million compared to SEK 96.4 million in the previous year. The region maintained its upward momentum in the second quarter, reflected in sustained double-digit growth. In India, the company continued to benefit from the Make in India initiative, while in Malaysia capacity expansions of global manufacturers, in particular in the semiconductor and electronics industry had a positive impact. Organic growth continued also in China, driven notably from the electronics and mechanical engineering sectors. The appreciation of the Swiss franc against Asian currency also impacted the sales performance in this region.

Upon review of the balance sheet, total assets increased during the comparison period from CHF 940 million to CHF 976 million, primarily driven by the positive sales development. Equity also rose by CHF 59 million, supported by the sustainable year-on-year improvement in profitability. And overall, Bossard continues to maintain a solid balance sheet, reflected in an improved equity ratio of 39.1% in the prior year to 42.7%. Compared with the previous year, operating net working capital increased from CHF 502 million to CHF 540 million, reflecting the higher level of business activity and the corresponding increase in operating volumes. In relation to sales, capital intensity did slightly increase from 49% to 49.2%.

With a focus on the balance sheet ratios, year-over-year net debt decreased from CHF 347 million to CHF 317 million. The decrease was primarily related to the positive cash flow, which is due to the better business performance. Considering that CHF 30 million dividend payout in April 2026, the reduction in debt was even more significant. The gearing net debt measured against equity decreased from 1 to 0.8, whereas net debt in relation to EBITDA decreased from 2.8x to 2.1x, which is close to our rather conservative set long-term funding ratio of 2. Assuming continued positive business development in the second half, we expect this KPI to improve further by year-end.

In the first half of 2026, total capital expenditure amounted to CHF 15.3 million. Thereof, CHF 2.7 million was spent on office and warehouse maintenance and investments related to ESG initiatives. An amount of CHF 2.6 million was allocated for replacement investments within ongoing operations, and we invested CHF 2.2 million in smart devices, installing them at our customer sites as part of our Smart Factory solutions. We invested a substantial amount of CHF 7.8 million in our digitalization initiatives. The biggest share of this investment was dedicated again to the rollout of the new group-wide ERP system. Further deployments are planned for the second half of in Switzerland, Spain and China.

A look at the cash flow statement also reflects the current business development. The cash flow from operating activities before changes in net working capital increased from CHF 56.2 million to CHF 72.9 million, whereas the cash flow from operating activities increased from CHF 32.7 billion to CHF 42.1 million. Cash flow from investing activities totaled CHF 17.5 million compared to CHF 77.1 million in the prior year, which was significantly below last year's figures. This is primarily attributable to [indiscernible] the substantial outflow of funds in the prior year due to the acquisition of the Ferdinand Growth Group. Overall, the first half of 2026 resulted in a positive free cash flow of CHF 24.6 million after the prior year's negative free cash flow of EUR 44.4 million.

With that, I conclude my remarks on the semi-annual results 2026, and hand over back to you, Daniel. Thank you.

Thank you, Stephan. With this, I'm happy to switch over to our Strategy 200, its progress and focus for 2026.

As you know, Strategy 200 is not a 200-year strategy, but the strategic ambition we follow by 2031 when Bossard turns 200 years old. Details of the strategy can also be found in our Investors manual available on our website. In essence, we aim for profitable and sustainable long-term growth based on our proven business model organically and through acquisitions to achieve relevant market shares in our key markets through 7 strategic initiatives. I will not go through all initiatives, but only highlight 3 of them more in detail, marked white on slide.

The first one is, together we create our cultural initiative, and our promise to live up to our guiding principles. These basically circle around collaboration, experimentation, empowerment, talking real, addressing and solving issues quickly and delivering value. In the end, we want to improve global collaboration to ensure we can do more with the same staff sharing experiences, learning and benefiting from each other across functions, regions and hierarchies. We foster this through internal training and financial as well as nonfinancial incentive structures. Since aging is not only a Western Hemisphere demographic topic, but also a reality in Bossard, we put a special focus on succession planning and rejuvenation of our organization to ensure sustainability and make it easier to embrace new technologies by younger generations. In the end, we continuously focus on talent and leadership development to ensure the successors meet with our cultural requirements.

The second initiative is the sales engine. Within this, we focus on growth verticals to foster sales acceleration, which is in the railway, semiconductor, data center and aerospace sectors. Some examples are Pilatus, where we signed a 6-year [indiscernible] agreement beginning of this year, leading to tenfold in our animal sales in the coming years. Another example is AGCO, a U.S.-based agricultural equipment manufacturer producing brands like Ferndt, Massey Ferguson and Valtra. We won the customer last year from one of our major U.S. competitors. We installed more than 4,000 smart bins in 4 different U.S. plants and are currently ramping up looking into a high single-digit million U.S. dollar turnover this year.

And the last example is LAM Research, a U.S.-based leading global supplier of wafer fabrication equipment and services for the semiconductor industry. We won an annual double-digit million U.S. dollar contract last year with a multiple year commitment. LAM Research announced to double their output in 2027. And again, in 2028, let's see for sure on the growth trajectory.

Another area for sales growth is the data center ecosystem and tier suppliers. Bossard serving more than half of these customers that you see on the chart. And all of them are in growth mode. For example, Schneider, Legrand, ABB, Siemens, Eaton, et cetera. Within our sales acceleration initiative, we focus on developing these customers globally. Besides focusing on growth customers, we are also looking into expanding our relationships with our existing customers globally with additional products and services.

The program we are running here is called G60. These are basically 60 global customers, which we serve in at least one country today, and see the potential to serve them in other regions as well. A dedicated global Bossard team takes care of these customers and ensures a coordinated approach to knowledge sharing customer acquisition and implementation support. A good example would be SEW-EURODRIVE, where we look into expanding our relationship from the U.S. into Europe, or Enderson Houser where we are in the process of acquiring U.S. plants.

All these activities are supported by our new global KPI dashboard. Some of you probably saw the demo at our Capital Markets Day last October. The tool is based on our new ERP system and CRM and allows global transparency of customer business development, open opportunities and conversions. It's used as internal tool to create transparency and to benchmark between areas and sales teams. And last not least, we continue with our focus on Smart Factory services used as an enabler to win new business and create customer loyalty or stickiness. We are constantly updating and enhancing our smart win with latest technologies. We just introduced an easier and more cost-effective battery system and we continuously enhance the underlying software with AI features to support us in making sense of data and reducing stock outs. As of June this year, we served over 1,100 customers globally with close to 0.5 million devices. We see a net growth of installed devices of 4% compared to last year. That's what you see here in the last bubble.

