Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for holding and welcome to the PostNL Q1 2022 earnings call. At this moment, all participants are in listen only mode, and after the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Now, I would like to hand over the conference to Mr. van de Laarschot. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, and good morning, everyone. We are here with Herna Verhagen , our CEO, and Pim Berendsen , our CFO, to talk you through the press release that we have issued this morning regarding the first quarter results in 2022. Pim will open up with the slides, and after that, we will follow up with Q&A. Pim, over to you, please.
Yeah. Thank you, Jochem, and welcome to all of you. Thanks for joining us today. Let's start with our key takeaways. Well, currently, the war in Ukraine remains deeply concerning, severely impacting millions of people and bringing additional uncertainty to the overall global economic markets. We do see impact on consumer spending. We also seem to see a shift towards services a bit away from products, increasing inflation, which leads to higher costs. Supply chain issues remain, and due to the zero COVID policies in China, there's new lockdowns. These developments have and certainly will impact PostNL, not only in the first quarter of this year but also going forward. On the picture of this slide, you see that a number of trucks drove to the border of the Ukraine to deliver necessary goods like food, hygiene products, and childcare articles to the Red Cross.
These goods were donated by our customers, our partners, and also by our own people. Also, you see Mila, our colleague from Ukraine, who on behalf of PostNL, handed over a EUR 500,000 check towards Giro555. Now, if we look at our Q1 performance, we've reported a EUR 33 million normalized EBIT and a 52 million free cash flow. Given the circumstances, solid results. The first two months of the year were completely in line with our expectations. Since late February, early March, we experienced the effects of the more challenging market environment, putting pressure on cost levels and e-commerce volumes. Overall parcel volumes were down 19.5%, approximately 4% more down than our expectations. Obviously, the big step down relates to less non-recurring volumes compared to 2021, when we saw a record quarter level of 108 million parcels.
The decline was also due to development in cross-border activities. If we adjust for this, we see solid growth of around 11% of our domestic volumes. Here we also see the slowdown since late February. Mail was in line with expectations. We do see a continuation of substitution, but at the same time, good results in the mail division. While the situation brings additional uncertainty, we keep executing on our strategy with strong cash flow performance of EUR 52 million, and we are progressing on our ESG, as well as our digitalization programs. If we then move to the next slide, we see the Q1 performance on the key value drivers. Revenue came in at EUR 806 million, which is 16% below. There's a few important elements to note, for this comparison.
large part of this step-down in revenue is prominently as a consequence of the lower non-recurring volume. Next to that, and that's also what we talked about before, the first part of 2021, Q1 and Q2 had very high volume and revenues from cross-border, and due to the change in regulations, that has partially been reversed. Next to that, we still envisage supply chain disruptions because of the zero-COVID policies in China. Last year, we also sold Cendris customer contact that in that year, in that quarter, contributed EUR 40 million to revenues. Normalized EBIT came in at EUR 33 million, with only a very limited impact assumed to be non-recurring and related to COVID-19 this year. Where last year we saw a plus of EUR 42 million.
As expected, around -EUR 50 million i mpact on normalized EBIT from cross-border activities, resulting from change of that regulation for small non-EU goods and other regulation in China, together with the global supply chain issues we just talked about. Compared to last year, we also saw our organic cost increase by EUR 21 million, reflecting regular labor cost increases, higher cost for delivery partners, and a spike in fuel costs. The EUR 21 million is approximately EUR 2 million more than we anticipated at the beginning of the year. As said, despite the decrease compared to last year, free cash flow was strong. Also in this quarter, we started the execution of our share buyback program. By the end of the first quarter, we've repurchased EUR 6.6 million shares, and last week, Monday, we were at roughly EUR 24 million shares for approximately EUR 79 million.
Good progress has been made on the buyback program. Before we go into the business development and more detailed financial performances, I would like to spend a few words on our strategic business drivers. As said, we are continuing to execute on our strategy. We keep focusing on providing our customers on excellent experience and making our organization more sustainable, building on our strong financial position. On slide five, you see our value creation model that we've discussed a couple of times before, and it's important to briefly touch upon this once more. Our ambition is clear. We want to be the leading logistics and postal solutions provider into and from the Benelux. To live up to that ambition, we have defined three clearly defined value creation propositions. Parcels, we'll manage for profitable growth. Mail, we'll manage for value.
