Good day and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Abi Schmidt Group's second quarter 2026 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Simone Grancini, Investor Relations Director. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Sharon. Good morning and welcome to the EpiSchmidt second quarter 2026 earnings call. Joining me on the call today are Barend Fruithof, Chairman and Group CEO, who will provide the highlights of the second quarter and outlook and concluding remarks, Steffen Schewerda, CEO of North America and Henning Schroeder, CEO of Europe and the rest of the world, who will detail the performance in the respective segments, and Marco Portmann, Group CFO, who will provide a financial overview. Today's comments include forward-looking statements, subject to the Safe Harbor language contained in this morning's press release and in Ebi Schmidt's filings with the SEC. And as a reminder, all 2025 comparative figures referenced in today's material, like all figures prior to the July 1st, 2025 acquisition, are presented on a combined basis for Ebi Schmidt and the acquired shift group. Accordingly, all year-over-year comparisons are based on combined 2025 financial information of both companies rather than standalone historical results. and with that I hand the call over to Barend.

Good morning everyone. Our second quarter 2026 results are another substantial step forward with significantly improved profitability. As shown on slide five, order intake increased by 16% or the backlog grew 20% and net sales rose by 9% compared with the second quarter of 2025. Most importantly, we delivered a substantial improvement in profitability. Adjusted EBITDA grew by 22% and net income increased by 18 million year over year. In other words, profitability increased over proportionally compared to sales, reflecting production ramps ups and other operational efficiency. The accelerated realization of acquisition synergies and Strict Cost Control. On slide six, I would like to briefly summarize some of our key achievements. First of all, we have now passed the first anniversary of the SHIFT acquisition and we are very proud of what we have accomplished over those last 12 months. In connection with the anniversary, we released our updated Group Strategy 2030 setting out a clear roadmap towards our ambition of becoming the global leader in specialty vehicles. On the top line, we continued to build momentum across all major business lines in the second quarter, including securing important orders. In North America, we secured a landmark $96 million walking land frame contract achieved a record quarter at Royal with our service bodies and continued to benefit from strong momentum in airport and municipal. In Europe, we secured a major German motorway contract, expanded our cross-selling success with leading airport customers and successfully launched the new Ebi Terra truck in our agricultural business. Turning to slide 7. One year after the acquisition of the Schiff Group, I'm very happy with our progress. Comparing the 12 months before and after the acquisition, order intake has increased by 26%, adjusted EBITDA has grown by 22%, and our EBITDA margin has improved by approximately 120 basis points. We have successfully integrated our operations expanded our American footprint, simplified our brand architecture, and increased our synergy target to more than $40 million on an annual run rate. At the same time, we continued to invest in innovation to strengthen our competitive position across all business lines. This progress reinforces our confidence in the long-term value creation potential for the combined company. Slide 8 highlights our continued innovation across the group. We recently introduced multiple new products and technologies, including the Klingon 550 Compact Sweeper, our next generation TerraTruck, expanded electric vehicle offerings, and importantly, new airport equipment solutions. At the same time, in partnership with VATmove, we continue to develop autonomous airport operation solutions for our customers. Together, these initiatives strengthen our market leadership and support our organic growth. And now I turn the call over to Stefan.

Thank you, Barend, and good morning, everyone. We are on slide 10. North America delivered a strong quarter characterized by three elements. The top line execution, backlog conversion, and over-proportional profitability improvement. In airport and chassis, auto momentum remained robust. This was supported by major project awards. We also continued to the expansion of the Atlas Care Service network through our partnership with Lost Travel Stops. Within Goods Transport, we secured a significant seven-year, $96 million frame contract with a strategic US customer. This customer has been a partner for more than two decades. For the first time, the agreement includes cargo vans in addition to walk-in vans. We view this expansion as a clear sign of trust and the validation of the broader capabilities of the combined portfolio. Our commercial business continues to benefit from healthy backlog levels. Royal had a record quarter. Here, service body production increased by more than 20% compared to historical averages. In municipal, we secured multiple Swenson Awards. In addition, we successfully completed the Juliet production ramp up with customer deliveries progressing as planned. Overall, demand remains healthy and our execution continues to improve across all major product categories. Turning to slide 11. Order intake remained strong and you can see the backlog increased around 27% year over year. Sales increased 11% year over year. This was driven primarily by successful walk-in van backlog conversion. In addition, we continued to see strong airport and improved municipal output. Adjusted EBITDA increased by approximately 22%, substantially outperforming sales growth. This reflects improved operating efficiency, completed ramp-ups, and strong contributions from both airport and also Royal. Overall, we are pleased with the quarter and remain confident in the growth outlook for North America. And with that being said, I hand the call over to my colleague Henning Schroeder. Henning?

