Earnings call transcript: Aalberts Q2 2025 reveals revenue decline

Aalberts Industries NV reported a decline in total revenue for the second quarter of 2025, with a €62 million drop and an organic revenue decline of 3.2%. Despite these challenges, the company achieved a net profit of €151 million, translating to €1.38 per share. The company maintains impressive gross profit margins of 62.93% and according to InvestingPro analysis, the stock appears undervalued at current levels. The company’s stock price saw a decrease of 1.59% following the earnings report, closing at €27.70, reflecting investor concerns over the revenue decline and market conditions.

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Key Takeaways

• Total revenue decreased by €62 million with a 3.2% organic decline.
• EBITDA margin fell to 13.5%, a 1.5% drop from the previous period.
• Free cash flow increased by €8 million year-over-year, reaching €56 million.
• Strategic investments continue in growth areas like semiconductor system integration.
• Stock price fell by 1.59% post-earnings announcement.

Company Performance

Aalberts Industries reported a challenging second quarter as revenue dropped by €62 million, marking a 3.2% organic decline. The EBITDA margin also decreased to 13.5%, down by 1.5% from the previous period. Despite these setbacks, the company managed to increase its free cash flow by €8 million year-over-year, reaching €56 million. The firm is continuing its focus on strategic growth areas, including prefabricated solutions for data centers and semiconductor system integration.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: Decreased by €62 million
• Organic revenue decline: 3.2%
• EBITDA margin: 13.5% (1.5% decrease)
• Net profit: €151 million (€1.38 per share)
• Free cash flow: €56 million (+€8 million YoY)
• Capital expenditure: Reduced to €100 million (€70 million improvement)

Outlook & Guidance

With a market capitalization of $3.42 billion and a beta of 1.3, Aalberts maintained its full-year EBITDA margin guidance between 13% and 14%. The company does not foresee any organic revenue growth improvement in the second half of 2025. It plans to continue its cost management and operational efficiency efforts, with potential divestments of €400-500 million in its Building and Industry segments. Capital expenditure is expected to be between €200 million and €225 million for the year.

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Executive Commentary

CEO Stéphane Simonetta emphasized the company’s focus on protecting its EBITDA margin and optimizing free cash flow while investing for the long term. He stated, "We continue to take action to protect our EBITDA margin, optimize our free cash flow, while at the same time we will continue to deploy and invest for the long term." CFO Frans den Houter added, "We really want full control over the company," highlighting the strategic importance of the planned GVT acquisition.

Risks and Challenges

• Semiconductor market: Continued destocking with no expected improvement in H2 2025.
• Building segment: Soft markets in Germany and connection systems.
• Industry segment: Mixed performance with growth in aerospace but challenges in automotive and industrial markets.
• Potential divestments: Uncertainty regarding the impact on the Building and Industry segments.
• Macroeconomic pressures: Global economic conditions could affect demand and profitability.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts focused on the semiconductor market’s destocking issue and the challenges in the German connection systems market. Questions also centered on the GVT acquisition, with a shareholder vote expected in September and closing anticipated by year-end. The company’s efforts in inventory reduction and operational excellence were also discussed, highlighting their importance in navigating current market conditions.

Full transcript - Aalberts Industries NV (AALB) Q2 2025:

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Good morning everybody. Welcome at our first half 2025 results publication. It’s great to see so many of you joining this webcast online. I’m happy to introduce to you our CEO Stéphane Simonetta and our new CFO Frans den Houter. Stéphane will kick off the presentation with some business highlights. This will be followed by Frans who will give an update on our financial developments. Stéphane will finish the presentation with another update on our strategy and this will be followed by a Q and A session. Please note that today’s webcast and the presentation will be made available later today on our website. Please let me introduce Stéphane to kick off the presentation.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you, Rutger. Good morning, everyone. Let’s start this presentation by giving you a business highlight to tell you how was the first half and give you also an operational update for each of our segments before handing over to Frans about the financial development. I would like to start with a few key messages to summarize the situation where we are. As you have seen this morning in our press release, our first half performance has been impacted by the market headwinds and by the increased uncertainty due to the global trade policies. This has an impact into our organic growth and that’s why, as a key message of today, we are adjusting our full year outlook to reflect the market condition. We continue to take action on what we can do to protect our EBITDA margin to optimize our free cash flow.

We have made good progress on our strategy with three value-accretive acquisitions that we will be sharing later today, two in the U.S., one intended in Southeast Asia for semicon. At the same time, we are still actively looking at our divestment program to simplify our portfolio, especially within our building and industry segment. In a nutshell, managing the short-term challenges due to the market uncertainty but at the same time continuing to deploy our long-term strategic actions. Now, looking back at the first half, as you can see on this slide, basically now you see the key numbers that again will be explained in much more detail by Frans. In a nutshell, the organic growth is basically the result of the unmarketed wins.

As you can see, we are reporting a 3.2% organic decline with actually a mixed picture between our three segments because yes, in industry and semicon we continue to see organic decline. Also, Q2 was a bit better for industry, but semicon continue to be very low. On the other hand, we still have growth in our building segment. We are reporting a moderate organic growth of 1.4%. As a consequence, our margin is basically the result of the organic growth challenges as we have a semicon margin going down following the volume drop. Our industry margin is still solid and building is stable compared to last year. Of course, we were expecting a bit better performance due to all the action we are taking.

