Good morning, everyone. A warm welcome here in Amsterdam in the experience center of TKH. Also very warm welcome to the audience in the webcast. Yeah, today we will present our interim results, which look quite good. I hope that the market will appreciate what we are doing with our execution, and we will walk you through all the developments in the first half year, but also the outlook, of course. I have to start with the disclaimer, and I hope you take notice of that. Then I go to the key messages. Yeah, a very strong turnover growth.
We are proud on that how we have the organic engine running within TKH, especially related of course to the mega trends, the digitalization, energy transformation, but especially I believe also the automation, which applies to the vision technology and the tire-building systems that we have in our group. Amazing technology where we see a very high demand. What we see is there's of course a difference between the organic growth and the actual growth realized, and a big part of that are pricing effects. The good news is that we were able to pass on increased prices to our customers. On the other side, we were not able to make margins on the price increases.
Yeah, in that way, perhaps we supported our customers in a good way, yeah. There were some, well, some impact from the geopolitical situation, supply chain effects and also the lockdown, new lockdowns in Q2 in China, which made it very difficult to deliver our goods in China. Impact of the supply chain became worse in Q2 compared to Q1. Also for the second half year, we see, especially within smart manufacturing, that there are still some issues in the supply chain which we believe will not be normalized before Q2.
That has a big inefficiency effect because we have the capacity, we have the order book, and we want to fulfill the desires of delivery as much as we can to support our customers in their demand and especially in their automation need. We see especially in the tire manufacturing a big, let's say, reallocation of capacity where there's a high sense of urgency to have that support. We are managing quite well still delivery times but with a high inefficiency. A very nice increase of the EBITDA more than 37%.
Net profit also well on track with more than 40%, and we had a one-off of EUR 9.3 million because of the divestment of our property for sale. I believe a good job also that we sold it with a nice profit. Very good news is that the order book is still very, very strong. If we would take into account the order intake in July, I believe a small part of the order intake of June moved into July. Then it's really exceptional good, and you would see a higher increase of the order book than that we present today.
Yeah, the expectations from our customers and the order pipeline, the sales funnel is really looking good. Yeah, it looks like TKH is on an island and not seeing anything about recession. Now of course we are not immune, but at least for let's say the coming, I would say even 12 months, it is running quite smooth. There is still a lot of potential for further growth, especially if we can normalize some of the supply chain issues. Yeah, it looks that we have a lot of additional headroom to compensate for an eventual effect of a recession.
Also keep in mind that TKH has completely different profile compared to the last recession, the big recession in 2009, 2010. Not so much anymore related to the industrial sector. I hope also in that respect that you will see a completely different picture when there is a recession, how that will affect TKH. Of course, everything is focused on execution. The Accelerate 2025 program, I believe a fantastic program which brought a amazing energy in the company.
People are really motivated to work on that, energized because what we have in the R&D pipeline, and again, also the innovation percentage was quite high, close to 19% in the first half year. We can continue that still for a while with respect to everything what we are doing in investment of R&D. We do not see that the percentage of R&D is increasing at the same pace or is even going down a little bit. That's also because of the pricing effect in our turnover through which of course the percentage as a share of turnover of R&D is lower.
What we also see is that we have an amazing efficiency in this R&D and are even further increasing R&D efficiency because we have less disruptive technology coming out like we had in the past where we had 7 up to perhaps even 10 at a certain point of time really disruptive technologies where we had to break through in the market. And now we see it is more a gradual development of the strong technologies that we already have where we have a lot of differentiating power. And yeah, we add some smaller parts to that to keep the differentiating power. But that makes it life easier in respect of the investment that you have to do.
That is a potential that also will have a positive effect in the Return on Sales. A positive outlook and the specific outlook for this year. I must give some of you a big compliment how close you were in respect of the outlook that we give. Again, a great respect as I see how much time we spend internally to go through all the business details and do it again. Perhaps we can learn from you how efficient you do that. The CapEx programs also will be very important.
Emmanuel mentioned share buyback, yes, could be very attractive with the current valuation of TKH. On the other side, also the value creation that we are looking for with organic growth and really fantastic project with very high return on capital employed. Today, around EUR 160 million additional CapEx, not in 1 year, that will come in about 2 years. I believe it's very exciting internally also to work on these projects and very interesting building blocks, again, already on a strong foundation. Not too high risk of doing these investments compared to also to 5, 10 years ago. Customers almost screaming, crying for the supply.
We are working, of course, very closely with potential customers on already getting orders in some areas where we are positioned with the CapEx plan. We have a very long outlook, long-term view of what the investments will be in the industry. Where it comes even to already capacity reservation for capacity that you even do not have today on stream. A long introduction with the key messages, so that makes life simple for the next slides. Here you see the background of the information on the previous slide. I believe to point here to the Return on Sales, which has improved in H1 to a nice percentage of 12.8%.
You have to realize that the pricing effect is having a negative impact on the Return on Sales, and that's a quite big impact. Perhaps Elling will explain a little bit more later on how big that impact is. With that in mind, we are really on track also with our target. Especially, of course, we are looking for the result to be achieved in 2025 as an absolute figure that has our target. I go to the next slide, and I covered also most of the points here. Of course, here you see the plants where we are going to invest and where we are investing.
The Fiber Optic plant that we are building in Poland is really supporting this also to create more profit, and that is related to the import duty effect. Elling will come later back on what kind of effect that is, but it's really substantial this year. In that respect, it is also a good point to take with you in the future as compensation power for additional profit in 2023, when that capacity is coming on stream, starting in Q2. Yeah, it's also amazing how fast we are building this capacity with a fantastic team in Poland.
The team is working very close, of course, with VMI, where we are also investing in additional capacity in Poland. Also the speed, the time that we need to get to realization, including all the equipment, is really amazing. I'm really proud of the people that are managing this. Medium voltage and high voltage cables. I believe we had a very good vision of what would happen in that market, but still we have been too shy. I remember it takes normally three years to get your capacity on stream, two to three years.
The last investment that came in last year in Q3, Q4 was already actually almost the same day completely utilized. That was not because we had good estimates of our customers. No, all the customers said, "We don't see actually any additional demand, yeah, perhaps a few percent." At the same time, we were reading the newspapers that we are not anymore allowed to use gas. We have to go to electric vehicles and but nothing happened in the infrastructure. It's really ridiculous.
We dared to do these investments and, yeah, we know that with the capacity that we get further on stream, we can make an additional big step. What is additionally interesting is that we will get also a market share in the High Voltage business where we are working already for at least two years to get all the certificates. That looks well. Yeah, as an additional area in the medium high voltage or in the power cable business, that will support further growth.
