Gurit Aktie

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Gurit Half Year 2026 Results Live Webcast. I am Moira, the Chorus Call operator.

[Operator Instructions]

Note that the conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

Today, the audience will hear from Mr. Philippe Royer, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Gurit; and Mr. Viktor Bernhardt, CEO of the Gurit Group. Mr. Royer will open today's webcast with an update on organizational developments before handing over to Viktor, who will lead the presentation on the half year 2026 results and business update.

Both speakers will be then available to answer questions during the Q&A session. At this time, I'm pleased to hand over to Mr. Philippe Royer.

Yes. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for being in the call. As you have probably read already this morning, we have plenty of good news, which we are happy to share with you. Yes, I'm going to explain the reorganization, then Viktor will cover the results presentation, and then we'll go for the Q&A.

First, let me be loud and clear about our reorganization. So our former CEO, Dr. Tobias Luhrig, has left on his own. There was by no means an issue with Gurit results or any kind of strategic disalignment, nothing like that. The Board of Directors decided immediately on 2 things. First, we declined Tobias Luhrig's offer to stay for some time as we knew we had a ready internal solution. Then we immediately nominated Viktor Bernhardt as CEO ad interim.

In the following weeks, the Board of Directors discussed what was the best long-term solution for the company and the considerations were as follows: First, our business units have distinct business models and operating requirements. Hence, it is difficult for a CEO coming from outside to add business value on top of what our BU heads bring.

Then we have defined at the end of 2024, a detailed strategy for the company. You have seen with the 2025 results, the first outcome of this strategy with well-executed realignment and restructurings. You see now with the first half 2026 results, another outcome of this strategy, which is profitable growth in our traditional markets and in new markets for us. This for us is only an intermediate step, and we need to continue to execute according to the strategic directions.

So an organization led by an expert in finance with proven leadership and execution capabilities is then adequate. Talking about Viktor, the Board first had been careful in the recruitment process of Viktor to hire someone with an experience much wider than the traditional CFO role. At Gurit, also Viktor fulfilled a lot of the CEO typical functions, participating in all business unit monthly performance reviews, being involved in all large customer contracts negotiations or renegotiations, checking performance of procurement, overseeing development of IT, producing the remuneration report and regularly participating in meetings or calls with me.

He also played a pivotal role in the strategic review we did during the second quarter as we do every year. Viktor has obviously also developed clear financial goals for the company and strong directions for the finance organization. So I'm pleased to announce that the Board of Directors has decided unanimously to nominate Viktor Bernhardt as a CEO, and I can share with you that this decision was very much welcome in the organization, for example, by all business unit heads.

The search for a new CFO is underway. For the time being, it remains with Viktor and the finance team. We, in the Board are convinced that Viktor's nomination will allow us to continue to progress on this profitable growth path that was elaborated 2 years back. And it goes without saying that with this nomination, Gurit will avoid losing another, let's say, 18, 24 months, which is the time needed to recruit a new CEO with a notice period and train a new CEO.

We want to continue to deploy on the strategy we have elaborated 2 years back, and we believe Viktor is the perfect guy to do so. And I leave the word to you, Viktor, for the results presentation.

Thank you very much, Philippe. Thank you for the words, and thank you for the trust placed in. Good morning from my side, and welcome to our media and analyst webcast. And today, as Philippe already announced, I have the pleasure -- literally have the pleasure to present our first half year results '26.

Going into it, we have delivered strong first half '26 performance with a significant profitability improvement versus previous year period. Looking at our continuing operations, we grew by 16% at constant FX. We have significantly improved our adjusted operating profit margin from 5.7% to 11%. We improved our free cash flow versus previous year, and we significantly reduced our net debt in the past 12 months.

This all being said, the portfolio transformation and multi-market strategy is delivering results, and we will see it on the next pages. The strategic realignment benefits are visible, and we keep confirming them. And encouraged by this strong H1 results and with more visibility for the rest of the year, we raised our full year guidance.

I mentioned the full year market strategy showing results. If we look into our business units, starting with Wind Materials. Here, on a continuing business at constant FX, we grew 9.6%, exceeding our own expectations. The main driver for the growth was obviously the leading OEMs. We increased their onshore production and ramped up their offshore facilities.

We, as Gurit, benefit from our long-term agreements with our partners. And of course, we benefit from our global footprint.

Moving to Manufacturing Solutions. They delivered a very nice first semester '26 with a growth year-on-year at constant FX of 69% admittedly versus a relatively soft first semester '25. The driver here was increased customer activity, particularly in India. And here, we strongly benefit from our successful manufacturing site establishment in India and from strong project execution across all business units. The order backlog and the current customer demand confirms our full year momentum for '26.

Marine & Industrial, here, we grew by -- in line with our expectation by 9% at constant FX versus previous year. And this despite marine markets being still soft. The Subsea expansion and diversification strategy drove the real growth as well as market share gains in smaller marine segments. The increasing adoption of recycled PET foam solutions, broad industrial application and a growing opportunity pipeline helped to boost the growth.

