The Brunel International N.V. trading update, third quarter. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during that time, simply press star, followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. And if you would like to withdraw your question, again, press star one. I will now turn the conference over to Jilko Andringa, CEO. You may begin your conference.
Thank you very much. Good morning, good afternoon. Our first trading update through a webcast like this, but not the last. From now on, we will do this every time when we release our quarterly numbers, and we will also schedule it at the same time of the day that we release it, which is 10:30 our time. Yeah, welcome at the webcast. The results that we are sharing today has, of course, a couple of different phases, a couple of different stories. First, I'm proud of the continued growth that we're showing in a market that is challenged in many aspects.
If you look at the multiple markets that we're in, both geography-wise but also, market, specialization-wise, it is quite remarkable, how we can continue to perform on the high, profitable growth level that we are also showing in Q3. Later on, Peter will share the detailed results of the different regions. I can say we are on a journey, and we continue the journey, but sometimes in a journey, sometimes when you climb a mountain or when you're on a sailing course, you face a rough path, and you have to get through this rough path. And that's what we also indicated in this press release, that Q4 will be rougher than expected. And we shared in our press release the reasons why.
It's clearly the offshore wind market that showed a slowdown, an unexpected slowdown down for us, and that's where we have to react to. Of course, the project timing in the Middle East is also a factor that doesn't help us short term. It is our role as management to react to it, quickly reset plans, reset focus, make sure that we're still on the right path, and we are. We concluded already for ourselves that we are on the right path and that we will continue this path into 2024. To give you more story on that, you are of course welcome at our Capital Markets Day on November 28th.
Later on, at the call, we will also come back to the management changes to follow this path and to make sure that we can react swiftly enough. But first, I would like to hand it over to Peter de Laat, our CFO, for a further explanation on our Q3 results. Peter?
Thank you, Jilko. I'm going to touch on all the regions briefly, and allow you time to ask your questions. Let me start with the overall summary, where you see the Q3 results. Then most of you will have noticed a change in... where until Q2, we used like for like, and from this quarter onwards, we were moving to the industry practice to report organically, so that's like for like, also adjusted for working days. Q3 this year had one less working day than it had last year, and at the moment, that has quite a significant impact on our performance and our EBIT. It's roughly EUR 2.3 million per working day. If you look at organic developments, you see that we achieved 21% revenue growth and 27% EBIT growth in the quarter.
A nd that's w as pretty much in line with our expectations, where we said that EBIT growth would accelerate in the second half of the year. But you can also notice that two regions are not achieving EBIT growth anymore, and that's Middle East and rest of the world, and rest of the world, of course, includes Taylor Hopkinson, but we'll get to that more in detail later on. Overall, the EUR 80.8 million EBIT was an increase of 27% compared to last year, and still very nice revenue growth and EBIT growth in most of the regions, and at the moment, also in October, the trend is continuing in those regions. Moving on to the first region, Germany or DACH, which includes Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic.
The key thing I wanna highlight here is that the headcount development is now at the same level as last year. That's also what we added in our press release. We have revenue growth that's mainly caused by price increases, with the headcount being at the same level as last year. And for now, we expect the headcount development to be more or less or in line with last year's development. So, we will end up being at slightly below last year in headcount, but the price increases will make up for that. Gross margin is still pretty strong, at 38% over Q3, at same level as last year.
If you look at the quarterly results, you see that Q3 is always our strongest quarter in Germany, and Q4 is slightly below that, but no changes in the trend expected there. Moving on to the Netherlands, where you can see that the headcount continues to be higher than previous years, and it's also supported by price increases. That explains the higher revenue growth of roughly 16% organically in Q3. And also EBIT moving in the right direction, still continued EBIT growth there. The quarterly results for the Netherlands just for your information. Moving on to Australasia, that's a really exciting area. It includes Australia and Papua New Guinea, and activity level there remains very high. You just returned from Papua New Guinea?
Yeah, special visit, yeah.
