Stephan Gick: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to BELIMO's H1 2026 results presentation. My name is Stephan Gick, Head of Investor Relations, and I have here with me Markus Schürch, CFO of BELIMO. Markus will start the presentation with the business highlights, followed by the financials and the outlook. We will take questions at the end. With that, I would like to open our presentation and hand over to Markus. The floor is yours.
Markus Schürch: Okay. Good morning also from my side. It's a big honor and pleasure to present here the financial results of BELIMO of the first half year. The first half year 2026 was extremely successful for BELIMO. We had very strong sales growth of close to 30% in local currency or 20.5% in Swiss francs, to a total of CHF 676 million. EBIT was strongly growing with 19%+ compared to the first half year of last year, to a total of CHF 153 million. That's an EBIT margin of 22.5%, almost at par with the results of last year. We were able within the 12 months to not only compensate for the tariffs, but also offset significant FX effects that we were heading now in the first half year of this year. Looking at the bigger picture, we have got all our growth driver well intact. Very supportive megatrends, including urbanization or energy efficiency and digitalization, and also there obviously a strong demand from data center. As a company, we continue to implement our growth strategy and prepare for further growth, including renewal of our portfolio and significant capacity expansion at all our location. This will continue to support our strong growth on both top and bottom line. Looking a bit into the broader picture, we had very dynamic markets in the first half year. On one hand, an extremely dynamic environment in the data center set up with a lot of new builds, especially on the AI side, very much focused on the Americas and to a lower extent on Asia-Pacific, with increasing or emerging demand also coming on the EMEA region. We have further support from renovation verticals, there are also a lot of activities on renovation RetroFIT+ activities, with continued demand for increasing energy efficiency and building optimization. Apart from the renovation, we also saw strong growth in our other growth vertical, especially pharmaceutical or semiconductor and other high-end manufacturing verticals where we see strong activities. On the other hand, we also saw a lot of tension and uncertainty, above all, a lot of geopolitical uncertainties, a lot of uncertainty with the war in the Middle East, and with that also certain issues with supply chains and increasing transportation costs. We had a very significant FX effect from the U.S. dollar compared with the first half year of last year. Also from an overall construction market that is still for new construction, is still very much down, especially in EMEA, we have to focus on the renovation market. Nevertheless, we continue to implement our growth strategy. As mentioned, we are renewing our portfolio and gradually introducing new products of the new digital generation into the market. We have the first data center-specific products we are going to introduce now in the second half of this year, and we will continue to increase our focus on RetroFIT+ and increase our market presence in Asia-Pacific. Internally, we are significantly expanding our capacity with the inauguration of the new building here in Hinwil, and that also investors will have an opportunity to visit on the Investor Day on September 1st. Also in the U.S., we are starting to ramp up capacity in our new facilities. Going a bit into the highlights of the first half year, what you see here is our first data center-only product, specifically designed for the need of data centers. It is fully stainless steel Energy Valve that is catering especially for the requirements in data center. This was developed in close cooperation with the entire data center industry, with the hyperscalers and other actors in the data center field, specifically for their needs. That shows our strong involvement in the market, our technological leadership, and also strong support in the data center field. We are also opening our data center experience center in the U.S., where we show our application specifically targeted for data center, where in real life setup they can see how our products are applied and help to cool down and support the needs for data center. On the next chart, you see a couple of examples of our renovation RetroFIT+ activities. The first example is actually not a building, but a vessel. It is the largest vessel in the year, the Pioneering Spirit. It is used for maintaining oil platform, and it is the largest of this kind. In there, we were able to replace all the valves with Energy Valves, and that led to a over 80% reduction in pump energy consumption, and an overall savings of about EUR 700 per year. With this, the payback is below three years. That just shows all those projects are not only focused on buildings, but there are a wide range of application where we can use this. This is typical of a payback that is in the range of one to three years. That is now a large project with savings about EUR 700 a year, and consequently, a bit of a larger project. On the bottom, a more traditional project with the Hotel Guglwald in