Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call operator. Welcome to the conference call presenting Hera Group's results for the first half of the financial year, 2023. Let me remind you that all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, a Q&A session will be held. To be assisted by an operator during the conference call, press Star followed by zero on your keypad. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Cristian Fabbri, Hera Group's Executive Chairman. Mr. Fabbri, you now have the floor.
Good afternoon, everyone. Here I am, along with our CEO, Mr. Orazio Iacono , our CFO, Mr. Massimo Vai, and our well-known Head of IR, Mr. Jens Klint Hansen, whom you know very well, to comment on the half year results that you could read in the press release. Just about an hour ago, we finished our board of directors meeting.
I'm sure that you have already had the opportunity to read our press release. This half year provided very good results, very good financial results. There's still a very good increase in financial results and increase in investments and M&A activity, and we paid out dividends in June, with a very good cash generation, hovering around EUR 5 million. That's a very positive situation overall. If we now have a look at individual results, one by one, we will see that the turnover amounted to EUR 8.6 billion.
This figure is down by 6%, which in my view, is positive news. It went down by 6% compared to the first half of last year. This is due to the downward trend in energy prices, which nevertheless still stand at twice the level of the first half of 2021. On the other hand, turnover was buoyed by an intense boost from development of all activities the past 12 months. Energy, to some extent, with a sound commercial expansion, decarbonization activities and waste management, which also went very well. All of this led to a decrease in the turnover, which is only linked to a downward trend in energy prices. The EBITDA stood at EUR 780 million, marking an excellent +14% growth over the first half to 2022 comparable figure.
Basically, in a very complicated year, which was last year, in the midst of the energy crisis, we managed to post a growth, and this year, again, a very remarkable growth was posted. If we now have a look at the EBIT, we will see that 50% of the growth is basically referred to the EBIT. This is proof of the very sound management of the investments that we have made, but at the same time, we also saw an increase in volumes. All this allowed us to more than balance the increase in financial costs. Our net results, if you have a look at it, you will see that the net profit after minorities closed at EUR 180 million, almost 4% when compared to the comparable figure of the previous year.
If we now have a look at page two, we will see the financial details of our half yearly report. We are continuously investing. Growth has acquired momentum, and the M&A activity was continued in terms of operating investments, accounting for about 10%, and the M&A activity in its own right, almost doubled in terms of investments if compared to last year. Basically, our growth path is continuing, both in terms of organic growth and in terms of M&A activities. Last year, we basically had a. In June, we basically paid out a dividend of EUR 0.125, which is in line with our business plan, and it also is a 4% growth over the previous year's EUR 0.10 per share.
As you will have seen, as regards the EBITDA growth, again, things did very well. We are following our golden rule, that is a 3x multiple. We are happy with that, and we also have a very positive cash generation hovering around EUR 10 million. Let me now focus on the main aspects that have been underpinning our growth. About EUR 50 million come from organic growth. About EUR 30 million come from the increase in decarbonization services, which was a very strong pillar for growth, and EUR 10 million came from the M&A segment. Overall, growth is very nice, and it also allowed us to achieve all our sustainable goals and objectives. Basically, when it comes to M&A activities, we are always very focused on ACR Reggiani being one of the companies which we recently acquired.
We illustrated the takeover just a couple of times in the past, and this is already generating a lot of value. By the end of the first six months, we also completed two very important operations when it comes to the energy segment. We're talking about an installation company on the one hand, and another company that is operating in the photovoltaic segment, thermal photovoltaic company and an agrivoltaic company. We are in the process of acquiring 36% of Asco TLC. This will allow us to further boost our digitization processes, and these companies will pull synergies with our company that is already in charge of development of the optic fiber network, which is Acantho. As you can see, we went very strong throughout all our three business areas.
If we now have a look at the organic growth, you will see that organic growth has been underpinned by the energy market and by the waste management market as well. 250,000 new customers for the energy market. That means we also have more waste to handle, 130,000 again more customers in this segment. In a year where the networks business suffered and struggled because of new regulations, because of the WACC. At the same time, we have the liberalized and the free markets, where again, we are enjoying a very nice growth. Let me now add some color concerning all the different business lines we are operating in.