Digital Next, our third proposition, is aimed to strengthen our competitive position by further building on our platform and connecting customers, consumers, and solutions through simple and smart digital solutions. For these propositions, we've defined clear strategic objectives, which you can find on the left. We've set ambitious targets to improve our environmental footprint. Last but not least, we intend to generate profitable growth and sustainable cash flow. If we now move to slide six, then clearly ESG is, of course, part of this strategy. It's our license to operate, and we focus on all three factors of ESG and have embedded these fully in our strategy. We aim to improve our environmental impact and deliver all parcels and letters in the Benelux emission-free in the last mile by 2030.
In the first quarter of this year, we further reduced our environmental footprint by increasing our carbon efficiency by 15%. Clearly, and without any doubt, our people are a key factor in our success. Negotiations on the new collective labor agreement for our postal deliverers are well on the way, and we should anticipate conclusions there in relatively short term. We also aim to be a solid and socially responsible partner and work with highly satisfied delivery partners and deliverers in a compliant and sustainable way. We apply sound and social labor practices that comply with the relevant legal framework and are in line with common practice, both in the transport sector as well as in the broader economy. A few words on Belgium on the next slide.
In Belgium, it's important to note that we work with 220 delivery partners, that they employ around 1,500 deliverers. The vast majority of those work on fixed employment contracts under collective labor agreements with safe and compliant working conditions. 93% of the delivery partners we work with in Belgium are satisfied to very satisfied with the cooperation with PostNL. We use strict controls and apply the legal framework that is used in many sectors in Belgium. For example, also for the Port of Antwerp, as a basis of the way we work. We already had strict controls in place and tightened this even further after the first allegations came in. We currently do a 100% check at the gate every morning. As such, we do not recognize ourselves completely in the allegations.
All the checks have been carried out, and they do not substantiate those either. We stand behind our people in Belgium, without a doubt. These are surely not easy times for us and for them. We have confidence in the legal process and in the independent investigations that's currently being done. In the meantime, all our locations are open, parcels are being delivered every day, and we support our people as much as possible. From ESG towards the acceleration of our digital transformation, as you know, within our Digital Next program, we will further digitalize our commercial engine, transform our core logistics, scale our platforms to find new business models. Progress is well on the way, which is very nice for us is that we've recently been named number four in the digital transformation leader index by Deloitte and the University of Amsterdam.
For sure, something that we're proud of. On slide nine, you find the progress on our key digital value drivers. I'm not gonna spend too much time on them. We're happy with the progress we're making. Maybe interesting to note is that we've introduced a new algorithm that will optimize the packaging of products and as such, take out air in packaging around 20%. We're employing this algorithm right now in our own fulfillment activities, seek to improve it, and as such, also contribute to our carbon emission ambitions. Sorry. Now let's look into our business development and financial performance in a little bit more detail.
On slide 11, you find the bridge of the normalized EBIT comparison Q1 2021 towards 2022. It's a reconciliation of a EUR 130 million result last year and EUR 33 million in this quarter. Here you see that a non-recurring impact of COVID had a negative impact of EUR 41 million this quarter. This quarter, the impact in parcels was - EUR 2 million, compared with a + EUR 24 million last year. At Mail, also, the comparison shows a negative compared to last year, EUR 3 million positive this quarter compared to EUR 18 million last year, so a delta of EUR 15 million. The negative impact that's in parcels is mainly driven by the almost no non-recurring volumes in 2022, while at Mail in the Netherlands, the impact is mainly driven by a negative mix as last year, so a lot of single and e-commerce items.
This brings us to a remaining - EUR 56 million in business development in the first quarter. This business development, cleaned for non-recurring COVID impacts, reflects a couple of items that I already touched upon and which I would further highlight. Although our direct exposure to fuel cost is limited, it does have a material impact on results. In Q1, we see a EUR 21 million organic cost increase, which also includes labor costs, and this is EUR 22 million more than we anticipated. These costs will come back in our segments, parcels and mail in the Netherlands, in more detail when I go through those slides. It also includes higher costs for expansion of capacity, Digital Next, and higher IFRS expenses, as expected and as indicated before.
The development of our cross-border activities as a result of change in regulation of the value-added tax in comparison with the strong quarter of last year is another argument. Here we see a negative impact both at parcels and mail. While we believe the overall effect is partially temporarily, recovery will be impacted by the new lockdowns in China. If you go to the parcels segment, at parcels, we've reported a revenue of EUR 554 million in comparison to EUR 662 million last year. Normalized EBIT came in at EUR 18 million compared to 92. This basically reflects a - EUR 26 million related to non-recurring COVID and EUR 48 million less driven by other business and operational effects. The most important ones relate to a step-down in volume and higher organic costs.