Now of course, as probably everybody in our industry, we had to face as well headwinds. The geopolitical tensions in Iran drove the raw material cost up, drove the freight cost up and drove the energy cost up. The U.S. tariff environment still remains uncertain, and you have as well heard the recent discussions of 50% tariff increase in Canada.

This all doesn't help, but we at Gurit, we could mitigate it. We mitigate it with new and different procurement initiatives, continued supply chain optimization, changing in local sourcing and routing, playing our global footprint game and very important to our commercial cost pass-through. The achievements, which we're really proud and you will see it in our financials is -- well, first of all, we have delivered a reliable supply chain. And much more important, we have delivered reliable deliveries to our customers. So all in all, so far, we have not seen any significant impact from the geopolitical tensions and the supply chain headwinds which we are seeing in the market.

Diving a bit deeper into the financial performance. Key facts. We reported a net sales in Swiss francs of CHF 154 million, including discontinuing business. This represents a slight decrease versus previous year period of 0.7%. Our operating profit is 17.8% (sic) [ CHF 17.8 million ] for the first half year. We significantly increased our adjusted operating profit from CHF 9.3 million to CHF 16.9 million with an adjusted operating profit margin of 11% coming from 5.7% in the previous year period.

Net debt increased in this year. I will come to it later in detail. But comparing to previous year, we were able to decrease our net debt by CHF 20 million. and we improved our free cash flow versus previous year. So all in all, just as a summary, 16% growth in continuing business constant FX, growth across all 3 business units supporting our multi-market strategy. And we keep confirming the success of our strategic realignment. We have a leaner cost base. We have enhanced operating efficiency. And ultimately, we have an improved profitability profile, which let us believe that we built a strong foundation for our future and for our future growth.

Now diving even a bit deeper, as mentioned before, on the net sales -- on the reported net sales, we see a decline of 7% and 1% at constant FX. This includes discontinued business, which still had quite significant in the first semester '25. We move on to the continued operations and just compare the net sales, as mentioned before, we see an increase of 16% at constant FX and this across all business units.

The gross profit grew by 23%, reaching a gross margin of 24%, coming from 18% 1 year ago. Our adjusted operating profit grew from CHF 9.3 million to CHF 16.9 million, generating an adjusted operating profit margin of 11%. Now here, we compare obviously one semester -- first semester '26, which is completely post restructuring with a first semester '25, which is pre or in the mid of restructuring.

And the question is, and I'd like to come to the next slide, which we think really should are proud, how did we do versus a very strong second semester '25. Remember, second semester '25 was a bit backloaded, especially in Manufacturing Solutions. And here, on continuing operations at constant FX, we managed to grow by 2.3% and we managed to increase our adjusted operating results and our adjusted operating margin. Remember, second semester '25 is still at a different raw material and cost base than we see now in the market. This just supports that we are -- achieve a sustainable structure, and we keep mitigating the headwinds which we are facing in the market.

Diving into our cash position. Our trade net working capital here comparing year-on-year, we decreased it by CHF 6.5 million, CHF 6.6 million to be precise. However, we had an increase of CHF 5.2 million in '26. This is mostly driven by seasonal related inventory buildups as well as project-related inventory buildup in Manufacturing Solutions, preparing for deliveries in the third quarter. Here, we expect a reduction towards year-end.

CapEx, we spent CHF 4.8 million in the first semester '26, primarily containing targeted projects to support our capacity and efficiency enhancements. And here, we are fully in line with our planning. Our free cash flow, as mentioned before, significantly improved versus previous year, driven by profitability improvement, but of course, driven as well by absence of restructuring cash outs, which we had in the first semester '25. We had an adverse impact on our free cash flow from increased trade net working capital, as mentioned before. But as it goes for the trade net working capital, which we will reduce towards year-end, we will improve our free cash flow in '26 in the second semester.

If you look at our priorities, which is next to profitable growth, financial flexibility, strengthened balance sheet and improved leverage profile, we see very well that we made nice progress here. Comparing our net debt year-on-year, we managed to reduce this by CHF 20 million coming from CHF 79 million. Within the year, we increased our net debt by CHF 4.2 million, mostly driven through a deferred cash payment related to an early acquisition of Fiberline Composite A/S.

The equity increased half year by half year, coming from CHF 46 million up to CHF 65 million, so an increase of nearly CHF 19 million in the past 12 months and CHF 12 million increase in the past 6 months. Consequently, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio decreased from 1.9x by the end of -- by mid of '25 to 1.4x by mid of '26.

Coming to the outlook '26. And as mentioned before, we are really encouraged by the first year results. We have much better visibility. And consequently, we raised our guidance. We raised our guidance for net sales growth for continuing operations at constant exchange rates in a range of 9% to 11%. Previously, we were guiding mid-single-digit growth.

The full year adjusted operating profit margin, we raised to around 10%. Previously, we said we want to be better than [ '25 ], which was 8.1%. What we did not raise because we continuously focus on it is our disciplined execution, operational excellence and cash generation. And of course, we keep monitoring the geopolitical developments such as tariff and supply chain risks as this has the biggest implication on our this year's performance.

