Hello, good morning to our earnings call, and warm regards from the southwest of Germany, fortunately not so warm any longer from a heat point of view than what it used to be a few days ago, but we think quite hot from the business performance point of view, and this is what we would like to talk to you about today. The presentation that we have prepared is structured into four different chapters.

The structures are generally the same as in previous calls. In case you have participated, we will be giving a very brief introduction, in particular for the ones who may be in the call for the first time.

After that, we will be talking about the financial performance of quarter two, and then also subsequently this will be leading to information regarding half year one and the respective relative comparisons to the previous years. We're going to be sharing a few insights on our threefold growth strategy in chapter three, Business Highlights, and lastly, there should be remaining 20 minutes approximately for questions and answers that we will be very happy to answer to you.

If I kick it off and start with the introduction, Johannes Linden, my name. I'm the guy on the left.

I am meanwhile more than 30 years in the B2B industrial arena, out of this more than 22 years profit and loss responsible in a number of companies, amongst others also listed companies. I'm a co-CEO here in PFISTERER, and I'm taking care of the functional areas of finance and operations.

That gives me the chance to hand over to my colleague who is sitting next to me.

Hello, good morning. Konstantin Kurfiss to everybody.

Yes, [clears throat] I also have a plus than 30 years in industry, in various companies coming especially out of, I would say, our industry we are working in, electrical infrastructure. I'm more than 16 years here in PFISTERER, from 2005 to '13 and now from 2020 up to now.

I'm also the co-CEO here and a board member, and I'm responsible for sales and technology in the company. Welcome to our call.

All right. If we take a look at product examples, this will be illustrated on the picture in front of you.

Here, we would see a typical transition from an overhead line. This is the wire, cable type of element that you see in the upper half of the picture, and these overhead lines would be connected to an earth cable and or a transformer station, and that's why we chose the picture here.

This time you see different products of PFISTERER, for instance insulators would be illustrated here, but also terminations, and in the front of the picture, you see the person applying safety equipment of PFISTERER with which this worker can safely check whether there is any juice on the line, to speak, yeah, whether there is electricity in the system or whether it's safe to be working on the system. This is illustrated by the picture, we have products and components that can be found in the electrical infrastructure, and there, we are connecting the grid, and the mission of PFISTERER, of the team of meanwhile 1,500 people here in our team, is to be the preferred partner for innovative, reliable, and also mission-critical electrical connection and insulation solutions.

This is illustrated by the picture, and on the next slide, there is another illustration. Of course, this is a very condensed view of reality.

It's a condensed view on the electrical landscape. You see here different steps of the electrical infrastructure, for instance starting with the generation of electricity.

This is more in the top area of this slide: onshore wind, offshore wind, nuclear energy, could also be gas turbine, or it could be a solar photovoltaic electrical generation field that is seen here. In all of these generation situations, electricity needs to be connected, and that's where PFISTERER comes into the game.

We are connecting these generators with the transmission that can be taking place under the water or it could be overhead lines in the air, but it could also be earth cable underground cable systems. Again, PFISTERER is able to provide the connection and the insulation to all of these different elements.

After the transmission, then electricity needs to be distributed into the application arena. This could be a municipality, or it could be railway mobility, it could be data centers, obviously growing very strongly, and it could also be e-mobility, charging stations, and so on and so forth.

PFISTERER is agnostic with regards to the individual application of our products. We provide the products for generation, for transmission, and for distribution.

We provide the products whether they are applied in the air, under the water line, or in the earth, and we apply the products whether they are on a low-voltage spectrum that would be anything below 1,000 volts, whether they are in medium voltage, that is between 1 and 53,000 volts, or whether they are in the high-voltage arena, which is anything above 53 and up to 1 million volts. We are agnostic, and we think this gives our business development quite a robust profile.

Speaking about that, on the next slide, there is an illustration again of PFISTERER's footprint. This is demonstrated in the center area of this slide with the world map, PFISTERER being active through 19 different companies, five different production facilities in the US, in Germany, and the largest one in Czech Republic.

In combination and conjunction with our technical distributors, highly educated technical distributors, we are covering more than 90 countries from a sales point of view out of our 19 entities and five factories. The revenue of PFISTERER, this is illustrated on the left, splits into business segments that we are reporting by geography.

This is, starting with the largest region, Europe and Africa, with a 50%, 55% revenue share in the first half of '26, followed by the second largest region, which it was the Middle East and India region with a revenue share of 25%, the Americas, which is covering continental Americas meaning North and South America, with a 14%, and Asia Pacific with 6%. To take a look at the share, maybe just a brief comment, Europe and Africa is the largest share, and that has also been the case in previous periods.

If you compare the 55% of the first half of '26 with '25, back then it was 54%, in '24 it was 58%, the revenue share of the largest segment Europe is more or less constant over the past years. If we take a look at the segments regarding our products, this is the pie chart at the bottom left, here starting with the largest segment, HVA, high-voltage cable accessories, connectors that are connecting cables to equipment, be it a transformer, or be it a gas-insulated gear switch station, or others, is the largest segment, HVA, with 42%.