Thank you, Steffen, and good morning. Europe and the rest of the world delivered another strong quarter, driven by exceptional order intake momentum and continued profitability improvement. Our result reflects the strength of our market position and commercial execution. In airport, a major UK airport group selected Ebi Schmidt as its preferred supplier for winter maintenance and airfield sweeping equipment. In addition, we successfully cross-sold LADOC vehicles into the airport segment. This underlines the potential to penetrate new customer segments, expand the addressable market and unlock additional growth opportunities. Within municipal, we secured a significant $11 million German motorway contract, strengthening our position with one of Europe's key clients. At the same time, we continue to benefit from increasing demand for electrified municipal vehicles. In agriculture, the launch of the new Abitera truck generated strong customer interest and highlighted our continued innovation leadership. Across the region, we continue to see healthy demand levels and strong customer engagement. turning to slide 14. Order intake increased approximately 20% compared with last year, supported by strong demand across southern and central Europe, as well as several significant contract wins. Net sales increased by approximately 7%, reflecting continued operational discipline and strong production performance. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 25% for the quarter and marked another step forward in our profitability improvement journey. The key drivers remain higher gross margins, strong aftermarket performance, and disciplined cost management. I'm proud of the progress our teams continue to deliver. That concludes my comments, and I now turn the call over to Marco.

Thank you, Henning, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide 16. Order intake increased 16% compared with the second quarter of 2025, and reached $516 million. This performance was supported by growth in both our segments, particularly in airport and chassis, municipal and the continued recovery of walk-in vans. Or the backlog increased nearly 20% year over year to approximately 1.3 billion and provides good visibility for the remainder of 2026 and beyond. Moving to slide 17. GroupNet sales reached $496 million, representing an impressive organic growth of 9.4% compared with the second quarter of 2025. North America was the main driver with sales up 11% versus last year, with Hawking Vans as a major driver alongside growth, strong growth, nearly throughout. Europe and the rest of the world delivered a strong 7% organic growth through continued sales execution, further expanding its already strong market share. Overall, the second quarter demonstrates our ability to convert our substantial backlog into profitable revenue growth. And looking at profitability on slide 18. Adjusted EBTA in the second quarter reached $42 million, representing a growth of 22% year over year. Group adjusted EBTA margin increased to 8.5%, reflecting an improvement of around 90 basis points. Given the ongoing geopolitical uncertainties and continued discussions on trade tariffs, which are triggering supply chain disruptions and material cost inflation, we continued to be very cautious in our spending. This tight cost management allowed us to mitigate temporary pressure on our gross margin and supported our realized adjusted EBITDA in this quarter. Looking ahead, we also expect our recent sales price increases to improve gross margins, which were executed swiftly but are realized with some delay due to the substantial order backlog we carry. Looking at our reporting segments, North America benefited from improving operating efficiency, completed ramp-ups, and stronger backlog conversion. Europe and rest of world continued its profitability trajectory on its strategic path to expand realized margins. This demonstrates the earnings potential of our platform as net sales continue to grow. Finally, having a look at our balance sheet on slide 19. Net working capital improved year over year to $449 million despite continued strong sales growth, reflecting ongoing efficiency improvements and disciplined working capital management. Net debt stood relatively flat at $450 million at quarter end, down $5 million from March, with an average of 2.7 times, down more than half a turn compared to the end of June 2025. With our profitability and working capital improvements, we are well on track towards our leverage target of two times by year end 2026. However, temporary investments in securing our supply chain and protecting our margins, including avoiding outsized material cost increases, will slightly impact us through year end and into the first quarter 2027. Accordingly, we are slightly updating our leverage target for year-end 2026 from previously two times or slightly below to two times or slightly above at year-end 2026. These temporary investments allow us to continue to support our strong and profitable growth while retaining our path to leverage the balance sheet consistent with our capital allocation strategy. That concludes my comments and I hand it back to Barend for the closing remarks.

