Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Vasilios, your courier call operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Sarantis Group conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the Sarantis Group's half-year 2025 financial results. With us today, we have Mr. Ioannis Bouras, Group CEO, and Mr. Christos Varsos, Group CFO. All participants will be in a listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your telephone. As a kind reminder, you may also join the webcast by clicking on the link provided on the invitation. Please be reminded that this presentation contains a formal disclaimer with regards to forward-looking statements. The presentation and discussion are conducted subject to this disclaimer.
At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Ioannis Bouras, Group CEO. Mr. Bouras, you may now proceed.
Hello, everyone. I would like to thank you for joining the call today. We're very happy to have you all here. We are ready to start. First of all, we would like to highlight, we give some highlights at a glance of the first six months of 2025. What we would like to confirm is that our strategy remains the same. We are consistent and very precise with our strategy designed over the last three, four years. Consistent execution is also critical for our performance. This year, the first half of 2025 has been massive in terms of investment and energy behind the CapEx investments in our group, and we are on track on that, where all these CapEx are supporting the growth for the future.
The Stella Pack integration is in the final stage as we are working right now on combining warehouses in Poland for the local operations, plus all the networks in the markets. Of course, a significant part of our CapEx investments is directed to Stella Pack factory upgrade, supporting our regeneration capabilities in Poland. On the digital transformations, we are well on track. It's also a significant amount of energy from the team to deliver our digital agenda. We are, of course, we'll have some details later on that. In 2025, we continue our investments in our people as the capability enhancement of our people, and of course, the leadership development is critical for the future of our business. Another highlight is the expansion of our footprint in the U.S.
market via our sun care brand Carroten, which is well advanced and has been also significant for the first half of the year. From a commercial excellence point of view, the priorities and strategy remain the same. The Hero SKU philosophy continues, and even we are working towards that. We're applying a lot of rules of revenue growth management in the market, focusing on the mix of the portfolio, the investment strategy, promotional strategy, and how we are delivering the growth via the categories that are improving our profitability as a business. On the innovation side, many new things are coming through. Of course, as always, we are focusing on fewer and bigger initiatives. The international expansion, as I mentioned, is driving growth and strengthening, of course, our selected international markets. That is one of our key priorities in our strategy.
In terms of numbers, of course, from a top-line point of view, plus 0.5%. We're keeping, just to remind you, that last year's first half was very, very strong. We're keeping our power in the market. On gross profit, we have also equivalent growth. When it comes to EBITDA and EBIT and net profits, our double-digit growth is coming through. This is happening, of course, because of our operational efficiency, cost controlling, and of course, all the work happened over the years makes the organization much more efficient. Plus, the mix of some of the categories is helping towards this direction. Now, when it comes to category, as you can see clearly here, as we always present, Beauty and Skin Care and sun category has provided significant growth in the first half of the year, plus 22.7%. This, of course, includes the international markets growth, where the U.S.
also is critical to this journey. Personal Care, Personal Care, there are some pressures in this category. Intensive competition is coming to the game. There are things happening in the market that are affecting the top-line growth, but still, it's a very big category for us. Home Care Solutions, also similar. We have a pressure in the market where it's coming from demand from specific markets. This is also something that we are working on. Strategic Partnerships, we have a 2.1% growth. This is coming mainly because of the work that we are doing with our strategic partners on some of the innovations they are providing for us, plus some new smaller businesses that are coming to our portfolio. Private Label has been minus 16.7%.
We have discussed this in the past, that Private Label is a business that is supporting our supply chain agenda for the Home Care Solutions category. A key priority for us also is the profitability of this category. It's not a, as you will see later, it's not a massive profitable category for us. We have to balance between the growth and the profits at the same time. Although the category for us is dropping by 16%, from a profit margin point of view, it's not significant. On the right-hand side, you can see that the branded business of Sarantis Group for the first six months is growing by 2.5%, while in Private Label, we are dropping by 16.7%. A bit of an update on international expansion. As we said, the Skin and Beauty is a significant growth category for Sarantis Group as a whole.