On the other hand, I’m really pleased that thanks to all the action we are taking on pricing excellence on organic growth, we managed to sustain a good added value margins. Super pleased also to report that we are improving our free cash flow thanks to the great work from our team to reduce inventories and also to manage our capital expenditure. As a consequence, due to the lower margin, our EBITDA is down at €1.38. In a nutshell, as you can see at the bottom of the slide, good improvement in free cash flow and EBITDA margin under pressure. Let’s go now segment by segment and I would like to start, as you can see here, by a Building segment. In a nutshell, our Building growth is still positive at 1.4% and our EBITDA is stable compared to last year, 12.9% compared to 13% last year.

Let me now explain, as you can see on the left of the slide, why our organic growth you could say is only 1.4% because actually it’s a mixed picture. On one hand, very good growth continues in Americas, in Asia Pacific, and in some of our product lines, commercial valve, industrial valve, prefab solution, we are actually growing quite well. On the other hand, all this growth is offset by the challenge we see especially in Germany and French market, but also in our connection system product line which is being a bit lower than expected and therefore our organic growth is only 1.4%. The margin is stable mostly because of all the action we took. Of course, we were expecting a better margin because all the action we took are on track: cost out, inventory, footprint, innovation.

That’s what we will continue to do to manage the short turbulence entity. As a nutshell for our Building segment, good progress on our operation excellence initiative and lower than expected organic growth, but still positive. If you go now to Industry, a different picture, still solid performance, 16.8% and as you can see, a second quarter better than the first quarter, especially because the organic growth is also better in the second quarter than in the first quarter. Overall, you can see it on the top left of the slide, it’s -5% organic growth and we are doing very well, especially in aerospace, high growth in our defense, high growth in our power generation, very good growth also in APAC and Middle East. Unfortunately, these good growth are offset by the organic decline of the automotive market and again by the French and German industrial market which remains soft.

This is where we don’t see improvement in the short term on improvements. I think we continue to take out all the cost out measures, footprint optimization, and that’s why we sustain a solid EBITDA, a bit lower than last year. That’s what we will continue to do in the future. To conclude, we are very pleased to report that our acquisition with Paolo is actually well on track. We already see early sign of contribution in terms of growth and in term of margin, confirming the strategic rationale of this acquisition. To summarize, industry organic revenue growth a bit improved in the second quarter, solid performance thanks to all the cost out action we took. The last segment, semicon, this is where we have the biggest challenge on the organic growth. You see we are reporting a first half at 13% decline revenue.

This has an impact in our EBITDA margin, and that’s why our EBITDA margin is down to 11.5%. This is also where we are very careful in our cost out action because we have to manage the short term, but also we have to protect the long term. We don’t want to be short of capacity when the market will recover. We are fully aware that this industry, it’s about long term growth and yes, short term we are challenged especially on our frame and module in our machine conditioning. We believe now the inventory adjustment from our semicon customer is coming to an end. Now we are just exposed to the market trend in our semiconductor market. What are we doing about it? Managing the cost, like I said, still investing for the long term in term of innovation.

Of course, the key highlight, even if it’s not finalized, is our intended acquisition with GVT to enter the semicon Southeast Asia market. I’ll come back into that because this is where we will improve and we will enter new area for the future growth of the company. In a summary for semicon, we continue to see lower demand, very careful about our Q2, and that’s why our EBITDA margin is under pressure. I would say it’s also about a choice to not go too low in terms of capability and capacity. Before handing over to Frans, I will just report also that we continue to make progress on our environmental performance.

I’m really pleased that we sustain our percentage of revenue linked to the sustainability development goal with more than 70% of our revenue, and we continue to take action on our own footprint, and thanks to the work from our teams we managed to reduce 8% of scope one and scope two CO2 intensity. We continue to be on track and make good progress in the first half of the year. That’s what I wanted to report as a key business highlight. Now let me hand it over to our CFO Frans to share with you a more update about our financial development. Thank you Frans.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Thank you very much Stéphane and Rutger, and good to be with you here this morning and discuss the H1 results of Aalberts. Before I do that, I want to thank all the colleagues in Aalberts to give me such a truly warm welcome. I really enjoy, enjoy being part of the organization and I look forward to our Thrive 2030 journey. This morning it’s all about the first half year results. Let me dive into those in this first slide where you see four important KPIs that basically summarize where we have been working on and where we are in terms of financials. First, on revenue we see a decline of €62 million, which is organically €50 million. That translates into the -3.2% organic revenue decline driven by, explained by Stéphane. Already Building, we still see small growth, but Industry and Semicon clearly lose revenue growth.

That translates into an EBITDA margin of 13.5%. That’s 1.5% below the previous six months of last year. Still very good added value as already mentioned, 63% in line with previous year and also the net profit of €151 million translating into €1.38 per share. Of course, we have been working hard to protect our cash position and I’m pretty pleased with the free cash flow. Also, if you compare year on year, €8 million up to a number of €56 million. Yes, we lose money on EBITDA because that is the translation of the operational step back. Networking Capital and CapEx both deliver €80 million and as such a nice free cash flow of €56 million. I’ll come back to that in a bit more detail on CapEx €100 million.

