Sulzer Ltd (0QQ9) Q2 2024 Earnings Call

Investor webinar replay

Replay transcript excerpt

Welcome to our mid-year results presentations. With me I have our CFO Thomas Zickler. We are very happy to report to you a good H1 2024. our results are encouraging also in the light of the economic development around the world. You see that in 2024 we have recorded a very good order intake growth and that is particularly remarkable because in the first half 2023 we had an exceptionally high order intake growth. So the baseline with which we had to compare was quite ambitious. Also, we see good sales development. And the interesting thing there is the sales development is good in all three regions, as is the order intake in all three regions and in all three divisions. When we look at our profitability, we have increased our profitability up 130 basis points compared to the first half year of 2023. Also there, an additional comment that is of importance. Of course, with our strategy 2028 and all the measures that we are taking to execute our strategy, we also have additional costs, which are also one-off costs. But we record them all as operational costs and not as non-ops. Nevertheless, our profitability increased. This is also the case because we were able to increase our gross margin by 140 basis points. That has two main reasons. We are learning better to price our products and services rather than cost plus. We are looking from customer and market and are then giving the right price point. And on the other hand, of course, also our efficiency improvement, particularly operational excellence in production has a positive influence. So this is the summary of our half year results. And now we go into somewhat more detail with Thomas. Thank you very much, Susan. Let me start. with an overview of order intake and sales. So you see that in H1 this year we grew by almos...