Implenia Aktie

Hello, and warmly welcome to our Analyst and Media Conference on Implenia's 2025 annual results. We're delighted to present to you our results once again in our HQ Implenia Connect and also warmly welcome those following us on the screen. My name is Silvan Merki. I'm Chief Communications Officer, and I will be taking you through today's event. We'll be holding our presentation in German today and the live stream, you can select English translation. You can ask your questions in the Q&A in the chat stream in German or English.

We're going to be presenting today as follows. Firstly, our CEO, Jens Vollmar, will give you a business update on the annual results. CFO, Stefan Baumgartner, will then take you through the financial figures, and then we will have an outlook by Jens. Following this, we will then answer your questions in the Q&A.

I'm now going to hand over to CEO, Jens Vollmar for the first part.

Thank you very much, Silvan. I'd also like to welcome you. Welcome to our business figures 2025. For Implenia, this is a very special year. We are going to be 20 years young in 2 days' time when Implenia was listed on the stock exchange for the first time, but we also look back to 160 years of our history, and we'll celebrate that appropriately. To conclude 2025, what a year, a year full of highlights, to be honest. Markets continue to develop positively. We see that the demand for our skills is extremely strong. We see that in our order book, which grew significantly, not just in terms of the quantity of the turnover, but also the margins. We've been able to work on our vision. But -- and most importantly, we've worked on profitability and projects with operative excellence. I'll come back to that in more detail.

Some financial highlights. The order book grew by almost 25% to a new record of CHF 8.5 billion. We achieved our EBIT goals. I was particularly delighted by not just the absolute figures, but the margin of 4%, which is a lot closer to our midterm goal of 4.5%. Free cash flow was also great, CHF 125.3 million, that also shows that we've really been focusing on cash, on improving net working capital management and the equity rate is also much closer to the midterm goal of 25%.

I will now going to go through the individual divisions and present them. I'm going to start with Buildings. That's our construction sector active in Switzerland and Germany. We specialized in data centers. I'll go into that in more detail later. It's a brilliant market. We are also involved in Life Sciences and Defense. We are very specialized and varied. So we continue to expect high margins there. Civil engineering, that's essentially our large infrastructure business, tunneling in particular, this sector is growing strongly organically. We have received a lot of orders and our prealculated margin is also higher.

Service Solutions sector, that's been the sector which is essentially dominated by Wincasa, but we also have BCL, our building logistics company there and also Planovita, which is our building technology specialist planning. I'm going to take you through the 3 divisions. Buildings, you can see a slight decline in the revenue. That's the bad news. But what's positive is that we've been able to significantly increase our order book. We showed that in the first half year already and we showed an increased order book buildings. The positive news continued in Germany in the second half of the year. So we're expecting a significant change in the trend there, and we're experiencing a 2-digit growth figures this year too.

I would like to express how delighted we are that we have increased our EBIT margin by 0.8% to 75.6%. And that's because of the specialized way we -- the specialized things we are focusing on such as defense, data centers, health and better management. Here is a project we won for our master builders business in Bern, laboratory building. Bottom left, interesting for highly complex logistic modernization services in cities, building remodeled for Swiss Prime Site and with a preconstruction phase, which we looked at date costs and optimization with the manager, we were able to generate much better results than in traditional management models.

So now let's just move to Civil Engineering, where we've increased our margin and operating results, in particular, the order book in our complex infrastructure business. There are not very many other players who can do this. We are extremely competent and we are in demand in tunneling. Tunneling sector is not just about tunnels. We also build repositories. We don't just build rail and road tunnels. We build cable infrastructure and access tunnels too. So the market is really exciting there. We are focusing on optimization in engineering compared to our capital invested margins are under average. So we'll focus on improving that. Some examples of projects which show our competence. And not everyone can do this. Implenia can do this. We're well positioned.

On the top left, you can see the expansion of Railway, a very big project, which we were able to win last year. And in the center in the bottom, you can see a geological repository in Sweden that shows what we can all do with our tunnel building skills. And now coming to the Service business, Service Solutions. We're not showing you the order book, but assets under management is mainly Wincasa. On the left at the top, you can see that they've continued to grow. We've also been able to win a great new mandates, for example, for PUBLICA, that's going to be coming into our order book under our assets under management next year for the first time, that's been to further improve the margin. EBIT has also been improved. This is a good mix in our portfolio alongside traditional construction.

We also have services. The risks are less and the margins are higher, and it's going in the right direction. Here, we will continue to look at whether we'll have abilities to grow in addition to our traditional implementation phase inorganically at the top and bottom of the value chain. To left, I presented this in the half year as well as shopping center in [ Bern ], why I'm presenting that again? Because it emphasizes how we can work with our integrated skills and, Wincasa manages it. Planovita planned the building technology and with our modernization, we were able to renovate the whole building. A similar project we were given this year -- this week rather, we are able to modernize and renovate shopping centers with this integrated model. And so combining services and construction in our business is extremely important.

Alongside the division, we have also been able to launch continue initiatives across divisions. Last year, we were able to certify [ 90 ] new lean experts last year. They implement our use cases and our toolbox in the organization that is extremely important for us. We want a specific calendar planning for each project. We have analyzed new ways of paralleling digital processes being faster. And an example is the Gubrist tunnel, which was able to be completed 44 days before the due date.

Sustainability is also an important imperative. It remains relevant to Implenia. We have a few example projects as to how we can reduce the CO2 footprint significantly. Last year, we were able to reduce the absolute CO2 emissions. We were able to publish a sustainability report with new objectives. How do we do that? It's also important for us, we want to become more sustainable. We no longer just want to report. We want to become more sustainable in our projects. Our sustainability experts help us with the selection of materials, for example, and that helps us a lot. Buildings logistic companies helps us to improve transport and journeys and how we can use railways and conveyor belts to remove excavated materials and how we can use CO2 reduced concrete and how we can optimize. I mentioned the productivity in project.

In the first half of the year, we had certain use cases presented for AI. The second half of the year of 2025, we were able to conclude a framework agreement with Oculai, that's a provider of visual AI. We have a lot of use cases here in security at work, for example, camera was automatically audit who's moving where, who's safe, who's not in post-order management. We have use cases also in monitoring the development of construction projects. And as I said beforehand, we're also trying to maintain our value assurance approach and continue to optimize it. Last year, we were able to introduce an optimized -- more optimized calculation.

This year, we calculate norms with BIM models and as a standard, we also have benchmarking tools be introduced and in the offer phase, we also make sure that the building costs we've calculated are the right ones. We do not just look at building costs from a calculation perspective, but with post calculated projects, we look at different perspectives with publicly available data and internal databases. We ask the question, are the building costs we calculate in the zero base adequate or not, that's extremely important for us.

And I also talked about new contract models in the first half of the year, which are extremely important because the market is growing and the master builders cannot things contract in all cases. So we need new partnership models, new management models. We need to understand them. And that's why we have set up a center of excellence, which ensures that in all projects outside of the headquarters people understand what the contracts are and how you can obtain information and what the things look like technically.

Last year, in the second half of the year, we were able to set up a center of excellence on that. And we have the first full-fledged IPD project in the company in last year. We were able to win a part of this project. And these are great projects for us because the building cost risks are not taken by Implenia. So we develop the costs together with the coordinators of the building and then contribute our skills to this. Before I give the floor to our CFO, Stefan, I'd like to show you a video to give you some insights into the daily work we do in our projects.

[Presentation]

Good afternoon everyone. Hello, everyone. Welcome [indiscernible]. All divisions this year too were successful. And therefore, we were able to increase our results. In the year 2025, we were able to grow our order book by CHF 1.7 billion to a total of CHF 8.5 billion. This is a growth of 25% over the previous year period. Moreover, we were able to grow the precalculated margin by 0.5 percentage points to 7.8%. The revenue lay just under the previous year for 2024, in line with the development of the order book in the previous year. In particular, the buildings order book, which had declined meant that the buildings revenue in financial year 2025 was lower. Foreign currency effects in 2025 were negligible. The operative units, there is natural hedging. And now let's continue with Implenia's profitability.