So what are the key takeaways, which we wanted to give you this presentation? Well, first of all, strong H1 '26, and we confirm the success of our strategic realignment. And we not only confirm it in the second -- in the first semester '26, we repeated it. We repeated it after the strong second semester '25. Our multi-market strategy is delivering results, tangible results. We see it across all 3 business units, which shows organic growth.

With the decision of the Board to appoint me to the CEO, we reinsure stability in the organization. And following all this, we raised our full year guidance. Of course, we keep focusing on profitable growth. So in a nutshell, strong H1 and raised guidance.

And before we move on to the Q&A, just one word from my side. I would like to thank our teams around the world for having delivered this for having delivered these results over the past not only 6 months, but over the past 12 months and to manage the strategic transition realignment and restructuring in the past years. Thanks a lot to our teams. And with this, thank you for your interest, and I will hand over to you for Q&A.

[Operator Instructions]

The first question comes from the line of Laura Bucher from Octavian.

First of all, congratulations on the results. I have a couple of questions. So first is on the midterm margin potential. I mean, at the full year '25, you said it post '26 adjusted or actually reported EBIT margin of around 10%. You have now effectively hopefully reached that level a year earlier today. And in the press release, you referred to midterm now 10% or above.

So I mean, I just wanted to understand what this above means in practice? I mean, looking historically, Gurit had margins of above 11%, but the portfolio was rather different back then and Manufacturing Solutions were at peak levels. So I mean, given that you've stated multiple times that you do not expect Manufacturing Solutions to get at that level again, I mean, what do you see realistically in terms of margin potential for the current -- with the current portfolio that you have for the midterm?

So thank you very much, Laura. First of all, nice try, but we will not guide on '27. It's just too early for that. So definitely, some macro trends will continue in the wind industry that we confirm like the offshore ramp-up, increasing ramp-up in the submarine. On the project business on the Manufacturing Solutions, as you referred specifically to it, the visibility is not that far out.

So right now, for this year, we see the momentum. We continue on the momentum, but we will not be able to raise it. Maybe just to manage expectations. On the -- our strategy deployment, basically, we had 2 steps, right? -- restructuring in the first step and profitable growth in the second. So restructuring, I think we can now certainly say complete it and move on.

The second one, profitable growth, that's a longer one. We see first results, and we are very happy with the first results of the first semester '26. However, there are still quite a few risks out there. I mentioned tariffs and you see the development there is quite dynamic. The raw material and supply chain situation is still volatile.

So we are careful to guide further and to increase. Nevertheless, we strongly believe that we are only in the beginning of the second phase of our strategy. We do not intend to stop there. But at this point in time, we cannot and we will not raise and change our guidance and ambition.

That's fair. And then a second one on the U.S., Canada tariffs. I mean, can you quantify the impact you would expect in Swiss francs? You said that you've embedded that already in the full year '26 guidance. So can you give us some more detail there?

Well, it's a bit early to say, right? It's because it's really fresh. But in a worst-case scenario, it's, let's say, mid-single million Swiss franc of top line.

And have you -- just out of curiosity, have you received any reimbursement so far from the tariffs earlier this year?

Yes, we did.

And did you report that in this year's -- well, in the half year already? And if so, how?

No, we have not reported this in the half year. It's not in there. And the question is, of course, what our customers will ask. And so that's something we cannot comment on that at this stage. And I would be very careful to put this in our financial guidance.

And then just a third and final one. In the marine market, I mean, for quite a few quarters now, you've reported that underlying marine demand still rather muted. Once it was mentioned the tariffs was one of the potential factors. So I mean, what are you currently seeing in terms of demand there, specifically in the marine market and ex Subsea business? Is there any indication of a recovery or improving order momentum or anything in that sense?

It was flat in the beginning of the year, and we were carefully, carefully optimistic, but then the Middle East crisis had an adverse effect on it. So it really reduced it. We don't see that this will go away as long as the Middle East tensions are there.

The next question comes from the line of Tobias Klopper from ZKB.

Two questions from my side. I will take them one by one. First, a follow-up on the previous question regarding the tariff situation. If I remember correctly, you have a production facility in Canada. And then my question would be how important that is for supplying the U.S. market, maybe in terms of share of sales? And would it be possible to shift production from there?

Yes. Thank you for the question, Tobias. Indeed, we have a production facility in Canada. And indeed, it is important for U.S. market, especially in the subsea area. that we deliver the product there. Will we shift production? No, this type of production is not an easy one to shift. So that's -- we have to see how this develops. But right now, that's not an option.

Maybe I can add a little bit to this answer. So we deliver from Canada to the U.S. 2 completely different kind of markets with these Corecell products, or composite products that we are producing in Canada. The first one would be products for the typical marine markets mainly. Here, we cannot shift production -- on the other hand, our customers are most probably going to reroute part of their production if really this 50% tariff will stay for long term.

That's a part of it. As Viktor indicated earlier, we are talking all together about, let's say, mid-single-digit sales in the second year foreseen. The second part of it is much more on the subsea. And here, we would be given the nature of this business, which I cannot explain in detail. But given the nature of this business, we would be extremely surprised that tariffs stay on this because this is raw materials for very important applications to the U.S.