The volume declined by 19.5%, reflecting lower non-recurring items. We kept the market share stable, and if we look at the volume development, excluding the non-recurring COVID impact, we see a growth of approximately 4%. If we then subsequently exclude our international volumes, we saw a domestic growth of 11% for the quarter, and clearly March was there significantly more negative than January or February. Growth in e-commerce-related volumes continued, and I said a slowdown was visible as of the start of the war in Ukraine. The revenue at Spring was down while logistics stayed relatively stable. This is partly related to non-recurring COVID and at Spring, of course, due to the cross-border developments, compared to a strong last year. As a result of the lower volumes, we do some temporarily under.
We do see some temporarily underutilization of capacity in the first quarter. This we are counterbalancing by scaling operations down with actual volume development, with the aim to keep the direct cost per parcel stable. If we then look at the Q1 2022 normalized EBIT bridge for parcels, you see the EUR 92 million compared with the EUR 18. There is a volume effect of EUR 87 million, largely balanced by EUR 48 million of lower volume-dependent costs as we are scaling down operations to align with lower volumes. A large increase in organic cost of EUR 16 million, reflecting regular labor cost increases and a higher cost for delivery parcels, but certainly also a significant increase in fuel costs. The spikes that we are seeing right now have materially impacted quarterly results.
In March, we've given our delivery partners a one-time compensation for this spike, and those costs have been included in this bucket. Higher network costs, mainly related to new capacity and temporarily underutilization of our networks, have been balanced by various other cost impacts. Last year, for example, we paid around EUR 10 million additional fees to retailers to keep their shops open during the lockdown. Whereas this year, lockdown, and therefore our compensation, ended in January. The bucket other result was negative as well, reflecting, among others, a negative result at Spring as a result of the cross-border development and our non-recurring COVID impact and very strong performance in Q1 last year, both at Spring and Logistics. Let's move over to Mail.
At Mail in the Netherlands, we report EUR 387 million in comparison to EUR 466 million last year. Normalized EBIT came in at EUR 36 million in comparison to EUR 59 million last year. This basically reflects a - EUR 15 million related to non-recurring COVID-19 and EUR 8 million less driven by other business effects. In our opinion, a solid quarter for mail. Substitution continued at 7.4%. Stamp prices were unchanged in 2022. In Q1 of this year, we see a negative development in our mix, which is mainly the result of the single and e-commerce items last year that were largely related to COVID-19 and thus non-recurring. As always, but now even more than in normal times, we keep a close eye on our cost. In Q1, we realized additional cost savings by increasing efficiency and among others, our collection and sorting processes.
More detail on that reconciliation can be found on slide 15. A decrease of EUR 23 million or 8 million when correcting for non-recurring COVID. The results over the quarter reflect EUR 22 million negative volume impact, negative price mix of 9%, organic cost increases of 5%, partly balanced by lower volume dependent costs and other costs. The latter is a result of the additional cost savings and improvements in other costs, and amongst them, positive impact from bilaterals. Now, moving to our cash flow performance. A negative development compared with Q1 last year, however, still a very strong performance for the quarter. Last year's cash flow included proceeds from the sale of Cendris of EUR 44 million, which with the book profit was included within the normalizations and the proceeds in at the lower end of the bridge.
Q1 this year, we see additional investments in the acceleration for the stabilization and expansion of capacity, with the latter being scaled down over the remainder of the year to adjust it in line with volume projections. Also, we see a favorable working capital development that we already saw by the end of last year, and we somehow expected it to be reversing. We managed to keep it at a very solid level. A little bit of that will be phasing, but still happy with the free cash flow performance for the quarter. In line with our capital allocation model, we've announced the share buyback program. As I said, by now, we've approximately repurchased 24 million shares.
Every Tuesday morning, we publish an update of the program, and the additional cash out in relation to this, roughly EUR 79 million of already repurchased shares will be visible over the next months in our cash flow statements. You know that we financed the share buyback program by using the cash of our balance sheet, which then brings me to the balance sheet. Here you see, the key components of the balance sheet and the development of the adjusted net debt from EUR 203 million net debt by the end of the year to EUR 188 million at the end of the quarter. Still a very strong balance sheet, both with equity and a leverage ratio well below two.
In Q2, please take into account that our adjusted net debt position will be impacted by the progress of our share buyback program and the payout of the final dividend over 2021, which will then impact materially our adjusted net debt position by the end of next quarter. Let's go to the expectations for the full year of 2022. At the presentation of our Q4 and full year 2021 numbers on the twenty-eighth of February, we expect the normalized EBIT in the range of EUR 210 million- 240 million, compared with EUR 226 million normalized EBIT, corrected for non-recurring COVID impact in 2021. A free cash flow of EUR 110 million- 140 million, with normalized comprehensive income of around EUR 200 million. Unfortunately, the world looks different today.
