Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this PostNL call. At this moment, all participants are in a listen-only mode, and after the presentation, there'll be an opportunity to ask questions. Now, I would like to hand over the conference call to Ms. Inge Laudy, Manager Investor Relations. Please go ahead, madam.
Thank you, Operator, and thank you all for joining. As you have seen, we have published a press release this morning with preliminary results for Q4 and full year 2024, ahead of announcing full results on February 24. We will then provide further details on our performance and present our outlook for 2025. But considering today's announcements, we decided to organize this call to give you some explanation on the preliminary results and give you the opportunity to ask questions to our Board of Management. With me in the room are Herna Verhagen, our CEO, and Pim Berendsen, our CFO. Pim, I would like to hand over to you.
Thank you, Inge, and good morning to you all, and thanks for being present on this short notice. As said by Inge, we find it important to have a moment to further explain the preliminary results we published earlier today. Unfortunately, the financial performance turned out to be disappointing. A fully normalized EBIT is expected to come in at around EUR 53 million, which is significantly lower than our earlier guided around EUR 80 million. However, thanks to well-executed cash and balance sheet management, we did achieve our outlook for both free cash flow and normalized comprehensive income. That has brought the leverage ratio at around 1.95, and that means that there's room to pay out a final dividend over 2024. Irrespective of the disappointing financial results, we are very proud that due to the dedication and commitment of our staff, we've had a strong fourth quarter operationally.
Our favorable NPS scores versus competition substantiate this and reaffirm our strong position in the Dutch e-commerce market. Let's now move over to the preliminary results, and please note all numbers are unaudited and subject to change. As set for the full year, normalized EBIT is expected to be around EUR 53 million. Normalized comprehensive income is expected to be around EUR 38 million in line with outlook, and free cash flow is expected to be around EUR 12 million, which is well above our outlook thanks to our focus on CapEx and strict working capital management. Although below our expectations, the results in the fourth quarter, being a normalized EBIT of EUR 62 million and a free cash flow of over EUR 100 million, do show the importance of peak season in our business model.
For Mail in the Netherlands, full year normalized EBIT will be around EUR 19 million, and mind you, this is a decline of over EUR 30 million compared to last year's results. In the quarter, volume decline was 10.6%, mainly related to substitution and partly by last year's election mail. Mix effects were less favorable and have put pressure on margin, mainly due to a larger than anticipated shift to non-24-hour mail and a larger than anticipated decline in seasonal mail. With December obviously still being the largest contributor to the full year results, the results achieved in December were barely sufficient to cover the losses of the previous 11 months of the year. Staff shortages and high illness rates remain a matter of concern and continue to put pressure on our operation.
Total realized cost savings in the fourth quarter amounted to EUR 10 million, bringing the full year savings to around EUR 40 million, which is quite an achievement and exactly what we aimed for. The financial performance of Mail in the Netherlands again underlies that the current business model is no longer sustainable. We repeat that urgent action to adjust the USO, as well as a financial contribution from government, are inevitable to safeguard a future-proof and financially viable postal service, which is still vital for Dutch society. We are therefore continuing to make every effort that is in our own control to address this situation and have taken additional measures. The migration of non-USO Mail in the Netherlands to a standard service level of within two days has started, and we have recently announced that the mailbox collection process will be adjusted.
Then moving over to parcels and its development in the last quarter of the year. Overall, volume growth in the quarter was strong at 10.5%, and we maintained our strong market position. Domestic volumes rose 3.7% and international volumes increased with 42%. Important to understand is that we see a shift to large customer and marketplaces, also among our domestic customers. So this mixed effect and the mixed effect between domestic and international are the main drivers for the shortfall in our results. Accelerating client concentration put further pressure on our margins. Besides this, volume growth in the last two months was slightly below our projections. We've experienced record high volumes during peak days, which were concentrated in a much shorter period than before. This very short peak period came with a less favorable distribution of volume over the days in the peak period than anticipated.