Within that category, the international expansion of Beauty and Skin is a critical part in our agenda. We have set up this priority two years ago. The projects that we are running in different parts of the world are doing very, very well, with, of course, the U.S. running exceptionally well for the first half of 2025. We're working with some of our portfolio from a timing point of view and becoming very successful in the U.S. market in different retailers, either online retailers or offline retailers. This year, of course, and this is also increasing our appetite for further initiatives in the market for the years to come. This is something that is helping us a lot. Of course, we'll put a lot of energy and efforts behind.
On top of the U.S., though, we have on the other side of Earth is Australia, where the news is that we have listed in one of the leading retailers in Australia, one of the two biggest retailers in Australia. It's going to hit the market in the coming summer, for summer meaning Australian summer, November, December this year. With Philippines, we continue with our Bio10 very strongly. Of course, the brand is launched many years ago, so we are now quite mature, but, of course, the product is developing nicely there together with Clinea. Recently, we had some openings in the Middle East with Saudi, the number one retailer in health and beauty, and United Arab Emirates, the number two retailer in health and beauty, with our Carroten brand in the Middle East. Plenty of initiatives here.
As a team, we are working behind all this and some others that they are riding over the last period. When it comes to geographies, here is the usual table about the different markets. As you can see, Greece is growing nicely. It is not only the international markets that they are growing by 52%, but also Greece's domestic market, which is the biggest, with a growth of 3.5%, which is very, very positive. Poland is overall, if you see, there is a minus 4.7%, but this is mainly due to the Private Label business, which is included in the Poland country, while in the branded portfolio, we are growing 1.1%. Romania, the first six months have been challenging for the Romanian market. There are several issues on the market. We believe that going forward, things will get better.
There are some political things happening in the market affecting the overall demand from the consumer. When it comes to Czech and Slovakia, very, very, very good growth and continuing growing from previous years. West Balkans also have been facing some challenges, especially in Serbia over the last months. Ukraine, with a -12%, but just to remind you here, we have disposed of some business from Stella business we bought last year, mainly Private Label or tactical business that they had in Ukraine. If you compare like for like, this is -1.2%. Actually, Ukraine business for us is flat versus 2024. When it comes to Bulgaria, it's again a smaller market, flat. Hungary is developing by +5.2%. This is a picture from the geographies' point of view. Now, regarding all the things that I mentioned at the beginning of the highlights, three major pillars here. One is the digital transformation.
If you remember, we said before that we are implementing new SAP for our business and plus other systems together with that, where we're going to build a unified data platform across our markets. The go live of SAP went first in Greece, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary, very successfully in Q1 2025. Now we are preparing the wave two for January 2026, which includes West Balkans, Romania, and Bulgaria. The whole project on this one will be concluded at the beginning of 2027 with Poland and Ukraine. We are well advanced now with our plans. The team is very confident, and I think the implementation is successful and without disruptions. The integrated business planning is completed. This is already completed in June this year.
We have a new platform for planning and for the whole organization, critical to manage our complexity, to include our commercial planning together with the supply planning, and of course, be more accurate in our forecasting and our planning accuracy. The new digital tools coming together with the new systems are helping to optimize our operations and workflow and processes. This is critical. On the manufacturing upgrade, as I said before, the Stella Pack Regeneration Update is well on track. The whole project will be completed by Q4 2025. I think this is critical as the investment is around €15 million. This investment is critical for making sure that our supply chain of garbage bags is one of the most competitive supply chains in Europe. Having fully recycled and granulated materials for producing our garbage bags is a differentiator for us as well.
Our innovative plan, because of the expansion of our skincare business and our export business of the Sun Care, we have another $10 million investment program that is going to be completed by Q1 2026. Of course, a majority of that will be happening also this year, increasing our capacity for our Beauty and Skin Care and Sun Care sales. All of these CapEx investments are linking also our sustainability and ESG agenda, where energy efficiency is also critical for the business. All the automations around our plants in Greece and Poland are critical also to improve our productivity. On the ESG agenda, we have a commitment. We are following through properly our agenda on delivering the commitments that we promised. Now we are in the position to validate with SBTI our near-term climate targets.
We are working on the digital agenda to have a proper, accurate, and fast way of measuring our progress so everybody will be accountable and dedicated to the delivery. We're working with the raters right now, CDP and EcoVadis, to get the proper rating. This is also part of our agenda of ESG. That's an introduction from my side with the basic numbers. I'll hand over to Christos Varsos, our CFO, to give us more detail about the numbers and the financial results.
