Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to the first half 2026 results briefing of Exel Composites. I'm your host today, Lauri Haavisto, the investor relations director here at Exel.

As per usual, I'm joined by our officers: the Chief Executive Paul Sohlberg and the Chief Financial Mikko Rummukainen. Let's move on with the show.

As always, the session is being recorded, and we'll have a Q&A session at the end. Yeah.

Paul, please, the stage is yours.

Thank you. Would you, Lauri, share the slides, please?

Oh, yeah.

Good afternoon, everybody, and thank you for joining the webcast today. Good to see that there are good turnout today.

We have great things to talk about, it's always good to see many familiar names and also many new names. As Lauri already said, we have Mikko and myself talking today.

Please hold your questions until the end. We are looking forward to an interactive session then towards the end with your questions and comments and that.

If Lauri moves the slides, then I'll go ahead and give you an update first, like an executive summary of the quarter and the first half, and then Mikko will talk you through a little bit of the numbers with some more granularity. We are very pleased to report a strong Q2 performance.

We had good growth as a company on the whole, and particularly pleased by the fact that both of the business units were strongly contributing to this growth. Not only growth, but also with a significant increase in the profitability and also in the cash generation.

I think this is kind of a very good glimpse of the stronger Exel that we are building and how our strategy is supposed to be working as we move ahead. If you just quickly look at the numbers, revenue overall up by 40% compared to the period a year ago.

Engineered Solutions put in a good 30% growth there, and Industrial Solutions, as we of course expect and have planned, 82%. A very good number there as well.

Like I said, profitability was good in the quarter, €2.5 million giving us a margin of 7.3, which is also a significant improvement to last year. I'm also particularly happy by the fact that, even with this strong execution and delivery of the backlog and the revenue, we were able to work well in the customer interface and secure a strong order inflow as well, basically keeping our book-to-bill, where it should be, or at least where it should be, and the backlog also strong, remaining strong basically at the level we've had for all of this year.

I think that's also a very good sign as we move ahead. The strongest growth we saw obviously it came from the energy customer industry, where both wind and then the conductor core business was contributing to it.

We also had basically a fairly okay demand in buildings and infrastructure, I can mention, and then particularly good increase in the defense, which is located inside the other category. Obviously where the world is currently and where it's going, we've also seen quite a lot of activity in that for the past let's say 8 to 12 months.

The team has been working well there and has been able to convert some of the leads into opportunities and eventually actually also to business, which you're seeing there. We also noted already about the cash flow from the operating activities, which was strong in the quarter and also strong in the first half.

With that, Mikko, would you like to go ahead and give us a little more granularity, please?

Thanks, Paul. Yes, very happy with the quarterly results for the second quarter.

Paul walked through the main numbers in terms of year-to-date figures. One thing, in addition to good order intake, good revenue, now when we look at operating profit, we report unadjusted EBIT and adjusted EBIT.

When we have done previously some restructuring activities, that is largely behind us. EBIT and adjusted EBIT, they were approximately the same.

There's some minor costs included. That's the good news.

When we look at our quarterly split in terms of the results, second quarter, typically we have minor seasonality, and second quarter is one of the stronger quarters. It was also in 2026.

With order intake, it's somewhat affected by large orders that we were able to get last year to build up the overall order book. On a running rate, €34.5 million for the second quarter in order intake from general customer base, that was really good result.

Similarly, when we look at revenue, 34.6%, significantly over the previous years and including the comparable second quarters. Operating profit, best quarter also in 3 years.

If you, Lauri, take the order intake. Thanks.

When we look at our order backlog, order backlog has grown roughly double from last year, and that was 98.6 million. The growth in order book that has been driven by the longer-term contracts we've been able to secure, especially last year.

While we have been delivering products and receiving call-offs under the long-term agreements during the year, we were able to maintain other order intake so that we were able to maintain order backlog stable. When we look at the high order backlog, that does provide better visibility for the year and coming years than has typically been.

We're very pleased with the order book. If we then look at the segment split, as Paul mentioned at start, two customer industries that contributed significantly to our growth, energy, which doubled from last year, from 5.3 to €10.6 million, especially driven by good call-offs from customers under the long-term agreements.

Another notable change was the others customer industry, where growth was over 50%. When we consider our strategy, we focus on buildings and infrastructure in addition to energy and transportation, both we were able to also maintain good growth.

