thyssenkrupp nucera AG & Co. KGaA

thyssenkrupp nucera AG & Co. KGaA

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Q2 FY2026 · Earnings Call TranscriptMay 12, 2026

Hendrik Finger

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for standing by.

This is Hendrik Finger from Investor Relations.

Katharina Immoor

I would also like to welcome you. My name is Evelyn Frey, and I am the Head of Communications at Thyssenkrupp Nucera.

We wish you a warm welcome to Thyssenkrupp Nucera's joint press and analyst and investor conference on the results of the second quarter and first half year of our fiscal year '25/'26. We are very pleased that you have taken the time to join us today.

Hendrik Finger

Our Management Board is here with us this morning to walk you through the presentation and to discuss our latest business, technology, and financial developments. Now, before we start the presentation, some housekeeping: First, this call will be recorded, and a replay will be made available on our website later.

Second, today's presentation and potentially some answers to your questions may contain forward-looking statements. For additional information in this regard, please refer to the disclaimer.

As usual, the presentations will be followed by a question-and-answer session for journalists and analysts. With that, I'll hand over to our CEO, Werner Ponikwar, who will be starting the presentation.

Werner Ponikwar

Thank you Evelyn. Thank you Hendrik.

Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your interest and for dialing in today.

Let me start by pointing out the main developments over the last months before deep diving into some of them. Given our separate announcements in March and more recently last week, much of that won't come as a surprise for you.

Nevertheless, I think it is important to reiterate that we see new commercial momentum in green hydrogen. Of course, that needs to be backed up by further customer orders and political commitments, but you can clearly see a shift in perception in hydrogen.

For us, this has resulted in a new order we received from Moeve for a 300 MW project in Spain. Besides Europe, we do see a lot of momentum in India as well, where we were awarded a FEED study by [unclear] and where we are also seeing further projects progressing.

Both milestones clearly demonstrate the trust our clients place in Thyssenkrupp Nucera to deliver best-in-class technology tailored to their needs. The 300 MW project in Spain and the previously announced order for a large chlor-alkali plant in the Middle East were both recognized in our second quarter, resulting in an order intake of more than €300 million.

This is the highest quarterly order intake since the IPO, or more precise, since the NEOM project was accounted for in December 2021. Backed by this high order intake, we saw our order backlog increase to more than €730 million at the end of March '26.

Our chlor-alkali business continues to do well. As reference, we can name two large new-build projects in the US and in Brazil, which are well advanced in the commissioning phase.

I will come to that in more details in a couple of minutes. Lastly, we confirm our adjusted outlook for the financial year '25/'26.

Both sales and EBIT in the second quarter were substantially impacted by higher costs in our green hydrogen projects. It's important to note the higher project costs are of a one-time nature and will, from today's perspective, not spill over to the second half of the financial year.

Now, a brief recap of two commercial highlights from our green hydrogen business in the second quarter: Moeve has commissioned us to supply 300 MW of electrolyzers. This is currently the largest green hydrogen project in Southern Europe, and it's a great success for our teams.

We are excited to support Moeve in the first step for creating the Andalusian Green Hydrogen Valley with a total capacity of up to 2 GW. In addition, Thyssenkrupp Nucera has been awarded a contract for a FEED study for a 260 MW green hydrogen project in India.

This is an important step towards substantiating bankability of this project, which is actually the first Indian green hydrogen project in our portfolio. With this, we're expanding our geographical reach into one of the most dynamic growth markets for green hydrogen.

Based on the new-build business, green hydrogen service will unlock further value. That's what we are already proving in chlor-alkali, where service accounts for around 50% of sales and thereby provides a stable and recurring revenue base compared to the more cyclical new-build business.

Over time, we will see that in green hydrogen as well. We establish long-term relationships with our customers based on long-term service agreements alongside our large-scale project partnerships.

We are currently in the process of finalizing several long-term service agreements, and we will be able to share more details soon. With our 360-degree life cycle service portfolio, we create tangible value for our customers through three key steps: First, we provide best-in-class levelized cost of hydrogen optimized life cycle management.

Second, we ensure high-efficiency electrolyzer performance while minimizing operational risks. Third, we maximize availability while reducing overall operating costs.