It's gonna be a year that's gonna be more challenging than earlier anticipated. What has changed since then? We see the ongoing war in Ukraine, increasing inflationary pressure, and new lockdowns in China. Although the direct impact of the war is very limited, we, as many other companies do, experience impact through the macroeconomic environment and increasing uncertainty. Fuel and energy costs continue to rise as pressure on labor costs. We also see an impact in consumer spending. All this has a more direct impact on us. So do the new lockdowns in China that result in ongoing supply chain constraints, postponing partially the recovery in our cross-border activities. While monitoring these developments closely, we are implementing measures to mitigate potential impact and adapt our operational structure accordingly.
However, we've chosen to absorb the increase in costs where we can while scaling our operations to align with volume development at parcels. As well as aligning the CapEx investment levels with the volume projections we currently see. Of course, we closely monitor our market share that has remained stable during the first quarter. Based on our Q1 results, the more challenging economic environment with less visibility on e-commerce developments that we assume to continue throughout the second quarter of the year, we now anticipate more or less flat volume development at parcels, previously 3%-5% growth. A further increase in organic costs, including inflationary cost pressure on fuel and labor costs of approximately EUR 50 million, of which the biggest component certainly is fuel related.
We do expect additional impact on cross-border activities of not being able to connect new customers in China, and the adversities on the trade line China to Europe as a consequence of the zero-COVID policies of Chinese government. As a result, we have to adjust our full year 2022 outlook for normalized EBIT to EUR 170 million- 210 million. We can, however, confirm our full year cash flow outlook, and we will continue our strict working capital management and scale down investments in parts of capacity to adjust to lower volume expectations. The free cash flow outlook will remain EUR 110 million- 140 million. Normalized comprehensive income will develop in line with normalized EBIT. Slide 22 indicates the quarterly split of the normalized EBIT over the various quarters of the year.
You know that we've been very transparent in 2020, 2022 on the non-recurring COVID impact, and that we've taken out in this comparison, but obviously it does still play an important role when comparing the numbers for 2021 with 2022. Despite the adjusted outlook, the story is the same as on the twenty-eighth of February. This means that we'll basically go back to a normal seasonal pattern in 2022, which basically means a lower result in the first half of the year, and then gradually improving margins in Q3 and Q4, also on the back of partial recovery of cross-border and cost savings in mail in the Netherlands in the second half of the year. To conclude, it's obviously very, very difficult to determine the longer term consequences of the situation in Ukraine and what the impact on the macroeconomic drivers will be.
There's a lot of uncertainties, and given the fact that we've seen a quarter with two months that were in line with expectations and one that wasn't, it's not easy to predict how e-commerce volumes will develop. At the same time, higher inflationary costs push up costs in the supply chain that we have to absorb as well. Therefore, unfortunately, but driven by those market circumstances, we have to adjust the outlook for the year to EUR 110 million- 120 million. We are very positive about our strategy. We'll not waver on the implementation and the pace of execution on that strategic transformation. We're positive about the future prospects for PostNL. That concludes my presentation on Q1. Thank you all, and back to you, Jochem.
Thank you very much, Pim. I'm handing over to the operator to manage any incoming questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will start the question and answer session now. If you have a question, please press star one on your telephone. Star one for your questions. The first question is from Mr. Frank Claassen, Degroof Petercam. Your line is open. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, good morning, all. Two questions. First of all, on the parcels volumes, could you roughly indicate how much lower March was versus Jan and Feb? Also maybe the April volumes, are they already? How do they compare to March? Could you already indicate how these developments look? Then secondly, on the CapEx, you've indicated that you're gonna adapt in line with the volumes in parcels. If I'm not mistaken, you indicated with the full year EUR 160 million-1 70 million. What could we roughly expect? Is it EUR 10 million-20 million adjustment, or some words on that, please? Thank you.
Thank you. Well, on the January, February, so numbers above and beyond the 11% domestic growth that we saw for the quarter, predominantly in January. Basically, how we look at it is that March was in line with expectations, and bear in mind that January, Feb were in line with our expectations, roughly speaking, EUR 4 million items off our own expectation. We do see a continuation of that run rate from March into April.
Okay.
If we then talk about the CapEx, then, well, we basically adjusted the CapEx levels at parcels. Obviously some commitments have already been made and as such, they are not flexible. But you need to think about, roughly speaking, EUR 15 million- 20 million less CapEx for the year in comparison to our original expectations.
