Good afternoon, this is the conference call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Interpump second quarter 2023 results, financial results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star and zero on their telephone. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Ms. Elisabetta Cugnasca , Head of Investor Relations of Interpump. Please go ahead, ma'am.
Thank you. I am Elisabetta Cugnasca , Head of Investor Relations of Interpump Group. Good afternoon or good morning, according to your time zone, and welcome to Interpump second quarter 2023 financial results conference call. As usual, I have to bring your attention to the disclaimer slide inserted in the, the annex part of the presentation. I hope you were able to download from our website. Afterwards, it's my pleasure to give the stage to Mr. Marasi, Group Chief Executive Officer.
Thanks, Ms. Cugnasca , and thanks to all of you for the attendance. After a first quarter, way better than our 2023 expectations, I'm very pleased to present you a second quarter and therefore, a first half, that is once again better than what we expected only a few months ago, when in May, we revised upward our expected growth for 2023. Better is extremely comfortable because it confirms, once again, a crucial capability of this group: to understand market dynamics, evolution, and changes, and being able to promptly adapt our operations. We envisage for 2023, a market normalization driven by lead time and supply chain rebalancing after COVID extraordinary consequences. We adapted our machines, and now we are fully taking benefit of an extremely nice and welcome extra growth. Allow me to give you some evidence.
In terms of sales, in the second quarter, organic growth was 9.1%. More than 9% over a 12.5% growth recorded in the second quarter, 2022. The EBITDA margin was 24.6% in the second quarter, with an increase of approximately 100 basis points over an already spectacular second quarter, 2022, and 24.9% in the first half of the year, against 23.6% of the first half of 2022. Numbers I could not even have dreamt of when I joined Interpump Group few years ago. In terms of cash flow generation, we took the commitment to improve it during 2023. We are delivering it without jeopardizing the actual and the future growth opportunities.
We are improving cash flow generation, and in the meantime, we are continuously feeding the production to transform orders and invoices, the actual growth. We are completing our post-COVID expansion plan that is fundamental for supporting our midterm growth ambition. The positive results of the first half of the year, combined with the very good level of the order backlog in July, make us confident on the fact that 2023 could become the new record year for Interpump, the new Mount Everest, both in terms of sales and profitability. After this first snapshot, let's focus on second quarter and first half 2023 figures. The organic growth of sales was more than 9% in the second quarter and almost 14% in the first half.
Growth drivers, around 9% of volumes and around 5% of prices, a confirmation of last quarter trends, in which volume were much more important than prices. This evolution perfectly reflects both different cycles, nature of our two divisions, and what we were expecting from the start of the year in terms of market normalization. This is the reason why Water-Jetting is now growing more than Hydraulics. Now, some color on sales evolution in the second quarter from a geographic and sectoral application point of view. In terms of geography, focusing on top countries, U.S.A. is up by 4%, Italy is up by around 13%, Germany by 5%, and France by more than 20%. Looking at the second tier region, China is growing by 4% and India by 10%.
All growing numbers with different strength according to specific economy evolution of the single geography in the period, but with one result, the group grew in the second quarter, again, double digits. This is the beauty of Interpump, diversification and balance. In terms of sector application, industrial vehicle adapters were up by almost 12%. Agriculture was down by around 6%. Earthmoving machine were up by 20%. Lift, up by 2%. Construction, up by more than 50%, and Food & Beverage, up more than 30%. Moving to White Drive, the sales part was different in the two different parts of the world. In U.S., sales grew almost double digit, while in Europe, growth was softer. U.S. operation are fully benefiting from the production capacity enhancements of the past months, and therefore, we are recovering all delays accumulated with customers.
At last, instead of buying outside some products and components, we are producing them internally, and this means a more efficient and profitable production. European operations are reflecting demand normalization, and moreover, the last step of the factory reorganization process between Germany and Poland, where we complete before the end of this month of August, the reorganization of the European activities with the complete shutdown of the German plant and the transfer of the manufacturing and assembly lines to our Polish plant in Wroclaw. Moving to profitability. EBITDA margin was 24.6%, almost 100 basis points more than the already spectacular second quarter 2022. In Hydraulics, we recorded 23.5%, 160 basis points more than the second quarter 2022, and second best quarter ever after the incredible first quarter 2023.
