Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to Ottobock's conference call following the publication of our financial results for the first half of 2026. Today's speakers are Oliver Jakobi, CEO, and Dr.

Arne Kreitz, CFO, Ottobock. Before we start the presentation, please note that the call will be recorded.

After the presentation, we will open the line for questions. If you wish to ask a question, please use the raise hand function at the bottom of your Zoom screen, and if you dialed in via phone, please press *9 on your telephone keypad to ask a question.

Further instructions regarding the Q&A session will be provided later by the moderator. With that, I hand over to you, Oliver.

Thank you, and also from my side, a warm welcome from Duderstadt. Let me start with the headline.

Strategically and operationally, we are fully on track. In the second quarter, we have seen a strong demand in our key markets, and yeah, the timing effects we have seen beginning of the year are normalized now.

Second key message we want to deliver is our organic core revenue. We grew with 6.7% in the first half-year, with 8% in the second quarter.

This is driven by EMEA on a broad base, so as well in B2B as well as in B2C. The underlying EBITDA margin improved even more strong than the revenue, we are now on 25.3% in Q2, 27.9%.

On the M&A side, we also fulfilled our plan. We acquired one technology company, FES, functional electrostimulation company from Spain.

We acquired a leading patient care company in Norway, and the signed human mobility divestment also took place. That was already discussed during our meetings earlier, everything well on track.

With this, we decided to narrow our guidance. We're lifting the lower end from 5% to 6% growth and keeping the upper end with 8%.

We are increasing our EBITDA margin guidance from 26.5%—above 26.5% to above 27%. If we have a look into the regions, I would start then probably with the left side, with the Americas.

Here, the key message is that the main market, the US market, is actually on a positive side. We have on the B2B side in the US the 1% growth in the first half of the year with 4% in the second half of the year.

B2C is still with a good growth momentum in H1 in the US. A little bit different the situation in Canada and especially in Latin America.

In Canada, we had last year a so-called 4-amps program, which in the moment is on hold, that's why the Canadian numbers are below trailing here. We do have timing effects in Latin America.

In the main market, Brazil, there are elections ahead, therefore there's a blackout period and no tenders are performed. We do expect here also a better development from the third and fourth quarter especially.

EMEA, now accounting for 75% of our revenue, performed very strong. We had a very strong B2B business, double-digit growth in the first half of the year, which was driven, first of all, by many different markets, Western Europe, but also export, and the EMEA markets, Russia and Ukraine, but also really important to note are the innovations.

The patient care business in Western Europe had very good momentum in the second quarter, with 6.3%—6.4% growth, we are back on track, growing slightly above the market in the second quarter. APAC, 3.6% growth in the first half of the year, and there are two factors important to mention.

We had a very strong comparator year or comparator period last year with high growth momentum. Then we have this year some timing effects, with a relatively small sales in this region, a tender which is postponed like, for example, now in India or a reimbursement cap, which we have seen now for one, two months in Australia, have a direct impact.

These are timing effects, the catch-up will follow, and therefore we are confident also to overperform there the second half of the year. Next.

Regarding the acquisitions, I mentioned already, we acquired Blatchford in Norway. Norway was a white spot on our patient care landscape.

Norway is a very attractive market for patient care, very profitable, and we had the unique chance to acquire the market leader. This has happened in May, and the integration is already going forward, and so far very good momentum we can see there.

With Fesia, we acquired a company which is leading in the electrostimulation. We are already in this business, we have a distribution business in this field, but what we were missing was the possibility to influence also the innovation path, then the regional expansion, and of course, what we will have here now is a higher margin, when you're coming from the distribution business towards your own business, we also have of course a higher margin.

We're very much looking forward with this business, definitely a growth driver for the coming years. The divestment of our wheelchair business, we spoke about this.

Had signing with DIH Care in June, and the closing is expected to be at the end of the year. We're in the moment in the operational separation for the business.