Although, let's say with all the trends of the increased demand for infrastructure investments, it is, yeah, incredible what will happen in the coming 5-10 years with investments. That's not only in the Netherlands, it's all over Europe. I would say not only Europe, but also in Asia, in the United States. From a competitive perspective, you see that most companies are focusing on their core markets. For TKH, that is the Dutch market, and we have more than our hands full on the Dutch market.
We have a big advantage there with our supply chain organization, our logistics, and we are in that respect also well-protected with our position to also have a safe position for the coming 5-10 years. The plant for subsea I believe very important investment. We initially planned that investment in two phases. We saw, of course, the demand growing even much faster with all the leads, the additional announcements here in front of the Dutch coast and the Danish coast, Belgian coast, that I would say that the capacity that we are creating now might already be shy to serve that demand.
A big advantage is of phase I and phase II that initially we had the plan to transport what is it? Half products.
Semi-finished.
Semi-finished products from our Lochem plant to the new plant, but we canceled that and have now everything on one location. That saves also a lot of logistical costs and a lot of storage costs, where we would have had an additional storage location to be rented. Also, with respect to operational cost, we have a lower operational cost. Of course, the scale of the new plant to be able to get all the efficiencies in and produce the longer lengths, which also has a big efficiency impact. What is also very important that we see a further increase of the proposition. Today, the majority of the subsea cable is 66 kV.
We came from 33 kV. It's really moving on a fast track, and we are positioning already for 132 kV. What you see is that the higher you go in respect to voltage, also the higher the margins will be. Of course, there's also a kind of risk related to that. Not for nothing, the margins are higher. If you are able to manage your operation in the right way, then that has a potential of increased margins of the subsea cable business. We have a very big advantage there when it moves up to 130 kV because we already have the metal sheet, the aluminum sheet around the core, which is a unique proposition that we have.
We have a dry design cable, and for the higher the voltages, the more the necessity to have a dry design. The standard in the industry is a wet or a semi-wet design. It goes too far to explain to you all the details, but it's a really key point how we already have a USP prepared for the 130 kV business and where we don't have to go anymore through this learning curve, and we had a very steep learning curve, and we came from very far in respect of all the issues we had to get to stable manufacturing. That is very well developed now with this aluminum sheet, welded aluminum sheet. Another interesting area is dynamic cables.
What you will see is there will come more floating platforms, and the floating platforms are moving. For that, you need a cable that can support that movement, and we call that dynamic cables. The current price of a dynamic cable is more than double the existing price of a subsea cable. Also there, we have, I believe, unique position to be able to address that market with the right technology, with the least risk for our customers. You see, I am very excited about this investment with the opportunities that we have there.
It's in that respect not the same as what we have, but is offering a lot of additional opportunity also for the high voltage and further development of the portfolio based on our USPs. Last but not least, two other very important investments, our connectivity systems, where we are building a new plant in combination with the fiber optic plant. It's 22,500 square meters that we built together. The specialized connectivity business is really, really attractive. We are making there today margins above 20%. Expanding there. We are also positioned in a very attractive area of automation again, and the automation in this sector asks for really, really high reliability of the cable system.
Miniaturization is also a key trend, and we are really unique. I believe there are only two, maximum three players that are in the position to deliver what we are delivering. Again, the barrier for entry is really, really high. We see also many customers struggling with that because it takes sometimes more than three years to get new suppliers approved. The headache that can cost you with the risk that you have leads to the decision that in most cases, the customers are not moving or creating a new supplier. But the lead times have really increased. We have lead times here of more than 12 months.
We have an order book also of more than 12 months, which is, I believe, great and a fantastic opportunity, how we are there related also to automation. Of course, the tire building, we need that capacity, and we have our growth plan. Many of you will remember our target in the growth vertical to grow to more than EUR 500 million turnover. I believe that is not the end of this business. I will come back in an example later. Also the order book is very good. We still believe at this point of time that we can get to an order intake this year, which is around EUR 400 million.
That is really a big step up compared to the past and the record that we have ever had in this business. There's more to come if you look at the propositions that we have, and again, I will come back later. Yeah, sorry for a little bit long explanation only on this side, but I believe key elements had to also see that we are really different and that we are with our execution a unique company that I believe should get more respect in what we are doing related to our to the valuation of TKH. Yeah, the Smart Vision activity a nice organic growth.
We see that the price effect here is smaller than in the other areas. We have seen impact here of the supply chain and that eases off in the second half year. The outlook in that respect is better for Smart Vision systems, especially in the security part of our vision business. We saw that we had big issues with the supply chain, and now in June, we saw, let's say, kind of more normalized activity level. There's a big step up in the profitability because we didn't reduce the capacity that we have because of the demand, the increase in order book, and yeah, all the projects that we have on our radar.
We are quite specific here that we can see a growth in both turnover and the profitability in the second half year. We had very nice turnover growth in the machine vision segment of around 16%, where especially now, and finally, I would say, 2D vision did really, really well. We have spent a lot of time and a lot of effort put in into the R&D roadmap. Finally now we see that we have, I would say, gold in our hands with the technologies where we have betted on, which was perhaps not always 100% certain that they would be a kind of breakthrough technology.
Now we see it is really breakthrough technology, especially our embedded vision is doing extremely well, and is also coping with the shortages in the supply chain w ith this chip that we have here. We have so much functionality that we do not need a lot of other components in our camera technology, so we can deliver in a few weeks time, whereas competitors are struggling with very long lead times, sometimes even up to six months. Yeah, once you have gained such a market position, that is a strong foundation on which you can further build.
There's huge growth potential there in the vertical markets that we have further defined there to be positioned in. What you do is also, if you want to gain that position, you have to realize what needs to be your proposition to have the winning proposition. We made in the past, I would say 18-24 months, a lot of these analyses to see where are potential gaps, how can we even disrupt the market further with our technology. With specific developments there, we are preparing for and have prepared to gain those positions, which gives a lot of power to grow to gain market share in a huge market.
If we look at the total vision market, we only have 2% market share. In some areas, we have a very high market share. Like for instance, the wood industry, we have more than 70% market share. We are looking for really winning positions with high market share. I believe also what VMI did to come from perhaps 20%-30% market share to be the leader of the industry. That is what we are focused on with our vision technology. The one-stop shop that we have created there is amazing. The cooperation that we see there is also really amazing.