With many activities also there in both conventional energy and mining, and a very strong outlook for the, yeah, coming years. And that's also confirmed by their continued growth, and organically it's much stronger because they're a bit in the year-on-year, the reported numbers are a bit limited because of exchange rate developments. But for many years, we've seen that this region contributed zero to our overall result, or even lost money. This year they're already contributing EUR 4 million to our overall EBIT. Moving on to Middle East and India. There you can see that the headcount is just below last year.
But the key elements are there, that we saw completion of a project in Q3 earlier than expected, and a delay in the start of a new project that was expected to start in Q3 and is now postponed until the first of February. Good thing there is that now the start date is fixed and firm, and it will definitely start in February. But it does mean that we will miss that contribution in Q4 and also the contribution of the project that finished in Q3. We also had expected that earlier contribution in Q4. So the overall impact, compared to previous forecasts, is roughly EUR 1 million GP and EBIT.
Middle East and India is a very tough comparison with next year with last year because of the yeah high activity in Q4 2022. Moving on to Americas. The continued growth, a lot of activities in conventional energy in the U.S. and Brazil and Guyana. Activities in mining in Canada and U.S. Yeah, so really good market outlook, and we'll definitely take our fair share of that. So pretty happy with the results. Similar thing, Americas did not contribute a lot in the past to our EBIT, but this year so far, they made EUR 3 million EBIT. Still just over 2%, so not at the level where it needs to be, but it's moving in the right direction.
Then Asia, that's a very exciting region that's mainly driven by a lot of the construction projects that happen in Thailand, China, Singapore, and even Indonesia. And besides that, we have high activity in mining in Indonesia. The outlook for this region is really strong, not only for conventional energy, but also construction for the renewable energy industry, where we see projects starting at the moment. They are not going to contribute significantly in Q4, but we will see that returning next year. And the results of Asia are really. Yeah, we are really happy with the results there. Achieving 6% year-to-date EBIT on a gross margin of 16% shows a very high conversion ratio and sets an example for our other regions, and much more to come.
Then moving on to the rest of the world, and the biggest operation there is Taylor Hopkinson . And Taylor Hopkinson has two types of activities, the contracting that we do in many regions, but a big portion of what they do is perm placements, and especially in the offshore wind industry. In August this year, we noticed a first slowdown there, but it was perceived as a temporary element. But it did return in September, meant all the bad news from offshore wind coming in the last couple of weeks, that seriously decreased our expectations for Q4, and that will result in a gap of, yeah, EUR 3-EUR 4 million in GP and EBIT in Q4. And that's not that our performance is not good enough, but it's much lower than we had expected.
We had expected that industry to seriously start accelerating in the second half of the year, and that is clearly not happening. Earlier in meetings, we called this a bump in the road, and it still feels like that, and the industry experts still confirm that the outlook for the renewable and energy world and also the offshore wind industry, medium and long term, is very strong. But it will take a couple of months for the acceleration to return. So a tougher Q4, but we're still pretty optimistic about next year. Now, moving on to the overall results. We reported 14%, 13% revenue growth for the quarter, but again, organically, that's 21, and EBIT growth reported 8% and organically 27%. EBIT percentage of 4.6%.
In our Capital Markets Day in 2021, we guided for an EBIT level of 6%+ in 2025, so we're still well on track to achieve that. Then finally, the outlook, as we also explained it, headwinds in Taylor Hopkinson and Middle East will have an impact on our forecast for the full year or our performance for the full year, but likely to start contributing more next year. The other regions, we expect a strong positive trend to continue. As a result, we will continue to achieve organic growth in Q4. But again, there will be one working day less compared to last year, so that will have an impact on the reported numbers. Brief summary, and then I would like to hand it back to you.
All right. Yeah, concluding, you also saw in the press release some organizational changes, and we are preparing for the Capital Markets Day. We are reconfirming our journey, as I said already, our sailing course, our going to the top of the mountain, because we believe that we are in the right markets with the right infrastructure. To be able to bring Brunel to the next level, we looked at what is the best way to operate and discuss the structure going forward. In good collaboration and good coordination with Graeme, we decided that the new level can be managed by internal promotions and by a diverse team going forward.