Overhead lines represent 25% of our revenues, and from a voltage point of view overhead lines are also typically high voltage. Number three is the components business, low-voltage applications with 21%, and then there is a medium-voltage applications with 11%.

If we add up overhead lines and HVA, both are high voltage meaning above 53,000 volts, they are making up 70% from a segment share point of view, and that number has substantially increased over the past years. It was 62% and 63% in the past two years, meanwhile it has grown to 77%.

Maybe I'm a little bit too early mentioning this, but we are happy about that for the time being because the higher the voltage is typically also the margins are the highest. On the right, you see also selected customers.

Maybe I can mention here that we have a very broad range of customers from a customer characterization point of view. They are, they're reputed utilities worldwide, to name just a few: TenneT is the one here on the top left, but there's also Swissgrid, or there would be Enel in the more southern regions, but it could also be Edison in the United States, or the SEC in Arabia.

We are working with cable manufacturers, the second group here: Hellenic, or Sterlite from India now, we added this illustration here because this wasn't mentioned in the past, but Sterlite India is also a good growth region for us. ZTT is also mentioned here newly.

We've been working with ZTT already for a number of years, and we also want to illustrate there that we are working with Chinese cable manufacturers in China, but also in Asia, and also to a growing extent outside of Asia. Southwire would be an American company, LS Cable is a Korean one, you see cable manufacturers across the globe are working and relying on PFISTERER.

Technical distributors are mentioned, the most prominent business partners from a reputation point of view I guess are the OEMs, such as GE Vernova, ABB Hitachi, Siemens Energy, and as a fifth customer group we are working with contractors. This is also represented by a number of reputed companies you see there.

The largest single customer of PFISTERER is in the area of 3% revenue share. We believe this gives us quite also some robust business exposure as we are not focused on one customer or one customer group, but it's well distributed across the groups, the customers, and the segments.

One last comment from a more holistic point of view: we believe that the electrical infrastructure continues to have a very positive and sustained tailwind, and that gives us confidence that we will see PFISTERER also continuing to grow sustainably for the future to come. First, we think this is supported by the fact that the global electricity demand continues to rise.

If the growth in electricity in '25 was at 3%, it is projected to be 3.6% in this year and even more, 3.8%, in 2027. We think the underlying trends, EV cars, heat pumps, air condition, are robust, and of course data centers are being built.

I believe the United States is investing $1,000 billion, billion, billion, yes, billion dollars next year into data centers, there is a growth in electricity. The grid investments are obviously correlated to the electricity consumption and demand.

This is growing just as well. In '25, the growth in the grid investments was calculated to have been at 11%, for this year the global grid investment is expected to grow at around 17% relative to last year.

This is a very fertile, solid ground we are working on. Maybe as a last example, speaking about Europe, we think that the political support in the European Union in accelerating permitting procedures is also worthwhile to mention.

I don't want to talk too much about politics here, everyone has his own opinion there, but if you look to the permitting procedures, we believe there is positive notice to be made. If we look for instance in Germany, the average approval time for onshore wind has reduced in the past two years from 20 23 to 17 months, and we immediately see that in an increased approval of capacities.

In '24, 14 gigawatt have been approved, and in '25 it was already 21 gigawatt. Maybe it's also worthwhile to put that into perspective: so, in those two years Germany approved 35 gigawatt on onshore windmill capacity, but Germany only installed 8.4 gigawatts.

That means more than four times the capacity has been approved than what has been installed, and I believe that gives us confidence that we expect also major growth to be taking place in the future ahead of us, and I think this has also been confirmed by the most recent statements from the windmill companies such as Vestas and GE Vernova, who increased their guidances, but also Nordex and Gamesa are working as per their expectations. This will be leading me to chapter two, the financial performance of half year one, but let's talk about the quarters first, and then we will be coming to the half year.

If we look at the order book and the revenues of PFISTERER in the in the quarterly view looking back for over the past five quarters, I think we see a quite satisfactory picture. Our order book increased year over year by 8.9% to a new record number of €340 million.

If we take a look at the revenues, we see that the revenue in the second quarter with €129.8 million once again reached a new all-time high. It is an increase relative to the previous year's quarter two of 14.4%, and €129.8 million has never been accomplished by PFISTERER before.

If you look to the average quarterly revenue of '25, back then it was €112.5 [million], so far, the first two quarters this year have an average of 128.4, and we're going to be covering this later, but we have reason to believe that this number will continue to increase also in the second half of the year. If we look to the product segments and our individual regions that we see here, then it can be observed that all four product segments showed a growing revenue year over year, all four.

We can also state that three out of four regions showed growing revenues year over year, and the strongest increase we have seen were in HVA. If you look to the individual regions, we see that the strongest performance in the second quarter was Europe and Africa.

If we move on to the next page and take a look at results information we are sharing on the presentation here, we have in the past and also we do it this time just the same as before. We are sharing gross margin and adjusted EBITDA data for the individual quarters.