We don't have one integrated company, but we have, let's say, business units there that really cooperate in an ultimate way to support each other. We see that combinations of companies win projects, which one single company would have never won. That is what we are striving for, of course. How do we get the synergy out of these fantastic technologies that we have? The big trend is that customers want to work preferably with one partner, and that is what we can support. We can support that with good account management and also specific targets in our development to exactly know what we need to serve to our customers.
The 3D vision had some difficulty, especially in Q2, with the lockdowns and limited supply. In 2D, we only have a relatively small position in Asia, in China, so that was not or hardly affected. That gives also perspective for the second half year that will be normalized as we look at it at this point in time that the lockdown effect has disappeared and we can fully focus on our deliveries. That is the update for the Smart Vision. Perhaps I've not covered everything, but I also like to give you some time to ask questions. Smart Manufacturing very nice growth.
Of course, the comparison base was more easy because of a weak Q1 in 2021. Pricing effects relatively small, but there's more to come in respect of pricing effects, and also a little bit recovering of, let's say, margin, because there we have a situation that we cannot always pass on the increased component prices to our customers in existing projects. That is normalizing now and will bring also, especially I believe for 2023, a positive effect on the new orders that we are booking and partly also on the existing portfolio where we have been able now to pass on price increases.
You can see that the added value is still at a quite high level, and you don't even see a big impact there. We are really underutilized. We have much higher costs and costs related to a potential turnover that is much higher than that we are utilizing at this moment. We believe we need that capacity also in the growth picture we have for the medium term. I already mentioned the EUR 500 million. That also has to do with the UNIXX, a fantastic proposition, where the existing launching customer has decided to focus on other priorities.
At the same time, we are today discussing with three potential parties that are interested in the UNIXX. We are really close to a further commercial launch with all the tests that we have done. We believe that the foundation to move on with the technology is quite good. To remind you, we have sold already many modules of the UNIXX system. We have, let's say, a good view today on the performance of the high-end innovations that we have put in this UNIXX. A little bit delayed because of the decision of this customer to focus on other priorities.
On the other side, we can go full force now with all the potential customers, and the excitement is really high for the perspective and the opportunity UNIXX is promising. The Revolute is also a very interesting technology. This is a very good example where we see that we are continuously further automating the process. Eyes off, hands off is the motto there to see how you can improve the efficiency. We all know that operators are really getting scarce, and especially high-skilled operators that need to operate such a machine.
Anyhow, when an operator is running a machine, there's still a big risk that an operator makes a small mistake and that there's a big batch of tires not produced to the spec as it should be. The Revolute, to give you this example, what's going on within VMI, with our tire-building equipment, we sold this system about 5-10 years ago for around EUR 500,000. Today, we are close to EUR 2 million. Of course, yes, the output is also higher. We have an improved productivity. What you see is the level of automation is amazing, how to make a better product.
This element, it is in the sidewall of a tire. A rubber ring in the tire, to keep it simple, the Bead Apex. It's an essential part in the tire, and then you see also that the industry is willing to invest, to get better technology that reduces their risk, improves their productivity and their efficiency. Anyhow, they're able to make a better tire. That helps of course also these kind of building stones. I'm now only giving this example. We have more examples that we could present with a sales value of more than even EUR 2 million that we didn't have in the past.
Fantastic opportunity for this activity to also utilize what we have and to create a lot of value creation in the coming years. In VMI, doing really well, I believe also a very big opportunity with what we can do there in the industry, the machine distribution industry. The big order which we already published or announced last year of around EUR 30 million is now in the execution rollout, really doing well.
Yeah, a lot of interest from other players that see the amazing efficiency you can get and the much lower number of faults that you have a wrong pill in the package, and which is a big issue. If you see how much less faults we have, then that is a huge difference to what the standard today is in the industry. You can imagine that no one is allowed actually to have faults. Anyhow, you cannot completely prevent, and there are inspection systems afterwards how you can take out the faults, but that also is very inefficient.
There we are setting the standard today with the level that we have, and that is also attracting, let's say, a lot of potential towards us, beyond the attractiveness of the repeat medication to be distributed in these small intake packages, which will be the trend for the coming decades, that this will take a very high market share. We got a very nice new order also in Scandinavia. I believe a third one is coming in also in the coming months.
We see also in Europe, because the big order came in from the U.S,, but we also see that Europe is getting traction and getting appetite for the investment in this fantastic technology that we have here. We go to connectivity. We see that the price effect here was even the largest 11%. The organic growth was still substantial with 13%. Yeah, already some limitations in our capacity. If we would have had 30% more capacity, we would have been able to sell that. That is of course frustrating, although you see very nice organic growth already. But again, the perspective also for the coming years is very, very interesting.
When we look to the second half year, we are limited to growth at the moment with our limitation in capacity. Starting in 2023, we will have again additional capacity, and we can further grow. We see some efficiency improvement potential that can help us to increase further the margin. We are working on that. Execution is key there. It's not only the growth as to which we can increase the profitability, but also the efficiency that we have and are eyeing on further with productivity programs for which we already did also in the past year.
A lot of investments that will now be installed and bringing additional productivity and from that also reduce cost. Especially the energy transition is doing well, but I would say that also digitalization, the Fiber Optic business is also doing really, really well a bout similar growth as we have in the energy business. I already mentioned the specialized connectivity systems for robotics. They are all around this 13% organic growth. All activities are limited in respect of their growth at this moment because of the barrier of the capacity that we have.
Again, perspective in these three areas for the coming year with a very high probability that we are also going to utilize the additional capacity. Again, in digitalization, we have the effect of the import duties, as I just mentioned in the third bullet, through which we see a quite substantial drop of the added value. Again, Elling will come back to that later. This was my part of the presentation. I'd like to give the floor to Elling. Thank you for your attention.
Thank you, Alexander. Good morning, everyone. I have a couple of sheets on the financials for the first half of 2022. As usual, I start with the geographical distribution. As usual, I have to say that Europe is still responsible for about 2/3 of total sales. We see, though, a little bit of a shift from Asia to North America, and that's mostly driven by manufacturing systems. Alexander already mentioned vision, some hiccups with the lockdowns in China, and at the same time, order intake in the U.S. for tire building as well as on the cable segment, we have seen that North America is getting a little stronger. From there, a little bit of shift, and North America representing 12% of total revenue.