Before I give the floor to our CEO, I would like to tell you more about what happened in the energy segment. The energy segment was the main character, if you want, of our growth. In general, energy, we recorded a PDA amounting to EUR 293 million, up EUR 68 million. EUR 28 million of this EUR 68 million are related to decarbonization services. That is to say, activities that are aimed at helping our customers to reduce their carbon emissions. A nice growth, around EUR 30 million growth, going hand-in-hand with the + EUR 40 million coming from sales and trading activities, traditional activities. Sales and trading activities did very well. We acquired new customers on the free market as of April 1st.
We also introduced new services for the gradual protection market, and we expanded the Consip market, both for the energy and the gas market. For the last resort market this year, we managed to be awarded several contracts as part of tendering procedures, and this in turn increased our volumes. All this goes hand in hand with last resort market for gas, which we already had in the past. Basically, from a sales and trading activities viewpoint, we did very well, and this good commercial expansion has more than compensated for the effect of the mild winter weather on gas consumption, because there was a decrease, of course. Many customers, smaller customers, have decreased their consumption levels because they wanted to increase their energy efficiency.
But as I said, this decrease in consumption levels has been more than offset by all our sales and trading activities in the traditional segment, as well as in the added value services segment. If you have a look at the graph on the right-hand side, you will see that we have 3.7 million customers right now. This has been a marathon for us. This growth path has been uninterrupted for years, and this applies to the regulated as well as to the free market. About 75,000 customers, which were acquired, belong to the gradual protection services market. Again, if you consider that a good chunk of them belongs to the free market, you will understand how good and how nice this growth has been.
Given the nice increase in decarbonization services, you will understand that there's still a lot of room for maneuver, a lot of potential for further expansion, because we are now providing more services, so the opportunity to sell more services to our already existing customers increase. Now, I will give the floor to our CEO, to Orazio, for the waste and the network business lines.
Thank you very much, Cristian. Good afternoon from me as well. Now, I will illustrate the waste management segment. We are enjoying a very nice growth, so our growth path has been continuing. Our PDA hovers around EUR 163 million, which marked a +8% increase, with an increase by approximately EUR 12 million. Waste collection, as we mentioned last time as well.
is still suffering a little bit because of the new concession period. Concessions have a lifetime of about 15 years. There's some good news here because the slight decrease which we posted in the first quarter of the year is now picking up again. That's because we are increasing our efficiency, we are remodulating, integrating services and auxiliary services. Basically, we are on the one hand, satisfying our customers, making them happy locally, and at the same time, we are also driving up margins. I will now concentrate on waste treatment. The growth path is continuing, so we are enjoying very nice growth. We had almost EUR 17 million in terms of growth. In terms of plants, we're doing very well.
The performance levels of our plants are very good. This testifies to the soundness of the investments that we made. I'm thinking about waste energies plant in Trieste, which is now fully operational, and many other plants are now fully operational. They're giving very good results. Again, we are really very happy here. We also see an increase in terms of waste volumes being treated. In spite of the macroeconomic situation, which is a bit complicated, not just in Italy, but in Europe as well, but we are still again enjoying this upward price trends. I'm sure there will be more stability in the next few months, but still, for the time being, the trend is very positive for us in terms of prices.
Very good performance as regards plants in general. Waste volumes are going up, and this has positive results, of course, for our plants at large. We have increasing results if compared with the year 2022, and we derived some benefits from lower costs, purchasing costs for our commodities. All this managed to offset the increase in prices due to the high inflation rate. The waste segment enjoyed this growth also thanks to another M&A operation, which we recently concluded. We acquired a company, ACR Reggiani, which already recorded a very good result in the first half of the year. This basically allowed us to put in the last piece of the puzzle, if you wish. Now we are in a position to provide turnkey solutions from A to Z to our customers.