Oh, yes, and profitability, most important. With the good revenue that supports good results, in parallel, we were able to maintain good control on costs.

There was, due to the geopolitical situation, some fluctuations in terms of raw material costs, which we have been working actively with our suppliers and customers so that we mitigate as much increases as possible from supply side while being able to then achieve from customer side acceptance that pricing needs to follow. Reflecting our higher volumes, utilization, good execution, we were able to push up the operating profit to €2.4 million unadjusted, €2.5 million adjusted.

That's on the highlights. Paul will look at how our business units did.

Paul, I think you're muted.

Thank you, Mikko. Let's start with the Engineered Solutions business unit.

Like we already mentioned briefly, solid revenue growth, very steady. I think actually quite good customer activity through the whole quarter.

Sales was very busy out with customers, and we also managed to get in some of the call-offs that we had for conductor core earlier in the year, and I was very happy that the team was then able to respond to that and actually push them through and deliver them early. I think, in general, very busy times for the ESBU.

The other element of that kind of good traction that's also happening now in ESBU is the conversion of these defense-related leads and opportunities into actual business, which has happened lightning-fast. I want to thank everybody involved in that, and which is, of course, a good contributor to the overall growth in the area.

I think, in general, we mentioned that there's also good support in buildings and infra and also in transport. Quite okay, although there's some difference in the percentages and they are maybe not all as bold across the industry segments we serve.

I think though that I would say that the overall outlook is good for many of them. We see in some of that had smaller numbers perhaps some timing-related issues happening there, but we are working on them as well to kind of improve.

I think, like I mentioned, that this is kind of a glimpse, in a way, also for ESBU's side of the stronger Exel that we are building, that when things work out the way it's planned in our strategy, that we work well with customers, we secure a good mix of orders that will fill the factory and improve the utilization rates, then we will also be busy and be able to generate the cash that is kind of attendent from that business. It really is a good basis to continue executing the strategy from this point on for the ESBU as well.

Let's then take a look at what's happening in the Industrial Business Solutions. Of course, here the percentages are very high, which is great.

Also, in terms of the absolute euros, we're starting to see some of the growth that we've been working on and that we very much look forward to. Of course, the growth at this point was driven mainly by the higher deliveries to wind customers across the whole business unit.

Not only to one singular customer, but to various of them. We also continued ramping up and adding production capacity to support the future greater output and the deliveries that we expect to make through this year and hopefully in the next year and the years to come as well.

Also, you might have noticed that some of the turbine manufacturers in particular, they have had really good streaks lately, and we have been extremely busy with the tendering and the qualification and the development of ongoing opportunities that we've already talked about before, but also the new opportunities in that respect. I think it's a good sign.

There's another good sign as well, that we have also looked at introducing more of the transportation and buildings and infrastructure businesses and profiles to run from the Industrial Solutions business unit, exactly as the plan is. It's by no means a one-hit wonder around wind, we are moving ahead also on these other customer industries as we have been planning.

In overall, in the quarter, the focus shifted from building the capacity towards scaling the operations, also extending it to some new profiles to be run out of this business unit, and of course then continuing to increase the efficiency, overall quality obviously, and the utilization in the business. I think really good work from both of the business units and everybody in Exel.

I want to thank all for the great work that they've been doing. I think we have also a note on the guidance.

I am very pleased to reiterate our guidance for the year. We expect revenue and adjusted operating profit to increase significantly in this year compared to last year.

We've made a minor clarification in terms of the timing. As you may remember, we previously had the expectation that some of these call-offs, in particular of the industries, for example, the conductor cores, they're likely going to be coming in the second half of the year.

Now we actually saw them coming in, or some of them coming in already early in the year, and, working really hard through the spring and the summer period, we were able to then convert those into revenue. We kind of realized that revenue earlier in the year, which is then very positive.

Just want to leave you with the thought, we are looking ahead really with confidence into the second half. It's merely a kind of timing-related adjustment there, I feel good about the second half, please don't worry about that.

With that, I think it's back to, yes, Lauri, to kind of give us some chores and then moderate the questions, please.

Thank you, Paul. Here's a quick reminder of our next report.

It's going out on a Wednesday, the 4th of November. Or for all you early birds, it's going out already at 8:00 a.m., you have plenty of time to read it.

With that, let's move on to questions from the audience. We already have some raised hands.

Valtteri, please go ahead.