Smart Factory Assembly, our latest Smart Factory service has also helped us onboard new customers and create peace of mind for existing customers in their assembly. As of June, we served over 120 customers with over 300 installations globally, growing 25% compared to last year. Again, you see the number of the last bubble. With our third initiative, the operations engine, we will conclude the introduction of our new ERP system, Microsoft Dynamics 365 by end of this year. After 23 rollouts, last one in Switzerland, China and Spain in H2 2026, we will have 61% of our business on the new system. The rest are acquisitions, which will follow in the next 5 years, many of them run smoothly, and there is no need for change and will operate with interfaces. The new system allows us to create much better transparency, quicker response to global customer requirements and faster acquisition, as mentioned before. AI addresses the same benefits. We are focusing on initiatives which improve internal efficiency, such as, for example, document processing which allows us to process customer requests for products and prices much quicker with less staff. At the same time, we use AI to improve customer responsiveness with quicker turnaround times to customers and less inventory stockouts as mentioned before. We reviewed our supply chain infrastructure and processes and opportunities globally to become leaner, for example, regarding our product portfolio and storage locations, optimizing purchasing volumes into fewer warehouses and by that, reduce total cost. We created an internal benchmarking tool for our warehouse locations to challenge warehousing costs and processed order lines and we set KPIs to measure supply chain management-related improvements. For example, purchase price value a KPI measuring the improvement of product procurement costs over time.

After all, we reallocated group resources outside of Switzerland, not at last due to the high negative Swiss franc currency impact. Since last year, we moved key IT personnel from Switzerland to Spain where today, we run an IT hub with 25 people and are no longer replacing staff in [indiscernible] but in Barcelona. We are currently looking into other group functions and how we can reallocate costs.

After the review of our Strategy 200 and our focus areas, a few words to our financial targets and the outlook for the business year 2026. I assume you are mostly familiar with our midterm financial targets, which is basically organic sales growth of bigger than 5%. Operating profit margin, EBIT of 12% to 15% and equity ratio of over 40%, dividend payout ratio of 40% of net income. We confirm these targets. For the full year, we are expecting an organic sales growth in local currency of over 5%, in line with our midterm goals. The EBIT margin will continue to improve compared to last year.

With this, we are concluding our remarks on the semiannual results and are happy to open up for questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Tobias Fahrenholz from ODDO BHF.

Yes. So two question blocks, if I may. On the general business momentum, could you speak here a little bit about the monthly sales trends in the second quarter and also start into July. And if you could maybe also touch on a potential restocking in there and what tariffs and higher prices were doing and what could they do in the second half?

In general, the momentum from the first quarter continued in the second quarter. We can clearly confirm that. So, so far, that looks very good. And how far we see restocking, I have to say, -- we don't hear and see that a lot from our customers. So it's not mainly restocking-related growth, but it's really actual demand related growth. So that's what we clearly see with the majority of our customers. I cannot recall any customer now who would have told us well, it's mainly because of restocking. That's actually not the case, at least for the majority of our customers we talk to. So in that sense, a positive.

Now on the tariff side, as you may know, we are still under the steel and aluminum tariff jurisdiction in the U.S. So in that sense, this is going to continue, and there is not going to be an expiry of this to be foreseen. So in that sense, the price increases that have taken place will stick. And so far, we don't see any reason why we should remove them.

Okay. And then on profitability, could you quantify these additional ramp-up costs which you have in Switzerland and China? And is it fair to assume at the end that you'll have a typical have it split with around 55% in the first half and 45% in the second half, meaning that you might come in a notch below your 12% to 15% EBIT margin range.

Well, it's always reality that, of course, the second half of the year is a bit less performed due to slower July due to slower December, and that's always the case. And we still see additional costs coming up with the implementation of our ERP system, how much exactly will come extraordinarily. We don't know. Of course, there is some sort of planning. But for sure, we will continue the positive EBIT development trend compared year-to-year. So looking into the end of the year, you will see a significant improvement. Whether this is exactly in the range you mentioned we leave open, but we are very optimistic that we see a very good improvement compared to last year. I know, that's not what you wanted to hear maybe but talk about for the question.

And the next question comes from [indiscernible].

Yes. I also have two, if I may, and also the first one would be on the guidance, but more on the top line. you quantified it there as over 5% organic for the full year. So if you consider now the first half of almost 10%. Maybe you could explain what makes you so conservative about the second half, namely to include the possibility that growth would be or decelerate to almost 0%.

And then the second one would be on the gross margin. Now the 34.5% is an extraordinary high level if we compare it to the past. So I'm just wondering if there is any effect here that we should not take as a permanent one as a one-off. And also there if possible, could you provide a bridge between the price increases, mix effects and procurement effects that you mentioned earlier in the call, this would be very helpful as well.

Okay. I will take the first 2 questions. Maybe, Stephan, you can talk about the procurement price effects. So the growth on 5 -- more than 5%. So we said it's not -- it's like more than 5%, right? So we didn't say it's going to be at 5%. So it's going to be more than 5%. So currently, yes, 10%, but -- so it could be more. But we just want to be in line with our financial target commitment, which is basically saying over 5% since the world is still very volatile, we never know what's going to happen, looking at our current situation and with some customers with a bit longer lead time order books, it looks very positive. But again, on the other hand, we don't know what's going to happen in the next 6 months politically and any blockages and so on. So we stay a bit conservative, but definitely, it will be more than 5%.

On the gross margin, the 34%, bigger than 34% what is sustainable. I think it's really a product mix that we have seen. So I would say most of what we've seen is not a one-timer. It's mostly, I would say, rather sustainable also to do with industries that we're serving, imagine some industries like the aerospace, for example, availability is still more important than price. So there, the pricing is not a big issue. Well, so it's an issue somehow, but it's really more about availability. So we have sectors also in the data center arena where availability is still more important than price. So in that sense, we can benefit. And also, when it comes to tariff-related increases, we managed to maybe get an increase, which was a bit bigger than just covering the additional cost that we had and we're also benefiting from that as long as we still have stock. This could be partially one-timer, but I would say we're on a good track here also in the States, keeping up the margins. So I would say most of it, at least 2/3 would be sustainable. Now the third question was on procurement and price, maybe, Stephan, if you could...

Yes, I can take that one. So on the procurement, as Daniel mentioned before, we have this KPI, which we will start to track. I can't give you -- it's not a [indiscernible] number from that perspective. So there is dedicated activities within the different business units, which we can see based on the action and we track certain prices by certain product segments, which we can see. It's keeping at least the same cost level, although we have seen that certain prices went up, specifically driven by -- also by the energy cost. One thing was what was also dedicated, of course, is with these price increases to negotiate on one side with the customer, to convey those further cost to the customers. That's one part of it. And the other part, of course, it's always 2 sides to negotiate also if the suppliers. But you can see based on the activities that we created a positive impact from the procurement side. But to give you a number by 1 million SKUs, 40,000 customers, it's a bit difficult ambition.

But I think what Daniel mentioned before, the biggest part is really the product and the sales mix, partly driven by the growth by the segments, aerospace, also semicon and the other part is that we have a bit different gross profit margin mix within the regions. And seeing that Europe got a bit more momentum that also changes the product mix from that perspective. And obviously, that has also a positive impact with Europe, Europe coming back a bit with the higher EBIT margin with this region, which benefits the group's profit mix at the end of the day.

And the next question comes from Sebastian Vogel from UBS.

I've got three questions. I would ask them one by one. The first one is with regard to your revenue share as part of the group revenues related to railway, aerospace and semi. Can you give us the sort of ballpark what was this share in the first half 2026. And to put things into context, how this number roughly was looking in the first half of 2025.