So we believe that this is going to develop very fast. We, in our guidance, have taken full caution for the second half. We would be surprised that this full caution is necessary for the reasons I just explained.

That's very helpful. And regarding my second question on Chinese competition wind. Nordex mentioned in their call that they are increasingly using Chinese suppliers in Morocco and China for blade production. Can you give us some more insight into how they are positioned with these blade manufacturers? Are they maybe preferring Chinese material suppliers?

Well, I cannot really comment on specific customers. We are happy with our partners. We are, as we said, increasing demand this year, which we see from our customers. But yes, the Chinese competitors are there. I mean, it's not a risk anymore. It's a fact. And so far, we managed this quite well, we believe.

I think we can add to this the following. So we, in wind specifically are working with 2 different categories of customers, if you wish. We have long-term partners. And you see that regularly when we publish those press releases talking about LTAs. Those LTAs are typically 4, 5 years LTAs. Those LTAs are LTAs with a given share of wallet, okay?

Now we have LTAs up to 2031, 2032, maybe in one case. And here, we consider we are absolutely fully protected. This is by far the main part of wind activity. Now there are still on the market some transactional customers. Transactional mean no LTA prices fixed either once a year or even once a quarter.

And for this one, you have always a risk that they switch 1 quarter to another supplier, come back depending on price, come back depending on quality. And here, this is a smaller part of our business, but here, there is always a risk. We can share definitely that we anticipate, for example, in wind a very strong second half because we are helping some OEMs that are having quality troubles with some of their suppliers, and we are helping them to get out of their issues.

But here again, strategic customers, no issue for us. Transactional customers, yes, it can be up, down. We have seen that year after year. There is always a risk, but we have seen also that it may also come back to us for a lot of different reasons the year after or 6 months after or during the year. So -- and all of this obviously is included in our guidance.

The next question comes from the line of Marti Queral from UBS.

I would have 2, please. The first one would be also on the midterm guidance. I mean, today, you are reiterating the midterm margin guidance of 10% or above. But I have not found any references to the organic growth guidance, which was, if I'm not mistaken, mid- to high single-digit growth in wind and high single-digit growth in non-wind business. So is there any change here?

No, there is no change. And to be specific on '27, we cannot and will not guide at this point in time.

It was more, yes, midterm question rather than '27, but thanks for the clarification. And the second question I would have is on the free cash flow. In the 2025 conference call a few months ago, I think we discussed that it expected to generate free cash flow in 2026, at least in a similar magnitude that in 2025, which was around CHF 12 million. In H1 this year, free cash flow was basically 0 for some reasons that you previously explained. So I was basically wondering if you still have the same expectations as in the 2025 conference call? And what gives this confidence here in any case?

Yes. Just to start with the second part of the question. If you look at last year where we had midyear minus CHF 13 million and ended up plus CHF 12% million. I'm not suggesting that we'll make 25 as well now in the second half of '26, but just there is a seasonality in there. That makes -- gives us the confidence and of course, all the focus which we have on it, that's what gives us the confidence that we will achieve our targets.

[Operator Instructions]

The next question comes from the line of Laura Bucher from Octavian.

Just 2 more questions from my side. First, on the utilization rates. I mean, can you give us a sense of your current utilization rate across your manufacturing facilities and where you might still have some spare capacity or meaningful spare capacity?

Let me take that, Phil here, for you. Obviously, this depends quite a lot about the business unit. So I have to go through business unit -- through the business unit to give you an answer. If you -- if we are talking about Wind Materials, and as you know, Wind Materials, this is primarily PET foam extrusion and then kitting, I would say that at this stage, our capacities are 80% loaded. More in Asia than in North America, I would say, but this gives you an average rate.

If we look at Marine and Industry business here, we have a lot of different products. I'm going to touch only on 2 products, which are key for us. The first one is Corecell, which is SAN composite. Here, we are at full capacity looking at manning today, but we are not fully manned, and we are developing now the possibility to dramatically increase production.

For PET, which is the PET used in industrial applications, we in North America would be loaded more or less 60%. So we have plenty of capacity available. The third business unit is Manufacturing Solutions tooling, where we have 2 plants, 2 main plants, one in China and one in India that we have developed in the last 3 years. As an average, those plants would be loaded not much more than 50%. So we have a lot of capacity available.

Then a follow-up on this one. You mentioned that you're planning to dramatically increase the production there of Corecell. Is this already in your CapEx guidance? Or do you expect -- or I don't know, is it or isn't in the CapEx guidance?

In our CapEx planning and our business plan, of course, included those kind of investments.

Okay. And then the last one from my side. On the profitability, I appreciate that in H2 -- on the gross margin in H2 last year, you already had a 25%. So in a sense, it's a continuation of what you achieved already last year. But could you rank in terms of order of magnitude, what contributed more? Is it discontinuing Fiberline? Is it the restructuring on the cost base? Is it higher volume? If you could give some color there?