Austria. There, what we also did is an optimization of the hydronic balancing, and that leads to about 12% savings on heating energy. With this, a payback of below one year resulted. That just shows the power of such RetroFIT+ application or RetroFIT+ projects. With relatively minor investments, huge savings can be achieved and very short paybacks. With this, we go back a bit closer to the results. Again, as the highlights, an overall growth rate of close to 30% in local currency or 20.5% in Swiss francs, to a total of CHF 676 million in the first half year of this year. The regional breakdown is now 50% of the sales comes from the Americas, 36% from EMEA, and 14% from Asia-Pacific. With regards to business line split down, also there, control valves is by far the largest business line, with 58% of sales, followed by damper actuator with 38%, and sensor and meter reflecting about 5% of turnover. When we look at the composition of our sales growth, the majority comes from pure volume and mix growth, accounting for 22.3% of overall growth, 7.3% is coming from pricing. They're mainly from the U.S. with the largest price increases over the last 12 months. A bit of others giving us this at 29.6% overall growth in local currency. As mentioned, we had a significant FX effect with a negative impact of 9.2%, this gives this 20.5% in Swiss francs. As you can see, pricing was there almost able to offset the FX effect. When we look at the breakdown by region, we have got an outstanding growth in EMEA of 14% in local currency or 11% in Swiss francs, that's despite a very weak new construction market. There, the majority of the growth comes from RetroFIT+ renovation project and some emerging also data center project we can see in the EMEA region, with a total sales in the first half year of CHF 240 million. America remains our growth engines of the company, with local currency growth of 35% or 22% in Swiss francs, there a significant FX effect, to a total of CHF 341 million. We see there a strong growth obviously from data center, accounting for more than half of the growth in the Americas, also very strong support from our more traditional fields. There again, other high-growth verticals like pharmaceuticals, semiconductor or other high-end manufacturing, also strong contribution from renovation and RetroFIT+ activities. An outstanding growth in the Asia-Pacific region with 58% in local currency or 45% in Swiss francs. There also strong support from the export business in data center. A lot of the OEMs are building data center equipments in Asia-Pacific and then exporting across the world. There, we're benefiting there from this OEM that we support export back into the rest of the world. Outstanding results there in Asia-Pacific. When we look to the split by business line, damper actuator with a solid growth of 8% in local currency or 1% in Swiss francs. There, the main support comes from fire and smoke damper. That was entirely our more traditional business. Very little support from data center. Most of the data center growth is attributed to liquid cooling and is therefore recognized on the control valve business line. Control valve with an outstanding growth of 48% in local currency, 37% in Swiss francs. Especially strong, obviously, the data center growth with very strong application in liquid cooling, this is contributing there to the strong growth both in terms of volume and also in terms of mix. Very strong growth also from sensor and meter, with close to 40% in local currency, 30% in Swiss francs. There we also see a further penetration in our customer base, but also very strong support from data center, where we see increasing requirements also for our sensors. Very strong results there across all the three business line. Specifically for data center, we mentioned data center is accounted for a bit more than half of the absolute sales growth in the first half year. In the first half year of 2026, data center accounts for about 23%-24% of the overall turnover of BELIMO, further increasing the share from 18% in the second half year of last year. Showing there the very strong growth that we enjoy there on this vertical, especially focused on liquid cooling for AI data centers. In there, obviously, the Energy Valve is the flagship product that is sold to a large portion into the data center vertical. Going a bit further down the P&L to the EBIT growth. Very strong EBIT growth of 19%, an EBIT margin of 22.5%. As mentioned, we were able to offset the significant effect from the FX headwind, but also compensating for the tariffs that we're facing by exporting our products into the U.S. Net income growth also very strong, 23%, following the EBIT growth to a total of CHF 125 million net profit in the first half year of this year. There positively supporting both a very strong financial results that last year was burdening the P&L due to the strong FX effect within the first half year of 2025, which we didn't have now in this half year, and therefore, a lower burden from the negative FX effect within the half year. Looking at the cash flow. We had a lower operational and free cash flow in the first half year compared to first half year last year. That's entirely related to the strong growth that we had. We have significantly increased our net working capital position, especially the accounts