So on the railway, the share remains about 9%. Also, we do about 9% now in aerospace, which was rather 7.5%. So we gained momentum, additional revenues from that perspective. And as we elaborated already in other meetings or calls, what's related to semicon or electronic semicon related sales, it's not a one-to-one comparison. So we have a one-to-one relation with certain customers, but there is other industries which benefit also from this semicon trend, whether it's in machine building or in general electronics. But we assume that this is somewhere about 6%. So basically, we have with the aerospace, with the railway and the semicon, we have a solid 25% of the turnover, which is contributing positively at the moment to the business development.

And that number was around like 22%, 23% last year around or...

About, about. Yes, about I would say. So I would say it's about 2 percentage points up 2 to 3 percentage points.

Got it. Second question is with regard to the U.S. specific, the benefit from the pass-through of the U.S. tariffs in the second quarter. Can you give me a number there? Was it around like the EUR 5 million? And what is sort of to assume for the third quarter? Or is it pretty much a annualized?

So if I look at the first half year, the tariffs' impact in U.S. was about 60%. So organically, can say it's somewhere 7% growth. If you look at the group, it's the organic growth without the tariffs is somewhere 7.4%. So it has an impact of about 2 percentage points. And we started to pass on the tariffs in Q3 last year and became on the full run rate -- so there will be kind of a slowdown in the growth rate due to the tariffs. But it's also here, it's not an exact number, which we can give you because it's always a combination of tariffs we pay and on the other side of price increases we get through the supply chain.

Got it. And then the third and last question on my side. With regard to these gaining the additional agri customer that you were alluding to in rough terms, by when would that be sort of annualizing and being then reflected in the base? Would that be something for the third quarter or for the fourth quarter? Or do you have any indication that we can provide us with?

No, it started actually beginning of this year already. So we installed the systems by end of last year, and we started ramping up this year and should already see 80% of the business in this year. So yes, that's about how it looks like.

And the next question comes from Louis Billon from [indiscernible] Europe.

So my -- I have a question on could you provide us -- what is the percentage or an idea of the percentage of sales related to data center?

That's a difficult one since there is numerous tier suppliers delivering also indirectly into data center customers. So it's hard to give you a number. So -- we don't have that number. So I would say, overall, something between 5% and 10%.

Okay. That -- and maybe another question, if I may, on the smart device installed base. It's growing 4%. Is it -- are you comfortable with this growth rate? Or were you expecting more significant growth?

No. We've historically seen growth rates between 3% and 5%. So the 4% is pretty much an average, which we expect to continue. Of course, we have additional efforts now with also enhanced software battery solutions and hopefully becoming better and also being able to increase the growth rate. But I would say 4%, 5% is realistic.

And the next question comes from [indiscernible] from Helvetische Bank.

Yes. Thank you. Did I get that correctly before that from this 9.7% organic growth, roughly -- group-wide, roughly 2% are due to pricing effects due to tariffs which mean that around 7.5% are volumes over the whole group. And most of this price effect came from the U.S. Is that correct?

Yes. That's correct. Correct in the sense that the organic without the tariffs, it's about beyond 7%, so it makes about 2% out of it, and the rest more or less was volume. Of course, as we said, there was also some price adjustments going forward, but the biggest impact, as I mentioned before, it's product -- customer product mix, which we benefited also from. And besides that economy is still normalizing in the different regions in the different segments.

Okay. Now on the margin improvement. I mean, you mentioned it qualitatively. So is there any chance that you could give us a kind of a quantitative indication how much of the margin improvement came from operating leverage due to higher volumes? How much from still efficiency improvements, then you mentioned mix effect and there was certainly a price over cost effect also. Do you have any idea how you could split that up a little bit?

So the one part is based on actions or measurements, which we took last year, which have a positive impact this year. One thing Daniel mentioned, it's with the IT cost. So starting to relocate the head counts from Switzerland to Spain. The other part is, we still have been cautious when it comes to traveling and these things. Also, what has a positive impact when we look at the inflation when it comes to salary adjustment. Also, this has helped to compensate partly from that perspective.

And the other part is we didn't have any rollouts in the first half of this year, which in the previous year. So that's what also what we mentioned before. We have 2 major rollouts with Switzerland and China in the second half. So we will go into the hypercare phase. It depends how long the hypercare will take from that perspective. So the costs, overall, were rather flattish. So the real momentum or what the impact was the higher sales volume and the gross profit margin. So it was really a leverage on the higher sales and -- which had which resulted in a higher gross profit contribution.

Basically, operating leverage.

Yes. The bigger part is operating leverage, for sure, yes.

Okay. Good. Then about this new customer in the agricultural sector. Could you tell us the region or what was it -- the U.S.A.? And if you could mention the name, would it be likely that we would recognize the name.

No, we did mention it. It's AGCO.

Okay. Sorry.

So it's an agricultural company, that's what it stands for, and they produce the brands Ferndt, Massey Ferguson and Valtra in U.S., and we're now reaching into Europe and trying to acquire the customer in Europe as well.

Okay. So that is a customer which will gain momentum, as you mentioned before, part of it already this year, but more of it next year.

No, it's already a pretty large volume this year. That's at least 80% already this year because we started last year with all the SmartPen implementations, and we already scaled up end of last year and should see the quite a large effect this year.

Okay. So it's more in the second half than in the first half.

Probably a bit more, yes.

A bit more, yes.

[Operator Instructions] And the next question comes from Fabian Piasta from Jefferies.

Just a couple of follow-ons. So just for the avoidance of doubt, when we are talking about group growth, which was in local currency is roughly 10%. Which portion was the tariff pass on that was to, right? And how was that for the America again?

Yes, that's correct. It's about 2% and it's for Americas.

Okay. All right. Then another question related to tariffs because a couple of other Swiss companies might be eligible for tariff reimbursement. Is that something that you are striving for? Or is that even in your numbers which I haven't found. That would be the second one.

The third one is related to basically not restocking, but maybe pre-buying the latest PMI print for June was basically saying that a lot of PMI activity was coming from prebuying, basically fears of straight home moves being closed and disrupted supply chains. Maybe you can comment on this one, [indiscernible] go back to the queue now.

Yes. On the prebuying to start in the end, as we said, it's mostly not prebuying. So we don't hear that a lot from our customers. There may be some -- but I would say it's the minority, and the majority is actual demand. So it's not what we hear and see broadly that we talk about prebuying. And now I forgot your second question, apologies.

That was on tariff reimbursements?

Reimbursements. No, they are not relevant in our case because we're talking about steel and aluminum tariffs, and they're still valid. They were always valid, and they maybe will be valid in the future. So we don't see any reimbursement maybe of our sales is affected by maybe plastic parts where customers could ask for reimbursement, but it's irrelevant. It's marginal. It's not a relevant number.

[Operator Instructions] So it looks there are no further questions at this time. So I would like to turn the conference back over to Daniel Bossard for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much. Thank you for joining. Apologies for the presentation lags, we had. Welcome to the 21st century. You would think everything works move, but we're also working on improvements. Thanks a lot. Thanks for coming in, and I wish you a nice afternoon, evening, morning, whatever. Thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.