This improvement underlines once again, the capabilities of the group to adapt operations with flexibility to market and sales evolution. Focus on White Drive. After two quarters in a row with an EBITDA margin of 21%, in second quarter 2023, the profitability was below our annual goal, and this is only due to the reorganization of the European factories that we launched at year start, and that represents an important step of the White Drive integration plan. In U.S., profitability enhancement activities are going on and bearing fruits, and as a matter of fact, the business model changes I mentioned to you before, made U.S. profitability almost double from less than 5% to almost 10%. Since the organization activities in Europe should be finalized before summer end, we are confident about our 2023 profitability target of 21% of EBITDA margin. Moving towards adjusting.
In the second quarter, we faced a dilution of approximately 100 basis points, half of which driven by the two acquisitions within the Fluid Handling sector. Even we consolidate them only for June, it's important to keep in mind that we are speaking of companies with 23% in the case of IMEC and 14% in the case of Waikato , of EBITDA margin. These profitabilities, in the short term, are extremely dilutive for the group division, which in 2022 almost touched 29% of profitability. The remaining part of the dilution is driven by the sales mix evolution among different companies in the division. Moving to CapEx. I would like to mention that in the second quarter, our efforts to go on with our COVID CapEx plan went on.
You can notice it from around EUR 40 million of CapEx spent, moreover, and I hope more interesting, for some photos displayed in our presentation. We completed the enlargement of the Walvoil factories in Reggio Emilia. Our colleagues from the technical department are moving in these days to the new plant area, in October, the R&D center will be operating. You can also see the progresses with the new building of Stabiflex in Turin and what in Romania in less than one year in AMM plant. The production will be on track before summer end, after the almost one-year stop as a consequence of the fire that destroyed the plant in May 2022. Due to what we have done in the past two years, we would invest less in the next years.
When we complete what is undergoing today, I mean, White Drive plans enhancement, both in Europe and U.S., the completion of the newest quarter of Muncie, and the new plant of Stabiflex in Italy. As of today, I can envisage only a significant project coming from the future, that is the new IPH plant in Italy. To close with CapEx, I would like to drive your attention to an important P&L KPI, that is EBIT. You are perfectly aware that EBITDA is our polar star, but we don't want to forget EBIT. I would like to underline that in the first half of the year, EBIT overcame 20% on net sales for the first time in Interpump Group history, 20.6% to be precise.
This is the best and clearer evidence that all the money we are investing to increase or improve our production capacity, are generating both manufacturing efficiency in terms of automation and good financial returns and buybacks. In terms of free cash flow generation, one year ago, I underlined you that poor cash flow generation of first half 2022 was driven by both the extraordinary sales evolution, which made the trade receivable materially increase, and the extraordinary measures we put in place in term of inventory to protect production continuity and therefore, profitability. I added that starting from the second half of 2022, this trend would have changed. Later in February, I underlined you that one of the 2023 most important commitment would have been cash generation improvement, combined with a good organic growth and profitability protection.
In the first quarter 2023, you already saw the first result. Today, you see the additional ones. Compared to first half 2022, the cash absorption driven by the trade working capital went down by around 40%, from EUR 130 million- EUR 76 million. In the second quarter, only the reduction was more than 70%. These results were achieved without hampering organic growth and the execution of our post-COVID CapEx plan just described, and in the meantime, having mitigated the still important impact that the strong sales growth is having on trade receivable. Another number to share to underline our improvement, is that on a one-year rolling days and excluding acquisitions, incidence on sales of the trade working capital went down from 41% to a little bit more than 39%.
To complete the overview and to give you some details in terms of inventories, too, I would like to underline again that the increase in value recorded compared to December, less than 5% in absolute value, is influenced by the inventory accounting methodology based on the average cost, and in the second quarter, obviously includes around EUR 20 million of impact, of the newly consolidated companies. We improved inventory efficiency and rotation, and inventory days went down compared to December. Step by step, we are therefore working to find the right balance between supporting production continuity, excellence in customer service, and cash efficiency. Not an easy task in an environment that is continuously changing, with a volatility, which is one of the most important consequences of COVID in our markets.
Despite that, we will go on working to gradually go back to the trade working capital pre-COVID level, that we consider the best from an industrial long-term point of view. Moving to acquisition, as you know, in May, we discussed the two acquisition finalized until then, Moltech and Vimec. Both were important, even from a very different point of view. Moltech demonstrates the holistic approach of the group in terms of risk management, while Vimec demonstrates that group external growth path did not forget water jetting in the most recent years. Simply finalizing acquisition in this business sector and fulfilling, in the meantime, our strict criteria, has been more difficult than in the Hydraulic division.