In 2025, we have an EBIT of CHF 140.5 million, which compared to the previous year's period represents growth of CHF 10 million, that is 8%. The EBIT margin grew by 0.4 percentage points to 4.0% and was generated by all divisions. We were able to improve the results before tax and despite higher external financing costs and among other things, because of the early refinancing of 2 bonds. The tax expenditure in financial year 2025 was in the normal range and unlike 2024 financial year '24, which was affected by one-off tax effects. In this period, the free cash flow grew significantly by CHF 179 million to CHF 125.3 million. The free cash flow was improved significantly this year through a higher EBITDA, around a 10% growth compared to the previous year and increased focus on net working capital, in particular, through higher advanced payments. Our objective is to continue to generate growing free cash flow conversions.

At the end of December 2025, the cash and cash equivalents were CHF 533 million compared to the previous year, that represented a growth of CHF 131 million. Moreover, we have CHF 125 million in short-term time deposits on our balance sheet, which were used for the bond maturing in March 2026 and refinanced early. We see great potential for improving net working capital, in particular in change order management. Our equity rate grew as of the 31st of December 2025 to 23.5% adjusted for the time deposits from the early refinancing of the bond maturing in March 2026. Alongside the good operative result, overfunding of Implenia pension fund contributed to this positive development.

As per the 31st of December 2025, all lines of credit were fully available to the company. Moreover, we were able to extend the maturity profile through 2 successful issuances of bonds in '25. On the basis of the business success and the strengthened balance sheet, the Board of Directors request that the AGM of the 31st of March 2026 agrees to increase the dividend to CHF 1.40, which is an increase of 56% per share. To sum up, the operative cash flow was improved by 218%. Net debt was reduced by CHF 61 million. Maturity profile was lengthened with both refinanced bonds. The next bond which is maturing, which is not yet refinanced is due in 2028. We have been able to further increase our equity rate by 2.3 percentage points to 23.5%. In the financial year 2025, Implenia has been able to improve its position and a strong company, which is financially well positioned, sustainable growth in the next 5 to 10 years.

And now I'm going to hand back to Jens for the outlook.

Thank you very much, Stefan. So how will things keep going? Let's look to the future. Implenia is extremely well positioned. Some of you all know this slide. In Switzerland, we are market leading in various domains in research and education, data centers and health. And in our European home markets, we're also #1 in tunneling. We're extremely well positioned, that has an impact on our order book. We are in demand, lot of people come to us frequently. And it's much more important than the increase in the order book is the precalculated margin. That's increase and it's the best way we have to estimate future profits aggregated from all the orders we receive, we calculate it and it's increased by 0.5 percentage points to 7.8%.

In the order book, we still have other older orders remaining with lower margins. That means that the new margins of the new orders were much higher. We remain selective. We are focused on the profitability of projects, we don't risk volumes. It's good that we're able to benefit from this market development and that we're well positioned. On the left-hand side in the graph, you can see the top line or the production output, which is secured. You can see that for each year at the end of 2024 and 2025, we have pretty much the same secured as end of '25 to '26. So we don't expect a significant increase for this year.

But if we look at the end of last year for the end of this year for '27, we have 24% more top line than at the end of '24 secured to '25. So if things continue in this way, we will be able to expect a high growth in revenue from next year and the same will apply for the following years. Here you can see some of projects which we have recently won. These projects need time before the revenue is generated. Our project intended teams look together on the basis of the project calendars where -- when which project will generate how much turnover. This is an aggregation of all projects here. So the graph, I mean, now back to this next slide, you can see that certain projects generate most of it.

On the top right, you see the expansion of Zurich-Winterthur to double track. It will take a couple of years before the tunnel machines are running and that it's only then that will generate the revenue. So that's explains the order book. The megatrends are continuing probably the direction is growing. The population is getting older. The need for defense infrastructure has not changed. Maybe there's even more demand than in the past markets on the basis of current predictions are positive. Everything is positive, in particular for Germany, we can see a positive development there. The availability of construction loans has improved through various legislative improvements on promoting Germany as a place to do business. Private bonds are better able to invest in infrastructure through change in law.

The demand is there, needed. So we're playing in a great market. And now let us look, therefore, at where Implenia is positioned. Our growth is even much higher. Data centers in Switzerland and in Germany are a great area of growth. We are being asked to provide a lot of projects, we can't even cope with the demand. The Board of Directors and group leadership on the basis of this market context has continued to work on our vision the basis for our action for our staff.

What have we done? Well, we have polished our vision, our key priorities. We have -- we're focusing on performance now in our values. We want a cultural performance. But in terms of the strategic direction and in terms of strategic direction, too, we want a mindset and setup which enables growth. We're expecting capital efficient resource allocation. We don't just want to invest capital. We also want return on this capital. We want to generate cash flow, and we want to grow.

We want to grow profitably in the domains in which we are active. So that's why we have set up a culture program this year, which will be rolled out to all domains of Implenia to improve the performance culture and performance in all areas and to ensure that the economic conditions are provided for us to implement across Implenia. What we invest year? It's an investment year. We will be investing a certain fund in this. We want to build more teams in data centers, more teams that we've had before.

We have been cautious in employing people. We'll continue with that approach. We want to go -- we want to have the right people for the project in value assurance, if we calculate a project, we want to have competent staff. That's why, in particular, in data centers in the division [indiscernible] we will be expanding our staff in health and laboratories, particularly in Germany, we will be hiring teams, which can cover this additional demand, which we have not been able to cope with so far.

As I mentioned, in engineering and civil engineering, we really want to streamline that we'll continue to work on that. We continue to make sure that profitability grows. We have not reached our objectives yet. It's clear that certain organizational measures within the division of Civil engineering will need to be made some small changes to organization will put some units together, structures of work sites will be changed that will cost something this year, but it will allow us to benefit from higher margins next year.

And we also want to expand the top and bottom of the value chain in organic growth but that costs money and that is also having a negative impact on our balance sheet this year. So that's what we're expecting around CHF 150 million EBIT. We're expecting higher profitability from the core business, but we want to make targeted investments of CHF 10 million to CHF 20 million, it's clear what's going to come out of it. We want to -- we have a target of over CHF 150 million EBIT next year based on these investments. The midterm goals remain unchanged. We want to achieve them 25% equity ratio and over 5.5% EBIT margin.

Now I think there's nothing has caused this change. We have 2 changes in group leadership. Anita Eckardt will focus on her Board of Directors' career and her role won't be replaced. I will take of her role as Head of the division. We have our own businesses with our leadership such as BCL, Wincasa. I think Anita Eckardt spent over 6 years doing a great job here in positioning the forward division specialties and now the service business. And with Claudia Bidwell, we have a second person leaving us who is CHRO of Implenia for also more than 6 years, and she's been replaced by Peter Feigl, who is extremely well placed to push forward the next growth phase of Implenia from the HR perspective. So we look forward to her joining Implenia on the 1 of September.

So to sum up, Implenia is extremely well positioned. We have growing markets. We can benefit from these markets. We are doing very well placed financially to drive all these growth investments. The capital-intensive small-scale businesses will be reduced, and we will focus on the areas where we can show clearly that we're different. We will grow, therefore, with a range of offerings.

And so I thank you, Silvan, for listening and hand back to him. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Jens. Before we move to the Q&A, there are various events we'll invite you to this year too to give you insights in our activities. One is the Marienhof project in the center of Munich. The second one will be Zurich Steel City, a center managed by Wincasa. On the 3rd of June, we'll run an Investor Day. At the heart of Zurich, we will give you a detailed insight in the strategy we have just presented. The modernization of the Jelmoli also visited. On the 5th of September, we will also celebrate 20 years young, 160 years of creating the future with a large celebration. We look forward to seeing you there, too.

On the 31st of March, our Annual General Assembly will take place. On the 19th of August, we'll present our midyear results of 2026. If you have any questions, we will be able to ask them over the lunch or you can contact your contact people.

And now we'd like to get started with the Q&A. Just to remind you, Jens and Stefan, you do come to the front. You can ask questions in English or German in the stream chat or you can also ask them on site also in German or English. We're going to hand around the microphone. Please let me know who you are, for whom which group you are here and please speak into the microphone so that we can have the translation. Can we get started with the first questions here.