Thank you, Marco. Turning to slide 21. We're pleased with our second quarter's performance and the continued progress across all areas of our business. Order momentum remains strong, further supporting an already strong order backlog. Net sales continued to increase with an impressive organic growth. Adjusted EBITDA is growing significantly faster than revenue, Demonstrating the benefits of operational improvements, realized synergies and disciplined execution. Based on this performance, we confirm our full year 2026 guidance for net sales and adjusted EBITDA. We remain confident in our ability to deliver profitable growth while advancing our long-term ambition Thank you very much. Our guidance assumes that geopolitical turmoil, tariff discussions, and inflation continues to normalize. As Marco mentioned, we face temporary pressure on our gross margins due to unexpected supply chain challenges and material cost pressure. But with our resilient business model and cautious approach, we are able to compensate for these impacts with strict cost management. Additionally, executed price increases will mostly come through by year-end and early 2027. Now, beyond the second quarter updates, let me also take a moment to summarize why we believe Ebi Schmidt is uniquely positioned for long-term value creation as shown on page 22. Our investment case rests on four key pillars. First, we are a global leader in specialty vehicles. We have built long-standing customer relationships across our two home markets, supported by a portfolio of leading brands and a continuous focus on strengthening our product offering. Second, we see a compelling growth opportunity today. We have a backlog of almost $1.3 billion, giving us strong feasibility. At the same time, we continue to benefit from exposure to attractive end markets, the expansion of our after-sales business and additional opportunities to grow through M&A. Third, we have multiple levers to drive profitability. We expect to further optimize our manufacturing footprint and improve operational efficiency across the group. These initiatives support Sustainable margin expansion over time. Finally, we have a resilient business model, our local for local operating model, geographically diversified platform, and strong balance sheet helps us to navigate challenging market environments. These strengths support our 2030 ambitions to delivering over $3 billion in annual sales through organic growth Thank you.

To ask a question, you will need to press star 1 and 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Please limit yourself to one question and one follow-up only. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 and 1 again. Thank you. We will now go to our first question. And our first question today comes from the line of Michael Schlitzke from DA Davidson. Please go ahead.

Yes, hello, good morning, and good afternoon, as the case may be. The large order that you mentioned in the quarter, did you say it was a seven-year order or a $96 million order, maybe that was? Was that all in the backlog at the end of the quarter? Is that entirely for shipment in 2026? And how common is a $90 million-plus order? Is that something that would happen every quarter, or is this just a very, very unusual one-time thing?

Hey, Mike, this is Marco. Just quickly repeating the question. We had a bit of an interruption in the line. So the question is the 96 million framework order, whether that's on backlog by the end of the quarter, how much of that is realized in 26, and whether it's a normal size order or not, if I got that correctly.

Yeah. Michael, this is Stefan. Good morning. So this is, yes, this is a seven-year order. 96 million we will see the first revenue realization in 2027 okay what is what is a little bit unusual is that it is not from the big parcel delivery companies so we are broadening our portfolio here um so we are basically you know the the segments We see improved order entry from other segments as well. And on top of that, this is more than just walk-in vans. So there were cargo vans added. So we are broadening the portfolio here when we are offering to the customers.

So Mike, and to add one point here, you asked also if that is booked into our backlog, which is not the case. So we have here a very cautious model. Normally, we don't book any frame contracts in our backlog. We just book it once we have received the PO.

Thanks, Barend. Yeah, that's a general rule in our company.