We are very happy to have a partner who is a strategic buyer, yeah, so that means the business will continue, and it's going very well forward. For us as management team, but also for the organization, it is really good to focus even more now on our core business, prosthetics and neuro-orthotics, because the wheelchair business anyhow we had a lot of projects running there and it was a bit of distraction from the core business.

This is now gone, therefore we will focus on the core business and also report from next year on only the core business. This core and non-core will be not there anymore.

Now I'm handing over to Arne, who will guide you through the financials.

Thank you, Oliver. Happy to take you through a bit more of the details of the financials.

Starting with the big picture, where we're looking very positively on. We've reached our plans for Q2, which means strong organic growth of 8% in Q2, leading to an H1 growth of 6.7%, exactly the acceleration that we also highlighted in our previous call.

Previous call, we had been discussing 5.1% in the first quarter. I think it's good to see that we now have reached the 8%, being on a very good track on the top-line development.

Same holds true for the underlying EBITDA side. We arrived at €207 million in the first half of 2026, which means a 25.3% margin.

What is always important is the comparison to comparator a year or half-year last year. Here we can see a 2.2 percentage increase.

If I'm looking specifically into the second quarter, we're talking about a 2.8 percentage increase to 27.9%. Want to say the pattern that if we're growing strong on the top-line side, then we can immediately see this also in the strong EBITDA performance, and that what we've been seeing in Q2, 8% on the top line translating to a strong margin of 27.9%.

Free cash flow in the cash conversion actually strong, good operational performance, but we have special effect on the tax side, we have a bit of timing effects which will normalize in the course of the year. All in all, we can see in Q2 a special effect of €35 million.

€25 million of that will normalize in the course of the year. It's with the timing of the pre-tax payments, which last year had been at Q3 and now this year at Q2, but that will normalize.

There's a second effect also on the income tax, which is that some of the tax refunding that we're expecting will move into the next year. Also a timing effect, but most likely only happening next year.

If I'm normalizing for the tax effect, then we would actually see also a strong performance on the free cash flow development. Going a bit deeper into the revenue development, if we're looking into the development in B2B and B2C, we see an 8.7% increase in the first half-year, with 11.7% in Q2.

Very strong development on the B2B side. Please keep in mind that we're looking into a strong comparator quarter also last year.

We are actually happy with the 11.7% and think it's showing really the strong momentum that we're continuing to see on the B2B side. On the patient care side, we're looking at 4.2% of a year-to-date performance.

In the first quarter, we had been at 4.7%, a bit slower on the second quarter. If I'm looking a bit more into the details, then we can actually see that the core regions in Western Europe and North America actually have been performing very well with beyond 6% growth in the first half of the year.

We had a bit of special effects and timing in the smaller regions, specifically in APAC and LatAm. That is a little bit, yeah, mixing up the picture.

From our point of view, that will also normalize in the course of the second half of the year. If we're looking into the core regions, which is clearly Western Europe and North America, we're also looking into a strong top-line development on the B2C side.

Moving on to the regions, 9% in EMEA, already explained by Oliver, continued strong momentum, broad base, and we also again have been seeing some momentum in Russia-Ukraine. I know that there are typically questions around that, we can see 1% to 2% of a spike event impact if we're looking into the numbers.

If you look into that, you can see that the majority of the growth is really broad-based and not spike event driven. From that end, we're looking into a strong performance all in all in EMEA.

Americas, a bit mixed. Actually good recovery on the US side with we have been a bit lighter on the first quarter, and now we're seeing a catch-up, arriving at 4% on the B2B side, even stronger on the B2C side.

We think a good momentum on the US side, which is a bit mixed up by Canada and LatAm and by the effects that Oliver already explained. Again, bit of a mix of effects.

The key message is that in the most important market in the US, we think we have seen in Q2 the positive development that we also have been foreseeing when we talked about Q1. On APAC, 3.6% and a bit slower growth in the second quarter.

Here, you just need to keep in mind that if I'm looking into Q2 and we're talking about €26 million of revenue, if you then have some tender business moving into the third quarter, that already has a relevant impact then on the relative growth rate. Nothing structural, no change in the general market condition.

