Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our call on the results for the second quarter of '26.

To start with the highlights, the second quarter developed as expected, with the trend we saw in the first quarter of this year continuing. That means strong performance in DACH, improved profitability in our global business, and still a challenging performance in the Netherlands.

Besides that, it has been a very hectic and busy quarter. I want to mention a couple of items that passed, or happened, in the second quarter.

I want to start with the conflict in the Middle East, and I want to start with the people aspect of it. In the second quarter, they tried to get the Ras Laffan plant live again and up and running in Qatar that was impacted by attacks earlier this year.

In doing so, they encountered a huge explosion that resulted in 13 casualties and 66 injured people, including one of our specialists. A huge tragedy, and also another setback for that region.

Then to the other elements. The second quarter was also the first time this year that we saw the entire quarter impacted by the conflict in the Middle East.

Our activity level dropped immediately after the conflict started at the end of February, and then remained relatively stable after that. It also means that now we have 3 months impacted in the quarter, and that explains why the trend is a touch softer than we saw in the first quarter.

Especially with the huge revenue and EBIT contribution the Middle East still has on our group, and I'm really proud of the resilience of our performance in that region, and even more proud of the dedication of our team and all our specialists working in that region. Another element that happened in the second quarter is that we formally announced and started the execution of our updated strategy.

We had our Capital Markets Day, we had also internal kickoff, and I'm very encouraged by the progress we're making so far. To mention a couple of items there, we're expanding our teams in power and grid, and defense, the new verticals, and also making progress on our revenue in those segments.

Not yet enough to disclose it separately, but we're making nice progress, very happy with it. The other part is the continuation of our AI implementation.

We have a Neo solution that's a completely AI-driven solution for our services and our interaction with clients and candidates. We started piloting that in Q4 last year, and that's going so successful that we decided to accelerate the rollout to all regions in the course of this year.

Nice progress there, and nice results as well. Another element, and I started already with the challenging performance in the Netherlands, in April our new managing director in the Netherlands started, and she immediately embraced the strategy.

She's not taking, let's say, the first 100 days to observe the situation, but she's already impacting our activities. Far, I'm really happy with the progress we're making, and that also includes the refocus again on the engineering market in the Netherlands, where it all started for Brunel and where we used to be very strong, but we lost a lot of market share and we want to regain that.

Then finally, in the quarter, we have been recognized as one of the fastest growing staffing companies in the US, and that's measured over the last 5 years on the CAGR, and, yeah, we're in the top 50 there, one of the bigger companies. Also proud of that performance.

With that, I want to hand it over to Twan for the financial details.

Thank you, Peter. Good morning, everyone.

If we can go one back to the financial—

yeah,

thank you. In terms of the quarter 2 results, where we're close to the 300 million, as Peter mentioned, we're a little bit softer than that given the impact of the Middle East.

Still a big part of the Middle East is holding its revenue and the margins, and we'll get back later to that, but we see growth not coming through as expected. Gross profit is 52 million.

That's organically and also reporting-wise about 1% down. Gross margin stayed stable at 17.3%.

We also see there the impact of the perm revenue, where we continue to see growth of about 6% in the quarter and even 20% year-to-date. Operating cost still favorable compared to last year.

These obviously are the cost reduction programs we initiated last year, but also, as mentioned, those will be partly used also for investments in sales, business development, and the new strategy. Also there we start to see the impact in quarter 2, and also expect that impact of the investments for the remaining part of the year.

Underlying EBIT then at 6 million for the quarter, which is stable from a reporting perspective and organically 2% up this quarter. Then for the H1 results, 597 million, about 300 million per quarter.

Then the trends are more or less the same for gross profit, organic 1% down, operating cost also down for the first half, and then EBIT is 3% up organic for the first half at 14 million round. If we then dive a little bit deeper into the regions, Peter already mentioned, we have continued to see good performance in DACH compared to last year with about a 12% organic revenue growth year-on-year, and a positive EBIT contribution of €800,000 compared to a loss of last year.

Momentum is there. Netherlands and Belgium, there we have seen the negative impact both in revenue as well as EBIT, and the turnaround is in full progress, as also Peter highlighted.

Then for the global business in total, stable revenue, but a growth in underlying profitability, whereby obviously Middle East indeed is a bit down, as already indicated before, both in revenue as well as profitability. The other regions are doing well in terms of profitability.