Although the result benefited from efficiency improvements, largely by the adaptive measures taken and discussed before, locked-in cost and limited flexibility in balancing volume and capacity impacted operational leverage. Normalized EBIT is expected to come in at EUR 31 million, yes, lower than expected, but still almost 35% higher than last year. Looking at our other financial KPIs, our focus on CapEx and strict working capital contributed to our cash flow performance, with free cash flow expected at around EUR 12 million. The expected leverage ratio is around 1.95 and provides room for final dividend. That dividend will be based on full year normalized comprehensive income, which is expected to come in at around EUR 38 million. Having said this about the preliminary results, I would like to emphasize that we've put in relentless effort on adopting our operation offerings with ongoing attention for our customers while improving efficiency and capacity utilization.
Nevertheless, we will have to, and will, adjust elements of our strategy as a response to the disappointing financial performance and the changing market dynamics. As a leading player in last-mile delivery in the Benelux region, we are committed to further investments and innovation that will remain high on our agenda to support the growth of the e-commerce market. However, the e-commerce sector has changed, marked by rising costs, a tight labor market, evolving consumer behavior, and client concentration, and has become more mature. At the same time, sustainability and working conditions are becoming more important. These developments will result in a more attractive and more sustainable, yet more costly e-commerce chain. It's a joint responsibility of all players in the chain to address these challenges and to strive for a more balanced distribution of value. On our end, we will respond through yield management improvements to enhance customer value.
We will also pursue strategic initiatives such as further building on international opportunities and accelerating our out-of-home strategy. And obviously, on the 24th of February, we will provide further details on the adjustment of our strategy, the fourth quarter, and full year 2024 results, and at the same time, we will give you an outlook for 2025. Now, I would like to give you the opportunity to ask your questions. So, Operator, you can please open up the floor for Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you. To ask a question, you will need to press star one and one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one and one again. We will now go to your first question. One moment, please. And your first question comes from the line of Michiel Declercq from KBC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes, hi. Thanks for taking my questions. The first question would be on the free cash flow. I don't know if I understood this correctly, but the strong free cash flow was driven by CapEx of around EUR 100 million and the rest working capital. Just wanted to confirm if that EUR 100 million CapEx, if I heard that correct, and just how the working capital part, how much is this driven by a timing effect, and should we see a bit of a reversal from that in the first quarter because, yeah, the free cash flow was really strong. And then just secondly, on your strategic update, so you mentioned more focus on the international activities and on the out-of-home. Can you give a bit more color on that? Is that opening new lanes? And for the out-of-home, is that more parcel lockers?
And what type of investments will this require as well going into 2025? This would be my questions.
Yeah, thank you, Michiel. Thank you for your questions. First one, I don't think I've set EUR 100 million CapEx, but it is roughly there or thereabouts. So that is roughly where we've ended the year, which means that that is slightly lower than originally expected. We've adjusted a bit of that. Changing working capital then is the balance. There's some phasing in it, but also some structural improvements. We've also changed final invoicing dates, processes within the last quarter to ensure that a lot of the work that has been done in 2024 also led to a payable or receivable position by putting the invoices out in time. So it's not all phasing. Partly it's phasing, but that will certainly be clarified in February when we also give you the outlook for 2025 free cash flow. Then on the strategy-related growth opportunities, we see various ones.
Clearly, we've seen a very good performance in Spring Europe over the full year, and there's opportunities to further organically grow Spring's Europe market share position. Likewise, we're happy with the progress in Belgium. We could find accelerated growth opportunities there, and our out-of-home strategy is indeed paying off, so we see the flywheel working now, so we've got 1,100 parcel lockers in place. Utilization of those parcel lockers is increasing, both in terms of clients that provide that option in checkout, as well as consumers wanting to use it because of the very high Net Promoter Scores that we see, so accelerating the pace of rollout of those APLs can be very beneficial because they now also present a cost saving in relation to at-home delivery and other delivery options, so those are examples.