receivable associated with the strong growth that we enjoyed in the first half year. We are also increasing our investments into capacity to also be prepared for further sales growth going forward. Therefore, CapEx are elevated and also the increase on the working capital, in line with the strong sales growth. We continue to have very strong capital return with a return on capital employed of 41%. That just shows our strong profitability and our asset-light strategy that is then leading to this very strong capital return, both measured in the return on capital employed of this 41% or return on equity of 35%. We've got a very solid balance sheet, very low net debt. Now we had got short-term credit lines that we were using for paying out the dividends in April to our shareholders, and a very strong equity ratio of 61%. There, a very strong balance sheet that enables us to further support the growth and the development of the company. Coming to the outlook. As mentioned, we expect a continued strong demand also in the second half-year. The growth in relative terms will be a bit lower than in the first half-year, and there, the increasing base effects come into play from two elements. First of all, we had a much stronger growth in the second half-year last year. Therefore, there, the base effects from the comparison side is becoming stronger. Also the pricing will be less of a support in the second half-year as we have implemented some pricing measure mid-last year, and therefore they will have a lower contribution in the second half-year. Nevertheless, we expect a similar performance in the second half-year and a continued very strong momentum on the top line. On the EBIT margin, we also continue to expect there a margin ahead of 20%, supported by the strong growth. Always taking into account that we have got a higher cost base in the second half-year as we gradually ramping up our resources, and therefore always have higher costs in the second half-year. Obviously, there are still some risks, some uncertainties regarding the global economy, uncertainties also on how the geopolitical situation will continue. I think that's a bit of the given in the current environment. We expect there also significant FX volatility that may impact our margins. What we see as at the moment is a very strong deployment of data center amid certain supply chain issues outside of our own company. We expect there the continuation of a very strong deployment of new data center, and therefore also very much support from the data center business in the second half-year. Internally, we will continue with our capacity expansion. We'll continue our investments both within our resources and within our R&D projects, but also in our capacity expansion. We'll continue there to build up our capacity and inaugurate the building, and continue also with the investment and the capacity expansion in the U.S. Overall, we see a very supportive market. We will continue our strategy execution, and we will capture on the strong mega trends that are supporting our strong growth. We'll also be able there to have a very successful second half-year of 2026. With this, I will hand over back to oh, no, sorry. First, we had a couple of next dates. As mentioned, we will have on September 1st an investor event here in Hinwil. We'll have the opportunity to visit our new building. We have early January, on January 18th, we have the publication of the full-year sales results, followed then by the full-year results on March 1st and the annual general meeting on March 22nd. I can back hand over to Stephan for the question and answer section.
Stephan Gick: Great. Thank you, Markus, for the presentation. Now it is time for Q&A. If you have a question, please raise your hand and wait until you're invited to speak. Once invited, kindly unmute your microphone, introduce yourself, and ask your question. In the end, please mute your microphone and lower your hand. With that, we start the Q&A, and the first question comes from Cedar Ekblom. Please go ahead. Cedar?
Cedar Ekblom: Yes. Can you hear me now, Stephan?
Stephan Gick: Are you there?
Cedar Ekblom: Yes. Can you hear me now?
Stephan Gick: Otherwise, you stay in the line, we go to Fabian Piasta from Jefferies.
Cedar Ekblom: Can you hear me, Stephan?
Stephan Gick: Yes. Now we can.
Cedar Ekblom: Oh, sorry. Apologies. It took a while to unmute on my side. Thanks very much. Two questions from me. I want to dig a little bit into the data center vertical from a growth perspective in the second half. In the first half, we had roughly CHF 70 million of absolute growth contribution from the data center vertical. I appreciate that the base effect becomes more difficult in 2H, I'd like to understand if there's any reason why the total Swiss franc contribution from the data center vertical should actually be lower in the second half, considering all the sort of hyperscaler growth CapEx plans that are coming through. A little bit more granularity, not really the percentage growth, but the absolute level of growth would be helpful. If we could just talk about the normalization in working capital, when should we expect that to have played out? Will your new capacity be fully ramped up by the end of this year? Or is it a case that working capital normalization will stretch into 2027 as well? Thank you.