We have been trying to rationalize our CapEx programs and phase them out adjusting to market circumstances, €100 million, €70 million improvement year on year. Also good to mention that for the full year we expect CapEx to be at a level of €200 to €225 million, which is also a bit lower than our earlier guidance. First half year results impacted by challenging markets and let’s dive a little bit more deep into the year on year comparison. Here we see the revenue coming down with the €62 million already mentioned, €23 million by acquisitions. We added SDP and Paolo to the portfolio.

On the other side, we had a divestment of EPC company and then a small currency effect brings us basically to the €50 million revenue decline as already stated, predominantly driven by Industry and Semicon which are in a more difficult period and I think summarized here at the bottom. Also driven by the pressure in automotive that is specifically hitting the industry segments. Next slide we translate and we look at EBITDA. Of course in acquisitions and divestments we see the same companies but then the EBITDA, small currency effect again, and that brings us to the organic decline in EBITDA of $35 million. Basically three things. We lose $11 million in semicon, we lose a similar amount in industry, and then there’s the year-on-year effect of the holding elimination line item where we lose $7 million.

I’ll give you a bit more context in two slides from here and give you breakdown, also comparing with last year. Organic decline mainly driven by the drop through of the lower revenue that you saw in the previous slide asset. Let’s go to free cash flow. Here we see in the first red bar the lower cash because of the EBITDA that was at the lower level, but then very clearly CapEx focus, rationalizing our programs and phasing them out. $80 million recovery in cash position, and then the net working capital also $80 million, driven by lower inventories, which is hard work driven by collecting receivables and then slightly offset by the payable position that was a bit lower, but also translation, I think, of good quality of cash. There’s been hard work in inventory and collecting receivables to get this $80 million in our cash position.

This, I think, nicely summarized lower EBITDA offset by lower CapEx and improved net working capital. On the next slide, it’s a busy slide, but I think it summarized really well year-on-year what has been going on in the segments and the holding elimination. Let me talk you through. I think Stéphane commented already, of course, in his intro. In building, you see summarized here the decline in revenue year-on-year, also because of the divestments, but organic growth of 1.4% still positive, and I think good to see also the CapEx positions per segment, $25 million, significantly lower than last year as we also try to rationalize CapEx and use the assets that we already have optimally.

In industry, 4.9% revenue decline, but the revenue is still at the same level, of course supported by the two nice acquisitions that we have added, and CapEx level similar to next year, also because we’re still finishing some greenfields and also the normal replacement CapEx. In semicon, you see the revenue relative big delta, so already explained by Stéphane, we remain focused on the mid and long run. Also supported by our acquisition that we intended acquisition that we announced, but also visible in the CapEx where we keep investing in our footprint because we really believe that the mid and the long run this will be the place to be for us. Finally, as I said, holding eliminations important line item. Of course, the elimination line item is more an intercompany correction. Let’s focus on the -10.4 that we see here. $7 million down versus last year.

It’s $7 million more cost. I think first of all good to mention that last year there was proceeds from an insurance claim included in here. So 10.4 reflects half of it, the normal holding cost that we have $10 to $15 million in total per year. This is for the first six months, let’s say $5 million. The other $5 million come from the acquisition cost for the Paolo acquisition and we settled two small claims. That brings us to 10.4 on this line item. Again summarized at the bottom, Building stable, Industry resilient and Semicon clearly under pressure. This is a new slide where we review some key balance sheet items. I think it’s really important to also have a good look at it and I’ll talk you through. On the left top you see clearly that our debt position has gone up with $220 million.

That basically reflects the Paolo acquisition that we added to the portfolio and it brings the leverage to a level of 1.6 towards year end. The intended acquisition we hope to close before Christmas and that of course will then increase the leverage ratio, but we will stay below two and we will stay comfortably below the leverage ratio ceiling of 2.5 that we always announced. On the right top, the equity and the solvability I think in a good place, representing a solid company. At the left bottom, the ROCE is lower than last year, which is a setback of course driven by the low EBITDA. On the capital employed side, we also see the net debt effect that I just discussed increasing our capital employed, net working capital.

Also translation of good progress already discussed there, we have made progress on inventories which Stéphane will touch on in a bit more detail. We have been focusing on collecting the cash from our receivables and the payable position year on year has come down. That offsets a little bit but nice improvement of our net working capital position. That, I think, overall gives a very strong balance sheet that will support the next steps in our Thrive 2030 journey. Stéphane and I think you will tell a bit more what we’re doing there.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you Frans. You have seen that we continue to remain very disciplined on all our financial KPI to manage whatever the market challenges. While we manage the short term, at the same time we continue to take action for the long term. That’s what I would like to report to you now. How we are doing, what progress did we do in the first half in our four strategic action as per Thrive 2030 as per our last capital markets day in December. First of all, a quick reminder of the four strategic action. You can see from the left to the right, accelerating organic growth, optimizing and simplifying our portfolio, evolving our operating system and driving sustainable entrepreneurship. No change. These are still the action with a goal to refocus our company, rebalance our portfolio and recharge our three segments. That has not changed.