We also discussed in Q1 that Asia, although revenue is down, that is for a big part also driven by a change in service model there for certain customers where we serve much more secondment services where we do get the full margin or our full fees, but not the full top line as we see for some of our other services. Profitability is still strong there with a 9% growth in the quarter.

That is for Q2. Then H1, I will be short, as the trends are the same, both for DACH, the Netherlands, as well as the global business.

The main outlier here is that we still see Middle East in combination with a strong Q1 show an organic growth for the first half, but still a little bit less profitability given the challenges there in the second quarter. Perm revenue, already mentioned, 20% up for the first half.

Then 14 million EBIT for the quarter, which is 3% up organically. Gross margin, this shows the split in gross margin as well as revenue by region.

We've also split this as we have introduced in the Capital Markets Day between Europe and the global business. You can see at the bottom that we see margin challenges in the European business, in the Netherlands, but specifically also in DACH.

That is where we see strong revenue growth, but also we see supplier consolidation at our customers. We've also indicated that last time, where we see more revenue, but then sometimes at lower margins.

Then in the global business, gross profit up with 7%, and also the gross margin is up, and that is partly that service mix in specifically Asia. That is what I would like to highlight here.

Then we go a little bit deeper into the regions, starting with DACH. Again, 30% increase in revenue, margin of 24%, although lower than last year for the reasons that I mentioned.

The cost program that we introduced last time has had its full impact and also shows in a stronger bottom line for a total EBIT of 800,000 compared to a loss last year in the quarter. Then Netherlands and Belgium, and here also with the scope of the new managing director, we have decided to combine also in our reporting the Netherlands and Belgium together, where obviously Netherlands is by far the bigger part of that.

Then the revenue decline that we have shown is a combination of the market challenges that we see, but also with the organizational changes. Also that is impacting in the short term the performance.

In line with the low activity level, also cost has been reducing, and we will stay vigilant in terms of cost levels. Also we want to make sure that we set up the organization for success for growth.

Then, as Peter already mentioned, the turnaround program is progressing well. Australasia is continuing a strong performance that we also did see in prior quarters, revenue still up year-on-year, gross margin increased with 11.5% and is 100 basis points up compared to last year, and the EBIT increased or improved 11% organically to 1.9 million.

Strong performance of the team there and also with a strong conversion ratio. The Americas, also there we continue to see good performance, a growth of organically 6% year-on-year in the quarter.

Gross margin also increased there slightly with 50 basis points. Underlying EBIT, despite the increase in margin and revenue, was flat, and that is also reflecting the continued investments we're making in the region to take advantage of the opportunities that we see there.

Conversion ratio close to 24%. Middle East, I think most has been said already by Peter about this region and also the resilience of the team there focusing on customers and contractors.

Obviously, there has been some impact on the top line and the bottom line, and specifically we also see that new projects and new growth is being pushed out. We see a slight decline in revenue as well as in bottom line, and we stay vigilant here on cost.

Also the region here continues to have the highest conversion ratio, and we want to make sure that we are ready for growth when that returns. Asia, already mentioned there the service mix.

At the one hand, the revenue decline of 13% looks like a lot, but underlying, we see limited impact in our gross profit, and even margins are then improving given the service mix. EBIT was flat year-on-year, reflecting that swap in services between top line and margin.

Also here we continue to invest in future growth, and conversion ratio stable around 33%. Then the rest of world, that is a combination of Europe and Africa and Telco/Ericsson.

As mentioned before, Belgium has moved to the Netherlands and is now the Netherlands and Belgium together. Here we see that revenue increased across this rest of world region with about 9% organically.

Margins are also up close to 200 basis points, or more than 200 basis points. Then also EBIT returns to positive area, 800,000 profit compared to a small loss last year.

Also here performance is picking up, and that is also contributing to the good performance in the global business. Then if we add that up, I've touched on most.

Already mentioned that perm business has been up 6% in the quarter, 20% year-to-date. Gross margin is flat, and then underlying EBIT is up 2%, also on the back of still good cost control across the regions.

Then this shows the gross profit by vertical. As Peter mentioned, the new verticals will be reported later, but not at this stage.

Conventional energy is more or less flat, obviously also impacted by the Middle East conflict. Renewables shows growth, as well as mining.

Future mobility shows some growth. That of course is also the impact of the growth that we see in DACH and Germany.

Then in the Netherlands, you see some decline in the financial and public sectors, in line with what we also reported in prior quarters. Then moving on to net profit, we showed a net profit of slightly over 5 million, that compares to a loss, slight loss last year.