If I go with you through the P&L, starting off, again, with the revenue base, about EUR 900 million in sales, the +24%, a s you can see in the chart here, about EUR 50 million was the price effect, in euros at least, we've seen in H1. EUR 35 million basically related to connectivity systems. In the past, we have been talking to you about the impact of raw materials. Raw materials meant basically the copper prices in the past. Of course, we have seen recently that there's all kinds of things which are increasing in terms of pricing. Therefore, we have modified the reporting, so not just raw material, but a bigger basket pricing effects. Of course, raw material is part of that. Still substantial organic growth.
We could have had a little bit more growth if we were able to deliver without any constraints due to supply chain lockdowns, et cetera. Luckily, that is revenue which is not lost, but basically shifted to the second half of this year. Important is the added value line, at 47% compared to 48.2%. Clearly the effect of pricing, if we pass on the pricing effects to our customers, it impacts the top line. It would be nice if we could have a full margin on these price increases, but that's not real, and that's not how we work. As a result, you see that the added value is under pressure due to the price effects as we are not able to charge the full margin on this.
Therefore, in the end, bottom line, you see the return on sales being impacted due to the fact that top line increases, but margin due to this effect not. The incremental starts to move. The margin of the 47% has been affected, not only by the pricing effects, but also due to the revenue mix. A little bit less Smart Vision revenue. Smart Vision in general, as you can see in our segmentation reporting, high gross margins. Distribution also is responsible for a drop in margin compared to last year. Indeed, the import duties on fiber, which is fairly new. End of November last year, the EU implemented anti-dumping duties on optical fiber coming out of China entering the EU.
We are part of this, and that means also that we have a duty to pay on the imports of the portfolio which we manufacture in China, in our own facilities, and bring it to Europe. Impact in the first six months, about EUR 4.5 million. So EUR 4.5 million, it's almost 1% cost of goods sold, which is affected in here. Obviously, this is one of the clear reasons why we also put, let's say, power on getting the capacity within the EU, and as a result, we have identified and started the project of expansion of the Fiber Optic capacity within the EU, specifically in Poland.
Going down towards the EBITDA line, of course, we have to look at the operating expenses, EUR 307 million, up almost 16%. There is some foreign exchange effect of about 1.5% due to the cost base we have in North America. What we see as well is that out of our total OpEx, 2/3 is related to personnel costs. We have been able to hire in the last 12 months, roughly, and I rounded off, about 500 people. That has been a big challenge, but the fact that we were able to hire them also shows that we are perceived to be a good employer and people are willing to work within the TKH structure. Of course, the full headcount increase gradually gets its effect into the P&L.
Another important item where we have seen OpEx increasing is in the selling expenses, especially higher activity level results in more outgoing freight. Our selling expenses amount roughly to EUR 27 million compared to about EUR 19 million in the like-for-like with H1 2021. The EBITDA, I think Alexander already mentioned, the EUR 115.6 million, the 12.8%, +37% compared to last year, and basically, a good contribution from the different segments. If you look below the EBITDA line, the one-off income, the EUR 9.3 million, we have divested some buildings which we had put as assets held for sale. A nice book profit we created here. Amortization, EUR 27 million.
Roughly EUR 14.5 million is related to R&D cost. About EUR 9 million plus to the purchase price allocations and the balance in the area of software. For your models, roughly a similar pattern we expect for the second half of the year on the amortization line. No impairments, that's good news, I think. If you look at our financial expenses, up EUR 2 million compared to H1 2021, and it mostly is the effect of foreign exchange results. The share which we have in some associates also created a nice return, a higher level than the prior year, especially the share which we still have within the CCC Group, did it better than the prior year.
As far as the tax goes, we were able to generate more profit in the companies where we have some tax breaks related to R&D. For some of the Dutch, the Innovation Box of some companies in the Netherlands had its effect. Due to the, let's say, different distribution of where results came in, we've seen a lower tax rate than in 2021. 26.3% to be precise. You have seen the outlook as well, that we are a little bit more careful on the manufacturing systems in the second half of the year, and that leads to a slightly higher, let's say, full year tax rate. Best is to work with around 27% for full year. The balance sheet.
Obviously there are some balance sheet items which are requiring a more detailed explanation because if you look at our working capital and as a result our net debt, we are in areas where we have not been for quite a long time, I must say. There are specific reasons on why we get there. If you take a look at some of the items like inventory, you see a substantial increase in the last six months, but we're around about EUR +60 million . I think also last meeting we had, I explained to you that we do a lot of steps in order to mitigate effects from the supply chain. That means also that we are increasing stock levels.
You see that most of the increases are related to the, call it raw material and component part, and less on the finished goods side. So that's a little bit of rationale behind it. We'll get into more details in the next couple of sheets. The other important item is Contract Assets. If I put it very simple, if we are executing projects, we get down payments, and they are the Contract Liabilities. As we make progress on these projects, of course, we can claim the progress with our customers. The balance of these two items is of course the part which we finance. That has increased by about EUR 73 million in H1. We have a lot of effort going on.
We are very busy, full production, I would say between brackets, because we have some restrictions on some of the supply chain elements, which calls for a longer process of getting to delivery and commissioning of our projects at customer premises. That, of course, increases the time of, let's say, having these projects on our balance sheet. All in all, it leads to, of course, an impact due to the working capital items of a net debt just over EUR 400 million. On a covenant level, net debt/EBITDA, we are at 1.6. Twelve months ago, we were at 1.5. Of course last year ending, we were lower. The main reason, as I mentioned, is the working capital.
I have two more sheets to explain this in a little bit more detail. If you look at our working capital, our target is always 12%-15% of revenue. Luckily, in the past couple of reporting periods, we have been below the 12% level. As we were at 11% or 10% at the end of last year. So that's substantially below the target. If we go up to where we currently are, 20% on working capital, the delta is very big. Again, the bandwidth is 12%-15%. You see a little bit of the bridge here, but I specifically want to zoom in a little bit on the column here, what we call the increase.
As I said, there are a few balance sheet items where we have specific reasoning why they are at the level where they are. Again, 20% is high, is too high. It has to come down, it will go lower. I think in the guidance for year-end, we're more in the 15%, 16% bracket, g etting towards the top end of the bandwidth, which we have been using for years. As I mentioned, inventories specifically related to supply chain issues, additional build-up of inventory in order to make sure that availability is there. Availability becomes a bigger role in the business model of most companies, including ours. Consequence is a higher inventory. Contract Assets, high order intake, especially in the manufacturing systems last year, leads to a lot of manufacturing activities currently.
