Thank you very much, Operator, and welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining our half year 2026 results call. We appreciate your interest in Semperit and thank you for making the time to join us on what is another busy day for earnings announcements.

As we already pre-released our EBITDA figure in mid-July. We are very satisfied with the strong operational performance we achieved in the second quarter and in the first half of the year overall.

Today, we will take you through the full set of results and share our view for the remainder of the year. With me is our CFO, Helmut Sorger.

Helmut and I will guide you through the presentation, which is available on our website, and then open the floor for your questions. Let me start with the key highlights of the first half of 2026.

As the title of this slide says, the first half was clearly about driving profitable growth and doing so in a market environment that remained far from easy. On the left-hand side, you see the external framework, which is well known to all of us and has not become any easier over the recent months.

Geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty remains elevated, supply chains and markets continue to be volatile, and we have in particular seen sharp spikes in raw material costs following the escalation in the Middle East. Against this backdrop, we focused on what we can control, which is disciplined execution.

We continued to drive volume growth and improve capacity utilization while maintaining a strong focus on efficiency and profitability. Pricing actions helped offset input cost inflation, and our multi-sourcing and multi-regional approach in procurement further strengthened resilience in a volatile environment.

The results on the right hand show how the impact of these measures are clearly translated into profitability. Revenue increased by 11% on year to €356 million, and EBITDA more than doubled to €67 million, and the EBITDA margin improved significantly from 9.6% to 18.7%.

Based on this strong first half, we raised our guidance and now expect operating EBITDA of around €100 million for the full year of 2026. The next slide shows our usual breakdown of the contribution from our two divisions.

On the revenue side, the picture remained broadly stable. Semperit Industrial Applications contributed 42% of group revenues, while Semperit Engineered Applications accounted for 58% of the revenues.

After a weak first half of 2025, the EBITDA contribution from SEA, Semperit Engineered Applications, increased significantly and now stands at 44%, up from 38% a year ago. As a reminder, in the prior period, we particularly were affected by postponed customer investment decisions in the Belting and Liquid Silicon Rubber business.

What is particularly encouraging to us is that this improvement is broad-based across all our businesses. We're not relying on one business unit or one end market, but are seeing progress across the entire group.

Let me now turn to Semperit Industrial Applications in more detail on slide four. This division successfully continued its course in a market environment that remained broadly stable compared with the final quarter of 2025.

Revenues increased by 12% year on year to €149.7 million, supported by a strong order intake in the fourth quarter of 2025. Profitability improved significantly: EBITDA rose by 72.7% to €41.9 million, and the EBITDA margin increased to 28% compared with 18.1% in the prior year period.

This strong earnings development was driven by very good operational performance, including improved capacity utilization at our Odry site and the successful ramp-up of production in Thailand after the floods in the final quarter of 2025. In addition, the consistent implementation of efficiency initiatives, as well as the impact of the cost program, supported the margin improvement.

At the same time, price adjustments were necessary to respond to higher raw material and procurement costs. Looking at the business units, the market environment for Hydraulic and Industrial Hoses remained largely stable, although trends varied by region and customer segment.

The OEM business in Europe continued its slightly positive trend, while demand in agricultural machinery remained subdued in both Europe and North America. Despite the challenges in construction markets, Profiles delivered a positive development.

This shows that the work we have done over the past years to streamline the business, improve efficiency, and lower our cost base is bearing fruit, with a visible improvement in margins and profitability. Let us now turn to Semperit Engineered Applications on slide five.

After a weak first half of 2025, mainly due to project delays, Semperit Engineered Applications recovered significantly in the first half of 2026. Revenue increased by 10.4% to €206.2 million, driven mainly by the Form business unit.

EBITDA more than doubled to €32.4 million, and the EBITDA margin improved to 15.7% in the first half of the year, even reaching 18.5% in isolated Q2 of 2026. Order intake and order backlog were also above the prior year levels, supporting this recovery picture.

The business unit Form delivered strong revenue and earnings growth, supported by resilient demand across most end markets. Handrail remained solid, Mountain Applications continued to perform at a high level, and Industrial Applications benefited in particular from mining, mineral processing, and the beverage industry.