Welcome to our Annual Financial Analyst and Media Conference 2026. We are streaming this event, and we'll make it available later this afternoon. Stephan Zehnder, our CFO, and I would like to guide you through the following agenda.

I will start with the key developments 2025. Stephan Zehnder will then navigate you through the financials. I will continue with our Strategy 200 progress and our strategic priorities for 2026. For those that are not familiar with Bossard, the Strategy 200 defines our strategic ambition towards 2031 when Bossard turns 200 years old. The strategy and its initiatives are also described in detail in our investors manual available online. After this, I will briefly reiterate our midterm financial targets, and we will then be happy to answer your questions.

So let me start with the key developments 2025. I'd like to split those in 2 sections, market developments and fossil-related key developments. From a market perspective, we were faced with another challenging market environment with ongoing geopolitical and economic uncertainties. Asia, particularly India and Malaysia showed positive market dynamics, whereas Europe and the Americas only stabilized in the second half of the year, partially supported by tariff-related price increases in the U.S.

We were faced with weakening demand, especially in export-oriented and cyclical industries. These were offset by solid momentum in sunrise industries such as aerospace, railway, data center, energy, semiconductor and automation industries. The lack of staff, higher cost pressure and ongoing digitalization led to an increasing demand for automated data-driven C-parts management solutions. Throughout the year, we experienced a significant Swiss franc appreciation versus most currencies.

From a Basel perspective, we benefited from a strong pipeline in sunrise industries. Our activities led to slight growth over the year with acceleration in the second half. Our service sales activities resulted in accelerated implementation of Smart Factory services across the globe with a 5-year compound annual growth rate of 5.1% for Smart Factory Logistics and over 100% for Smart Factory Assembly, strengthening customer relationships and differentiation.

The acquisition of Ferdinand Gross, a major fastener distributor in Germany with EUR 80 million in sales and 250 employees enforced our market position in Europe, namely in Germany, Poland and Hungary. We strengthened our operations engine with the rollout of Microsoft Dynamics 365 in 6 additional countries.

And finally, a group reorganization led to a leaner group Executive Board and lower cost, moving from 7 to currently 5 members. With Susan Salzbrenner, Head of Global P&O, leaving Bossard as per October last year, we decided to reallocate our group people and organization activities into the regions. With the departure of Rolf Ritter, CEO of Bossard Central Europe end of last year, we decided not to replace the function and to redistribute responsibilities in Europe.

From a financial perspective, we are back to over CHF 1 billion in sales at 10% EBIT margin in 2025. The red areas show a global purchase manager index below 50. And looking at the history, this only happened 5 times in the last 20 years in 2009. In 2020, COVID and 3 years in a row since 2023 due to the normalization in supply chains and geopolitical turmoil, and we are still in stormy waters globally. Yet we continuously see lots of opportunities with our business model, which will allow us to outgrow the market, but more to this later.

Stephan Zehnder, our CFO, will now navigate you through the financial review 2025 more in detail. Stephan, please.

Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The past financial year was characterized by a demanding market environment, largely due to geopolitical uncertainties and tariff issues, which increased planning uncertainties for many market participants. Additionally, the sharp rise of the Swiss franc against most other currencies affected the group's performance negatively. Despite the market conditions, we remain committed to strengthen the group's key positions in the industries, expanding our regional reach and further implementing the new IT platform.

From a financial perspective, there are a few notable achievements in 2025 to be mentioned. The group delivered a resilient financial performance and sustained progress in its strategic objectives. Solid profitability was achieved while maintaining a stable gross profit margin, reflecting disciplined pricing and cost management. A strong equity ratio underscores the robustness of the balance sheet and financial resilience.

Cash flow from operating activities before changes in net working capital remained stable, providing a sound basis for funding operations and strategic initiatives. And the acquisition of Ferdinand Gross was executed successfully and strengthened the group's long-term growth and value creation potential.

In this volatile environment, Bossard achieved sales of CHF 1.0689 billion, an increase of 8.6% compared to the prior year. Whereby the appreciation of the Swiss franc impacted the sales development negatively by 3.6%. The group was able to generate a gross -- an organic growth of 2%. Whereas the first half of 2025 was characterized by trade conflicts and tariff discussions in the second half, gradual stabilization became apparent in Europe and America.

Acquisitions contributed 10.2% to the sales growth. Bossard again benefited from its broad and global customer base and its limited dependency on a single industry. The Bossard Group grew well in the railway, aerospace, energy and the semiconductor-related electronics industries. At the same time, demand for digitalized and automated C-parts management system persisted.

In 2025, the business performance was not only influenced by the economic environment, but also by accounting adjustments related to the acquisitions. The so-called purchase price allocation in short PPA is mainly related to inventory with a temporary negative impact on gross profit of CHF 5.1 million in 2025. Despite higher volatility and price intensity, the adjusted gross profit margin, excluding PPA effects, was at 32.8%, representing only a marginal decrease compared to the prior year's level of 33%. The gross profit margin, including PPA effects, was at 32.3%.

Though in line with the group's growth, sales and administrative expenses increased but under proportionally by 6.3% from CHF 227 million to CHF 241.4 million. At the same time, the number of full-time equivalents increased from 2,924 to 3,156, mainly due to the acquisition of Ferdinand Gross. The increase in cost was primarily due to the mentioned acquisition and the investments in the rollout of the new ERP system. This included also higher license fees to accommodate with a greater number of system users and expanded commercial support required during the implementation phase in addition to higher wage costs.

Regardless of the market conditions, the gross profit margin caused by the PPA effect and higher operating expenses had an impact on profitability. Including PPA effects, EBIT was at CHF 106.6 million, corresponding to an EBIT margin of 10%. The adjusted EBIT, which includes PPA effects on inventories and intangible assets reached at CHF 112 million in comparison to CHF 100.1 million in the prior year, which results in an EBIT margin of 10.5%.

The financial results amounted to CHF 9.2 million in comparison to CHF 5.5 million in the previous year. Even though net debt increased markedly, this disproportionate increase in the financial result is entirely due to the strengthening of the Swiss franc, which led to a negative currency impact. While a positive contribution of CHF 1.5 million resulted from the foreign currency valuation in the previous year, we experienced a negative impact of CHF 2 million in 2025. Compared to prior year, net income decreased slightly from CHF 75.3 million to CHF 74.6 million, whereas the net income margin decreased from 7.7% to 7%.

The currency impact in 2025 was not insignificant. As mentioned in the past, the Bossard Group has a relatively good natural hedge. This is because income and expenses are typically occurred in the same currency areas. However, currency fluctuations during the 2025 financial year impacted the consolidated financial statements. Consequently, the sales and profits of our foreign subsidiaries were reduced when translated into our reporting currency, the Swiss franc.

This currency effect can clearly be seen at the sales and EBIT level. Excluding the translation effect, meaning applying the 2024 exchange rate to the period 2025, sales would amount to CHF 1.1042 billion, which corresponds to an increase of 12.2% instead of 8.6%. On a comparable exchange rate basis, excluding valuation effects from the appreciation of the Swiss franc, EBIT 2025 would amount to CHF 112.5 million, which would represent an increase of 12.4% to prior year. The corresponding EBIT margin would be in line with the 10.2% achieved in 2024.