Holger Frisch at Zurcher Kantonalbank. I have 3 questions. Firstly, the EBIT development, EUR 150 million this year. That's 50% split from associated companies and the working communities and classical Implenia. Recently, the associated groups were only at 10%. So what direction things going into? The first question.

Do you want to ask all the questions together at the same time?

And I've seen cash flow means dissolving over 30% of [ CHF 30 million ] in provisions. Where does that come from? And I'm interested in the business development of Wincasa. What's its EBIT margin and what are the ambitions?

Yes. So associated group companies in civil engineering the JVs, the joint ventures are in civil engineering. There we've got growth and we work on the basis of resource availability and local partnerships, which we need in these joint ventures quite often. In the complex infrastructure projects, it's often necessary to work in joint ventures. This trend is important for sharing this. That's an important part of that. We work together with strong partners. We have a sophisticated process for selecting them. So we check them thoroughly beforehand. The trend, and these are very profitable projects, much more profitable than the small de-central projects. So therefore, the trend is understandable.

And [indiscernible], I'd like to add something. We want to grow on large projects. But in 2025, there was an additional effect of Swiss properties, an associated company through the new valuation or the revaluation of a significant part of -- so it had a significant impact. So the dissolution of provisions. It's not something which we run centrally in terms of managing our results. We have -- we look at each project individually with the project management and the legal team, we plan the projects. And sometimes that requires the formation and the liquidation of provisions. Last year, we saw that our predictions were much safer in terms of final cost and legal cost of projects. So that's why it's a result of a lot of individual decisions and it's not -- we don't take on decisions on provisions on their own.

In terms of bookkeeping, it's creating, using and dissolving provisions and the net result of that. That only [indiscernible] account. We look at the line, we are getting better in the precision of our predictions and that has an impact on our provisions. Now the business development of Wincasa, we are following our plan with Wincasa. The margins there are very high. We have been able to expand existing partnerships, extend existing contracts significantly and also assume that as originally planned, [indiscernible] will take place next year, we are expecting CHF 5 million assets under management with PUBLICA. And so we are very positive on the development of Wincasa.

Tommaso Operto, UBS. I have 2 questions, both on guidance. For 2025, the CHF 10 million to CHF 15 million growth investments. So how much of that will also be in 2026. So how much is staff cost and how much are one-off costs, how much will other costs will also have to pay in 2026? And looking to '27, you said CHF 150 million EBIT. That can mean a lot of different things. Could you break it down a bit more? Because the lower end, that would mean that there would no longer be any organic improvement. The organic EBIT would be CHF 150 million in 2026, which is from CHF 150 million.

Yes, I'll start with the second question, if it's all right. So the outlook of over CHF 150 million for 2027, what we mean with that is that we're going to be better on the line. And we'll give you an update on that at the end of the year. We'll tell you exactly where we are. We will be much more secure in our predictions there. Over CHF 150 million does not mean CHF 150 million or CHF 151 million, we want to be significantly over CHF 150 million we conclude next year. We'll give you an update on that at the end of the year when we know how the order book and the precalculated margin, all these things have developed. We will then be able to give you more reliable guidance for next year.

For now, it's over CHF 150 million. And based on current figures, we can look positively to the future. And the other question was how much of the CHF 10 million to CHF 20 million is attributed to what section and this M&A due diligence that costs tens of millions. We will -- we're very cost sensitive. We'll have to look at that in detail. That's why we have given a range of CHF 10 million to CHF 20 million. Those are one-off costs. And then there is a figure in single digits millions, we will invest in developing skills and teams that will be less than CHF 5 or maximum CHF 5 million. These costs will remain on the P&L, but they generate revenue and therefore, margin. So the exact breakdown, I can't give you because we still depend on how much we expand independently of the cost we have for M&A and such things.

Torsten Sauter from Kepler. I have a question for Mr. Vollmar. I understood correctly, in a real estate journal, I read that Implenia always to be twice as big under your leadership. That might be your vision. But where and how should Implenia grow? And how much M&A is part of the program?

Yes. That is my personal ambition. I'm still young. I've got a few years to achieve that still. So how large should we become? Well, I don't know, but we're convinced and I'm convinced that we can become twice as big at least. We can generate a lot more margin and revenue than currently. The markets are ideally placed for that. We are ideally positioned in them. And what's great is that we can grow without generating additional structure costs. The structure we currently have, we can generate a lot more revenue.

Now how do we want to grow? I don't think I can answer that for the whole group. I just have to answer it per division. In real estate and buildings, we want to drive forward specialization, in particular, in data center building. And we see margins which are much, much higher than our classic building sector, much, much higher by several factors. And this trend, the age structure of the population, it's clear. We're getting older and population is becoming older. We need more health care, health buildings. And in the sites we are active on, there's a lot of research underway and we need laboratory buildings that data centers, that's done.

But in terms of civil engineering, we don't have to be extremely innovative because we are -- with the right skills, we are well positioned. We can grow organically. We have requests for hydro power or tunneling infrastructure. You can see the growth rates, the studies which there are currently there, we're growing organically. We don't need to buy anything up there. And in Buildings, we can build up our teams. If one of the specializations that we have an ideal target, for example, in buildings, then we'll look at that. But inorganically, we want to grow.

We only want to grow in services. There we'll get -- we'll develop new skills. There are new skills which we can't develop so quickly inorganically. In planning, it will take a few years for us to have the skills and experience needed to grow. So within the divisions, we will grow in this way. The inorganic part has a certain importance, but I think in civil engineering, in particular, we don't actually need inorganic growth.

Alexander from UBS. I have a follow-up question on this inorganic growth M&A. Should something be bigger in the service building, would you then finance it via shares? How commitment are you to an investment-grade credit rating?

We hope that we'll receive credit ratings. We don't have them already or it really depends. But our equity increase or buying shares, well, that's not an option at the moment. We assume that we have enough firepower for the objectives we have. If necessary, we have a loan framework for that, but equity is not really necessary at the moment. We have significantly strengthened our balance sheet over the last few years. We are in a very different position few years ago. And therefore, we do not see any need to increase the capital, but we will be prudent with M&A.

We'll look at that with great care. But an indirect increase of capital we have -- we're not planning that. M&A needs to be accretive in the margin and for shareholders. That's clear without taking into account any synergies or planning of synergies. On the basis of the existing business, we want to be able to do accretive deals. Business planning is stand-alone. That's nothing optional.

Any further questions here?

Johannes Brinkmann here at the front. You said that there's massive growth in data centers. How many projects are you building and where are they?

The number of projects being built, well, we have a handful in Switzerland. In [indiscernible], for example, we have a big project. And what's interesting is that we're not just talking about [indiscernible], but also the MEP sector, the fit out and these are projects which easily cost several hundred million francs for one data center and these are big volumes which we can do. We have developed specialist teams. We have a handful of projects which we're working on in Switzerland, just in Switzerland alone. And we have things which we're looking at in Germany, we don't have any being built at the moment.

I have a few questions in the chat. [indiscernible] Can you say how much will the real margin differs from the precalculated project margin?

Hopefully less and less. In the past, 5, 6 years ago, we were about 1% away from what we calculated. That was before the introduction of value assurance. So now we have much more precise predictions in general. And as we saw last year, project close as we estimate and the surprises at the end of the project not really there anymore. We constantly revise project margins every month together with finance and project management. And if necessary, the project management changes the project -- the planned profit margin the predictions are precise.

Do you have anything else to say?

No. Over the last period, we've improved significantly value assurance, we've had no big surprises. This reliability is really important in this business.

Lukas Spang from Tigris Capital is asking 3 questions. Firstly, how much revenue you have in the finance year in the data center domain? And what's your outlook for 2026 and the following years?

So the figure for the data center I don't have it here, we have to take it and respond less than 5%. So I don't have the precise revenue, but it's less than 5% of revenue. The margins are much higher but we can also take on the question and provide an answer in detail. But the share should grow significantly in the future and the growth rate is also much higher than in traditional buildings.

Now a second question by Lukas Spang. You spoke about higher expected revenue growth in 2027 and following years. From today's perspective, can we quantify that more or less? Could you give a lower limit, perhaps.