Got it. That's a very important detail. I really appreciate that. and then maybe my my follow-up will also be on the walk-in van chassis area. I'm sure you've heard this there was an announcement last week with about Ford transitioning a good portion of that of their walk-in van chassis business. It'll still be a Ford powertrain but most of the design sales assembly will be handled by by Bluebird going forward. Can you share on this call what are your impressions of that deal? Can you tell me what if anything might change at Avid Schmidt? So, first of all, thank you very much for this question. So, short-sea supply remains a critical topic for our industry.

and for us NVC the announced move to the Ford chassis production bluebird as positive. It stabilizes chassis supply and removes risk of a bigger supply gap linked to necessary EPA 27 certification. So we have been in close contact with Bluebird and we deepen our relationship and we see that as a support also going forward. What we have seen so far is that some of our clients moved from the Ford chassis to the FCCC chassis. So we have to aggressively watch the situation, how that will develop, because they have quite an aggressive plan to launch that new chassis in 2028. but overall we see that as a positive development also that we still have then two providers in the chassis market. So that is it from our perspective and as you know we have quite a good momentum in the walk-in van business and as I said we see big movements towards the F-Triple-C chassis.

Great, thanks for that color. I'll pass it along.

Thank you. Your next question today comes from the line of Ben Summers from BTIG. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning. Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. So I wanted to ask a little bit on the 2030 strategic target that you guys gave. You know, it seems like there's some M&A baked in there. Just curious kind of what you're seeing in that market and just if you could talk a little bit about what's baked into that assumption.

Okay, so thanks a lot for this question. So first of all, it's clearly our goal to first deleverage a company, as we have also outlined in our presentation. And then we see a few areas where we can further grow our company through an M&A, first of all in Europe. And so there we are The commercial business is still very much in transformation and consolidation. There we see some opportunities. And the third point is, you know, we still believe that we should have a similar business model in the US. and there we see some opportunities also in the sweeper area.

Super helpful. Then just kind of wanted to ask a little bit about production or manufacturing capacity. You know, I know we mentioned the new Upfit Center in Iowa and, you know, with Chicago that now fully operational and, you know, we've had some strong backlog growth here. So just kind of how do you think about, you know, manufacturing capacity moving forward and is there any, you know, specific markets that maybe you're targeting moving forward in, you know, North America?

Okay, Ben, this is Stefan. So the Juliette Upfit Center is operational and did ramp up very successfully. So we are on track with our customer deliveries. The one in Iowa you were referring to, we started the commercial business, the commercial upfitting there that is operational. Municipal will follow. So we start to utilize our outfit centers more and more for commercial and municipal on a combined base. Despite the geographical white spots, and we elaborated that in previous calls, we are working on, we are pretty well set with our operational footprint, but I want to say that there might be future, and there is future potential for more rationalization and cost reductions when it comes to the footprint. Does that answer your question?

Yep, super helpful. Thank you guys for taking my questions. Thanks.

Thank you. Your next question today comes from the line of Matt Kuranda from Roth Capital. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys. Thanks. Maybe just could you first unpack some of the temporary impacts that you're investing in, I guess, in the supply chain that are driving the slight shift and the leverage target at the end of the year?

Sure, this is Marco speaking, Matt. Well, look, I mean, we have seen that supply chain has been a bit distorted, not in the sense that, you know, you would see and say like with pandemic times where things are not available. So that's not the case. We have seen that there's a high risk. There's alongside the high risk also quite a material cost inflation pressure, which was to some degree also a little bit unexpected, right? So because we talk about previously steel, aluminum lock-ins. We have essentially also surcharges in certain areas to cover that. But there are suppliers of suppliers to now come through with some price increases. And you see that also in the gross margin reflected. And to secure that position there, we have slightly increased our safety stocks. We have some elements where we buy a little bit in bigger batches than we would usually do just to get better discounts and things like that. and so that's a bit of a combination of measures that's just making sure that you know this pressure is countered and mitigated and it will however lead to some temporary investments as mentioned for the next three quarter-ish so in basically until early 2027 is what we can see so far and you know despite progressing very nicely with the working capital efficiency I mean I should point out right if you look at working capital ratio to net sales A year ago, we were at 25.0% in that ratio, in that perspective. Now we are at 23.0%, so we made two full percentage points in progress in just a year. The midterm target I should add as well, which we have given out in the equity story here, is to get to 20-ish percent within another two, two and a half years. And so we feel we're well on track to that, but this is a temporary hiccup that we're going to take just to make sure that profitability stays where we need it to be.