Belting also improved significantly from an operational perspective and continued to stabilize, although the market picture remains mixed and order momentum softened somewhat around midyear. In the Liquid Silicon Rubber business unit, we saw a gradual recovery, supported by the ramp-up of key customer programs, especially in the medical sector.

While the market environment is clearly not without challenges, the first half shows that Semperit Engineered Applications is on a clear improving path, with better profitability and visible progress across all business units. With this, I would now like to hand over to Helmut, who will take us in more details through the financials.

Thank you, Manfred. Good morning and welcome.

Permit me to start with the known overview of our key financial highlights for the first six months on slide number six. As you may remember, we saw a clear improvement in the second half of '25.

This positive momentum continued into 2026 and was supported by the cost measures we implemented. In early 2025, we launched an additional cost-savings program targeting sustainable cost reductions of more than €10 million, and all measures are now in place and have already delivered around €8 million of savings.

We expect the total contribution to come in comfortably above the €10 million mark. What is also particularly visible in the first-half performance is the operating leverage through better cost absorption in our business.

You may remember that we highlighted this already with our full-year results: once volumes come back, they flow through disproportionately to earnings, given an optimized capacity utilization and a much leaner cost base. This is exactly what we saw in the first six months.

The main part of the EBITDA increase was driven by higher volumes and operating leverage, supported by the cost savings and pricing actions to pass through the raw material cost inflation. EBITDA therefore more than doubled to €66.6 million.

In parallel, we continued to focus strongly on cash generation, free cash flow increased to €30.4 million, supported by focused CapEx management and disciplined spending. Our balance sheet also remains strong.

The solid cash position and conservative leverage give us financial flexibility, with net financial debt to EBITDA at merely 0.7% at the end of June. Finally, we're making further progress on our digital transformation.

The rollout of one ERP, our common backbone for all IT infrastructure and other digital initiatives, is continuing, with the onboarding of further entities underway. Let me briefly walk you through our key financial results for the reporting period.

As discussed, solid top-line growth of 11% and doubling of EBITDA translated into a significant margin improvement to 18.7%. On an operating basis, that means adding €2.3 million of project costs related to our digitalization initiatives, this amounted to €69 million.

EBIT also showed a strong development, reaching €41.7 million, reflecting the underlying operational improvement, while depreciation remained stable at around €25 million for the half year. With earnings after tax of €28.6 million, this is positive, we clearly improved our bottom line compared to a loss of €11.2 million in the first half of 2025.

This reflects the strong operational performance across the group, further supported by better financial results. Importantly, improved profitability was also accompanied by good cash generation, free cash flow increased to €30.4 million, supported by our disciplined CapEx management, which was at €14.5 million total CapEx spend.

Turning to our last 12-month view, the recovery momentum that began in the third quarter of 2025 becomes clearly visible. After reaching a low point of 12.5% in the second quarter of 2025, the industrial EBITDA margin has increased consistently and now stands at 18.7%.

This improvement is no coincidence. The cost-reduction measures we implemented over the last three years, including the additional program launched in early 2025, have substantially strengthened profitability, created a much leaner cost base, and helped mitigate the impact of significant inflationary cost increases.

At the same time, markets gradually recovered and volumes improved. As we've highlighted many times, Semperit benefits from significant operating leverage, yielding much better results when volumes return.

The first half of 2026 provides a very good example of this, and the last 12-month view on this slide therefore clearly illustrates how operating leverage is re-emerging, how improved volumes are now feeding directly into higher profitability. The EBITDA bridge on slide number nine once again shows the operating leverage story very clearly.

The largest part of the year-on-year improvement in sales came from higher volumes. Because we're now operating with much better capacity utilization and a leaner cost base, this addition of volume translated strongly into EBITDA.

Pricing and a better product mix also supported the development, especially in passing through higher raw material costs during the second quarter. At the same time, cost developments reflected the benefits from our efficiency measures and the fully implemented cost-savings program.