This is a bit of timing, which we will see recovering in the second half of the year. Underlying core EBITDA set up by 2.2%.

If we're looking into the regional split, then we can see again that all regions have improved in their profitability. With the good growth that we've been seeing in EMEA, of course, we can also see the strongest impact then on the top-line side, with reaching 26% in the EMEA region.

All in all, you can see that our efficiency measures are really broad-based and across the organization. That's why we keep seeing this positive margin development basically across the entire organization.

Underlying net income, we're also seeing continued good momentum. Repeating the big picture, top line, we had been growing by 6.7%, EBITDA had been growing by 18%, and now looking into the underlying net income growing at 24%.

That's again the typical logic in our P&L: when we're growing strongly on the top-line side, this translates into an overproportionate growth on the EBITDA side, and then everything which is coming below the EBITDA is pretty stable. Depreciation is stable, financing cost have been lower because of the lower debt level that we saw in H1 and also our interest rates that we've been facing, and then the tax rate has also slightly improved compared to last year.

Want to say, if the top line is growing well, the EBITDA is performing, and this translates nicely into a strong net income development. Free cash flow already described.

Again, not an operative topic. Seeing that the cash conversion continues to be strong and improving, and if you take the tax effect into consideration, then this normalizes.

There's a little bit of working capital effect also in the first half-year, specifically on the receivable side, which had been a bit up. That is more like also a little bit of timing.

On the specific date of when H1 ended, receivables been a bit up, but that is a timing effect which will normalize also in the second half of the year. The really impact that you need to understand for the free cash flow is the tax effect, and that's what I already explained earlier.

Net debt and leverage, you can nicely see the trend that we have been on now for a long time. In Q2, we see a slight increase towards 2.5 turns, which is driven by the acquisition, but also the dividend payments, which had happened in May.

We're expecting for the full year that we are going below 2 turns. If you recall, that's exactly our capital allocation policy.

We always said during the IPO, our target is to go below 2. Despite the large amount of acquisitions and dividend payments that we have been doing this year, we'll see that we're continuing to move into our targeted below 2 range.

Then that brings me to the guidance, which, with all the positive developments that we've been seeing in Q2, we decided to narrow. We are foreseeing on the top line 6% to 8% increase in the course of the year.

As you recall, the way we're setting the guidance, we always want to have a good chance to end up in the upper half of the guidance. That's why, looking into the 6% to 8% and also into the narrowing of the guidance, we're actually looking very positively into the second half of the year.

On the EBITDA side, we've raised from beyond 26.5% to beyond 27%. Also to put this into context, last year, we had been arriving at 26%.

We always said for the mid-term guidance that we're expecting 1 percentage point increase per year, so that we're now putting the guidance to go beyond 27% is clearly indicating that we are on a good track regarding the EBITDA margin development.

To sum it up, I think the second quarter, we saw the growth and improved profitability as we said it would. As Arne said, we are very positive for the second half of the year.

The innovations are coming to the market, the demand is continuously high. Therefore, we narrowed our guidance, still keeping in mind that we want to be reliable and, of course, deliver to our promises.

With this, I think we open up the session for questions.

Hi, guys. Hope you can hear me okay.

Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on the prints. Just a few, please.

On the guidance range, thank you, Arne, for already pointing to the top end of that new 6% to 8% guide, but just want to understand how you guys the low end at 6%, which would imply the significant deceleration into H2. In other words, what needs to go wrong here for us to start thinking about the low end?

Second, on M&A, €112 million deployed year to date. Your guide was €40 million to €50 million.

Should we assume that you will pause here into H2 and possibly also into 2027 if you can update us on what the funnel for acquisitions looking like? You mentioned Norway being very attractive market.

Maybe expand a bit on that. Lastly, if I may, just in terms of the margin between B2B and B2C, obviously stronger uptake in H1, but can you help us understand if you have also seen an increase in Q1 and in Q2?

I'm not sure that we've been provided with the details back in the Q1 interim statement. Thank you.