Last year, as you can recall, we booked quite some one-off costs related to the restructuring that we did at that moment. In this quarter, we did book some one-off costs.

There's still some small restructuring going on here and there, and also there's some strategy and transformation costs included in that 1.3 million. Earnings per share at 10 cents compared to 1 cent last year, and then the tax rate has normalized to around 35%.

Last year, that was much higher given quite some special items, but this is normalized tax rate that we also expect for the remaining part of the year. Then cash flow, as usual with the seasonality, we see negative cash flow in the first half of the year, negative 14 million.

That was less negative than the year before, and basically this follows the usual seasonality, specifically of our receivables. A net debt position of 4 million, which compares to about 32 million net cash at the end of the year, and then restricted cash out of that is close to 11 million, in line with end of last year.

Of course, the cash position also reflects the dividend payout that was done in June of this year. Then the outlook, this is in line with what we have seen in Q2 and also Q1.

We will remain cautious here, also given the macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainties, specifically in the Middle East and any fallout of that. We expect the trends to continue, meaning DACH, global business, and the Netherlands, as well as the Middle East, we expect the same trends to continue for Q3.

With that, handing back over to you.

Then I want to open the floor for any questions you might have.

Thank you, operator, and good morning, gentlemen. I have a question on operating leverage.

You have saved roughly 30 million in costs since Q2 2024, and we see, despite top line being slightly negative in Q2, that underlying EBIT is up 2% organically. When can we expect a bit more operating leverage from all the cost-savings initiatives that you have done so far?

Then secondly, I was wondering on the dynamic of your temp versus perm business. We see permanent placement or permanent recruitment being up 6% organically and contracting revenue down 2% organically in the quarter.

Curious to hear your thoughts on what is driving the, let's say, difference in perm versus contracting.

Hi, Simon, good morning. In terms of the leverage, we have seen over the last quarters, as you mentioned, the last 18 months, significant improvement in our cost base.

Obviously, we've also seen reduction in revenue and with that margin and some margin pressure, specifically in Europe. The lower cost base is fully into the numbers.

In the meantime, we're also investing. What obviously we're getting ready for is growth, and also achieving that growth with no or very limited additional cost.

You see that we've bottomed out in Q1 and Q2. Obviously, Middle East is a bit uncertain, but that operating leverage will start to show as we start to grow as well.

Obviously, the lower cost base is fully there.

Maybe as a follow-up, what do you expect to achieve in an environment where your top line remains relatively flat, how much operating leverage going forward?

We do expect growth, right? The lower cost base is there, Simon.

Obviously, if we would not grow moving forward, then we would need to relook at cost since we have invested in growth, but we do expect growth to return also with the new strategy and the focus on new verticals. Have no concerns that operating leverage will start to show moving forward.

Or slightly rephrased, if the growth does not materialize, what we don't expect, then we need to reduce the cost.

Yeah. All right.

Thank you.

Perm versus perm, nice question. Temp has a slightly different, let's say, cyclicality than perm.

Typically, our clients start building their own organizations first, and that's where we can help them with perm before they start hiring external contractors, and that's temp, of course. That means it's promising that perm is picking up.

That's promising for what will happen with the temp activities, and that's also why we are expecting growth.

All right. That's very helpful.

Thank you very much.

To add to that, I'm also very pleased that perm is doing well across the globe and all verticals that we do perm in.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, good morning. Thank you.

A question on your performance in the Netherlands. Can you explain to us in a bit more detail what you see in terms of timing of the refocusing on engineering?

What's going to happen to your other activities like in financial services and the public sector? Also, in Q2, your revenues were down 21%, the cost base was down 8%.

Obviously, that cost base will continue to come down further, but when do you think that will be aligned with the developments in your revenue base?

Good questions. The timing on the focus, obviously we started immediately after we implemented all the changes in April this year with the focus on engineering.

That starts with building your teams and intensifying our client relationship. It's a bit hard to put an exact timing on it when we will see the benefits of that.

I'm cautiously optimistic that towards the end of this year we will see the first real benefits of that. What will happen with the other verticals?

We continue to have a strong position in those in financial services and the public sector. Those verticals, the markets are declining there.

I'm convinced that we will continue to do well in those markets, but I don't expect any significant growth coming from those verticals. Then finally, I agree that there is a mismatch between our current cost level and our revenue and margin level in the Netherlands.

Most of the reset should be done by the start of next year so that next year we'll have a more decent profitability in the Netherlands. Not yet at the levels we've seen in the past, but, yeah, a nice uptick.