Looking into the second half, however, this bridge will look clearly differently. As Manfred mentioned at the beginning, the higher raw material costs will now hit us with some delay, and we will see that clearly in our earnings for the third quarter.

Given the continued volatility in raw material markets, it remains to be seen what extent these price adjustments can be sustained over time. Turning to page 10, you see our usual overview of working capital.

Despite seasonal and volume-related movements, all components remain well controlled, and trade working capital ended 19.2% of revenues at Q2. This mainly reflects higher receivables of very good June results.

Slide 11, we reduced net financial debt even further, from €92 million at year-end 2025 to €79.9 million at the end of June. It clearly helped that we paid no dividend for the year 2025, since we continue to prioritize financial strength and the future growth of Semperit.

As a result, net debt to EBITDA declined to 0.7 times, underlining our very strong financial position. In other words, this is exactly the kind of balance sheet I like to see: conservative leverage, very strong flexibility, and enough headroom to pursue attractive acquisition opportunities.

This strong position is also reflected in our balance sheet structure on slide number 12. The balance sheet total increased to €900 million at the end of June, mainly reflecting higher inventories and receivables in line with seasonal working capital patterns and the higher business volumes.

This was clearly offset by higher trade payables. You will also see assets and liabilities held for sale on the balance sheet.

These relate to our stake in M&R Dichtungstechnik GmbH in Seligenstadt, a company specializing in customized project facades, and the planned sales support the further optimization of our production footprint and our focus on a more scalable business. To put this into perspective, this business represented a revenue volume of slightly above €7 million in 2025.

On the financial profile, cash and cash equivalents stood at €106.5 million, up 12.3%, and our €100 million credit line remains fully undrawn. Financial liabilities decreased to €186.4 million from €194.4 million at year-end 2025.

Together with a solid equity ratio of 49.5%, this underlines the robust balance sheet structure and financial flexibility we already discussed on the previous slide. Finally, let me briefly summarize our capital allocation priorities.

Our approach is clear and disciplined. We first secure our industrial base through maintenance CapEx, then invest in growth and digitalization, while remaining open to strategic bolt-on M&A.

At the same time, we've deliberately not proposed a dividend for 2025, prioritizing financial strength and future growth. This disciplined use of cash ensures that Semperit is well positioned to execute its growth agenda from a solid financial base.

With this, I conclude my part of the presentation, and would like to hand back to Manfred.

Thank you very much, Helmut. Now let me close with our outlook for 2026 and with the message that Semperit is back on its growth path.

The first half clearly showed what our business can deliver when volumes return, operating leverage kicks in, and our leaner cost base takes effect, and that we act quickly with pricing discipline where needed. This is why we raised our full-year earnings forecast in July.

We now expect operating EBITDA before project costs of around €5 million to reach approximately €100 million. Revenue growth is still expected in the higher single-digit percentage range, driven by both divisions.

After the first half, we now see CapEx for the full year at around €40 to €45 million. At the same time, we should be clear: the second half will be more challenging than the first.

The main reason is the delayed impact of significantly higher raw material costs following the escalation in the Middle East. Due to the average valuation of inventories and the usual lead times along the value chain, these costs will now become more visible in earnings, especially in the third quarter.

We reacted quickly with the corresponding pricing measures, but given the continued volatility in raw material markets and the competitive environment, we will have to see to what extent individual price adjustments can be sustained over time. Margin protection remains a key focus for us through pricing discipline, operational excellence, and further efficiency measures.

Market trends also remain mixed. Some business units are performing robustly, and we see early signs of stabilization in selected end markets, but at the same time, demand visibility and customer investment decisions are still affected by geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainty, especially in more cyclical segments.

What gives us confidence, though, is the progress we have made internally. Our cost base is leaner, our efficiency initiatives are delivering, and the operating discipline across the group is much stronger than a few years ago.

That is why we expect a significant profitability improvement for the full year 2026 compared with 2025. Beyond the current year, the midterm growth drivers remain intact.

While we remain cautious on the near-term environment, the direction for Semperit is clear: profitable growth, strict margin management, and continued focus on scalable industrial businesses. Finally, our investment case in one sentence: we have strong market positions, the technology to grow, real operating leverage, a very solid balance sheet, and a platform that is ready for the next phase of profitable growth.