And that's why we decided to not extend Graeme's contract at the end in May, and Graeme hands over in the next couple of months his activities to the new leaders. We're very happy and proud that we have internal promotions. You heard the story from Peter on our Australia and Asia region, where they're coming from, where they are now, and what potential they are showing, and we are extremely happy that we can announce that Tania Sinibaldi from Australasia and Jon Proctor from our Asia region will make a step into our newly created Brunel Executive Leadership Team. And they will be joined by Joanita Oud and Stefan de Boer. It's very important for us to organize our total operational platform together with what is most critical in our business, people and technology.
The balance between people and technology is the key to success. Joanita, with the experience she brings from the outside into Brunel this year, and Stefan, with his multi-years experience in Brunel and building a very, very strong IT and digital platform, are the right people to support us, together with Jon and Tania, to manage Brunel's plan. Again, more on this plan we will share during our Capital Markets Day at November 28th. So for me, that is the story for today, and we are happy to take your questions now.
If you'd like to ask a question over the phone, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll pause for a moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Hans Pluijgers from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes, good morning, gentlemen. A few questions from my side. First, coming on to the Netherlands, in the previous quarter, you were also just talking about the pressure on the margins coming from the fact that you were not able to fully pass on wage inflation to especially more governmental clients. Could you maybe give us an update where you are there now? Yeah, are you able to pass it on, and how do you see the risk for next year? And also the same on the Netherlands freelancers. Could you maybe give some combined impact of, let's say, the impact from wage inflation and freelancers on your margin? And especially also, what is the number of freelancers you're using currently?
And then going to Germany, a slowdown in the number of people, so volumes are starting to trend down. Yeah, how do you see that for Q4 and into next year? Is this a trend, or do you see some pickup? If you look at vacancies at your job boards, they are increasing again, so you could give some feeling on that. And indeed, on the whole new leadership team, yeah, a change in, let's say, the role also, and yeah, Graeme was amongst others, hired because of indeed setting up a new structure and also looking for more, let's say, expansion of the business, amongst others, through M&A. Has anything changed in that field with respect to M&A? Is that something less on your radar screen? Could you give maybe some idea on that?
All right. Nice set of questions.
Do you want to start with the last one?
I can start with the last one. So yes, as we indicate also in our messaging, we are extremely pleased what Graeme brought to Brunel. His experience, before Brunel, the way he structured, the strategy execution through a vertical approach, so our, the knowledge, the expertise we built up in mining, life science, renewable energy, and conventional energy, was very much needed for Brunel and is used for our strategy execution. One of the clear experiences he brought to Brunel is the M&A practice, resulting in one larger and some smaller, add-ons for, for Brunel, and the larger one is, of course, Taylor Hopkinson.
Graeme's contract will continue until May, and he is very much focused on continuing the M&A practice, and in that phase, we can identify how we can organize M&A going forward. Because our plan doesn't change. We are still very eager to use our cash position, and we're still very eager to accelerate our market position in the chosen verticals, because we believe we are in the right verticals. That's where capital investments are. That's where Brunel capabilities and skills fit so well, and we can do better in certain markets than we are now, or we can take a larger share than we are now. So no change in plan on M&A.
Graeme will continue that for the next seven months, and we'll find a good way to organize that after he left Brunel. And again, with the additions of Tania Sinibaldi and Jon Proctor, and Jon Proctor is also gonna move to Amsterdam next summer, we believe that we have internal talent that together with Peter and myself give us enough execution power, supported by Joanita and Stefan, enough execution power to bring the organization to the levels that we see in our long-term plan.
Okay, thanks. Then moving on to the margin pressure in the Netherlands. So as you can see, the margin adjusted for working days this quarter was 2% below last year, where the gap in the beginning of the year was bigger. So we're catching up on the margin pressure, but you're also right, the freelance component is increasing, so of the 2% lower gross margin, you can explain 0.5% by the change in the mix for the freelancers, and then the 1.5% is still the margin pressure, but we're making up for that. An interesting question about the risk for next year. The risk is there, but at a much lower level, looking at the salary increases that are ahead of us at the first of January.
