Yes, good morning, everybody, and thanks for joining the call. I'm very happy to present here our Q1 results, and you will see later on why we are really quite proud of it.

Where do we come from? I think just for memory here, 2.34 billion revenue in 2025, the third-best year in the history of Palfinger, and again, and you will see later on, we are aiming for that.

Why is this happening? Through our strong global presence.

This means in terms of engineering and technology, in terms of our solid and strong sales and service network, 30 production sites worldwide, and very well-motivated 12,000 employees. We go to the next slide.

I think here it's clear to us and very well-understood about our equity story. We presented this already several times, but I just wanted to remind you where we are coming from and what does Palfinger mean.

We are a true global technology company, again, year-over-year growth in revenue and EBIT, and this has proven that not only the equity story is right, as well the business model fits very well for our customers and for our dealers. The equity story means that we are technology leader.

We are aiming for growth. Here, I think the areas are clearly identified.

We are very resilient. I think also something specially in these days, usually it's forgotten, but considering the results we are seeing here, this is proven, and great results and great earnings potential.

I think this is as well something specially for our investor side can be quite interesting. If we move to the next slide, yes, we are resilient, and this is based on our strong and solid industry diversity.

Here, you see the impact by the different industries kicking into our business. Still 18% infrastructure, but as everybody knows here, this is still something which is further growing.

The governments, not only in Europe, are really supporting and subsidizing infrastructure. It's not only about roads; it's about railway, it's about infrastructure, everything.

This is still a quite solid base. On the other hand, our marine business, here we are talking about shipbuilding, but as well the services which are coming along.

Then not to forget about transport and logistics. Then on the fourth level, building construction.

Here, you see that we are not that much depending as well on private housing, which is still somehow in a trend which is not fully recovering. If we go to the next slide, yes, we are having the proper solutions for all our customer needs.

On the classical land side, eight different solutions we are providing, six here on the marine side, as well here no further consolidation, we stick to our plan, and this is very much appreciated both by our customers and our dealers that we are having a solid solution provider in terms of products and solutions. If we go to the next slide, quite important here some of you have seen already when we presented Reach Higher, our Strategy 2030+, which we re-did last year, which was very well-perceived by the marketplace, by investors, but as well by our customers and dealers, which has more or less three pillars.

It's lifting customer value. This means really staying close to our customer, customer requirements, customer satisfaction, not only in terms of products and solutions, but as well in terms of services.

Then quite important, the balanced profitable growth, here to make sure not just shooting for profitability, not just shooting for volume, to have the proper balance, and to make sure that as well businesses like service and spare parts, but as well the aerial working platform, is kicking in, and this is in the focus. Then as well execution excellence, this means making sure that we walk the talk.

This means focusing on supply chain optimization and as well process, system, and data optimization. In total, we identified 18 programs, and if anybody is interested still to learn more about it, just watch our website and you can see more about it.

What does this mean if we move to the next slide in terms of where are the main drivers coming from? Before we have shown and seen the different industries, here we are seeing the main drivers for our growth.

As we said and as I mentioned already before, a big portion is service and spare parts, then as well the expected recoveries in EMEA, which we are partially already seeing despite maybe Germany, but still I would say Iberia, Spain, Portugal is recovering, Italy is holding up quite strong, and as well Portugal. As you see here as well, an important part is AWP, the aerial working platform, and all the other businesses as well as mentioned here.

If we move to the next slide, and here I'm talking about our Q1 2026 highlights, and I think this already shows and proves already that walk the talk as well in terms of profitable growth and volume. Here, we managed to increase our revenue to 561.5 million, the EBIT as well further increased to 41.3 million, and our net result, even more important, 24.6 million.

This means more than 11% in terms of growth year-over-year, yeah? If you consider this maybe with some other fellows in the industry in terms of benchmark, the entire machinery industry or whatever, I think we can be very proud of it, and Felix will further explain what does this mean and where these numbers are coming from.

Then as well coming back into the ATX here in Austria, then important show in the United States, the CONEXPO, which is similar to the Bauma in Europe, where we were quite successful in terms of leads, in terms of presenting ourselves. Not to forget about our collaboration with ICON.