Now, Helmut and I are available for any questions you might have. Operator, if you would please start with the Q&A procedures.

Yes, thank you. Actually, it's a quite complex question.

You probably have been awaiting it. It's on the facing and the conceptual modeling of what is coming for the rest of the year.

Actually, I do not really need you to comment on the guidance. I think that is, let's say, basically always a bit uncertain.

I would like to understand the different building blocks which are coming over the next quarters. You have a very good development in the first half and, let's say, also throughout the last six quarters in more or less both segments.

Even if I now take out, let's say, the inventory revaluation in the second in the third quarter and possibly even reverse it or so, and strip out price elements you showed in the bridge, that would be not something that I would need to see going forward. Do I need to expect in the third quarter something like not only taking out a price tailwind, but also modeling a temporary, let's say, the exact opposite effect, a doubled headwind, and Q3 is then very weak while Q4 would be setting then up another normal level?

Also maybe to understand a little bit better, do you think there has been, let's say, a pre-ordering with your price increases in the second quarter or perspective, let's say, shortage in the supply chain, so that there is not only that you need to pay higher prices and have a revaluation of the inventory, but also you could be hit with lower volume in the third quarter?

Okay. I would suggest that I start with answering that question, then I will hand it over to Helmut, who also will add some thoughts here.

From my perspective, I don't see a double headwind, yeah. I see one headwind, which we talked about, the raw material cost is going to translate much stronger in our inventory.

That's one headwind, but I don't see a second headwind that prices will decrease. We will make some price adjustments, to balance supply and demand, but that is not going to be, in my view, a major effect.

I don't see a double headwind; I see one headwind what we discussed. When it comes to pre-ordering, I don't think that this has happened, and the reason is easy, because we were very, very quick with our pricing measures when the war in the Middle East escalated.

You might want to say that our customers did not have time to pre-order before the price increases take effect, because they took immediate effect. That's how I would answer those two questions, and I'd like to hand it over to Helmut to add some more, thoughts to this.

Stefan, yeah, it's a truly complex question, because there's different layers to the answer. One that Manfred has already given you on the tailwinds and headwinds.

Headwinds clearly from the lag, the 10- to 12-week lag of the increases in raw material prices for critical raw materials, which is everything that is petroleum-based, meaning synthetic rubber, but also carbon black. The other element to it is the volume activity where we see and this is experience from Q1 to some degree ordering decisions, reordering points in the business are sometimes dependent on uncertainty.

If we are at a constant level of uncertainty as in the last 12 months, 18 months, I'm about to say, at a certain point, you ignore that and you basically place your ordering points based on other structures, which is basically your own production and your own production portfolio. We haven't seen any peaks in order activity, we haven't seen any low, but key customers are cautious, yeah.

This will have some impact on volumes, but I don't expect it to be a major one, yeah. Let alone what the overall economy is doing.

The valuation effects, I think they are not that significant, because we try and we will manage our inventories to the level that of course we order the bare minimum when prices are at peak, but of course we have to keep production running. If we skin the cat of Q3 now, I expect some tailwinds for July.

I expect the full headwinds, and I want to enter a third dimension, which is our production standstills for maintenance. We have two maintenance cycles when we shut down plants: one is in Christmas season over winter standstill, and one is typically in July and August.

We will see that impact of lower production output, we expect August to be a low result, with the advantage that we don't have to, utilize that much of the raw materials, of the expensive raw materials. September should be impacted by that to a smaller degree, but Q4 is I would not say back to normal, but will be a reflection of the overall business activity and business intensity.

Therefore, our forecast, the guidance increased to that €100 million. EBITDA-wise, let me translate that into concrete figures: probably in between €15 to €20 million in Q3, and then the rest for the year-end, depending on the closing of the year.

Last two years, we experienced very strong month of December, two in a row, and if we expect a normal December, you get to €100 million; if it's exceptionally strong December, then it can be more than that, yeah. Stefan, I hope that answers your question.

Thank you very much. That was a very comprehensive answer.

Thank you.