If we start with the gross margin, the second quarter is the second quarter in '26 with a gross margin above 40%, we see a 4 as a first number, 40.4%. Gross margin is slightly down from the first quarter, 43.6%, which again was a record number on the gross margin in itself.

The past five quarters have shown four quarters with 40.x% gross margin. We think this is quite an achievement, and if we then turn to the adjusted EBITDA, which is of course positively influenced by the good margin, but also by the good volume that we have seen, then our EBITDA with €24.7 million in the second quarter is an increase relative to the previous year's second quarter of 33.4%, and again, this is an achievement from our point of view that makes us look into the future quite positively.

We move on to the individual breakdown of order intake and order book in our reporting, geographical regional view. On the next page, we will be sharing the same on the product segment view, but let's start with the geographical regions.

We have seen in the second quarter a somewhat softened order intake relative to an extraordinary prior year. I think that is worthwhile to mention, an extraordinary prior year.

If we at the same time look at the order book, which is the basis for revenues to come, we see that based on the extraordinary prior year's order intakes the order book has continued to show a growth on a year-over-year comparison view, and that again is our, yeah, comfortable situation on which we are growing the business. If we look into the individual geographical regions, in the Americas, we have seen a decline in order intake, which is mainly attributable to a low demand in Argentina.

Nevertheless, the order book in itself is down less than what we see on the order intake, and the order book in the Americas is relatively low from a product segment characteristic point of view because the products that we are serving in the Americas have shorter lead times than in the other regions. That is, I believe, also relevant to say.

If we look to Europe and Africa, we see that the order intake in the quarter went down in Germany in OHL, but the order book in itself went up a relatively strong 9%+ and that is primarily driven by the product segment HVA, which is going to be seen on the next page. In the Middle East, we have seen an order intake that is down compared to quarter two that was a record number in quarter two last year, again to be mentioned, and the order book went up still in the second quarter relative to the second quarter last year by +6%.

Lastly in Asia Pacific, we have seen a steep increase in the order intake, +94%, and we also see a positive development in the order book with +32%. Overall, the order book went up by €28 million, which is a plus of 8.9%, which is the basis for future revenues.

If we move on to the product segment breakdown here, there we see that the order intake as such, of course the sum is the same, there is also a lower order intake in total relative to the super quarter two last year, and we see in particular now the breakdown in the individual product groups that the order intake had the strongest reduction in OHL, at the same time we maintained a very strong order intake in HVA, and that results then in the order book overview with growth in HVA, in MVA, as well as in overhead lines, and a constant order book in components. If we go more detailed into the individual elements, we see that in HVA we had growth in Asia Pacific and in the Middle East, and at the same time there was lower activities in America and Europe in the second quarter in itself.

The order book increased therefore mostly in the Middle East, but also in the European region. In medium-voltage applications, we see that the order intake improved, and that is reflected by high demand in Europe and Africa, and the order book nowadays is mainly consisting out of Europe.

In components, we see that the order intake declined slightly, which is connected to the Argentina effect. I was mentioning that on the previous page already.

We see a very stable trend in the order book in the Americas and also in Europe. If we look to the overhead line business, the order intake moderated, that has been also shown on the previous page, in the Middle East and there in Saudi Arabia.

We all know that in the second quarter in the Middle Eastern countries people had also other things to think about, and we recognize that some projects, the placement of the projects with regard to order intake, has been a little bit more hesitant. These projects have not been canceled, but they haven't been awarded at the speed that they used to be awarded.

We believe this is a temporary effect, which will be washing out over the quarters to come. That leads me to the profit and loss, or the KPIs in the second quarter of this year, the comparison quarter two '26 to the comparison quarter two '25, starting with the order book at the top line.

Order book is standing at €340 million here at PFISTERER, which is an increase compared to the second quarter of +8.9%. Our order intake with €139.4 million is below the second quarter, which was a record number of €146 million.

Nevertheless, our order intake is positive in the sense of a book-to-bill ratio larger than 1, since we are showing revenues of €129.8 million in the second quarter, and that is an increase of 14.4% relative to the second quarter in the previous year. With our gross result increasing by 9.4% to €52.4 million in the second quarter, we are achieving a gross margin of 40, 40.4% in the second quarter, and this then leads to an EBITDA increase of 42.8%, namely 40, €24 million on EBITDA.

The adjusted EBITDA, €24.7 million, this is shown a few lines further down as we are typically referring to the adjusted figure. As you may remember, the adjustment in itself is related to our virtual stock option program, which is a one-off based incentive program to more than 35 managers in the company, and as we do not intend to have another IPO anytime soon in PFISTERER, this program will be running out next year, and then the adjustment of the virtual stock option program will be history.

Our adjusted EBITDA with €24.7 million represents an EBITDA margin of 19%, and this translates into a positive EBIT development, increase of 45%, and even more into a super result for the period in the second quarter of €19.8 million, which is an increase of 97.1%. Maybe here it should be mentioned that EBITDA, EBIT, all of this is true business performance.

