SGL Q2 2026 - Post-Call Earnings Update

Event: Quartr Q2 2026 event Retrieved: 2026-08-06T13:05:00Z Comparison mode: maximal Scorecard contract: v1

Consensus scorecard

• Consensus scorecard, bulleted equivalent:
  • Revenue / total consolidated sales revenue: Quartr actual EUR 209.7m; API Ninjas estimate unavailable, so the beat/miss is not calculable.
  • EPS / IFRS basic and diluted: Quartr actual EUR 0.05; API Ninjas estimate unavailable, so the beat/miss is not calculable.

Management and Q&A

• The single most important new number on the call: Graphite Solutions shrank 6% excluding the compensation payments. CFO Thomas Dippold said the segment's reported 6% sales increase "includes the compensation payments for the adjustment of the supply contracts with the take-or-pay customers, mainly in the Silicon Carbide business. If we exclude this, we would see a slight decline in our turnover by minus 6%." The preliminary flagged that the EUR 28.7m of compensation payments sat inside reported Graphite Solutions revenue but could not size the underlying move; management has now sized it.
• The half-year sales decline was bridged for the first time. Dippold split the roughly EUR 60m decline into approximately EUR 50m of like-for-like loss from the discontinued carbon fiber business - the Lavradio site closed in June 2025 having produced through the first five to six months of that year - and "the other EUR 10 million, which our total turnover deteriorated from an operational level," attributed to Graphite Solutions high-margin weakness and Process Technology's weak order book.
• Further compensation payments were not ruled out but were framed as largely behind the company. Asked directly by Lars Vom-Cleff of Deutsche Bank what to model for the rest of 2026, Dippold said agreement has been reached on two contracts, discussions continue with others, "some tend to just expand the contract, of course, it doesn't have an effect with a compensation payment," and "there might be something coming up in the next quarters. Let's put it this way, the big chunk of it has been renegotiated already." No amount was given.
• Process Technology: stabilisation, but no recovery in 2026. Dippold said the order situation shows "a little bit of stabilization... but on the low level," that projects awarded now "will be turned into sales maybe beginning of 2027," and that the second half will run "on the level where we are right now, maybe a little bit better, but not a magic turnaround story." Maintenance, parts and service could improve the near term if it catches up.
• Asked whether the full-year Process Technology guidance of only a slight decline in sales and EBITDApre remains valid after a 28% first-half sales fall and a more-than-halved segment EBITDApre, Dippold did not restate or withdraw the segment guide; he answered only with the second-half description above.
• The Fiber Composites improvement was explicitly labelled non-repeatable. Asked why full-year guidance implies only a slight improvement after an almost 80% first-half rise, Dippold said much of the gain "can be attributed to the loss-making business in the first six months of last year, which we just stopped and turned around. You can't duplicate that in the second half of the year after the business has been closed... This positive effect you can have only once." Lavradio closed towards the end of Q2 2025 and Moses Lake was idled through August 2025, so the prior-year comparative gets harder from Q3.
• Fiber Composites profitability excluding the Brembo joint venture was quantified for the first time: stripping out the BSCCB equity contribution, the segment EBITDApre margin is "a very healthy 11.5%" against the 19.0% reported including it. Dippold also said the BSCCB contribution is EUR 3m higher than a year ago.
• The carbon fiber restructuring came in under budget and ahead of schedule. Dippold: the promise was that restructuring cost "shall not exceed EUR 50 million over a course of 2 years... Our overall restructuring costs were a little bit more than EUR 40 million, and we did it in less than one year."
• Return on capital employed was disclosed for the first time this period: "The ROCE remains stable at roughly 10%." The preliminary noted no first-half ROCE was published, so progress against the 9%-10% guide was not measurable from the documents alone.
• Free cash flow was positive on a quarterly basis excluding the compensation payments. Dippold: "The free cash flow, yes, it includes the compensation payments, but even without them, we show on a quarterly basis positive free cash flow results."
• Dippold characterised the balance sheet as "super stable and super healthy" at a 0.6 leverage ratio, with the equity ratio up to almost 40% and net financial debt down by almost EUR 20m.
• CEO Andreas Klein confirmed full-year guidance and the 2030 ambition. He said the company is "well on track to deliver on our guidance 2026" and "well on track towards our 1 billion EUR sales target in 2030," and confirmed the 2026 guide "irrespective of still challenging macroeconomics, of ongoing geopolitical uncertainties, and several key markets remaining weak."
• Semiconductor demand is turning, with a caveat. Klein: "we currently see a positive momentum in the market, especially in China and SiC. That's mainly volume, but also a price stabilization... We have to wait a little bit, we have to be a little bit patient how sustainable this is, but the momentum clearly is there."
• Nuclear: a new X-energy agreement was announced two days before the call. Klein said the agreement expands nuclear graphite production capacity, mainly at the Chedde site in France, and "positions us as a key supplier and also gives us capacities to develop even beyond our SGL Growth 2030 horizon."
• Growth-initiative timing was given by end market. Novel coating products: "outstanding customer feedback," to be leveraged fully in calendar 2027. Space: expanding customer relationships in heat-resistant materials for rocket nozzles. Defence and drones: first prototype parts developed, in initial sampling and bidding, "we expect to see first relevant contributions in 2028, if not earlier." Aero: production volume doubled as a supplier of materials for retrofit floor panels, described as a lever into further aero applications.
• Corporate segment sales were explained as mostly rental income. Asked whether the EUR 3m first-half loss can simply be doubled to a EUR 6m-7m full-year loss against a EUR 3.4m loss last year, Dippold said "It's not too easy. It can be seen in this way," explained that Corporate sales are mainly rental income from letting unused buildings at the Meitingen site to external parties plus services for BSCCB, and added "you can expect that we keep our corporate cost and our overhead cost on a very strict review, and you won't see major increases there."
• The Q&A drew a single analyst, Lars Vom-Cleff of Deutsche Bank, with four questions. The operator twice invited further questions and received none, and Investor Relations closed the call.