We're really very happy here. We are enjoying very nice growth, and we have been consolidating the really very good results, which we illustrated for the first quarter of the financial year. Let me turn to networks. This year is the year of stability for our networks. We don't have, again, the same inflation rate that we have, of course, in other segments. We managed again to enjoy nice growth. As we already mentioned, during our presentation of the first quarter results, there we had some minus signs here and there. Here in the first half of the year, we have a growth.
The networks segment grew by EUR 3 million, this is mainly linked to three factors: contribution or development investments and water networks, supported by the growth of the EBITDA, the inflation of regulated revenues for the 2023 financial year as a result of the inflation rates of the year 2021 and 2022. We also have some nice efficiency being achieved thanks to our cost reduction activities. All this offsets price increases due to the high inflation rate. We had a very cautious investment management. Business lines were managed cautiously, and this allowed us to enjoy full efficiency. It's a year of stability while we are waiting for ARERA to review the regulatory work for energy networks.
As the defined observation period is soon to expire around the end of September, we expect ARERA to increase the regulated return by about 80 basis points for the year 2024. In the water networks segment, there is no specific procedure, as you would expect for energy. We will have, again, to wait for ARERA decisions concerning the regulatory work for energy networks. In October, we will certainly have a clearer picture. This brings me to page seven, where I will fill in with further information. The entire business portfolio shows that all the three main business areas are growing nicely. We have a very nicely balanced portfolio concerning all the three main business activities. The energy segment playing the lion's share for the time being, followed by networks.
Of course, we are enjoying a very nice growth in the waste segment. The waste segment growth is perfectly aligned with our ambitious growth target as per our business plan. We are now in the process of achieving most of the goals of our business plan well ahead of time, well ahead of the schedule that we had set out. I'll take this opportunity to give you some more information concerning our networks, because this is where we see the highest potential for growth, due to the work on the one hand, and due to the inflation rate for water, which is only applied to even years and not to odd years.
If we consider the nice potential we have in networks, the very good results in the waste segment and in the energy segment, we have, again, very nice situation with growth throughout all our business lines. All our business lines have been growing uninterrupted through the years, and although we have been faced with very difficult situations, high inflation rates, interest rate hikes and spikes, and energy costs level that are not fully normalized. I'll stop here, and I will now give the floor to Massimo, who will add further details on the economic and financial results. Massimo, over to you.
Good afternoon, me too. Let us now have a look at some graphs explaining what is happening regarding our EBITDA. In page eight, you will see some graphs. On the left-hand side, you will see how our cost of debt in the long and medium run went up in the first half of 2022, compared with 2023. This is a slight change, basically. This testifies to the fact that our cost of debt structure is basically very resilient, no matter what interest rates do in the medium and long run. Basically, if there is a significant increase in interest rates, our cost of debt basically remains stable. This is basically our guidance looking towards the end of the financial year. As far back as in May, we also mentioned that we performed two different optimization activities.
We issued a sustainability-linked bond, hovering around EUR 600 million, and EUR 450 million sustainable credit revolving facility was obtained from banks. We haven't tapped into this revolving facility for the time being, but we have some nice flexibility. This is piece of news that came in June, and then it was only made official in July. As you will have read in the news, Hera received a EUR 460 million loan from the European Investment Bank to fund a whole series of infrastructural projects, which we illustrated and which we will be developing throughout our business plan. This loan was not used for the time being. We have a 16-year period to use this loan.
This is another option that we have in terms of funding, and basically this protects us in the short run from interest rates, spikes and hikes. As you know, interest rates will go up foreseeably for the next one or two years. On the right-hand side, you see the return on investment and return on equity. The ROE settles around 8%, and this is consistent with what we published with the Q1, and the ROE jumped forward, and it settled at 10.1%. This testifies to the soundness of the activities we're carrying out, making sure that the EBITDA can then translate into positive benefits for the net results. If we now go to page nine, you will see our operating cash flow, fully covered the increase in operating investments.
We managed to fully fund again our activities, the working capital management and released cash. This is perfectly in line with the amount of money that we invested in the Q1 of the year. EUR 67 million were used to fund M&A operations, we managed to pay out dividends for our SpA and for our minorities, for an overall amount hovering around EUR 200 million. The net financial position is EUR 1.4 million, which is basically something that allows us to confirm the leverage level of 3x , which is in line with the previous year. This was in a nutshell the financial situation and the cash flow situation, we'll give the floor back to our Executive Chairman for some conclusions.