The market opportunity for services in green hydrogen is substantial. The roughly 3.5 GW of electrolyzer capacity currently under execution already represents a service revenue potential of more than €2 billion with attractive margins over the 25-year average lifetime of the electrolyzers.

With every additional new-build project, the service potential will certainly further increase. In essence, our service offering enables us to generate long-term, resilient, and recurring revenue streams beyond the initial sale of electrolyzer equipment.

Now let's move on to our chlor-alkali segment. Once again, the business has demonstrated strong resilience and outstanding reliability in project executions.

Our service division delivered a very strong performance with order intake exceeding the prior-year level. We are seeing growing demand for our services across key regions, particularly in China, the United States, and also in Europe.

Looking at our major chlor-alkali projects, including new plants currently under construction in the US, India, and Brazil, deliveries and commissioning activities continue to progress in line with customer schedules. At Unipar in Brazil, all six BM electrolyzers are now fully operational.

For OxyChem in the US, we have successfully delivered the complete equipment package, including also spare parts. At AGC Vinythai in Thailand, commercial operations of the expanded e-BiTAC electrolyzer capacity have commenced successfully.

At the TGV project in India, all key components have been delivered to site. In addition, we see further potential for both service and also new-build projects in the current financial year '25/'26.

Turning to our green hydrogen business: We have around 3.5 GW of green hydrogen projects under execution, with visible progress and milestones being achieved. Let's start with our project with Stegra in Sweden.

The picture shows the team on-site after finishing the erection of the last out of 37 scalum electrolyzers in April. The installation of the module-based systems forms the basis for subsequent cell installation and also commissioning activities.

Next, the teams will be starting initial pre-commissioning activities in preparation for full module commissioning. The cell stacks are scheduled for delivery at the beginning of next year.

Looking at the NEOM project: It was announced last week that the project continues to make progress and is ready to produce renewable power that will be used in the commissioning of the hydrogen and also the ammonia plants. We are happy and maybe somewhat even lucky that activities at NEOM have not been impacted by recent conflicts in the Middle East so far.

For Shell, the 200 MW green hydrogen plant under construction in Rotterdam is also making good progress and nearing completion, with commissioning set to take place this year and ramp-up of operations in 2027. Overall, we remain fully engaged with our customers as they move towards the finalization and commissioning of the first electrolysis plants.

Now I'd like to share some more details on our green hydrogen project pipeline. If you remember the figures from our last update, you will find that our pipeline has been quite stable over the last quarter in all categories and also from a regional perspective.

The total pipeline amounts to 55 GW, underscoring the significant market potential. Approximately 14 GW of this relates to projects already at an advanced stage.

We observe momentum building in selected regions, and Europe and India are good examples for that. You see on the lower right that we are currently working on FEED studies for projects with a combined capacity of 1.6 GW, which comes on top of the 3.5 GW already under execution.

One technical comment here: Compared to February, the Moeve project was signed and is therefore not counted into our pipeline anymore. At the same time, we were awarded a new FEED study with [unclear] and that is certainly now part of the 1.6 GW pipeline.

All in all, it is of course not too far-fetched to believe that our next green hydrogen contract will come from this list in the not-too-distant future. I will discuss why this would be valuable for the economy in general and what is needed to support market building on the next slide.

Green hydrogen is fundamentally an enabling lever for European's industrial transition. It lets us turn renewables into molecules that can be stored and transported, which is critical for hard-to-abate sectors and parts of mobility.

It also strengthens energy security by reducing dependence on imported fossil fuels while building local value chains. Importantly, electrolysis can support the power grids by helping integrate more renewables and easing grid congestion over time.

What will accelerate this market is, of course, bankability. That means demand-side mechanisms that give projects predictable revenue and allow financing to come in at scale alongside infrastructure that removes execution bottlenecks.

In parallel, we need simpler and more harmonized regulatory requirements. Finally, industrial scale-up needs continuous, dependable funding framework so the pipeline can convert into real FIDs.

We are not just waiting for the ecosystem to mature; we are actively shaping it. Through our industry engagements, we help pushing common standards, pragmatic regulations, and fit-for-purpose infrastructure planning.

The upside is of course straightforward: clearer rules and faster permitting make projects bankable, and that moves the market from pilot to scale. Now, let's talk technology, and who would be better suited for that than our CTO, Klaus Oelrich.

Klaus, over to you.

