Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Maria, your Chorus call operator. Welcome, thank you for joining the Titan Cement Group conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the first half 2023 results. Please note, this call and presentation is intended for analysts and investors only. All participants will be in a listen-only mode, 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. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Marcel Cobuz, Chairman of the Group Executive Committee, Mr. Michael Colakides, Group CFO, and Mr. Leonidas Kanellopoulos, Group Sustainability Officer. Mr. Cobuz, you may now proceed.
Thank you. Good morning. Good afternoon, everyone. Very happy to be here, we have published this morning very strong performance results for our 2023 first half, with both sales growth, over proportional growth in EBITDA and margin expansion, thanks to good pricing and cost performance, with US and Greece as very robust markets and good prospects. We have also announced the completion of couple of growth investments, projects, mainly related to increase of the use of low carbon fuels, but also logistics optimization in US, which is an important cost element. Finally, we have published today the accelerated path for our decarbonization, digitalization, and innovation.
One of the highlights of the last few weeks has been that a large-scale carbon capture project at Titan's Athens plant here in Greece has been selected for the EU Innovation Fund. We hope to get you excited throughout this call with our market status and performance status, as well as discussions around our decarbonization, digital, and innovation roadmap, and also give you a preview of what we will be discussing at the Investor Day scheduled for September 2023. Welcome to this call. I hand over to our Group CFO, Michael Colakides, to walk us through the results and then also give a couple of points on the outlook for the year. Thank you.
Thank you, Marcel. Good morning and good afternoon to everybody from me as well. We are very happy to report the results for the first half of the year, with strong sales and earnings growth in our main markets of the U.S. and Europe, as well as in Southeast Europe. Group sales increased by 19%, climbing to EUR 1.2 billion. This was a result of higher levels of domestic demand across our main markets and products, and of price increases during 2022 and at the beginning of this year. First half, EBITDA increased to EUR 241 million, up by 77%, owing to higher sales and an improved operating cost base, following investments in alternative fuels, digitalization, plant modernization, and logistics. Lower electricity prices and shipping trade also contributed positively.
Net profit more than doubled to EUR 110 million, following EBITDA rise in almost all regions. Earnings per share stand at EUR 1.48, compared to EUR 0.59 last year. The second quarter figures alone were also strong and moved in similar trends with the first quarter, with sales reaching EUR 641 million, increased by 10.3% compared to Q2 of last year, and EBITDA hiking to EUR 134 million, up by 49%. We should be aware that as we have entered the second year of sales growth compared to the high 2022 levels, from now on, growth rates will be a bit lower.
The leverage ratio of net debt to EBITDA dropped to 1.7, following a reduction of net debt to EUR 762 million, supported by increased EBITDA and tighter working capital management. CapEx continued at the high levels of EUR 117 million, driven by our growth-oriented and cost reduction-focused strategy. As announced last week, we had a breakthrough that is expected to significantly advance our decarbonization path, and that is what Marcel just talked about, the large-scale carbon capture project for the Athens plant. That was selected by the EU Innovation Fund for a grant agreement preparation. As of the end of June, our CO2 emissions were reduced by 3% year-over-year, while we achieved a score of 1 from ISS ESG, which is the highest environmental score.
More on the topic of decarbonization, you will hear later on from Leonidas Kanellopoulos. Turning to the next slide. As you can see, these are the graphs for first half and second quarter results, the comments of which I just provided, and indicate the high growth rates in both sales and EBITDA. We have one more slide, which shows the 12-month rolling sales and EBITDA results, underlying the continuous quarter-after-quarter growth trend of our performance. The 12-month rolling sales from July 2022 until June 2023 is just over EUR 2.5 billion, a 29% growth, and EBITDA exceeds EUR 435 million, a large 62% increase over the previous 12 months.
Taking a look at our P&L in the next slide, where it shows that despite the sharp increases in the first half of 2022, cost elements remain elevated and have grown by a further 9% in the first half of 2023. Thanks to improved volumes, cumulative price increases and investments resulting in cost efficiencies, we managed to improve our profitability and move closer to the restoration of margins. As you can see at the bottom of the page, earnings per share at EUR 1.48 reflect a steep improvement. On the next slide, you can see that input costs have softened compared to the peak of last year. They are still quite higher than the 2020 and 2021 levels.