Here we are. We have basically come to the last part of our presentation, so that you have time to ask questions. You have seen that we have been doing very well in terms of sales activities. Cash generation was also very nice, so we're now in a position to fully underpin a very consistent growth. Our growth path was actually quite fast, and it is basically moving at a faster pace if compared with the schedule of our business plan, which goes down to the year 2026. Most of the cases, we have already achieved 60%-65% of the targets that we had set ourselves in only 30% of the time. Only 18 months have gone by out of the overall 60 months of the five-year business plan.
Basically, we're now in a position where we can seize the best opportunities on the market, when it comes to the free market or regulated market. Over the years, we managed to have this very strong and consistent growth because we have always been balancing our portfolio. I must say that if I have to say what the best result is most probably the fact that we managed to increase our financial results. We continued investing, and at the same time, our cash flow generation is nice. This was, in a nutshell, the end of my presentation. Now I'll open the floor for questions.
This is the Chorus Call operator here. We'll now start the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your keypad. To exit the booking list, press star followed by two. Please ask your questions using your microphone and speaking slowly and clearly so that translation into English can be provided. If you're not using your receiver or telephone, please avoid using inbuilt microphones of laptops. Just speak very close to your microphone. Roberto Letizia from EQUITA will ask now the first question.
Yes, good afternoon, thank you for this presentation. I would like to have some further details as regards the growth of net terms. I would like to understand how is this growth linked to repricing activities, unit margins increases? Is this due to the reduction of prices in commodities? Do you think that this can be sustainable, that this trend will continue, looking at the normalization of commodity prices going forward?
Second question, the contribution of ACR Reggiani in the first half, how was this contribution, how will this contribution play out then in the second half of the year and then from 2024 going forward? I think that you're already looking at some more synergies. Then if you could just provide us with a snapshot for the growth drivers for the second half of the year. If you could just tell us more about possible variability elements going forward.
Thank you very much. I'm Orazio Iacono, and I will immediately reply to your second question concerning ACR Reggiani. ACR Reggiani is doing very well, as we said. That's a very nice M&A operation. Again, this is very resilient when it comes to site remediation.
ACR recorded a EUR 8.8 million growth in terms of EBIT, that's a very good result. In the first six months of the year, this business is very linked to seasons. In the second half of the year, we do expect, due to the seasonality of the business, to have a bit more than the double of this amount, just to reply to your first question. To reply to your first question, well, historically, when you go on an integration path, we generally manage to extract value hovering around 25%. When we acquire a new company, basically, we do expect, again, an extracted value around 25%. This is what we expect for the year 2024.
This M&A operation was just great. We're really very satisfied with it. The companies have been integrating very well. Today, just today, we were awarded a tender contract for site remediation operations. I must say, we're really doing very great. We're doing very strong. We're very happy. Cristian, over to you.
I don't know if you could hear me because I just realized that my microphone was off. In terms of energy, the contribution that we are currently experiencing should be read in two different ways or interpreted in different ways. On one hand, we have a reduction of gas consumption for Q1, which will not take place to the same extent in the years to come, of course. It's not something that will happen again, I think.
At the same time, we have the energy segment, which more than offset this decrease in consumption. If I now have to consider all these elements all together, I would say that about 50% of that growth is linked to traditional markets, which will continue to grow, and the remaining 50% is linked to last resort markets, safeguarded markets, and again, last resort market for gas, in a nutshell. As regards the main growth drivers for the second half of the year, well, Massimo said it all earlier on while he was speaking. This first half brought about a very consistent and considerable growth in terms of the EBITDA, and the net profit growth was a bit lower, and that's because we now have higher costs in terms of financial costs.
In the second half of the year, we'll thus try and make sure that the net profit goes up again, and we will, of course, continue increasing all our posts, all our items on the income statement. There were some one-off elements as well. In the waste management segment, we had some very good sales activities. All these elements, of course, will be well taken care of going forward in order to continue enjoying a very nice growth.