We kind of -- the answer is yes. It's all of it. It starts with a leaner cost base. It starts with a diversified business. And it starts, of course, with higher loading. So it's all of it.

If you think about our wind cost base today, we are producing in China, India, and Mexico, mainly with a finishing plant in Europe. So you can understand that this revised cost base is the most competitive cost base structure you can find in the wind PET foam business. So this had a huge impact.

Now as Viktor has mentioned in his presentation, if you look now at the last publication or result publications of the OEMs, you will see -- so some OEMs just produce sales and sales of the OEMs can be far from our sales, but some produce production. This is production of turbines, not blades, but this is not too far in terms of timing from our production. And you will see that these production numbers, if you compare it to the first half of '25 for some large OEMs increased more than 20%.

So as Viktor said, the load we have now is also certainly higher than the load we had 1 year back. So restructuring load in the wind business. And then the third pillar of that is definitely the new businesses we have in Marine & industrial, so namely the PET foam used in industrial applications and the Corecell S used in subsea applications, which also is dramatically growing compared to last year.

Negative was indeed the situation in Middle East. We have some -- so there are some shipyards that are basically stopped or working at very low activity in the Middle East and the tariff issue. But that explained why we are in such a positive situation today.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Viktor Bernhardt for any closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much for your interest and your questions, and look forward to meet you at the next conference call.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you very much for your participation and interest in Gurit. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Gurit Full Year 2025 Results Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] the conference will be recorded. [Operator Instructions] Note that the conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

Today, the audience will hear from Mr. Tobias Lührig, CEO of the Gurit Group; and Mr. Viktor Bernhardt, CFO of the company.

At this moment, I am pleased to hand over to Mr. Tobias Lührig. Please go ahead.

Live from Gurit's headquarter here in Zurich. I'm pleased to have with me today our new CFO, Viktor Bernhardt.

In 2025, we did our homework. We executed a rigorous restructuring program, repositioned the company for future growth. Today, we will demonstrate that these efforts have already started to materialize in the second half of 2025, and are expected to continue going forward.

We structured today's presentation into 3 parts. I will start with an overview about the financial performance, for example, net sales, operational results, then business market highlights, and give you 2 or 3 facts about our sustainability efforts in 2025. Then Viktor will continue with a deep dive on the financial results of 2025, including restructuring costs, free cash flow development and balance sheet positions. Then I will resume, give you an outlook about our strategy and the market, an overview of the wind market and how we operate in those growing markets and why we are well positioned to capture future growth. And I also present you some selected highlights from our Marine and Industrial businesses. Before we dive into the Q&A session, I will conclude with the guidance for 2026 and a midterm outlook.

Let's start with our 2025 achievements. Gurit successfully completed its restructuring program and streamlined its production footprint with reduced overhead costs and exited significant unprofitable businesses. As a result of these measures, our net sales decreased from CHF 431.7 million to CHF 319.6 million, mainly due to the discontinued businesses. Our reported operating results were at CHF 43.2 million, reflecting restructuring effects. However, on the adjusted basis, we reached an EBIT of CHF 29.7 million. Our return of sales went from 6.9% in 2024 and improved to 8.1% in 2025.

Despite this challenging year, we delivered a solid financial results. The net debt reduced by CHF 7.7 million to CHF 55 million. The free cash flow increased significantly to CHF 12.3 million compared to CHF 4.4 million in 2024. These figures provide a clear indication of the progress achieved over the past 12 months, a leaner, more focused organization with improved profitability and strong cash generation.

In 2025, we focused on profitable strategic important businesses. At the same time, we worked on our resilience and diversification by advancing our multi-market strategy. I'll give you some example of that. For example, in the Wind Systems, we secured a long-term supply agreement with Western OEM, supported by our Gurit OptiCore technology. We entered new markets like the subsea markets and we've been awarded with a multiyear subsea contract, entering an attractive new market where we see strong positioning of our company and strong growth potential. Therefore, we are expanding our footprint in Australia and Dallas in order to serve this future growth in those segments. We ramped up our capacity in Europe and our production facility, especially in Falces in Spain in order to meet future demand. I will provide you more details on the underlying market growth and demand drivers later in the presentation.

Let me provide you an overview of our 3 business units. Wind Systems ended at CHF 119 million; Manufacturing Solutions at CHF 41 million; and Marine and Industrial at CHF 88 million in sales.

In Wind Systems, we delivered stronger-than-expected performance despite strategic exits. We improved competitiveness through footprint optimization and restructuring. As I told you, we secured the first long-term contract based on our OptiCore technology. And I will share you more details on how our new operational setup is looking like later in this presentation.

In Manufacturing Solutions, the net sales were in line with our expectation. We experienced a small, small slowdown in early '25 and followed by a recovery later in the year. The outlook remains positive because we received some positive signs in early 2026.

In Marine and Industrial, we operated generally in a softer market environment, achieving the major breakthrough in the subsea segment, as I mentioned before. All across the 3 business units, we see a clear evidence of improved positioning, with early wins validating our strategic direction.