Yeah. The guidance, 6% to 8%, as I said in my last words, we want to deliver to our promise, and of course, we would like to end up in the upper half of the range we are giving.

That's why we would not foresee any major pearls, but as we said before, yeah, we have to deliver, we have to show that we are reliable, and that's why we picked up the 6% to 8%. If something is clear more towards end of Q3, then of course we will change the guidance accordingly.

Second question regarding M&A, we always give a range, yeah, but we also said if there are good opportunities, then this range might exceed, yeah. We do have the financial flexibility.

That was from the very beginning also important for us to note, yeah. If we can see that there are good targets on the market, then we also would react accordingly.

That doesn't mean that now we exceeded our M&A budget and we have to stop. We are still looking, and if there are good opportunities on the market, we also would continue.

It doesn't mean that we put it now on hold for the second half of this year or maybe even '27. Therefore, everything is fine there.

Margin?

On the third one, B2B, B2C margin, I can share that we're continuing to see the improvement both on the B2B and on the B2C side. Along the same logic that we said, yeah, when B2B is running well, we see typically good mix effects and a bit more of scalability on the B2B side, that's why good development on the B2B side.

B2C is continuing to show the step-by-step improvement on the margin side. From that end, that is well on track, and margin improvement is coming from both businesses.

Thank you. On what makes Norway attractive market?

Thank you.

What makes Norway? The reimbursement system.

That normally our B2C business has a lower EBITDA margin than the B2B business. In this case, the B2C margin is similar to the B2B business, it's very attractive.

The point is there that we have a very good reimbursement in neuro-orthotics, and at the moment, there was no one really covering this area. Now we have the opportunity with acquiring the market leader really to set there the standard and grow in the field of neuro-orthotics in Norway.

Super clear. Thanks so much.

Good afternoon. Can you hear me?

Yeah.

Perfect. All right.

Two questions on my side. One on this kind of spike events.

Thanks for providing the color. I think you mentioned was a kind of 1% to 2% contribution from that year in year.

I think this is a year-in-year comparison. Can you just give us a flavor what kind of contribution from Russian or Ukrainian sales you now see versus the pre-war baseline just to get a flavor there?

Can you just talk to I think a large part of this is funded by European kind of developments. Also, I think you mentioned or it sounded like there's upside to this now.

Far you have not incorporated any kind of more spike events into your guidance. As now we're seeing kind of some contributions coming in, have you now incorporated with the kind of top-end change or not yet?

That would be question number one. Secondly, also on the Norway deal, it looks still like a relatively full price for the asset.

Can you just give us a bit of flavor when you expect to earn your cost of capital on this kind of acquisition, and whether we should expect any kind of similar deals going forward of that kind of magnitude? Thank you.

Okay. I would take the spike topic.

Pre-war and now very difficult to assess. We didn't have an infrastructure in Ukraine at all, therefore and it was a relatively small market for us, we have to admit, therefore here we definitely have seen a major uplift, but from a very low base.

We normally do not provide any market details, but here we have seen quite huge impact. On the Russian side, we were there already, we had quite a valid business there, and I think we are growing there with the reimbursement in the civilian market.

I think the overall information which is important to know that basically nothing has changed in Russia in terms of market participants, competition, yeah. Everybody who was there before is there, but also in Russia, the reimbursement grew, which doesn't mean necessarily that a lot of new patients are served in the civilian sector, but the level of reimbursement per patient grew quite significantly.

This we have seen, there's an upselling effect more than a quantitative effect. We said already several times, we are not taking part in any military tender or whatever, this is more a part which is closed for foreign companies, it's more served by Russian companies, and therefore, for us, we do not see really more and more of this spike impact in Russia, while we do see it in Ukraine.

There definitely we have this increased patient base. To give you maybe an overview, we had a pre-war quantity of 8,000 to 10,000 prosthetic fittings per year, and we have now, since beginning of the war, we have roughly 150,000 new amputees, additional to the pre-war number.