So it could have an impact, but not as significant as this year. Then, towards the head count trend in, in DACH, thanks for noticing that the number of vacancies remains at a high level. It's actually increasing. That's also what we see, and we see all the underlying activities in our DACH region increasing, so also, number of interviews, introductions, all those type of things. But what we also see is that it takes our clients longer to make the final decision, so the hiring time is increasing. And as a result of that, the head count is not trending down, although the graph suggests that a little bit, but it's more flattish.
There's another element there, is that even though there is candidate activity, candidates really wanna make sure that they make the right change. So it's also, in these phases, always a little harder for the candidate to make the decision also to go from one job to another job. As we stated many times, we are not recruiting people from unemployment. We are headhunting them from a job to a job, and then, yeah, the story has to be very compelling to make the change. So with the higher activities, we're very confident that we can keep outperforming the German market, but the work we have to do to make more matches is higher than it is normal in a year.
Thanks.
Okay. The question comes from the line of Björn Wolf from Alpha Lupus. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, Björn Wolf from Lupus alpha, my question is also a bit on Germany, especially on Taylor Hopkinson, that that was, yeah, a disappointment, you know, on that side. My question is, first of all, like, how big is the whole exposure there in terms of, like, top line on EBIT, just on the Taylor Hopkinson right now? And also, how is the development going forward? As you mentioned, it started to get a bit shaky in August, and, yeah, we see the news around this whole sector. So maybe you can give a bit color on that specific segment. Thank you.
Yeah, that is sector. So, of course, we see all the same messages from also our clients and the whole value chain in this industry, that there is a pretty quick change of investments, commitments in a very short period of time. Yes, we are disappointed. We don't wanna surprise you, we don't wanna surprise ourselves, but we were still surprised by how quick this change in the market came. Because the underlying commitments to new parks, to mega investments in megawatts is still there. You mentioned in the beginning of your question, specifically to Germany, we see offshore wind in Germany as one of our biggest growth opportunities.
But at the moment, decisions are delayed, business cases have to be reset. If you talk about the impact from a Taylor Hopkinson perspective, there are two parts of the business, the contracting part and the perm part. The contracting part is doing extremely well, and we expect that that will continue to do extremely well, because they're in other phases of the project at other places in the world. Where we see a sudden stop is where new projects are started, normally we have a consultative task to design a new org chart for a project like that, and then our clients ask us, "Ooh, that's great. Indeed, that's the type of team that we need.
Can you also fill the team?" Yeah, these questions are not coming in at the moment, and that's the disappointment that we have. So as Peter already indicated, a significant part of our perm business short term is at risk. We have to make sure that we react to that. We do that two ways, on the one side, adjust the cost level, on the other side, refocus on clients that are committed to investments and then pick up the new opportunities again. And that's what we're gonna do in this quarter already, and of course, in the start of 2024.
Okay, maybe then the question on the, on the size, do you have any numbers on that?
So revenue-wise, it's roughly 0.5% of the rest of, 50% of half the world. So year-to-date, that will be just over EUR 65 million. And their perm is roughly just below... is 15% of their revenue at the moment, where we, we're expecting more.
Okay. Thank you.
Your next question comes from the line of Hans Pluijgers from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Yeah, Hans, Hans again. Going back on Taylor Hopkinson, I hear what you say with respect to the impact. At the same time, you were saying, let's say it was already saw the first signs in August, and it continued in September. So it was already some negative impact in Q3. Is that logical to assume? And coming back also on your remark on redirect business, yeah, how, how quickly are you able to do that? Because I can imagine that a part of the personnel is located in a certain location where, let's say, the business is. So how quickly can you indeed redirect the business? And then follow question on the Middle East. You indicated that the large project delay would have about EUR 1 million impact.
That's on a quarterly basis or on a yearly basis? Could you give maybe some better-
1 million is on a quarterly basis, but it also impact includes the project that was finalized earlier than expected.