Thank you very much.
I will now provide you with a further comment. All this applies if the situation is normal, because now we're all thinking about our next winter. We know that we have about 80% of gas stocks already in-house.
We know that the gas that comes from Russia accounts for 6% of the gas that we are using here in Italy. Regasifying units and plants are now operational in Italy and in other parts of Europe. We are in a situation where prices are actually low because consumption levels are also low, basically. Forward prices are already higher if compared with higher spot prices. In winter, we do expect prices to go up, we will also have to wait and see how the situation plays out. Last winter, it was plain sailing. Let's see what happens this winter. It also depends on temperature, average temperature levels.
The next question is from Emanuele Oggioni from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. I also have a couple of questions.
First of all, congratulations for the operating results, more specifically, for the energy segment. You mentioned of the debt to EBITDA ratio by year-end, which could be more or less in line with your golden rule, which is at 3x . I would like to hear if you see any changes for H2, and if the working capital is going to change due to different prices in terms of commodities, or if there are any other elements that could be against the buoyancy of energy services that you're currently experiencing, and that are partially linked to this called super-bonus, which was considered to be a one-off situation. Which would then balance out in the following years.
First question, then second question concerning energy services again. The 2023 financial year is considered as a peak year, especially for those companies that are strictly related to the super-bonus activities. I would like to hear from you how 2024 will play out, and if you could just add some color concerning your backlog. One last question concerning the cost of debt. How shall we expect the cost of debt to evolve from now down to the end of the year? Thank you.
I will reply to the first and last question. As regards of the evolution of the net financial position and the EBITDA ratio, our target is to stay at 3 x. That's our golden rule. If possible, we would like to be even lower than 3 x.
That's our benchmark for the time being. Commodity prices, well, they will call the shots, and that will, of course, create some uncertainty. The same goes for the last resort market tenders that will take place at the end of September. We'll also have to see how the cash absorption of energy services plays out. For the time being, our goal for the end of the year is 3 x in terms of debt leverage. Cost of debt, the value that we mentioned for the first half will also be a reference for the remaining half of the year.
It's not just of the net financial position value in its own right that plays a role, but also other elements will play a role, and we will have to see if short-term loans are going to be used or not. Their costs vary according to the amounts of the loans that you are using. The debt position and financial costs are now more stable if you compare the current situation with the last 12 months. If we compare the current six months of the year with the first half of 2022, of course, the comparison is not particularly favorable for us, because in the first half of the year, 2022, the situation was considerably different. Now we have reabsorbed a large portion of these variations.
We have, again, ensured nice margins for flexibility, and we now have loans that are available and that we can decide to use if need be.
For sure, the 2023 year was or is the nicest year, basically, because of the super-bonus contracts, because of all the contracts dating back to 2022, which had not been completed in 2022, back-to-back creating activities. All these options provided us with this very nice situation. There's plenty of customers on the market looking for suppliers. What you said is absolutely correct. That's a top-notch financial year. As for 2024, there will be a possibly a drop, a decrease, but that's the reason why we are focusing on many other different services. We don't just rely on Hera Servizi Energia.
We're also working and focusing on the concepts, the public administration tenders, world. We are very much focused on public administration. We're taking care of our industrial customers. We are very much focused on renewable energies as well. We are carrying out some new activities, which I cannot mention for the time being.
We are also working very intensively on other activities in the retail segment and industrial segments. I was mentioning M&A operations a minute ago, and Fratelli Franchini. Well, the purpose here is to provide more services to medium to high profit companies. Why? Because, from a commercial viewpoint, we are very strong, and this allows us to be very strong from an operating viewpoint. We can provide a turnkey solutions, and we can also provide innovation and high quality of services to our customers. This is precisely what we want. This is our objective. We would like, again, to provide turn key services to our customers, and thus, fully offsetting the reduction in business in other segments. Having said that, whenever we have the opportunity to, we seize again all the possibilities that come our way on the market.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Davide Candela from Intesa Sanpaolo, please.
