Hello, and welcome to Heineken's call to discuss its intention to form a strategic partnership with China Resources. My name is Emilia, and I'll be your Coordinator for today's conference. For the duration of the call, you'll be on listen only. However, you'll have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the conference by pressing star one on the telephone keypads. If at any point you require assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad and you'll be connected to an operator. I will now hand over to Chris MacDonald, Investor Relations Manager, to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today to discuss Heineken and China Resources' intention to form a strategic partnership in China. Before we get started, I would like to remind everyone that this conference call contains forward-looking statements, including long-term volume and earnings projections, as well as merger benefit statements. These should be considered in conjunction with the cautionary statements and explanations contained in the related news release and investor presentation, copies of which can be found on our website at theheinekencompany.com. Please keep in mind that the announcement today concerns a non-binding heads of term agreement, and that binding definitive agreements are pending further negotiations and due diligence. As at the date of this announcement, the terms and conditions of the definitive agreements have yet to be agreed or entered into. As such, these transactions may or may not proceed.
If parties reach agreement or definitive agreements, completion will be subject to customary and applicable, including regulatory approvals in mainland China and Hong Kong. I would also like to point you to our investor presentation, which can be found on the investor relations section of the Heineken company website, which contains additional slides that outline the rationale behind the deal and the attractiveness of the premium beer segment in China. Following prepared remarks by management, we will open the call to your questions. Let me now turn the call over to Jean-François van Boxmeer, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO.
Thank you, Chris, and thank you all for joining the call today. I am not joined today by Laurence as she is enjoying a well-earned holiday in the Rockies. I'm delighted to announce the signing today of a non-binding agreement with China Resources and CR Beer to join forces in China via China Resources brewing operations, China Resources Beer Holdings Co. and CR Beer. We intend to create a long-term strategic partnership in China, which includes mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau. As detailed in the press release and presentation, this will result in a 40% investment by Heineken in CRH Beer, or CBL in short, which controls CR Beer, giving Heineken an effective 20.67% economic interest in CR Beer, which is listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This represents a landmark moment for both our beer operations in China.
CR Beer has been consolidating the market for over 20 years now. We have been building the Heineken brand in China since 1983. Going forward, our integrated operations will be best placed to succeed in China and benefit from the growth of the premium beer segment. I would also like to take this time to thank the Chairman of CRE, Chen Lang, and his team at China Resources who have worked closely with our team to bring this together. You have received the presentation. I will not go slide by slide over the presentation, but it serves you to ask your question when I will have finished my introduction. Just turning to slide four for a while. China, as we all know, is the world's largest beer market by volume.
China was largely a mainstream market, today it has a fast-growing premium beer market with increasing demand for international beer brands, thanks to the rapid urbanization and the emerging middle class, it's forecasted to be the largest contributor to premium beer volume growth globally over the next five years. CR Beer is the undisputed market leader in China, with a wide route to market and deep knowledge of the Chinese market and consumer insights. It has successfully consolidated the market and continues to gain market share despite the market contraction in recent years. Its leading Snow brand is the world's largest beer brand by volume, it is one out of every five beer consumed daily in China. Heineken China has built up the iconic Heineken brand in China with strong brand equity scores and a double-digit compound annual growth rate over the last decade.
However, as a brewery in China, Heineken lacks the scale derived from a large mainstream business and the associated route to market to deliver the next leg of growth for the Heineken brand in China. By combining CR Beer and Heineken's operations in China, we believe we will form a robust strategic partnership that should ensure that jointly, we can better compete in one of the world's most important beer markets. Win with our combined portfolio of leading national and international beer brands. Finally, as I believe the financial details are quite clearly communicated in the press release and presentations, I won't repeat them here on the call. As I am sure many of you agree, this is a fantastic opportunity for both parties, and I'm sure a few have questions. Without further delay, I turn the call back to the operator to begin with the Q&A.
Operator, the floor is yours to organize the Q&A. Thank you.
Of course. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you change your mind and you wish to withdraw your question, please press star two. You will be advised when to ask your question. We have the first question coming through the line of Trevor Stirling from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Jean. Two questions on my side, Jean, please. The first one is, in the past, CRE had a strategic relationship with SAB. I am just wondering if you can give us a little bit of color on how you think this relationship is going to be different. Clearly, fundamentally different than was focused around the Heineken brand, but any further color you could give would be great. The second question is, I appreciate a lot of this now has to be thrashed out in the coming months. As you look at the operational details of how you are going to work together with CRB in China, what are the important things for you that were principles, if you like, to come out of the negotiation?