You're right, in the moment, due to infrastructure constraints, they are not all yet fitted. If we're talking about four-year, 4.5-year now time period, there is quite a backlog plus additional now we are coming into the refitting phase.

It means besides those who are not fitted yet, the ones who were fitted in the very early stage of the war, they are already due to a new fitting. There we do expect a further acceleration and yeah, even increasing the longer the war continues.

Norway?

Norway, happy to talk a bit about it. The mechanics of the Norway deal.

It's a strategic deal. That was a white spot on the landscape where we had not been present.

Following our invest-in-the-best strategy and looking for market-leading players in order to further evolve on our integrated B2B and B2C business, I think this is a deal which is really spot-on and where we've been looking for a longer time. It's clearly following a strategic ration.

Regarding the financial parameters, I would consider it to be a good deal. You need to understand that the stand-alone margin of the patient care business in Norway is already very high.

That's probably the highest that we have in the network, 1 of the highest that we have in the network. Then you need to understand that the pre-owner has been Blatchford, you can understand that they have penetrated their products into the channel.

We see a good opportunity in order to bring our high-margin products better into the market and keep that share up. As Oliver said, this whole field of neuro-orthotics, which is a clear future growth field for us, and where reimbursement has been established also for the high-end solutions, that is a completely, I would almost say, untapped field that we can now penetrate into Norway.

It has a lot of good parameters on the profitability of the business and the synergies and upsides associated to it. Regarding the capital cost, we clearly will be earning our capital cost with that deal.

If you take the 8.5%, 9% of WACC, and then we're clearly expecting that we're going beyond the capital cost. It's a strategic, sound deal, and will give us a good upside on the top line, but also on the margin side, B2B and B2C, and will also earn its capital cost.

Perfect. Thanks so much.

Thank you.

Hi, thanks for taking the questions. I wanted to dig in a bit on Americas.

I appreciate the commentary on LatAm and Canada, but on the 4% organic growth in the US, seemed maybe a bit below expectations. Is there anything to flag on the US MPK K2 reimbursement?

Is that still a meaningful tailwind for 2026, and how do you see US growth playing out through the balance of the year? Then just on the margin guidance raise, how much of that is favorable mix through just an increasing number of MPKs being sold versus an improvement in cost savings and efficiency measures?

What do you expect for inflation through the second half of the year? Thanks again for taking the questions.

Regarding the US business, no, we do not see any headwind in terms of penetration of the K2 population and others. You have to keep in mind, we had last year mid-double-digit or in the high teens growth in the US market.

It means we're growing this year from a very high base. That's something what we of course always have to keep in mind.

The penetration of the K2 population is continuing. We do see still roughly 20% growth rate in this area, but we do have in other areas, of course, a lower growth rate because there the penetration is already on a different level.

Nothing structural, and we also do believe that in the second half of the year, we'll see a little bit more momentum because we have seen the fourth quarter last year was a little bit slower than the first three quarters, yeah. Therefore, we expect also here to see a steady uplift on the organic growth rate.

Margin?

Regarding the margin, and so you can see year to date, we are up 2.2%, and then also in the guidance, we're reflecting that we're expecting in the second half of the year that there will be a good margin development. The effects are, yes, there's a bit of margin impact and there is an impact on efficiency gains, but you also need to keep the scale effect in mind.

I keep repeating that. If we're growing beyond 5%, yeah, typically assume a normal year cost growth is around 4% to 5%, yeah, 2%, 3% of inflation, then as a growth company, a bit of investment into the company, meaning growing beyond the 5% typically brings us into a good scaling opportunity because, again, global fixed costs are pretty set.

Then if we're growing with the high-end components, that gives us a good scale effect. If I say how does that split, I think there will be a bit of margin upside in the overall year, and then scale and efficiency is probably 50/50 on the drivers of the margin improvement.

Scale, if I'm looking into the 2.2%, then I would say that is 1% and 1% on the efficiency side and then a bit of additional mix effect that we're seeing. Then the last question was on inflation in the second half of the year.