How much we'll invest and what the expected objective in terms of returns on those investments is, today a bit too early to talk about, but that's also, again, something that we'll further clarify by the end of February.
Okay, thanks for the answers. Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. We will now take the next question. Your next question comes from the line of Henk Slotboom from The IDEA! Please go ahead.
Good morning, Pim, Inge, and Herna. Hope all is well, and I've got a couple of questions. Pim, maybe to you. I heard you saying something about, and I hope I'm quoting you correctly, a more balanced distribution across the value chain in parcels, and perhaps you can elaborate about that. Does that mean that you are intending to increase the tariffs for larger clients? That's my first question. The second question is in relation to out-of-home, and I've asked this question before. A couple of years ago, I believe in 2021, the aim was to have 1,500 APMs in place by the end of 2024. Early last year, it was something like 1,200 or 1,250. You ended up with 1,100.
And it sounds a bit weird that the speed of the deployment of APMs is decelerating, whereas on the other hand, you say the Net Promoter Score is increasing on the APMs. Now, what am I missing here? Is it deliberate that you didn't increase the number of APMs so much because of cutting down on CapEx, or what are other factors that I don't oversee? And my third question is in relation to the mix of clients. Quite obviously, we see that with other operators as well. China is going through the roof, and we all know that the Chinese are not the best payers when it comes to tariffs and that sort of thing. But as far as the Netherlands is said, the domestic volume, the Netherlands and Belgium is concerned, I'm pleased to see that the volume growth is picking up.
But what is exactly happening in the small and medium-sized segment you were targeting two years ago? There were great plans for the platforms you had and that sort of thing. Why am I not seeing anything back from those efforts? Those were my questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Henk. Clear and good questions. The first one, more balanced distribution of value, what do we mean with that? If you look at the fourth quarter, if you look at the immense effort that we have undertaken with very, very spiky peak, so consumers waiting very late to order, leading to all-time high volumes at certain dates, but also dropping down quite massively in the days thereafter, it's just a very, very costly period. And a network business cannot just afford our network business to organize capacity at that level and then seeing volume drops coming down significantly.
At the same time, it's an industry that will require innovation, further investments in growth. And if you just look at the margin profile that we're currently making, we cannot be satisfied with that. And we believe that, let's say, taking into account tight labor markets, innovation, further capacity investments, there needs to be ways to get to a more fair value distribution amongst the players in the market for the benefit of the last-mile carriers. Yield management is one of the elements that can help there, but also thinking about different equal flow patterns in parts of the year. And we'll talk more about those specific initiatives that we see and how we would, as a market leader, look at developments in that market going forward by the end of February. Then, your out-of-home question: what are you missing?
I think there's one key element that is missing there, and that's we strive, of course, to get to a business model which is also economically viable. So just putting more on the street whilst they weren't going to be used or fully utilized didn't really make sense. So it's a multi-sided platform. Of course, you need to have the lockers, but also you need to have in checkout the option to get parcels delivered to lockers. And quite frankly, it took more than a little bit of effort to get bigger customers to get convinced to use the parcel locker. And now that they use them, they see very good results in terms of NPS on them. So the pace of putting APLs on street was much more a function of adoption in checkout by clients than our ability or inability to put more of them on the streets.
Now that the flywheel is working, it for us seems to be very logical timing to then further accelerate rollout, given the fact that the model is now both in terms of consumer as well as customer expectations working. So that is the element that I think was missing in your own argumentation. Then the mix of clients, I think there's a couple of elements into mix that come into play. One is the mix between domestic and cross-border, where also if you look at the growth numbers in the quarter, you see a very big difference. Yes, quarter over quarter, there has been a growth in domestic or an improvement in domestic e-commerce growth, I should say. Within that domestic space, we do see that the bigger clients and platforms outgrow the SME segments.