Okay, clear.
So that's an easy one. On Taylor Hopkinson, there are a couple elements to that. Yeah, we, August was the first month where we saw a slowdown in perm. But at that moment, the September pipeline still looked very healthy. But quite a significant part of that did not materialize, and we also saw the pipeline decreasing in those months.
So yes, there was also an effect in Q3.
Yeah.
Q3 for Taylor Hopkinson was also lower than we expected.
Uh, absolutely.
Okay. And then maybe a follow-up on that. Precisely when does Taylor Hopkinson, let's say, account for perm placement? Is it at the moment of the contract signature by the candidate and your client, or at the moment the candidate starts?
At the moment the candidate starts.
There is still some delaying impact from the slowdown in Q3 into Q4?
Yeah.
Your other question is, how quickly can we redirect our,
Yeah, that's right.
... recruiters and account managers? Actually, pretty fast. That does, the location is not so much impacting that. With Taylor Hopkinson, we serve our global markets or support our global markets very much from our Glasgow base. Even though we have teams in the U.S., in Asia, in, now in Australia, in Germany, in the Netherlands, a lot of the, sales and recruitment work is still supported from Glasgow. Because, yeah, the market, is also a digital market, and many work can be done on a distance. The teams are constantly focusing on market data and not only of offshore wind. So we're looking also at onshore wind, solar, energy storage, green hydrogen, and these typically are clients that we can put in the pipeline quickly and start building a relationship with.
Of course, it takes a little bit of time when you refocus your sales pipeline before you have impact on that pipeline, so that delay is there. But the individuals itself can almost right away start focusing on a, other segment of the market.
Yep, thanks.
And I would like to add to that, that at the moment, the tender activity for contracting in renewable energy is at a very high level, and it's only tenders; we need to win them. And then it will only start contributing in the course of next year. But it's a sign that there are parts of that offshore wind industry that are still doing pretty okay.
Your next question comes from the line of Marc Hesselink from ING. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yeah, good morning, gentlemen. Also a couple of questions from my side on, first of all, Taylor Hopkinson. The exposure you said is 50% of the 65 year-to-date, so around EUR 10 million. That will grow maybe a little bit. So if I hear you correctly, the perm business is definitely coming down very rapidly, and in Q4, maybe almost non-existent. Is then the risk that we might lose, say, EUR 10 million of perm fees for next year, because the business is not anywhere near a recovery yet? So I'm just trying to get a feel for the risk to the numbers for next year, just coming from Taylor Hopkinson. And then related to that, is Taylor Hopkinson at all profitable then, actually, in 2023?
And then related to that, what does it mean for the earn-out? That's my first question.
So let me first try to look at the exposure to next year, because that's also linked to the earn-out, because next year is the last year of the earn-out year. At the moment, there's no thought at all that the entire EUR 10 million in perm fees that we will probably achieve this year is entirely at risk. Actually, they expect the market to start improving in the course of the first half year. But that's their expectations now, and yeah. First need to see how that industry develops. But I definitely don't think that the full entire EUR 10 million is at risk.
And on the other side, the contracting part is developing faster than we expected, when we acquired Taylor Hopkinson, especially in locations where they didn't have a presence before we acquired them. So we see growth there. Overall, as a result, their performance is, well, for this year, below the initial business plan, but not too far below. So it will have a limited impact on the earn-out.
But still profitable?
Yeah.
Still very profitable.
Yeah.
But are we talking about EUR 8 million profitable, and if you lose EUR 5 million of extra perm fees next year, that it's low single digit profitable? Is that how we should look at it?
Well, EUR 8 million is a bit high on 65, yeah, well, say EUR 85 million full year. They are not at 10% EBIT. There is the acquisition costs that are included there, but if you don't take those into account, they still contribute EUR 3 million EBIT this year.
Yeah, that's including the earn-out. EUR 3 million they would contribute, but that's including the EUR 4.5 million. Is that correct, the number, that of the earn-out?
No, that's before deducting that, and the earn-out costs are around. And the amortization of the intangibles, that's roughly EUR 2.5 million.