Markus Schürch: Okay. Thanks a lot for the question. First on the data center vertical. In absolute terms, we also expect the further growth of the data center vertical in the second half year. There the limitation is basically the deployment of the projects, not so much from our end. We have got ample of capacity to support the data growth, but just the add-on of additional capacity, and therefore we expect further growth, but probably not at the same steepness that we had in the past simply because of the project fill out and the deployments there. With regards to working capital, the main growth comes from accounts receivable, and that obviously very much follows our sales growth. There we also expect there a stabilization and therefore not too much further increase on this working capital level. The inventory is increasing lower than the sales growth. There we expect also with the addition of the capacity certain optimization, that we can then also leverage and improve over the course of the next probably two years.
Cedar Ekblom: Thanks very much.
Markus Schürch: You are welcome.
Stephan Gick: The next question comes from Fabian Piasta. Please go ahead.
Fabian Piasta: Hey, good morning, gentlemen. Can you hear me all right?
Stephan Gick: Yes.
Markus Schürch: Yes. Perfect.
Fabian Piasta: Okay. Hi, good morning. Yeah, congratulations. Very strong print again. Maybe let's stay with data centers. If you have visibility, do you see any changes in mix from hyperscaler or co-locator demand? Particularly pointing towards liquid cooling penetration, whether there's still a larger portion of air cooling or whether we are going straight into Grace Blackwell/Vera Rubin. The next question on data center would be what you see in the competitive landscape. Newly entrants basically gaining traction on larger projects, where you feel shortages? I understand this is all outside the BELIMO ecosystem, more regarding power and equipment. Do you already feel that in call-offs from the forecast that you get from your customers? The third question would maybe you have a data point on how much RetroFIT+ sales in Europe are versus new build sales. Thank you very much. That's for me for now.
Markus Schürch: Okay. Thanks a lot for the question. With regards to the data center, what we see the majority of the growth comes from liquid cooling. That is becoming the standard, and that's also a bit different from the various regions. Within the Americas, most of sales is now with liquid cooling and very few is air-cooled. A bit different in Asia-Pacific, with a bit more still air cooling than what we see in the Americas. In EMEA, it's the lowest part of liquid cooling, still some more traditional data center being built out. That's also very much focusing then on the customer side. The majority of the high-end data center are still built with the hyperscalers, therefore also the strongest demand on liquid cooling, with also certain co-locator now going more into the liquid cooling. Albeit there sometimes also still on lower technology liquid cooling with the rear door cooling and not direct-to-chip cooling. We clearly see there the reference to the global hyperscalers that are investing the highest part on the high-end and the very most advanced data center. With regards to competitor, we don't see a significant change of our position. We are the technology leader. We have got a lot of first-mover advantages, obviously with a very strong growth in the very strong market, there are other competitors coming on the market and are also supporting their certain requirements for second sources or for other application. We will see over time, obviously, also an emerging competitive landscape that are also selling into these data centers.
Stephan Gick: There is the last question on RetroFIT+.
Markus Schürch: On the RetroFIT+, over the cycle, we usually say about half is RetroFIT+ and half is new construction. RetroFIT+ is a lot more than half of the sales in EMEA, probably accounting for 60%+ of the business.
Stephan Gick: The next question comes from George Featherstone from Barclays. Please proceed.
George Featherstone: Hi. Morning, everyone. Hopefully, I'm coming through okay. I just wanted to perhaps go through your growth outlook statement, particularly for the second half. If I think about your comparison base, you've probably got about three percentage points incremental on price, and then 5 points on stronger growth compared to the first half. You're also saying, effectively, the demand environment is broadly unchanged or your expectations around that broadly unchanged. Is there any reason then to not think that you're effectively guiding here first half growth, deducting those 8 percentage points or so? That'd be the first question, and I'll ask the second one after that.
Markus Schürch: Well, look, I will not go too much into more detail. As mentioned, we expect there a very strong demand also in the second half year, and therefore will not go too much into percentage growth. We expect a very strong growth in the second half year as well.
George Featherstone: Okay, understood. On the stainless steel Energy Valve, is this to be mix accretive compared to your existing offerings? Can you help quantify a little bit about how much energy saving you expect to bring to the cooling system overall with this new product?
Markus Schürch: Well, it will be mix accretive, so it's a higher-end product. It's less corrosive and therefore is improving the overall performance of the system, but has no impact on the energy saving itself.