What progress did we do in the first half? You can see it here with a simple scorecard and this is what we will be reporting to you every half year, every full year. You can count us to show you the progress every time we are live and disclosing our results. Obviously the first action the status is not satisfactory. With the negative organic growth in the first half, this has to be improved. At the same time we continue to invest in some specific organic growth initiative. We start to see the early sign of improvement but obviously it’s still too soon to report progress. I can tell you when you look at preflap solution, when you look at our boiler room technology, when you look at our offering for data center, when you look at our U.S.

growth ambition, you’ll remember our plan is still the same to double our revenue in the U.S. over the next five years. Aerospace doing very well, defense as well and also our semicon which is all about innovation, system integration and design to value more to come. Obviously the first half results are behind on the second action. This is where we are actually making good progress with two close acquisitions, one intended acquisition and as I said earlier, we still are working actively to make progress about divestment in our building and industry segment. The third one, the Aalberts Way, it’s all about the functional excellence where we did the biggest progress in the first half is on our operational excellence in our footprint optimization.

I’ll show you a bit more because we are quite pleased with the progress on our inventory days reducing 10 days compared to last year, well on track with our target to be less than 90 days this year and 85 days next year. On sustainability commitment, also well on track. Let’s not forget that also here it’s about investing in our people to ensure we have a future-proof workforce to enable our strategy. As you can see, almost 400 of our leaders have been trained or went through our leadership development program. That, of course, we will continue to do as we cannot win without our people. One example which I think is showing you, and it’s not about the size because it’s still a modest order book, it’s still low revenue, but this is where we are investing.

Just showing you an example of a prefab solution that we are doing in our factory with one example of what we ship and sold to a data center in London, and we are doing that in Europe. We are also looking at expanding this offering in other verticals like commercial buildings. This is also an opportunity in the U.S. You are talking here about the global vertical and our modular thinking where we can use many of the things we do at Aalberts. You see our expansion vessel, some of the valves, and we are very pleased with the progress. We are investing in people and footprint to be part of the growth because that’s one of the growth drivers for the coming years. You can see also in a summary the three value-accretive acquisitions, and it’s all about growth.

It’s a growth agenda which also enables us to keep our leadership position, so obviously aligned with our strategy. You can see one closed acquisition for our Industry segment with Paolo in the U.S., one closed acquisition on the right with Geoflow for the Building segment in the U.S., and in the middle, still an intent based on what we announced for our Semiconductor segment to enter Southeast Asia. Let me tell you a bit more about this great opportunity because indeed you could say it’s a transformative move for Aalberts. We are going to enter the Semiconductor Southeast Asia market. This is going to open new growth areas for us, and the way we do it is by having intended synergies between GVT and our Aalberts Advanced Mechatronics solution. Why we are so excited about it.

You are talking here about growth agenda to support GVT customers and continue their expansion, where we will bring from Aalberts all our internal capability competencies. Second, we can also grow with our current customer and support their regional supply chain footprint development.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: So.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: You are talking here about commercial growth. Synergy, also cost synergy, footprint, commercial. We have many synergies identified and that’s why we still believe and we really plan to close this acquisition by end of the year because it’s going to support our organic growth and also support our margin profile as you can see here, synergy that will enhance our profitability and cash. Fantastic opportunity. Let’s close it. I look forward to report more once the acquisition is closed, but not for now. On divestment, I’m sure you remember the slide from our CMD. Just a reminder that we are still working on divesting potentially €400 million to €500 million, especially in our Building and Industry segment. We hope to make progress in the second half. That’s what we’re working on at the moment. Based on the same criteria, ability to win and market attractiveness, the Aalberts way.

This is where, as you say, we are quite pleased with the progress. Our operations team did a fantastic job. Look at these numbers. That’s what I like. When you talk about functional excellence, it’s initiative that delivers result. You can see now, right footprint and footprint, we are on track, we have optimization. I think due to the market uncertainty, it’s all about scenario planning. We have a task force looking almost on a daily basis at the tariff impact. We have made progress on inventories, as I mentioned, €110 million drop compared to last year. Ten days, €10 million saving on operation productivity in the first half and 14% CapEx reduction going down to €100 million. That’s what we will continue to do.

That’s why we are building what we call capabilities to invest in resource and to ensure we have a continuous improvement culture so that we can repeat that year over year and not do that as a one off. Good progress, outstanding work from our team. On the decarbonization level, also no change. We are still working on our six levers as per our strategy. It’s actually to achieve two key objectives. The first one is our own footprint, to continue to reduce our scope 1 and scope 2 emission or intensity thanks to our energy efficient program, thanks to the usage of renewable energy, thanks also to electrification. The second goal is to help our customers to reach their sustainability target through smart product design, through circular economy and also through value chain collaboration.

I always like to say the sustainability agenda is good for the environment, but it’s also good for business and good for our growth agenda. You may wonder, based on the current headwind, what do we plan to do as a short term? We understand that the market uncertainty will continue, we understand that the market softness will continue for the second half.