Looking at the futures market, costs appear to be remaining close to the current high levels, with some of them, like electricity and US natural gas, probably increasing a bit more in the near term. Now to our volumes. Volume trends across all main products testify to healthy demand as overall domestic sales volume increased by 3%, aggregates by 6%, and ready-mix by 3% year-over-year. Export cement volumes to third parties dropped, as most of our exports were directed to our own terminals in the US and Europe. Demand continued to rise in all our regions, with Egypt being the exception, and it was the only region with softening volumes.
Moving to our cash flow: for the first six months it was positive, with overall net inflows of EUR 77 million, compared to outflows of EUR 49 million in the first half of 2022. This has been mainly the result of an over EUR 100 million EBITDA increase and tighter working capital management, despite the group's expensive CapEx program, which has been maintained at high levels with EUR 170 million and EUR 17 million spent in the first half. A bit more color on the capital expenditures, which were mainly directed across the group's core markets and towards growth-oriented cost efficiency and energy efficiency projects. About half of our investments were directed to the U.S., where we have just commissioned our USD 37 million milestone project of the 67,000 ton- storage in our import terminal in Tampa, Florida.
The second such dome investment in Norfolk, Virginia, is due to come on stream in December. In Greece, Southeast Europe and EMED, ISMED, substantial funds have been allocated towards energy efficiency and alternative fuels conversion projects, with the second quarter of 2023 marking the completion of the calciner project at the Kamari plant in Athens. The inauguration of the biomass facility in Turkey, a milestone not just for the group, but also for the country, since it is the first of its kind across the industry in Turkey. Regarding our debt picture, in June, the group's net debt level was EUR 36 million below December, closing at EUR 762 million. Following the high EBITDA result, our leverage ratio, net debt to EBITDA has dropped to a low 1.7 times.
As a piece of fresh news, Fitch initiated coverage of the group, just yesterday assigned TCI a long-term issuer rating of BB+. A senior unsecured rating of BB+ has also been assigned to the outstanding bonds of Titan Global Finance. Now, let's take a look at the original performance, starting with the U.S. Titan's operations in the U.S. have recorded very strong performance, enabled by the underlying momentum in the states we operate, in Florida and Mid-Atlantic, with increased economic growth, internal migration, population growth and high employment levels. Overall, sales in the U.S. recorded a 24% increase to EUR 735 million during the first six months of the year. Similar growth rate in U.S. dollar terms, while EBITDA reached EUR 135 million, more than double from the first half of last year.
This comes in comparison to a relatively weak first half in 2022, which had been hit by sharp cost increases before adjustments to our selling prices. Cumulative price increases since early 2022 led to margin recovery and better returns on invested capital. Our results have been underpinned by increased demand due to the higher new housing starts and non-residential development, and strong public spending with more new contracts signed, where we now see the first effects of funds being channeled from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Titan America's capital expenditures in manufacturing, digitalization, and across the supply chain, have brought upon considerable operational efficiencies and have offset the effects of the persistent and slowly declining general inflation. Our new dome in Florida, in Tampa, has just been commissioned, as I mentioned, and the next one in Norfolk coming on stream, in December.
These are among the investments that are anticipated to reinforce our local operations and expand our product offering capacity. Turning to Greece, where economic activity remained on a solid upward trend, exceeding the respective euro area average. Increased domestic demand levels generated total sales over EUR 197 million, up 21% compared to the first half of last year. Margins improved, thanks to higher domestic demand in the sales mix and to relatively lower energy costs. EBITDA increased by EUR 16 million, reaching EUR 36.3 million, up by 82%, enabled by volumes growth and the cumulative price increases, which mitigated the inflationary cost pressures that prevailed in 2022.
A double-digit growth was recorded in domestic sales volumes across all product lines, following expanded construction activity, backed by numerous long-term strategic public works across the mainland, smaller infrastructure projects in the periphery, growing residential construction in urban areas, and investments in the tourist-related sector. During the first half, we have seen the completion of some key investments on which I briefly touched upon previously, such as the Kamari plant calciner and a new modern ready-mix unit in the Ellinikon Landmark Urban Development Project in Athens, with our new unit providing a wide range of green ready-mix products. Lastly, the large carbon capture project that was selected by the EU Innovation Fund has been a great success, and we will give you a bit more details when we turn to the decarbonization part.