Here, we are talking about 3D printing with Palfinger lifting solutions, which is as well a major milestone moving forward. Talking about the CONEXPO in 2026, yes, this is the largest construction trade show in the world, not only in US, in the world in 2026.

Last year, we had to cover the Bauma in Munich. Takes place in US in Las Vegas.

We had more than 140,000 registered visitors overall and 33,500 people on our booth, and this is quite significant. As well in terms of leads, we got a very strong leads with very strong requirements in terms of customers joining us, seeing us, and asking for quotations, and even closing some deals here.

On the next slide, a little bit of further—

Sorry, guys, for this interruption. I think this was maybe too many good news here from Bergheim, Salzburg, that the line couldn't digest it.

I apologize. Talking about ICON, a strong technology partner here, based in Austin, Texas, which employs more than 400 people and is focusing here on robot-assisted 3D printing, which is quite unique in the industry and where Palfinger is here the major contributor in terms of technology.

Saying this, now we are coming to the part where Felix Strohbichler, our CFO, will further explain and talk about the numbers before then I am coming to the outlook. Please, Felix, go ahead.

Thank you, Andreas. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

As probably, we are steering the company in three segments. The segment Sales & Service, which includes, as the name says, all service and sales activities for our products and solutions, except manufacturing for third parties.

If we look at the next slide, you can see the market developments in the several regions, and these were obviously not in one direction only. On the one hand, we saw an improved market environment in EMEA, except for Germany, Austria, and France.

Southern Europe, as Andreas Klauser already mentioned, and Northern Europe performed quite well. Also in the Middle East, the situation, despite of the war, was actually quite okay.

In total, we saw a significantly higher revenue, and even more importantly, significantly higher earnings from EMEA in the first quarter. In North America, we still see, of course, that the geopolitical tensions, the war in Iran, the tariff policies slow down customers' decisions.

This resulted again in lower demand and also in a lower profitability for the region North America. Going to Latin America, we could show some slight growth despite of the fact that we see now a declining demand in Brazil.

Moving on to APAC, India is still the growth driver in the region, even if there is a certain impact now from the war in the Middle East. The Chinese market remains soft, a little movement, but not really a recovery.

Coming to Marine, Marine was the second very strong pillar in the first quarter next to EMEA, outstanding performance driven by major orders from wind, offshore cranes, and the cruise ship sectors, and the outlook for the rest of the year in Marine is again also positive. Last but not least, CIS, another drop in revenue and earnings due to the fact that the overall economic situation in Russia as a consequence of the sanctions is really difficult.

What does this mean in terms of numbers? An increase of 2.2% in external revenue to €506 million.

EBIT went down by 12% to 46.6 millions to an EBIT margin of 9.2%. Please keep in mind that the EBIT lines in all three segments are impacted by intercompany transfer pricing and also intercompany service charges.

It's always a little bit difficult to compare periods against the latest period simply due to ongoing changes in intercompany invoicing and service charges. If we go to the order book level, this is a very positive line, because despite of a slight decrease of 3% compared to the end of Q1 2025, we actually had an increase of 65 millions compared to the end of the year 2025 despite of a high output.

The service revenue share is 2% lower than in the first quarter 2024. We have a clear plan to catch up here in the coming quarters.

Moving on to the segment Operations, which includes all manufacturing and assembly activities of Palfinger. On the one hand, in Europe, we have seen a strong demand, as already mentioned before, due to the better market environment, and this also led to a high utilization, especially for loader cranes and hookloaders.

In the US, on the other hand, the subdued demand also led to a lower capacity utilization. The same is true in CIS.

Due to the difficult economic situation, there is also a persistently low utilization of our plants. If we go to the numbers of the segment Operations, let's focus on the external revenue, as I said already.

EBIT is impacted always by transfer pricing. You see here a slight improvement of 6% in production for third parties, but compared to levels we have seen in '22, 2023, this is still far below what we have already experienced in the past.