Thank you, Lauri. Congratulations on an awesome result.

My first question relates to you mentioning in the report that the good result is partly supported by earlier customer call-offs. Should we see this in a way that, compared to the situation in Q1, the outlook has actually remained unchanged for this year, or has it actually exceeded your previous expectations now?

Valtteri, and thanks for the question. I think the correct assessment of that is that we have not changed anything.

We are not changing our own outlook. We are not internally even in our own estimations change anything.

It's merely a timing-related shift or adjustment that we wanted to get clarified there. With that said though, the year has started well.

We have done a lot of good work through the year this part as well, we are looking forward into the second half also with confidence and excitement. That's what I can leave you with there.

Okay. Fair enough.

Then about the orders. Good order intake again in this quarter.

Can you share how it's composed of the order intake, where are the orders coming from right now?

We can. We don't typically kind of report them specifically, but I can give you a flavor of it.

In general, I would say that it was fairly well represented from all of the areas. Where we had a little bit less in this particular period was in transportation, but I would say that's kind of, maybe owing to seasonality.

Which were very, very strong, obviously, where both the energy sector, particularly driven by wind, like I said, some of the turbine vendors are doing well, and defense also was strong in this period. It also has something to do with the fact that, of course, we are now concentrating our resources and efforts on specific customer industries and specific customers or parts of that overall market there, and we've done a lot of work with them, we've been able then to convert that.

I think, where we have a little bit maybe less of the order inflow, that's also reflective of the fact that we have been putting efforts elsewhere in this period for good reason and in alignment with our strategy.

Okay. Thank you.

Two more quick questions. The first one is related to the defense.

How much of the others segment growth is actually contributable to defense, and what applications are being in high demand there?

Okay. The good news is that in the other segment, I think the growth did come from many of the different, the mix of the items that we have in that area.

By far, the biggest contributor was defense now. What you have there is the camouflage poles, we have also some telescopic masts, and then, of course, tubes that are related to aerial devices type of thing, which is kind of like one of the newer converted applications there.

It basically came from all of the typical defense products we have, plus these new opportunities, and then also in a lesser extent to various other smaller opportunities in that sector.

Thank you. One last question.

I heard a rumor that you might be actually planning to expand your Joensuu factory. Is there any truth to this?

In any case, I think previously, you were, if anything, considering closing one more factory. Have your plans kind of changed in that regard?

Do you still add additional capacity?

No, absolutely not. This is very much in line with the strategy, where we've said that as part of the overall direction, we want to go towards stronger, better-resourced, modern facilities that can kind of then deliver better on all accounts.

Yes, it's true that we have moved out one small wall. I would say it's very grand to call it an expansion, but thank you for that.

It's basically taking a little bit of the parking lot and then the old smoking cabinet and kind of expanding the factory to cover those now. I'll just give you the background to it, because as we do increase the utilization rates, we also need to be prepared for the growth investments and the type of profiles and products we want to run there.

In particular, we see the need to have the ability to run long profiles. For example, conductor core, they require fairly long spaces, and this was an opportunity to use some of the existing building space we have and then kind of extend that by some tens of meters so that we can actually put in some of the longer equipment in there.

It's kind of like a fairly miniscule, if you want to call it an expansion.

Great. That's all from me.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Valtteri. Next up we have Joona.

Go ahead.

Hi, Joona Harjama?] from OP.

Thank you for the presentation. Valtteri already took some of my questions, but I still got few left.

I'll take these one by one. Firstly, you mentioned that you worked closely with customers and suppliers to mitigate the cost pressures.

Can you give us any color if the increased costs were fully covered with price increases or was the net effect still negative? If you look at your first-half gross margins, they came slightly down from last year.

Was this due to the cost pressures or sales mixture?

A couple of different things there. If I start now with the kind of the dynamics in the supply chain.

Once the issue in the Middle East started, we reacted very, very early to it, and we started working both with the customer end and with the supply chain to kind of see how we can best mitigate the effect. I think this early reaction was the key to being able to mitigate and handle that in a good way, and also in a way that I understand from customers that they have appreciated.

We worked on that early to work that in an elegant or a smooth way, if you will, and the net effect is by this time, it's on the positive side. Now we are not fully through this crunch yet or the price escalation in the supply chain, but I think we are in a fairly good position now to continue mitigating it from the basis we've built.