Thank you, Trevor. Two questions. I think the most important difference with SABMiller, I would dare to say is, first of all, they were SAB and we are Heineken, we will approach the business differently. What is different is also the timing. At the time we start our partnership with CRB, the premium market is developing really at a much faster speed than ever before. The lack of an international premium brand in their portfolio is perhaps felt more today than it was in the past. At the same time, for us, was very successful where we have distribution, but in very limited areas. We more than ever feel the need to have more distribution power.
The moment of us joining forces is really compelling now, and I think that we have learned a lot from the Chinese market and what the limitations we have there to grow. I think from the CRB side, they have learned also a lot about the importance of having a premium international brand of a certain allure in their portfolio. That is for what concerns the comparison with SAB and for the rest, we are another organization, the deal is structured in an entirely different way as the one with SAB. Now, when it comes to the key elements of governance, we center this deal essentially around a license agreement for the Heineken brand. There are options to do more with other brands from the Heineken stable, but the intention is to concentrate, certainly in the beginning, on the development and the deployment of the Heineken brand.
The best way and the most practical way to go about it is just to outright sell our existing Heineken China business to CRB and give over management of Heineken China to them. To that extent, we have two breweries which are fully equipped to produce Heineken beer of the highest standard. Remember, Heineken beer has a specific production process which requires specific investment in its fermentation tanks and also a very high quality control. These two breweries do not operate at full capacity, so there is room to grow volumes in those breweries as CRB will further work with the brand. In the future thereafter, we will together look at where are the next breweries in the 91 breweries that CRB operates, where we would continue to produce Heineken for further growth.
We have chosen to concentrate the governance around seat at board positions in CBL and in CRB but not in management positions in the operating company in Snow, if you will. We think the management of Snow is very capable, extremely motivated, very professional to do the job. We will have put people on the ground like we do customary with a license agreement. We have them in, as example in Australia with Lion Nathan or in Japan with Kirin. We have them with Molson in Canada and some Scandinavian brewers in Northern Europe.
We will put a quality cell on the ground and a marketing cell on the ground that is catered for in the license agreement to collaborate and work with the management of CRB to make sure that the Heineken is of the desired quality, that we assist them in upgrading packagings and every format that they wish to bring to the market in the future. Also to give support for marketing, branding, and design around our brand. That's how we will structure the partnership going forward.
Just one follow-up question, Jean. Thank you for those replies. Can you comment on route to market? Do you think there'll be a separate high-end route to market, a dedicated route to market for Heineken, or will it be incorporated into the mainstream business?
I think it will be incorporated in CR Beer's system and business. It is for CR Beer to look. The route to market will not be totally one-on-one for Snow and Heineken out of the 5 million outlets that they service. I don't think they will make Heineken available in every single outlet where they sell Snow. As ever, it's a tailor-made approach, market by market, which outlets are the most promising to sell Heineken in. We have a certain expertise in doing that. For instance, in the Fujian province, where we have a stronghold and where we have a good share of the premium market. It is to, in effect, replicate and improve that model within the CR Beer system. But it is absolutely the intention to bring the Heineken route to market totally integrated in the CR Beer route to market. That is not a separate route to market.
Thank you very much, Jean.
Yep.
The next question in the queue comes from the line of Edward Mundy from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Morning, Jean. Morning, everyone. Three, please. The first is on the route to control of this business, in the event that CRE decides to sell. Are you able to comment on this stage as to whether you have right of first refusal on China Resources Enterprise remaining 60% stake in CRH? The second is around the Heineken license agreement. Presumably, you'll have a lot of leverage in terms of setting the price of Heineken within China. If you're able to comment on that'd be great. The third is, what is the current price point of Heineken today within China relative to some of the other international premium brands?
The first question about route to control. When the deal is not even binding, talk about the route to control. I think it's not our intention to control this company. It's our intention to have a significant and meaningful participation in the company. To have a partnership with CRE, which is materialized by that 20% stake we take in CR Beer and by CRE taking an 0.9% stake in Heineken. That is what cements the strategic character of our partnership, if you will. Obviously, we have been always very careful to have clauses in contracts, which would protect us from change of ownerships and all these kind of things that you refer to and would ownership change and et cetera. That is something that we are customary doing in all our joint venture agreements with partners. That will be the case with CRE, too.