This reflects still a relatively difficult market environment for many players in related industries who are our customers in this activity. Coming to the third and last segment, other non-reportable segments, which includes on the one hand strategic projects on group level, but also the tail lift division, which has been carved out a few years ago.

If you look at the external revenue, this obviously reflects the development of the tail lift business. As we are mainly active in the core markets Germany and the US, which are still difficult and not recovering, the revenue has declined by 18.3% to 18.8%.

Again, if you look at the EBIT line, you see a slight improvement, but again, this is also due to the fact that we have invoiced more services to the other segments. Coming now to the Palfinger Group, as Andreas Klauser already mentioned, revenue increased by 1.6% to 561.5 millions, which means that the EBIT margin has improved slightly to 7.4%, overproportionally by plus 3%, and what is, of course, the most important KPI is the consolidated net result, which has improved by almost 12% to 24.6 millions.

The further down we go the P&L, the better it gets, overproportional growth in profitability. On the right side of the chart, you see the revenue distribution by region in the first quarter.

Due to the fact that North America and CIS have been difficult, you see an increasing revenue share of EMEA, which has gone up to 64%. North America is at 22%, APAC and LatAm are at 5% respectively 6%, and CIS in the meantime is only accounting for 3% of the group revenue.

Coming to our free cash flow, in the first quarter, we still recorded a negative free cash flow of 19.2 millions. This has mainly two reasons.

On the one hand, the investing activities have been relatively high, at least significantly higher than in the first quarter of last year, but more importantly, we had an impact from change in working capital. There was a certain build-up of inventory mainly in the first quarter, which will be reversed in the coming quarters.

We, of course, maintain our free cash flow target of more than 100 millions for the full year 2026. Coming now to our balance sheet, you have already seen at the year-end a massive improvement in our balance sheet ratios, and this is, of course, the same now if we compare Q1 2025 to Q1 2026.

Equity ratio has gone up by 7.2% to 43.8%. Gearing is at almost 52%, and ROCE is at 9.5%.

The balance sheet is extremely solid, 950 millions of equity, net debt/EBITDA at the extremely healthy level of 1.8. This also, of course, is reflected in our net financial debt, which has gone down by around 150 millions compared to the first quarter of 2025.

Now we have a net debt level of 491.5 millions. Our financing is very solid, long-term, 3.24 years remaining term.

That average debt has gone up slightly also due to the fact that we had to pay back last year some attractive variable financing, and the fact that we had excess cash also following the sale of treasury shares. With this, I would like to hand back to Andreas Klauser for the outlook.

Thank you, Felix. I think no doubt a very strong start, and we are aiming for the same for the half year.

We will be slightly above prior year. This is what is expected for the first half of 2026.

More we will then disclose later on in our half-year call about the full year. As well quite important here that we are aiming as well to have in terms of revenue and EBIT above previous year, in the second half of 2026, and this should amount as well to another successful entire year.

The goal is as well to have one of the most successful years in terms of Palfinger company's history. I think this is as well quite important for you guys being the investors understanding that we are not just protecting our turf, that we are as well aiming to further grow.

Yes, this is certainly subject to certain developments we see, especially for 2027. Here, I think further based on the recovery which is expected from Germany, we are not really seeing this so far, but as well what we are getting here out of the marketplace, the tools and all the relevant environment is now provided that we can do so.

As well on the other hand, the upswing in US where we, for example, on truck-mounted forklift, we already see some positive trends and movements which we materialize latest then in 2027. If we go to the next slide, our financial target did not change.

The financial target for 2030, the 3 billion in terms of revenue, 15% ROCE, 12% EBIT margin, and as well quite important, remaining and further building our number one position for crane and lifting solutions in the entire industry as well here looking into the marketplace, not only talking about CONEXPO in US, we can clearly see that this is happening. I think it's also important if we go to the next slide to see some real examples in terms of opportunities which we have ahead of us, that's the overall investment in Germany which is still announced and not fully kicking in, the infrastructure investment gap, we are talking here between 500 to 800 billion a year, not to forget about the US star-gate project with 500 billion, and as well at a certain point in time of reconstruction of Ukraine, and this is not yet built into our business plan.