Okay. Then I'd like to hear a bit more about the word "refocusing" because from what you just said, I understand that you're going to keep the other businesses.

You even said they will continue to do well. To be honest, if I look at the performance in Q2 with both financial services and the public sector down more than 30% year-on-year, I wouldn't classify that as doing well.

What's going to happen to those people in those businesses? Will they continue to remain employed?

Will they get the backing from the management? How do you see that develop?

Yeah.

To start, they have the backing of the management. In those verticals, the cost level pretty much have been adjusted to the activity level.

The overall performance of those verticals is not too bad, I would say. It's not visual in the overall numbers because of the investments we're doing in all the engineering verticals, where we're, yeah, expanding our sales teams to make sure that, yeah, we can be more successful in the engineering verticals.

Right. Okay.

Then maybe as a final question on this topic. I think that engineering at the moment is about 30%, 35% of your business in the Netherlands.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's roughly the ballpark number. Let's say you're 1 year ahead and you've done all the things that you wanted to do.

What percentage of your overall revenues in the Netherlands do you think consists of engineering?

Yeah. Your current assessment of what engineering is in the total business in the Netherlands is pretty accurate.

For next year, we should see the first benefits and then resulting in that it will go to 42 between 40% and 50% of our overall business. It does take time to, yeah, regain what we've lost.

Yeah. Okay.

Thank you very much.

Good morning. Let's see what's left.

I first want to discuss the outlook. You say trends are continuing from what we observed in the second quarter.

I would say comps are getting quite a bit easier. How should I read that in and also with Germany, resilient cuz we accelerate from +7% to +12%.

Comps feel easy. Should we expect then a sort of low-double-digit growth to continue?

Is that what you're trying to say, or is it still going higher because of easier comps? The same a bit for the other regions, cuz, yeah.

It's the latter part. The sequential trend will continue, and helped by the easier comps, then that will show improved trend year-on-year.

Okay.

That should improve, okay. What do you see in Germany?

Because you had a bit of an acceleration, if I read the outlook, it feels a bit more cautious. Is it because it's stagnating a bit, the quarter-on-quarter improvement in volumes, or what do you see there?

Yeah.

It is stagnating a bit overall. That's the balance of continued challenging automotive market, and you surely have read the BMW announcement this week.

That's not helping. We see the other verticals, and especially defense, power and grid, and wider energy, we see continued growth there.

The uncertainty is that it's not fully clear how challenging automotive is and how fast we can grow in the other ones.

Cuz you see in automotive that things are stagnating or coming down a bit further.

Correct.

Yeah. Okay.

Then on the Middle East, as expected, the trend came down. You flagged it also at the Q1 numbers, project delays.

What is the current situation? What should we expect for the second half?

Will that come down a bit further because of all the tensions still ongoing and strikes and what have you? What should we expect?

Can we go -10%, or will stay at this level with internal

trend? It will go down slightly more.

That's just because projects are completed and no new ones are started. That's only very small impact.

Okay.

That's based on what we see today.

In the Netherlands, to come down on that again, yeah.

That's based on what we see today, but there's a lot of things changing there all the time, obviously.

Yeah. Clear.

Then on the Netherlands, to come down on that again, cuz I feel a bit like Konrad, that if your business is down 40% and you see the numbers behind it in segmental split, you think we're going to talk quite small numbers. What makes you certain that in financial services, with your position there, that it won't continue to go down as long as AI is maybe getting rid of some of those repetitive jobs in financial services?

Shouldn't you just take a decision and at some point, "Hey, we refocus here. We invest in engineering.

At the same time, you're still underwater a bit in the other two verticals." Why don't you just make a bigger cuts and say, "Well, we take a decision here.

We want to be positioned there," cuz now indeed, the cost base is only down 8% because you're holding on to some staff and they might be a bit idle and unproductive. Shouldn't you take a decision there?

I already addressed that there's a mismatch between cost and activity level, and that needs to be fixed.

Yeah.

At the moment, the performance and the development in both financial services and public sector is pretty stable. Longer term, I fully agree that those verticals might be impacted more by AI.

At the moment, we still see more than sufficient opportunity there to continue doing that. They are profitable, the verticals, and we're using those, yeah, proceeds to invest in our engineering verticals.