Good question. Thank you very much for that. What we can see now is that for next year, we have secured production output, which is 25% higher for '27 than the production output we had at the end of '24 to '26. So if everything continues without change, we have this -- if we acquire the same amount of projects or revenue, then the production output next year will be 25% higher. If we assume that nothing changes, that will be the case. If we acquire better, it will be higher. If it becomes worse, then it will be a bit lower. But our best prediction today is that it will not change. We will still have 25% more top line next year than in this year.

Great. Third question from Lukas Spang. How do you view the German investments outside of the [indiscernible]? Is the money coming -- having an impact in terms of profits on the market? I would be interested in your estimations and your outlook.

We are asked about that a lot. In Germany, we have been able to receive a lot of mandates. I was in Germany recently, you could have regularly. And what I saw is that there are a lot of bridges which need to be modernized for various reasons. So they need to be repaired or because it needs to be expanded for defense infrastructure. How the process are financed, however, be it with a traditional state budget or with the investment excluded from the debt brake. Well, it is not something we know. We just see that we're receiving a lot of contracts, the [indiscernible] bridges or East bridges projects east of Frankfurt, been able to win big projects there.

We don't know whether the money comes from the standard or the exceptional investment just benefit from the need to improve infrastructure in Germany we assume that the investment beyond the debt brake will lead to further investment we're not aware of. It doesn't matter that much.

[indiscernible] says in English, you have received good levels of profitability in Buildings and Service Solutions. But Civil Engineering EBIT is still at only 2.9%, which seems below your European peers. How do you explain this? And what are your targets for this next year or this year and next year?

Thank you very much for the question. Yes, that's correct. In civil engineering, we are expecting higher margins, in particular in large infrastructure projects. Why is the margin still low though? We have a significant share of decentralized and small and scale engineering projects, particularly in Switzerland. This business has a margin lower than average. We want to reduce this sector. That's why we're expecting higher margins. We have developed projects in line with this, which go a lot beyond the current profit margin. And our division is saying we have managed here.

We agree that this is -- we're committed to these higher margins.

[indiscernible] to ask, you set out EBIT targets of above 45% for the medium term quite a few years ago. And we consider 2027 to be the medium term of 5 years ago.

We always said 3 to 5 years are midterm objectives. We are now at 4%. So that means that we've come a lot closer. And we also think that next year will come a lot closer to 4.5%. And as soon as we get to the 4.5%, we will then confirm new objectives. But the 4.5%, as you'll see, each year, we have added 0.3% more or less, and we expect a further positive development of the margins.

You can also continue to ask questions in the chat window. Do we have any further questions here face-to-face, microphone is coming, hand going up.

[indiscernible] Zurcher Kantonalbank. I have 2 questions. Firstly, you often spoke about optimizing net working capital. Where do you see a sustainable band in terms of turnover and where are the -- what are the biggest levers to get there? Second question is external financing costs after the refinancing of CHF 125 million, which is due in 2026. Could you give me a value or could you give me a range as to where you expect costs and what direction you think this could go? So what are the levers on the net working capital management?

We don't give you any specific percentages, but what are the levers? So checking the scale of the project, measuring quickly, billing quickly, dealing with claims quickly, solving things quickly with the building managers in tunnels in case of geological changes in the past, projects were very -- process were very slow. We have very ways to tackle this and avoiding suits, making settlement early so that we don't have outstanding costs. There are other major levers. We're focusing on cash flow, for example, that's a strategic priority. And this year, for the first time, we have committed to financial incentive staff to ensure that their action -- this kind of action is promoted with bonuses.

Net working capital was already part of our -- always part of our bonuses, but we have created further incentives to optimize it. And debt financing costs, I'll start with 2025. We had high debt financing costs. We had -- we refinanced 2 bonds early, that generated one-off costs. There were also higher interest rates while we had 2 money at the same time. And don't forget, we had 2 bonds matured. They were from the negative interest times with lower cost, and that played a role. And that's why the costs were higher in 2025 and in 2026 because we won't have to refinance bonds and because we have 2 running at the same time, and we expect that debt financing costs will be reduced.

We have any further questions here in this room? I can see a hand going up there.

If I understood correctly, you have reduced the staff. And I think that's because Implenia wants to become a white-collar company, a scalable company, if I understand correctly. If there is a building boom, however, then you will depend on joint venture partners and [indiscernible]. Now if -- so are there enough people? Are there enough business partners to scale up if -- or you have a bottleneck if we receive a lot of orders due to the German investment beyond the [indiscernible]?

We are not reducing staff for its own sake for us. Staff are not relevant cost. We focus on margin projects and key staff and skills. And I think that's important. And SG&A area, we have reduced staff because we think that's not a key competent -- they don't have key competencies for Implenia. We are committed to ensuring that there are enough blue collar staff, we think we have. Where have we reduced staff or where we think that margins will be declining or turn to 0 in the midterm. We have some projects we have said no to.

We are not, however, concerned that it will be difficult to find blue collar staff because all key staff such as building site management, polishers, for example, will be retained. But blue collar staff work -- well, we're not concerned about the technical skills, key staff for building sites. We are not going to reduce them currently.

Can I add, it's all about the sub companies and [indiscernible]. We have over 1,000 strategic partnerships with sub company suppliers. We've worked with them for years successfully together. We ensure their skills and capacities, and we need to be a very reliable partner for them. And that's why we have -- we have a higher priority for them. We are managing that very closely, and we're sure that we will -- that they will be available for us, they'll provide capacity for us.

I have another question from Lukas Spang from Tigris Capital again.

In the building of hospitals to many -- multiple millions should be invested -- to be invested, EUR 6 billion in Germany this year from outside of the debt brake. How relevant is the sector nowadays and what expectations do you have?

Thank you very much for the question. It's a very important sector for us, health and laboratory building and data centers, those are the main drivers of our growth in buildings. The German health market is gigantic. We have a lot of skills in Switzerland. We have -- we're building up dedicated teams in Germany, too. But the future projects we developing partnerships with large German companies for buildings. We have projects of several billions in Munich [indiscernible] we have one, just by our [indiscernible] we have in Hamburg too. We're going to do this with our partners in Germany because we have -- we can't build a hospital for 1 billion there on our own to share resources, risks and skills. We need to work with others, and we are convinced, we hope that we are going to benefit from that approach.

Another question from Lukas Spang.

This year, too, do you expect further growth in the order book after the very good level achieved in 2025? Just to make it comprehensible, how do we approach contracts?

Stefan and German Gruniger our General Counsel council say that we are level 1 in value assurance. We win projects when we have resources and technical staff to carry them out, but we only accept them then. We only accept them when we have solid contracting when we can confirm the calendars, we can say that makes sense. That's realistic when we have the capacity to provide offers when we have the right JV partners and contractors, that's when we accept things. And so we say yes to the calculation offer phase and then we say yes to a contract. But the contract situation has developed so positively, and we've been able to increase the margins so that we are well positioned.

Now will the contract situation continue to improve. The market situation suggest it, and we believe that we'll be able to continue to acquire selectively. If there's further growth, we'll need more staff. We work [indiscernible] this year, that's why the investments in staff will not yet generating turnover. And so we are not guiding based on the order book, but profitability. But I can say the environment is positive to sum it up.

Do we have a last question here from people face-to-face. Many thanks for your questions. Many thanks for your answers, Jens and Stefan. We will now conclude the Q&A here. And of course, we'll be available outside for you. And we will also close the event here physically and in the stream. I'd like to wish you a good meal here in Implenia Connect and have a great rest of the day for everyone in the stream. And see you next time. Thank you very much.

[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]

[Interpreted] Good morning, and welcome to the Analyst and Media Conference on Implenia's half year results for 2025. Delighted to present our results to you once again here at our headquarters Implenia Connect and would like to welcome those attending in live stream. My name is Silvan Merki, I'm the Chief Communications Officer at Implenia. Our presentation will be in German. You may also select the German -- sorry, the English translation in the stream. And you may ask your questions here in the room or in the stream chat in German or in English.