As I mentioned already, we are not able to smoothly, let's say, pass everything towards the customer locations for installation, commissioning, et cetera. We have more items for a longer period on the shop floor, and that of course creates an increase in contract assets. No cancellations, let that be very clear. It's not a reason of that. It's pure about the high level of activity in a kind of stressed environment when we talk about components. Just to give you some big view, if you look at the MAXX system, one of the tire-building machines, more than 60,000 components go into one machine. Obviously, one or two might be, I don't wanna say missing, but at least not arrive at the right time and can have impact.
On the receivables side, in number of days of sales, we are about 56 days. Not much different from a prior period, so not an issue in there. Payables, close to 80 days. Not bad, especially in a situation where you need your suppliers quite a bit, and it's difficult to negotiate extended payment terms. On these sides I'm not worried at all. As I said, inventory and Contract Assets, these are the areas where the increase is taking place, but with good reasoning, I would say. It has to come down and will go down. Clearly, this results, as I mentioned earlier, into an effect on the working capital, on the Net Debt, of which you see the bridge here.
Maybe good to mention is the investments we have done in H1, in total around EUR 50 million, of which about EUR 28 million was related to tangibles. Of that part, 12-15 has been related to the initial phases of the strategic CapEx programs, which were highlighted before. Some part of the 160 million, 12-15, is already in the initial H1 CapEx for tangibles. We had about EUR 22 million in investments related to the intangibles. About EUR 18 million of that is related to R&D, the capitalization of R&D, out of a total R&D expenditure of EUR 34.5 million. We still have a capitalization program which runs 50%-52% of total R&D expense. No different from prior periods.
Obviously, as a percentage of sales, this is substantially lower due to the high top line growth. All this doesn't lead to a fancy picture on the free cash flow, that's clear. You can see, of course, the change in working capital, where we see this big delta. I think clearly, second half should give you a better view. I think I mentioned already some of the elements, which gives you a little bit of guidance on your model for building up the free cash flow analysis for H2. On the right side, again, the historical working capital results compared to the target of 12%-15%.
Of course, when you have a very low working capital, then of course the delta is very clear, as we can see in here. The outlook, o f course, there are all kinds of disclaimers around this, but we have done the utmost in order to incorporate everything what we can see. This is our view for the second half of the year that within Smart Vision systems, EBITDA and turnover are expected to increase compared to H1. We see some of the delays from H1 going into H2. Within Smart Manufacturing systems, the turnover and EBITDA is expected to be lower than in H1.
I think we highlighted already quite a bit that we see more impact of supply chain issues, components availability, et cetera, and therefore a delayed, let's say, installation and commissioning period of the projects, at our customer sites as an impact. Of course, the OpEx which we have, the organization is fully busy in keeping everything to the maximum working, but it has, of course, an impact on the top and bottom line. Order intake is not affected by this. Actually, as Alexander already mentioned, Q3 started much better than we've seen in the previous Q3s, doing very well. Order book is good, and also the outlook here.
Within Smart Connectivity Systems, we expect for top line and EBITDA a similar pattern as in H1. Some capacity issues are there. In some areas, we're running at almost full capacity. We have to go through the more bigger CapEx programs in order for higher growth once the programs kick in. All in all, we expect that the net profit before amortization and one-off income and expenses attributable to shareholders will come out in EUR 136 million-EUR 144 million, compared to EUR 114 million last year. For the presentation part, we'll open up for a Q&A. There's a microphone here in the front. You probably have to walk to the microphone yourself.
Maarten Verbeek. Four questions, two quick ones. First on the CapEx, is the guidance on the CapEx unchanged, i.e., around EUR 120 million for 2022 and 2023? Secondly, on the working capital, you guide for a drop back towards 15%-16% of sales. Is that mainly the contract assets that will come down, or what is the key driver for that? A third question is on smart manufacturing. So on smart manufacturing, you guide for softer sales in the second half of the year. Could you maybe disclose a little bit the kind of capacity that you have available for the second half of the year? I also think you mentioned that this issue will remain until the end of Q2 next year, which is pretty long.
Maybe good to better understand why you have already that visibility. Then the final question is a pretty broad one, but if I think about headwinds being recession, but then on the other hand, tailwinds like profitability improvements in smart manufacturing, in parking and in AGL, you don't make a lot of sales, so probably that will catch up. On top of that, you have new capacity coming online. It looks like you have a lot of tailwinds which based on the order intake at the other hand should result rather in still a higher EBITDA next year versus this year, which is definitely not how the market is looking at it today. We'd be happy to hear your views on that. Thank you.
The first question on CapEx for this year. The one you refer to, the EUR 120 million. Give you a rough split. We have indeed something close to EUR 70 million on call it the more regular CapEx programs. Of course, as I mentioned also in the March meeting, we have a higher CapEx coming out of the strategic CapEx programs. You might recall that at that point in time, we gave a little bit of a lower CapEx amount than what we have now here. That's on the back of some scope changes, especially in the area of, I would say subsea. We see the opportunities for subsea, well, they definitely have become stronger, I would say, in the last couple of months.
It also means that we changed the scope a little bit of the investment in the sense that what we prior had as a kind of phase II program, that some of the phase II parts we have brought earlier into the concept. That's why the overall ticket is slightly higher than what we communicated before, so the 160. Of that, as I said, roughly, 12-15 is already included in H1, and that's already on top of the EUR 70 million for the full year. Then roughly you have to add another EUR 50 million more or less for this year. The remainder will be next year. On the working capital, how do we get to 15%-16%? Partly contract assets, that's correct.
It's not only contract assets, which is the only reason on why we have a working capital going to 20%. We see also in some of the other areas that working capital is able to reduce a little bit. We mentioned, for example, that in the vision segment that we have, I don't want to say passed, because you can never say something like that on supply chain issues, but it looks a little bit better in that segment for those components than we have seen, for example, right now in manufacturing systems. Also there you will see that probably the need for some of the stock items is a little bit less. It's a basket of elements which are moving here.
I think within Smart Manufacturing systems is where, of course, a kind of bigger ticket will be the delta, creating the percentage drop for the entire group. In Smart Manufacturing, how much capacity is available still until when do we see these hiccups? I think that's also a difficult question in the sense that it's very difficult to look through the supply chain and towards the supply chain of the supply chain to figure out at which point some of the critical issues are resolved or not. We don't anticipate that within the next six months this is going to be done. We will have to deal with this, and that can probably have a further impact also in H1 next year.
It's very, very difficult to say an exact deadline when this whole supply chain issue will not have an impact anymore. Clearly, for the next couple of months or six months, we have a clear view, and that's also communicated in the outlook as we did. We only know that it will not be completely disappearing at year-end. We still have effect in H1. To which extent? That is a difficult question to answer at this point.