This short analysis shows particularly the EBIT growth would be on an equal currency basis at 12.4% instead of 6.5% and equivalent to an EBIT with PPA effect adjustment, EBIT would be at CHF 117.9 million, equivalent to an EBIT margin of 10.7% and a growth of 17.8%. Of course, the number are what they are. But from an operational perspective, it shows that we were able to increase this EBIT disproportionately on a comparable basis.

From profit back to sales. A look at the sales development in the individual market regions shows a diverse picture. In America, sales declined by 3% to CHF 228.6 million in the financial year 2025. However, in local currency, sales growth of 3.3% was achieved. The industrial sectors of electronics, railway and medical technology made a positive contribution to sales. In addition, the pass-through of import tariffs supported the sales growth. An increased stabilization was noticeable in this region over the course of the second half of the year.

In the fields of electromobility and agriculture, demand remained subdued. The appreciation of the Swiss franc against the U.S. dollar had a negative impact on the overall sales development.

In Europe, the group achieved a sales increase of 14.4% to CHF 646.9 million. In local currency, the sales growth amounted to 15.7%. The economic environment continued to be marked by uncertainties. However, gradual stabilization became apparent in the second half of the year also in this region. In this volatile market environment, sales growth was achieved in the industrial sectors of railway, aerospace as well as electronics and energy.

The German Ferdinand Gross Group consolidated since the beginning of 2025 made a significant contribution to the growth of the Bossard Group. Adjusted for acquisitions, sales for the full year declined by 1.6% in local currency. In Asia, sales increased by 5.6% to CHF 193.4 million, while sales growth in local currency was at 12.1%. This growth was driven by the industrial sectors of mechanical engineering, railway and energy.

At the regional level, the gradual recovery in demand in China continued, though remained volatile. In India, Bossard benefited from the Make in India initiative, while in Malaysia from near-shoring trends, which had a positive impact on the semiconductor and electronics industries. In addition, further attractive opportunities were identified in this region, among others, in the sectors of automation and robotics and new local customers were acquired. However, the appreciation of the Swiss franc against Asian currencies resulted in a negative currency effect also in this region.

Upon review of the balance sheet, total assets rose from CHF 844 million to CHF 902 million, primarily attributable to the acquisition of Ferdinand Gross made at the beginning of 2025. During the period, the equity ratio decreased from 46.5% in the prior year to 43.2%. This reduction was caused by 2 factors: the negative translation impact resulting from the appreciation of the Swiss franc and the netting of the goodwill from the acquisition against the equity. This in accordance with the applicable accounting standards used by Bossard. Despite the decrease in equity ratio, it still highlights the group's solid capital structure.

The operating net working capital increased from CHF 470 million in 2024 to CHF 499 million in 2025. On the one hand, this was due to the acquisition effect of Ferdinand Gross and on the other hand, due to the higher sales in Q4 2025 in comparison to Q4 2024, which resulted in higher accounts receivables and therefore, in a higher net working capital. However, in relation to sales, the capital intensity slightly decreased from 47.7% in 2024 to 46.7%.

With a focus on the balance sheet ratios, year-on-year net debt increased from CHF 245 million to CHF 311 million. The increase was primarily related to the mentioned acquisition and the higher operating net working capital, as indicated before. The gearing net debt measured against equity increased from 0.6 to 0.8, whereas net debt in relation to EBITDA increased from 1.9x to 2.3x and exceeding our conservative set long-term funding ratio of 2. The KPI is closely watched and managed and did improve after it reached 2.8x by midyear 2025.

Total capital expenditures amounted to CHF 35.6 million in 2025. Thereof, CHF 3.2 million was spent on office and warehouse maintenance and investments related to ESG initiatives. We invested CHF 6.2 million in smart devices, installing them at our customer sites as part of our Smart Factory solutions. An amount of CHF 8.6 million was allocated for replacement investments within the ongoing operations. And we invested another substantial amount of CHF 17.6 million into our digitalization initiatives. The biggest share of this investment was again dedicated to the rollout of the new ERP system. In 2025, we successfully completed another 6 rollouts. Additional deployments are planned in Switzerland, Spain and China in 2026.

Finally, a look at the cash flow statement. Despite the lower profitability, the cash flow from operating activities before changes in net working capital increased slightly from CHF 99.8 million to CHF 102.9 million. On the opposite, the cash flow from operating activities decreased clearly from CHF 126.8 million to CHF 84.4 million. As mentioned before, this is because of the acquisition effect and the higher sales in Q4 2025 in comparison to 2024.

Cash flow from investing activities totaled CHF 93.2 million compared to CHF 95 million in the prior year and was therefore, pretty much equal to the cash out for tangible and intangible assets as well as for acquisitions. Overall, the 2025 resulted in a negative free cash flow of CHF 8.8 million after the prior year's positive free cash flow of CHF 31.2 million. Without considering the cash out for acquisitions, a free cash flow of CHF 49.6 million was achieved.

As always, finally, a word on the dividend. At the upcoming Annual General Meeting of Shareholders, the Board of Directors will propose a dividend of CHF 3.90 per registered A share, unchanged from the prior year and in line with the group's dividend policy of a 40% payout of net income.

Ladies and gentlemen, with this brief review, I conclude my comments on the financial year 2025. Thank you very much for your attention, and back to you, Daniel. Thank you.

Thank you, Stephan.

I now would like to give you an overview of our Strategy 200 progress and focus areas for 2026. As you know, we follow a strategy of accelerated profitable and sustainable growth based on a proven business model organically and through acquisitions to achieve relevant market shares in our key markets and this through 7 strategic initiatives. I will not go through all the initiatives, but would like to highlight the 5 initiatives marked white on the slide.

Together, we create, the sales engine, the operations engine, innovation and sustainability. In a fast-changing world, global collaboration is more important than ever. Sharing expertise across regions, functions and hierarchies is essential to avoid staff replacements and hiring new people for new tasks and adding cost. It is; therefore, we strongly foster our guiding principles, namely collaboration.

Succession planning, young talent and leadership development are the key to ensure a sustainable organization for the future. We invest in leadership training programs and place young talent in new leadership functions. Focusing on growth verticals enables us to accelerate sales and outgrow the market, namely in markets like aerospace, agriculture, automation, robotics and semiconductor equipment.

Examples of this are recently won projects from existing and new customers. In January, Pilatus aircraft placed a mid-double-digit million Swiss franc order for the PC-24 private jet. Given the current high market demand for aerospace products, imagine lead times of up to 18 months for a fastener, Pilatus decided to place orders 5 years in advance to secure the supply of fasteners. We see similar demand patterns now with other aerospace customers worldwide.

2 weeks ago, we visited Airbus helicopters in Germany. They are also in growth pain, as I said, and we're glad to be one of their key suppliers. So you see the aerospace business is literally taking off.