Waikato, the new acquisition to be commented, is another evidence of our constant growth path in the Water-Jetting and [Fluid Handling] division, and even more of group strategy milestone, and in this specific case, diversification by geography, New Zealand, and development in contiguous business sector. As mentioned before, everything new consolidated in our Water-Jetting division, in almost all cases, has, in the short term, a dilutive effect, but we are confident to improve the profitability level of the new entries, as we did for Inoxpa, starting from 2017. These are all important details of the past month. Some colors on most recent trends, based on July 1st positive indications. The backlog, once again, was above the EUR 1 billion threshold, despite the normalization of the lead times that we are seeing in the Hydraulics division.
Once again, the benefit of the diversification, Water-Jetting is growing significantly. Precisely, a few words on Water-Jetting. Almost one year ago, Water-Jetting weight on the total backlog was below 15%, and today is close to 20%. This is one of the best evidence of the late cyclical nature of this business. Recovery after COVID is now undergoing, in particular, for the project side and the fly milling part of the division. Obviously, we are not expecting an ongoing balance from a sales point of view at the group level, due to the big difference between the two divisions. Speaking about profitability, as you know very well, this is a completely different story. I leave now the stage to Ms. Cugnasca for the usual comments on our ESG journey.
Thanks, Mr. Marasi. Since we are keeping you constantly updated through the usual ER instrument, quarterly financial press releases and presentation or a doc presentation on each advancement of our ESG journey, I will be concise. As you probably remind, the general goal of 2023/2024 action is to build the group ESG foundation, therefore, in the first part of 2023, we implemented 2.5 action of our journey. G1, we create inside the new board, the sustainability committee and the executive director inside it is the CEO. I believe that this is the best evidence of how group is taking seriously the topics. G2, we approved the new code of ethics, which now incorporates group ESG commitments.
G 3, I quoted 2.5, because even if we are still working on organizational, procedural, and formal elements, the first, and I will say the most important, a concrete half of the formalization of group succession plan action was implemented last April with the separation of chairman and CEO role. In the second part of 2023, in the next few months, we'll be focused on other important actions to be delivered in this year. On the annual step of two annual action, and on the ones that have to deliver every year. E 1, the definition of group carbon neutrality strategy. E 4, the first phases of the circular economy projects. Social S 5, the fine-tuning of group supply evaluation model and procedure to incorporate environmental and social criteria.
Finally, please let me quote you an action, which has nothing to do with our ESG plan and vice versa, has everything to do with our concrete, responsible, and trustworthy approach to everybody who every day, everywhere in the world, contributes to our success. You probably remember that last May, some region of Emilia-Romagna were dramatically flooded. Regions where we have Contarini and Interpump hydraulic factories. Water did not damage our factories, but importantly, around 50 of our colleagues were severely impacted, with cars and home basement or even first floor ruined or seriously damaged.
Therefore, with the June salary, these colleagues received a lump sum amount between EUR 1,000-EUR 2,000 each, equal to a global company amount for EUR 215,000. It's a drop compared to the cubic meter of water that devastated our land, quoting Mother Teresa of Calcutta, "An ocean will be even a single drop less if a smaller an ocean with even a single drop less is a smaller ocean.
Thank you, Ms. Cugnasca. Summarizing, the second quarter of 2023 confirmed once again our capability to correctly understand market evolution and to react fast and adapt our operations to a changing environment. This made us benefit of a stronger performance compared to our initial 2023 assumptions. The second important point is that July data are consistent with our expectations, therefore we confirm our upgraded 2023 organic sales guidance of twice single digit, and we are confident that the combination of the good organic growth and the flexible business model will make 2023 the best year ever in terms of profit margins for the company.
Thank you. We are here, please, at your disposal for any kind of clarification or doubts that you have.
Thank you. This is the Chorus Call Conference Operator. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. To remove yourself from the question queue, please press star and two. Please pick up the receiver when asking questions. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from Matteo Bonizzoni with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good afternoon. The first question-- my first question was actually on the organic growth for the year. We have just answered, because in the press release, you, you referred to the initial guidance, I was not, was not particularly clear if this organic growth, which was the latest guidance, was confirmed or, or was different. I have heard the, I think this is then good. The second question is on the seasonality, which you are seeing this year. I, I was looking my model back in many years. Typically, the second quarter has been likely about the first quarter in terms of million new revenues and also in terms of percentage of the year. This year is not the case.