Could you maybe give the split between Q1 and Q2 so we have a little bit of a view on?
Next year or this year?
No, no, this year, because I think the issues mainly start in Q2.
Yes. Yeah. Q1 was still running quite smooth, and that's why we had such a big improvement in the profitability in Q1. We also guided that in the outlook we gave after the Q1 update, that Q2 would look worse than Q1.
Yeah, you did EUR 256 million, I think, or EUR 260 million in sales in H1.
Mm-hmm.
Your guide for lower sales, but could you quantify a little bit more how much lower? I appreciate that you can't, you don't know exactly, but do you need?
Oh, it's around.
Yeah.
It's around EUR 20 million.
Okay.
Yeah.
Although, there are also other activities in that segment, but related to this, it is about comparable EUR 20 million is the issue we have entirely.
Your last question about.
I believe the perspective is that we have a potential to have a higher turnover in H1 2023. We are working also with redesigns that our suppliers are doing. But it will not be over the first January of 2023. Q2 might look better than that we see in Q3, Q4, and Q1. Then of course in the second half year, it should be quite normal again.
You mentioned that in your last question that it could be that we get quite a lot of tailwind in the strong position that we have and that has a lot of compensation power in 2023 for any area where we would be affected because of recession.
Thank you.
Okay. Sorry, Michaël. Morning, Tijs Hollestelle, ING. Also a couple of questions. The 132 kV cables, is that specifically for the next generation offshore wind farms planned for I think it's 2024, 2026?
Yes. That's, I guess it's far out, but the industries need upgrading towards a bigger scale. Yeah. Those scales, and you basically already have the technology ready.
Yes.
to go along.
Exactly.
It's helpful. Also another easy question, any more specific commercial successes in the vision technology? You gained a big customer or a new end market. You don't have to mention a name.
Yeah.
A bit more color.
The logistics market that is already for a long time, let's say, kind of key market where we see that there are huge opportunities and we have a very small market share there and what we see especially related to forklift trucks that we have a breakthrough there. This asks for quite intelligent systems. Also the latest acquisition, Nerian, is supporting our position there. The Nerian technology is able to measure distance in a very efficient way and very precise way. That is again a building stone, which is very important for having the right proposition in the whole package that we can deliver in that market. Another important, I was almost going to mention a customer.
I'm not allowed to do that. Sorry.
No problem.
In the lottery market, where we analyze lottery tickets in a very, very efficient and precise way, you cannot make a mistake. Completely automated process and you need automation there. Yeah, there we are, we won a very interesting project and with real potential of thousands of cameras. That's one example of a big ticket, because you will see in the end in every shop where they sell these tickets that they will have such a machine. We are not delivering the machine, so we're a sub-supplier. We deliver the software and that is nice. That's not just a hardware proposition.
Especially through the software proposition, we came in the winning proposition. Of course you need state-of-the-art technology, whereas they at first thought they could use a really simple camera. In the end, we were also to upsell that you really need the technology. Now in the combination, we can really support the analysis that needs to be made with, let's say, 100% proof. I can continue with that. Agriculture is a very important area that we are growing. The battery business, we saw that we had very nice growth in that segment. That was especially in China.
At the same time, we see that everywhere in the world, battery plants are being built. China is the most competitive market, so if you are able to sell there, it is easier to sell your technology and also in more added value with a complete system including software in the Western world. That is on the move. The medical industry where we are also winning with the new portfolio that we have. We have introduced, after USB, the GigE interface, again, where we thought it would phase out. We see that it is really still a very important market and we adopted that technology.
We see that really helps for a lot of applications where they still use that technology. Yeah, I can continue for a long time. I don't know.
No. It's indeed helpful. Is it also that it is becoming less, let's say, hit and run?
Yeah.
A few of these cameras that these clients do really recognize the technology and start also to work with you on.
Yeah. I have to be careful that I don't mention the name of the customer. The lottery business, this is a project for 5-10 years. Once we are designed in, they will not change that, because they make so much money with this system that we are a relatively small part of the cost price that is not a big risk. There's a continuity for many years. We are in the slipstream of how they penetrate that market with the selling of this system. We have many examples there.
At the forklift truck business, you can imagine once you are designed in, you will have the business for the coming 5- 10 years. It's an ultimate way of customer intimacy and relationship, where you cannot change very easily to another supplier. That is where we focused on the past few years to really get the differentiated technology, to not be able to easily be replaced.
Yeah.
That gives also, really a good long-term perspective of the growth that we can achieve in this segment.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Then also, I think it's basically the same question as Maarten had. Assume there are no supply chain issues, and you gave us a compliment for forecasting the numbers quite well. Could you give us a little bit of help in terms of when you can do it conservatively, but when you see the current capacity investments, but also the plan for capacity investments in kinds of building blocks, absolute revenue contributions over time? Because indeed, the stock market thinks that it will be a big hit from a recession, but you do seem to have a lot of additional capacity at least to keep the revenue stable next year.
A little bit help, because you already explained a lot, but there's so many moving parts that is difficult to track when exactly the capacity is, let's say, ready, and then you have to fill it up. When will the actual revenue contributions, the material revenue contributions start to impact the numbers? Quarter- by- quarter, preferably.
I would expect week by week from you. Let's say most of the we talk about the CapEx programs around mid-2023, so middle of next year, they're coming to a kind of stage that gradually they are available in terms of operations. There might be a little bit of a few months difference for the different projects, but roughly, that's the kind of contribution we start to see in the second half of the year. Of course, fourth quarter at a higher level than Q3.
Yeah.
Safe to say that starting 2024 will be a full year of full capacity utilization of the CapEx programs.
For energy infrastructure, subsea, tire, and the fiber optics.
All that.
Basically, all the timing is more or less the same.
Of which some might already start in the middle of 2023. The more material ones, I would say Q4 and starting part of 2024. If you look at, let's say, the overall contribution or, let's say, top line coming out of this.
Yeah.
That's a difficult question because the range is
Yeah
in many different areas. I think I'll give you a rough ballpark, but EUR +200 million is for sure what you have to look at.
Not in one quarter.
In the third quarter 2023. Yeah. No, I understand.
Kind of 12 months basis.
Yeah. Okay. That's very helpful. Yeah. Yeah, one final one. I understand correctly from your comments on the trade working capital that nothing happened, let's say, out of your control.
No.