Thank you, Ioannis. Let me now provide some details behind the key numbers Ioannis described. Our net sales grew marginally compared to 2024, which focused on our core categories in Beauty and Skin Care and sun care, which influenced favorably the mix of sales. I remind you that we are cycling a very strong half-year one in 2024 when we've had a very hot summer across Europe, which was not the case this year for several of our countries. Our gross profit grew marginally, with the gross profit margin remaining at 38.6%. EBITDA grew significantly by almost 16% to €48.3 million, leveraging on the mix of categories of our core portfolio with strong growth, as mentioned, our Beauty and Skin Care and sun care category, supported by our export business.
Cost benefit from the initial phase of commercial integration of Stella Pack, which was completed last year, while controlling OPEX overall in our business. EBITDA margin grew by 200 bps, coming to 15.9%, plus EBIT at €37.5 million, an 18% increase versus €31.8 million last year, and EBIT margin of 12.3%, an increase of 181 bps. Financial expenses in 2025 improved significantly following the early prepayment in the last quarter of 2024 of €18 million of debts, combined with lower interest rates. We will continue prepaying early debts, supporting further improvement in our earnings per share. Following the improvement of financial expenses, our earnings before tax grew by 21% to €36.5 million from €30.1 million in 2024, and EBT margin grew by 200 bps to 12% from 9.9% last year.
Net income at €29.2 million, up by 20% versus €24.3 million in 2024, and EPS at €0.46, a 22% increase to prior year of €0.37. Moving now to our product categories so you can understand more about the dynamics in the first six months of the year. Beauty and Skin Care and sun care. As we have already mentioned in our five-year plan, achieving disproportional growth in the Beauty and Skin Care and sun care category is a key pillar where we build our organic growth strategy. In half-year one, 2025, we grew by 22.7% to €55 million, supported by our sun care sales that continued accelerating this year with the help also of our export business that Ioannis described. Category EBIT grew by 72% and EBIT margin by 800 bps to almost 29%, affected by the mix within the category. Personal Care.
In terms of Personal Care, which is a core profit generator for us, we have a decline of 3.5% of net sales as Ioannis described compared to prior year, but EBIT grew by 13% to reach €8.5 million EBIT with EBIT margin of 16.7% and improvement of almost 250 bps compared to prior year. Home Care Solutions declined by 2.9% to €101.7 million, affected by pressure in some of our markets like Ukraine and West Balkans, which are mostly represented in this category. EBIT declined by €1.5 million to €11.1 million, largely affected by the sales. The integration expenses of Stella supply chain, as we are optimizing our supply chain network while continuing investing heavily, also impacted results. However, the real support and the benefits from these investments and from the optimization will be benefiting mostly 2026 rather than the current year.
Private Label sales were mainly impacted by continuous rationalization of the Private Label products portfolio, especially in terms of Stella Pack products. We expect that the completion of our CapEx investments in the granulation lines will support us not only to be more cost-efficient, but also will improve our overall competitiveness both for our Private Label and branded portfolio. As mentioned in the past, we use Private Label on a taxing basis to absorb costs from branded business, and we will over time increase branded business and decrease the Private Label portfolio. Strategic Partnerships. Finally, in our Strategic Partnerships, we had a healthy performance, increasing our sales by 2% while improving at EBIT by 9% to €2.8 million, improving slightly also the margin. As mentioned in the past, we use the category for market leverage, and we are focusing on fewer and better relationships.
For the Total Group, we had a solid net sales performance reaching €304 million of net sales. EBIT grew, as mentioned, by 18% to €13.5 million, and EBIT margin grew by 180 bps to 12.3%. Now, turning to our geographies. As discussed in the past, we wanted to share with the investor community the different dynamics outlining our performance. For Greece, we are splitting the sales between the domestic market and the export to select international markets. For Poland, we're splitting Poland between branded products and Private Label as this affects mainly the geography of Poland. Greece grew in total to €97.2 million of €98 million, an increase of almost 10%. In terms of EBIT, this grew by 56% to €19.3 million, and EBIT margin grew by 600 bps to 19.8%.