While you say that kind of the Chinese clients have rates that are lower than average, the same applies with domestic bigger clients and domestic platforms that also have lower rates than the SMEs. So our own platform is doing very well. It's growing significantly and does help us to get more than a fair share of that development, but in terms of mix effect, that still leads to a negative. That's also why, let's say, the SME initiatives that you talked about have supported the performance, but are not able to offset the push towards client concentration. In other words, the bigger Dutch customers outgrow the other ones quite significantly. That has put pressure on the overall mix and overall average price per parcel, combined with the negative mix effects from the split domestic cross-border.
And if I may add to that, it's also, of course, customer behavior or consumer behavior. You see a change. So people are more and more ordering at the big web shops instead of going to many small ones. So that plays a role as well, which is also, of course, stated in our trading update.
Yeah. Okay, that's clear. Can I squeeze in a brief follow-up question on the utilization of APMs? Can you say something about the rate of utilization or in more broader terms, can you provide some insight as to what proportion of your total volume in parcel is going via the out-of-home channel and what is still to door?
Yeah, I do understand the question, Henk, but I think those specifics are better left for end of February. We'll certainly make clear how the volume development was. We see a step up in out-of-home. And as I said, what I think you should remember now is that with the current performance, we see a cost benefit of a delivery at the APL in comparison to delivery at retail or at home. And that's why we believe we should further accelerate the flywheel and more details to follow at a later stage.
Okay, I will write it down for you.
I'm sure you will remember it, which is fine.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. We will now go to the next question. And your next question comes from the line of Marc Zwartsenburg from ING. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning, everybody. Thanks for taking my questions. A bit following up on Henk's questions, but on the parcel side, so if I look to this business, take a step back, I hear the arguments of more volumes from larger clients and Asian volumes, etc. But in the end, yeah, that's not going to go away. So we're looking at a very low single-digit margin for parcels, even if we strip out maybe Spring. And then I'm thinking all these volumes from Asia and from these large customers, they bring in probably they're even negative in terms of profitability. So how are we going to deal with this? Why would you sign a contract with Temu, for instance, if it brings only volumes but more cost? Or is there something in your value chain that needs to be adapted to make a profit on those kind of volumes?
Because volumes itself is nice, but if it doesn't lead to profits, I'd rather say, yeah, if it only brings operational issues, then why do you need those volumes?
Yeah, well, clearly, we're not concluding contracts for the sake of volume that are loss-making. That's not how this works. And it's obviously also the phasing of volumes throughout the year that you need to take into account. But what you do see is that combination of cross-border and domestic mix effects taking a negative impact on average price per parcel of around EUR 0.22 compared to last year. And if you then multiply that by 106 million, you see the mix effect having a very big impact.
The question is, and that's why we say, given client concentration increases, given the fact that tight labor markets and all of those elements have pushed costs up, there are still scale effects to grow, but we need to get a better yield from the bigger customers in order to be able to going forward, take their volume with the peakiness of the peak against the conditions that we currently operate on. So clearly, the margin needs to improve, and to a large extent, a part of the solution will be to find better yields at bigger customers.
It's really better yields?
By finding different ways on the cost side of things. Can we change the dynamic in 24-hour to other delivery windows? Can we shift the volume to create a more equal flow in the network? What can we do collectively to get to a peak pattern next year in peak that is less skewed as it has been this year? So there are various elements there. And at some point, there's clearly also going to be a discussion on price, giving the upward cost pressure and the need to further invest in innovation and network capacity. So it's a combination of price and yield measures. We definitely will have that discussion with bigger clients as well.
Okay. Yeah, for a part, you can control it, but the way customers order their peak volumes, that's out of your hands, of course. And price increase is not easy because I think these lines are in. Is there not an automatic price increase in a contract? Yeah, sorry?
But therefore, Marc, Pim started to talk about operational efficiency, which is also an important part of improving the yield. So yes, of course, it will be partly price increases, and it is also creating a more efficient flow of parcels through the network. And there are quite some different ways to do that. So that's also a very important angle in making the yields better than it is today.
Maybe a few more points, Marc, on this point. Sorry?