Klaus Ohlig

Thank you Werner, and a very good morning to all of you also from my end. When speaking about technology, the current slide covers learnings from deploying our 20 MW modules.

The following one will then be looking on ongoing technology developments and future trends. We have seen higher costs in project execution, which led to one-time effects in the second quarter.

These are linked to the first-of-its-kind nature of our AWE modules we brought to market in 2021. They were built on more than 50 years of experience in the chlor-alkali field, but obviously, we also gained significant insights since then as well.

For that reason, we are carrying out upgrades that reflect feedback from engineering, construction sites, as well as test facilities over the last five years, which will be embedded across 160 delivered modules ahead of commissioning. We continue to build on our technological lead.

Added sensors and adjusted plant design supported by new intellectual property are not incremental tweaks; they are designed to lift reliability and safety in a way that benefits the full life cycle. Reliability drives returns.

For customers, long-duration assets only work if they operate consistently. Our focus is reliable performance over 20 to 30 years while actively reducing operational risk.

Services are a margin and differentiation lever. We are building on an LCOH-optimized service life cycle model to maximize availability and reduce OPEX.

This is where our competitive advantages lie. Moving on, I would like to talk about our green hydrogen product offering, which we are consistently advancing in line with evolving customer requirements and with a clear focus on scalability, standardization, and cost competitiveness.

For example, we're currently working on a new full-scope plant solution based on our successful scalum alkaline water electrolysis systems. We will soon launch a fully integrated and standardized 120 MW plug-and-play electrolyzer system that significantly reduces complexity and enables faster deployment for our customers.

This solution also includes compression of up to 35 bar, is designed for outdoor use, and is expected to further reduce cost per megawatt. At the same time, we're taking the next step with our pressurized AWE systems, building on our proven modular design approach.

This product will initially target the market and applications of up to 100 MW, a segment where smaller, more flexible, and compact systems are able to provide best levelized cost of hydrogen. The successful startup of a prototype in Denmark, based on the technology we acquired from GHS last year, marks an important milestone and demonstrates both the technical maturity of the concept and our strong execution capabilities.

In parallel, we're continuing to assess the strategic role of SOEC technology. While SOEC offers significant efficiency potential, it still requires longer time to market.

Therefore, we're conducting a thorough review of our roadmap to explore and evaluate different strategic options to ensure an optimal use of resources while meeting market demand. Across all of these initiatives, our clear priority remains the further reduction of levelized cost of hydrogen.

We are addressing this through lower CAPEX, driven by standardization and scale, as well as maintaining industry-leading OPEX through reliability and design to service. With that, I would like to hand over to Stefan for the financial section.

Stefan Hahn

Thank you very much Klaus, and a warm welcome from my side as well. Ladies and gentlemen, let me start by summarizing the key financial developments in the second quarter.

The second quarter performance was mixed. We saw strong commercial momentum reflected in a sharp increase in order intake in both segments.

At the same time, our reported sales and earnings were temporarily distorted by one-off and largely technical effects in the green hydrogen business. After taking a more cautious approach during half-year closing, these effects amounted to around €50 million.

This was higher than initially expected, but it also reduces the risks for subsequent quarters. Importantly, our financial stability remains solid and unchanged.

Overall, the key message is: our commercial momentum is strong, our fundamentals are intact, and the current shortfall is related to one-time effects and, in terms of sales, mostly a technical accounting effect in nature. Let's now take a closer look at the KPIs displayed here and start on page 16 with order intake.

In the second quarter, we recorded an order intake of €360 million, which is the highest quarterly figure since our IPO in 2023. It reflects major project wins in both segments, green hydrogen and chlor-alkali.

In the gH2 segment, order intake stood at €176 million and was marked by the 300 MW new-build project with Moeve, which we secured in March. In line with the fulfillment of typical financing requirements, we were able to already recognize this project as order intake in the second quarter.

In the chlor-alkali segment, order intake rose by 76% to €140 million, mainly reflecting the large new-build order in the Middle East, which we signed in December. Looking at the first six months, order intake increased by 119% compared to the prior-year period, reaching €391 million.

This increase was driven by the developments in the second quarter supported by both segments. Order backlog for the group increased to €732 million at the end of March, of which €380 million relate to the gH2 business.

With that, order intake and backlog are now already clearly above the full-year level and the prior fiscal year. Above all, this development underlines the relevance of our technology portfolio and provides significantly improved visibility for the upcoming quarters.