Okay. That's those are clear answers. Thank you very much.
The next question is from Mr. Marco Limite, Barclays. Your line is open. Please go ahead, sir.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is on your outlook for the full year on parcel volumes. You're now guiding for flattish volumes year-on-year, but clearly you had a pretty soft start of the year. Could you explain what's your assumption for the second half of the year in terms of volume growth? My second question is a bit more generic. If you could please explain to us how the contracts with your logistics partners works in the Netherlands. You clearly had to pay the extra compensation in March, I guess for higher fuel costs, but I was wondering if there is also an indexation for higher wage costs as well.
My third question is about your 2022 outlook and specifically for the second half of the year. You are clearly guiding for a step up margin in the second half of the year, but can you please, you know, remind us which are the drivers of these higher cost savings in the second half? So if you could give us a few example about that. Okay, thanks.
Thank you. Well, first question relates to the assumptions on full year parcel volumes. There we need to make sure that we start the comparison right. On a reported level, we projected originally 3%-5% volume growth in parcel segment. We now have rolled this back to around 0%. If you look at the first quarter, the first quarter on a reported level still shows a growth of 3.9%. If we were to go back in the second part of the year to roughly speaking the growth levels that we saw January, February, we come back to the almost flattish volume development of parcels for the full year.
In other words, what we've assumed a continuation of the run rate of March throughout the entire second quarter and then gradually coming back to the normal patterns in Q3 and Q4. What also contributes to that overall development is that clearly the comparisons on cross-border are very negative in Q1, Q2 2020, while international will show significant growth in Q3, Q4 in comparison to those quarters last year. That is related to the assumptions on volume. How do the contracts with our delivery partners look like? They don't have the same term, so they're up for renewal on various moments in time.
There are mechanisms in place that increases in labor cost or increases in other relevant cost components that are part of the NEA index will carry through to different tariffs for our delivery partners, as and when contracts are up for renewal. What is different though is that given the abnormal spike in fuel costs, we felt we need to do something extra, and preempt those contract renewals by making sure that our delivery partners can still create a positive margin with their business, and that's why we've given them a compensation in the first quarter, and we expect to continue with that for the higher fuel prices. That's not necessarily based on contract agreements, but just as we felt it was appropriate to do so.
A big step up in the cost in the beginning of the year will over time become more productive. Volume in parcels will grow, as I said, in third quarter and fourth quarter, and in the mail side, we will see a step up in cost savings, just as a run rate of initiatives already being undertaken, as well as additional cost saving programs that we'll take. Confident that surely the margins will improve in the second part of the year.
Thank you.
The next question is from Mr. Marc Zwartsenburg , ING. Your line is open. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, thank you for taking my questions. First of all, Pim, I would like to come back on also the parcel volumes and trends. I didn't get exactly what you said regarding January, February versus March, April. Can you maybe remind me a bit on what you indicated as the trend difference of those two? And then maybe looking to the outlook also, keeping it with parcel volumes, you reported -19.5%, and you're indicating flat year-over-year reported. That means that you have to catch up a lot in the second half. That actually means that in underlying ex-COVID, you should go back to sort of double-digit mid-teen sort of trends. Is that indeed what you're expecting to see, well, basically for Q4?
'Cause I see the seasonal guidance through the year is not indicating any improvement in Q2, Q3 yet. So, that means that you put a lot of growth into Q4. Can you maybe help me a bit with understanding your underlying trend you see in parcels in your outlook, what you assume there? On the cost side, you indicated that you have included extra compensation for fuel also in your outlook. Are you also assuming bigger cost savings in your outlook? Can you maybe give a bit more indication of on the cost side, what the building blocks are in terms of what you put in there in terms of inflationary pressure and what you put in there in terms of cost savings?
On your net working capital, can you give us a bit of an indication what you expect for the full year there? 'Cause your receivables came down quite a bit. Can you give us a bit of an indication on the net working capital trend? Yeah, my last question, for now at least. You trim your CapEx for this year because you have some underutilization. You see the volume trend being quite a bit lower, consumer confidence is lower, the world looks a bit different. We have higher cost inflation. What does it mean for your guidance for 2024? 'Cause you alluded to in February still that the EUR 450 maximum CapEx is still applicable, and that we should not assume something hugely different.
Yeah, you're scaling down this year. The world looks different since end of Feb. Our starting point for next year is lower inflation, et cetera. Can you give us a bit more color on the guidance for 2024, where the compensation should come from to get there? That's it for now. Thanks.