No, what I wanted to add is, so what have we done? I think we've controlled what we could control. You were asking, is there an automatic price increase in contracts? Yeah, quite often there is. And also, by now, you've seen that almost all organic cost increases in the e-commerce space are absorbed by price increases through automatic indexation. But the issue is that the negative mix effects are significantly higher than the combination of organic cost increases and price increases. So we need to find a way to address the mix elements there by the combination of the measures we just discussed. So our operational cost savings, also in e-commerce, where we talked about, roughly EUR 35 million have been realized, next to obviously also the EUR 40 million in mail that we've been realizing. So everything we can control, we have control.
But that's why we now say that we will need to consider changing some of the elements of our strategy, among other the commercial strategy in relation to volume versus margin. And that's exactly what we plan to address, knowing now how full year 2024 has turned out to be.
That's exactly my worry. That's why I started off with the large accounts or the Asian accounts, that in the end, you say there's a negative mix effect that we difficult to compensate. But in the end, it tells me that those volumes are just not profitable. And yeah, then I would like to have.
I don't think that you cannot conclude.
You cannot conclude that they are not profitable.
You cannot conclude that, Marc. The profit has increased in comparison to last year, maybe not to the level that we wanted to. We don't take volume that is loss-making. It would be very easy for me and Herna to say, well, then just forget about carrying that volume. But it's also true that not all of the clients contribute equally to the fixed cost base and/or margin patterns. And on a client-by-client basis, given the operational profile, given the footprint, given the pattern of flow, given the way the volume gets to us, we need to improve the margin per customer on an individual customer-by-customer basis. That is what we mean to say by also reconsidering our commercial strategies. And the challenge you're pointing out is indeed the challenge.
Yeah, so that's why I was thinking, yeah, can you do something to the distribution network, to the setup of the depots or the way you handle how many times a parcel is handed by a person, etc.? But looking at the margin, if I strip out Spring, which is doing well, the margin is maybe 1% at best in parcels. That means that some clients must be loss-making. That was my conclusion. But let's wait then for February till we maybe get a bit more details on how to cope with those challenges, as we call it. Okay, thank you very much. Those were my questions.
Thank you, Marc.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one and one on your telephone keypad. That is star one and one to ask a question. We will now go to the next question. And your next question is from Henk Slotboom from The IDEA! Please go ahead.
Good morning again. Yeah, I'm still struggling with a couple of things. I hear what you say on the question of Marc, and let me, yeah, maybe you can elaborate further on the 24th of February, but if I look at Google, and if I look at Amazon, they've got Select, and they've got Prime, which entitles the client to delivery within 24 hours. Do you really think you can stimulate platforms like these to opt for a delivery of 48 hours or to create an equal flow in the sense that not everybody gets a 24-hour solution because they are living in a competitive environment as well, and why don't you simply, if I go back to the peak period of last year, I spoke to one of your peers, and they deliberately refused 500,000 parcels from the Chinese because they felt that they had the volume anyhow.
They basically opted for yields. We've seen trends like that in the air cargo area as well, where UPS and DHL said, okay, in December, we're going to charge an X amount extra. We call that a congestion charge and that sort of thing. You're using a peak surcharge already in the fourth quarter. Why don't you simply raise the tariffs for clients that bring you low margins like the Chinese or simply say no to them? Yeah, I know it has an adverse volume effect, but at least if they get a no from you and they get a no from one of your peers, then it will be difficult to have these parcels delivered. And I'm not encouraging you to make any cartel-like arrangements with your peers, but it seems to make common sense to me. Maybe you can give your view on that.
I think these are all examples of differences in commercial strategy. I think, quite frankly, we have said no many times more than competition has done to the examples that you mentioned, and at the same time, funny enough, the last call that we had, there was a lot of questions about market share, market share gain, market share loss, and what have you. Certainly, we strive for the best possible mix in volume growth and yields. We're not in this to grow as fast as we can. That's why we monitor market share, and again, also, we've not gained market share, nor have we lost, so we try to maintain a reasonable level of market share, also with scale and cost per item benefits as a consequence of that, and that is the balance, the delicate balance we try to strike.