Today, we shall present the following. First, our CEO, Jens Vollmar, will give you a business update on the half year results. followed by our CFO, Stefan Baumgartner, who will then guide you through the financial figures and this will be followed by the key investment highlights and an outlook by Jens Vollmar. And finally, we will be happy to answer your questions in the Q&A session.

And now I hand over to Jens Vollmar. Jens, the floor is yours.

[Interpreted] Thank you very much, Silvan. Can you hear me, everyone? Yes. So I would like to welcome you here to our headquarters in Implenia. I'm very happy to see you because I saw that a lot of people do not attend physically because it's also a sign of appreciation. So we really appreciate that. And I think, 6 months in the first half year, we had a lot of say challenges and also a lot of highlights and MSAs are employees who have contributed to this.

So now let's start with our operative highlights. And so what has preoccupied us. So first of all, there was the market. So the market has developed in a very positive manner. And so let's say that the framework conditions have always worked for us. So we also had investment -- so to say, in all divisions, we're then able then to gain a lot and acquire a lot of very good projects, and we also had many mandates. And what was ideal was the timing of the refinancing of our spans.

So I think just a few days, Donald Trump had then communicated his new tariffs or his new rates, and that would have been less beneficial so we are happy that we were able to have a head start and do it in advance because that also then strengthened our financial structure. And so I think it is the case to say that the construction industry is quite unproductive and inefficient. And so digitalization and artificial intelligence will help us in more and more projects, not only in the back office but also where we have had a lot of AI then applications already ongoing, but this will help us in the long run.

Another highlight was for sure then also the role of the CEO at Wincasa with [ Philippe Chok ]. We have found someone who is -- who has the know-how necessary know-how and who was able to take over that role. Not to forget also our operating model has been reduced from 4 to 3 divisions. And so that also required a lot of work, and we were able to do that. And last but not least, also the Swiss properties was created. That was very important for Implenia because Ina Invest and the [ Can ] Group were able to merge into a hopefully, bright future.

So the financial measure, I think this is what interests most of you. The EBIT was then -- or has been increased then to 57% by almost 13%. That's also the result of the good work that you have performed and also our revenue has increased by 6.6%. And so the highlight in these results that also showed that the dynamic is also the order book with CHF 7.8 billion, that's a new record that we have if we compare to last year. then we have almost not only 10%, but even almost 14% increase. And also the EBIT target, the EBIT guidance of CHF 140 million confirmed for the full year 2025.

I will now then move on to these results along the 3 divisions. Buildings, is the Real Estate sector then Implenia and also Civil Engineering has to do with everything that has to do with civil injuries, tunneling, engineering and also just street roads and service solutions, which comprises the engineering, planning, logistics and property services for efficient and sustainable Real Estate centers. So we have made in comparison to the previous period. to the figures of the previous period. And so what is interesting here was very positive because since 2022, we had a lot of private clients. And so we didn't have we had, let's say, a decrease in of the orders. And so now everything is going up. It's very good with respect to the KPOs. And so we had negative prefinanced capital, and that also helped us.

So what was also positive was the development of the EBIT, you can see then the significant increase which is thanks then to the completed real estate transactions. We were able to improve the margins. And also during the first half year, we also had real estate transactions that have all also contributed to this result. And because there was also questions in this respect, well, it was also thanks to the participation in earnings from calm Swiss properties. So what does the vision do it all. A lot of people think just real estate or the flat apartment buildings, et cetera. Well, that's only a minor part. It makes about 20% of our activities, business activities. We have a lot of greater projects. So here at the left top left, you can see it's the cantonal hospital a while ago, why is it still there? Because it is the greatest project that we have that is being executed and it will be handed over next year than to the owners.

And we have here a dedicated unit then for health and also lab and also 1 for data center, and you will see the news data center for a new client in [indiscernible] This is also a part then or let's say, a mandate or a project then of our order backlog. And why is the data center very important for Implenia. Well during the history of the company, we have made about 8 such data centers in the last year. And so that shows a bit the trend for the future years to come. And so we have a dedicated team who takes care of who deals solely then with data centers and with the planning of the whole project. civil engineering. So for the first time, we have reached then an order book record high of CHF 5.2 billion.

Why is this important? Because this volume is, let's say, disclosed then in the sectors where we then focus. So for example, tunneling and also bridge construction. And so infrastructure. And the revenue was also higher than in previous year's level. So we were expecting a higher margin, of course, but I believe that we will then obtain or we will achieve then all of our goals that we have set. And here also certain highlight projects that prove then our competencies are underlined than our specialties there's a great demand already in the market. We can -- and that is pushed by these great infrastructure projects.

So as an example, we have the so-called [indiscernible] in Berlin. That is 1 example, and we were able to do that, thanks to innovative and progressive and technology. We were able to advance and do this project like that. And just like for infrastructure, we really have a lot of demand for greater projects, especially for renovation or for new constructions for cable infrastructure. And for example, the electricity that needs to come from the northern part of Germany to the southern part and also smaller or let's say, tunnels with smaller diameters, everything is very interesting. What also shows us that how good we are then internally is these projects. So we have won in Norway, so you have here projects.

So we have a tunnel above the sea level and also with all cause of shafts, as you can see here and the connections, you can see this is in Stavanger in Norway, and Northwestern. So if you look at the whole West Coast, all the infrastructure that goes all the way to on you can see that these projects seem very big, but they are just a small part of what is still to be expected. And so you can see also the other bridges that are constructed, for example, this one at the lower bottom here, the lower corner to the right in Germany. There are a lot of bridges that need to be renovated and there's a great demand for new ones. So we are there.

Let's come to the third part, Service Solutions, that also generates higher margins and bears less risk, and that's where we want to grow. And we say -- we can see here that Wincasa makes a great part of that. And compared to the other such as the other divisions, well, here, we've got the assets under management. So in the first half year, what is interesting for you probably is that we were able to then gain CHF 83 billion in assets under management and through recently acquired mandates that are not yet reflected in this figure, meaning another CHF 33 billion, and that just marks. And emphasizes of our just as we have invested in because we also want to verify if there is any other than growth to be done in other sectors or with other perhaps new units.

And so here, other projects that show you why is all of this very relevant? Why do we try to compensate then or to add services into these divisions because we can use or benefit from the synergies. Here, for example, the shopping mall in [indiscernible] that belongs to the Swiss Prime sites. Wincasa is the one who administers this, and then Planovita is the building technical, building agency or, let's say, a company that takes over all the planning and division of buildings is modernizing this whole building.

So Stefan, before I hand over the microphone to you for the finance I have summarized these highlights in a video. So let the film role.

[Presentation]

[Interpreted] Well, hello, everyone. So all divisions performed well in the first half of the year, and that enabled us to further improve our results. So in the first half year alone, we were able to increase our order backlog by CHF 990 million to a total of CHF 7.8 billion. This corresponds to an increase of 14.6% compared to the end of -- or with the end of 2024. So we have increased revenue to CHF 1.9 billion in the first half year, representing an increase of [ 6.6% ] compared with the previous year. And due to the acquisition of additional shares in the age 41 consortium in the second half of 2024. The change to full consolidation took effect. And real estate sales also had a very positive impact on our earnings. The foreign currency effects were negligible in the first half of the year, natural hedging takes place in the operating units. In the first half year of 2025, we generated a very strong EBIT of CHF 57 million which represents an increase of CHF 6.5 million or 13% compared to the same period of the previous year. This was achieved through more profitable business across all 3 divisions.

In relation to the sales of CHF 1.9 billion, this results in an EBIT margin of 3.1%, which corresponds to an increase of 0.2 percentage points compared to the previous year. The financial results has improved slightly due to lower foreign currency losses, which were partially offset by slightly higher interest expenses. The consolidated net profit increased by 26.1% and to CHF 33.3 million, which is a strong result considering the seasonal nature of the business. In the first half year of 2025, we had a free cash flow that amounted to minus CHF 168 million. The free cash flow was significantly influenced this half year by a higher operating result, the negative development of the net working capital due to lower trade payables.