The EUR 2.5 is the intangibles, and then the earn-out comes on top?
No, it's all included for this year. The combination.
But EUR 2.5 million is now, is the, is the number, and the EUR 3 million, is that including the negative impact from this?
No, EUR 3 million is before deducting the negative impact.
Okay. So that's the real EBIT that they're driving-
Yeah
... this year. So after the earn-out and payments, it's basically flattish.
Mm-hmm.
But then for next year, there's still, because this year you have still three quarters of pretty decent or pretty good perm.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe next year you might have at least half a year, as weak as Q4, and there may be a bit of a recovery. Might still mean that you might lose EUR 5 million of that. That would mean that the company, although you're doing better in contracting, might still only be at best breakeven or so before the earn-out.
Yeah, but the contracting margins are significant, and that makes up for what the potential loss could be. And to be honest, we didn't go through the full budget process yet with them, but I don't expect a loss of EUR 5 million in the first half of the year, Mark. We will have a little bit of a slowdown-
Another loss, but if you now make EUR 3 million in 2023, and that's all including only one weak quarter, if you go down another EUR 5 million, and contracting makes up a bit, so you go to EUR -2 million, and then I'm assuming your contracting makes up for EUR 2 million, you're only breaking even, huh?
Yeah, but if we perform less on perm, we will also have less cost. So we also have to adjust cost level. So it's not if the perm line goes down, it's not that it's 100% also in the EBIT. So we can protect ourselves there much, much more than what you're indicating.
Okay. Well, I don't see that in the Q4 guidance then, 'cause you lose maybe EUR 3-EUR 4 million perm, but it's not compensated by any costs yet, and-
No, I think so-
You might be reluctant to do so. If you expect a recovery, you might have to fire people, and then you miss the recovery, huh?
That's what we are working on at the moment: to determine how strong or how weak the pipeline is and if we need to take any more actions there.
Yeah.
Because the majority of the perm they do is retained search. So that's a search where you already get a small fee for the continued work, but what it does is gives you more clarity on that the pipeline will in the end materialize.
Well, yeah, but okay, but a low single-digit margin for Taylor Hopkinson is, is definitely too low, also for your business plan going forward. So that brings me to my second question. The margin in 2023, the EBIT margin, will likely come down a bit year-on-year. That means that for your path to your 6%, you're a bit behind. How do you see that? I know there's a Capital Markets Day coming, but-
... And we also hinted that that will be an important topic of this Capital Markets Day, because we were on a nice track on improving our conversion and experienced a slowdown this year, already due because of the inflation and now with the expectation of Q4 a bit more. So there will be even more focus on conversion, and we're already making nice steps there. So we're still convinced that we are on track to, well, at least achieve our target of 6% in 2025. And we will provide more details on that later this month. And again, the performance in Asia is a nice example of what's achievable.
Yeah, that's performing really well. I agree. I agree. And then maybe also a follow-up on this one. You mentioned the first signs of this in August. We started a good pipeline for September, but then it didn't come through. We saw the profit warning of Ørsted. We saw all the flagging in offshore wind, and then indeed, September was weaker, and then it continues to weaken. I didn't hear this kind of signals, to be fair, at the half-year stage, and we were still quite optimistic, and the pipeline is one thing, but the red flags were a bit there. So I had expected there maybe a bit more measures already to safeguard the potential softness could kick in with a little bit more caution than in the outlook.
What caused that from Q2 and now the wording in Q3, now we have a totally, yeah, basically different story with profit on? Can you maybe take me a bit on that journey, how that works?
Yeah. At that moment, we did not have the hard announcements of Ørsted, of, of the write-offs and the stop of projects in the U.S. yet. We did not have the no bid in the U.K. yet. And what drove our optimism is, and still, is the market outlook, the investment outlook, the commitments on renewable energy investments. Offshore wind investments in Europe alone is so massive that we are happy that we are market leader, recognized as global market leader in that place. We see continued investments planned in so many regions in the world on top of the European dominance, Asia, and now also Australia are planning large on and offshore wind investments, and we expect that the U.S. will come back.