All right. On parcel volume assumption, and be sure to remind me, Mark, if I somehow missed the question. Trend of January, February. January and February were significant growth months and a significant decline in March. As said, what I said on one of the earlier questions was that, let's say January and February were in line with our expectations. March was off, and off by approximately EUR 4 million in terms of volume. Roughly speaking, EUR 1 million a week, and that is currently also the trend line that we have seen in April.
Indeed, we do expect in the second part of the year double-digit growth again, helped by domestic growth, basically going back to the growth levels that we saw in January, February, and above and beyond that, also international growth rather than international decline that we see in Q1 and Q2 of the year. Basically, we've taken the entire second quarter with the run rate of March and April. Roughly speaking, 1 million a week less volume than originally anticipated, and then going back to the growth levels. Because all in all, we still do believe that the key drivers behind growth are GDP growth and online penetration. Even the latest cues still indicate real GDP growth for the Netherlands. I've got no indication that online penetration will come down.
We do indeed expect growth for the second part of the year. If we were to take the run rate of the quarter and not even assume an improvement there on the second part of the year, you would end up maybe with slightly lower volumes than zero, but still within the bandwidth of the EUR 170 million-210 million. But as said, we do currently expect the growth come back to double digits in the second part of the year. On costs, we have not changed approach to our digital transformation.
We execute the plans in accordance with what we wanted to do, which means that we've not introduced additional cost savings and basically absorbed currently the higher organic costs that we see driven by, for the biggest part, higher fuel costs and a little bit higher labor costs. There is a lagging effect there. We are not changing our commercial rates at this point in time. We're not putting surcharges for fuel on our price points. Given the fact that in these uncertain times, we wanna keep our market share stable, but certainly through indexation drivers in our commercial contracts, we do expect a step up in prices from 2022 to 2023. That will be higher than in other normal inflation situations would be the case. That is, I think the answer on slide or question three on the appendices.
Working capital development, we do expect for the full year to retain part of the positive development that you've seen in the first quarter, but there's also gonna be a bit of phasing. We still do expect an investment of working capital of, I would say, around about the EUR 50 million mark for the full year. On the overall additional CapEx of EUR 450 that we introduced in summer 2021. Mark, as said, we've always said that additional CapEx in parcels is a function of volume expectations, and we're not gonna be one big investment decision, but very many different ones. Now that we currently see lower volume, albeit in very uncertain times, to really predict how long it will take, whether or not the composition will change.
We've adjusted the CapEx for this year downward with the level that I just set, but it's too early days to say how that will actually impact 2023 and beyond. Certainly the general comment remains valid. If we see lower volume growth, the CapEx levels will be adjusted accordingly. If I'm not mistaken, and then at least I've covered your five questions now.
Absolutely, Pim. Thank you very much. I might have a follow-up later on. Thank you.
Okay.
The next question is from Mr. Henk Slotboom The Idea. Your line is open.
Yeah, good morning, all. Thanks for taking my questions. Apparently, I've got the same cough as Pim. Couple of questions. Well, first of all, on Spring. If I listen to your story correctly, then the recovery in the fourth quarter is partly due to an expected recovery in domestic parcels and a sharp recovery in international parcels. What makes you so sure? No, let me rephrase that. To what extent is this a return to normal? Are we going to see the same kind of volumes for Spring coming from Asia as we did, sorry, as we did in the past? The second question I had relates to the costs in Belgium.
In contrast to what we've seen in the Netherlands, there is an automatic inflation correction in Belgium. If I understood it correctly, last Friday, your colleagues from Belgium reported that they have to increase the salaries by six times 2%. That's 12%. Is that something you see back in the prices you have to pay to your Belgian subcontractors as well? Is there this same clause as you use in the Netherlands? Perhaps you can clarify that. Then I'm looking at slide 17 of the presentation on the share buyback. It says with big letters underneath it, neutralizing the assumed dilutive impact for the dividends over 2021 and 2023.
Now, I've looked at the conversion ratio of your latest dividend, the final dividend over 2021. That was EUR 0.28. And then the conversion price for a share lies at 4.33%. I've been doing some quick and dirty calculations. Assuming that 40% of the stockholders or the 40% of the shares have opted for the stock dividend, that increased the shares by about EUR 55 million altogether. Well, for the same amount at today's share price, you can buy back 20.4 million shares as opposed to the EUR 12.7 million shares you issued. My question is how hard is the EUR 250 million figure?
I can imagine that if things deteriorate, if the environment deteriorates rapidly, that you can put it on hold and that sort of things. Assuming that nothing special happens, the share price stays where it is, EUR 250 million, is that still the figure you're going for this year and the next year?