And third point the successful completion of real estate transaction. While our goal remains to generate a sustainable positive free cash flow through profitable operating business in all divisions. At the end of June, the cash and cash equivalents amounted to CHF 272 million, which was lower than usual for the season, However, still significantly above the previous year's level of CHF 218 million corresponding to an increase of CHF 54 million Other current assets increased mainly due to higher contract assets. We have taken the appropriate measures and expect that additional receivables can be settled more quickly as a result.

So we have liabilities then from services increased compared with the previous year due to additional advanced payments for new projects with working groups. And in spring, we were able to refinance the CHF 175 million bond maturing in autumn 2025 ahead of schedule. And on attractive terms with a new 222 -- sorry, [ CHF 220 million ] bond with a full year term and an interest rate of 2.5%. We also repaid a promissory note in the amount of CHF 30 million or as at the 30th of June 2025, the company had all syndicated credit facilities of CHF 200 million at its disposal as well as additional bilateral credit lines Other short-term liabilities increased due to the bond maturing in March 2026.

Despite the dividend payment, equity increased to CHF 661 million, corresponding to an increase of CHF 59.5 million compared to the previous year. And the equity ratio adjusted for the fixed term deposit from the bond was at the 30th of June 2025, 21.3%. For more than 4 years, we have generated a consistent operating result in every half year even in the first 6 months, which are seasonally weaker due to the nature of the industry. It should also be noted that Implenia generated a strong positive free cash -- strong positive free cash flows in each of the second half years. The free cash flow, which was seasonally negative in the first half of the year due to industry factors improved to minus [ CHF 168 ]. That is an improvement of CHF 40 million compared to the same period last year. In addition, we have suddenly increased our equity ratio over the last 4 years.

Implenia expects its strong operating business to result in a positive financial development in the long run. Implenia increased its EBIT by 13%. Financial year '25 guidance anticipates an increase of 7%. Based on this business performance and the outlook for the second half of the year, we confirm our guidance for the year, financial year 2025. In the medium term, we continue to aim for an EBIT margin of more than 4.5% and an equity ratio of 25%.

And now by Jens for the key investment highlights and the outlook.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Stefan. So now I will explain why Implenia is still an attractive investment opportunity. And for 6 reasons. First of all, the markets I have already mentioned that we expect sustained growth in our target markets, driven by the structural trends and rising demand. So there's urbanization, renovation also an expansion then of renewable energies and also high demand than of residential possibilities, et cetera.

Second, point. We are a leader in specialized profitable segments, such as [indiscernible] Healthcare and Property Management. Also in the data centers, we are one of the leaders and to mention -- just to mention a few examples, and that gives us a clear advantage as in a fragmented market. And third of all, I believe it is safe to say that with our risk managed met approach to their value assurance, which we master quite well. We -- I can say that our business model is diversified in terms of offerings, customers, contract types and markets and this ensures resilience and stability.

And fourth point, thanks to our value assurance approach, we have become very resilient growth is then, let's say, the volatility of the market. So we have a robust project pipeline with attractive return potential, which minimizes the risks and improves our margins. We have always had this situation in the past and in our domestic markets, we have always been invested in our domestic market. And when you want conductor projects, you want you want conjecture projects then to invest in there. We also have various types of contracts and also diversity and also because we are not only active in 1 country, but geographically spread, and that makes us very resilient and strong.

The fifth point, also our management team, which is worth mentioning. So we have been working with them for years now and in a very successful manner. So they have a different background that we have, but this all leads or let's say that this cooperation is a very good decision taken, and we also have a focused growth energy. This is designed to deliver long-term value for our investors. And I will come back to this point later. So the outlook. Well, good news. We have a very good you're construct with that infrastructure in Germany. That is a very good news. And the markets are really gigantic compared to our market share here in this enormous market.

So 1% is a lot of volume. But nevertheless, we don't want to just have a growth of 1%, but we want to become significantly greater or grow have a significant growth. And so we do not -- it's not the price but a clear differentiation that will continue to drive our growth. So it's important that we can do this differentiation over the next years, how can we do it Well, we don't want to just focus ones that someone has then planned his project and someone wants to be the cheapest. That is not our goal. What we want is to focus on complex large-scale projects, a partnership-based contract execution models and also our design and business Institute has been expanded as well.

And we have in the design and we can then include our execution know-how and then we have less bad surprises then. And another tendency that we say not only in Germany, but also in Switzerland, we can also differentiate ourselves not just with the cost of the construction but also without -- but especially with our specialization and our know-how. And so people have -- our employees have to show that they are competent that they also act in a very cooperative manner and then they go on to the project, and then that is when then the cost of constructions are established. And that's our approach. And we also have a new standard from the SIA in Switzerland here. That was published than last year, and that is the model that we follow.

And second of all, we also have a specialization in building construction and civil engineering. That's how we want to be perceived for example, with health care and also research labs. So how can -- how do the patients move or what are then the needs that is a completely different, let's say, initial situation than someone who just wants to negotiate the price. And then we've also got the defense. Why? Because we have had a high demand. We have a certain expertise in that area because we have done some projects like [indiscernible] the airport of and also this [ 1 billion ] package has been used, and then they have also invested then for additional defense measures by our government. And so now we have started to be prepared to get prepared then for this, and we have recruited specialists in this area. And so we are expecting to do more in this sector.

And also internally, I don't think that anyone can come and say that you are not a specialist and for tunneling after everything that we have done, we are in high demand at the international level. And there's another area in Europe. We are also the leader in the in the pump hydraulic plants and because we have the know-how for that. And with all of these competencies, we also want to grow in a selective manner geographically. And last but not least, I said it we understand than buildings in the infrastructure because we also do the administration. We know what is you needed them for life cycle costs or the managing those.

And everything comes into at a very early stage and into the planning, all the snow now that we have. And so that is why everything is still very relevant. And we want to see them besides the organic growth, if we have other further opportunities organically and inorganically. And then I would like to come back to the next group. Implenia is growing, but we grew with differentiated and offers. And then next year, we will then focus on our growth with this differentiation in order then to achieve our higher margin expectations.

So I would like to come to the conclusion of my part, Silvan, the word. The floor is yours.

[Interpreted] Thank you very much, Jens. So we have some dates here for in our calendar. So we have the year-end results in 2025 on the 4th of March 2026, and investors sorry, and also our general assembly on the 31st of March 2026. And here are the contact data for the people if you wish to contact them for questions.

[Interpreted] And now we'd like to move on to the Q&A Jens and Stefan, could you please meet me here come to me here on the stage. So whether you would like to post questions in Germany or in English, it doesn't matter. You can do it here in the room. And on the chat, it's possible. Just please -- and to your questions in the chat, and we will then have someone who will give us a sign when there is a question then to answer. So who would like to take the initiative who would like to pose the first question here in the audience. Here I see a hand that is raised on the left, please just say who you are and please ask your question.

[Interpreted] I am Alexandra Bossert from UBS. I have a question regarding Surface Solutions. So Mr. Vollmar, you said that you endeavor growth in the preaudit parts and also in [ Vikasa ] is there going to be another mergers and acquisition. If so, and what are the financial -- or what is the financial framework.

[Interpreted] Well, that's one of the possibilities for growth. We also have an organic or inorganic growth activities. We have in [indiscernible] I don't know if you know that. we have certain buildings for -- that have to do with physics and acoustics and we have a lot of great demand here. So that is actually the organic. And of course, if there are other possibilities, of course, we will have a look into it. They have to match then our level of now have course and also match our portfolio. And if we have opportunities, of course, then we will have a look at these projects for sure.

[Interpreted] Yes. But for the investment-grade rating in order to defend that, would you be also ready to increase the capital for an M&A?

[Interpreted] No, that is not a topic at the moment, absolutely not.

[Interpreted] Thank you very much, Mrs. Bossert. Are there any other questions? Of course, you may ask questions also in the chat. So to whom may I hand over to microphone. Holger Frisch of the Zurich Kantonalbank.

[Interpreted] So a question to Civil Engineering. You have had a very good proportional growth and also a very good turnover sales. My question is, what role does civil engineering play relating to those 4% of margin?