If we look at the subsegments, Greece's domestic business net sales showed a healthy growth rate, forcing an increase of 3.5% despite citing a very strong half-year one 2024 due to sun care sales, with an EBIT of €12.1 million, a 32% increase to prior year, a 15.1% margin, and improvement of more than 300 bps affected by a mix of categories and cost control. In export markets, we grew by 53% to €17.6 million and EBIT to €7.2 million, which is more than double compared to prior year. As you see, exports have a much higher EBIT of 40, almost 41%, and that's why we strongly believe in this segment as an accelerator to our growth for our five-year plan. In Poland, the Total Business had net sales of almost €90 million, a 4.7% decrease versus prior year, with EBIT also declining, affected by the Private Label portfolio.
The branded portfolio grew by 1% to €64.3 million, while EBIT decreased by 7.6%, coming to almost €6 million, including also supply chain integration expenses, as already mentioned. Private Label declined by 6.7% on the back of rationalization of contracts in the product portfolio, especially for Stella, with EBIT being similar to prior year. In other territories, we had a mixed picture driven by specifics in each country. Romania, as already mentioned by Ioannis, had a slower start this year with €46 million of net sales, a decline of 5% versus prior year, citing a strong performance in prior year. In terms of EBIT, Romania achieved almost €7 million, representing a decline of 7%, with flattest EBIT margin at 15%. Czech and Slovakia accelerated growth by adding 8% more net sales, reaching almost €25 million, with EBIT of €3.4 million, a 23% increase to last year.
In terms of EBIT margin, this improved by 160 bps, reaching 13.8%. West Balkans showed a decline in the net sales of 4% to €19 million, mainly impacted by the Serbian market with some arrests in the year and market pressure. However, in terms of EBIT delivery, West Balkans managed to grow EBIT by 5.6%, €1.6 million, and EBIT margin to 8.6% with support from cost control. For Ukraine, it is a year of pressure in the results, as identified already from our full-year results discussion. However, Ukraine specifically was also impacted by the sale of Stella Ukraine, completed at year end. Stella Ukraine, for the record, had €1.4 million of sales in half-year 2024, the €100,000 EBIT. Without this impact, the net sales would be almost flat, and the EBIT would be growing by 4.5%.
As mentioned, we are working with the resilience in Ukraine and expanding our portfolio outside the Home Care category, which is the key category for Ukraine, which is still the leading and still is the leading business in the area. Moving now to our healthy and strong balance sheet. As we have discussed also in the past, we maintain a strong balance sheet which can support our organic growth, the next steps on our transformation agenda, and M&A activities. As of June 30, we had a net debt of €32.8 million compared to €43.9 million net debt as of June 30, 2024. I remind you that due to the seasonality, our lowest net debt position, our worst net debt position is on June 30, whereas the best is on December 31.
Already today, today I'm talking about today in September 10, as we speak, our net debt has improved more than €20 million compared to the June numbers, standing today at around €12 million. Thus, by year end, we should be again close to net cash positions. During half one, we have received the €20.8 million installment from a Stella order, with the final one expected for January 2028. As we have discussed also in the full-year results, in the last quarter of 2024, we have made early debt prepayments of €18 million, reducing our financing expenses. We have now committed and formed one of our lenders for €5 million early prepayments to be executed next week and enhancing further our earnings per share. We have one 2025 we have generated free cash flow of €13.4 million, with our working capital improving compared to last year by 2.3 days.
Enhancing our shareholder value is key for us. EPS reached €0.46 from €0.37 last year, increase of more than 22%. During the first half, we paid a dividend of €20 million or €0.31 per share, representing a 33.3% increase compared to the €15 million paid last year. This represented a 43.5% payout ratio versus a 38.2% payout ratio last year. As you remember, as per our dividend policy, we said that the floor or the minimum we're going to pay will be 38% and more. I would like now to provide an update on our CapEx for this year. We are assuming less CapEx this year with respect to the distribution center next to our Innovista factory due to later commencement of the project. We are now in the competitive process to commission the construction company that will build it for us, who expects to start within the next month.