You can clearly see here the potential is huge, and we are quite confident that we are getting a certain kind of portion of this business which is upcoming in the next couple of years. At this point on time, I want to say thank you for your attention, and sorry for the short interruption here, but I think there was too many good news to digest, and I'm handing back to the operator.

Thank you.

Good morning, gents. Congrats to the numbers, and a few questions from my side.

Firstly, on the guidance in the full-year result call, it was mentioned that in the first half you expect EBIT growth to be actually underproportionate compared to the top-line growth. I'm wondering if that is still the case, and also if you can put into perspective the second-half year guidance, what it means for the margin.

Should the margin go up slightly or is there a possibility that it will be rather flatish or even slightly down if earnings are growing underproportionately? That would be the first one.

Perhaps let me come to the guidance for the first half year. Our expectation in terms of EBIT margin has slightly improved.

Last time I said it's probably the same or eventually a slightly lower EBIT margin at a higher level of revenue. From today's perspective, we believe that the EBIT margin will be on the same or on a slightly higher level compared to the previous year.

This is a slight improvement in terms of EBIT margin expectation for the first half year. For the second half year, we do expect this development to continue.

We expect also for the second half year revenue and EBIT above previous year's level. Of course, if revenue goes up, typically this also helps with the EBIT margin.

I would not expect a huge increase in EBIT margin, but there should be a slight increase.

Okay. The kind of improvement in the first-half margin profile, is that a mix effect or is it more coming from the cost side?

Can you elaborate a bit on that?

What we can see is that in the first quarter we still had positive impacts also in terms of material cost. Steel cost, etc., were still on a reasonable level in the first quarter.

Now, the war in Iran, and not only this, also some improvements in certain areas lead to higher costs from suppliers, raw material, which will kick in in the remainder of the year. This will put some pressure.

Of course, we will also react with price increases to a certain extent. Not all of this will kick in, but, of course, there are several impacts in the first quarter which help.

It's material cost, but it's also mix. It was mentioned, for example, that especially crane in EMEA has been very strong, and, of course, this is one of the best contributors, to say, in terms of EBIT margin.

The same is true for Marine. The two strong contributors, Marine and EMEA, are actually in terms of profit margin also very good contributors.

Okay. Thank you.

Then on kind of the order or demand trends that you are currently seeing, can you outline kind of the momentum in April and kind of the perception you currently have for the second quarter, as you point out it will be also kind of a decisive part whether 2027 is going to go into the 2.7 billion direction?

No, clearly. I think in terms of order intake, we are getting further orders here on the defense side.

As I said, unfortunately, we can't really disclose here too much, you will understand, for different obvious reasons. Defense side is kicking in very well, which is leading as well into some further shipments next year already.

The same on the marine side. Germany, as I said, is still in a recovery phase, but we can see now that our customers, like the major construction companies, are getting deals awarded in terms of infrastructure.

There we see some movement, but very solid already, as I mentioned, Spain, Italy, where the order intake is quite strong, and as well some major deals are coming back from North America. I'm quite confident that we will see a further positive trend for entire year of 2026, but as well 2027.

Would you expect the Q2 order intake to be above Q1?

Could be slightly above Q1, yes, but not only for the second half of the year. It might already start now in Q2 because we are working on some major deals which should kick in sooner than later.

Okay. Great.

Thank you. Then one question regarding the US.

Can you outline the impact that you've penciled in into your guidance regarding the US tariffs? I think the narrative would be that there is some pent-up demand waiting on the sidelines, but for all these obvious reasons, political noise, etc., it's not materializing.

How long can this situation prevail? This uncertainty is therefore for quite some quarters arguably.

Do you think that there is a kind of an unwinding of this pent-up demand to be expected anytime soon?

No, first of all, I think there are no North Americans here in the call, because they see it a little bit from a different angle. North America is maybe not that fragile as we think on one hand side.

On the other hand, yes, people are hesitating and seeing if tariffs are moving, going down, whatever, and in their business decisions. We are currently working on a bigger deal closing again on truck-mounted forklift, a significant number.