We've been just running through our forecasting, and I have to say we're not expecting a large impact of inflation in the second half of the year. Oil price development, we did the calculation in-house that running through into our material cost, that is pretty minor.

We're expecting maximum €2 million to €3 million of an impact, so that's negligible. Then also on the other supply side, we're not seeing a lot of push at the moment.

From that end, we're expecting normal inflation for this year and no impact on the margin side.

Thank you. Good afternoon.

I have two questions, please. The first one, could you provide a little bit more color again on the strong 12% organic growth in the B2B business with respect to which products have been driving this the most?

Would that be a good indication for what you might deliver in the second half as well of this year? Then my second question, and sorry if I missed that, on the B2C business, which you mentioned was a tad softer in Q2, do you expect that to recover now in the third or fourth quarter?

I saw the comps are not too easy, but is there still the potential that this bounces back in the second half? Thank you.

Regarding the the B2B growth, it's actually, across across the products. We do see still a strong growth in our high-end products, in the mechatronic area of prosthetics and neuro-orthotics, but we also do see overmarket growth or over yeah, overmarket growth rate in in feet and and liner.

We launched also some new mechanical knee joints, which are picking up very nicely. It's actually a broad range of of of products which are, yeah, fueling the growth.

We have in the upper-limb prosthetic field, we launched the Myo template hand. There we can see quite a good growth momentum.

It's not specific one or two products, it's it's actually on a on a broader range, which is for us for us also a very good indicator for for the future, it's more more sustainable. On the B2C side, so as as we mentioned, it's coming more from timing effects of emerging markets.

We always have in emerging markets or in some markets, we have periods where tenders are on hold or they are a little bit delayed. That is actually happening this year or it happened in the in the second quarter.

One of the markets, Australia, but especially in Latin America, we we have seen here a bigger impact in the second quarter, but as mentioned before, we do expect that this is only timing, it means in the third, but then also in the fourth quarter, this will resolve. The the the the core markets or the most important markets where we have stable reimbursement system in North America and Western Europe, we are actually on track.

Okay. Thank you.

Hi, thank you for taking my questions. I just had a couple on the kind of growth side of things.

Firstly, could you specify how much of the B2B growth was impacted by these kind of special or timing effects that you just mentioned? Then just to clarify on the kind of spike event impact, you mentioned it's about 1 percentage point.

What is your kind of expectation for the remainder of the year and how much is factored into guidance? Apologies if I missed this earlier.

Then, finally, how much impact was FX on gross margin, which in Q2, would you be able to specify that? Thank you.

If I got the first point right, B2B and timing effect, there in the B2B business, there were not too many timing effects. There was something in the end of the first quarter with the war in Middle East.

We had some deliveries delayed, so, but this was all realized then in the second quarter. Therefore, the B2B side, we are actually more or less on track.

The timing effect was on the B2C side. I just sort of as Falko asking now how I'd explained it, so that this will be resolved in the third and fourth quarter.

Regarding the spike topic, Arne mentioned it, it's on the EMEA growth, yeah, we're talking about 1% to 2% of the 9%, yeah, 1% to 2% are affected by spike events. As I also mentioned, this effect is getting smaller and smaller, yeah.

As more the Ukraine is fitting their patients, because the refitting cycles, they're then already considered normal, yeah, fitting, it's not very often not done anymore by the military, because people are retiring from military, they're civilians. They still have the status of veterans, but they're civilians, they're moving into the normal reimbursement, and therefore, that's already for our industry, this is normal course of business, yeah.

That's what we mentioned before, we are talking about increased patient base, yeah, which stays now for the next decades in the system. Therefore, this spike impact, you will see decreasing all the time.

FX impact on margin, on gross margin, I think you asked, right? It's fairly low, it's -0.1%.

Oh, great. Thank you.

Okay. Then thanks a lot for attending part in the call.

You can not see, but you can hear us. The management is satisfied with the first half of the year and optimistic for the second half of the year.

I hope we answered all your questions, and yeah, we're looking forward for the next call after the third quarter. Thanks a lot.