George Featherstone: Okay. The final one, just going to the data center growth rate specifically. I guess something to seed this question before. Is there any reason to think, you did around, I think, 80% organic, a little bit more than that data center growth in the first half. Is there any reason from order books or customer conversations, outside of some of the things you've mentioned in terms of maybe your prediction that there'll be some delays to projects, that that growth rate can't be maintained here?
Markus Schürch: Well, look, I think there certainly is a capacity constraint in how much additional gigawatt of data center you can add in a half year. I think that will slow down, just simply because of the execution speed of such data center projects, and therefore the whole deployment will be dragged along a bit. What we still see is obviously a changeover to a higher share of liquid part on data center and more products per gigawatts that is installed. As mentioned, now the majority of data center in the U.S. are already fully liquid-cooled. Also from a technology point of view or a shift point of view, there is less support going forward. A lot more is now really driven by the deployment of data center. As mentioned, there are certain capacity constraints to how quickly this can be done.
George Featherstone: Sorry, I just have to ask another question on this, a follow-up, if you don't mind.
Markus Schürch: Sure.
George Featherstone: Simply, we're moving to higher rack densities. I understand what you're saying that maybe incremental installations on Blackwell may well be more liquid cool. As we move through time, the cooling requirements are going to increase. Whilst I understand maybe the same step change going from Hopper to Blackwell will not garner incremental liquid cooling sales in the same way it will to Vera Rubin, you're still seeing a rapidly proliferated market. On top of that, is it your assessment that you might see delays, or is it actually what customers are saying to you? That's really the nub of the original question.
Markus Schürch: The first one is, obviously, the heat density per rack is increasing. That means also the value per rack for our product is further increasing. You need then fewer and fewer rack for 1 GW, and therefore, that's a bit of the compensating effect, as the main issue is really the power that is available. Therefore, if the rack is consuming more, you just can install less of them to still consume the same amount of power. That's a bit of what you see in the entire industry. What you see is that ordering entry is increasing at the entire industry. Actual then deployment is growing lower and sales is growing lower than the order entry. That's exactly due to this effect that not all the planned projects or capacity can be executed and deployed as planned or probably as wished. Therefore, that's an anticipation of how the market will develop.
George Featherstone: Okay. Thank you very much for all the color.
Markus Schürch: You're welcome.
Stephan Gick: Okay, perfect. The next question comes from Sebastian Vogel from UBS.
Sebastian Vogel: Can you hear me?
Stephan Gick: Yes.
Markus Schürch: Yes.
Sebastian Vogel: Great. I got three questions. I would ask them one by one. The first one is, how does sales growth in June, July compare with the average sales growth that you have seen in the first half in 2026 for the three different regions?
Markus Schürch: Well, obviously, we don't comment on the details by months. It's supporting the overall growth story, and we see a very strong demand also in June and July.
Sebastian Vogel: Got it. Second question is on the data center exposure, the 23%-24% on a group level. Can you give us a little bit more color how that number would be looking for the different regions again, Europe, Americas, and APAC, at least rough terms?
Markus Schürch: Well, in rough terms, it's higher in the U.S. compared to the group average, because very low in EMEA. There, it's certainly more in the range of 30%, and it's very high in Asia-Pacific, as there, a lot of the growth comes from export business that goes then into mostly the U.S.
Sebastian Vogel: Got it. The third and last question on my side is with regard to your top-line guidance. You dropped your quantitative guidance that you started the year with, in the past, you were often enough providing a quantitative top-line guidance. That question is, why you did this now this way? Is the quantitative guidance coming back? In that sense, with the full year numbers, we would then have again a quantitative guidance, or is it now sort of a new approach that you will take on for guiding the market on your top line?
Markus Schürch: Well, look, we have the top-line guidance out for the entire year. We had a very strong growth in the first half year, we expect now also a very strong growth in the second half year. As mentioned, there are quite a bit of uncertainties of how quickly is the data center deployments going to happen, therefore, we don't give a quantitative guidance.
Sebastian Vogel: You plan to return to quantitative guidance at some stage again?
Markus Schürch: Obviously, when we have got more certainty and the less volatile market, we'll come back then to a quantitative guidance, yes.
Sebastian Vogel: Great. Many thanks.
Markus Schürch: Thank you.
Stephan Gick: Great. The next question comes from Vitushan. Please go ahead.