Let's now turn to our sales performance. As you can see on slide 17, sales in the second quarter declined by 77% year on year to €50 million.

This development was largely driven by the green hydrogen business, which posted sales of -€33 million. The sales decline and the negative sales figure as such are primarily technical in nature.

Higher project costs in connection with one-time effects in the gH2 segment led to a reduction in the percentage of completion under IFRS accounting, which in turn temporarily lowered revenue realization in the second quarter. In addition, sales were negatively impacted by the termination of the contract of a 20 MW pilot plant in the US.

Together, both effects amounted to approximately €50 million. In chlor-alkali, sales decreased by 14% year on year to €83 million, mainly due to lower new-build sales, while service sales remained broadly stable at prior-year level.

Looking at the six-month period, group sales declined by 59% year on year to €197 million. Green hydrogen sales were down, mainly due to lower sales contribution from the NEOM project due to the high degree of project completion, combined with the one-time effects we saw in Q2.

Chlor-alkali sales declined by 25% in the first six months. However, the translation of the significant higher order intake in the first half of the year into sales will accelerate in the coming quarters.

Overall, despite the sizable one-time effects that weighed on Q2 sales, our assumptions for the full year remain valid and our sales guidance intact. Moving on to EBIT on page 18: Starting with the second quarter, group EBIT amounted to -€65 million compared to -€4 million in the prior-year quarter.

Importantly, this development does not reflect a material deterioration of the underlying operating performance across the group. The group EBIT decline was predominantly driven by the green hydrogen business, which posted an EBIT loss of €78 million, which is €60 million lower than in the prior-year quarter.

EBIT was negatively impacted by the aforementioned one-off items, which had a negative impact. In the chlor-alkali segment, the decline in sales was largely offset by an improved gross margin, driven by a higher-margin project mix.

In the six-month period, group EBIT declined to -€69 million compared to €4 million in the prior-year period. To assess what this means going forward, there are a few key points to consider: First, our underlying operating performance is significantly more stable than the Q2 figures alone suggest.

Second, we expect sales momentum to accelerate compared to the first half of the financial year, driven by previously secured chlor-alkali orders and a partial reversal of the accounting-related negative sales effect in green hydrogen. Third, we will realize further cost and optimization measures, which I will elaborate on in the next slides.

Taking all of this into account, our full-year EBIT guidance remains appropriate. Now let me walk you through our operating cost development in the first six months, starting with cost of goods sold.

Cost of goods sold declined year on year, reflecting mainly the lower sales level in Q2. Margins in the gH2 segment were adversely impacted by the one-off effects we mentioned earlier.

In contrast, the chlor-alkali segment achieved a strong improvement in gross margin, driven by a more favorable, higher-margin project mix. Turning to SG&A: Costs remained stable at €37 million despite inflationary pressures.

This underscores our disciplined cost management and restrictive hiring approach. Importantly, we already see a sequential improvement compared to the second half of last fiscal year, and we expect further reductions as we move through the remainder of the year.

Finally, on R&D: Expenditures increased as planned, reflecting our continued focus on technology and innovation. As in prior periods, a portion of these costs were capitalized.

In summary, while one-off effects weighed on reported performance, we maintained cost discipline and continued to invest selectively in our future growth. Building on the cost discipline I just touched upon, we launched a comprehensive cost containment program to proactively address the current slowdown in sales.

Starting with cost structure optimization: We have reduced the use of external consulting, we have reorganized our IT costs, we have implemented a hiring freeze, and we have reduced working time in our German entity for tariff employees equivalent to a reduction of roughly 40 FTEs, and are optimizing our office footprint. These measures alone are expected to deliver annual savings of more than €25 million with full effect in the next fiscal year '26/'27 compared to fiscal year '24/'25.

Beyond that, we are taking a number of strategic measures to structurally improve our cost base. This includes adjusting module yard capacity, streamlining our R&D and gH2 product activities with a clear focus on long-term competitiveness, and increasing leveraging best-cost countries across engineering, supply chain, and support functions.

These initiatives are expected to contribute an additional €50 million plus in expected annual savings. Overall, this program is well underway and will not only mitigate the current market softness, but also enhance our structural efficiency and competitiveness going forward.