And on an individual customer-by-customer basis, there are ways to try to get a better yield. And that's what we're going to do. And that applies for all of them. So it's not China as being the reasons why the margin is what it is. That's just a too simple representation. It's also the bigger domestic clients. It's also the intermediaries and platforms that consolidate volume from SMEs. So it requires various measures for various types of clients in a combination of cost efficiency-related measures and pricing strategies. And clearly, we're here to improve the margin and not to grow for the sake of growth. And I don't think that's ever been the strategy that we've applied, so.
Coming back to your equal 48 hours, in certain cases, you're totally right, then it doesn't fit consumer demand or it doesn't fit customer demand. But I think there are more examples of what you in your workflow or in your parcel workflow can do than 48 and equal flow. Those are a few examples of what you can do. You can also think about what is the amount of reject, and reject brings extra cost, as you do know. And some customers have more reject than others. For example, is the information on the label the right information, or are there sometimes things which are not on the label? Also then, we have to do rework. Could we avoid the rework?
Other example is, if you think about the amount of people not at home, so the First Time Right, then we do deliver an enormous percentage of First Time Right, but in certain areas in Netherlands, the First Time Right is higher. What can we do in those areas? So I think the answer to what you're stating is, in my view, the view you're putting on the table is a little bit too simple when it comes to can you make a more efficient operational workflow. There is much more than equal flow and 48 hours because it will not fit every customer and consumer demand. Sometimes it does, and then it helps. And where it doesn't, there are plenty of other opportunities which you can use to create a better yield.
Does that, Herna, does that apply for the infrastructure as well, the sorting centers and that sort of things? What struck me, the latest additions of the sorting centers in Belgium are twice as big as the older ones. Do I have to think in those lines as well to make the operation more efficient?
No, I think the setup chosen in the Netherlands, and we've added, of course, in the year 2024, a sorting center in Alphen aan den Rijn, which is also much bigger than the first ones. But we do think that the setup we have fits the amount of volume and is able also to fit the growing volume for the next coming years. In Belgium, it was, of course, a totally different situation because all sorting was done in depots. And there we said at a certain point in time, we need to upgrade that because we cannot do it anymore in the Dutch sorting centers, and we need to be closer to the consumers. Of course, when you look into the density, how we distribute parcels in Belgium, that is also different from the Netherlands. And therefore, the way you set up your sorting is different.
So that's more an answer to that difference.
Okay, perfect. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from the line of Marco Limite from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. So you mentioned this morning that you believe you have not lost any market share in the Netherlands. But I'm also curious whether, when we look at the different segments, if you think you are also keeping market share stable with the domestic retailers in the Netherlands. Because at the end of the day, you have reported domestic volume growth of less than 2%, which sounds quite a low number, also if compared to other growth rates in other countries. So just wondering if market share with domestic clients is also stable. And the second question, suppose Netherlands is one of the few operators that is running separate mail and parcel deliveries. But clearly, you are mentioning tight labor shortage of people in the mail units. In the parcel units, you have got an unequal flow of volumes.
So don't you think that by better merging the two networks, you can actually fix a bit of the problem you have got across the two divisions? And the third question, just a bit more technical. So the net comprehensive income number looks quite high compared to what you reported in EBIT terms, and if we compare year over year. So clearly, there is something positive in there. Yeah, just wondering what is driving the relatively high net comprehensive income for the dividend payment. And if you confirm, of course, the dividend policy based on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Marco. Market share loss, no, we don't see a market share loss at domestic, so it's stable there. That's also the main definition. Also, if you look back at Q3, we've provided you the definition of it. We don't see that elbow difference. The key driver is that given share, the composition of that volume shifts to more international and bigger clients. That is the key element here, not a market share loss. That's also why the overall growth of 3.7% in the quarter of domestic is also, in our view, a fair representation of market growth in the quarter. And also, over the quarters of the year, you've seen a gradual improvement on the level of domestic growth up to the 3.7% in fourth quarter right now. Does it still make sense to separate mail and parcel networks?