Let me now turn on the supply chain performance and the ongoing topic of the U.S. tariffs, focusing first on -- of the year 2025. Throughout the year, we experienced -- actually, especially in the first time half of the year, we experienced fluctuating freight rates and volatile transit times. Despite this environment, we ensured high service level by relocating select suppliers and optimizing our inventory management. These measures allowed us to maintain stable operations and reliable customer supply.

In 2025, the impacts of the tariffs were minor. As a direct importer, we paid less than $1 million, where the majority of those tariffs could be passed through. We are currently working with duty specialists to reclaim those tariffs. But due to the high pass-through rate, we do not expect significant positive effects. More relevant were the indirect effects, early year order delays, particularly in Marine and Industrial. And over the course of 2025, it gradually normalized during the year. While we had expected that the tariff topics go away, it has recently resurfaced, as you know. However, due to our organizational setup in Canada and Mexico, both benefiting from the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement, the direct impact of currently imposed tariffs remains limited.

Let me briefly share 2 highlights of Gurit's sustainability efforts in 2025. We were awarded the EcoVadis Gold rating once again. This place Gurit in the top 5% of all assessed companies, and it's notably worth that we say that this is the third time -- consecutive time we achieved this rating. As another highlight, I would like to mention that we reduced our Scope 1 emissions by 24% since 2020. That means that we are very well on track on our defined pathway toward a net zero company. This achievement underlines the continued commitment to sustainability, combining external validation with measurable progress on emission reduction.

And now I would like to give you to Viktor.

Thank you very much, Tobias. Good morning, and a warm welcome from my side. Let me guide you through our financial 2025. But before we start, just some opening remarks from my side.

The headline of my -- today's presentation is transformation completed well positioned for 2026. And this is pretty much what we see in our 2025 financials. On one hand, last year's financial performance was heavily impacted by the transformation Gurit went through. On the other hand, financials which we do report for 2025 show as well how swift, how decisive Gurit executed the transformation and why we believe that after the completion of it, we are well positioned for 2026.

Key facts. In 2025, we generated net sales of CHF 319.6 million. Operating result was driven by major onetime effects, minus CHF 43.2 million. Our adjusted operating result was CHF 26 million, and the margin of the net sales was of 8.1%, well above previous year.

Gurit generated, despite the restructuring efforts we went through, a cash flow of CHF 12.3 million, and reduced its net debt down to CHF 55 million by the end of 2025. We dive a bit deeper into it. The decision to stop the carbon fiber pultrusion business as well as to focus on profitable wind customers had, as expected and as communicated, a major impact on our top line. In addition, business unit Marine and Industrial and Manufacturing Solutions were, especially in the first semester, impacted by tariff uncertainty and delayed customer decisions. All this in combination with unfavorable FX effect. Of this, we saw a decline in our net sales of 26%.

The gross profit went down by 13%. However, in relative terms to net sales, it was already above previous year. Adjusted operating results, here, we reached CHF 26 million. And same as before, we are, in terms of net sales margin, we are well above previous year. Our operating result was minus CHF 43 million. And if we look deeper into it and the drivers for it, by building a bridge, we see that the main deviation comes from business divestments and here, from goodwill recycling of CHF 64.2 million related to carbon business pultrusion business exit. We had restructuring expenses of CHF 4.3 million, mainly in Denmark and Italy as well as some minor impairment adjustments.

I mentioned before that the financials 2025 show a clear picture of how we manage the transformation and why we believe to be well set for 2026. If we compare the second semester '25 with the first semester '25, where we still were in the -- heavily in the restructuring phase, we see that our gross profit went significantly up in the second semester and our adjusted operating result went up to CHF 16.7 million or 10.8% of net sales, a significant increase versus the first semester.

Diving deeper into the -- some balance sheet items. Our trade net working capital reduced in line and along with our business reduction. We reduced it by 25%. Our net CapEx we spent last year was CHF 8.7 million, reflecting a somewhat smaller Gurit, and reflecting as well our disciplined project execution while continuing investing in operating efficiency. Our free cash flow was at CHF 12.3 million, well above previous year.

Net debt. Here, we successfully managed to reduce net debt by nearly CHF 8 million down to CHF 55 million by end of last year. The equity went down by CHF 8 million, heavily impacted by CTA of CHF 12.3 million. And last but not least, our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio went significantly down from 2.5 to 1.6.

And with this, I hand over to Tobias for the outlook.

Thank you very much, Viktor. Before we go to the outlook, let me just take a few minutes to give you 2 insights about our market environment in wind energy and our positioning as well as on the marine and industrial sector.

Let's start with the wind energy. This is our primary market at this point in time. There are some global megatrends we are riding on. The global electrification is accelerating. Megatrends such as digitalization, artificial intelligence and the rapid expansion of data centers are driving a significant increase in electricity demand around the world. This growing demand must be addressed through evolving energy mix, with renewables playing a central role. And if you take a closer look at Europe, wind is the extremely strong and very competitive energy source that will be tapped over the next few years.