The intention primarily is, as we see it, is to participate as a minority partner in CR Beer, where we have a win-win situation where we bring in a brand in the premium segment that they can make bigger for themselves and also for us. For us, the business case is on two accounts. Ultimately, the revenue stream we will have from the dividends, perhaps not in the first years because there's where we invest into growth. When the brand will reach a cruising altitude, we will have some revenue streams coming from the royalties and also Heineken contributing to making CR Beer a more profitable company alongside the work they do themselves. Because again, this is the market leader.
They're very professional, I have no doubt that they have an agenda to win, to grow, and to become more profitable because they are a very competitive business by nature, and that the dividend stream coming out of the 20% participation will also be of interest to us and make that this deal on the short term would be, or on the relatively medium term, let's say, will be also accretive to us in terms of EPS. These are the first question. I jump to your third question about the price points. Edward, I think the price point is always premium to most of the international premium beers that you have in the Chinese market. Think about [Budweiser cost].
We will tend always to be potentially at an index of 120-125 SKU per SKU and also regionally to match that, also always with a premium over our immediate competitors. That is a strategy that we are already pursuing in China and we will continue to pursue in China in terms of pricing. You have to remind me what your second question was.
The second was as part of the Heineken license agreement, presumably you're going to have autonomy to set the price of the Heineken brand.
Yeah, we have that. It is not setting the price on a granular base in an absolute base, but it's a relative pricing to the market. It's linked to types of SKUs and to types of products, it gives a corridor and a bandwidth, which you cannot go below. Also you should not go over in a certain way. This is in our interest, but also in the interest of CRB. That price policy is being tested, and I think it works well for CRB, in which we will be a substantial shareholder, and it works also well for us. All in all, I think we have a pretty good grip. Again, for license agreements, we have them in Australia, in Japan, in Canada, in Scandinavian countries.
We have a certain experience in working with them and in terms of pricing, it works well. There is no problem in making that operational. Obviously, you never have total control over your partner. If you suddenly start to be totally in disalignment, there is nothing, you don't have an army or a policeman to enforce it. The contract makes pricing mandatory for its continuation and duration. There is an ultimate stick, if you will, in the contract on the pricing. In all the cases where we operate a license agreement of Heineken, pricing works pretty well to the advantage of both partners.
Great. Thank you.
We have the next question come through the line of Fernando Ferreira from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Please go ahead.
Morning, Jean-François. Morning, everyone. I have three as well, please. First one, Heineken has said in the past that wanted to maintain control of your destiny, the largest beer market in the world, even if it would take a long time to make it work. I'm just curious to understand what was in this deal that made it look interesting for Heineken to go ahead with it. Two follow-ups. First, you mentioned on the press release that the margin and EPS accretion from the deal, can you let us know how you're going to account for the JV in your financials and perhaps the current level of margins that you're making in China before the deal? Lastly, on the media call, there's a headline saying that you plan to reinvest the royalties you will receive back into China. If you could please clarify that point.
Thank you.
Yeah. On your first, it's again, the route control. We like to, of course, most of the time, control companies, and we do that in most of the cases, but you cannot do that in all cases. Now, China is perhaps the biggest market in the world for beer. It is, in the years to come, as we see, one of the fastest growing premium markets that you will have. Whilst the total market will not necessarily grow, and it might even decline. Our position in that market is just too small. I think one has to be realistic. We have a business there, and it's unscalable. Unlike the United States of America, where you work by and large with independent distributors, and they're protected. In fact, it's enshrined in legislation. You don't have anything like that in China, systems are much more tied to the producer.
With the consolidation of the mainstream in China into, let's say four, five major player from which CR Beer is by far the largest and has the strongest route to market. One has to realize that the best option for us, it is to be a minority partner, and we do that without any regrets and also without any outright desire to have control over that Chinese operation. I think our 20% stake and the license agreement around the Heineken brand and the fact that this partnership is important for CR Beer as well as for us and is very strategic because there is a lot of growth for both of us to come.
