Salzgitter Ag Akt Shs (SZGPF) Q1 2026 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the content call of the Q1 results 2026 of the Zeiss Gitter AG. At this time, all participants are being placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Let me now turn the floor over to Birgit Potrafki, CFO, and Markus Heidler, Head of Investor Relations. Thank you very much. And a good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome from me here in Salzburg. I'm happy to announce that with 280 million adjusted EBTA, we have made a promising start to 2026. And I can tell you that after two challenging years, that feels really good. As announced on April 21st, Our first quarter performance was boosted by an exceptionally strong contribution from our stake in Arubis. This was driven by the high prices commanded for precious metals. It's important to stress though that all our core business units also contributed to the earnings improvement versus a year earlier. This is obviously very pleasing. Our P28 performance program has been a key contributor to this business-wide turnaround. An additional 43 million euros in efficiency gains were realized already in the first quarter. Our next financial position has also improved considerably since the beginning of the year from minus 954 million euros to minus 679 million euros. mainly on the back of the prompt payment of additionally committed public funding of €253 million on the first quarter. Having said that, we are not getting carried away. The market environment in which we are operating offers some glimmers of hope, but remains challenging overall. We said at the start of the year that we were cautiously optimistic about our prospects for the year, and that remains the case. On the one hand, the new trade defense instrument proposed b...