Hello, Volker Bosse, Baader Bank. Thanks for taking my question, and congrats on the results in H1.

I also want to come back to the challenging second quarter which you mentioned. Can you perhaps quantify how much pressure from higher energy costs and raw material can be expected here just in terms of building blocks, an add-on to the questions before?

You mentioned also that you passed on higher costs to customers, are you optimistic that you're able to do so in the future, too, and how fast are you able to increase prices to react on higher costs? Another question is on dividend policy.

Are you interested to pay a dividend for '26 again? You mentioned also the M&A opportunities you might have given the good balance sheet.

Is here a short list of special projects in consideration? If you have to decide to pay a dividend or to go for M&A opportunities, what is your preference?

Just a feeling on what is to come in regards to M&A, dividends, and your preferences here. Thank you.

I let Helmut start, with the material costs and put some...

Jumping on the material costs, clearly, we run our scenarios, and if you take all the petroleum-based input materials that we have, synthetic rubber, it's very hard to judge at the moment based on the oil price, which is the driver of every scenario, because there's a disconnect between the oil price and the butadiene price, ethylene price, as you've clearly noted, too, from your expertise in the marketplace. All in all, if you take the full impact of these, we came up to €30 million impact for us, yeah.

This is, of course, a figure that is a theoretical figure, because it depends on the concrete ordering behavior and, of course, how we can balance our demand. The current price level and the latest forecast level, which we don't see prices to decline heavily, apart from NBR in Korea, this is already in our forecast.

You will have that effect in the forecast, yeah. Give or take, from the valuation perspective, just to throw out a number, it's in excess of €10 million, yeah.

Pricing-wise, of course, since part of our business is commodity-driven, heavily involved with the conversion of the raw materials into our solutions and products, we have to pass on these price increases, as our competitors have to, yeah. There's a certain limit to it, because then you will clearly see volume effects and a price sensitivity with key customers.

It's a fine line that we need to walk, and as Manfred said before, of course, we react quickly, passing on price increases, but we also react very quickly in adjusting these prices, yeah. Coming back to the second element of your question, given I assume the good profitability in the first half, our dividend policy has not changed, it's payout of 50% of project after tax, unless there's special circumstances, special situations.

We use this special circumstance that we want to build the reserves in the times of higher uncertainty for the year 2026, we proposed to the general assembly not to pay out a dividend. You also know Semperit is not a growth stock, we're, a value and a dividend stock, we adhere to our dividend policy.

If you ask me as the CFO, what do you like better: pay out a dividend or buy an interesting business? What the answer will be.

Volker, I hope that...

Yeah. Thank you.

Crystal clear. Perhaps on the M&A opportunities, you mentioned that more actively, therefore I'm asking do you have special projects here in the pipeline?

Do you have a long list, do you have a short list, just to get a feeling what to expect here? Thank you.

I know it's hard to predict, but just your general assumptions, yeah. Thanks.

We're currently in the moment of creating a long list, yeah. This was not our focus in the year 2025, because we had to manage a crisis in 2025 with the macroeconomic environment.

This, to be honest, continued in the first three, four months of 2026, and this is why we also can show good results. We are now starting to create a long list, to look at interesting opportunities.

This is not something which is going to happen quick, but we I always say plan your work and work your plan, and to have interesting acquisitions is part of our plan, and we are now working on that plan. We are definitely looking only on things where we have a synergy case, because if we make an an acquisition, it needs to be something which adds value to the group, and a big value driver are synergies.

If anything happens, you can expect something, that will be a value case and a synergy case, but we're only at the very beginning right now creating a long list.

Okay. Thank you very much, and all the best for second half.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Hi, good morning, gents. I'll have to come back to the price cost spread topic that you baked in for the second half.

I'm not sure really comprehend the message on the pricing. Is it correct that you're as a reaction to the recent spike are introducing a further round of price increases?

No.

No. You're living on the increases that have been implemented at the beginning of the year?

Yes.

Okay. Is the reason for not approaching the clients with another price hike kind of the general price or, per se, the general behavior of your competitors, because I guess they will be in a similar situation when it comes to negative price cost spreads then, I'm wondering...