I would say that the productivity must be very low when you're down 40%. I think cannot be that they make really good margins, or at least margins that are No, but

to put it a little bit in perspective, our ratio direct to indirect for public sector and financial services is 1 to 10. In engineering, it's 1 to 5 or 1

to 6-es. Okay.

That's a totally different gross margin apparently, but No, no,

no, the gross margin is similar.

Maybe that should also go up, hè? 1 to 5, 6, maybe with AI tools that should also go to 1 to 10, I'm just saying, but

No, but the low

forty lines is of the other staff is

No, the low direct to indirect ratio is especially the result of the investments we're doing in the engineering vertical. That ratio should also go to 1 to 10.

Oh,

okay, okay, okay, sorry. That's clear.

Then maybe on the cash position, the final question. Can you give us a bit of feel for the second half?

Cuz I know seasonality, dividend payments, et cetera, et cetera. Would you say you will come out, that depends of course on the growth in the fourth quarter, I fully understand that, but ballpark, with the rather stable trends that you're currently seeing, would you arrive a bit around the same level as last year or a bit higher or a bit lower?

What would you guess?

Thanks, Marc. Last year we were around 35 million.

That would really be the upper side of the range, I would say. Of course, it depends on growth and how much working capital we need to keep for that.

As usual, the second half is cash generating for the business, we expect that. Again, 35 is at the higher side.

Okay. That's clear.

Thanks very much.

You're welcome. Thank you, Marc.

Hi, thanks again. I would like to ask a question on your performance in Asia.

I think it was very good, particularly because you were able to keep your profits flat year-on-year while your top line came down. You mentioned in your prepared remarks that it was partly down to a business mix difference.

I think you mentioned secondment. I just wanted to check, is that a deliberate decision to focus more on permanent placement?

Is secondment, is that what you refer to as permanent placement, or is that something else? If it's not a deliberate decision, can you talk us through the market dynamics as you see them, which explain the difference in profit and revenue development?

Absolutely. To start, it's absolutely a deliberate decision.

What we consider secondment is where we support our clients for their staff with all the global mobility matters to make sure that they can work compliantly in country. As a result, we only get a monthly fee instead of that we also have to pay the salaries, which also increases your revenue.

For secondment, we only have the fee, which is a monthly fee and that's 100% margin. That's a deliberate decision of a new service offering that we have implemented.

Secondment is not perm. Right,

right.

The global mobility part is very important for everything we do in Asia, also the contracting. That's also why we are able to offer it as a standalone service to our clients for their own staff.

Is it because your clients demand you to provide these services, or is it that you've decided to offer these services yourselves?

No, we decided to offer it ourselves.

Right. This trend is likely to continue going forward in Asia?

Yes, but it won't be a stable trend because it's pretty much linked to the project dynamics. If you have bigger project with a lot of people with a lot of contractors, then this part will diminish a bit.

If the project is at a slightly lower level, then the trend will continue with more staff people going to the region.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Just with the answer to Konrad on Asia in mind, maybe difficult to answer, but I just wanted to ask about the gross margin.

Do you think you've basically reached a bit of a bottom there with perm now improving and secondment being bit behind, but also now with maybe some stabilizing trends? Should we then have seen maybe the low point in that gross margin trend?

Overall, I think we have, especially with the sequential decline in the Netherlands stopping and DACH growing again, so that also resets the mix. The margin improvements we see in Australasia and Asia, I think we've seen the bottom.

Then

maybe a final one, in terms of projects, is there anything to mention in terms of maybe in Americas or New Guinea or stuff where projects are ramping up, where you see some accelerating momentum, or is everything rather stable? If

you mention New Guinea, then I'm a bit cautious on mentioning it again because we've mentioned it a lot, but every time they find another reason for delay. At the moment, they expect a FID in this quarter, so that should be promising.

In the US, there are several LNG projects slightly smaller continuing, or in Americas, I would say, and that will especially help our activities in Asia next year because the construction for those projects will be done in Asia. All

right. Thanks very much.

Yeah.

Thank you very much for attending this call. I'm very pleased to see the trend continuing.

Like Twan already said, we are really expecting growth to start materializing in the next couple of months. Then we will also see the operating leverage come into effect.

That, yeah, means that I'm have a very optimistic position for the future. We'll, now, push to make it work and to get as much out of it as possible.

What's also supporting us is that we see a favorable trend with the generalist staffers, and they are typically 6 to 9 months ahead of what we see. That's also supporting our expectations on growth.

Happy to tell you more about that in the next quarter. Thank you very much, and enjoy the summer.

Thank you. Goodbye.