This will mean that only €1.5 million from the €7 million initially assumed will be spent this year, and the remaining amount of €5.5 million will be invested next year. The rest of CapEx remains the same as per our guidance back in March. Thus, our new CapEx expectation for 2025 is €34.5 million from €40 million we communicated earlier this year, while 2026 will be €35.5 million from €30 million initially communicated. This will impact, obviously, favorably the free cash flow generation delivery for full year 2025 by €5.5 million. Finally, we would like also to update you on our 2025 outlook. We already read our 2025 profitability guidance. I remind you that our estimations for 2025 are EBITDA of €92 million, improved by 12.7% versus 2024, EBIT to €70 million, improved by almost 50% versus 2024.
For net sales, we now expect a growth of 2% versus 2024, which will bring our net sales for 2025 to €612 million.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star, followed by one on their telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, then you may press star and two. Those participating via the webcast, you may submit your written questions using the ask a question window. To our audio participants, please use your handset when asking your question for better quality. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question comes from the line of Zviriadi Natalia with Eurobank Equities. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions, and thank you for the very extensive and informative call. I was wondering if you could, if you have any indication on how our exports are running into Q3 as we enter it, because we are talking about products that are summer care products. Should we assume that these are continuing also in Q3 and running rates are holding in this period also? As I understand, with the expansion into Australia, we're trying to get the seasonality there. Maybe you could give us also an indication about the exports you are expecting in the other markets, and based on the experience you've already seen, what are you thinking? What numbers are you thinking there? That's one question. I also have a question again regarding exports.
If you could remind us, this is just a reminder, these are higher margin products, higher margin actually, and the products we are talking about. Could you remind us a range there? How much this boosts our EBIT line? Thank you. These are the questions I have for now.
Yeah. Okay. On the export side, because yes, sun care products is the majority of the growth coming for the export business. The seasonality is critical. Until the first half of June 2025, the majority of the sales are in. The second half of the year will not be the same, not the same momentum. Definitely, though, Australian businesses like Australia will help, but what we know is that it's not going to be near to the ones that have it in the U.S. in the first half of the year. You cannot put the same second six months for the exports. It's a slower pace, of course. This is also helping, of course, the first half of the year from this category point of view.
Just to remind you that last year, total year exports were €19 million for the full year, and this first half is €17.58 million, if I'm not mistaken, right?
Yes, 16.5.
16.5. Our expectation, and also just to remind you, in the five-year plan, we said by 2028, we'll get to €30 million. It looks that this one is coming much faster. The expectation of the year will be something a bit below, in the area of €24 million, €25 million, right? Just to give you the perspective.
Practically, we'll bring this from 2028, most likely we'll be at this range to 2026.
Of course, you cannot expect the same rate of sales for the second half of the year because the majority still is in the northern hemisphere, is not in the south, is only Australia in the south, so it's not enough to do the same. Now, regarding the margin, I think Christos presented that the EBIT margin for export is around.
41%.
41%. This is the accelerator from a profitability point of view. It's just presented in the presentation, right?
It is a margin that is really accretive to the margin due to the structure that we have discussed in the past. This brings much more.
Okay, great. Yes, I remember the margin around 30%. That's why I wanted to get this clear. Okay, thank you.
Yeah.
That's a good business coming in. I wanted to ask something, a follow-up. I just thought about that. Poland has been running, if I recall correctly, 1.5% on sales, the local market. Should we expect this to continue at this rate, or should we see there, not the Private Label products, the rest of the... Should we expect an acceleration there? You know, it's one of your big markets. I'm wondering how this should evolve.
We're expecting to be higher. We don't have exactly the number to share with you right now. Of course, if you remember also, because this is a general comment, this is only taking the opportunity because in the five-year plan, we talk about 4.5% to 5% growth, organic growth every year. This year, what we said right now, we are guiding for 2% at the end of the year, including Private Label, including all the roles of the different categories. We are not changing the thinking and the mindset for the organic growth for the forecoming years. We believe that 2025 has been a little bit challenging in the sequence of some markets, but we are not changing our strategy or say we are keeping our five-year mindset and thinking behind the growth and organic growth.
We believe that all the action plans we are taking in every country, in every category, is to deliver these numbers, right? What we are expecting coming to your question specifically is not only in Poland, but also in other markets that today are showing a drop for the first half of the year to go back to growth and go closer to the numbers that we have in our five-year plan.
Okay, okay, great. That's clear. Thank you very much for that.
Thank you, Natalia.