We will continue to take the action that we took in the first half in order to protect our EBITDA margin and improve our free cash flow. We will continue to pursue organic growth initiative, deploy the operational excellence program as we announced last year, further accelerate cost out, especially in our building segment and through operation productivity, but also purchasing, saving new area, new opportunity, continue inventory reduction, continue with our CapEx reduction, and we hope to make progress on divestment in the second half of the year. Overall, whatever are the market headwinds, we still have strong foundation, we have clear priorities, and the full leadership will be focused on execution. That is what we will do to manage the short term challenges. Now, as a conclusion, of course, let’s go back to our outlook as we have released this morning in our press release.

You could say, based on the current market softness and market softness, based on the uncertainty, looking forward, we don’t expect an improvement, as you can see in the middle of the slide. We don’t expect an organic revenue growth improvement in the second half of the year. Consequently, we are adjusting our full year outlook EBITDA margin to 13% to 14%. You can count on us to continue to take action to protect our EBITDA margin, optimize our free cash flow, while at the same time we will continue to deploy and invest for the long term, deploying our strategic action as per Thrive 2030. Thank you very much.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Thank you, Frans. Thank you, Stéphane, for the presentation. As we are starting the Q&A session, I’d like to remind every one of you how to participate. For conference call participants, please press #5 #5 on your phone to join the queue. Those tuned in via webcast, please submit your questions via the Q&A form, which I see already some of you have done. Very nice. I would now like to give the word to Martijn P. den Drijver from ABN AMRO Bank N.V. for the first questions. Good morning, Martijn.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Good morning.

Martijn P. den Drijver, Analyst, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions. Martijn P. den Drijver for ABN AMRO Bank N.V. I have three questions, one for each division. I will do them one by one, if you’ll allow me. Q2 was softer than Q1 in terms of organic growth. Is that end market demand softening, is that destocking? Can you tell us something about customer behavior and what you’re seeing there? In relation to that, you mentioned corrective action taken. Can you elaborate a little bit on what type of actions we’re talking about? That would be question one. Thank you.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you for the question, Martin. You are right that Q2 organic growth was a bit lower than Q1, especially in our building and semicon market. In semicon, it’s basically the continued effect of the destocking for our customers. Seeing no major change, it was expected at least for us, and that’s what we have seen in the first half. The corrective action we took with semicon is finding the right balance, adjusting cost, but keeping the flexibility and the capacity for the long term. That’s also where we don’t see improvement in the second half. Expect the same activity in semicon. On building, you are right, the organic growth has been a bit lower than the first half and we saw a market impact, especially in our connection system and in the German market. That’s where the second quarter, it’s market driven, was softer than expected.

That’s why the growth in the second half was only 1%, so a bit lower. If you look at industry, you have seen that actually Q2 organic growth was better than the first quarter. Right. From almost minus 7%, we reported minus 2%. Here we saw improvement, still negative. What we plan to do on the corrective action in industry, it’s all on track. Because the footprint initiatives, the cost out, actually we expect the benefit higher in the second half than in the first half. That’s why in the first half, almost 17%, it’s still a solid performance and in building it’s basically continuing. The footprint benefit should also come in the second half. We just finished to close one major site at the end of the first semester. You continue to take operation productivity.

About flexing our costs in the factory, it’s about direct labor, semi variable overhead, fixed cost, also a lot of SGA cost action taken in building but also in the other segment. It will not be for the second half but we are taking a lot of action on purchasing that should help to have a better impact also in 2026 because we are just starting to launch a new initiative on purchasing and basically using the power of our segment across our business team to have more functional scale and also global scale.

Martijn P. den Drijver, Analyst, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: Thank you. You’ve answered quite a number of questions. To come back on semiconductor, that would be my second question. Am I understanding you correctly that previously the statement was we expect destocking to flush out during the summer, meaning more stabilized sales, perhaps growing with the market? Are you now guiding for the same type of development in the second half? Is that the right way to think about it, or do you expect that flushing out to occur?

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: We don’t expect improvement in terms of organic growth in the second half. That is our statement. We believe the destocking is coming to an end, that’s what we see. We don’t see higher activity and higher requirements from our customers in terms of new equipment.

Ruben Devos, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Clear.

Martijn P. den Drijver, Analyst, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: The third question is on industry in the second quarter. As you already pointed out, the EBITDA margin was quite strong, 17.2%. You made some remarks about production footprint, operational excellence. Is that 17.2% sustainable, you think, in H2 given the top line development?

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: As you know, we are not giving outlook by segment, but I can tell you that we expect a benefit in the second half of all the cost action we took in the first half. On the other hand, we don’t expect organic growth improvement in the second half based on the current market condition.

Martijn P. den Drijver, Analyst, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: These were my three questions. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Thank you, Martijn. I’d like to give the word to Chase Coughlan from Van Kempen. Good morning, Chase.

Chase Coughlan, Analyst, Van Kempen: Hi, good morning gentlemen, and thank you for taking my questions. I have a couple as well, and I’ll take them one at a time, please. Yes, maybe also starting off on.

Jay, Analyst, Berenberg: On semicon, obviously there’s been quite a lot of.