I mean, I understand that the supply chain effects are out of your control, but that is, you understand nothing strangely volatile.
No
Strange behavior clients.
As I said, I mean, on the receivables, there's a similar pattern as in the past, nothing special there. The stock buildup is, let's say, well coordinated with our OpEx. Which areas do we invest more? What kind of components do we actually acquire more aggressively than what, let's say, only order book will define or other parameters? This has been a process in which we have been basically bottom-up building the choices which we made. Of course, if you look now at the total picture, obviously it has a substantial impact when you talk about free cash flow, et cetera. These are areas where we are working on.
I think availability has become a much more important element in the business model, and that's where we have been working on.
Yeah.
We have good order books. We have good order intakes. We don't see any cancellations. All of this is on the back of that we also have a good, let's say, delivery schedule toward our customers or potential customers. Yes, sometimes we also need to discuss with them because of issues change. But the fact that they are willing to order with us is also a good sign because we have the possibility to serve them. It may be slightly different on a different timeframe than it was three years ago, but we are still able to increase order book as a result. I think that's where we look at, and this is how we have managed this. At some point it has to go down, obviously.
There was an additional risk mitigation to secure components of unreliable suppliers where we saw in the past that, one or two months before they need to deliver, they completely cancel.
You need to mitigate that risk. Once there is an opportunity that you can get something, then you do that. That will normalize because of a lot of redesigns we did, and that will come in already in the second half here. That has a big impact on reducing the inventory because we have less need for risk mitigation of these cancellation risk.
I understand that. The visibility on the, let's say, the cash collection on the debtors and the contract assets, et cetera, because you know that you get the components. The only thing you don't know is that on the newly generated business that can then also have unexpected impact on the trade working capital. That is basically how I look at it, because you never know exactly what will happen.
I mean, as I said.
During the rest of the year.
with 60,000 components, there's always something which pops up.
Too many components.
Let's say with all the work, and it's not something from the last couple of months, I mean, this is already for, let's say, 18 months, that the supply chain is, let's say, a key topic in the operations agenda. We have been finding a lot of ways and a lot of, let's say, concepts on how we could handle this on the supply chain side, but also in our own operations by doing things differently or to different order. All these kind of things are in there. At some point, the last part has to be stretched, and that is what we are currently looking at.
Okay. I understand. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Good morning. Michaël Roeg, Degroof Petercam. First, I have two questions on the optic fiber business. Could you say by how much your capacity will increase when the plant in Poland is completed? The second question is, you mentioned EUR 4.5 million in import duties. Did you have to take that hit entirely yourself, or were you able to partly or fully pass it on to your customers?
To start with the latter part, I mean, the duties are on our account. Of course, what we have seen, and that's an effect in general of taking these kind of steps by the EU, is that dumping practices are blocked. We are not a company who is involved in dumping, but some of the Chinese operators have difficulty to, let's say, to be as aggressive as they were in the past. This, in general, leads to a better price level in the market. But that is not something we have been able to see moving up that rapidly. I think there's slightly better pricing, but it's not to the same extent that the entire level of duties. The duties depends. They go up 30%-40%.
It's not something that the price mechanisms has worked to a level of 30%-40%. A big part, a large part of the EUR 4.5 million, we have to absorb ourselves. Over time, of course, market prices should develop better, but especially the new facility in Poland will help us to mitigate this effect. The plant in Poland is partly bringing capacity allocation from China into the EU. It's not pure expansion, but we're talking about roughly 15%-20% capacity expansion on the cable side.
Yeah. Okay. Clear. Should we expect a similar EUR 4.5 million in second half? I guess we do, huh? Because your plant is not yet finished and you're still gonna source there.
Roughly.
Hopefully part of that EUR 4.5 million will be absorbed, will be compensated by better pricing. See, do you see something in the market already happening?
Slowly.
in terms of pricing?
Slowly. Not to the percentage levels as I just mentioned. That's not what we see.
Okay. Good. A question on a segment we haven't heard much about today, and that makes sense because last year airports had nothing to do, so no cash flows, and this year they have very different problems. I can imagine that investing in new lighting technology is not on top of their minds. Could you say something about your pipeline, your sales funnel for CEDD?
The sales funnel looks quite promising. Already having potential to translate in the second half year. A nice improvement there of the profitability. Also for 2023, we are working on some bigger projects that have perspective to have a substantial growth in 2023.
Okay. Yet another piece of tailwind.
Yeah.
Is that something you can disclose in terms of scope year- on- year or potential scope?
No, I believe that that is too early. The only thing is the sales funnel is more than EUR 200 million.
Good. A final one. It's not really a question, more a remark or I think. Your organic sales growth, as you disclose it, is actually not your organic sales growth, it's your organic volume growth.
Yeah.
Most companies include price effects also.
Yeah.
Optically, your growth would look much stronger or better than the way you-
Yeah
mention it. On the other hand, you said that your price increases don't give you extra gross profit, but that also goes for all the other companies on the stock market. They have exactly the same effect.
Mm-hmm.
Maybe that's something to either consider and then say our organic sales growth is the combination which we split in volume and price, because optically it looks better, and I think that's the definition everybody uses.
We will take that into account. Yeah.
That's it from my side. Thank you.
No. Oh, one other question.
Firstly, to get back to your working capital ratio this year, you expect to be above your strategic target level. I presume for long term, you reiterate your strategic target of 12%-15%.
Yes, I do.
Okay. You last year disclosed a long-term target in revenues of roughly EUR 2 billion in 2025. With the current price increases, I don't believe they have been envisaged. Should we more or less look at what just been stated, look at the volume component that should reach the EUR 2 billion, and then on top of that, we will have those price increases. Eventually we will get to a number way ahead of the EUR 2 billion.
For you, Louis.
I guess.
There are a few parts of this. I mean, it's not only that through price increases or price rises, we get to our targets. That's not the only way, of course. We have mentioned more than EUR 2 billion and not just EUR 2 billion. And of course, the return on sales is, of course, the key thing which is related to that, the 17% just being mentioned as well. I mean, of course, when you have price increases in your top line, it has a, call it negative effect on the incremental in the sense that it doesn't grow at the same speed. What we have not yet in the equation is, of course, the other elements which go to the top line.
That's divestments and that's acquisitions. So all these baskets together, we have to include. Currently, as you have seen in this first half year, we roughly had EUR 50 million in price effects. The EUR 50 million, I'm not gonna speculate on the price rises and increases over the next three, four years. Currently, with the EUR 50 million, that's not going to move the needle too much when you talk about the 2025 elements on the top line. Of course, the other elements, as I mentioned earlier, they also have to be taken into account. If you're talking about a restatement of midterm targets or an evaluation or a new targets and these kind of things, I think that's not a topic for today.