Let me now briefly walk you through the EBIT bridge from EBIT to net income and earnings per share. Both in the second quarter and first six months, the substantial decline in EBIT translated directly into negative net income.

Positive financial income, driven by interest earned on our cash position, provided a slight offset. Net income in Q2 amounted to -€64 million and -€66 million in the half-year period, with earnings per share declining accordingly to -50 cents and -53 cents, respectively.

Cash flow from operating activities in the six-month period declined to €15 million. Lower earnings and cash outflows related to reductions in trade payables were driving this.

These effects were partially offset by higher project-related cash inflows, as well as lower inventories. The cash out from the one-time effect in Q2 will spread over the coming quarters.

Cash flow from investing activities was roughly stable at -€12 million. Overall, this resulted in a positive free cash flow of €3 million in the six-month period.

Net financial assets increased slightly to €655 million, which represents a very comfortable position. Overall, these developments underline our balance sheet strength, providing sufficient headroom to balance cyclicality and the ramp-up profile of our green hydrogen business.

Lastly, let me reiterate our outlook for fiscal year '25/'26. We adjusted in our ad hoc communication in mid-March, and we continue to believe it is appropriate based on the business developments in the first six months.

For the group, we expect order intake in the range of €550 to €850 million compared to €348 million in the prior fiscal year. Based on the development so far, we are confident to reach the lower end of the guidance range.

To reach the upper end, further new-build orders in both segments, but especially in the green hydrogen segment, are needed. For group sales, we now expect €450 to €550 million, largely supported by projects already under contract.

At segment level, we anticipate gH2 sales of €120 to €170 million and chlor-alkali sales of €320 to €400 million. The new 300 MW green hydrogen project from Moeve in Spain will have only a limited impact on sales development in the current fiscal year.

For group EBIT, we continue to expect a range of -€80 to -€30 million. EBIT in the gH2 segment is expected to come in between -€125 and -€90 million, while the chlor-alkali segment is expected to deliver between €45 and €65 million.

Overall, this year's sales and earnings will be visibly impacted by the aforementioned one-time effects from the green hydrogen business, while the underlying operational performance remains sound. The revived commercial momentum together with our focus on cost savings and disciplined project execution strengthen the foundation and lay the groundwork towards future sales and earnings growth.

With that, I'm handing back to Werner, who will wrap up today's presentation.

Werner Ponikwar

Thank you Stefan, and also Klaus. Ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude today's presentations by reiterating our key messages: We observe a positive momentum in green hydrogen market and plan to also leverage that.

While political support remains essential for the mid-term development of our industry, our robust order intake over the past months has enhanced our near-term visibility with respect to capacity utilization, as well as sales and earnings forecast. The chlor-alkali business has demonstrated consistent profitability, strong cash flow, and reliable performance.

We are pleased to have this asset in our company. The company's quarterly financial performance was of course not satisfactory, as it was significantly impacted by higher project costs in the green hydrogen business.

It is noteworthy, though, that these higher project costs elements are connected to the first-of-its-kind nature of our large green hydrogen projects and that they are one-time expenses. Additionally, our strong liquidity, our strict cash discipline, and the ongoing cost-saving measures provide substantial downside protection.

Lastly, we keep on implementing our strategic agenda. We improve our competitive position by expanding our range of products and services to meet and surpass customer expectations in a rapidly evolving market environment.

That concludes our presentation. Thank you for your attention, and we are now ready to take your questions.

Hendrik, over to you.

Hendrik Finger

Thanks Werner. At this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session for journalists and analysts.

As we are using Microsoft Teams for this call, please push the raise hand icon to indicate that you would like to ask questions. We will then announce your name and open your line.

When it is your turn, please ensure that you unmute yourself additionally. We are aware that it might take a few seconds to get everything going, also depending on the settings on your side, no worries.

The first question today comes from Skye Landon. We have just opened your line, and you should be able to unmute yourself.

Please go ahead.

Hi, can you hear me?

Hendrik Finger

Yes, Skye.

Hi, thanks for the presentation this morning. Can I just ask about the 1.6 GW of FEED contracts?

Positively, Moeve came out, [unclear] went in, topping it back up, just wondering if you could give some more detail on the other 1.4 GW of projects beneath this, how many projects are included within the 1.4, what are the size of these projects, and what are the likely timelines for FID on these? Then secondly, on your SOEC program, just wondering if you have any plans to also look at the fuel cell side of things, an SOFC?