Chase Coughlan, Analyst, Van Kempen: Talk in the market the last few weeks about maybe 2026 expectations for the space being a bit softer than initially anticipated. I’m curious also given the commissioning of your new plants, what are your expectations there internally and do you think there’s any risk of underutilization for that facility for the coming years?

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you for the question. Let me first report that our new plant is still on track. We have actually equipment being installed and tested, also aligned with the need from our customers to have this new facility ready. I would say the market is quite dynamic. There are so many uncertainties that at the moment we are really focusing on 2025 and 2026. It’s too early to say, there may be growth, it may be stable. We will report when we have more visibility. I think we can only report that we don’t expect a recovery in the second half. In 2026, still a lot of uncertainty whether there will be growth or not in the semiconductor market. Okay, thank you.

Chase Coughlan, Analyst, Van Kempen: My second question, going back to Building and specifically in Germany, there was another building products player who reported recently who actually spoke rather positively about Germany, saying that there was some inflection in new dwellings and building permits. I’m curious on where specifically you see so much weakness. Is this more from the renovation side of things, or if you could elaborate a little bit more on that German market from the Building standpoint.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Yeah, you are right that we all expect a better trend due to all new investment that are happening in the German industry. We just believe it’s too soon to promise that the second half will be much better. We are still doing well in our boiler room equipment. Also, in Germany, where we see the biggest pressure is in our connection system. It’s a specific product line, not all our product lines. That’s what is making us only grow, like I mentioned, with 1 to 2%, and a bit lower than what we were expecting. We were expecting much higher organic growth. Now, on this specific product line, this is where we see the biggest challenge.

Chase Coughlan, Analyst, Van Kempen: Okay, that’s clear. My final question, I believe you booked a $20 million release of provisions in the P&L in the first half. Could you maybe elaborate a little bit on what that was or if I’ve misunderstood something there?

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Yes, of course. Good morning. Indeed, release of provision of €90 million, comparing with €2 million last year. That €90 million is related to restructuring costs that come out of the balance sheet, as announced.

Martijn P. den Drijver, Analyst, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: Perfect.

Chase Coughlan, Analyst, Van Kempen: Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Those are my questions.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Thank you. We have some more people in the queue, so I’d like to give the word to David Kerstens. Good morning, David.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Good morning.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Good morning, David.

Martijn P. den Drijver, Analyst, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: Good morning.

David Kerstens, Analyst: Good morning, gentlemen. I also have three questions, please. I’ll take them one by one. First of all, regarding the Building segment, you’re guiding for similar organic growth trends for the second half of the year. I was wondering what will be the impact of copper price inflation with potential tariffs of 50% on copper, which should be accretive to top line growth but potentially dilutive to margins. What’s your view on the impact here, please?

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Yeah, that’s something we are actively working on, and I think it’s too soon to report. If there will be an impact, I can tell you we have been able to manage in the first half, especially in the U.S. thanks to our pressing all the impact on the tariff, and at the moment we don’t expect major impact based on what we know today thanks to the latest development. Not something we expect to have a major impact, which is why we are giving as an outlook a similar trend for the second half.

David Kerstens, Analyst: Okay. My second question is related to the acquisition of GVT in Semicon. I think in December you highlighted that portfolio optimization including M&A should be accretive to margins and drive profitability towards at least 18% by 2030. GVT seems to have relatively lower EBITDA margins. I understand you have not quantified the synergy impact yet, but does it become more challenging in Semicon to get to the 18% EBITDA margin target by 2030 because of your acquisition strategy here?

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: I think you’re absolutely right that what they have reported in 2024, it’s not at the level where we want to be in Aalberts. Let’s see what they will report for 2025. I think this is still within their hand, but we are quite excited with the potential synergies that we see. As I mentioned, in terms of commercial synergy, cost synergy, footprint synergy, and we believe together we can make it accretive for margin, for organic growth, and for EPS as per our long-term ambition. It is really about the synergy that we have identified during the due diligence process. Let us close the acquisition first, and I really hope to be back next year to explain to you a bit more in detail our plan to bring it to reach our long-term objective.

David Kerstens, Analyst: Okay, great. My final question is on the unallocated cost of $10 million in the first half of the year. Frans indicated $5 million was related to acquisition costs for Paolo and settled claims, small claims in the first half. What will be the figure for the second half? Will you also have acquisition costs related to GVT in the second half that will get you to the same number of around $10 million, so a $20 million number for the full year?

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Yeah, thanks. I think an important one indeed. We will have acquisition cost of GVT expected to close this year. We will add that as well. That will be a higher number than the one for Paolo. The guidance would be that the second half will be a bit higher even than the first half in terms of the non normal holding cost, which are between $10 million and $15 million per year. The guidance would be based on what we now know, $20 million to $25 million for the line item for the full year.

David Kerstens, Analyst: Okay, very clear. Thank you very much, gentlemen.

Martijn P. den Drijver, Analyst, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: Yeah.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: It’s time for the next person in the queue, which is Christoph Greulich from KBC Securities NV. Good morning, Christoph.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Morning.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Morning.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Hello.

Christoph Greulich, Analyst, KBC Securities NV: Good morning everybody. A few questions have already been answered.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: I have two left.