Yeah, indeed, we have the same cough. I don't know how it happened. Bear with me, and then I'll try to properly answer your questions. On Spring, there's a couple of elements there. We saw really the best ever quarters last year for cross-border in Q1 and Q2. Those were driven and preempting the first of the July changes. We've seen in Q3 and Q4 a slower recovery than we then anticipated, also driven by higher freight costs, which just made Chinese e-commerce parties less competitive in comparison to, well, European domestic e-tailers and retailers. Transit times were up, freight costs higher, and value-added tax, and those three elements together have done something with the competitive position of these players in the market.
At the same time, we do expect, also because those comparisons are relatively low, the growth on these trade lanes driven by the market share that we have. What is difficult though, and that is what I've mentioned as one of the three elements that are underpinning the adjustment of the normalized EBIT adjustment, is that given the zero-COVID policy in China, it's very difficult to, let's say, create new business opportunities at this moment in time. Our staff are restrained from traveling. There's scarcity at certain products that limit the opportunity to create an even bigger customer base. But nevertheless, indeed, for Q3 and Q4, we do expect significant growth, predominantly for the trade lines that Spring serves.
It's really you talk about very significant double-digit growth for Q3 and Q4. If you talk about the delivery partners in Belgium, then in Belgium, indeed, I don't know actually if there's an English word for it, but through the paritaire comités that basically determine the labor conditions, salary levels, there are automatic increases on the labor rates. That is true, and certainly PostNL will follow the mandatory changes in those adjustments, like anybody else in the industry does. The term of these paritaire comités are not necessarily the same and aligned to the periods they refer to as bpost. All in all, the mechanism works the same. The moments in time when they need to be applied can vary.
Let's finish off by saying that all mandatory expected inflation levels are part of this outlook that we've given this morning. Then on share buyback, I've not done the math exactly as you've done it. But let's be clear, we always said the 250 was kind of an assumed, how do you say that? It intended to compensate the assumed dilutive effect given the dividend policy we have, but we've also been clear that it's fixed. It's two tranches, so there's no plans whatsoever, also not driven by current market situations, to change the amount or postpone the second tranche. None of those whatsoever. I still expect us to buy back the full 250 over the two tranches over the two years.
Hypothetically, you could buy back far more based on the current share price than-
As long as it's within the ranges of the percentages that we can buy back based on the agreements that we've given, that were given to us by our shareholders. Yeah.
Okay. Well, thank you. That's very clear.
The next question is from Mr. Ivar Billfalk-Kelly , UBS. Your line is open. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning. You mentioned that you're making progress with your unions on salary negotiations. If I'm not mistaken, they were due to have been finalized in October of last year. Effectively, does your 1Q result now reflect the expired CLA, or have you made some allowances for effective higher salary? If it doesn't reflect it, is there a risk that there's effectively a catch-up in terms of some back payments for 1Q that haven't been made? Linked to that, I mean, from their releases, I see that they have in the past stated that if you couldn't come to an agreement that they would be forced to take action, whatever that means. Is it fair to assume that there is the risk of industrial action if you can't come to an agreement?
Last, on the mail or stamp and mail, the parcel capacity for the overall market, I mean, where does that stand now relative to last year and the year before if you take yourselves and your peers into consideration? If there is meaningfully more capacity in the market, is there a risk that you won't be able to pass on your higher costs to your end customers? Thank you.
Can you please repeat your second question? I've got the first and the last, but I'm not quite sure if I got you right on the second question. Sorry for that.
No, that's okay. From having read some of the union's releases, they said that they might be forced to take action, if you can't come to an agreement soon. Does that imply that there is a risk of industrial action?
Okay. Understood. We are very well progressed with the collective labor negotiations, and we do hope to be able to announce a deal on relatively short notice. Let's say not all the i's are dotted and all the t's crossed, but we're getting very close to an agreement there. The expected agreement has been taken into account in the outlook range that we shared with you. The first quarter employee costs related to postal deliverers are still a function of the old CLA, and the agreement could have retroactive effect backward towards the beginning of this year. As said, the costs associated with that are included in the EUR 170 million- 200 million range.
Well, as we are close, hopefully close to concluding a deal there, that also mitigates the risk of any industrial actions, I would say. On the market share or ability to pass on additional costs to clients, what we're seeing is also in the first quarter of the year that market share has been stable, around about 62%. We are planning to keep it there. As said, we don't want to introduce outside the scope of current agreements that we have now surcharges to pass on fuel costs to clients.