We didn't make some of the errors that one is prone to do is to jack prices very early and then cause commotion. Rather, we did it in a more elegant way such that we have now a better basis to move from that forward.

Mix had also a little bit to do with it, but I'd say overall, the issues that have been now external issues coming from the supply chain, they have been taken care of so far by the team in a good way.

Thank you. That's helpful.

Then about staffing, can you describe recruitment needs for India factory going forward? Do you still need to recruit more people in the coming quarters as the ramp-up continues, or have you kind of reached sufficient level to be ready for the growth?

I think, as part of the capacity increase, the way we do it, and typically how you do it in a processing plant, is that you start from line number 1, you bring it to stable state, they can run multiple cavities, if you will, then you add cavities, and once you have a full line in stable state running well, and you have the team prepared and trained and processes in place, then you move to the next and do the same, and you go one by one or maybe two at a time. We are not yet at full capacity there, we will be keep adding lines and capacities and, of course, also then training people as we go.

I think there will be some needs in the future as well to keep adding people.

Okay. Thank you.

Then perhaps about the energy demand, how does the tendering pipeline look like in conductor cores? Secondly, perhaps a bit broader, how do you see the wind power sentiment currently?

Okay. Yes, I think we're quite active in all the relevant fora for being involved not only in the tendering, but also kind of in standardization bodies, working with customers not only on kind of giving them offers, but to kind of actually develop the product or specify together the product and then see what are the variants and the derivatives that each of the customers wherever they are in the world may need.

We have a fairly sizable team for Exel or the size of a company of what Exel is working on that now. We also have, earlier today I was asked, do you have customer or potential customers that you're working on in Europe or also outside of Europe?

The answer is yes on both accounts. We're quite busy in that respect.

I will caution you though that it's still a fairly young area of conductors, and there's a lot of testing involved, and particularly if you develop a new variant of it, there's a long testing period that needs to be done, it's by no means immediate, but we are working on that in a good way. On the wind side, I think we've spoken a couple of times of the way we have observed the turbine manufacturers and the dynamics in that industry is that and I've been saying for some while already now that and I think it's becoming more evident through the numbers as well that the market is being split up in two camps, or maybe there are more as well, but if you want to take the ones who are going to do quite well and then the ones who may have some challenges ahead of them already for some period of time.

I think now if you look at the various turbine manufacturers and what kind of things they're talking about, the numbers they report, I think there's a good momentum in that camp. We have worked as a team quite significantly on identifying who those will be and how should we develop ourselves and how should we work with them to position ourselves in an important place within their strategy.

That's kind of one of these things that we are really starting to bear some fruit as well. I think we are not there with all of them, but we are there with many of the ones we want to be, and I think we will also maybe try and add a few of them or maybe at least one or two more where we are then in a good position.

I'd rather be kind of a very valued supplier to let's say three, maximum four of them than a fringe supplier to many of them. That's the way we're looking at that.

Yes. Thanks a lot.

Then perhaps finally about the seasonality and phasing-related issues. Can you comment or can you quantify how much the timing affected second quarter?

Continuing on that, can you comment anything on what you expect from the second-half seasonality between the third and fourth quarter?

Sure, and I'm going to ask our seasonality expert Mikko to comment on that. Mikko, if you'd like, please.

Thanks. Basically, that is a good question.

When we started the year, we did reflect that call-offs and their schedule of how exactly customers will place them or request the products to be delivered will have an effect. Let's say in the ballpark of say, €4-ish million, maybe some that we can attribute to the earlier call-offs, just to give a order of magnitude understanding.

As Paul reflected, some of the demand got pushed towards end of the year to be actually delivered now in Q2. There is still remaining flexibility of what customers will request in the second half, whether it's third or fourth quarter.

Historically, we have been extremely able to deliver on short notice to customers, so as much as I would love to give you a solid understanding halfway through the quarter, but historically, we are still able to deliver even for the ongoing quarter if you place orders for right products that we have capacity for. I unfortunately cannot give very, very exact answer to third and fourth quarters splits.

Okay. Thanks a lot.

That's all from me. Thank you, Paul, Mikko, and Lauri.

Thank you, Joona. Do we have any more questions from the audience?

If so, please use the raise hand function. I think that's a wrap.

Thank you, Paul and Mikko, for the presentation. Thank you, attendees, for taking the time.

I hope to see you on the next one latest November. Have a great day.