According to the global supplier forecast of -- by Brinckmann, Western OEMs are expected to deliver a compounded annual growth rate of about 10.5%. This growth is supported by strong regulatory frameworks in the Western markets, clear decarbonization targets in the countries and in the regions and a continued policy to support renewable energy. This combination of structural demand growth and supportive regulation creates a highly favorable market environment for Gurit, particularly given our positioning in advanced composite material for wind and energy applications.

Let's take an even closer look. It is important to note that according to the industry expert and our own analysis, Chinese OEMs are expected to play a relatively minor role outside of China. The market penetration is projected around 16% globally ex China by 2035. Chinese OEMs are likely to enter price-sensitive markets such as India, Southeast Asia, Turkey and Australia. And it's also, I think, important to note the moment those OEMs -- non-Western OEMs enter a different market and they open local manufacturing sites, they're also seeking for global suppliers like Gurit.

Let me go on 2 submarkets, the onshore and the offshore market, and I start with the onshore market first. Here, the market dynamics looks like the following. We expect a growth at approximately 6%, primarily driven by the European demand. Around 70% on the future onshore installation are forecasted to be accounted by the 5 major OEMs.

In the offshore market, we see a slightly different picture. We expect a stronger growth between 14% and 16%, but kicks in a little bit later. And the regional driver is by far the European market region. The -- I think it's important to note that the U.S. market outlook is expected to have minimal installation due to the current U.S. policy framework. And if it doesn't -- if it change, and we see it probably change after the next administration, we will see positive effects not earlier than the 2030s.

I understand, it can be sometimes challenging to grasp what Gurit actually does and is producing, especially if you are just starting to look at our business. Let me clarify this a little bit by focusing on Wind Systems. Gurit provides mission-critical supplies and tools for the wind turbine blades, including highly engineered molds. They are essential for building the blades, and they are 100-meter long steel structures, very complicated. We produce and deliver core materials, PET and balsa, which form the internal structure of the blades who are essential to deliver structural integrity of the blades.

We make tailor-made kits. They're ready to assembly on the spot delivered to our customers for each blade. And we produce highly -- high-performance profiles, assuring a reliable torque transition when you -- from blade into the turbine. And we produce special coatings, ensuring performance, durability and efficiency, not only during the production process, but also in the aftermarket. We believe that no other suppliers in the market offer those breadth and integration of products and services that Gurit provides for wind turbine blades. This combination of material tools, engineering service positions us very well as a strategic partner for our customers.

As you know, and it's very easy to spot trends. Turbine becomes larger and larger, and so blades become larger and larger. And some of you have asked me whether this could reduce the market size for our core material. The answer is easy. Based on detailed analysis of our engineering data we get from our customers, and we can grasp by ourselves, we can see that the increase in material usage more than offsets any potential reduction from the larger blade designs. As a result, demand for core materials remain robust. Given the current design trends, Gurit is well positioned to fully participate in the global market growth.

As I promised you earlier, let me guide you through our new production footprint for Wind Systems. Currently, we operate in 7 countries, strategically serving the wind industry. This network is deliberately designed to ensure customer proximity, cost-efficient production and strategic risk mitigation.

Our key location and capabilities are, for example, Ecuador, where we positioned ourselves in a country that are producing 80% of the global balsa supply. And we are the only major player with free access to -- that means we don't have our own plantation, and thereby avoiding structural supply risk. We are located in Mexico, near the U.S. border, specialized in core material and kitting. In Spain, we are focusing on kitting and core materials, supporting the European demand. In India and China, we are producing and we are -- concentrated our production of structural profiles. And in China and India, we're also producing molds for manufacturing solution. And in both countries, we have kitting and core material capabilities.

Talking about core materials. Gurit supplies to the market very important core materials and ready-to-use kits using both recycled PET and so-called virgin PET. Recycled PET enables us to meet the strictest sustainability requirements of our customers. And with the choice between recycled and virgin PET, we have access to multiple raw material sources that reduces the dependency on any single supplier or supply chain. We benefit from a strong scale effects through centralized extruder facilities in our core markets. Many decades of continuous product optimization have delivered us industry-leading yields on our extruders. Our proprietary OptiCore technology allows customers to reduce blade weights by several hundred kilograms per blade. This weight reduction enhances turbine efficiency over its lifetime, creating value both for direct customers as well as for the end users.

Now I would like to go to the Marine and Industrial business for a while. Looking ahead, the Marine and Industrial market are expected to show moderate growth, influenced by a slower marine demand due to the U.S. tariffs and a decline in certain U.S. segments. Despite these headwinds, we entry -- we have entered new market segments and driving increasing demand, particularly for the recycled PET form in the industrial space.

Our Corecell or proprietary Corecell technology is seen as the only long-term reliable solution for specific application in the subsea and defense sector. We expect a strong growth in the subsea market. And also, we see multiple opportunities to replace traditional materials such as with across various industries. New products are in the pipeline and are expected to start impacting top line later this year and the years to come.

We believe Gurit is now very well positioned to capture those growth in the marine and industrial sectors. We have the best-in-class structural engineering plus scalable kitting capabilities to support efficient production. The proprietary Corecell technology delivers exceptional and consistent material performance. We only begin to unlock new lightweight opportunities by replacing traditional materials with Gurit solution, improving performance efficiency and total system cost.