On the results for the period, there is also taxation elements included, which goes back to the treatment of the virtual stock option program as on on local GAAP these elements are reducing tax, and at the same time on IFRS, a group account, they are not reducing our profit, and therefore we have a positive impact there on the taxation results on the group level. Our net debt is at €4 million, and the net working capital with 24.7% well below our guided 27% to 28%.

If I summarize this, PFISTERER managed with 9.6% more employees to generate 14% more revenues in the second quarter, 45% higher EBIT, and 97% higher results for the period. This leads me then to the overview for the first half of the year, illustrated on the table again in the same structure as before.

Half year one relative to half year one '26, relative to half year one '25, we see an order book increase of 8.9%. We see the order intake with €262 [million] at -9.4% relative to the previous year.

We see the revenue growth meanwhile in the first half of the year at +20%, 20.2%, and based on this revenue growth and the strong gross profit, we see an adjusted EBITDA going up by 32.7%, we see EBIT going up by 43%, and we see the results for the period going up by 75.9%. PFISTERER in the first half of the year managed to have an adjusted EBITDA margin of 20.4%.

This is almost 2% higher than a year ago, and I think this is quite a good intermediate result that we are showing here for the first half of the year. Our adjusted operating cash flow, maybe this is also worthwhile to mention, amounted to €29.1 million.

We believe also there EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA is well converted into cash, and that gives us the room to maneuver and to continue to invest into the consecutive growth in the company as based on our growing order book, of course we have to invest and increase our capacities in order to continue to grow also the revenues and also to show consecutive order intake growth in the future. On the next page, our result for the period translates into earnings per share, and in the second quarter of this year, 2026, we are seeing a significant positive development of EPS despite the fact that the number of shares on a quarterly basis in a relative comparison keeps on going up.

There has also been a small capital increase in the second quarter, which is more a statistical effect, it doesn't show a big impact here on the figure, but should be mentioned just for reasons of, yeah, the total information. With €1.11 earnings per share in one quarter, we are seeing a year-over-year comparison an increase of 73%, and this despite the fact that the number of shares went up by 25% approximately.

We think that the results in the first half of the year, but also in the second quarter, are very satisfactory. We believe this is a very solid basis for us to continue to develop our company, and we also believe this gives us the confidence not only on our mid-term targets that we have expressed before, be it for revenues, €800 to €900 million in revenues, be it for an EBITDA margin of 20+%.

This we have already seen in the second, in the first half of this year and in the first and second quarter of this year. We believe this also gives us the confidence that we will be hitting our revenue target for this year, which was a growth of 12% to 17%.

We have seen 20% growth in the first half of the year, and this also and even more based on the order intake of the past six weeks, this is not what you see in the first half of the year. We are very confident that we gonna be also meeting our guidance on the order intake for the full year, which has been the order intake that we've seen last year with €550 million.

Now I want to touch a few business highlights in chapter three. The business highlights are structured according to the three pillars growth strategy of PFISTERER, starting with our technological milestone development project where we are really and truly driving technological innovation in our industry.

This is related to our HVDC market launch, which is knocking at the door. We have this year in the first half earned a patent for our HVDC connector technology.

As we are continuing to build our HVDC laboratory here in Winterbach, which is the basis for starting production based on the qualified products. We have shared with you previously that we have meanwhile successful 320 kV tests with customer cable, type tests with customer cables, and we will be applying our patented technology in various applications up to 525 kV.

This patent that I'm putting here prominently into the window, it's the latest one, and we are I think it's fair to say a little bit proud on it, yeah, but it's only one of 166 active patents that PFISTERER has today. If we move on to the second pillar of our growth strategy, beyond the technological disruptions we are working on, we are also have a number of innovations already in the market recently introduced or on the way of being introduced where we are expanding our business boundaries.

This is an example here of a product called, we call it HOKA, this is an outer cone, is a little bit of a technical term. Innovation projects, PFISTERER has recently introduced this into the market.

It's an application that you will find in wind turbines where PFISTERER now can also deliver a full system from the generator down to the bottom of the windmill where then the transmission is starting. We are applying in these products our mechanical connector technology that we also apply in other connectors, we think this is from a core competency point of view quite a smart approach as we apply the core competencies of PFISTERER into new product applications, and this is why this development is qualifying as a business expansion activity.

We have already successfully introduced this in the United States, and we are seeing further opportunities, in particular in Asia, where the wind market in Japan and South Korea is very bullish and robust. Then I would like to share with you a third slide that is this also the third column of our growth strategy where we are pushing our core businesses and our core markets where we see the biggest immediate effect when it comes to figures: order intake, order book, and also revenues, as these are introduced products.

The way we are doing business, if I start on the top left, is of course meanwhile influenced by IT, and PFISTERER is, I think fair to say, is very dynamic when it comes to automation of individual steps in our business activities, and this is also reflected of course in efficiency gains, but we wanted to share with you here that approximately 5% of our revenues are investments into the IT and digitization into the group, where I think this is a relatively high number if compared with peers. I think we are here quite progressive, and we aren't doing this in order to spend money, but we are doing this because we are counting on further efficiency gains due to these investments in future periods to come.

