SEMHF - Siemens Healthineers AG - Special Call

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Welcome to our pre-close catch-up for Q4 fiscal year 2025, which was recorded on September 25, 2025. In this podcast, we sum up and repeat relevant topics, which were communicated in public as potentially relevant for the upcoming quarter. With this Q4 episode of our pre-close catch-up, we are aiming at having everyone on the same page regarding our Q4 fiscal '25 before we go into silent period. Obviously, we are before closing and therefore, have no indications on Q4 actuals.

And before we start with this episode, let me remind you of our safe harbor statement on our website for this recording. Let us begin, as usual, with a short statement on currencies. We have continued to see quite some volatility in currencies also throughout the quarter, particularly another roughly 6% devaluation of the U.S. dollar. Therefore, we expect negative translational headwinds from foreign exchange on the revenue line for the full quarter. What this means is growth ex FX would be above nominal growth. It also means irrespective of our existing rolling hedging, which we have put in place, there is a direct negative impact from this translation effect on absolute revenue and EBIT.

Our outlook last updated with Q3 reporting late July was for comparable revenue growth for a range between 5.5% and 6% and for adjusted EPS for a range between EUR 2.30 and EUR 2.45. With the first 9 months in the bag, quarter 4 is hence the residual. Nevertheless, we did provide some data points on what to expect and how to make implied dynamics possible. Hence, let me now quote our CFO, speaking in our Q3 analyst call about Q4. "Q4 remains in absolute terms, the strongest quarter in the year, but it will be less loaded compared to the Q4 in last fiscal year. And while we expect in Q4, we expect it to be below the level of the first 9 months, and this is not an indication of slowdown of business, but an indication of us actively managing the load on our resources over the quarters."

In general, we have mentioned that we see our fundamentals intact and expect growth to continue. What should you have in mind going through segment by segment?

Let me as well quote our CFO in our Q3 analyst call. "The best assumption for revenue growth would be our segment assumptions from the beginning of the fiscal year also for Q4, meaning mid-single-digit revenue growth for Imaging and Advanced Therapies towards high single-digit growth for Varian and low growth for Diagnostics. Regarding margins for the segment, this obviously depends on how tariffs will impact profitability in Q4. However, based on our current tariff assumption, we would expect for Imaging and Advanced Therapies sequential margin expansion in Q4, but below the very good prior year quarter also due to tariffs. Especially in Imaging, we had a stellar quarter in Q4 last year. Bearing in mind that the tariff impact is slightly increasing sequentially, Q4 margin this year would rather be closer to Q3 margin of this year in Imaging. Varian and Diagnostics had very good margins in Q3. And due to an increasing tariff headwind in Q4, the level from Q3 would be a reasonable assumption also for Q4. With regards to Diagnostics, this is obviously relating to the operational level of 8% margin without the positive one-off in Q3."

Furthermore, for Diagnostics, we have been emphasizing at recent investor conferences and meetings that volume-based procurement in China is more skewed towards the second half of the fiscal year. Summarizing again for the group, this fiscal year, we successfully rebalanced the load in the quarters. In the first 9 months of fiscal year '24, we grew by 4.3% and then had a strong finish with 5.6% growth in Q4. This fiscal year, we already grew by 6.8% in the first 9 months and have guided for 5.5% to 6% growth for the full year. As said in the beginning in the quote, Q4 remains in absolute terms, the strongest quarter in the year, but is expected to be less loaded compared to the Q4 in the last fiscal year.

And while we expect growth in Q4, we expect it to be below the level of the first 9 months. And this is not an indication of slowdown of business, but an indication of us actively managing the load on our resources over the quarters.

Let me also use this opportunity to quote our CFO in our analyst call on tariffs. "Now considering the current tariff assumption of EUR 200 million to EUR 250 million on pretax profit, this would impact EPS in 2025 by around EUR 0.15." In order to complete the picture when it comes to guidance for tariffs for assessing the 2026 impact, our CFO said, "if you annualize this for next fiscal year, the EUR 400 million to EUR 500 million tariff impact for fiscal year 2026 now becomes the most realistic case." Hence, only for tariffs alone, we indicated that we would face a headwind going into next fiscal year of EUR 0.15 against 2025 EPS levels.

Our CFO furthermore commented on a well-received IR quarterly wrap-up podcast, which is posted on our IR website that we would see an additional exogenous 2026 headwind of around EUR 0.10 due to the weaker U.S. dollar. As a third anticipated 2026 headwind, he is pointing out in the podcast that we had some positives in the financial income this year that you cannot plan for in 2026. It was indicated that it would be around EUR 0.05. In total, this adds up to $0.30 of EPS headwinds when we enter into 2026. Just to put this into perspective, this equates to 12% to 13% of EPS growth, the rough equivalent of our past medium-term annual EPS growth ambition.

With this final note, I shall close our pre-close catch-up. If anything remains unclear, the Investor Relations team and I are there to help as long as we have not entered a quiet period. Stay safe and stay healthy. Bye-bye.