We see that the first quarter was extraordinarily good because it was about 0.5% margin. second quarter has been 24.6%. Can you maybe, it's that minimal deviation, but can you flag if, for example, in terms of pricing condition, mix or cost condition, there is something different? Clearly, what I maybe miss is the perimeter, because it's true that the latest acquisition are materially releasing the margin. Can you comment a little bit more this more margin delta? The last question is regarding the book-to-bill. You have said that your backlog remains about EUR 1 billion, and it's particularly strong in the water business. Can you maybe a little bit elaborate more regarding your book-to-bill at a consolidated level in the last month, and also in terms of the market for geographies? Thank you.
Thank you, Matteo. In terms of organic growth guidance, I confirm that we reiterate the high- single-digit growth target for the year that we have announced in May, after the spectacular performances of the first quarter. A very good performance in terms of organic growth of the second quarter 2023, and the good results of July, are making us confident that we will have no problem in reaching these numbers. In terms of seasonality, this is a tough question or a tough point to be commented, and this is the reason why I have always invited you in recent years to look not really to the monthly or quarterly results, but to the yearly results.
Because in a fast-changing environment, trying to track, precisely the evolution of, every single market or every single quarter is more difficult than before. COVID is more difficult than in a normal, in a normal environment. This is also what we are looking at, internally, and this is the reason why we are also very confident that will be another very good year in terms of growth and in terms of profitability, without commenting too much on every single month or quarter. Regarding the evolution of the margin, you can understood correctly from your question in Water-Jetting linked the seasonality. For sure, the acquisition of IMAC, and in particular of Waikato, with a significantly lower profit margin, is, significantly dilutive.
The remaining is explained by the different performance in terms of growth and in terms of contribution by the different companies in the division. Moving to the book-to-bill topic is not very simple once again to comment, because we have different trends and different uses in terms of way of managing orders between the customers and the companies. I may say in a consolidated point of view, that we are slightly below one in this period. The positive news is that we are maintaining an order backlog above the EUR 1 billion threshold, also in the month of July, and this is giving us a lot of visibility for the months to come.
Thank you.
The next question is from Domenico Ghilotti with Equita. Please, go ahead.
Good afternoon. A few question. First, on the Water-Jetting, back again. Can you, can you help us understanding how much of the dilution is coming from the M&A and how much is coming from the product mix? What, what is really, so is something that is really temporary or really something that is more structural, the change in the product mix? Second, is on the comment that you are giving on the Hydraulics division. When you talk about market normalization driven by lead time, supply chain rebalancing, what, what should we understand? Do you see really something which in the second half, your organic performance is mostly driven by Water-Jetting? Do you still see positive organic performance in Hydraulics in second half, or something different?
Okay. In terms of margin dilution in the Water-Jetting, I would say that approximately 60 basis point is coming from the two acquisitions that we made in the quarter or in the first part of the year, and the remaining is due to the mix. Mix is in such a short series of time, three months, is not really significant because it depends on the performance of every single company within the division, and in particular, on the evolution of the different parts of the business. As you are aware, every company in the Water-Jetting division is very profitable, but we have differences. Of course, [Ammann] is the superstar. Other companies are very profitable, but not as [Ammann]. Also, within the single, the different single companies, we have orders or project with different kind of profitabilities.
For this reason, I have no particular trends to comment on or to make forecast in the future. I see nothing worrying about 3 basis points dilution in a quarter. In terms of, if you move to the comments on the Hydraulics division normalization, it's very important to comment that when I was referring to supply chain and lead times normalization, this is important if we consider the absolute terms of the backlog, and if we consider also the difficulties that everybody in the value chain, including Interpump, experienced in the past 2.5 years. In a more normal environment, in which supply chains are more reliable and transport times are more under control, the level of orders is not affected by the so-called panic buying approach.
What we are seeing today is a more normal environment in which orders reflect the true needs from, from everyone. Regarding your last question about the second half of the year, expected growth for the Hydraulics, I confirm that we expect positive organic growth also in the Hydraulics division in the second half of the year. The phenomenon that we are seeing is that Water-Jetting is accelerating, and now is contributing more to the growth of the group.
Mm-hmm. If I may follow up with a few other questions. On North America, I saw a particularly soft trend in particular in Water-Jetting, actually. Have you seen any specific... I was expecting to see some, some protection, okay, on due to the backlog on the second quarter trend in North America, considering that even a slowdown in orders would have been mitigated by, by the backlog. There is any specific topic there?