If I look to the bottom left, there I want to share with you that we have invested into machine capacities, but also into working time models in operations and efficiency gains through automation on the shop floor. Tangible automation via robots and other elements, and by doing so, we have achieved to grow our output on the mechanical connectors, what we call the Sicon, in the two manufacturing facilities of PFISTERER in Gussenstadt and Rochester by prominent +46% within one year.

I think this is quite an accomplishment, and we aren't hesitant there. We will continue in a similar way also for the years to come.

On the top right, you see the new HVDC qualification center already mentioned before. The construction is absolutely on schedule and will be finished and started up in the first quarter, in the first half of next year.

Then on the bottom right, we were touching the operating cash flow earlier. Operating cash flow in the case of PFISTERER is used in order to increase our CapEx and in the second quarter of this year also to pay dividends to our humble shareholders, but if we look to the CapEx expenditures into machineries and also real estate in the production sites of PFISTERER, we have invested close to €40 million since the IPO, and we are doing this because we see that PFISTERER has the right products in the right markets, has the right teams, and is continuing to show positive developments for the years to come.

With this, it's exactly 40 minutes. I'm happy I'm, from a timing point of view, doing pretty well.

The very last slide is upcoming events and conferences where you can be meeting, please push for the next slide. Someone.

There we go. Where you can meet our investor relations team and also executive board members.

We are present on a number of conferences in the remaining rest of 2026: August, September, November, December. We will be presenting our Q3 figures on November 18th, and we will be publishing our Q4 figures on the 24th, 24th of March 2027.

This is three weeks earlier than this year, there you see also efficiency gains, amongst other things, in our admin team. The year-end results next year will be presented on the 12th of May, which is also four weeks earlier than this year.

I thank you for your attention listening to the presentation, and we are happy to receive any questions, and we will do our best to give you precise, honest, and good answers. Thank you.

Hello, good morning, and many thanks for taking my questions. I have three if I may, and I will take them one by one.

Just before I start, just please allow me one general comment. In my humble view, it would be very helpful to get more time on the Q&A while you might reduce the time for the general remarks.

On my first question on high-voltage AC, we have seen a rock-solid development in terms of 29% sales growth in Q2, but the order intake was only up 1%, implying a book-to-bill of 1.1. Could you provide more color on the high-voltage A order intake?

What was the reason for the slower development, and what are your early indications from customer discussions on the second half also with the implied acceleration on your order intake guidance? Many thanks.

Hello?

I think the speaker's maybe on mute.

Okay. Oh, I was muted.

Hallo Frau Steilen. Good morning.

Hallo,

hallo. [laughter] Hallo.

There are two constant factors here. PFISTERER is a great company, that's one, and the second is you are the first person asking questions, Frau Steilen, yeah.

[laughter] I'm happy about this. The order intake in HV, yes, I agree, has been robust on a year-over-year comparison, but you need to see if you go a little bit further back in the history, last year has been a tremendous increase in order intake, this year we are repeating this increase.

If we look to the order book in HVA, the order book a year ago was at 155, meanwhile we are at 182, and the order book needs to be digested before we will see further tremendous increases on the order intake. The order book will be carrying us into a continued growth on revenues in the HVA segment.

We have seen this on a year-over-year comparison: quarter two this year was €59 million, it was 46 last year; half year one this year €109 million, rounding the figures now, last year 86. We will see a continued growth on HVA revenues based on the order book, and we will also see continued order intake growth.

That was the first question. Could you repeat the second one, please, Frau Steilen?

Sorry for that.

Yes, sure. I had to ask it second.

The second one is on high-voltage DC. You have not reported any order intake so far.

However, your customer Hellenic Cable has been awarded for high-voltage electrical interconnections. Is it fair to assume first order intake on high-voltage DC for you also in the second half of the year?

Okay. I think we are finally completed several type tests with cable manufacturers also in Europe.

You're also mentioning Hellenic Cable, there are other cable manufacturers, and I think there will be official publication even from one of our partners here quite soon about the successful type test, and the successful type test means now the system is ready to be ordered or to be executed for the market. That means then a PQ test can follow, and the PQ test will have the basis that there also will be an order coming up for PQ tests because there is a project behind.

Our ambition, and like we said, is 2027 to have an order intake there. Whatever comes earlier, we are happy to publish, but I think for the HVDC projects, especially with the Europeans, but not only with the Europeans, cable manufacturers, I think we are on a good way, I see a good perspective, I would say, end of this year or beginning of 2027.

Very clear. Then finally, and then I step back into the line, is just a housekeeping question.

You mentioned on your tax rate that the treatment of the virtual stock option program had a positive impact. How should we think about the full-year tax rate and also assuming the stock option program should phase out, is it fair to assume a normalization of the tax rate to mid-20s mid-term?

Many thanks.

Okay. The effect on the tax rate in the second quarter is in the area of €4 million.

If it wouldn't have been for this, the tax rate would have been in the area of 20%. That is also the range that, let's say, on a non-VSOP year, under the given conditions we would see as a normal tax rate in our case.