No, Markus...

No, no,

no. I just want to maybe put it on the right track, because we did our price increases already in Manfred, I think it was beginning of April, mid-April.

Correct. Second week of April, yeah.

Exactly when we saw the spike in raw material prices.

Yeah.

We were at the time when our input costs basically showed this dramatic increase of 20 and more percent, we informed our customers immediately that we have to increase our prices. This is basically a lead, because we cannot wait, because once you're in this gap that you basically are lagging the price increases of your input factors, then of course the €30 million that I mentioned before become highly relevant, yeah, and hit your results.

We priced everything in, there is no need based on the escalation in the Middle East to make another price increase, yeah.

The second element to it, and therefore your question is of course not as easy to answer as you might expect, is we have to balance the capacity utilization of our factories with the margin gain attainable from price increases. The price increases were just a measure not to fall behind.

It's not to take one-time gains or anything like that. It's basically not just if you want to call it a rather defensive move, yeah.

Our real improvement in results comes and will come from the better utilization, as you've seen in the EBITDA bridge, what comes from volumes and what comes from prices and product mix. The third element to it, of course, it's not just commodity business.

We're also in project business, and we also have business with price formulas. The price formulas typically react with a lag of three months, and the project business, we see a lot of projects in the Belting area that are just coming up for tender again, yeah.

There's opportunities, but there's also risks. At a certain stage in a project business, you price yourself out of the market.

Then this is a very fine line, I called it. We need to walk between utilization and better cost absorption and pricing excellence.

Okay. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Can we then turn to the reduced CapEx guidance briefly?

Is that a true cut, or is it a shift into the next year, and maybe you can shed some light on from which compartment it's coming? I would guess rather the growth compartment.

It's

I would say there's three elements to it. The first element is the maintenance CapEx, where it comes to replacement of machinery, and I have a very straightforward answer for you: if a machine has been running for 15 years, it's probably going to run a 16th year if you keep it well maintained.

This is the critical part, and we want to keep them well maintained, well-oiled machinery, yeah. There's clearly we only push projects when there is no risks, no risk on an elevated risk for breakdown.

We don't save on safety-relevant CapEx. We had CapEx in the beginning of the year in our Polish plant with an extended standstill, which was entirely safety-relevant, yeah, was the exchange of overhead cranes, yeah.

Of course, there's elements where you say, okay, this project has a payback, but if we get into another round of suppliers for machinery, it might get a little cheaper. If we get away from doing business with only European manufacturers of machinery and appreciate the fact that also in China there's very excellent machinery produced that can be customized for our purposes, this extra round has benefits on the business case, and this is the element where we shift it, yeah.

Basically, it's not that we cut it in full, yeah, it's more a shift, a gradual shift into the coming periods. If you keep shifting, you get quite efficient with CapEx.

I want to take away concerns that you've expressed on our last call. We are clearly dedicated to maintaining our industrial base.

Whenever there's an elevated risk of standstill, we address it proactively.

Very, very clear. Thank you.

Then just a follow-up on the planned asset sale. You mentioned €7 million revenue contribution of this M&R Dichtungstechnik subsidiary.

Can you share some light on the underlying profitability just for modeling purposes?

It's part of the SEA business, and the profitability is last year broadly in line with the one of our Profiles business. It's a project-driven business, it's a business that is specialized on facade solutions.

The Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg is a particular reference project. Very interesting business.

We like it a lot, but it doesn't fit the SEA, yeah. It's just not a performance commodity, it's a highly specialized Profiles business, I think we can find a better operator for that business, yeah.

Okay. The very last one related to the B&C takeover offer.

I don't know if you can disclose it, but the last time your fellow board member, Mr. Eder, seemed to be undecided, at least that was the written communication.

Is it Can you share whether he has tendered or not?

There was no directors' dealing.

Okay. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for your time and participation.

Of course, we remain available for any questions and discussions that you might have. Please do not hesitate to reach out to us.

We will speak again in this circle at the latest in three months when we present our Q3 figures. Thank you very much, and we wish you all a nice remaining summer.