Then thirdly, just wondering, now that kind of major projects are getting close to completion, just wondering if you'd be able to provide some color or give us an update on the outlook for service revenues in the green hydrogen business? Thanks very much.

Werner Ponikwar

All right Skye. Hi, this is Werner.

I will start, and I would start actually with the 1.6 GW of FEED contracts. Of course, we cannot share now customer names or anything like that, but in general, when it comes to sizes of these FEED contracts and project sizes, that's between 100 and 600 MW of projects, predominantly in Europe, but also we have also apparently now a project in India with [unclear] in that pipeline as well.

In terms of timeline, of course, that remains, I would say, almost a secret of our customers, as you can imagine. As mentioned, we are pretty confident that out of this list also in the near term, we will potentially see also new equipment contracts coming along.

Now for SOEC, I might hand over to Klaus. Yeah.

Klaus Ohlig

Thanks for the question, Skye. With respect to SOEC, our focus remains on electrolyzers.

We have certainly looked into the fuel cell side of the business, but focus remains on the electrolyzer side to also fit into our overall product portfolio.

Werner Ponikwar

Maybe to the service revenue very quickly: In general, I think I've mentioned that also in the presentation, we see that over the lifetime of such a plant, which is on average 25 years, we typically see a similar amount of revenues coming in as the initial investment in the plant. As said, for the 3.5 GW, we would estimate around about €2 billion of euros over 25 years coming in from these assets alone, and of course every additional asset that we are able to deploy in the market will of course create additional revenue streams in terms of service.

It is of course important to know that these streams are not coming in actually on a, what's say, a very constant basis, if you want, because services are typically working in peaks for individual plants. That means there are revamp cycles, where every four to eight years, depending on the technology and location, you would see, what's say, a larger revamp where cells and electrodes and coatings basically are looked at and potentially renewed as well.

That's certainly those peaks you would potentially see in service revenues from within these time frames. Of course, there is continuous service activities with clients, like spare parts supply, but also digital services that we provide in terms of preventive maintenance and maintenance efforts over time.

If you basically lay over a number of individual plants and their service patterns, then of course you get a very constant revenue stream that as we've seen that already in the chlor-alkali field where we've deployed so many plants that statistically, actually, that's flattening out. I hope that was provided a little bit of color to that.

Thanks for the color. Cheers, Werner.

Werner Ponikwar

Thank you.

Hendrik Finger

Thanks, Skye. The next question comes from Kevin Roger with Kepler.

Please unmute yourself and go ahead.

Kevin Roger

Hi, can you hear me?

Hendrik Finger

Yep. Yes, we can hear you, Kevin.

Kevin Roger

Great. Hi.

Good morning. Hope you are all doing well.

I have three questions, if I may. The first one, I was wondering if today you can provide us maybe a bit more color on the extra cost and maybe the reason why you decided maybe to, in a way, front-load a lot on Q2 and reduce the risk for Q3, Q4.

Maybe a bit of color on those extra costs. The second question: The working capital movement this quarter, is it 100% related to the prepayment on the 300 MW hydrogen contract, just to understand the move this quarter?

The last one: Today you announce this new 120 MW modules on the hydrogen space as a kind of follow-up on the commercial pipeline. How many kind of project or capacity are we talking about in terms of project that are already let's say working on this potential 120 MW solution, please?

Werner Ponikwar

Hi, Kevin. Let me start with the last question, and then I hand over for the extra cost in more details to Klaus, and then I think working capital is in the domain of Stefan.

On the new product, this is a bit pre-launch still, the launch will happen towards the end of May, beginning of June, and it's a new product that we are offering to the market as such. Of course, there has been no, I would say, firm discussions right now in the market with customers on that particular product, but we believe it's providing a lot of additional value as an offering, in particular when it comes to reduction of cost, but also different other features.

As we see that the sizes in the market of hydrogen plants are increasing towards plus 100 MW in the meantime, we believe that with such an offer, we would be sort of hitting the sweet spot also in terms of size over the next five years quite accurately. As such, we believe it's the right sizing as well, and it gives a lot of opportunity to optimizing cost, of course.

Now, extra costs.

Klaus Ohlig

Extra costs. Thanks Kevin for the question.