And actually, very recently, last week, the state of New York did sign three new contracts for offshore wind parks. So it's not that there is a complete zero at the moment, but it was more the market indicators that, and our internal pipeline, that gave us confidence that it would be back. And, yeah, you're right, frustrated and disappointed that it dropped off that quickly.
Yeah. Well, then, thanks for the color, Jilko. And then a final one. On the Dutch and DACH region, wage inflationary support for 2024, do you have any indication what you-- what we might be expecting? Because I think you mentioned that Q2, we will see inflation on top of inflation because you have a bit of delay in passing on the tariff increases. Maybe next year that's a bit better, and then we have on top of the ones that you recently did. What kind of support do you expect in terms of top line there from that from that point on?
As we always say, inflation is something that helps us in the business model to increase the value of our solutions. We expect in the European market, say, four, maybe 4%-5% wage inflation into next year. Not all happening on January first, because in the German markets, that is planned at different moments in time. But overall, that is sort of the expectation that we have. Now, you can directly use that also for our top line in the German markets when it happens. And, you know, in the Netherlands, we have a little bit of delay for passing this through to our clients, but at the end of next year versus where we are now, yeah, we expect that 4%-5% to be added.
Right. Yeah, clear. Okay, thank you, all for my questions.
All right, thanks.
If you would like to ask a question over the phone, please press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We have no further questions in the queue at this time, and we'll turn it back... Oh, we do. I'm sorry. Your next question comes from the line of Maarten Verbeek from The Idea. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Morning, it's Maarten Verbeek of The Idea. A couple of questions from my side, please. Firstly, you stated that perm is roughly 10% of gross profit. You also made some other statements about 15% of Taylor Hopkinson is perm. So more or less, this EUR 7.3 million is equally divided by Taylor Hopkinson and other businesses of Brunel, if you could confirm that. And secondly, how much of your gross profit, profit, came from perm business last year in the third quarter?
Yeah, so the 10% you mentioned is in our press release, so you can see that, yeah, year-to-date, we, we did, roughly, EUR 21 million in perm. And-
Oh, the 10% is year to... Sorry, the 10% is year-to-date, not the quarter itself?
Yeah.
... Okay.
And that year-over-year growth on perm is in line with our reported revenue growth, because there's obviously no working day impact on perm. So the growth is at 14% for year-to-date, 2023 year-on-year. So we still see growth in perm.
Okay, thank you. Mid-year you stated that, you expect an acceleration of the EBIT growth, now, that-- for the second half. That won't be the case for Q4 due to the reasons you mentioned, but if we would just look at the other regions, so excluding, Taylor Hopkinson and excluding the Middle East and India, would that statement still be valid?
Yeah. Like, like we stated, we expect for those other regions that the positive trends of the first nine months of this year will continue in Q4.
Okay. And then one question regarding your reporting. You mentioned the revenue per region, but as of this quarter, there's also an elimination line, which is something I haven't seen in the past, and if I compare it also to last year, then more or less, the revenue for all regions are the same, except for because you made that breakdown of Asia and the rest of world. So what has changed in your reporting with respect to eliminations?
Yeah. So, until last year, the revenue between the regions was not that significant, and we always included it in the rest of the world or deducted it from the rest of the world. With more and more activity happening between the regions, yeah, it's more reliable to present also this activity between the regions. That's why we adjusted it, and you're right, the adjustment is against rest of world.
Okay. Okay. No, that were my questions for this moment. Thank you.
Thank you.
We have no further questions in the queue at this time. I will turn it back over to the presenters.
Thank you very much. Yeah, thanks everybody for joining. As we said, we are continuing on our path. We will take the responsibility and manage the unexpected bump in the road. We're happy to give a little bit more or share more light on that during our Capital Markets Day on November 28th. I hope to see everybody there, and of course, if you're not there, then next quarter, in this same call, you're welcome to ask your questions again. See you soon. Bye-bye.
Thank you. Bye.
This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for your participation, and you may now disconnect.