Yeah, good afternoon, and thank you for this presentation. I also have a couple of questions. First question, networking capital and debt situation. What is your gut feeling, what is your take on the gas spot market? Last year, of course, we had more than EUR 1 billion working capital effect due to the high stock levels for the winter. What is your take for the next winter?
What would the worst-case scenario be, basically, although prices right now are quite low and again, inventory levels are quite high? Second question, concerning energy efficiency services and concerning energy communities, I imagine that you're working on energy communities. Have you, again, experienced any changes? Are you changing your organization in this regard? Are there any plans in the pipeline concerning energy communities? One last question is, whether you could give us an idea of possible emerging costs as part or following the floods in Italy?
Thank you. Davide, I will try and reply to your three questions. In terms of gas storage, the reply is pretty straightforward. Last year, we had to perform an extraordinary investment.
There were no options, and so there was a high risk of not finding the necessary volumes of gas had we waited. It was like taking out an insurance, and all this played into our hands and was very good for us. This year, our stock levels will be lower by about 50% in terms of volumes, and more importantly, the purchase prices will be considerably lower. We're talking about 20%-25% of price increases vis-a-vis the past. In terms of energy communities, well, we've been working very hard. We've been working for two years, very hard on this. The real problem is that some pieces of the puzzle are still missing or are not in the right position.
We don't want to spill the beans, of course, or news being prematurely put in a press release. Autoconsumo collettivo, so that would be collective self-consumption, was already introduced. This applies to some apartment buildings, so that could be a first step in this direction. We also are in a position to use some regional funds to develop energy communities with dimension going as high as 1 MW. We are also trying to use landfill areas, for instance, that are no longer used. When it comes to plans, we are requiring all the necessary authorization. As soon as all the pieces of the puzzle fall into their right places, then of course, we will continue with the building part of the project for energy communities.
We first need to get to the right, necessary, authorizations. There's a clear demand for energy communities, so we are really intensively working on this. Now that we have a bit more time, and we are a bit more relaxed, we can work in a way that it is savvier than in the past. We are not just taking care of commercial activities, we are also working in cooperation with municipalities concerning public lighting, for instance, or heat management, energy efficiency measures for the buildings of public administration institutions. We are really trying to involve energy communities in all this as part of a very large portfolio.
Yeah, I actually forgot to reply to your third question, the floods. I'll give the floor to Orazio.
Right. As regards the floods, I would say that we managed to swiftly react. Our infrastructures did very well. The economic impact of the floods is basically close to zero. Yeah, we do have operating expenses up until the end of June, but we do expect that these operating expenses increases to be completely offset. We filed all the necessary claims, of course, with our insurance companies. We did a full identification of damages. A committee has been appointed by the government to take care of flood-related authorization issues. Again, insurance procedures have already been started. We trust that no additional costs will have to be or have to be borne in general by our group.
We also suspended the payment of bills up until the 31st of August, and then for 12 months, families and households can have the possibility to pay their bills in arrears, in installments. This will have a marginal impact down to year-end. Even if everybody accepts, even if all the householders, households accept to have a payment in installments over a period of 12 months. We don't see any issues here in terms of financial aspects. As to the CapEx, they will follow suit.
Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Javier Suarez from Mediobanca. Please.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon, everyone. I have one question concerning Hera's performance in the first half of the year, and based on that, what can we expect for the second half of the year? You noticed a very strong growth in the first half of the year, about EUR 50 million, EUR 90 million, actually, concerning the EBITDA, so that's very nice. In the second half of the year, 2023, what do you expect? Is there any reason why we should expect a second half of the year without growth or with a negative growth? Second question, which is related to the first one. You illustrated the business plan for the period down to 2026, and you started off very well, and now the situation seems to have calmed down a little bit.
Is it correct to say that the company is swiftly achieving all the business plan goals? And that you could basically achieve all the targets of the business plan, possibly one year ahead of time? Third question, concerning the capital structure of the company. You mentioned several times, 3 x, being the golden rule for the EBITDA. Do you think that this leverage, this 3x , is still to be considered as basically the golden standard, as your benchmark for the future?
