Polytec Holding AG (0GOX) Q4 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Rather gentlemen, to be honest. Thank you for joining us for today's Investor and Analyst Conference call on Polytech Full Year Results 2024. With me is our CFO, Markus Mühlberg, who will take over after my introduction. 2024 was a further year of navigating change and numerous headwinds. Ultimately, we turned the negative trend in result, significantly improved net debt, and remain with an optimistic expectation to proceed this trend in the running year. The market remained challenging. Vehicle production in Europe remains at a persistently low level at around 15 to 16 million vehicles per year, well below the peak of just under 21 million in 2027, and even 7% below 2023, this resulting in overcapacity and corresponding market pressure on the entire industry. Despite the difficult conditions, we succeeded in increasing total revenue and bridging the operating results back into positive territory after a year of losses, EBIT improved over €10 million. This is an important step in the right direction, still at a negative net result. Therefore, it's important, or more important than ever, to adopt our structures to the permanently lower production figures in the European automotive industry. For this reason, we are continuously optimizing our organization, cost structure, and product and service portfolio to turn the bottom line into solid profits. The painted exterior division is particularly affected by upheaval. We operate in the niche and small series segment, which means we are talking about a few thousands to 20,000 vehicles per year. However, large series suppliers are now increasingly pushing into the upper end of this niche in order to utilize their excess capacity. This is putting pressure on prices and volumes. In addition...