Now, since the thing took place in the second quarter, maybe this gives us the opportunity to have on a full-year basis a lower tax rate than the 20 as before. Next year, the VSOP program from a guideline point of view, from a program point of view, leaves us a certain freedom how we can reward the money value of the options, whether we do full equity, whether we do full cash, or we do a mix.

Now, this year it was a mix. Assuming we would be doing the same and then this year, which was 50-50, and assuming we would have the same share price next year, we would see another €4 million tax effect next year.

Then that's it, as the VSOP program will be finished after the third and last, I don't know, installment, is that a good vocabulary? Third and last reward period.

Okay. Perfect, that's very clear, and I step back into the line.

Thank you.

Yes, hello. Thank you very much for taking my question.

Hello, Mr. Linden.

Hello, Dr. Kurfiss.

I also had three questions. If it's okay for you, I would ask them one by one.

The first one is regarding the plans of the site expansion in Kadaň. You already communicated in the last calls that there is an option to buy more land next to the production site now.

What are the plans, when will the expansion be finished, and is the target of €65 million for '26 in CapEx still in place now?

All right. So, I'm I I will be taking this, Herr Filker.

The, We have meanwhile, like you said, there in in two steps we have acquired real estate. One, step was last year, roughly 50,000 square meters.

This year, roughly 45,000 square meters. This year's acquisition is also comprising, warehouse and office buildings, last year it was only ground.

Both of these, acquisitions took place in the same industrial park where our today's rented facility is, and at the same time we have also expanded, the rented lease, space, this year. It used to be 19,000, we have added another 12,000, 19 went up to 31, and we have now the real estate, of approximately 95,000 square meters, acquired.

The building start, of, of constructing, new factories on the acquired ground, due to the fact that on the second acquisition there is already buildings there, there is less pressure on, on on executing this, but the building start is intended to be in '28. Now we are, making up our mind how the design of the factory is going to be alike, how the value stream, the material flows, et cetera, pp., how this is going to look like, then we need to go into a building permission procedure.

This is, to my, knowledge, in Czech Republic not really quicker than it is in Germany. Therefore, we should, as we talk, we should, believe that breaking breaking ground, is that right, Spatenstich, breaking ground will be, in '28.

Regarding the investment, for this year, yeah, we have in the first half of the year invested, I need to look that figure up now, last year full last year was 30 Hold on. We have invested €20 million, we have in our obligo quite a relevant amount of moneys, for finishing and continuing our HVDC laboratory, but also a number of machines, capacity expansions in manufacturing machines that we are will be adding, in the second half of the year, and we are, foreseeing an investment to be in the area of €60 to €70 million CapEx this year.

No change there. Thank you very much.

The second question regards the insurance payments in the first half year. They sum up at around €2 million, €1.9 [million].

In the last call, you already explained us that there are two parts. The one is the Schadenversicherung, and the other one the Betriebsunterbrechungsversicherung.

Are there still payments expected in the third quarter now?

Let's say in the second half of the year, absolutely yes. Whether it's going to be in the third quarter, I would say, this is like being on sea.

You never know what happens, how long the experts take in order to get their final evaluation. I think there is a good chance of seeing more in Q3, whether it's going to be finished in Q3 or there's going to be two more installments, that needs to be seen, yeah?

To be on the safe side, I would expect November, yeah, to be finished in November, to be on the safe side. It could happen also already in Q3, but this is hard to determine.

The last question:

volume-wise, would it be the same amount that was paid in the first half year?

I wouldn't be against it, yes.

The

We will be asking for more, yeah. We are asking for more.

Okay. Last question is regarding the EBITDA in the region North and South America compared to the first quarter '26.

It fell down to €1.4 million euro, yes, and in the first quarter it was 4.1, despite slight increase in revenue. Can you just explain what led to this development?

In the Americas, we had in the first quarter quite a positive intermediate situation. There was a very strong margin project that we saw in Argentina, and there was also quite a good HVA margin in the US in the first quarter.

However, in the second quarter, we had a project mix which had a relatively high share of pre-assembled cables. With pre-assembled cables, that leads to the fact that you have a relatively high portion of third-party material that with only a small markup goes through the books and that then reduces margin.

This is a one-off effect if you want to say so, this pre-assembled cable project is finished and done, and we should expect to see things somewhere rather in quarter one level for the second half of the year than in quarter two level.

Thank you very much.

Welcome.

Yes, hi everyone. Good morning.

Thanks for taking me. Actually a question first of all on your order intake.

You are said already on the question of Yasmin, basically on HVA that there's some digestion going on. On the other hand, to come up with significant growth for 2027 and taking into account your lead times, we should assume probably that in Q3, latest Q4 probably, that the order intake accelerates from the existing levels.

Is that something that you are confirming and looking at? A question linked to this: is there any capacity constraint?

Because I recall a bit the answer on a question in the Q1 call that makes you reluctant on accepting orders, for example, in Asia Pacific, potentially on capacity constraints that might be an obstacle for an acceleration of the order intake. That's my first question, and then I have another probably.

