Good morning, everyone, at the earnings call of Amadeus FiRe AG regarding the Q2 six-months interim report we disclosed yesterday after the trading hours of the stock exchange. I'd like to welcome our CEO, Robert von Wülfing, who will guide us through the presentation in a moment, followed by a Q&A session via audio line and chat.

With that, I hand over to you, Robert.

Thanks, Jörg. Good morning, everybody.

Half-year figures of Amadeus FiRe, what will be our message for today? We started the current year on a positive note in Q1, and experienced a second quarter that surprised with a worsening sentiment in German economy.

Nevertheless, earning opportunities in second half-year should be better than in the first half-year. 2026 remains a highly challenging year for the German economy.

Following a decline in GDP in 2024 and 2025, the economy expanded by only 0.2% again in the second quarter of 2026, and the persistently high level of uncertainty intensified in the second quarter following the Iran war and the associated economic implications. A good indicator here in Germany is the ifo Business Climate Index.

The ifo Index is composed of the current situation of corporations and the business expectation. While the assessment of the current situation remained stable at an exceptionally low level, but stable throughout 2026, the expectation level worsened.

The significant fall here from 90.4 points in February to 83.5 points in April reflects the pronounced deterioration in sentiment in the German economy. This results in weaker investment activities, delayed decision-making, and slower business processes.

Unemployment remains at 6.4%, representing more than 3 million unemployed people in Germany, while inflation increased to 2.8% in July. The highlights: the macroeconomic environment, as I said, remained challenging and characterized by increasing uncertainties throughout the second quarter.

That was clearly reflected in customers' demand and, consequently, in the development, especially in permanent placement revenues within the personnel services segment. As a result, our second quarter targets in personnel services overall were not achieved, although temporary staffing as well as interim project management performed in line with expectations.

Looking ahead, our revised forecast does not assume any improvement in the weakening market conditions for personnel services for the reminder of the year, although the index in July improved a little. Against this backdrop, the Management Board has adjusted its expectations to the lower end of the guidance range before published in the annual report 2025.

We now expect group revenues between 350 and 365 million compared to 362 to 394 before. This would be broadly in line with prior year's level.

Our underlying assumption remains unchanged that the challenging situation among corporate customers will continue. Consequently, we expect revenue and earnings growth to be driven primarily by the training segment, while personnel services is anticipated to remain below prior year's level.

Encouragingly, the training segment achieved both its revenue and earning targets in the second quarter, also in the second quarter of 2026. For financial year 2026, we now expect operating EBITA in a range between 17 and 23 million compared with our previous guidance of 22 to 31 million.

Despite this adjustment, the forecast should still represent growth of approximately 24% to 68% compared with financial year 2025, which was affected by restructuring measures. Revenues should stabilize over the reminder of the year, and earnings performance should improve sequentially from quarter to quarter compared with the first half-year of 2026.

This development is supported by significantly higher number of working days in the second half of the year and a positive seasonality in training calendars, providing a more favorable operating environment for the group. The business development in Q1 2026, as I said, in the given conditions, we had the additional effect from the Iran war.

Labor demand remained weak, especially in cyclical sectors, while public sector-related growth could not offset these declines. Group revenue declined by 6.8% to 82.3 million.

Operating gross profit margin decreased to 48.7% from 51.2%, while the operating EBITA margin fell to 0.6%—our previous Q2 2025 was 2.4%. According to the ifo Institute, Germany remains some distance away from a sustained recovery in employment.

At the same time, structural drivers such as digitalization, AI, evolving skill requirements, and demographic developments continue to support long-term demand for training and staffing services. Overall, the first half of 2026 was characterized by two contrasting developments within the group.

While personnel services segment continued to face challenging market environment with cautious hiring activities, delayed decision-making, and weak placement dynamics, the training segment delivered a resilient performance and generated both revenue growth and a significant improvement in profitability. Overall, group revenue declined by 8% to 171.7 million, and operating gross profit decreased by 10.8% to 85.9 million.

Operating EBITA amounted to a low number of 3.5 million compared with 6.4 million the previous year. The decline was primarily driven by the significantly lower business volume in personnel services, particularly in permanent placement, while training made a positive contribution and continued to benefit from the operational measures implemented over the last year.