Then we won a global contract with AGCO, a global agricultural equipment company headquartered in the U.S., producing tractors, namely brands like Massey Ferguson, Fendt or Valtra. The reason for winning this account was our Smart Factory capabilities, winning over a competitor. And by the end of last year, we installed a couple of thousand smart bins in 4 locations across the United States. Starting with a high single-digit million dollar contract this year in America, we are currently exploring new opportunities in France, Germany and Finland.

Another example of a growth opportunity is LAM Research, a U.S.-based semiconductor equipment company, where we were awarded a high single-digit million U.S. dollar business in Malaysia last year, with full year sales impact in 2026 on a multiple year contract. We're currently exploring further opportunities in the U.S.

More opportunities are provided in the data center ecosystem. Many of the well-known brands shown on the slide are existing Bossard customers with significant upside potential. For example, Dell, visible on the top right second to the top, producing server racks for AI data centers. Dell is an existing customer in the U.S. and Ireland. 3 weeks ago, we visited their headquarter in Austin, Texas, including a server rack producing site. One rack about the size of a living room closet or for the Swiss people, a toy toilet size, cost about USD 2 million to USD 3 million and weighs almost 2 tons.

Dell's production rate has been growing significantly in the last months. We're happy to be a key supplier to Dell and many other well-known brands you see on the chart, such as Eaton, Legrand, Carrier, Siemens, ABB or Schneider Electric.

Besides the focus on growth industries, we are following a concerted global effort to penetrate international customers deep and wide. In a program called G60, we defined 60 global customers, which we serve at least in one country and see a potential to win and scale in other countries across the globe. Two examples were already mentioned before, AGCO and LAM Research.

Another example would be SEW-EURODRIVE on the bottom right with the red logo. It stands for Süddeutsche Elektromotorenwerke in Bruchsal, which is a German customer producing electrical engines and growing double digit as well. We are currently serving them very successfully in U.S. and Italy, including Smart Factory services. I have visited both sites personally in the last 4 weeks, and I'm almost sure we have great opportunities to scale. We see big potential in Germany, where we have started acquisition activities using the existing success stories. There is a global team for each of these defined G60 companies with clear acquisition targets and regular global progress reporting.

Another element in our sales engine is the shift towards more digital lead generation and a higher sales conversion rate. For this and in order to monitor the progress of our sales acceleration activities, we introduced the global KPI dashboard last October. What you see here is just an example dashboard for a business unit, so no need to read and understand.

But showing basically the sales performance, the year-to-date growth rate, sales per product for each customer vertical, service sales development like engineering and Smart Factory service development, the open opportunities and on the bottom right, in the greenfield, the growth potential in a defined stage-gate structure called watch list in Bossard terminology. And we have this for each business unit. You can aggregate it by group, by customer verticals, by key account managers, et cetera.

This allows for global transparency, performance tracking, visibility and internal benchmarking. Along with this, we have started a sales acceleration coaching program for sales managers to ensure the tools are used in a structured way, following a defined sales planning process globally aligned. As one of our sales trainers always says, sales is not an art, it is more a skill set and actually a structured procedure.

And the last piece in our sales engine is our emphasis on Smart Factory, automated data-driven C-parts management solutions. What you see here on the right is a picture taken at the beforementioned site of SEW-EURODRIVE, remember the red logo in Italy last week. By the way, what you see also is in front of our SmartBin Rack, an automated guided vehicle produced by SEW themselves. I asked them where do you produce this? Where do you buy it? They say, well, we produce it ourselves. And in this factory, they had 50 employees and 45 HEVs and each HEV also is used as an assembly table. So just to give you a bit of glimpse of how advanced even Italian companies can be, sorry, I put any Italians in here.

The 4 strategic advantages we see with our Smart Factory installations are the following. They create customer stickiness. They enable cross-selling potential for other services or products in the same factory. They enable to tap different customer wallets, for example, in logistics and assembly besides product sales, and they are simply a door opener for new customers.

After the sales engine, the operations engine is an initiative which enables us to streamline processes, increase transparency and reduce total cost. By the end of 2025, we introduced Microsoft D365 in 20 business units across the globe. And with this, we reached a global sales coverage of 42%. Three more rollouts are following in Europe and Asia this year. This will provide us with a global sales coverage of 61% by end of 2026.

We're using AI to further increase our internal efficiency, for example, by introducing a global document processing application, which enables us to automate processing purchase orders, invoices, certificates, drawings or delivery notes and save valuable time of our employees to dedicate more time to internal and external customers. For those that joined the Capital Markets Day this year in Biel, it was also presented by our AI colleague more in detail.

We regard AI not as artificial intelligence, but more as augmented intelligence, helping everybody to work smarter and to improve our customer services and to reduce fears from eliminating jobs. In addition, we analyzed our supply chain and pricing processes and have introduced tools for internal benchmarking of best global practices and applications for speeding up quoting and pricing processes.

Bossard is not a fastener innovator, but we are driven by innovating cutting-edge services, supporting customers in increasing their productivity, focusing on C-parts management in production and logistics. Our innovation team, together with the global innovation community, explores new opportunities. On top, we have been investing in partnerships with leading institutes for technology development, for example, with ETH in Zurich. Last year, we participated in the ETH Exploration Lab project, where we had 8 engineering students, different mechanical, electrical, et cetera, in-house for 3 months. Working on 40 internal ideas, resulting in 6 tangible products, which are now in the process of being implemented and commercialized, for example, a rechargeable and easily replaceable SmartBin battery or a camera system for Smart Factory Assembly, which enables a customer to respond -- to record a production process on video and through AI, generate work instructions within minutes. We will continue this journey with the ambition to remain the innovation leader in Smart Factory solutions for C-parts.

Last but not least, Bossard committed itself to a CO2 footprint reduction of 50% from 2023 to 2031. We are on track, and we'll continue to measure our progress globally. Besides, we are compliant with global standards and regulations like the CSRD for nonfinancial reporting. Some of you may have seen our nonfinancial report already and requirements like CBAM, for example, Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism and other regulations.

This leads me to the midterm financial targets, which we would like to reiterate organic sales growth of bigger than 5%. And we know the number sounds high, yet this is still our midterm targets going through the cycles towards the Strategy 2031. EBIT margin of between 12% and 15%, equity ratio above 40% and the dividend payout ratio, as Stephan already iterated, 40% of net income.

With this, I would like to close my elaboration on the strategy process and our focus areas forward. And now we're very happy to take your questions. Thank you.

This is Christian Bader from ZKB. I remember last year; you were talking quite often about your demand that it was quite mixed from the various customer groups. And I was wondering if you could comment on those, let's say, major customer groups, what you've seen in the first 2 months?

Customer groups in terms of verticals you're referring?

Yes, verticals.

So if you're wondering about the so-called sunrise industries, these are, as mentioned, the data center, semiconductor, aerospace, railway, agricultural companies. They make up to around 25% to 30%, depends a bit on which ones you take into account of our total business, and they're growing over proportionately, and they have been growing over proportionately. Only agriculture is starting to come back now. We see that with John Deere, but also with AGCO. They're coming back but slowly, where AGCO is, of course, a new account.