Of course, some of the elements are shared, like collection, like retail. But the core elements, sorting and distribution, are indeed in two separate networks. We are very convinced by all the analysis that we've done that the split of those on sorting and distribution will lead to the best unit economics per network component. And I believe that the problem of e-commerce needs to be fixed in the e-commerce domain by the elements that we discussed. And at the same time, the challenges in the mail side will need to be fixed within the boundaries of mail asset by changing the universal service obligations. Although mail Netherlands was just about positive in 2024, clearly, the universal service is very much under pressure, and we expect it to become structurally loss-making.
That's why we, again, indicate that a new regulatory environment needs to be created to keep the mail business sustainable and accessible for everyone. Combining it will only improve, or I would say increase the challenges, and will increase the unit price per item rather than decrease. We're very much convinced of that. Your question on normalized comprehensive income, yeah, you've seen that very well. Indeed, given EBIT, normalized comprehensive income is higher than you would otherwise expect. There's two key elements leading that: a higher deferred tax asset position and a valuation upward adjustment of some of the investments that we've had that both contribute to the normalized comprehensive income and making it slightly higher than the EBIT justifies. It's true value and, as such, part of normalized comprehensive income.
Then to repeat the dividend policy, dividend is based on normalized comprehensive income with a payout ratio of 70%-90% of that normalized comprehensive income. And if you apply that midpoint towards the normalized comprehensive income, it's a little bit still dependent on, let's say, rounding elements and final numbers after the order that's been finalized between EUR 0.06 or EUR 0.07 per share dividend for the book year. Obviously, an interim dividend of EUR 0.03 has been paid. So the balance, either EUR 0.03 or EUR 0.04, is likely to be the final dividend over 2024.
Thank you, and if I can add one more question, please. Just if there is any update on the USO reform, you are going to implement your changes on non-USO mails from, yeah, you are starting already. But is there an update on the USO volumes in terms of negotiation with the regulatory parliament and so on? Thank you.
Yeah, the update is that the Ministry of Economic Affairs, who regulates the mail market in the Netherlands, is waiting for the advice of ACM. They've asked them for advice on how to move forward with the mail market, what sort of adjustments are necessary in the mail market, and that advice is scheduled somewhere in March. That is the basis for the Ministry of Economic Affairs to define their views on how to reform the universal service obligation and how to start a discussion with politicians, so we're a bit in a waiting mode for us. Everything is according to the schedule they've set upfront, but that means that we expect the first views somewhere in April, and that is then also for us a starting point for new discussions with the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
What you probably do understand is that, of course, informally, we keep talking to the Ministry to influence as much as possible towards an outcome of which we think fits best to PostNL.
Thank you. And when can we sort of expect any disclosure from you on the possible cost savings?
Which cost savings are you seeing within Mail in the Netherlands?
Exactly. From the USO reform, yes.
Okay. What we will do is, of course, we will come up with our view on 2025, including the cost savings which are taken up within mail in the Netherlands. Those cost savings at this moment in time are, of course, mainly focused on the change we've made in our business mail. 70% of our business mail is already distributed or will be, as of the beginning of February, distributed within two days. We also start beginning of February with emptying our mail boxes during the day, which is a certain cost saving. And we have our normal cost saving plans, and those will be, of course, presented with the total number of expected cost savings end of February.
When it comes to the cost savings of the USO reform, so the total cost savings underpinning future mail, we don't expect to give those numbers because it's a very political process, and we don't think that mentioning all sorts of overall cost saving possibilities will help us in that discussion. But for sure, we'll come back in detail to what we expect to save in the year 2025.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. There are currently no further questions. I will now hand the call back to Inge Laudy for closing remarks.
Yeah, so that's all for today. Thank you for being here, and speak to you on the 24th of February. Bye.
Thank you all.
Thanks.
Thank you. This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.