Okay.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Once again, to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone.
We can look at the questions that we have already received also in writing. We can start answering that. If people want in the meantime, they can also continue asking questions.
Okay, great. Thank you. There are no further audio questions. We will now accommodate any written questions from the webcast participants. The first written question comes from Iakovos Kurtesis with Piraeus Securities, and I quote, "What is your CapEx estimate for full year 2025?
We have actually included it in the presentation. As I said, we had €40 million. Now we have almost €35 million, €34.5 million. We're only switching €5 million to next year because of the latest start of the distribution center in Innovista. For this year, instead of €40 million, it will be €35 million, €34.5 million. Next year, instead of €30 million, it will be €35.5 million.
Thank you. The next written question comes from Yurios Andriopoulos with Piraeus Asset Management, and I quote, "Good afternoon. Given the slowdown in sales within the Personal Care segment, do you anticipate this trend continuing into the second half of the year and into 2026? Additionally, what strategies are you implementing to remain competitive in that market? Finally, should we expect any changes to the sales guidance provided in the Q1 report for this year or subsequent years, 2026, 2027, and 2028, sales growth of 5.5%? What should we expect in terms of EBITDA margin in the medium term? Thank you.
I was starting from the end. I think I said something before, but now I can reinforce. As we speak right now, we're keeping the five-year plan and the guidance of the top line and the EBIT margins the same. Of course, this year is one year. As we're moving on, following the closure of the year in March, and of course, the guidance for 2026, things can be a little bit, but this is what we keep right now. We haven't worked another plan. That's the plan that we have. Of course, as you remember, it was a doubling the EBITDA when we presented. It's a strong and challenging plan, but this is what we keep. The mindset of the growth as a company, organic growth is still here with our strategies that we are implementing.
Regarding the Personal Care specifically, I think I also, Christos, mentioned about the top line in the first half, but also the profitability growth. These categories are quite competitive, and we have strong plans behind to bring back to growth. We even further grow in our coming year. This is a continued battle in the stores, with everybody participating in this category. Competitors in this category coming from new products, innovation, coming from promotion strategies, from advertising strategies, all this mix that is critical for all FMCG companies. We're working on all these plans behind with our big brands and our hero brands in different markets or the whole region.
Thank you. The next question comes from Iakovos Kurtesis with Piraeus Securities, and I quote, "Do you expect the recent VAT rate increases in Romania as of August 1, 2025 to further affect demand in the country? Do you have a specific strategy to cope with this? Thank you.
Definitely, any measurements that are affecting the consumer income, they are not positive for the market, right? This is something that is not only in Romania, but other markets have other measures. The number one priority for us is to be competitive and, of course, adaptable to the new reality, and this is what we do. Competitiveness meaning that you have to be aware about the consumer disposable income, and of course, what is your promotion strategy and how you're promoting your brands and taking every little opportunity from the market. This is the way we work. This is the way we worked before, and this is the way we keep working right now. There is no magic recipe. There is only one thing. We have to do multiple things right in order to cope. Definitely, things like that are affecting the consumer demand. This is for sure a reality.
Thank you. The next written question comes again from Iakovos Kurtesis with Piraeus Securities, and I quote, "Could you provide us with an update on the third quarter 2025 trading for specific international markets, Poland, Romania, and Serbia? Do you see improved trends in these markets? Thank you.
In the third quarter, of course, not ending. September is a significant month for all these markets because it's true that July and August are months that are not heavy in terms of sales and, of course, of activities. We have to wait to see the closure of September. Again, things are not like they're not flying. There are, of course, continued to be challenges in these markets, right? We still need to wait the closure of September.
We are going to announce the third quarter on October 24 or something like that. We will have a full view on September, and by then, we will have also a portion of October.
Thank you. The next question comes from Emanuel de Figueredo with LBV Asset Management, and I quote, "Could you give more color on the seasonality of the business? As skin and beauty grow more, does this mean the company becomes more have to wait it?