Here these guys are investing. They have their investment plans and they don't care too much about politics at the moment, luckily.

The smaller ones, yes. The smaller ones are still hesitating.

There are still huge demand, and we have clearly seen it at the CONEXPO here in Las Vegas that the requirements, the interest for growth is there. This means businesses sitting there.

The decision-making process, and here I fully agree with you, is a bit more complicated and delayed, they're postponing because they might would see a further recovery not in terms of business, but in terms of tariffs. Mostly of it we can offset because our local footprint we have in North America, the three plants, and as well the USMCA agreement, which is still helping in terms of Canadian production and assembly.

We don't see it too critical. We still have, let's say here, a task force in place always on a weekly base identifying which kind of moves can be done.

Then I'm looking also Felix, and I think now in the numbers looking forward this is fully embedded, and I would even expect a further upswing and positive drive related to the current situation.

Of course, the tariff situation in the US based on the current tariff regime is fully embedded in our guidance. This is clear.

Of course, there is still a certain impact, not so much from the country tariffs, what is the major impact is clearly Section 232.

Okay. Kind of the earnings burden, would you be willing to share that,

is that

less than in 2025?

As in 2025, we saw an steadily increasing level of tariffs. You cannot just compare it year-over-year.

Compared to the last year, probably the impact will be on a similar level despite of the fact that in total it's substantially more, but, of course, with price increases, it's somehow compensated to a certain extent, and also with footprint measures, there are also some measures in place to mitigate the impact, but it will still be a double-digit million amount, a lower double-digit million amount, which will be the impact in 2026 in our P&L.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Good morning. Thanks for having me on.

I would like to continue a little bit on the outlook and on the backlog. What would be a level that you need to reach now the half year or maybe by the end of the year in order to make sure that fiscal '27 guidance is or can be met?

What we—

I'm talking about maybe, yeah.

Yeah. What we would need is a level of 220 millions of order intake on average in every single month.

This is what is required. Obviously, if you multiply by 12, it's a level which comes close to the 2.7 billions, but this is actually what we need in order to take the decision to really ramp up the capacities to a level that allows us in 2027 to produce at this output level.

Understood. This doesn't sound that you're so far away from such a level.

220 is still significantly more than we have seen. In the end, we had some months where we were at 220, but we need it on an average basis, and this is not where we are at the moment.

For the first half, we are nearly fully covered. I think as well this we can disclose here that the first half is already relatively safe here as well in terms of just materializing the deals and making the proper shipments.

Yes, it is for sure a challenge, but I think what we are seeing now in the offers which are out in the marketplace, the hit rate we have, we are still confident that we get there.

We will communicate, as already announced when we talked about our financial year 2025 a few weeks ago, that we would communicate at the latest end of July when we talk about the half-year result if we can maintain or if we can confirm the 2027 targets. What will be required to get there is around 650 millions of order intake in the second quarter.

I think this is what you were asking for.

Exactly, just to have something to hold on. Regarding especially Germany, why are clients hesitant when they see first infrastructure projects being awarded already?

What's the feedback you're receiving why demand is not picking up stronger yet?

We have seen an anticipation already last year, to be honest, when the announcement was taken, some of our customers decided to be prepared here for this upswing, but then the funds were not really released, also a little bit of a delay. Now, they were a little bit cautious for further orders.

One portion, I would say 1/3, was already covered with a good order intake last year, which we're still providing to the marketplace. Germany is here.

For the to other thirds, they are still a little bit hesitating and waiting. This is coming.

I think there's no question that these projects will take place, whatever the amount will be, and this will be a further boost, and that's the reason as well why we are ready in terms of capacity in the plants, in our operation, that we can do so. Does this make sense?

Sounds good. Then maybe last one for the time being.

Are you thinking to align CapEx, or is it too early to think about it, depending on the development of order intake in the course of the year, or are you actually sure to invest some 120, 130 million this year as well?

Our CapEx plans are actually based on a long-term strategy. Of course, if things would really turn bad, what we don't see for the time being, we always have the possibility to cut back and to reduce the CapEx level to a certain extent.