Guidance and KPI clarification

• Guidance, bulleted equivalent: all four FY 2026 metrics were confirmed on the call - consolidated sales of EUR 720m-770m, adjusted EBITDA of EUR 110m-130m, return on capital employed of 9%-10%, and free cash flow at the previous year's level - and the SGL Growth 2030 ambition of approximately EUR 1bn of sales in 2030 was restated. No metric was raised, cut, or narrowed.

Updated neutral analysis

• The call answered the preliminary's largest open question in the direction the bears would expect. Graphite Solutions, the segment carrying more than half of group sales and the entire reported growth, declined about 6% underneath the EUR 28.7m of compensation payments. The reported +5.9% was therefore an accounting result of contract renegotiation, not a demand result.
• Management did not, however, size the second-half hole those payments leave. The most it would say is that the big chunk has been renegotiated and something might still come. That is a materially weaker answer than a number, and it is the single largest input to whether the EUR 110m-130m adjusted EBITDA guide is reachable: H1 delivered EUR 69.8m including EUR 28.7m of compensation payments, so the second half needs EUR 40.2m-60.2m from an underlying run-rate that was closer to EUR 41.1m across the whole first half.
• The Fiber Composites answer was the most useful piece of downward guidance on the call, and it came unprompted in substance. Management explicitly told analysts not to extrapolate the 78% first-half EBITDApre gain, because most of it is the arithmetic of removing losses that only existed in the prior-year first half. From Q3 the comparative already excludes Lavradio and largely excludes Moses Lake.
• The 11.5% ex-joint-venture Fiber Composites margin reframes that segment. Almost 40% of its reported EBITDApre is an equity-method contribution from the Brembo brake joint venture, on which no sales are consolidated, and that contribution grew EUR 3m year over year. The restructured carbon fiber core is profitable but less profitable than the headline margin implies.
• Process Technology is now the clearest structural problem in the group and management effectively conceded 2026. Order stabilisation at a low level, project conversion pushed to early 2027, and a second half no better than the first leave the segment's full-year guide of only a slight decline looking difficult against a 28.2% first-half sales fall - and management did not restate or defend that segment guide when asked directly.
• Against that, the balance sheet and cash story held up under the only scrutiny it received. Free cash flow is positive on a quarterly basis even excluding the compensation payments, net financial debt fell almost EUR 20m, the leverage ratio is 0.6 and the equity ratio is close to 40%. None of this was challenged by the single analyst on the call.
• The restructuring track record is a genuine credibility datapoint: EUR 40m against a EUR 50m budget, completed in under a year against a two-year plan. Management has delivered on the one large commitment it can now be measured against.
• The growth pipeline is real but almost entirely beyond 2026. Coating products contribute from 2027, defence and drones from 2028, the X-energy nuclear graphite capacity is an investment rather than near-term revenue, and semiconductor momentum in China and silicon carbide is explicitly described as not yet proven sustainable. None of it supports the second-half guide.
• The X-energy agreement is the most concrete new commercial item on the call and it was mentioned in a single sentence: no contract value, volume, capital cost, or revenue start date was given for the Chedde capacity expansion.
• The ROCE disclosure of roughly 10% closes one preliminary uncertainty and puts the company at the top of its own 9%-10% guided range at the half, against 9.8% for full-year 2025.
• Analyst engagement was unusually thin. One analyst asked four questions, all constructively skeptical and all about modelling rather than strategy; the operator's two invitations for further questions drew none. No question was asked about the 61.3% quarterly effective tax rate, the inventory build against falling sales, the EUR 30m shift into time deposits, or the second-half adjusted EBITDA bridge - all of which the preliminary flagged and none of which the call resolved.