That makes it that the specific transaction, which is perhaps not the most of the transactions we do, is a very appropriate one for the Chinese market and the one which we feel very comfortable in pursuing.
That is for your first question. The second question about the margins prior to bring in a JV. Well, I am not going to comment and give you the margins. They are marginal anyhow. Our business in China is we sell I think our position in the market is 0.5% of the market. It is 90% or 95% is premium. Only Anchor Beer in Hainan is non-premium. That is historical. If you add Heineken, Tiger, and Amstel, it is all premium positions, but still, it is only 5% of the premium market in China. The premium market is perhaps today above 10%, perhaps 11%, 12%, and it might grow, as we indicate in our presentation, to 25% of the total market. Our position therein is too small.
Again, our business model is not scalable because we don't have a position in mainstream business to support the infrastructure that you need to go to the market in terms of distribution. Hence, our margins are not to be reported about, if you will. I think the opportunity of this partnership is really a good opportunity altogether. Your final point was about reinvestments of the royalty. We always do that. The first years of a renewed It is very important you show to your licensee that you're there to invest with him in the brand. That is what we have been doing in Chile when we started our partnership now, what is it again, 17 years ago. It's what we have been doing in Canada with the Molson, what we have been doing with Lion Nathan in Australia.
We will do the same with our partners of CR Beer to show put money where your mouth is. That is what it is all about.
That's great. Thanks, Jean-François.
The next question in the queue comes from the line of Tristan van Strien from Redburn. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Jean. Can I ask two questions, please? The CRE stake of 0.9%, that's quite intriguing. Was that just limited by the current amount of treasury shares you had? From your perspective, is there anything that limits them from taking a bigger stake in Heineken, or for that matter, buy a big block of shares should one come on the block? The second question, again, perhaps from a CRE perspective, where do you see the opportunity for the Snow brand in your global network?
Yes, I think the 0.9% is indeed, that's the opportunity which creates a strategy. We have these things in treasury. There was a desire for CRE to seal the partnership in a cross kind of partnership. I think that it is for CRE taking 0.9% of the shares of Heineken. It's both a symbolic sealing the strategy, sealing the strategic character of the partnership, and at the same time, it is an investment opportunity. CRE, to my knowledge, it is not a state wealth fund. It is not a sovereign fund, if you will. It's more seen as sealing the thing, but at the same time, making a business logic for them and being accretive for them that we did that deal. There is no anything more to talk about than what I talk about it now.
For what concern the Snow beer that we can roll out internationally, it is to be seen as following. We don't carry any Chinese beer in our portfolio, so we are very open to if there is demand to carry one for. It is not that we say we're going to carry Snow everywhere in the world where we are, and we're going to make it our Chinese beer. That's never going to work. No, it's together with CRE, looking at the world of Heineken and looking where are the opportunities for Snow. When these opportunities will have been identified, then we work together to make it happen in those parts of the world where it makes sense for them and for us.
For CRE, their first priority is obviously to develop Heineken in China rather than Snow outside China, because the cost benefit is obviously in favor of doing the latter, as you can imagine.
Yeah. Okay, thank you. Just one other follow-up, maybe, as a follow-up to an earlier question. Beyond the provisions in the license agreement, are there any conflict resolution or governing mechanisms which will be put into place should there be a disagreement beyond the usual license agreement parameters?
Everything which is contractual will not be disclosed, it is customary always to have mechanisms of dispute put in place at all levels where you sign an agreement. That is pretty customary. Those things are not disclosed.
Okay. The agreement is signed in Hong Kong or China?
There are agreements signed at multiple levels, Tristan. I'm going to try to get me out of my desire not to answer your questions. Otherwise, in general, at all levels where contracts are put in place, there are dispute mechanisms set in place, and they can be under different jurisdictions.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you, Jean.
At the same time, it's a non-binding agreement, so not all details are yet made public.
Great. All right. Thank you.
Thank you, Tristan.
The next question in the queue comes from the line of Simon Hales from Citi. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, Jean. Three questions, please, from me. Firstly, if I understood your comments correctly, in the short term, I think you were basically saying that the CRH JV probably won't be making a lot of net profit for you because you'll be reinvesting back into the business. Therefore, the income stream that you will see in the short term is probably more reliant on the equity interest you'll have indirectly in CRE. Therefore, your exposure short term is more geared to the dynamics of the mainstream beer market in China, perhaps. Now, is that correct? How do you think about growth and what assumptions you're making about the outlook for the mainstream beer category in China at the moment? Secondly, if you could just clarify again your comments around management control.