And the other customers are very broad in machine building, in electronics and so on. But I would say the sunrise industries are the most interesting, also the most fastest growing right now. Does that answer your question?

I guess maybe also the others.

Well, there is many other clusters actually. So I don't know if I can now tell you by heart, which -- or what you want to hear. But of course, the machine building sector is quite huge, makes at least 50% of our total business, and then we have electric and electronics, another big chunk.

So I don't know if you're interested in a particular industry, then maybe I can find out. But we're serving how many 40,000 customers worldwide in very many industries. So -- but right now, the sunrise are the very important ones.

Remo?

[ Remo ] Rosner, Helvetische Bank. Your outlook of -- for 2026 as last year, not very specific, I mean, fair enough. But still, the wording is in a sense that despite the better dynamics in H2, you still, however, expect somehow a subdued demand in the first half, if I read that correctly. And I mean, how does this add up? Because organic growth last year, first half was negative 1-point-something percent, second half around 5.5% plus. And now you expect a subdued demand in the first half and then an acceleration like last year, but the dynamic should be -- I would say [indiscernible] the comparison base is weak.

I would say we're a bit cautious because what we cannot predict is really the geopolitical situation and the whole economy. And we do have some idea how much we could grow with the sunrise industries, I just mentioned. If you would say it's 30% of total, so it's CHF 300 million, and we would grow above average, let's say, 10%, we would already add CHF 30 million in the year to this.

But what we don't know, and I mentioned earlier the example of the leaking bucket customers like Komax or others, which simply are going the other direction, plus countries which suddenly stop buying, and I mentioned the example of India and the customer Schneider in the phase when they suddenly were confronted with U.S. taxes of 50%, they pretty much immediately stopped production and buying from us for a couple of months.

And if something like that happens, and we simply don't know where and when and to what extent this could happen, then suddenly you're dropping. So if we would be here to say we're very optimistic, we have all these customers and we see 10%, it's simply not predictable. And that's why I would say probably we're a bit cautious to give a high expectation here.

We do know that there is these growth industries, but what happens geopolitically right now is just very difficult to forecast also from a cost perspective, the oil price, currency. So that's why it's very difficult to make a projection. If we're here telling you 10%, and then we're landing at 8%, you say, yes, but you told 10%, but we don't know. We simply don't know.

Thank you for these elaborations, helpful. Then on Burckhardt was rather, I mean, slightly to medium positive for the agricultural sector also in the U.S. what are your signals there? Because you also have one larger client in the agriculture.

We talked a lot with our colleagues. I'm also referring to -- I mean, John Deere just published the third quarter. I think they also gave out the forecast. And if you look for the annual forecast, they still also see still some headwind. They forecast specific for the Agriculture segment, minus 10% to minus 15%. But we also see it's gradually flattening. And I think also Deere says they're expecting a bit in the second half that it might grow. But we see rather a flattening from that perspective, but I think it's too early to say it's picking up. So that's what we see in the U.S. right now.

Okay. And my last question is, in the Strategy 2000 (sic) [ 200 ], the anniversaries in 2031, are these -- is this phase of enhanced investments also going until 2031? Or is it extending a bit earlier?

The biggest chunk is our ERP system. And by end of this year, we will have implemented the majority, let's say, the former system, Oracle-based system will be exchanged by the new system. So in that sense, the biggest chunk will be over by end of this year. And then, of course, gradually, we will implement at the acquired companies and so on. But this is by far the biggest chunk of money spent in this investment. So will there still be cost? Yes, of course. And we still invest in the future. Maybe you have something to add on the investment side.

As Daniel mentioned, by the end of the year is the goal. That's why we have a high focus on that one with the 3 rollouts this year to turn off the core system. And as you mentioned, with that, we have the majority of the business units and the sales on it.

By that time, I would say that covers about 90-plus percent of the template. So the CapEx will reduce. But of course, with the rollouts, you still have localization governance, taxes and so forth. But the focus will be more of the same and it will more the rollout cost from that perspective.

I think organizationally, there has been with the Strategy 200 organization and also people, I think that it's all built to real investment, it's really on the IT side. And of course, if you look at digitalization, there's tons of new ideas, what you could automate, but that's with the ongoing operation, and that's probably also where we have to communicate a bit distinctively what's really driving those investments from that perspective.

So what would the normal CapEx level be? I mean we had CHF 35.5 million last year...

I mean we are cautious on the CHF 35 million. I mean, if you look back historically, usually, we spend about 2%, 2.5%. And of course, then there's always a bit the IT, but okay, I wouldn't consider the kind of -- if we need to have more capacity for warehouses, that's ordinary, extraordinary, but usually about 3%. So that's why we say it's about CHF 35 million this year. That includes still some CapEx on the IT.

And I think that's likely going to be something also going forward because with the acquisitions which we have, of course, there is also a bit replacement cost, but that's likely the reality going forward.

Okay.

And then it's kind of pay as you go. There is always a Christmas shopping list, I'd say, but we also look a bit what we can do and what makes sense.

Tobias Fahrenholz from ODDO BHF. Coming back to your market share gains. I mean we don't know what the markets are doing, but we know what kind of products -- projects we have won or lost. So could you maybe quantify here for the last year, '25 and then also for '26, what magnitude this is? Are we speaking about 1 percentage point of growth? And are there also any larger projects which are running out or which you have lost?

Well, to the first question, it's hard to give you a sharp number. I would say, for this year, I would expect about 2% growth just for that for the new projects. Asking about big projects running out, not really. I mean, of course, you have large customers like Alstom Transport, which have maybe running out projects on one side, but then they start with new ones. So yes, there is always some go down, some increase.

But actually, net, it's rather going up with these major accounts, be it Dell, be it Alstom Transport and some of those that I mentioned. So it's rather going the positive direction than the negative -- we haven't lost any customer in that sense.

Same with Stadler Rail, it's rather going in a positive direction. Last year, we had a very nice development in the U.S., in Utah in the factory, all the new projects that are coming in, we support them. We're the almost single supplier for fasteners in U.S. for Stadler. And the business has been growing nicely and very happy to support Stadler further. So it's actually moving in the right direction.

Okay. And maybe one additional one. Having seen your net debt going up further, is M&A this year less in focus?

It depends on the choice. No, of course, it remains in the focus. Of course, we have what you can afford, what the balance sheet gives us, but that is continuing. And I think also if you look a bit at our market, it's still very fragmented. I mean the size in terms of the acquisition is Ferdinand Gross. That's rarely because that's not getting the real structure.

So there is still capacity going for acquisitions. But as always, we have been selective. It's really about the quality, does it fit to the strategy and not just buying the market in itself. Of course, every acquisition is a bit buy in the market, but we are very focused on what we add and what we are not had.

Have a virtual audience, or no? Don't say anything.

More questions?

Anca Rafaisz from Vontobel. What was the P&L impact or the impact on profitability from the rollout of the ERP system in 2025? And what will it be approximately in 2026? And will that already be a bit offset by efficiency gains from the countries, which were already rolled out?