Christoph Greulich, Analyst, KBC Securities NV: First one, Semicon. In the first quarter you indicated that you would optimize the cost structure, but you didn’t quantify it. Can you now give us a little bit more color on the exercise you have been doing there in terms of costs, saving potential, and the timing of when these costs and savings will kick in? That’s the first one. On GVT, the recent transaction that you announced and that you hope to close by year end, at the time of the announcement, 65% of shareholders approved the transaction. Is there a scenario where you would go ahead with the acquisition if you don’t arrive at 100% of shares, meaning that you could end up in a situation with 80% of shares and a continued listing in Singapore? Thank you.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you. Let me take the first questions and I’m sure you have noticed that actually our margin in the second quarter was a bit better than the first quarter already for semicon, right? Almost 10% versus 12%. The action we are taking is first to of course take out all the variable costs, variable costs in our factories, in our operation. That has been taken. We have also adjusted our SG&A to the level that is the absolute minimum to not compromise the long term. That’s basically what we have been doing. We’re still trying to do a bit better also on the purchasing side. That’s why we say the 11.5% to 12% is actually, you could say, our choice even if it is not satisfactory compared to last year.

To find the right balance compared to the long term growth, also to be ready to do all the synergy work with the intended acquisition with GVT, that is the action we have been taking. Also in semicon, cost and SG&A has been taken out. Yeah.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Your second question on GVT, the answer is no. We really want full control over the company. That’s also what our bid assumptions are based on, and we’re confident that we have an attractive proposition. That process is, of course, for GVT to comment on because it’s a discussion between their management and their shareholders. We’re confident we have a good proposition for them. Let’s wait the coming months to see how that will work out.

Ruben Devos, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Okay, thank you.

Christoph Greulich, Analyst, KBC Securities NV: I have no further questions.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Thank you, Christoph. Now I’d like to give the word to Christoph Greulich, Berenberg. Good morning, Christoph.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Good morning.

Martijn P. den Drijver, Analyst, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: Morning.

Ruben Devos, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Good morning.

Jay, Analyst, Berenberg: Thanks for taking my question, Jay. It’s also two from my side please, if I may. The first one is regarding the semicon business. I was wondering after the -13% organic growth that we’ve seen in H1, if you could roughly quantify how much of that is attributed to customers destocking compared to general underlying end market trends. I was wondering, implied in your guidance for the second half, that we see a similar organic growth trend. If you look at the comp base, I mean that gets a lot easier, especially in Q4. If I take into account it’s easier comp, does that actually mean that the situation is getting worse from here? That would be my first question. The second topic would be the GVT acquisition. If you could just remind me what is the timeline to reach or obtain the shareholder approval?

Also, in the press release, you are flagging an immediate EPS accretion. Could you quantify that, what you’re expecting there in 2026 when taking into account the financial expenses for the investment?

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you for the question. Let me take the first one on the semiconductor. In the first half, most of it is coming from destocking that we have seen from all our customers. As you remember, it started in Q4 and that has been the major driver. We see lower demand and that’s what we don’t see at the moment. The second half is not getting better. That’s why we are adjusting our outlook. We don’t see that it will be worse, but we don’t see an improvement in the second half of the year. That’s basically the reason for adjusting our outlook. When you talk about the GVT acquisition, I think the vote is expected in September. That’s why we also report that following the vote we expect to close before the end of the year.

You understand that before we talk about all the synergies and all the potential, like the previous question, our first priority is to close this acquisition. Then we can be more open and transparent about all the synergies and action and opportunity we see following this acquisition.

Jay, Analyst, Berenberg: Yeah, that’s very clear, thank you. Just maybe to confirm, when you provided the guidance for H2 and semicon, you took into account that the comp base is getting a lot easier in Q4.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: We took all the latest outlook from all our customers because we of course have a good collaboration with them, and that’s what we believe is a realistic outlook. There are still opportunity like our customer, I’m mentioning also in 2026, but for the second half we don’t see improvement in our organic growth.

Ruben Devos, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Great.

Jay, Analyst, Berenberg: Yeah, that’s very helpful, thank you.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Perhaps on the GVT timeline, we just discussed him.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Yeah, there’s one more question.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Yes, it’s Ruben Devos from Kepler Cheuvreux. Good morning, Ruben.

Ruben Devos, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Hi, good morning all. I just had three questions as well, I think. I’m sorry if I repeat a question that has already been answered because I was a bit later to the call, but it rather revolves around the margins. Right. I was thinking about the quantification of the moving parts. I think the 13 to 14% full year guidance, is that mostly operational deleverage from lower volumes, or are there other factors like product mix or pricing pressure that we have to think about? I have a follow up on that.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you for the question. Let me just repeat the first half and then answering the. In the first half the margin drop, it’s mainly linked to two key points. Right. The lower volume in our industry and semicon and that’s what we expect also in the second half of the year. Plus also like Frans den Houter mentioned, higher extraordinary holding cost compared to last year. Mostly driven by lower volume impacting our organic growth in industry and semicon.

Ruben Devos, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Okay. In H1, the revenue decline was $60 million. I think the EBITDA decline was $30 million. Let’s say 50% drop through, is that, I mean typically you had 25% right, drop through, but that 50%, is that fair to assume that continues, you maybe, yeah, 25, but if an upcycle would happen.