In addition, higher financing costs and increased PPA amortization from the acquisitions completed in 2025 weighed on group earnings. As a result, the group reported a net loss of 3.6 million in the first half-year of 2026 compared with a positive net result of 4.7 in prior year.

Looking ahead, we expect improvement in earnings performance over the second half of the year. This should be, as I said before, supported by the seasonal factors and the significant higher number of working days influencing training as well as the flexible staffing services, and we should benefit of our cost and efficiency measures and the continued positive development of the training segment.

Some more details on personnel services. Overall, the conversion of inquiries into actual hires remained subdued throughout the second quarter.

This is the general issues we discussed already a couple of times in the past that we do not convert as normal. Encouragingly, the rate of decline in our flexible staffing service, temporary staffing, and interim project management moderated somewhat.

This trend indicates an initial stabilization of customer demand and, from today's perspective, is expected to continue over the coming quarters. In permanent placement, however, market conditions remained significantly more challenging.

With revenues declining more than 30% compared with the prior-year quarter, demand and placement activity weakened noticeably compared with the previous quarter. Hiring decisions continued to be postponed, recruitment processes became even longer, and both clients and candidates remained cautious in the uncertain economic environment.

As a result, permanent placement was the service most significantly affected by the poor B2B market conditions during the second quarter. Diving a little deeper in second quarter, the revenue in staffing amounted to 42.7 million, 17.7% lower than in prior year's period.

Operating gross profit declined overproportionately by 23.1% to 24.1 million, driven by the permanent placement decline. In response to the challenging market conditions, staffing levels within the sales and recruiting organization were continuously reviewed based on performance indicators.

The number of fee earners was reduced by approximately 19% year-over-year. Despite ongoing cost and capacity management measures, the lower business volume had a significant impact on profitability.

Operating EBITA turned negative, declining from 3 million to -0.5 million in 2026. The placement results, combined with a lower number of billable days in the second quarter, which is the lowest level over the course of the year, were the main reasons for this unsatisfactory earnings performance.

Thus, the Q2 performance and results were below our own expectations. Following the Q2 figures for the first half-year, the segment revenues declined 17.6% to 90.4 million compared with the 109.7 million the prior year.

As a consequence of the lower business volume, operating gross profit decreased by 20.9% to a little more than 40 million. The decline in profitability was even more pronounced: a decline of 10.6 million in gross profit translated in a decline of operating EBITA of 4.5 million.

Thus, operating EBITA fell by 78.6% to 1.2 million compared with 5.7 million the first half-year of previous year. At the same time, costs, capacity utilization, and productivity remained under close management, while investment in systems and processes were prioritized to further strengthen operational efficiency and prepare the organization for future growth opportunities.

Regarding the training segment, the segment delivered a robust overall performance in line with management expectations. All three customer groups or addressable markets achieved growth in the first half-year of 2026.

Publicly funded training was marginally above prior year's level. In the B2G market, we first had to overcome the downward trend throughout 2025, which was achieved as expected.

Private customer business in the B2C market developed accordingly to plan, growing with middle single-digit numbers, and corporate training in the B2B market more than doubled from a small base, supported by the new companies Masterplan and Edubily. Here, B2B market conditions are as tough as we experience in the staffing segment, and business is slightly behind planned levels.

At the same time, we continued to execute our AI-first strategy by expanding AI-related learning offerings and corporate AI learning solutions for companies. The training segment achieved a clear turnaround in earnings during the second quarter.

Revenues increased by 8.6% to close to 40 million as growth in the other businesses and contributions from acquisitions more than compensated for lower revenues at Comcave, coming from a declining 2025. Operating gross profit increased slightly, while operating EBITA improved from a negative 0.9 million to a positive 0.9 million.

This development was driven by the adjusted cost structure, strong performance at GFN and Endress. The newly acquired companies contributed a small loss in Q2.

Overall, the segment performed as expected in both revenues and earnings. For the full half-year, as mentioned, the segment delivered, although developments varied across the individual businesses and continued to reflect the respective markets' demands and funding environments.

GFN and Endress continued to make good progress, while Masterplan and Edubily further strengthened our digital learning offering and expanded our corporate training capabilities. At Comcave, revenues remained below prior year's level, as expected, due to the declining trend in 2025.