Maybe just as a clarification ahead of explaining or answering your question: The technology is working, and we're continuously improving, or we've been improving, the performance in terms of specifically safety and reliability. It is important to keep in mind that any technological improvement is part of a maturing industry.

There was certainly the question: When is the best timing to do these enhancements? It's much better to do such improvements right now before commissioning, as this is a lot easier than compared to doing it after startup.

Basically, that decided or defined the point in time when we started to do the adjustments, the enhancements, and that then incurred the respective costs. Stefan, I don't know if you want to add something to that point?

Stefan Hahn

I think that was quite well. There's not much to add.

I would rather answer the third question you had, Kevin, which related to the networking capital development. You noted quite correctly, networking capital was down, and there were two effects mainly driving this.

One you already mentioned, it is the prepayments, and you can observe that in our balance sheet contract liabilities are significantly up, which leads to a reduction of networking capital in turn. The other, and this is the second driver, is inventory optimization.

You will also note by looking into our balance sheet that inventories are down €22 million, and that's a second effect that can be observed here. The two drivers have led to a significant reduction of networking capital as a whole.

Kevin Roger

Understood. Thanks for the time.

Werner Ponikwar

Sure. Thanks, Kevin.

Hendrik Finger

Thanks, Kevin. Before handing over to Marco Cristofori with Intesa, let me quickly remind you: If you want to ask a question, please push the raise hand icon, and then we will, yeah, open your line.

Now, Marco, over to you.

Marco Cristofori

Can you hear me?

Hendrik Finger

We do. Hi, Marco.

Marco Cristofori

Thank you for taking my question. I will start with your guidance, which has been confirmed despite let's say a weak second quarter.

If I see at the mid of a range of your guidance for green hydrogen, I see that for the second half of the year, you expect still a huge decline of sales, around 45%, but a strong improvement of the operating performance. If I accounted well, around €18 million EBIT losses compared with €30 million EBIT losses reported in the second half of last year.

If you can give more color on this strong operational improvement expected in the second part of the year. My second question is on the order of Moeve.

You said that there will be a limited impact on sales in 2026, just to understand if the average profitability or margin of this order is similar to the margin you recorded on other large orders? The last thing, very short: You mentioned during the call that part of the impact of the negative revenues in the second quarter in green hydrogen would be reverse along the year.

Is it correct, and how much could be this impact, this reversal? Thank you.

Stefan Hahn

Yeah. Marco, I think I will take all three questions.

You started with the guidance, and you noted quite correctly, we indeed do expect an increase of performance in gH2, but not only gH2 compared to the first half quarter here. It is of course quite important to adjust for the one-time effects that of course have significantly hit into the segment EBIT here, but even adjusted for that, you're correct, our current EBIT guidance here is -€125 to -€90 [million], and it goes without saying that an performance improvement is expected here.

Also for chlor-alkali, we expect a higher performance for the second quarter than in the first half year. Differences in or variations in performance here from quarter to quarter are quite usual in our business.

It's plant engineering business, and here we can see that the project mix will be more favorable in the second half quarter. I think this explains how we come to our overall guidance, which shows at least stable and in a worst case a slightly negative following quarters, but potentially positive ones.

I hope that answers that question. Then your second question was related to the Moeve project and the limited impact on sales in this current fiscal year.

Also, this is typical for such a large project where we usually start with an engineering phase, and revenue realization during that engineering phase is not very significant compared to later stages in the project. This is very typical.

Due to the project timeline, we will realize a larger part of the sales in next fiscal year. Your questions related to margin is this project has the same margin as comparable, for example, larger chlor-alkali projects as well.

There's no big margin difference to mention here. Your third question was related to the reversal of the one-time effects.

Also here, this is a very technical accounting effect related to the PoC accounting, and the additional costs that were accounted here in the projects will indeed reverse. This is an effect that will stretch across the two to three following quarters.

Also when the revenue that is now accounted for negatively will reverse in the next quarter and the quarter after that mainly. That is true, yes.

I hope that answers that question as well.

Marco Cristofori

Thank you.

Hendrik Finger

Thanks, Marco. Next in line is James Carmichael with Berenberg.

Please unmute yourself and go ahead.

James Carmichael

Hi, morning guys. Hopefully, you can hear me.

