The order intake of the Swabian machine tool and automation specialist decreased by 6.0% to 235.9 million euros compared to the corresponding previous year's value (previous year: 250.9 million euros). Demand varied significantly by region: While new orders in Germany fell by 22.9% to 68.4 million euros (previous year: 88.7 million euros), they increased abroad by 3.3% to 167.5 million euros (previous year: 162.2 million euros). The order backlog at the end of June 2025 stood at 113.1 million euros (January 1, 2000: 98.7 million euros).
HERMLE attributes the low investment willingness in the domestic market to the generally low capacity utilization of companies and high uncertainties. Due to the strong export orientation of many sectors that HERMLE supplies, the increasing customs and trade conflicts have a particularly noticeable impact here. Additionally, multiple crises such as the energy transition and the automotive industry's shift to alternative drive technologies are affecting the situation. In contrast, foreign orders in the reporting period benefited from pull-forward effects from customers in the USA due to impending tariff increases.
The HERMLE Group's revenue decreased by 8.4% to 221.6 million euros in the first six months of 2025 (previous year: 241.8 million euros). Domestic volume fell by 34.0% to 59.2 million euros (previous year: 89.7 million euros). Foreign revenue increased by 6.8% to 162.4 million euros (previous year: 152.1 million euros), resulting in an export ratio increase from 62.9% to 73.3%. In addition to the growing foreign business, the increasing service revenue also had a stabilizing effect. In this area, HERMLE benefited from the fundamentally increasing number of installed HERMLE systems at customers and the trend towards complex automation solutions.
The operating result in the reporting period decreased significantly by 60.3% to 15.3 million euros (previous year: 38.5 million euros), disproportionately to revenue as expected. This was primarily due to the demand-driven weak capacity utilization, which could only be partially compensated by reducing flexitime accounts and implementing short-time work. Additionally, sharply increased tariffs and negative currency effects from the depreciation of the US dollar had an impact, albeit to a lesser extent. Other burden factors included unproductive additional efforts due to excessive bureaucracy, intensified competition, and rising commissions due to the growing foreign share of revenue. The result from ordinary business activities amounted to 16.7 million euros (previous year: 40.6 million euros), resulting in a gross revenue margin of 7.5% (previous year: 16.8%). After taxes, HERMLE reported a half-year result of 11.8 million euros (previous year: 29.8 million euros). The operating cash flow amounted to 19.8 million euros in the first six months (previous year: 36.7 million euros).
Overall, HERMLE's business performance in the first half of 2025 was slightly above expectations due to the described pull-forward effects. Therefore, despite the existing high uncertainties and the hardly predictable further development at this time, the company assumes that revenue and results for the entire year 2025 will tend to be in the middle range of the forecast ranges, and the most unfavorable scenarios can be ruled out. For group revenue, HERMLE now expects a decline in the upper single-digit percentage range to just over 15%. So far, losses of up to 25% have not been ruled out. The operating result is expected to decrease by 40% to 80%. Until now, a decline of 90% also seemed possible.
Regardless of the current economic weakness, HERMLE continues to pursue the initiated future projects at its locations as planned. In the first six months of 2025, investments in tangible assets and intangible assets amounted to 9.2 million euros (previous year: 19.4 million euros). These primarily concerned the installation of another large parts manufacturing facility at the Zimmern ob Rottweil site and the construction of a new technology and training center at the company's headquarters in Gosheim.
The realization of these large projects is possible thanks to the consistently stable financial foundation of the company: As of June 30, 2025, HERMLE had liquid assets of 139.6 million euros (January 1, 2000: 107.4 million euros) and reported an equity ratio of 72.2% (January 2, 2000: 74.1%).
The solid foundation also allows HERMLE to continue its ambitious R&D activities at a high level. Currently, the focus is on transitioning the electrical architecture as well as hardware and software of the entire machine spectrum to the next generation (GEN2) to keep HERMLE's offerings future-proof, technology-open, service-friendly, and flexible. Another focus of R&D is the expansion of automation competence.
HERMLE has also continued its long-term personnel policy during the reporting period. As of the end of June 2025, there were 1,607 employees in the group compared to 1,603 on December 31, 2024. Due to the currently weak economy, the company has, however, held back on new hires in the first half of 2025 and only filled vacancies when absolutely necessary.
In the medium term, HERMLE continues to expect a high global demand for extremely high-performance machine tools and automation solutions.
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