However, the organizational restructuring and site adjustments implemented in second half-year 2025 continued to improve the cost base and supported a strong earnings development. Overall, the training segment generated revenues of 81.5 million, almost 6% increase on prior year's level.

Operating gross profit increased as well to 45.5 million, while the operating gross profit margin remained at around 56% compared with close to 59% in H1 2025. Most importantly, operating EBITA improved significantly from a negative 0.5 million to 2.3 million earnings, resulting in an operating EBITA margin of 2.8%.

This development reflects the improved operational performance across the segment and the benefits of the measures implemented over the past year. The Amadeus FiRe Group focuses intensively on AI skills—that is qualifications and capabilities relating to AI—as well as agent-based skills, such as those used to support companies with onboarding and offboarding, just as an example.

Thanks to our unique combination of staffing and training, we can provide companies with comprehensive support: recruiting the necessary talent, training staff, identifying needs, and outlining suitable courses of action. The momentum in this market will continue to grow and open further opportunities.

Our access to candidates, our extensive corporate contacts across Germany, a strong corporate AI learning program, and a growing network of AI-focused partner companies mean that we are very well positioned to capitalize on this. Regarding the outlook, the current financial year remains a year of transformation for the group.

Ongoing conflicts, particular Ukraine and Middle East, together with energy prices, uncertainty across international markets, continue to weigh on business confidence and investment decisions. The economic outlook for Germany remains subdued, characterized by limited momentum and only selective signs of stabilization.

A broad-based recovery is not yet visible, while structural challenges such as weak productivity growth, delays in digital transformation, and regulatory burdens continue to constrain economic development. Against this backdrop, the market for B2B services remains challenging.

Decisions and activities triggering service costs are taken either with long lead times, are canceled, or are postponed. This affects both staffing and training B2B markets.

Our adjusted outlook as followed: we continue to assume that the strain situation across corporate customers will persist and that business sentiment will remain broadly at the subdued level experienced in the second quarter. Against this backdrop, revenues and earnings growth is expected to come primarily from the training segment, while staffing is anticipated to remain below prior year's level.

As a result, we as Management Board have adjusted our expectations to the lower end of the guidance range communicated in the annual report. We now expect group revenues for 2026 to end between 350 and 365 million compared with the previous range of 362 to 394 million.

That should be broadly in line with prior-year levels in the end. At the same time, operating EBITA is in the range of 17 to 23 million versus the previous guidance of 22 to 31 million.

Even at this lower level, this would still represent a growth of approximately 24% to 68% compared with prior-year level, which, what I said already before, was affected by the restructuring measures at Comcave, what we did. Looking ahead, we expect revenues to stabilize and earnings to improve progressively over the second half-year, as already mentioned, supported by a higher number of working days.

Across the group, we remain fully focused on overcoming the current earning weakness as quickly as possible. If the business confidence in Germany improves, we believe attractive opportunities for growth and profitability will emerge once again.

This gave you an overview of our first half-year. As I said initially, not satisfying second quarter, improving earnings situation over the course of the year, turning the negative bottom line to a positive one for the full year.

Nevertheless, I have to state that Amadeus FiRe is in tough waters, especially in staffing and here in permanent placement in Germany still, which we will see if there will be opportunities in second half-year if the sentiment improves. Thank you, and now happy to answer your Q&As.

Thank you very much, Robert, for the detailed analysis of the first half-year this year. Ladies and gentlemen, now it's your turn.

We are opening the Q&A session. If you would like to ask questions in person via the audio line, please click on the raise-hand button.

If you are dialing in by phone, please press *9 to raise your hand and *6 to unmute yourself. Additionally, you are also welcome to post your questions in our chat, and I will read them out loud for you.

I get the first question in the chat from Borja Sodirvia asked the question: "Within the new level of guidance, will you be able to reduce leverage at year-end?"

As I said, the earnings in second half-year are improving. Cash flow in first half-year was positive, we expect some more effect here in second half-year which will reduce leverage to a certain extent, but the given earnings level, not dramatically.

I think what I see is that Simon raised his hand.

Yeah. May I take first Klaus Breitenbach, who had a similar question in the same direction: "What specific assumptions underpin your expectation for an improving earnings level in the second half 2026?

Are you already seeing improvements in July and early August trading?"

In the let's start with with training. Here, we have some some topics in our specific training calendars over the year, strengthening more the second half-year than the first half-year, which is also reflected in our planning.