As said, based on the indexation paragraphs in contracts we have, there is obviously an ability to pass on the higher NEA index rates from 2023, and we will seek to be able to do that, because let's say although we absorb those costs within 2022, it's not feasible for us to continue to do so forever and ever. We expect to be able to pass that element on, to clients without impacting, the market share since I think also our competitors are facing the same cost pressures on the same cost items as we do.
That's very good. Thank you.
The next question is from Ms. Muneeba Kayani, Bank of America. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the presentation. Just on the normalized comprehensive income, on the slide there, you don't have a revised number. Is it fair to assume that it will have a similar impact as the EBIT in your new guidance, or is there anything else that we should keep in mind? Just kind of going back to the midterm guidance, you talked about CapEx side of it. How are you thinking about, you know, volumes and margins guidance there, and any kind of update on thinking into 2024? Just following up on this earlier question on the CLAs, is another CLA this year. If you can just remind us kind of what is the timing on that and where you are on that, please. Thank you.
On the normalized comprehensive income, that indeed will follow the relative step down of the normalized EBIT levels. Basically taking three quarters of that step down is roughly the assessment that you need to make to get to the impact on normalized net comprehensive income. I do understand your question on guidance going forward, but that's very difficult at this moment in time. For us, it's too early days to say that. We basically saw March being completely different than January, February. It's not easy yet to split out what the drivers behind that step down in volume in March, April is. Is it, well, consumers temporarily withholding consumer spending? Is it also temporarily a shift to services away from products that will over time come back?
How much is driven by caution of investor and end consumers given higher inflationary elements? It is not easy to predict at this point in time, and it's also why currently we will refrain from giving more insight or guidance just because we can't at this point in time beyond the 2022 borders. On the CLA, you're right. On the PostNL collective labor agreement, so not the one covering the mail deliverers, that contract terminates by, if I'm not mistaken, the first of October of this year. As such, negotiations have not started yet, but are planned for the second part of the year.
Just to follow up, do you assume anything on that CLA in the new guidance?
Sorry, can you repeat the question?
Yes. What do you assume in the new guidance for that CLA impacting the first quarter?
Yeah. I'm not gonna preempt that negotiation, but let's say our best estimate is included in the outlook, but I cannot be more specific. I'm sure you understand, given the fact that negotiations on that CLA still need to start.
Yes, of course. Thank you.
The last question is from Mr. Stefano Toffano, ABN AMRO. Your line is open. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes. Good afternoon, everybody. Many questions already answered, so I will keep it short. One question still regarding the fuel costs. Just to be clear, assuming that fuel prices will remain at these elevated levels, what would that mean for your EUR 50 million that you assumed in your adjusted assumptions for the year? Another question that I have is more a general question. Obviously, and clearly, your guidance assumes somewhat a normalization into H2, but what if, say, inflation keeps hampering consumer confidence and volumes? Do you have a contingency plan in place for this scenario, or are you taking more a wait and see approach, given all the uncertainty in the outlook? Thank you.
Thank you. On fuel prices, what we've assumed for the remainder of the year is roughly speaking, somewhere around EUR 12 million-14 million additional costs in comparison to our first indications at the beginning of the year, driven by higher fuel costs for the remaining quarters of the year. We do expect a gradual, but not fundamental improvement of the diesel fuel prices throughout the months of the year, but still at very high levels on average for the entire year. That is what we've currently assumed and currently have included in the outlook. A consumer price, including value-added tax of, on average around 1.90 L, 1.95 L is what we've assumed. Is there any contingency in place if volume comes down further?
Well, what we do is, as I said, let's say we've scaled down our operations on the back of lower volume. There is obviously a bit of time lag between the moment that you see those lower volumes and the time you need to adjust your logistical footprint on. That's what we're doing. We're scaling that down slightly lower to lower levels than our volume expectation. That's our way to mitigate this partially because it's easier to scale up than scale down. That's our way to manage the uncertainty. We'll follow on dailies and weeklies the volume development. If we do see fundamental changes in comparison to our expectations, we'll take action like we take action each and every time we're put into challenging circumstances. That's the way we look at it.
We think it would be a mistake not to continue with our strategic transformation, and that's why we're not making any amendments to our strategy, nor to our digital transformation programs, because we ultimately truly believe that those elements will create distinctive customer experience and will further strengthen PostNL's market position in comparison to our main competitors. We do not plan to deviate from those at all.
Thank you very much.
There are no further questions. Please continue, Mr. van de Laarschot.
Thank you very much, operator, and thank you all for joining us today. If you have any further or remaining questions, you know where to find the IR team. We look forward to meeting you again, and have a good day. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the event call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you for joining, and have a very nice day.