A few technical issues at mine, apologies if you've covered any of this. Just a couple for me, thanks for the presentation.

Firstly, on order intake and the bridge to the low end of the guidance, I guess just based on your commentary, it sounds like we should essentially expect almost all of remaining orders for the year to be in the chlor-alkali business. Just wondering if that is fair and a bit less confident on the green hydrogen timelines.

Then looking at the sort of cost-reduction measures, you've announced €40 million or over €40 million in total. Just wondering if there are any one-off costs associated with those and sort of ultimately how quickly you can implement that.

Then lastly, just on the conflict in Iran, I guess there's no sort of direct operational impact to you guys, but just if there's anything that you're seeing in your supply chain or in your customer supply chains that are sort of affecting their ability to execute projects? Thanks.

Werner Ponikwar

Maybe a quick comment on the first one, actually, on the order intake: Is it fair to assume that it's going to be only chlor-alkali for the rest of this financial year? I would say, no.

As mentioned, we have that 1.6 GW of FEED contracts that we're currently working on, and of course there are still potentials for this year that one or the other of these projects materializes in green hydrogen even for the remaining financial year. Again, it's a potential, and we've seen now things slipping over the last years quite significantly.

There's of course also probability that that will slip into next year.

Stefan Hahn

As of today, I would say we are rather confident that something is still able to materialize also in green hydrogen. Yeah.

I will touch upon the question on the cost-reduction measures you've asked. Your question was whether there are many one-off items or one-time items included in that.

The answer to that is the cost savings that we've reported here are mainly sustainable in nature. However, most of them are reversible.

That is important to say. For example, especially looking at the personal measures, we have always said that we have some flexibility in our working contracts, and this is exactly what we used here.

We have reduced working times here, which per individual FTE, and that can be easily reversed going forward if order intake should significantly pull up. Of course, there are some cost reduction measures that are not as easily reversible.

The reduction of office space might take some time. As a general comment to these measures, most of them have a sustainable effect, yeah.

Werner Ponikwar

Maybe to the last one, I'm not sure whether I fully understood the question correctly, but if it's about our supply chain and potential challenges with that supply chain on customer side, I would guess you're referring more to the Middle East supply chain and what we're doing there. As stated also in the presentation, as of now, we don't see any impact on our project, in particular NEOM project in Saudi Arabia.

It remained rather quiet on that end of the country, and we would also cross fingers that going forward, there will be no further impact on that. As stated also by here, our customer, I think last week in their own earnings call, there's been currently no impact on the overall project, and we all expect that this will remain as that.

Hope that was answering that question as well.

James Carmichael

Great, thank you. Thank you.

Werner Ponikwar

Thanks.

Hendrik Finger

Thanks, James. Next question is coming from Klaus Ringel.

Klaus, over to you.

Hope the mic is open now, and you can hear me.

Werner Ponikwar

Actually,

thanks for taking my questions. Actually, would be two.

I would like to take them one by one. The first one would be a clarification again on this cost containment program, and if there will be any, yeah, implementation costs we should be aware of, not just in terms of savings, but any, yeah, let's say, kind of one-off cost for the implementation that we should see in the coming quarters.

Stefan Hahn

No significant ones. You are probably referring to the personnel measures.

Here, I described in my answer before how we use flexibility that is included in the work contracts, and that goes without any limited implementation costs. The best-cost country approach might here and there incur slight costs, but this is not significant here related to the savings, yeah.

Thanks for the clarification. The second one would be a technical question.

Thanks for sharing the efforts here for the development of these next-gen green hydrogen products and this 120 MW electrolyzer system. You mentioned that this is bringing or hopefully bringing significant cost savings.

Can you give us an idea of what we're talking about here in terms of savings in percentage or costs or whatever?

Werner Ponikwar

I hope you can bear with us for a few more weeks for the launch of the offering. Along with that, we will also be a bit more precise on the cost savings, but they are rather substantial, I'd say.

I will stay on watch, sure. Thank you.

Hendrik Finger

Thanks, Klaus. There seems to be no more questions at this point in time.

For that reason, I hand over to Werner one last time, and he will conclude today's call. Then

Werner Ponikwar

thank you very much everyone for joining us today in the call. If you have any further questions during the day, please feel free to reach out to our communications and also our investor relations teams.

For now, all the best and goodbye. Thank you.