Looking at the earnings level at at half-year, this is on plan, and you see that the full-year goal is is not doubling the first half-year results, but but even more. Here, we are in line with with with what we what we planned beginning of the year.

In training, also, having more workable working days is affecting revenues because it's you simply have more time to proceed trainings, and revenues are generated by by the hour of training, this favors also by seasonality effect from from calendar our earnings here. Same accounts for staffing.

In staffing, just as an example, in in third quarter, you have, what is it, seven more workable days working days than in Q2. Every day represents round half a million sales in temporary staffing, for example, and we pay monthly salaries to our our employees, costs of sales remain stable on an individual temp base, and revenues increase overall by half a million a day around that.

Alone from that, you you will see, what is it, seven days, 3.5 million higher earnings than what we saw in in second quarter in staffing. Same accounts for interim project management: more time available, more more sales.

Here also, the cost base increases as the interim manager also is paid by the hour. This as some some remarks why in a stable, weak environment, earnings will nevertheless improve.

Simon, now it's up to you. Please ask your question.

Your line should be open now.

I cannot hear him.

No, Simon, we can't hear anything.

Hi, good morning. Can you hear me?

Yes, hi, Simon.

Hi.

Wonderful. Thanks.

I have a question first on temporary staffing. It shows that in temporary staffing, you have, yeah, shown a weaker sequential improvement versus some of your peers.

Could you please elaborate on what is driving this? Is it primarily a function of your end-market exposure or business mix?

Also, in your prepared remarks, you sounded noticeably more cautious about the near-term outlook than some of your peers. I was wondering, yeah, what gives you the confidence that the recovery is likely to remain more subdued from your end?

That's my first question.

First on temp, what we see here is that we actually in numbers of assignments bottomed out already around the turn of the year, and since then, we are stable in number of assignments we are working on. Quarter by quarter, currently, our decline, which we saw on a higher level last year, is bottoming out, but we are not in a reverted trend that the number of assignments are already increasing.

I would call this a stabilized situation with some also price increases, which should lead then to more solid figures on prior-years comparison over the next quarters. Hard to state exactly whether our niche, the white-collar niche, is more affected than the blue-collar reading.

Doing cross-reads throughout the sector, it looks like that the blue-collar dropped earlier and even deeper, but it bottomed out already last year and is now on a more solid trend when I do the cross-reads. Are we more negative in terms of our outlook?

Here, at least one thing you have to bear in mind that we are focused on the German market. If you cross-read peers, they do have some positive signals in different geographic areas.

A lot of statements here reflect improved situation in few parts of Europe, but more in US or Asia. Will that somewhen also affect Germany?

I do think so. Just hard to project when that will be.

That might be already in second half-year, but we took the decision to be more cautious on our outlook and rolling forward the experience, especially in permanent placement, what we saw in second quarter, where you saw, well, as I described, a quite passive behavior of corporations in Germany. A better situation would be an upside.

That's very helpful. Thank you.

Then maybe, yeah, as an extension to my first question on your internal headcount, it seems to be down only 1% year-on-year at the end of H1, and which, of course, hey, includes some contributions from acquisitions, but do you feel that you have now taken out sufficient amount of cost? With temporary staffing and project management appearing to stabilize, is it fair to assume that further cost reductions are no longer the priority and that you want to be well positioned to capture an eventual upturn?

Because, yeah, with your workforce only down 1% year-on-year, that seems a bit of conflicting to your outlook.

The 1%, I should cross-check. In staffing organization, as I said, the fee earners are down 19%.

We have some counter-effects, as you said, anorganically with the new companies added first. Second, we replaced a lot of external lectures by internal lectures, which is bringing down costs actually, but is increasing headcounts, this is an effect we have in the training segment, an increase here.

Overall, we are focusing on the cost measures still and are very cautious in terms of hiring, although the part of your statement that we want to be ready in an upturn and we have to find the right way not to cut too deep, that's correct.

All right, thank you very much. Then

I may switch to a question we got on the chat from Klaus Schilling. He asked: "Hi, Robert, thanks for the very detailed rundown and the relevant slides.

Two questions: are you planning further cost-cutting measures, and if yes, of what kind? Second, to combine sales and staffing and training services, what is the situation at the customer end?