Moving now to Southeast Europe, cement demand recorded growth compared to last year through a combination of various drivers depending on the country, ranging from public investments in transportation corridors to utility infrastructure, as well as small private projects and housing demand, especially in the countries enjoying robust remittance influence and tourist revenues. Sales for the region increased by 15% to EUR 195 million, while EBITDA was up by 37% to EUR 60 million, as the group has maintained its leadership market share in the region, while lower electricity costs were partially offset by increases in other production costs. Investments undertaken in previous years have also resulted in a structural step up in operational efficiency and reduced costs by an increased use of alternative fuels and a gradual shift to lower clinker cement products.
Now, turning to East Med, our performance in Turkey and Egypt have been impacted by the macro challenges the two countries have been facing, resulting also in the loss of value for both currencies. As such, in the East Med region, both sales and EBITDA dropped in the first half by 10.7% and 2.7% respectively, reaching EUR 101 million and EUR 9.3 million. Although, measured in local currencies year- on- year, both sales and EBITDA increased by about 45%. In Egypt, the general macroeconomic uncertainty on the back of devaluation pressures on the Egyptian pound, the foreign currency scarcity, and the effects of higher inflation and rising interest rates, coupled with a slowdown in public works, have all led to softer cement sales, with price increases not enough to cover the currency weakness.
In Turkey, the performance was improved year-over-year, with robust volume growth and healthy profitability levels. The extensive rebuilding and reconstruction activity following the earthquake at the beginning of the year, as well as small public works and private projects, drove the growth of demand. Contrary to Egypt, the applied price increases in Turkey have sufficiently covered the devaluation of the Turkish lira and the cost inflation. As a result, profitability, EBITDA in Turkey reached TRY 5.5 million, compared to just TRY 1.3 million last year. Adocim, our Turkey subsidiary, inaugurated a biomass facility at its integrated cement plant, which is anticipated to allow for 40% thermal substitution rates by year-end. That's improving its overall efficiency. A couple of comments from Brazil, where, as a reminder, we consolidated figures on an equity basis.
Cement consumption in the country declined by 1.6% in the first months of the year. In the northeast, the region where our joint venture operates, consumption levels remained the same as last year. Cement consumption did not grow, as demand was constrained by high interest rates and low disposable incomes. In the first half of the year, Apodi posted increased sales of EUR 59 million compared to EUR 50 million last year in the first half of the year, on the back of slightly higher volumes and selling prices up by 20%. EBITDA also increased to EUR 6 million compared to EUR 3.6 million last year. With that, let me hand over to Leonidas Kanellopoulos for updates on our decarbonization journey. Leonidas.
Good afternoon and good morning. Let us start with the very good news of IFESTOS, our CCS project in Greece, which has been selected for grant agreement preparation by the Innovation Fund. It was one of eight projects selected in its category among 98 applications. A few words about the project. It involves the construction of a large-scale carbon capture unit, combining both pre-combustion and post-combustion technologies at our flagship Kamari plant near Athens. It will enable the capture of 1.9 million tons of CO2 emissions per annum, making it effectively one of the largest carbon capture facilities in Europe and enabling the annual production of over 3 million tons of zero carbon cement. The captured CO2 will be transported by pipeline to the sea, liquefied and shipped by vessels to an off-site location for permanent storage.
IFESTOS is an integral part of our net- zero roadmap, if everything goes according to plan, we will be signing the grant agreement by the end of the year. You should know that this is a complex project involving multiple stakeholders and potential partners, it will take years, of course, to execute. In other news, we continued to reduce our carbon footprint, with specific Scope 1 emissions declining by 3% compared to the same level last year. This result was driven by a historically low clinker-to-cement ratio, with almost one-fourth of our production consisting of low-carbon cements and high alternative fuels utilization, which should increase further as we have completed a number of new investments, which Michael alluded to, including the EUR 26 million installation of the calciner in Kamari.
As a reminder, earlier in the year, we acquired a stake in Aegean Perlites, securing significant high- quality pozzolana reserves on the water. Together with the investments in our U.S. import terminals, this should allow us to further expand our green product offering on both sides of the Atlantic. In terms of research and innovation, the EU-funded carbon capture research project, HERCCULES, in which Titan is participating, is advancing as planned. We also launched a new venture capital initiative aiming at fostering innovation within the construction ecosystem and gaining early exposure to disruptive technologies. We have already invested in Zacua Ventures, which is an early-stage global venture fund focused on sustainable construction and the build environment, and we expanded our existing investment in Rondo Energy, which is a U.S.-based pioneer in zero carbon industrial heat solutions.