Let me now come to the guidance. We believe and we see that the net sales from continued operations at constant FX rates to increase at a mid-single-digit rate. Our adjusted operating results margin will improve versus 2025, obviously depends on geopolitical situation and market development, including FX fluctuations. Our midterm outlook, post 2026, we see a mid- to high single-digit growth in wind, a high single-digit growth in nonwind, and we are reaffirming a 10% operational result margin going forward.

We completed our transformation. We have now a leaner and cleaner footprint. We reduced our overhead costs. We improved our operational resilience and focused on strategic partners and customers. We believe we position the company for sustainable profitable growth in the future.

Before we go into the Q&A session, let me give you some -- our 3 next important dates. This will be April 16 with the Annual General Meeting and the Q1 '26 results. On August 26, we present you the half year report. And on October 23, we present you the Q3 numbers.

At this point in time, I thank you very much, and I'm -- and we are happy to take any answers.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Laura Bucher from Octavian.

I have 2. First, I'm looking for some comments on China. I mean, you deliberately reduced your exposure to domestic products in China. So I'm wondering how you're positioned to capture the growth from, number one, the 120 gigawatt annual installation target under the new 5-year plan, which is, I think, is quite sizable.

And number two, from the Chinese OEMs gaining share internationally, if I'm not mistaken, they've increased their non-China share threefold last year? And also, have you factored any of this into your '26 and post '26 growth targets? I'll take my second question after the answer, if I may.

Yes. Thank you, Laura, very much for the questions. Yes, we are working with Chinese customers, obviously. And yes, we are working with Chinese customers outside China as well. And as I told you in one of my slides, we are getting requests, especially for the growth outside of China for our core material and kitting services. And I believe we are strongly positioned over there.

Yes, we see this 120 gigawatts installation as well. We expect a little bit less than that, but it's on an extremely high level. And we -- but I think it's most important that we really focus on profitable customer relationships. So we are very selective and don't participate in any big price competition in the China market. We have factored a little bit into this -- of this growth into our numbers going forward.

Okay. And just wondering why are you not guiding -- You're only guiding to -- well, not only, but anyway, you're only guiding mid- to high single digit and not the 10% growth you expect in your Western market. I'm just wondering why you expect less? Is it the lower prices? Do you see risk to your market share?

We don't see any risk at the market shares. The prices are very stable. But nevertheless, we are still a little bit, let's say, conservative in terms of the global situation.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Marti Queral from UBS.

Question number one would be, please, could you give some color on what were the drivers of the gross margin expansion in H2 versus H1? I mean is it all related to the discontinuation of the carbon fiber business? Or did you have also some tailwinds from lower raw material prices?

I take this question, Marti. Thank you very much for the question. No, we didn't have any special effects in H2 on the gross margin. It's really mostly coming from the discontinuation of the carbon fiber pultrusion business. No major tailwinds.

Okay. And then for 2026, I mean you expect core EBIT margin above 2025 levels, so above 8.1%. And -- but I mean, most likely, I would say that this implies a contraction compared to the 10.8% margin that you had in H2? I mean could you elaborate why you do not expect the H2 margin to be sustainable in '26?

Yes, a fair question. And we're kind of -- we're expecting this one. Indeed, we delivered above 10% margin in -- for 2 consecutive quarters. On the other hand, we want to be prudent, similar to the answer Tobias gave before. We are cautious going forward with all the uncertainty still.

Okay. Then I would have a question on the wind business, also similar to a question that was asked before. But I mean if I look at the outlook statements from wind OEMs, they are encouraging for 2026. But then if I look in '25, for example, the megawatts that some of these OEMs delivered grew double digit, while the core sales in wind materials were down 3% roughly. So my question is, could you help me understand where is this difference coming from? I mean -- is it due to lower ASPs? Is it changes in market share? Like some color would be appreciated here.

Marti, just to have your question correct, so you're asking why there is a difference between the market growth and us being down on wind?

Basically, yes. Yes.

Okay.

Yes. We have seen that the raw material prices went down and some of our raw material prices will reflect also into our sales prices.

But mostly -- if I may add, Marti, I mean we -- as we said, we stepped out from nonprofitable customers in line. So it's -- that we gave basically sales away.

Okay. Okay. That's clear. But I mean now you just said that raw materials went down. So I mean, I guess this helps also on the margins. That was my question before.

That goes in line, but I mean, it was not a major tailwind on the gross profit.

Okay. Okay. And then maybe one last question, if I may. I mean you had an equity free cash flow of around CHF 11 million, I would say. I mean is this the new base level that we should think about Gurit going forward? Is this something that you can achieve also in 2026?

On the free cash flow, well, the free cash flow [ '25 ] was impacted by restructuring measures, which we don't expect in that magnitude going forward. So I think the level of [ '25 ] should be -- definitely set the rock bottom for us.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the question-and-answer session. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Tobias Lührig for any closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much, everybody, for participating today. And I hope I see you soon in the -- for the next media conference. I wish you a great day. Thank you very much, and bye-bye.

Thank you from my side as well.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.