Thank you for the question. If you remember the seasonality, in terms of seasonality, Q2 is a very strong period every year because of the sale of sun care. I remind you that we sell the sun care. We start selling the sun care. We produce it late in the year. In the first quarter, we actually send it to the stores, especially in the second quarter. The stores sell it in the third quarter. Practically, in every year, the first six months is the growth due to the sun care, which is seasonal. It's much stronger. Obviously, we have seasonality at the year end with gifting and with our selective business as well. In terms of half one, it is always the stronger phase in terms of growth of our revenue. In this respect, the beauty and skin care is growing. Obviously, not only the sun care.
The sun care is what we're talking about. As Ioannis already mentioned, we have the exports will be a slower growth in the second part of the year. To your question, we're not becoming much more heavy and have to weight it. We are still largely half one weighted. This supports also the difference in the profitability.
Thank you. The next question is again from Emanuel de Figueredo with LBV Asset Management, and I quote, "For 2025, should we expect a stronger second half than first half?" Thank you.
I think you have seen the first half, and you have seen the guidance for profitability for the full year and for revenue. In these terms, it is, you know, it's almost 50-50 in terms of net sales, if you think about it, €304 million versus €612 million. In terms of profitability, we maintain at the same pace. I don't think that we're talking about stronger or less strong half one. We mentioned about the exports and everything that continues going, which improves also the EBIT margin.
Thank you. The next question comes from Giorgio Tanasakis with Padelaki Securities, and I quote, "Can you please elaborate on the reduction in your OpEx? Can you please discuss the impact of the changing product mix on your EBIT margin? Can you discuss your strategy on Private Label? Thank you.
I think on the OpEx side, I'll elaborate. All the investments that we started a few years ago, and of course, we are accelerating in 2025 with more digital investments and everything, including our way we do business. This is helping, of course, the cost of doing business, and that's one of the major objectives. This is what we are doing. It's not a magic recipe. Plus, making an efficient organization, of course, we can grow without increasing our costs. This is also critical from this side. This means also we are challenging the way we do things. With new systems in place, we can challenge the way we did things in the past that were not that efficient. Efficiency in our business meaning lower costs, right? Definitely.
It is a sequence of events as well. Don't forget that last year we started degrading Stella Pack, and we started getting to the commercial degradation, which has finished last year. We're reaping the benefits now. Now we're doing the supply chain optimization, and we're actually controlling this, which you'll see much benefits coming in 2026. The OpEx is not a drastic type of thing. We built on it, and we built the culture as well to be able to have this saving moving forward.
Yeah. Now, product mix. Product mix. As you remember, and we have discussed even in a five-year plan, in our plan for organic growth over five years in order to double our EBITDA to $120 million, we said that we want disproportionately to grow Beauty and Skin Care and sun care because this has the highest margin. I think these six months, it's pretty obvious of this because we're improving largely in a product category that we're gaining large EBIT margins, whereas at the same time, we're rationalizing a category like the Private Label, which in terms it didn't have a strong EBIT. Practically, we removed it. You think about it. We removed the balance that we see removed in Private Label didn't really affect the bottom line.
This, you can see it going forward, and we believe that the acceleration also of the Beauty and Skin Care and sun care categories and the export, obviously, as discussed, will support very much the mix towards the direction that we've already communicated in the five-year plan.
On the Private Label, because I think we said during the call, we said before Private Label in garbage bags is complementary to our supply chain as an activity. It is a big size. It's important for us for two things. One is fulfilling capacities, and of course, keeping our competitiveness. On the other side, we're not going to build more capacity to serve Private Label. This is that we made it clear. Our objective is to build and grow our branded business over the years and gradually removing capacity from Private Label.
Thank you. The next question comes from Dimitris Ioannulis with Research Greece, and I quote, "Good afternoon. What level of EBIT do you expect for the Private Label segment post-rationalization? Which countries contributed in international sales in first half besides the U.S.? Thank you.
In the EBIT of the Private Label, we don't expect to be, it's going to be a single-digit EBIT, right? This is positive. This is going to happen. It's not going to change significantly our profitability because of the rationalization. Regarding the countries contributing to national sales, we have countries like Middle East, Philippines, we have Australia, and of course, we have some Middle East, as I said, and we have countries, and the U.S. is a big part of the H1.
Thank you. The next question comes from John Kalogeropoulos with Beta Securities, and I quote, "Hi, what about further expansion abroad? Examining any further opportunities? Thank you.