So the overall impact was about CHF 5 million. But again, the impact, it includes also the gradual increase of the system. So with every rollout, everything is today by subscription. It's not like in the old days, you buy software and then you depreciate it. So with every rollout, you have new users and you have an increase in license fees. And then, of course, you have the rollout cost. So the impact was.

Now we have 3 major -- or 2 major rollouts this year with Switzerland and China. So that's about another 600 users. So just by the rollout, the cost will be there. And then, of course, we have sizable -- the sizable business units. So I'm expecting about the same amount of -- the same amount. But on a year-on-year basis, it doesn't mean that's an additional increase overall.

[indiscernible] from [indiscernible] Asset Management. So I have a question on -- I'm missing a bit the KPIs for Smart Factory Logistics and Smart Factory Assembly. You also gave an update normally and also last time with H1 results. And I mean specifically the installed number of SmartBin's, which stood at more than 475,000 with H1 results and more than 250 Smart Factory Assembly systems. Can you give an update where we stand?

I don't have the number right here. Maybe you have it, but we chose rather to give a compound annual growth rate indication. Maybe you...

We are at the end of 2025; it was 493,000 smart devices installed. So there was some increase and rollout of new customers. So it's a combination of new customers like AGCO, but also it's penetrating the existing customer where we always have the proof of concept and we can expand the systems.

The SFA, the Smart Factory Assembly, we have now more than 100 customers, and we have sold more than 300 systems. And as we mentioned before, so the demand is there. So we expect further growth also this year and in both services. I would say that the pipeline is promising. Of course, it takes a bit time. It's always an investment, but we would expect that trend continues.

Your midterm margin target range is 12% to 15%. Now we stand at, let's say, 10.5% if you strip out one-offs. So what are the main building blocks for you to reach this higher margin range?

Well, first of all, we have come a long way in different regions, for example, in the United States from a low, I would say, mid-range percentage EBIT margin to a double-digit EBIT margin. Also in Asia, we have managed to improve our overall EBIT margins over time. And Europe has always been on a relatively high level, even beyond those 12% to 15% already.

So of course, technically, you could say, cut off America and Asia and you're done. But okay, that's not the strategy. So we want to make sure to continue that path in the U.S. and Asia to focus on profitable customers. And of course, it also requires a bit of a tailwind in some way to have a bit more sales to cover the cost.

And in that sense, I would say we stay cost cautious. We work strongly on the sales acceleration in those markets that we think makes sense in those verticals that grow and also those customers that are most profitable. So with that and a bit of tailwind, we're very confident on this target. Okay?

And we can switch to the...

Yes. Questions from New Zealand.

We have a question from Sebastian Vogel from UBS.

Unfortunately, not from New Zealand, but still I hope you will take them up. I've got 3. I would ask them one by one, if possible. The first thing is with regard to the tariff impact on your top line for 2026. Is something like a CHF 10 million tailwind, something in the right ballpark? Or do you have some other number in mind?

No, the assumption is roughly between CHF 9 million and CHF 10 million or around USD 10 million to USD 12 million. That's based on the current run rate. And the bigger impact of that will be in the first half as we started gradually to pass on the tariffs in the second half. So that's right now our basic assumptions.

Got it. Second question, coming back to one of the questions that have been asked before with regard to the SAP migration. So if we fast forward then into 2027, what sort of costs on your P&L will fall away or will be potentially added on the DNA side or something? So what is sort of the net number that we would need to keep there in mind?

Well, we have 2 things. One thing, again, is the rollout of the -- it adds licenses, which is not neglectable from that perspective. If we roll out, we start to depreciate. So depreciation will go out, okay? There will be less cash out. And then I think still, we're going to keep continuing.

So -- and then it depends a bit in which sequence the rollout is going to be. So it's rather a flattening than a drop off. But -- what will be kind of a cost saving is, of course, we still need to put the current system silent, which is -- it's not just shutting off, but we will see a drop in cost for sure, if we can keep up the plan in 2027, but it will not kind of be substantial in that sense because we already have gradually cut down that organization to run the business units we have. We have not invested -- can -- we invested to run the system, but not to expand the system. And we already transitioned some of the people into the backup and operation of the new system. So we still need those people to focus on the new system.

Although maybe to add to this, one effect we haven't really done the -- well, we don't know the exact number, but we have seen, for example, in Denmark after the rollout of the system, we went down from 90 people to 80 people because we could simply optimize a few processes. And once we have the whole group on the same system, we're confident that we can also benefit from that effect globally. So of course, it always takes a bit of time once you introduce the system until everybody is familiar, but there should also be an effect on people cost after all. But it's relatively hard to say how much exactly that will be, but there will be an effect on that as well.

Great. Got it. And my third and last question, I mean, if I look at margin seasonality, so to say, in the past, usually your second half year margin was a fair step down compared to your first half year margin. It still was still there a bit in 2025, but not to the sort of extent that we have seen in the past. What -- was that done? Was that due to some efforts that you think you can repeat going forward that there will be less pronounced of seasonality? Or was there some sort of special situation in 2025 that's not that easy to replicate it in the future again?

So there were kind of 3 key factors. First of all, the sales was higher in the second half than in the first half that contributed more margin. Then we took some cost measures, which impacted in the second half this year. And then if you look at 2024 to 2025, the inflation and the cost wages were lower than what we have seen in the 2024 numbers. So if you just look at the H2, so that were kind of the 3 main drivers that the profitability was not as dropping as much as in the second half versus the first half.

The next question comes from Louis Bill from Baader Europe.

So my first question is on the U.S. market and in the electric vehicles. We have seen that some players have done some major impairment in their EV strategy. And I was thinking what is your exposure to the electric vehicle sector in the U.S. because I think Tesla used to be a major client. And so is it still the case? And are you exposed to those impairments?

Thank you for the question. I guess I know which one you're referring to.

Well, the one -- the biggest one there, they actually, of course, reduced significantly their output. We just visited their Cybertruck factory in Texas a few weeks ago. And there's not too many coming out there anymore. So -- and you've read the numbers from Tesla about the reduction.

For us in the U.S., we can say the business is compensated by other customers, for example, Lucid, which is growing strongly, which fulfill their plans right now, and we compensate with 2, 3 other EV accounts for the business that was lost with Tesla. So in that sense, it's pretty much a net effect in the U.S. with Tesla obviously losing, as you could read in the press, but others which are winning and are thriving despite the fact that U.S. is going, again, more towards ICE internal combustion engine. Ford has just decided to skip their EV programs to go back to combustion.

But still, we're engaged in a number of projects. Also, for example, Zoox in California, which is an autonomous taxi company, which is now starting to scale up. And all of those are starting to scale up now in '26 and '27. So that compensates for the lost business with the other big one.

Okay. And maybe a second question on the CapEx. What -- could you give us an indication of the expected CapEx for 2026?

It's about CHF 36 million.

Okay. Okay. Very clear.

[Operator Instructions] There are no more questions on the phone. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Dr. Daniel Bossard.

Thank you. Well, if there's no more questions, we're still happy to have a chat over a coffee. Thanks very much for coming, and wish you all the best with your challenges to analyze all the data moving forward. Thank you very much.