Okay, very helpful. Thanks, Marco. And then for my follow-up, just looking at the long-term outlook and the margin target in 2030, it looks like, you know, about 400 basis points of even a margin expansion basically over the next four years if we're using the midpoint of your guidance this year. How should we think about the step up through 2030? Is that a linear sort of step up in progression that you envision or is there something a little bit lumpier that we should be taking into account? Maybe synergies realized earlier in the period or anything else that we should be thinking about as we look at the track toward the 2030 margin target?

Yeah, I mean, very good question. And look, the thing is, in single measures, there are partially some step ups, yes, but overall, because it's such a A combination of measures, right? It's the operational footprint. It's the extension of the after-sales market. It is the continuation of the final synergies to come in. And I should add on synergies, as we spoke about also today, we have accelerated that further to some degree. We're now nearly done. We expect to be at 37 million by year-end 2026, with roughly five to come still in 2027. and the gist of it all if you if you put it all together is that no there's no there's no big step up through that next couple of quarters and years because the combination of the measures basically means that it's pretty much linearly going to develop until that 13 plus percent that we are giving as a midterm guidance by 24. okay understood thanks guys thank you your next question today

comes from the line of Dave Storms from StoneGate. Please go ahead.

Morning and afternoon. I appreciate you taking my questions. Marco, I wanted to hold on that last energy comment for a second there. I saw that you did increase that target to over $40 million. Could you maybe just help us understand where that's coming from, what that should look like on the ground, and maybe any timing around that increase?

Yeah, sure. I mean, we spoke about it before, right? So the initial target was 25 to 30 million. We rather quickly were able to increase that in 2025. That was mostly driven from additional OPEX. So we essentially have additional potential identified in the organization, but also just with the base OPEX spending that was executed fairly quickly. Again, that's also part of what helps us now to mitigate a little bit that cross-margin pressure we see and as just mentioned right we now expect to see 37 million realized by year end the piece that's still to come that's now ramping up in the third quarter is the xp service body pro that's the service body that we now produce in-house that was a key consideration of our of our merger and then we also heard examples as well today in a call from Stefan we see that the cross-selling is now also coming in right so that's the piece we expected last the revenue synergies the cross-selling synergies that takes its time getting those new customers where we are now a nationwide player but it is coming in exactly as expected and that's then the part that we expect to see really not just with the momentum and orders coming but really with revenue and profitability in 2027 as the last piece of it that's then the roughly 5 million or a big part of the 5 million for the 2027 final upside out of that shift synergy merger synergies understood very helpful

Maybe switching over to the guidance, I think it was pretty well laid out what could put you on the lower end of the guidance between the geopolitical uncertainty, tariffs, inflationary pressures. Just thinking about what you can control in-house, where do you see the greatest leverage points to maybe put you on the higher end of that guidance going into the last two quarters of the year?

Thank you very much for the question. So, you know, I mean, the terrorists at the end of the day, you cannot control. But, you know, with our resilient business model, which is based on a local for local model, I mean, we're not heavily impacted. So we are just indirectly impacted, you know, and our competitors as well. So there we have some challenges because of our big backlog and that leads then also a bit to a lower gross margin at the moment. And we are more impacted, to be very honest, by the Iran war because energy prices went up and that impacted some of our material costs. At the same time we started to increase our prices and as I mentioned in my presentation that will kick in by the end of 2026 and then also beginning 2027. So we will see definitely then also an improvement on the world's margin long term. Appreciate the call, thank you.

Thank you. This concludes the Q&A for today, and I will now hand the call back to Simone Grancini for closing remarks.

Thank you, Sharon. I thank everyone for joining today's call and your interest in the Ebbi Schmidt Group. As always, please reach out to investor.relations at ebbischmidt.com if you have any follow-up questions. And with that, Sharon, please disconnect the call.

Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.