Vitushan Vijayakumar: Hi, do you hear me?
Stephan Gick: Yes.
Vitushan Vijayakumar: Good morning. Just two or three question on my side. The first one will be regarding the CapEx level. You have pointed at the high level of CapEx in 2026. Can you please give us a further indication for the modeling part? What kind of levels may we expect for the whole year 2026? Maybe another question on the data centers. The data centers accounted for slightly more than half of absolute sales growth in first half 2026. Can you just elaborate on how much of this demand reflects structural market growth and to market share gains? Maybe versus temporary project timing or customer stocking. Also, I wanted to ask a last question. Regarding the competition. I know that you've answered a bit on that subject during the conference, but are there any regions where you struggle more than others, especially Asia or China? What's the competitive landscape by region?
Markus Schürch: Okay. Thanks for all the questions. Regarding the CapEx, I think it's a good starting point to have the same CapEx also in the second half year, like in the first half year. As also our projects are more geared throughout the year. With regards to data center demand, that is really driven by the build-out of data centers. That is the driver behind it. In there obviously is the shift into liquid cooling that now all the projects are, or most of the projects are equipped with liquid cooling. In there is, first of all, the content is higher, and we have got in the liquid part a higher market share. Therefore, we have got a benefit from the underlying growth and also a benefit from the higher share on the liquid cooling side. What we see is no stocking in the industry, it's basically just build and then ship. We don't see a stocking effect. That's really the build-out of data center that is driving the sales there, and no stocking at our customers. With regards to competition or just differences across the world, data center is a truly global market. All there also, the requirements, the standards, they're globally applicable for at least the western part. There's a bit of a difference for China with separate specification. Also there, they're following very much the application that we have in the rest of the world. We don't see a lot of differences on the large part of the data center business across the world. Obviously, there are the lower-end data center with the collocated that are still manufactured more to the traditional setup. There we have got a bit of a different setup that is more competitive and that is also a bit lower standards, but that's a very small part of the overall market. Therefore, we don't see very much differences across the regions.
Vitushan Vijayakumar: Well, thank you.
Stephan Gick: The next question comes.
Markus Schürch: Sorry?
Stephan Gick: Do you have a follow-up question?
Vitushan Vijayakumar: Yeah. Just a follow-up. Sorry. For the data center sales, you mentioned that in your presentation, it was around 23%-24% of sales mix. Are we going to expect something in the same magnitude for second half 2026? What do you see on that one?
Markus Schürch: Well, obviously, the data center is growing quicker than the rest of the business. Therefore, we expect a further increase of the share of data centers going forward.
Vitushan Vijayakumar: Okay. Thank you.
Stephan Gick: The next question comes from Martin Hüsler from ZKB. Please proceed.
Martin Hüsler: Yes. Thank you, and good morning. I hope you can hear me.
Markus Schürch: Yes, loud and clearly. Good morning.
Martin Hüsler: Okay. I have two questions. First of all, about the cost trend in H2. Given the fact that the U.S. dollar kind of strengthened in the course of the year, at least year-over-year now, this should lead to an improvement of the cost situation in H2. The first question here is, do you expect a certain price pressure coming from the fact that the cost may be a bit lower? The second question would be, doesn't this speak for a typical strong H2 margin, which then could be maybe similar to H1?
Markus Schürch: Well, look, the U.S. dollar improved slightly compared to the beginning of the year, that is not that much material. That might be a bit of margin accretive. Obviously can also go the other way around. Therefore, yes, there is obviously certain volatility compared on the FX rate in there. If we see a continuous strengthening of the U.S. dollar, then obviously that will have a positive effect. That's very difficult to forecast. Other than that, what we see is still an increase of our cost base as we are continuously hiring and therefore have got a higher cost base in the second half year. That will have a negative effect going forward on our cost base. Now compared to price pressure, we don't see price pressures now from the customer side or from the market side. There we have got stable pricing. Obviously what we see is certain inflation tendency on the material costs, with also increasing trends on some of our input costs that can also a bit burden also then and put pressure on the margin going forward.
Martin Hüsler: The high tariff impact in the first couple of months this year on your COGS probably is all digested by now, right?
Markus Schürch: That's digested by now. Going forward, we'll see what will be the regime probably in a couple of weeks from now.
