Review by the President and CEO

Exel Composites had another good quarter in July-September 2024. Our revenue and profitability in the third quarter increased significantly year-on-year. In January-September, our order intake increased, and our order backlog was strengthened.

The implementation of our transformative strategy to capture profitable growth advanced well. We focused on larger customers, high-growth customer industries and volume business, all of which position us well for the future. The commissioning of our new factory in India is progressing as per our plans. Once completed, the factory will allow us to better serve wind power customers in India and globally. The facility will be ready for production in the last quarter of 2024.

In September, we completed the strategic review at our Oudenaarde factory in Belgium and entered into consultation with employee representatives regarding the intention to discontinue production at the factory. Unfortunately, launching the process was the necessary action to address loss-making activities. So far, several negotiations have been conducted in a good spirit and we believe that the good cooperation will continue throughout the process.

Order intake increased in Q1-Q3, despite the economic uncertainty

Our order intake increased in January-September 2024, amounting to EUR 76.1 million for the period. As a result, the order backlog at the end of September stood at EUR 30.6 million, which is 7.3% higher than in the same period last year. The order intake in the third quarter, however, fell short of the comparison period and of the first and second quarters of 2024.

In terms of order intake, the third quarter is often seasonally the weakest quarter of the year. Uncertainty about the global economic outlook continued in the third quarter and the macroeconomic sentiment remained indecisive. The year 2023 was very difficult for the pultrusion industry in general. Compared to this, our customer activity has increased in all our strategic customer industries except in the construction market.

Significant agreements with two major wind turbine OEMs

All in all, we performed well despite the uncertain operating environment and achieved customer engagements that are important for our future growth.

In September, we announced one of the highlights of the quarter as Exel Composites and its joint venture Kineco-Exel India won the bidding process in India for supplying carbon planks for wind turbine spar caps for Vestas Wind Systems A/S globally. The products, once tested and approved for production, will be manufactured in our new factory in India. Deliveries are estimated to begin in the last quarter of 2025. The step deepens our collaboration with Vestas, which started over a decade ago. This is already the second spar cap customer engagement for the new India factory this year, as we announced a multi-year agreement with another major wind turbine manufacturer in the first quarter.

After the review period, we signed a multi-year supply agreement for helihoist systems for offshore wind turbines with a major Western wind turbine manufacturer. The composite components will be manufactured with pultrusion at Exel’s Nanjing factory in China, followed by necessary post-processing and assembly work. Deliveries are expected to begin in 2025.

Revenue increased in most customer industries

Revenue for the third quarter grew by 19.7% year-on-year coming in at EUR 24.6 million and was at EUR 74.5 million for January-September 2024 (Q1-Q3 2023: 74.7).

In the third quarter, revenue increased from the comparison period in 2023 in all of our customer industries, apart from the Energy customer industry, where we expect deliveries from our new Indian factory to pick up in 2025.

Engineered Solutions Business Unit reported EUR 20.0 million in revenue in the third quarter, while Industrial Solutions Business Unit reported EUR 4.6 million. I am pleased that Industrial Solutions achieved growth in the third quarter and two new significant wind power customer engagements in line with our strategy. Engineered Solutions, on the other hand, is progressing well in optimizing our factory network and securing new customers.

We have spent a considerable amount of time identifying future needs of our customers. As a result, one of the key targets of our transformative strategy is to increase customer value by offering post-processing services, engineering support and productization, among others. I am pleased to report on progress towards this goal also in the third quarter. For example, in the Transportation customer industry, we won additional volumes by starting to provide post-processing services such as painting services for profiles used in transport equipment, and the work continues.

Operating profit continued to improve

While revenue in January-September 2024 was at the previous year’s level, our profitability during the same period improved due to determined adjustment measures taken during the year.

In the third quarter 2024, the actions to optimize capacity, cost control and operational measures elevated our adjusted operating profit margin to 2.9% (-5.9%) and our adjusted operating profit to EUR 0.7 million (-1.2).

We expect profitability to further improve over time with higher utilization rates, which we aim to achieve by ramping up new customer products and further optimizing and consolidating production.

Our net cash flow from operating activities has been impacted by increases in working capital, higher interest rates and other financing costs, coming in at EUR -1.3 million (3.7) for January-September 2024.

We reiterate our guidance published in February 2024: Exel Composites expects revenue to increase and adjusted operating profit to increase significantly in 2024 compared to 2023.