Starting with the second half of your question, Asia Pacific, we have seen an increase in the order intake in Asia Pacific, and this is because we have somewhat prioritized businesses there. We weren't happy with the development before, we believe Asia Pacific will be picking up based on the order intake and also the increase in the order book they will have seen, amongst others this is also HVA business.

Moving to the more general question I believe on order intake, yes, absolutely. We are very confident that in the second half of the year we will see a pick up relative to the first half of the year.

That's just the logic with my previous comment, and maybe we should have expressed that in the written documents more than what we did. We confirm the guidance that we have given, yeah?

That is a revenue guidance and an order intake guidance. The order intake guidance has been that we are going to continue what we've seen last year, that was €550 million.

Full year. All

right. That was also one of the reasons why I'm asking because I think that missing concrete guidance statements in a press release is probably contributing to the lower share price this morning.

Anyway, a question on the outlook

Buy the dip, Herr Pehl, buy the dip.

Absolutely. [laughter] So, a question on the outlook for revenues.

Just doubling what you did in H1 brings us to 14% revenue growth. Now you said 12% to 17%, What's the element of uncertainty?

Given that you have probably seasonality going into the second half, the upper end of this guidance for revenue growth seems more likely, or much more likely, than the lower end. Just want to hear your thoughts on this one, and then I have one or two housekeeping ones.

The general sentiment on this is that we do have the order book and we have also confirmed deliveries that would be justifying an expectation of higher revenues in the second half compared to the first half. Yeah?

At the same time, you know that there are global uncertainties, yeah? Is it so that in October you can still rent a boat to go to the Red Sea in Saudi?

Is it so that somewhat in August we will still be able to book ships going through the Rhine to Rotterdam, or from Rotterdam down south? There are, let's say, operational elements that are beyond our reach that we want to be cautious about, yeah?

Or we don't want to overpromise relative to that. It's like you say: if we double the first half of the year, we will be ending up at 400 and what is it, 13?

That would be the growth that you mentioned. The 12% to 17% we have given as a guidance.

We don't see a necessity to narrow this at this moment in time, but based on everything that we see, ceteris paribus, it would be more likely to be on the upper end than on the lower end.

Great, and then just two questions on the regional setup that you have or let's say the reporting there. On Asia Pacific, also the margin was very low, actually slightly loss-making in Q2 when I got my math correctly.

Just want to hear your thoughts on that and how that is proceeding. The second one is actually on the positive side of things.

Obviously it looks like the Europe is accelerating a bit. Is that something, phrased differently, your growth last year to a large degree has been coming from the Middle East region pretty much.

Europe was fine in my view, but could have done better. Is that now the phase where we see Europe accelerating, with more orders and then essentially revenues, which actually would be contributing to the margin and a nice top-line development?

Let me answer first, and then maybe Konstantin also wants to add. I start.

Regarding Asia Pacific, Asia Pacific is a small region at PFISTERER, and looking at EBITDA, you have in between the operation, the business gross profit and the EBITDA, there is a lot taking place, which also has some statistical elements in it. I prefer not looking at the EBITDA in Asia Pacific, but I look at the gross profit, and the gross profit in the second quarter is okay.

It's not great, but it's okay, and we believe that based on the HV project that we have recently booked, that we will also see a positive continuation there. If we look to the first half of the year, the gross margin, half of half year one this year compared to half year one last year, is exactly the same, is 0.5% better, I would say, I would call this the same, yeah?

There is no trend from a negative point of view in Asia Pacific when it comes to margin. In Europe, you're absolutely right.

We have seen last year a tremendous steep ramp-up in the Middle East. We believe, due to the political situation, that may come to, let's say, a halt.

Halt meaning that may stabilize now for some quarters on a high level, yeah? We do not see any decline.

We will continue to see an increase in revenues, this is just based on the backlog. On the order intake, the order intake situation in the Middle East we believe will be stabilizing this grown is the right, I think, past perfect this grown revenues we have seen, and Europe will continue to be our, yeah, supporting sector.

Europe is very strong. With this, I hand over to Konstantin.

Yeah.

Maybe just three comments: one to Asia Pacific, we have to respect that the activities we are having in Asia Pacific also load in a certain sense on the other regions. Because our activities with cable manufacturers, even with wind park manufacturers, then are materialized in other regions because we go to the country of destination where we then deliver the turnover to.

This is one thing. There's also positive effect from Asia Pacific into other regions, this is one.

Maybe, which is important, then what we see in Europe, and this is also driving the Europe business, if you look a little bit into the legislation how they are driving now at the moment even the projects, the average, I would say, time for, I would say, bringing a project to life went down from three to two two to three years now I would say from one to two years. That also will accelerate, I believe, what's happening in Europe in that side, and that also what drives us.

What we see maybe as a third comment in the Middle East, we are on the projects, we know the projects. I think we had a little bit of slowdown, which is clear on the impact we had on the Middle East situation, but what I see from the customer side, it means from the cable manufacturers and utilities, I don't see a downside for continuous business there, just as a quick comment.