Yeah. I mean, what we say internally, this is one of our growth pillars for the future, in line with our skin and beauty strategy that we have as a strategic pillar. Of course, some of the initiatives that we are doing in the markets are giving us the signal that our brands, whether it's skincare brands Bio10, Clinea, or our sun care brand Carroten, they are well accepted by consumers in different markets because of the quality, because of the claims that we have, the seriousness behind the production, and of course, the competitors in general. As we speak right now, we are scoping other markets around the world. Just to remind you, international business meaning markets outside our territory, right? Markets can be in Western Europe and can be an activation place for us, for our brands. Of course, accelerating markets like Australia and the U.S.
because the U.S., we just started a year ago, less than a year ago. We're having plans to expand our distribution in the U.S. or bringing more products into the market. We're well advanced with these plans for 2026. More news on that we'll have either in October this year in the nine-month results or in the results of the year end in March 2026.
Thank you. The next question comes from Bruno Raget with Immobiliare de Cruzias, and I quote, "The Romanian economy is currently slowing fast. What level of sales are you expecting for the full sales? Are you now estimating?
What we're estimating for the full year is to have a flat year for Romania or minus 1%. This is the number that we are looking at right now.
Thank you. The next question comes from Emanuel de Figueredo with LBV Asset Management and I quote, "How likely are you to perform any M&A? Do you have any open due diligence ongoing for bolt-on acquisitions? Thank you.
Starting from the end, we have no due diligence at this moment in time. From the M&A point of view, as you already know, Sarantis is always open and active on this field as long as there are any targets that are in line with our strategy, where the strategy is in our categories that we operate, in our markets that we operate here in Eastern Europe, and in our channels. At this moment in time, we have no active due diligence process. Of course, there are opportunities out there which may arise anytime soon or not. I don't know right now. I can't give you any information on that.
Thank you. The next question comes from Depot Mason with Guy Lusac Gestion and I quote, "Good afternoon, gentlemen. Anything in the M&A pipeline considering the potential return to net cash by year end? Thank you.
Starting from a net cash position, as you know, we are in a cash flow generative business. Obviously, we have also committed debt and we have committed lines if we want to buy something. In this sense, we have the framework and we're actually in the market, as Ioannis described, and we have things that we would like to buy. Obviously, they need to be wanted to be sold as well at a reasonable price. In our strategy, we maintain and we want to do bolt-on acquisitions. Obviously, it's a matter of timing, but we have all the capability, internal and the funding, to actually do larger things as well.
Thank you. The next question comes from John Kalogeropoulos with Beta Securities, and I quote, "You mentioned lower CapEx and potential shareholders' reward uptake. To what extent? Thank you.
I mentioned lower CapEx and I mentioned we'll have a higher free cash flow by $5 million. What I mentioned as well was that we have a policy, a dividend policy that we'll be paying at least 38% of our net income as dividend. This year, when we sold the profitability this year, we actually gave 43% and that was the $20 million. It is not that it will be anything outside of our policy and we'll continue making sure that we provide the good return to our shareholders and the good value for our shareholders.
Thank you. The next question comes from Bruno Raget with Immobiliare de Cruzias and I quote, "Please explain what caused the large drop of sales in the Private Label segment. What is the outlook for sales in the Private Label market in the second half? Thank you.
I'll take the first part. I think we mentioned also while presenting that it has to do with the rationalization of our contracts, especially of contracts. We wanted to make sure that they actually are much more profitable. That's why you saw that despite the difference in the net sales line, practically in EBIT, nothing changed. We're removing the correct contracts out of the case.
Also, just to add here that some of the big customers that we have in Private Label have a bit of slowdown in sales as well. We are depending on their activities in the Private Label, so this is also affecting. From H2, on the Private Label, we don't expect any significant change versus H1. Maybe we expect things to improve. We'll bring the level of sales minus 10% versus 2024. This is what we see right now. Of course, these things are changing right now and new discussions are happening in every different type of customer for the year to go.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to management for any closing comments. Thank you.
I would like to thank you for participating in the call. I hope we explained and presented our case properly. Thank you very much for the participation and the questions. Talk to you soon in our future interactions, right?
Looking forward to our next announcement in the late quarter and obviously the continued discussions with you, understanding more of our case and the execution of our five-year plan.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling and have a good evening.