[Interpreted] That's a very good question. So first of all, the margins the reduction of the margin is really in a minimal area, and it was only then for the first half year because we always have this -- because of the seasonality. Are we happy with this [indiscernible] no, but not we're not just satisfied in every area. So we still have growth in channeling and also with bridges. Those are very attractive business activities for margins, of course, we have a certain potential for improvement. We're working on that. And civil engineering is still one of the very important significant drivers of Implenia over the next years in Europe and also in our domestic markets, we will have infrastructure construction. So we are convinced that we will be able to improve our margins in that area because of the higher volume. And you see it in the order book and also the precalculated modules.

All the projects we were able to gain or to acquire have a higher margin than in the past. You probably noticed this. We have a record or let's say, a highest value for the first a year, and that is thanks to the new projects that we have acquired. And so Civil Engineering will remain or continue to remain a very important part to add something, it's important that the new projects that we are acquiring are more in specialized areas. And so -- and they're more likely to projects, the Me 2 projects are the ones that we want to reduce. And so the development of the margin will be predictable in the midterm.

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. I hand over the microphone to [indiscernible]

[Interpreted] I have a question to civil engineer. If you have a look at 2023, you had 2% in '24, 2.2%. Is it safe then to deduct to interpret this that all projects are still included with a very low margin because you are the absolute specialist when it comes to tunneling or also urbanization or even the consumption of bridges. I mean, that is something that needs to be verified in the future. There are not very many, let's say, companies who are capable of doing what you do. And so if you can tell me in the midterm, what your margin -- what is the margin you're endeavoring to you want then in civil engineering in the midterm.

[Interpreted] The 7.5% is the margin of the projects. Thomas, that is before we then charge then the functional costs because, of course, we won't have 7.5%. And last but not least, we don't guide our divisions with margins. But of course, as you said, Implenia is specialized and tunneling. And so we also have higher margins and then per end of the year, we will also see an increase then of margins. There's my colleague here in the front row, who is then nodding with his head. And so otherwise, the growth would not be pushed if we thought that we wouldn't be able to achieve this. And please do not forget that for the fast the first half year cannot be compared then to the entire year because of the seasonality. There are certain prescriptions, and there are a lot of things that to take into consideration. So we just have to follow up on the rest of the year to have a concrete picture.

[Interpreted] Okay. Another question here in the audience.

[Interpreted] I have a question regarding the Buildings division. So there, you had a very good EBIT. Could you perhaps do a breakdown of that EBIT how much has come from the transaction, perhaps also in comparison to the previous year? And how much was the Ina transaction or how much is allocated to the intend how were the margins.

[Interpreted] Yes. So the Swiss properties that was mentioned by Stefan, that is very low, let's say, million figure. And so that was not a great driver of the change. But the rest of the result is composed of -- is more of half of the result comes from the infrastructure and another part from real estate transactions. But if I'm just to talk about infrastructure that made about 10% without the Real Estate part. Is that correct?

[Interpreted] Yes. Yes, absolutely perfect.

[Interpreted] Okay, to the right at the back of the room, Torsten Sauter.

[Interpreted] I have a question to Mr. Vollmar, if I can pose my question directly. What would you do -- or what will you do differently than what your predecessor did what I noticed is that there has been then say, less staff now [indiscernible]

[Interpreted] I don't think it's about differentiation to history of what we have done in the past. We just look at the next phase, what is right for Implenia and the topics that we have, like I said, we want -- we emphasize and on differentiation. It is also due then to the history because while we went through a phase where we went through a transformation phase. And in the future, we want to grow. And how we go about this? Well, that's what I tried to explain. And yes, of course, we have also lost certain employees, what we want to do and what we need to do is we have to make sure that we become -- or that we work in a more cost-effective manner. It's very important that at the levels of the functions that we can have a very cost-efficient support for all of our operative tasks and activities.

And that is one of the drivers or one of the reasons why the number of employees in the first half year has been reduced. That was outcome then and we will see what the future outcome will be. But as I said, it's not a question about doing something completely different than what we have done in the past, but we want to know what is decisive of what is very important for Implenia.

[Interpreted] Who else would like to pose a question. Here at the front question, Christian.

[Interpreted] You mentioned the example in Scotland then with nuclear plant. We haven't spoken much about Scotland. We have spoken about Switzerland and Germany. You also have Austria and the Nordic countries. Will Implenia expand more in the future? Geographically speaking, will you Will we be able to see more activities in other countries where you are not present, be it with buildings or civil engineers? Well, I know that buildings are concentrated more in Switzerland and Germany. But is that also something that you might consider?

[Interpreted] Well, that's what was mentioned, yes, on the last slide. Yes, geographically, we want to grow in our lines of specialty. I mean, it is -- okay, you can say that 99% of certain projects than just are not interesting for us. But if we can have -- we go about it selectively, and we verify, is it something that we can do with the partnership, for example, and if we think or believe that we are successful, then we will do it. Why not infrastructure? Well, in infrastructure and from the past, we know that we have a lot of experience. Organic growth in infrastructure is difficult because you rely on local partners, subcontractors. And so you have different than materials and also companies.

And you cannot offer that as, let's say, a general total contractor. You can't say, I will construct that anyway, so you need to know how you need local partners. You know needs contractors. And you have to also to understand the all the regulatory instances or [ organs ]. In Real Estate, it's easier. They have a lot of practice. You don't have thousands of suppliers. You just have -- you need a very good team who can then lead the projects and you have a bit of administration to do also. But is geographically much easier with civil engineering. So it was Civil Engineering, not Real Estate, I was talking about then in infrastructure. And so of course, we want to open up then for civil engineering, but it doesn't mean that we are completely shutting the doors. Now we are still open -- but let's just say that for the moment, we don't have any other countries in view only the ones in which we are working for the moment.

[Interpreted] So last question so perspective. You were speaking about the infrastructure in Germany and also about defense you said that you'll want to benefit those activities. I'm sure you're not the only one. But what is your concrete strategy? What are the measures that Implenia wants to implement to have their share of the pie.

[Interpreted] Well, we need to see what are the capacities in Germany and what are the expenses because we have the public -- the government has a lot event of demand there, but we will, of course, be able to benefit then with an increase of our revenue, and we are recruiting teams and also staff that are capable then of leading these projects, but it will have a great impact also on the level of the price because we don't have the capacity today to be able to execute all projects quickly. So we have 2 effects. We are an attractive employer and employee of choice. Our image in Germany is different than 5 years ago, we have invested a lot in the markets and for the building up the markets in Germany. And today, we are able, through cooperations with high schools -- sorry, with universities, we are able then to recruit a lot of engineers. And besides our infrastructure, we also have something we are building up for these special utilities.

I mean I think -- we have about 10 years of modernization experience. And today, we have a network then of branches who work in their own markets, and they work on other projects. Of course, they have their markets. And in Switzerland, we have -- in Switzerland, we have had the modernization that has been built up parallel to this, and it didn't have any impact on the other projects. And so we are going to do that. And just as I said, for the data centers, for example, we are constructing health care and labs and also an organization unit then for defense. And these projects are going to increase. So we are doing various things. the market is very big and 70% more or less, I believe, are projects where the prices or let's say, the cost will increase. And so we hope that by entering in these markets or perhaps and winning these tenders or these projects, we will be able to increase our margins, among other things.

[Interpreted] Another question from [ Lucas Bow ] from [ Tegris ] Capital.

[Interpreted] So after a growth of 6.6% in the first half year, based on these growth expectations, what are your expectations actually for the entire year.

[Interpreted] So we don't give any forecast for the growth. We have our guidance of that I mentioned today, and we can confirm that. And what is also to be said, well, in the midterm, we will also increase our revenues. I think that is a clear thing, but I don't want to make any forecast then for the concrete, let's say growth expectations for the entire year. You see in the market based on very attractive volumes, a general improvement, pricing margin situation and can Implenia now do more cherry picking. Well, that's what we are trying to say or to convey actually because of all this, that's why the environment is so, let's say, agreeable, we can focus on the partners where we can say, well, these are partnership contractual models in Switzerland, we call it, a flat run or a race.