Again, also in your long-term target, you already had given some guidance on what to expect for acquisitions and divestment, and then to stick.
Sorry.
Sorry?
Correct.
Yeah. To stick to those two items. Firstly, can you say anything about the status of your divestment program? Because also at the start of six months ago, you had plans to divest companies. You have divested real estate. Secondly, could you inform us a bit more about your Nerian acquisition? You already touched upon it briefly.
On the divestments, definitely. I mean, what we executed in basically the second quarter is related to some buildings which were on our held-for-sale list. That's not the most material ticket. Of course, you see that on our balance sheet, we still have assets held for sale, roughly EUR 88 million on the asset side. That has not changed. We are in full swing in executing the divestment program. We are substantially further than where we were a couple of months ago. From that point of view, it's a key topic. The only thing I can say without further details is that we are in full swing on this. Nerian.
Yeah, Nerian is a relatively small company in the 3D stereo vision technology. There are many, of course, different technologies for 3D. Stereo vision is one, especially used, for example, when you have surfaces where there is a lot of disruption of, for example, sunlight or other external factors, or if you wanna scan very large objects. I mean, if you look at, for example, a piece of equipment where they make full pallets and you wanna have a full scan of a pallet, then you need this kind of technology in order to make one scan for that dimension. Different applications within 3D require a different kind of technology. This acquisition is, as I said, a very small company, only a few people.
Revenue-wise, almost disappearing in the rounding off, so I would say. With key components on the technology which we don't have to develop ourselves in that case, and with the integration of this company within the Vision Group, I think a lot of benefit can be derived throughout the world with the customer base which we have.
At one of your last CMDs, you more or less integrated a lot of your businesses. In the case of Nerian, you leave it as a standalone business. Why don't you integrate this business as well within your other Vision technology?
I think I just mentioned it. We integrate it into the group, and basically some of the brands product-wise will stay, but the rest is all absorbed within the Vision Group. Yeah.
It will be integrated in Allied Vision.
Okay.
Yeah.
Lastly, one of your U.S. competitors within vision technology, and particularly strong in logistics, faced a fire. Will you benefit from that situation that you might be able to serve a couple of their customers?
I mean, that's a difficult question. I don't think we have seen the direct link between that. Obviously, they are majorly impacted by this, so some customers are not going to be served on time for a long period of time, I think. It does not mean that we have people in sleeping bags in front of the door waiting for products on our side. That's not the case, but who knows?
Thank you. One last question because otherwise we're running out of time.
Again. A few questions. First of all, on UNIXX, c ould you explain a little bit better why your launch customer did not really order? Let's start with that one.
Yeah. This launching customer has a very big position in Russia, and they need to build additional capacity, and they need to do that with conventional technology, and they have to use all the people in their organization to make that happen, to create a complete greenfield outside of Russia. They lost their complete capacity in Russia.
How confident are you to win big orders? You mentioned.
Very, very confident. Again, we are talking to more customers. We have also opened up. That is the good thing, that we are able to open up and not have to focus only on this launching customer, and give them some headroom or what is it? Yeah, to have an advantage, and that is changed now. Yeah, perhaps, Harm, you can comment a little bit more yourself, and show how excited you are.
Indeed, this is a very exciting new technology, and we are very confident that in the longer term, this will be a real game changer. It will take some time before the market can absorb this. That's clear. It's really different. We emphasize this step by step. We are right now discussing with a few potential customers who are extremely excited, and we are discussing ways forward with them. Looking good, very confident. As Alexander already explained, it's not just this complete system.
I think it's good to understand that the highly advanced technology that we had to develop over the last years in order to make this happen can also be applied in smaller units, creating a lot of flexibility in existing factories. There we also see already quite some successes. All in all, this will definitely drive well the industry further, but also TKH revenue-wise also further. Very excited. We're right now in discussions with a few selected potential customers.
Above that, we already decided to have a demo line as an additional line. That shows also confidence that we are not having fear that we will not sell the first. It looks even that we are going to sell this demo line, which we already started. The appetite is really, really high.
I have two questions left. First of all, on parking. I think the contribution from parking is still very limited. Although if you look at retail, you see that the visitor numbers are back up. Could you quantify the kind of tailwind that could be into next year? Because I think sales is probably still around EUR 30 million lower, I think, year-over-year.
Yeah.
...or versus the pre-COVID period. Looking at on an EBITDA level, I think that could potentially be a kind of almost EUR 10 million EBITDA tailwind.
Yeah, depending on how much additional turnover. We have a contribution margin between 14%-50% there. To have an additional EUR 10 million, even up to EUR 20 million, is not impossible.
The final question is on the additional capacity that is coming online. On the top line it is of course a positive, but do you see reasons why potentially for next year it could be a negative driver on EBITDA because of, I don't know, startup losses or you need first some good capacity?
Well, there's always some startup effect, but I'm not going to, let's say, mark exactly what the effect will be in the last couple of months of 2023. Obviously, these are activities where we have already a established portfolio. It's not the same as when we started a couple of years ago with subsea. I mean, this is expansion basically with some modification in portfolio, but it's not from scratch. You might take as a general note that the startup effects are going to be lower than what we have seen a couple of years ago.
I think that's what Alexander also mentioned in the first part of the presentation, that if you look at the innovations and expansions currently, it's not that we are just, let's say, getting excited about all kinds of new different things, but we do more of the same. We have strong market positions. We are in market segments where high growth is ahead of us, and there we need to expand with capacity and not branch out to newer activities. As a result, let's say the core competence and expertise is mostly available within the group. Of course, it has to be scaled up and brought to the right geographical location. The startup costs are going to be lower. I don't say that there will not be any, but lower than what we have seen in the past.
Without giving a clear guidance on how many euros that will be.
No, no, of course. If I hear you well, you still expect absolute EBITDA contribution? That there will. Yeah.
In the fourth quarter should be.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you for all your questions, participation here, your presence, and also the presence to the audience in the webcast. I believe a very positive outlook. Perhaps that is a kind of positive surprise. At least I hope that everyone has a lot of confidence in what we are doing. At least we have a lot of confidence. I hope to see you back with the next presentation, which will be in November. That will not be a webcast with announcement of the quarterly results. Next year in March, we will have again a webcast and a presentation here in Amsterdam. Many thanks, and hope to see you healthy again.