I think you said that you will put people into management of the CRH business, but you're not intending to have any real direct influence at the CRE level. Thirdly and finally, where do you expect to finance this deal from? Will you raise debt locally in Hong Kong or China, or do you think you'll be raising in U.S. or other places?
First question, I noted it down. I come out from a long flight from Hong Kong, try to concentrate here. You're right to say that if you would look at the flows, perhaps more will come in the short term from the dividend above the royalty. That is a correct and logical assumption of yours, though we will not give the exact kind of things coming out of it. The link you make it to the growth of CRB in itself. The growth of CRB and also its profitability will come again from, as you said correctly, how they go about the mainstream and if they can increase their market share in the mainstream. Essentially, how they can increase their share in the premium end of the market, which in itself also brings, in principle, a better profitability.
There is a third leg, perhaps, where CRB will certainly concentrate on improving its level of operations. That is for CRB to do. CRB is a listed company, you will be able to follow it, invest in it, as we are doing. We have the belief that this company has a very strong management team, that in the future they will continue to develop themselves well. That leads me to your second question about management control. No, we don't speak about any management control here. We speak about board seats. Board seats by definition are positions of influence, not necessarily of control, and in this case, certainly not of control.
The board seats will be distributed at various level that CBO, which is a closed stock company between CRE, China Resources Enterprise and Heineken, we would be having the possibility to nominate a board member in CRB, the stock listed company in Hong Kong. In the management of the operating company in Beijing, there we don't put people in the management. It's only at board positions that we nominate people, not in the management. Also our board of the Snow company there is a board where you appoint a representative, but the management, in the management team, we will not have any representation. We don't seek any representation. Our collaboration and partnership will be supported by a team on the ground in Beijing, focused on brand support and quality support for the Heineken brand in the first place.
For the financing debt, I have to admit that I will have to leave to the sagacity of Laurence what the mix will be. We will finance it by debt, the net outflow, because we will receive, if the transaction goes, again, we are speaking here about a non-binding terms of the transaction. We would have then an inflow of the sale of Heineken China to CRB, and we would have a cash inflow from the sale of our treasury shares to CRE, and we will have a cash outflow to buy ourselves into CBL, the holding company of CRB, with a see-through price of the share price, which has been published in our non-binding agreement. If you net it all out, as was given by our press release, you have a cash outflow of, out of my head, EUR 1.945 billion, which will be financed by debt.
Thanks very clear. Thank you.
We have no further questions in the queue. Please be reminded, if you want to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad now. We have another question coming through the line of Edward Mundy from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Hi, Jean-François. I think in the release you mentioned that beyond Heineken, there are other brands within the portfolio that would travel well within China. At this early stage, are you able to comment as to which brands could do very well? In particular, you can see within the pricing architecture for international brands, some of the Kronenbourg Blanc of this world, Heineken are at a very high price point. Do you see opportunities to really play in that space as well?
In a nutshell, yes. Once again, we are in a non-binding stage of the agreement, where the bulk of the partnership drives around the elements we have published about, and the center of gravity of the development for both us as partners in CRB is the development of the Heineken brand. That's the lion's share of the attention. That is where the focus on the management should go. That withstanding, we will see, together with the management of CRB, what for other opportunities they deem fit to grow in craft segments and all these further enhancement of improving the position in the premium segment. You have to be aware that this is an organization that has been the absolute champion of the mainstream market. Absolute champion. They are best in class, and they're great.
They're also very cognizant that they will have to take on a premium branded portfolio. It's something new. I have no doubt that they will do it well. We also have to be realistic that you don't have to start with 20 things at the same time. You have to start with where the benefits will come out the clearest and the soonest, and that is with the Heineken brand. All the rest, we'll see.
Thank you.
The next question comes from the line of Adriaan de van Otterloo from IVI. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. First of all, Jean-François, congratulations with the deal. It looks and it seems excellent. I wish you a good night's sleep after this call. Just on the investments, the three breweries you're selling, are you selling them at cost? Were they the book value was at about HKD 2.4 billion? Thank you.