Market context and limitations

• The Quartr transcript for this event (30 paragraphs, complete and non-live) was read in full.
• The consensus scorecard is carried forward verbatim from the event's preliminary report (reports/preliminary/2026-08-06-sgl-q2-2026.md) and was not recalculated. Both rows remain unpriced because API Ninjas carries no earnings-calendar row for the XETRA listing SGL and no depositary listing is configured in config/listing-map.json for this issuer. No formal Beat, Miss, or In line result is published for this event at either stage.
• All figures in the Management and Q&A, Guidance, and KPI sections above are management's own statements on the call unless identified as carried from the preliminary report. Reported Q2 and H1 actuals come from Quartr earnings release 3668519 and the half-year interim report 3668520 as used in the preliminary.
• The transcript opens with two placeholder paragraphs of identical text spanning the first 735 seconds before the operator's introduction; no content was lost, but the call's substantive audio begins roughly twelve minutes into the recording as timestamped.
• The CFO's opening statement that total turnover "dropped by 30% or roughly EUR 60 million, coming from EUR 453 million to now EUR 394 million" is internally inconsistent: EUR 453.2m to EUR 394.2m is a 13.0% decline, which is the figure the release and the interim report both print. The EUR 60m and the two absolute figures are reproduced above; the 30% is not.
• The CFO's Graphite Solutions remark that EBITDApre came "from 14.8% in the first six months last year to now in H1 2026, EUR 46.6 million" mixes a percentage with an absolute. The prior-year segment EBITDApre is EUR 40.8m per the release and EUR 46.6m against EUR 40.8m is the stated +14.2%; the "14.8%" is not reproduced as a figure above.
• The analyst's question refers to "the EUR 29 million already received in H1" against the EUR 28.7m the release prints. The release figure is used above.
• The 0.6 figure was called a leverage ratio on the call and a debt ratio in the release. Neither source states its denominator or definition, so the preliminary's uncertainty on that point stands.
• Management gave no amount, probability, or timing for further compensation payments, so the second-half revenue and EBITDApre support from that source remains unquantified.
• No quarterly segment sales or segment EBITDApre were disclosed on the call, and no order intake or backlog figure was given for Process Technology, so the second-half segment path cannot be independently modelled from the sources available.
• The underlying first-half adjusted EBITDA of EUR 41.1m used above is calculated as the reported EUR 69.8m less the EUR 28.7m of compensation payments; the company does not publish that figure and did not confirm it on the call.
• The X-energy agreement was announced separately on 3 August 2026 and is referenced but not detailed on the call; no contract value, volume, capital expenditure, or revenue timing was disclosed.
• No market reaction is assessed. API Ninjas returns no price or volume record for the XETRA listing SGL. The release was published at approximately 05:30Z and the call held at 12:00Z on 2026-08-06.
• The presentation slides (3976811) attached to this event were not read for this update; the CFO's remarks reference slides four through seven, whose content is represented above only through his narration.

Source links

• Quartr Q2 2026 event transcript
• Quartr Q2 2026 earnings release
• Quartr Q2 2026 half-year interim report
• SGL Q2 2026 preliminary report