Good afternoon, Javier. Well, your first question puts me in an embarrassing situation. We don't expect to have a negative growth in the second half of the year.
We certainly achieved our best results in the first half of the year. For the time being, we don't really have any reason to think that we will have flat growth or negative growth in the second half of the year. Well, you wanted to ask whether again, we will have the same growth in the second half of the year as we did in the first half of the year. Our objective, of course, is to further boost our growth and our profitability in terms of the bottom line. We would like to seek and better results when it comes to the net profit. That's the target that we have set ourselves. Then in terms of the business plan, yes, well, We are well ahead of time.
That's because, again, all the planets were aligned, so we fully seized the opportunities that came our way. If I can just mention one case in point, we did the best out of a very bad situation due to the crisis. When prices went down, then of course, this boosted our growth massively. Last year, since we don't produce, basically energy, we just sell energy, and last year, again, the situation was very positive for us. This year, in the first half, we had some more regulation costs, incremental regulation costs, especially when it comes to the gas market, but the situation is going back to a normalcy gradually. All this has a very visible effect on our growth.
Yes, we are ahead of our schedule, and we managed to achieve 65% of our growth targets in just one third of the overall time span of the business plan. Basically, if you, if you did all the right calculations, then you would say that we are possibly going to achieve our targets even before the fourth year of the plan. We have certainly gone down the right path. I'm sorry, but I think I forgot your last question now.
The 3 x golden rule.
Yes, yes. That's our benchmark. Why? Because it gives us the necessary flexibility to seize possible opportunities coming our way. Last year, we had gas storage stock levels. This year, there might be other issues.
This 3 x golden rule gives us the necessary flexibility to seize opportunities. At the same time, this allows us to grow in terms of investment. Basically, we can self-fund our activities, we increase investments, and we preserve our 3 x golden rule. To make sure that the EBITDA can then increase and allows us to self-fund most of our activities. That's the balance that we are trying to strike for the time being, and this has always been historically the case with our group.
Concerning the net income for the year 2023, do you think that there will be a single-digit decrease of the net income if compared with the year 2022? Do you have any visibility concerning, again, the situation in the first half of the year 2024, and what difficulties may you be faced with?
I'm asking Jens to give me some inputs here.
It's a bit tricky, it's the same goes as for the EBITDA. We have come to a very positive situation, we don't see any negative trends for the second half of the year. There are no reasons to think that it will be a negative figure. We don't currently see issues looming on the horizon, there again, there can always be disruptive events on the energy market. If the situation goes on, we don't see just like it's doing right now, we don't see any critical issues.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from Roberto Letizia of EQUITA.
Yes. Sorry. I'll be very quick. The European standards concerning the reuse have been recently modified at last. Are you satisfied with the changes in the European regulations? Or do you think that Italian position will still be very strong when it comes to the reuse instead of the recycling?
Sorry, when Emanuele asked his question, I forgot to say something which I'm going to tell you right now. Decarbonization services are playing the lion's share, as you know. Our IR team has been provided many details in this regard, and you can find them in the press release. This is just to complete my reply to the previous question. To your question, Roberto, well, reuse instead of recycling or versus recycling.
As you know, in Italy, we are very much focused on recycling things. We will have to understand what this all means from an operating viewpoint. Can we reuse packaging activities several times? If packaging is being reused, of course, this cycle, it's not a never-ending cycle because packaging, of course, will wear out, it will tear. It will not be used or able to be reused forever. In this segment, of course, we are doing very well with Aliplast. This is a market segment where we provide high quality products and with, again, all in all, a low market share. Even if we had a reduction in terms of plastic waste volumes, this impact will be more than offset.
Then, separate waste collection is obviously increasing, and this means that the undifferentiated waste will decrease, and at the same time, it also means that the quantity of the plastic part that can be recycled will increase. That's not something we're really worried about.
Mr. Fabbri, for the time being, we don't have any further questions in our booking list.
Great. Thank you very much for your attention and for your time, and we will see you in three months' time, or possibly even before that with some of you. Thank you. Bye-bye.