And so it's not just we are being called upon them for an execution of a project and they -- it's just all the question of negotiating the price. You can see it in the -- in the past, you have lose-lose and win lose constellations or bad quality or that all of that, that had led to projects. So what we want we want to create added value also for the owner. We want the owner to be happy in the end, and we also want to be happy. And empirical data shows us that these kind of contractual models is beneficial for all the involved parties, and we don't want to have, let's say, a side contract just to cover some risks. So we have become more selective. And we see that despite the very, let's say, selective choice that we do, we can see that we still have a potential then for growth.

[Interpreted] [indiscernible] asking question in English.

[indiscernible] and 2026. And by how much can you expand capacity going into 2026.

[Interpreted] Well, also, we're not going to give any guidance on the order backlog. But what is clear is that once again. And we have -- there's almost 3 months that have passed. We have had a very positive order backlog also in infrastructure and it's important to emphasize this because infrastructure is also a very important part of the group, and it has shown some growth, and it will be able then also to continue on this growth path in the second half year. That's a positive development and also infrastructure in Germany, that's the good part about it. We have not only growth in Switzerland. We also have some in Germany, although they are sort of behind -- somewhat behind. But we think that our competence offers are still attractive.

[Interpreted] If I can add my 2 cents. So do we have the resources? That is the question. What is also important to mention is that -- it's also very scalable than projects. So we have our core competencies then for certain projects, but we also have subcontractors in our partnership network, and they have worked for years with us, and they have a lot of experience. And so we can do -- it's also scalable the projects that we do and that's beneficial.

For the margin expansion to 4.5% and beyond? And is that likely to be linear? Or is it going to be back-end loaded to '27, '28 and beyond?

[Interpreted] Well, those drivers, it's nothing new. It's nothing surprised. What we have to do is then to improve our contemporary business, our present business -- it has to do with value insurance. So it means that we want to select the projects that bring in a higher margin and new models organically, nonorganically, Wincasa was also a very important part of that with Wincasa, PlanoVita, building construction, logistics and see, we have been able to do activities with a higher margin. And we are then building up or setting up then this organic growth, and it could also happen inorganically or inorganically. But anyways, we're on the right path, perhaps with an M&A, it would last -- it took a bit longer, perhaps within M&A, it would accelerate things.

[Interpreted] Can you perhaps be a bit more explicit about the measures for the improvement of the net working capital.

[Interpreted] So we have already taken certain measures. I say the first one is for projects that have to do with tunneling, where we have geological changes with, for example, leaks of water, something that A very good example because I think that's one that everyone will understand is, for example, with the bore machine at the front, when you see them turn in the rocks, sometimes you have greater [ rot ] particles. And you have -- you have additional cost because you know that the bore head will then be used much quicker. And that is something that we have developed ourselves. So we have a camera technical technique that measures than the rot particles. And then if it is bigger than what we usually encounter in that case, it already starts recalculate and that is something that we can [ reinvoice ] okay. So intelligent activists have noticed that the rock particles are much greater than usual, and so it recalculates the costs.

As of next year, what we are going to introduce is also an internal interest rates for the incentivation then of projects or I think that we are of the opinion that we can emphasize this -- we -- we've had incentive structures within the net working capital. But what we want to do is, for example, there are quite a lot of measures we could do. But one is that we can for example, change or just -- or charge then the interest rate then internally because that is when the employees will notice the capital cost something and that men cannot do everything for free.

[Interpreted] Martin Husler has another question regarding Buildings.

[Interpreted] Will there be more -- so the question -- 2 buildings. So during the second semester, will there be more purchases of land? And what are your expectations for the redevelopment for the whole year.

[Interpreted] So we have purchased a new plot. So real estate is going to remain a very important part of our strategies. So we have CHF 30 million to CHF 40 million of EBIT in a very sustainable basis. And so we have to continue then to invest in real estate. So we had a discussion on strategy lately. So perhaps we will not do much in greater areas because there aren't that many existing anymore. But there are a lot of opportunities in residential buildings for example, where plan can use their local footprint, a very good example that we had, the sales that we had done was a real estate transaction that we had done 2 years before, but it worked so well, but we were able to conclude this.

And I think that everyone agrees on the earlier days, we wanted to know a question is living in winter to something interesting. And we -- people were not -- were quite insecure. No one really knew what the market in winter would be like, for example, this huge industrial building that we had, well, we were successful. And so I believe. What we do, we try and verify if we can also have a look in the peripheral areas. Is there something to do? Is there perhaps a potential project? What does it look like? And we assume that we will do something smaller perhaps also in the future, be it on the purchase side or on the buy side or on the selling side.

[Interpreted] Thank you very much. And so we have a question then from -- which external and internal factors of the company do you do you base then the significant increase of order backlogs which indicators do you use internally then for your order backlog for the next quarters?

[Interpreted] Well, you need a client who says that Implenia is the right partner for this project. That's what we need. So we have an increase in the public sector. It has nothing to do then with politics of environment, but it has to do with technical competence. And the IPAA projects, we were able to gain and to win for example, otherwise, it's just the typical economic drivers that are important or relevant. And so urbanization and also infrastructure within the cities and all that -- from which we could also benefit.

And so what we do is, of course, we also have a look at the backlog from month to month and to see -- and that's where we get our transparency. We know so which are the -- what are the projects that are being tendered, which ones are being executed in the value insurance. And so that's the ones where we see then from the changes? Have we won or have we gained a project or not?

[Interpreted] So thank you very much. [ Calero Capital ] asks...

[indiscernible]

[Interpreted] In the order book or are you talking about revenue? It's not specified. Okay. Well, well, because otherwise, it wouldn't make sense, would it -- the [ CHF 100 million ] are majorly from the [ age 41 ] tunnel activities, and there's a slight increase for the rest.

[indiscernible] expect to normalize.

[Interpreted] Oh, I need to help on that. What does that mean? In German, oh, you mean the positions in the balance sheet, active assets or passive liabilities or what do you mean? The interpreter cannot hear the person in the audience, unfortunately, not using the microphone. So you mean invoiced. As I said, well, our net working capital in the first half year has increased slightly. We need to improve that, and that is driven by the claims especially and also the geological changes. And so it takes a certain time then to invoice that, and that is the main driver or let's say, the main driver of these additional let's say, orders that we -- that need time then to be invoiced and it depends also on the volume. And so that is the main driver. And we are focusing and making sure that in the next half year, that, that will decrease.

[Interpreted] We have questions for a few last questions. We have time. Sorry, for a few last questions here in the audience. I see a hand at the very back of -- the audience. [indiscernible]

Do you already know in advance what you are not doing to do yourself, but subcontract. And in general, what percentage of the work do you subcontract and what margin is left when you do so?

[Interpreted] I think you have to differentiate between infrastructure and Civil Engineering. Thank you for the question. So how big is the so the own in infrastructure, well, it's lower because we have some ready parts that are already done the preconstructed so in subcontracted. So you have others who works with metals and then they come then afterwards -- it's also a very low, let's say, a figure that -- where we are able to execute. In Civil Engineering, we have a higher value creation because we have a lot of blue collars. And so when we come to the tenders, we first verify the parameters.

So you have a demand then for planning, then sometimes we also have a draft and of the construction contract and do we have the right person then for the treatment then of the tenders and for the execution -- are there any no-gos in that contract where we will say very sorry we cannot sign such a contract, so we don't even start with [indiscernible] or calculation. So what are these subcontractors who are then available? Do they exist? Do they have the right know-how that we want? There are certain that are able to execute this task or not? Or is there a certain competency with certain subcontractors. So those are the typical questions. how high the percentage is the sharing percentage is -- well, it depends. Sometimes we do things ourselves. Sometimes, we find something who can execute the work for us. So we know what we are able to do at that moment, but it can also change. And so it's not the greatest question that preoccupies us then in the tender, let's say, during the project selection meeting. The first question that we ask is, do we have the competencies, who is the client who is demanding this project. So those are the standard questions that we respond to. And the margin that remains, well, you will see it in the results, won't you.

Are there any more urgent questions? Otherwise, we will remain at your disposal out there because -- we are about to close this Q&A conference. So thank you very much for your questions, and Jens and Stefan, you for the answers. And we are summit coming to the closure then of our conference, and we will expect you then for our launch outside the room. And so thank you very much for having been here. Thank you very much for your trust in Implenia.