That's indeed very important, because if you look at the CapEx forecast from Saudi energy, it seems that the peak is behind a bit. Still they have very high levels going forward, but momentum is waning a bit.

Is that something that makes you concerned in any way or not really?

Not really making concerned. We are in good contact with Saudi Electricity on the projects when it comes to cable projects, when it comes to overhead line projects, and also how Siemens is driving that region in the intermediate connections with transformers and switchgears, that shows those projects will be done in the upcoming months and years definitely.

I'm not worried there to be honest, yeah. For sure the good thing, we will see all the people next week on the CIGRE in Paris.

There will be all the cable manufacturers worldwide, and I think all the utilities we work with, and then we also will get a how you say, a certain taste what's happening.

All right. Thank you very much.

From my point of view, Herr Pehl, the investment plans from SEC are stabilizing, they aren't going down. They are stabilizing on a very high level, yeah, that's our viewpoint.

That goes in line with my previous comments also and what Konstantin said.

Very good. Thank you.

Volker Stoll. Guten Morgen.

Good morning. Thank you for taking me.

I have a question regarding to order book dynamics in North America. Could you give us please dynamic in North America only so that we can extrapolate from bottom up how we think about the order dynamics in Q3 and Q4 forthcoming?

Which products are preferred in North America? Sicon is a very famous product you already mentioned.

Could you give us another example, which products are running there really well?

Okay, [clears throat] maybe from my side, a comment there. The Sicon is one of the main drivers, but what we see beside the Sicons, if we come to data center, also the medium-voltage Connex plays a role there, which is a connector going from 10 to 36 kV, which we are producing and providing to the big OEMs when it comes to connections of the data centers.

We are also producing, I would say, for big factories when it comes to battery storage, the connections in between the batteries that will be a product where we have an order intake and will drive the business in the future and which is ramping up. For sure, [clears throat] we see a little bit a different-shaded, I would say, approach in the US because there's on one side there are a lot of utilities which are working together and driving, I would say, the energy transmission.

I think there's still a lot of potential when it comes to the high-voltage grid where we also see with our high-voltage products, I would say, a good drive into the next couple of months and years.

Basically high voltage is still imported due to the manufacturing restrictions, and how is the capacity utilization in the North America in Rochester now evolving, you're heading higher, are there already some further expansion plans or are this more granular the expansion plans?

Maybe one comment and then I think Johannes can comment from the production side. What we see, [clears throat] I will say there is more quantities are coming for the Sicon, and also for other products, for overhead line products, what we are seeing.

That's why I believe now I hand over to Johannes. Now it comes to investments, and this is what we are planning for this year and next year to follow this higher demand in components in HV, but also the insulator business.

Okay. Thank you.

Hallo. Guten Morgen, Herr Stoll.

Good morning. [laughter] Regarding the building premises, we have sufficient space in the rented and a building that we are operating in in the US, and so there is at least nothing to be added there in the foreseeable future.

Regarding manufacturing capacity for mechanical screw connectors, we have more than doubled the capacity through two two steps in the first half of this year, and those machines did already start to produce products. The machines are sold out, capacity is 100%.

This then immediately will be also reflected in the revenues in the Americas, yeah? The components business in the Americas is in the area of, I believe 40% of the revenues of Americas is components meaning is not one-to-one, you will not see an increase in components necessarily one-to-one from a percentage relative point of view also then in the Americas revenue.

Things are developing well, yeah? The customers, yeah, very happy with us being local, because for them lead times are much shorter, they don't have to worry about transportation, yeah, there is less import duty than what used to be before when we were producing these products out of Germany.

One of the reasons also why the new machines are immediately sold out is the fact that we are moving production from Germany into the US as well. In the past we did not produce, last year for instance, we didn't produce all the American connectors in America because we didn't have the ability to do so, a portion of that was always coming out of Germany.

Now we are shifting as we are growing the capacities in North America, we are shifting parts of these products from Germany into the US, and this is freeing up capacity here, which is then helping us in growing the revenues in Europe. This goes back to square one, and also to an earlier question, I believe, from a business point of view, the most prominent regions for the coming quarters will be Europe, of course.

That's good news because it's a profitable ground.

Okay. We have to think about double-digit growth rates in North America regarding the orders also in the coming quarters, huh?

I didn't say that, and I don't want to give a precise information on segments and regions here. This is a little bit too much.

We will see a good development on order intake on a group level, this is what we said before, and we are very happy with our business development in the Americas as well.

Understood, yeah. Thank you very much.

Danke, Herr Stoll.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention and even spending 13 additional minutes with us as we are already a little bit over time. I think PFISTERER has shown in the first half of this year a super development.

We have grown revenues by 20%, we have grown our EBITDA by 33%, and we have grown our result for the period by 75%. I believe these are achievements that shouldn't be forgotten, and we think that PFISTERER is active in the right market, electrical infrastructure is continuing to give us opportunities.

Based on the grown order book, we will also see a positive development in the future. Thank you.