Martijn P. den Drijver, Analyst, ABN AMRO Bank N.V.: Yeah, yeah.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: I think there are three elements. First of all, indeed, if you look at the drop through of the EBITDA of $32 million on the revenue of $50 million, we first need to correct the holding elimination line item that Stéphane said. I think second, we lose $11 million in semicon half year on half year, but there’s also a decision to protect our capabilities, and Stéphane explained in his introduction. Yeah, we also look at it in the long term and make sure we’re ready for the upturn. A third element in comparing is that in the Industry segment, we have been continuing operational excellence programs where we expect also some further results in the second half. That brings that percentage a bit more in perspective.

Ruben Devos, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Okay. And then something unrelated to semicon, I think you’ve said that the construction of the new location in Drenton is on track with equipment being installed and tested. Just curious, given the current market softness, how are you thinking about the pace of this ramp up? Will you align the pace of bringing this capacity online with the market recovery to protect margins, or how should we think about that?

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: I can only confirm that the pace is fully aligned with our customers. We are working very closely, and it’s about managing the balance between short term and long term. The long term growth is still there, and in the long term this capacity is still needed. It’s fully aligned with our customer. That’s what I can tell you now.

Ruben Devos, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: Okay, and then final question just on the inventory reduction. I think you’ve already gone a long way now in H1, but what’s the additional potential for further improvement in the second half and into 2026, please?

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: I think we are well on track. You’re absolutely right. First of all, we need to continue and sustain this level to be less than 90 days. We are well on track also to deliver 2026 target as shared earlier during the year to be at 85 days.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Maybe it’s good to give a bit of extra color because indeed 10 days reduction and really good work by all our teams. It’s also fair to add that two days improvement is driven by the Paolo acquisition that typically brings a lot of revenue and not so much inventory. Also, the Forex exchange was helping us with two days. I think six days of real progress. You see, yeah, some elements like Forex, of course, and M&A impact are also to be considered. If we give guidance for the full year, please take that into consideration as well.

Ruben Devos, Analyst, Kepler Cheuvreux: All right, thank you for the caller, thank you very much.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Thank you, Ruben. I’m happy to see that. Also, we received quite a bit of questions via our web. I’ll pick one which I think is quite relevant. It’s a question about the full year 2026 EBITDA margin, the target of 16%, whether that is still achievable.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Yeah, fully understand the question. Let me first repeat that our priority right now is to continue to take action to protect our margin for 2025. That’s where all our team is focusing. Regarding 2026, we will get back in February to update our new target for 2026 based on the current market condition.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Thank you, Stéphane. I have a question also for Frans about CapEx. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the CapEx towards 2030 as mentioned in the CMD?

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Very good, good question. Indeed, let me repeat for this year we guide on a CapEx level of $200 million to $225 million and that is based on the current portfolio. For next year we expect a similar amount organically, so no M&A impact taken. After that, that level of CapEx will come down as we now have modeled and it will be around $200 million, say 2027 onwards. The number that has been mentioned in the capital markets day, which is higher, is a preliminary number based on also larger company. We mentioned $4.5 billion of revenue there with an active M&A agenda. There was an indicative CapEx number of $250 million and $300 million. I think that’s five years from now and a lot of open questions. I would like to focus on the guidance on the current portfolio, which I hope we clarified this morning.

Thanks for the question though, very important one.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Thank you. Frans. There’s another question coming in, and that’s about the status of the divestments. Could you give any color on the progress here, and how could divestments potentially also benefit your net debt or EBITDA?

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Great question. I think I can only repeat what I’ve said, that we are actively working on it in our Industry and Building segment. We hope to make first progress in the second half of the year and continue next year. The goal is still the same, €400 to €500 million revenue, and the divestment we intend to do should help us to improve our net debt position and also improve our leverage ratio.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Very good, thank you.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: On the subject of M and A, do you expect Stéphane also to do still more acquisitions in the second half of this year?

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: A great question, but first we need to close our intended acquisition. That’s priority number one. We need to close the great opportunity we have with GVT. We are still looking at potentially bolt-on acquisition, but the second half priority is clearly GVT.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Thank you. Very clear. There’s another one on the capital allocation. Perhaps one for you, Frans. The $75 million share buyback program is nearly completed.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Yeah.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Do you intend to propose an additional share buyback program in the second half?

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: No, I think share buyback is good to have a program this year and I’m really happy with the capital allocation policy of Aalberts where this is a final consideration. We always look at strength of the balance sheet. We invest in our business, we look of course at M&A, and if it comes to shareholders, very committed to the 30% of net result dividend. Just to rehearse a bit how the sequencing is, when there’s excess cash available, we look at share buybacks. That is a discussion we do after we close our books, in discussion with our Supervisory Board in February.

Rutger, Moderator/Host, Aalberts: Thank you very much. I think that we have had all the questions. Yes, I think we’ve managed to answer all of them. As we conclude today’s webcast, I would like to thank everybody. Also, thanks, Frans den Houter, for joining us today.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Thank you.

Frans den Houter, CFO, Aalberts: Thank you. Enjoy your day.

Stéphane Simonetta, CEO, Aalberts: Bye.

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