Thank you, Adriaan. I don't think we say that. Let's put it that way. We would be above the book value. We will not suffer any book losses on that one, certainly not. That is not a concern at all. It's a fair value for what the business is in terms of what the assets are and what they're worth to our partner.
Okay, we have the next question in the queue from the line of Liana Buck from Finance. Please go ahead.
Hi, thanks for taking my question. ABI and Carlsberg are also trying to promote their premium brands and win this market. How would you go about competing with their strong brands marketing wise, and what regions will you focus on?
You mean the regions in China?
Yes.
Well, if you look at the map and somewhere in our presentation, I have to look on my iPad, which slide it was. That's slide number 14 in our presentation. You look at where our business is as Heineken, and you see that you have a few provinces. Fujian is one, which is in dark green. This is where we have the strongest positions, and you see in green where we are and where we kind of have a position. If you find Heineken elsewhere in China, you will find it, but it's very erratic. We have been concentrating on these regions, which are depicted here, Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangsu provinces, and Hainan. We have been growing nicely.
That picture, which you see and which is applicable to these limited set of provinces, you have to think in all the other provinces where CRB has a good grip of. That gives you just an idea of how you can grow the Heineken brand. Now, that's not going to happen overnight. With the sheer presence of CRB across China, with many strongholds, at least in 20 provinces, as is depicted in the slide 11, that gives you then a little bit the kind of an idea of how that development can be done. Now, today, in the premium segment, you don't have that big of a choice for the Chinese consumer.
Adding Heineken is adding one brand more to the portfolio, and I think that with the image and the strong equity scores that Heineken has in its strongholds as a proxy, we and CRB also thinks that we can win share going forward in that nascent and developing premium segment.
Okay, thank you.
The next question in the queue comes from the line of Robert Jan Vos from ABN AMRO. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good morning, Jean-François. A couple of questions. Do you have any view on how long it could take before you can close the transaction? I know it's dependent on a lot of things, but maybe your best guesstimate on that. A second question. In the press release, you say that you expect it to be accretive to EPS in the near term. How long post-closure do you expect it to take before the deal is EPS accretive? When talking about this deal, do you then take that EUR 1.9 billion as the net investment, or should we exclude the cross transaction with the CRE from that in order to calculate when it will be EPS accretive? Thank you.
For the last part of the question, I will have to ask the team to give me the correct technical answer, and they are listening in with me. The timing of closing. As you can imagine, the parties intend to close as fast as possible. We need still to do some contractual work going forward, like is customary in every contract. The only time lag that you can have is the approval of the Chinese antitrust authorities. That is the only real thing that we cannot totally say, but that can be anything between two and four months. Frankly, what I observe, they tend to be at the safe and, not slow, but they take their time. It's very difficult to predict, but we hope before the end of the year. We both hope, CRB and ourselves, we hope will be before the end of the year.
I would add that, of course, the people at CRB, the operating company, the sooner the better. Pim, did you note the second question? Chris?
I just sent you a quick message on the phone.
As you can see, I'm not so good in the messaging.
In essence, the details are all captured in the press release. We are selling treasury shares. The number of treasury shares are outstanding increases, so obviously that has an impact. Can you repeat your question just to be clear?
Yeah. When you talk about EPS accretion, there's the number, the net investment of EUR 1.945 billion, but that includes, of course, the payments by CRB for the treasury shares. Is that fair to include, or should we look at the number x that payment in order to be able to calculate EPS accretion?
Nope, that's fair to include.
Okay. The question on the EPS accretion in the near term, what do you mean by the near term? Post-closure, how long would it take before it becomes EPS accretive?
We're not giving specific details on that at the moment as it's a non-binding agreement and that some things are subject to change. We will give you a further update closer to the finalizing event.
All right. Thank you.
We keep near term as near term. You know what it means.
Yeah, clear.
It's not long term, and it's also not short term, but to be more precise than that, we don't want to be at this moment in time.
Very clear. Thank you.
There are no further questions in the queue, I will hand you back to you, Jean, for any concluding remarks.
I thank you for having taken the time without any further planning to attend this call. I hope it's all clear, and we hope for that we can make this deal come through as soon as possible. We're very excited about the future that CRB and ourselves can create for all our businesses. Thank you very much for your attendance today and here, and see you soon. Thank you. Bye-bye now. Operator, thank you very much for organizing the call.
Thank you. Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your handset.