Our progress in decarbonization and sustainability more generally, continues to receive recognition from major rating agencies. A notable recent example is the ISS ESG corporate rating, where Titan was recently upgraded to prime status, which places us in the top 10% of the construction sector.
Thank you, Leonidas, for the updates on decarbonization. Let me summarize the updates on another critical enabler of our growth, which is digitalization. In the first half of the year, we have made significant progress both in our manufacturing and supply chain digitalization process. In manufacturing, we added real-time optimizers in three plants in the US, Greece, and Albania, while another six assets are scheduled to be deployed this year. As a reminder, these real-time optimizers increase plant output, reduce energy consumption, and closely monitor the quality of the product. Financial benefits from RTOs are expected to be more than EUR 10 million per annum. Furthermore, failure prediction solutions using artificial intelligence have been rolled out in four additional plants that have also been implemented in five units of external clients.
The financial benefits of those artificial intelligence-driven solutions are expected to be more than EUR 5 million within this year. Progress has also been made on our quality prediction methods, as in the U.S., we have embarked on pilot trials on projects related to strength prediction on cement. On the supply chain side, we continue enhancing the digitalization of our supply chain in the U.S. with the rollout of interconnected analytics tools, while simultaneously, we have launched a customer application, Titan App in Albania, which is a customer servicing digital application with very positive feedback. Further rollout is expected in other countries in Southeast Europe, while in Greece, implementation is also underway.
Last, we have made further improvements towards the optimization of our inventory management for spare parts in our cement plants in the U.S., while the rollout was completed during the first half, with significant working capital savings expected. Talking about digitalization for the fourth year, Titan, in collaboration with ReGeneration, the largest paid placement and professional development program in Greece, launched a third cycle of an innovative sales program on data science. This focused on upskilling young graduates with the necessary competencies for the acceleration of digital transformation and the cutting-edge sector of data science. The program attracted a total of 483 applicants, while 36 graduates, professionals graduated. We are happy to announce that 4 of these graduates will be joining Titan's Group Digital Center of Competence in September.
Now let me move to our outlook statement for the year. We remain very positive for the rest of the year in the context of improving global economic circumstances, reflected in softening energy prices and an uplift in business and consumer sentiment. However, as always, we stay vigilant against the prevailing environment of potential persisting inflation and high interest rates, which could impact investment confidence. We expect solid demand levels, supported by firm pricing conditions in our key markets and further operational and cost performance improvements. We have improved margins, and our cash generation grows at a good pace. Therefore, we carry on our growth-focused investment strategy in decarbonization, digitalization, logistics infrastructure, and innovation across all our markets and products. Now, more specifically, looking at each region on its own.
In the U.S., the industry is primed for a robust cycle over the next several years, driven by reshoring of businesses, stimulus spending, internal migration, and other public spending investments. The country operates in tight supply conditions, and given the low housing inventories, an upside is anticipated in both private residential and non-residential construction. We also see upside on the public spending in construction, as funds from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act started being channeled through different programs. In Greece, there is a strong pipeline of private and Recovery and Resilience-specific financed investment projects and a growing urban residential sector. The anticipated investment pickup provides support to the infrastructure and building material sectors, while declining energy prices should assist in terms of consumption.
In Southeast Europe, the group expects to maintain improved performance and returns owing to its leadership plan, network presence, the operational synergies enjoyed, and the investments made that will allow improved energy mix and reduced costs. In Turkey, demand is expected to continue growing following the extensive rebuilding underway, as well as static support reinforcements following the reassessment of existing buildings in light of the recent earthquake. In Egypt, the wider economy hinges on the institutional progress made in reforming the economy, which will ease the fiscal burden on the state and help improve investors' and lenders' confidence in the country.