Are responsible persons the same for staffing and training budgets, or do you have to identify different people?"

Good question, the second one, Klaus. It's a yes and no.

Sometimes it is actually the same person, which gives us quite an easy access here. Sometimes it differs.

Nevertheless, if you're in a good relation with your customer, both responsibilities should be headquarters located and, well, know each other, and it's two sides of the same medal, basically, the access is positive. Currently, no matter if it's one person or two, the topic is more that in a huge number of companies in Germany, no decision is taking without heavy involvement of C-level, which, well, takes some time, and the cost measures or cost programs are broadly in place, the direct value-driving effect of any measure must be very clear that it passes C-level in the end.

For us, the topic more is not to identify the right person or the right persons, as you said, but to have projects or hirings decided positively on the top level of the companies. Your first question was cost-cuttings.

We are in the middle not of the first, but an ongoing cost-cutting program, turning actually every penny, and given the earning situation within the first half-year, you look even deeper. Also in our administration, we try or we initiated a lot of activities to use technology to find some, well, free capacities there, which will bring down the number of staff in administration further, but not in a way of a restructuring in administration, neither in the organizational parts of the business.

Here, as I said, in the staffing organization, I already described what we do. In the Comcave organization, we did the restructuring already, and where also are a larger number of employees in Tax College, Endress, and in GFN, these organizations are profitable and are performing as planned, no direct restructuring plans actually in place.

Okay. Next question comes from Borja Sodirvia.

He asked: "Can you detail the allocation of lease liabilities? Are these premises more related to training or to staffing?

The level of lease payments is close or higher than your EBITDA. If things do not get better, what could you do about leases?"

The split, to be honest, I have to look up and we have to deliver actually later. It is not that one sector is, well, overproportionally heavy in terms of lease liabilities.

Here, in the lease contracts, you are normally in a multi-year contract situation, the lease liabilities, most of it is office space, as you indicated, and yes, we do have some opportunity to decrease the space over the next years, but you are in this longer-lasting contracts, and to re-rent spaces currently in Germany is not that easy. We have some effects here already, and we have some spare square meters which we offer to the market, and some first, well, successes here, but most of it will take some time to bring down these expenditures.

Depreciations, in that case, yeah. Okay.

Thank you, Robert. Next question comes from Alexander Dominicus, and he is asking: "On the training segment, for second half 2026, you need more than 10 million operating EBITA to meet 11 to 13 million full-year guidance.

This would be around 4 million higher than second half 2025, adjusted for restructuring costs last year. Can you share what gives you confidence to achieve that, as working days should be similar compared to last year and Comcave restructuring benefits seems to be negatively offset by lower revenue?"

First, to bear in mind the lower revenue at Comcave, we saw a declining trend in 2025, right? We see this more positive for second half-year.

Same goes for GFN. GFN was also affected last year by the declining trend with quite a poor second half-year in earnings, same for Comcave, additional earnings here apart from the restructuring effect.

We see a solid performance or positive performance of Endress, which will also deliver, and you said more than 10 million. It's close to 10 million if you take the mid-range, but this is, given the top-line trend that we counter the downward trend in 2025, starting in first half-year, but accelerating in terms of relative comparison in second half-year plus the renovated cost base, and for example, in case of Endress, the structural more performing second half-year, they achieve just around a third of their earnings in first half-year, delivers the higher result in second half-year.

Thank you, Robert. Currently, there are no further new questions on the chat or no one has raised his hand.

If there are some more questions, please raise your hand or type into the chat. If this is not the case, then maybe, Robert, final words are given to you.

We had our discussions, I want to say thank you for participating, thank you for your interest in our Amadeus FiRe Group. Tough times, but a lot of opportunities.

I talked a little about the AI development in our segments. It is something which is not so big so far, not so many positions, and the training of AI is accelerating to back up the usage, but also the positions and the skill needed in AI is coming more and more into reality, from a small base, interesting perspective here.

Apart from that, well, I would like also that what you said, was it I think Simon, that the cross-read that it will be a little more positive in terms of sentiment in Germany will become effective, which will deliver some opportunities and will improve the weak earning situation we are in currently. Thank you very much, and see you next in three months.

Bye.

Thank you, Robert. Just as an information for all participants, this call was recorded, and you will have it as a download on our website during the day, as well as the transcript tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Thank you very much. Bye.