However, for the time being, we clearly see that we will push the implementation of our 2030+ Strategy, which includes the investments in Sales & Service, which includes the build-up of the factory in India, and which also includes the footprint optimization we have in mind for Europe. If the situation is slightly better or stable, we'll not change dramatically our CapEx plan.

Only if things would really go south, of course, we would adapt.

Okay. Perfect.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you very much. Good morning.

Lars vom Vom-Cleff, Deutsche Bank. Two quick follow-up questions, if I may.

In order to get a better feeling for your operating leverage, consensus currently is expecting 4% sales growth, 11% EBIT growth. You indicated that a slight relative profitability improvement could be possible this year.

Does the current consensus sound reasonable or do you still regard it as a bit too optimistic with regards to your operating leverage?

I don't want now to be more precise in our guidance than we have been on the slide, but I think in terms of revenue guidance, it's realistic. In terms of EBIT guidance, it's also not that far away.

Perfect. Thank you.

Then a quick follow-up question on Section 232, which you also mentioned. Excuse my ignorance.

If I remember correctly, it's a 15% tax on material handling, and I assume that comes on top of the general tax, more or less double the burden. Or am I wrong in this regard?

Actually, it changes almost constantly. We had in the meantime the third wave of changes.

Please take it with a grain of salt because this is actually highly complex. The latest change is that it's not just a tariff on the steel components or aluminum components, it's a tariff level of 25% on the complete product, independent of the steel or aluminum content, which is, in fact, another increase.

This was the latest change on the 6th or 8th of April. It came into force with immediate effect in April.

What you need to consider as well that we see the same impact, specially on loader cranes, on all the other competitors, yeah? This means our competitiveness does not suffer vis-a-vis the peers or vis-a-vis the competition, but in terms of customers hesitating to close the deals is exactly what I mentioned before.

They're always trying to wait for the best moment, okay? This makes it a little bit unpredictable, but the business, the requirements, the demand is still sitting there.

Perfect. Thank you.

I'll go back to the line.

Hi, yeah. I would have two more cash flow-related questions.

Firstly, on the working capital swing that we saw in the first quarter, I would assume it's partially because of the low level at year-end. Any thoughts you can share with us on the kind of progression going forward and also looking at your free cash flow guidance more than 100 million just to remind us of the absolute level of CapEx that you target for this year?

The seasonality is typically like you have seen it. You already mentioned that year-end was extremely strong, actually we emptied our inventory to a very large extent at the year-end, and the rebound therefore was slightly higher than it should have been.

We also had some special impacts, for example, in the Middle East, we could not ship all products, minor amounts, but in the end, it all sums up. This is something which we hope to see trending in the other direction already in Q2, but typically the strongest improvement is always in Q4, and you could see this also in the last years.

At the latest in Q4, we do expect a full reversal of this number and probably even a positive impact out of working capital change. Sorry, just to add on, it also depends, of course, on the revenue we expect for 2027.

The better actually the outlook, the higher is the working capital. This is, of course, actually always the opposite, the better the outlook, the higher is also the working capital then.

Okay.

A working capital inflow in 2026 would then entail no or very moderate growth for 2027, is kind of that the message?

If we see clearly now the order intake of 650, 660 millions plus in the second quarter, if we maintain our 2027 targets, probably there is no positive impact out of change of working capital to the free cash flow, perhaps even slightly negative impact. If the level would be, let me say, at 2.6 billions next year, I think we should get to a number of close to zero or even slightly positive.

Okay. That's very clear.

The CapEx number that is baked in for the 100 million?

CapEx impact will be around 160 millions, I would assume. Our plans are slightly higher, but I think realistically this should be what you can expect.

160, okay. Thank you very much.

Okay.

Yes, thank everybody for attending as well for your questions. I think we really further clarified and could provide a proper overview what's happening so far, what's expected in the near future.

No doubt, we are living in a very volatile environment, but still considering our product portfolio, our solutions we can provide to the marketplace, we are quite confident that we can hit the targets which we have announced. Wish you a great day, stay safe, and see you soon.

Thank you very much.