The expected continuation of the production control regulation should provide an interim cushion for the cement industry to withstand the current macroeconomic headwinds. Overall, we remain positive on the outlook for the year, and with this, I think it's time to open for the Q&A. Thank you all for attending the conference, and we now ask you to put your questions through the system.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will 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, you may press star and two. Please use your headset 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 is from the line of Tobias Woerner with Stifel Europe. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. Number one, if I may, your carbon capture project of 1.9 million tons. Can you give us a little bit more detail or an idea of how this can unfold in terms of timeframe? Also, when I look to the slide you've provided us with today on this, I ask myself where actually the storage is gonna be. When you look at the ship transport, I understand there's only one ship globally which currently transports or is allowed to transport CO2. I appreciate this is very early on in the project development, but it would be good to get a sense of how you're thinking about these things. Thank you.
Thank you, Tobias, for the question. I think in, you know, overall, looking at how the cement industry globally will decarbonize, we see in the published roadmaps of Global Cement and Concrete Association that by 2050, to reach the net- zero, 36% of abatements of CO2 will come from carbon capture and storage installations. And that's, that's across all, all continents. If we see Europe as a frontrunner in terms of subsidizing and taking off these projects, already 10 projects have been financed through the.
European Union Innovation Fund. We have, I would say, quite a good balance between the Northern Europe, with storage in North Sea basin and Southern Europe, with two projects with storage in the Mediterranean Sea. One in, one of which is our in Greece. We currently have a memorandum of understanding with this storage site. As Leonidas mentioned, the timeline for this project to unfold is first, to finalize the administrative formalities with Brussels, which will take a couple of months until the end of the year. to go into the pre-engineering, pre-feasibility studies for the next two years, and then consider four years for the completion of the project. Leonidas, you want to add anything?
Just perhaps to add on the shipping side. It's true that today we don't have many ships available, but there are ships under design. There are ships that have been ordered already by various shipowners. We have conducted studies specifically on this matter and talked to a number of different shipowners to ensure that this will not be an issue going forward. It's a complicated project, and there are a lot of things that need to fall into place. Shipping does not seem to be a major concern, but it is something that we are actively working on as well.
Tobias, here at Titan, we are very excited about this project, not only by advancing our decarbonization roadmap to net- zero, but also creating a cement champion in this part of Europe. Which has access to ports, facilities, seaborne trading, but of course, is also a key player in the Greek market.
Thank you. If I may follow up, with regards to the acquisition you made in Perlite. Just to get an understanding, SCMs are obviously very important to get the clinker ratio down. What sort of impact could that have for you, and to what level could you take the clinker ratio on the back of this, and does this provide the volume solution you need?
Thank you again for the question. We want to double down in the use of cementitious as part of our blended cements strategy. Today, we already have one out of four tons that we sell, or one out of four products that we sell as a low carbon product with lower CO2 per ton than the ordinary Portland cement. We have completed this joint venture in Yali Island, which gives us ample access to deposits in excess of 80 million tons, which is a game changer for Titan to accelerate its decarbonization strategy.
Replace high carbon clinker with low carbon cementitious, like volcanic ash, pozzolanic cement, which is part of the standard. This is considered one of the traditional drivers to decarbonize. We have already started our operations. We are also trading already in this pozzolanic cement with third parties acquiring the cementitious both in Eastern Europe as well as in Western Europe.
We'll give you more details, more color on this, Tobias, at the time of our Investor Day in September, on how our hybrid approach of reducing our CO2 emissions on cement, also pushing more cementitious as part of our blended cements strategy, will drive strongly down our clinker ratio and also our CO2 per ton, and also being profitable.
Thank you. If I may add one more question, please. When you look at the EU Next Generation recovery funds, where, were you, Greece were at the top of the list or amongst the highest in terms of recipients? Where do you think you are now in context of the execution of that program coming into Greece?
We are very happy with our positions, leading positions in the Greek market. Greece is one of the large absorber s of the recovery funds. We have seen already the impact on infrastructure funds, and we will keep seeing, as most of our customers, the large infrastructure construction groups, they mention a high or record backlog in terms of construction projects for the three years to come. Very positive impact. We have passed the starting point, but the bulk is to come in 2024 and 2025.
That's very helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Athanasios Nikas with Eurobank Equities. Please go ahead.
Hello, congratulations on the great set of results. I have one short question, if I may. It's about the individual cost line costs. We've seen that they were increased in the first half. Can you elaborate on the individual lines, please? I guess energy costs were down, but what about the other lines? Thank you.
Sorry, which line are you referring to?
Yeah, to the operating costs in general, about the breakdown on energy costs, distribution costs, et cetera. A comment on that, please.