Martin Hüsler: Okay. Thank you. There may be an add-on on data centers. Do you still stick to the CHF 40 million-CHF 60 million market per gigawatt? Or does this change due to the fact that the heat absorption is becoming more and more important?
Markus Schürch: No, that remains roughly stable, and that contains the entire part of all our products, including sensors throughout the entire data center. Obviously per rack, it's getting more dense as the heat density is increasing. Per gigawatts, there are less and less racks required, and that has the compensating effect.
Martin Hüsler: Okay. Thanks a lot.
Markus Schürch: You are welcome.
Stephan Gick: Okay, the next question comes from Martin Flueckiger from Kepler.
Martin Flueckiger: Yeah. Thanks. Morning, gentlemen. I've got three questions. I'll take one at a time. Firstly, on your data center sales, could you provide a split between air and liquid cooling that you've seen or registered in H1?
Markus Schürch: Look, we don't provide the split, but the majority is liquid cooling. The majority is control valves.
Martin Flueckiger: Okay, thanks. Second one is some of your competitors are talking about or raving even about new polymer-based valves in data centers. Is that a competitive threat that you're seeing in the market, or do you expect that to become, let's say, more pressuring for you guys in the medium-term future?
Markus Schürch: Obviously, there are a lot of technology advancement and new solutions are being discussed. We're also part of all of those discussions. What technology will then be in the future, that will depend also on the specific application. Overall, now the current technology is applied in all the data center, and therefore there's a huge pressure also from hyperscalers to reuse and standardize on existing technology. Therefore, we expect the current technology will also be the winning technology of the future. Obviously there are a lot of emerging and research type of technology being tested at the moment.
Martin Flueckiger: Okay, thanks. Then my final question, and then I'll go back in line, is on your achieved price cost spread in H1. When I speak about price cost spread, I only refer to input cost inflation from higher material energy costs, higher logistics costs, leaving FX aside and all the rest. Just on raw mats, logistics and energy, were you able to offset or more than offset that pressure in H1?
Markus Schürch: Well, in H1 we were obviously able to more than offset that. We also didn't have a lot of inflation on the material side. A bit on energy and transportation costs, but that was a minor part of the cost structure. Going forward, we expect some more inflationary tendency on the input costs on material.
Martin Flueckiger: Okay, you still expect a positive price-cost spread on those?
Markus Schürch: On the full year, yes. Obviously on a half year by half year, the effect was now higher in the first half year.
Martin Flueckiger: Okay. Thank you so much.
Markus Schürch: Welcome.
Stephan Gick: Great. We have one follow-up question by Fabian Piasta. Please go ahead.
Fabian Piasta: Yeah. Thanks for taking this one. Regarding the potential tariff reimbursement, I think you were outlining that you now build a contingent asset of CHF 1.3 million with the potential of up to CHF 30 million. Is there any indication or likelihood when this is coming, phasing? Can you give us something here? Maybe also outline on the supply chain issues in the Middle East, was that more regarding materials on your side, or has that kind of slowed down the ramp in the overall DC deployment? Maybe you can give some flavor of this one. When it comes to CapEx, I think below CHF 90 million for this year is appropriate. What do you think about 2027?
Markus Schürch: Yeah. Thanks for all the question. With regards to tariffs, look, we don't know. That's probably the biggest uncertainty that we're facing. You're probably aware that at the moment, the current tariff regime is in effect until end of July, and then the new tariff regimes needs to be announced. There are obviously new Section 200 tariffs being discussed, the current assumption is that we will continue the current tariff set up going forward. On top of that, Switzerland is negotiating the tariff or an agreement with the U.S., also there, we expect further update in the months of August in line with the announcement of the new regime. Obviously, all of that will have an impact on how the past will be dealt with. At the moment, unfortunately, we don't know more. I'm sure we'll have more clarity in the coming quarter, and then also know how to deal with the situation for the full year. With regards to CapEx, we'll continue to have elevated CapEx, certainly we'll see similar levels of CapEx also next year and in 2028.
Stephan Gick: Great. Thank you everybody. This concludes today's presentation. If you have further questions, don't hesitate to contact us in the IR team. Thank you for your attention today, and goodbye.