Well, it's obviously a mixture of various costs. There have been savings on the thermal energy as well as on electricity, especially in Southeast Europe, where they had gone up very significantly last year. Overall, the inflation has sort of slowed down while our price increases came in later. You see a big discrepancy between the revenue growth and the cost increases, but that, to a large extent, has to do with the timing of the two.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star- one on your telephone. Once again, if you would like to ask a question, please press star -one on your telephone. There are no further audio questions at this time. We'll now move on to our written questions from our webcast participants. The next question is from Andreas Mavridis, with Alpha Finance, and he would like to know if there are any updates regarding expected CapEx for the second half of 2023 and 2024.
Well, we continue to be quite aggressive, you could say, on our CapEx, as we see more growth opportunities, as well as fuel saving and operational efficiency investments. We talked a bit about the U.S. investments, as well as the energy-saving investments in Greece. If you are looking for a quantitative guidance, the expectation is there is something to the order of another EUR 100 million to be spent for the rest of the year, to complete ongoing and some investments that will start later in the year.
Although it's still too early and not yet the budget time, if I sort of give you my feeling and guidance for next year, given the opportunities are lining up, I believe it will also be in the range of EUR 200 million next year as well.
Thank you. As a final reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. We have another question from a webcast participant, Auguste Derigues, with Kepler Cheuvreux, and he would like to say hi to all. Thank you for the presentation, and congratulations for the strong quarter. I would have liked a few more details about the venture capital fund. Is there any indication of the average size of investments? Also, are there any preferred sectors of activity, e.g., carbon capture, digitalization, et cetera? I'd also like to know whether you think that the supportive price environment can be explained, at least in part, by the price of CO2, with competitors who have to buy allowances. Thank you.
I will start with the second part. Leonidas can cover the venture capital. On the pricing front, we feel that prices are resilient. They do support the actual business dynamics in the market. If we start from the U.S., where there is a shortage of supply and increasing amounts of imports, the prevailing market prices are giving decent but not excessive return on capital. It seems that it's a sort of a consensus in the market, that these are prices where we will see stability, if not further growth. On in the European front, again, the rising cost of CO2 is supporting the need for higher prices as investments for CO2 reduction are expanding.
In carbon capture, which, massive projects, which will be, will cost hundreds of millions, and billions, if we look at industry-wide spending in Europe. But also there's a series of other investments which push to for more alternative fuels, for the reduction of the clinker-to-cement ratio, for substitution with other cementitious raw materials. More and more spending will go towards reducing the CO2 emissions. And with the price of CO2 rights, hovering around, let's say, the 80-100 range, we believe that this supports the current level of cement prices.
A few words on our venture capital efforts. We have always been very open, collaborating with both academia and startups. We are now taking a more systematic approach to this. The idea is to invest approximately EUR 40 million in the medium term over the next few years. As a rough guidance, you can expect something between 7 and 10 investments. Again, this is a rough guidance in construction tech and green tech. The focus areas we are most interested in are manufacturing, advanced manufacturing and new technologies and digital solutions both in our own operations and also in the construction value chain a bit more generally. New materials, of course, anything related to materials and activation of some ambitious materials as port or strategy.
The third bucket is solutions related to green technologies and decarbonization and circular economy, all the way from carbon capture to energy storage. We will be preferring early-stage opportunities in general, mostly up to Series A. We will be working closely with startups, offering them access to our technical resources, to our commercial networks and our suppliers, and also, of course, our financial capabilities to help them scale up. Also make sure that what we do is strategically aligned with our core priorities and can enhance our core business as well.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back over to Mr. Cobuz for any closing comments. Thank you.
Thank you, all. Thank you for attending our results announcement. Once again, we are very happy with the performance of the first half and the margin expansion trends. We keep a very positive outlook for the rest of the year, with solid order books, resilient pricing over cost, and additional performance expected from our growth investments as well as cost improvement actions. We are looking forward to seeing you during the Investor Day at the end of September, when we will share more on the strategic directions 2026 for green growth.
We will also have the opportunity to go and visit together our flagship plant in Athens, which is today the field laboratory for new technologies as well as one of the most performing plants in the group and overall in Europe. Thanks again for joining us today, wishing you a good day ahead or a good evening. Thank you.
A happy summer.
A happy summer. Yeah.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.