I have no particular comment on this. The exchange rate is also impacting. I don't know if you are looking at the like-for-like exchange rate. It is clear that the only, the only phenomenon that I can comment is that on NLB, our North American company, we are seeing more orders on the rental part of the business, this business, instead of on the equipment side of the business. This is driving down in the short term, the sales, but the business of the, the number of machines that are going to the market is almost similar.
Okay. Thank you.
The next question is from Alessandro Tortora, with Mediobanca . Please, go ahead.
Yes, hi, thanks for. I have a few questions for you. The first one is on the level of CapEx. You mentioned the around EUR 40 million in the quarter, EUR 18 million in the second half. First of all, if you can help us to understand the level, let's say, level of CapEx that you are considering to going to complete the expansion plan you mentioned before. Then, considering that you don't see significant projects over the next year, if you can also help us to have sort of the indication of the number of the CapEx on sales in the coming years. That's the first question.
Okay. In terms of CapEx for the year, I would expect that we will close 2023 with approximately EUR 140 million in CapEx. In terms of projects, we are completing several very relevant, important projects. Also, we have a real estate investment that we have already commented several times in the past. Looking forward, the only significant or meaningful real estate expansion that I want to mention, is the Panni Hydraulics new plant that we are projecting now for 2024 in Bologna. The company grew in the past, and we are experiencing space constraints. For this reason, we are projecting a new plant of approximately 15,000 sqm -16,000 sqm for next year in Bologna.
As a part of this project, everything else, will be on a much lower level, and I assume that, we will be back, at our usual range, that is below 5%. I would say between 4% and 5% in the next two years. Considering the very significant investments that we have made, I would assume, assume that 2024 and 2025 will be much closer to 5% than... Sorry, to 4% than to 5% on sales.
Okay, okay. Thanks a lot. Thanks. The second question is on if you can elaborate a bit more, you mentioned about the agri negative in the second quarter in terms of sales. If you can also help us to understand the underlying trend, because we, we can reach also some of your clients talking about the normalization in terms of let's say demand and the agri business. If you can elaborate also on this, and also what's, what's the expectation for, for the coming quarters, for this for this application? Thanks.
Okay. The... I would say that the only application field, I mean, between the relevant ones, that is down in the quarter is agriculture. It is specifically driven by a reduction in deliveries to John Deere in the second quarter. It's very important to underline how big has been the growth and the expansion of the agriculture business in the last 2.5 years. When we think about the normalization of the inventories and normalization of the supply chain, I'm referring to this kind of phenomenon. We have been very, very pleased to see that construction is growing so much. That is a very important application for us. Also, industrial inaudible for trucks are moving very well, and this is comforting also moving forward. We have seen the, the recently announced results for inaudible are really comforting.
Okay. Okay, thanks. The last question is related to the level of financial charges. If you can help us to understand which level of net financial charges you're going to have into the future quarter, considering the current interest rate environment. Thanks.
Yeah, it is clear that with the important rise in interest rates, we are facing a higher cost, considering that the vast majority of our financial debt is at a variable rate, and then we expect more or less EUR 40 million for the year in terms of financial charges.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
For the year? Sorry, EUR 23 million is the expectation for the year. I was considering for the half year. EUR 23 million is expect, and the remaining is exchange rate in effect.
It's like total EUR 40 million, of which EUR 23 million is excluding effects?
Yeah, EUR 23 million is the financial charge for the year, excluding FX.
Okay, okay. Thanks for that.
The next question is from Bruno Permutti with Intesa Sanpaolo. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, everyone. I had a question on the price-... and cost, yeah. How, how do you expect this gap with both in their main part of the year? Are you experiencing a monetization on the supply chain? Are you also experiencing some benefits in terms of cost inflation? On the other side, how is the build in the pricing? The, the, the price cost gap, if you expect a benefit or, or, in, in, in, or not in the, in the, in the next few quarters.
A second question partly related to this one, is on seasonality. You suggested that the business has changed, and we should now look at seasonality as an important, an important factor. This, this means, in some way that we could look at the different quarters, in, so, in a more, similar, way, or, the, the fact that you have seasonality but it can change every year, depending on the phasing of deliveries and, I don't know, something else, that, that, that is different from the past. I'd like to understand, how, how to interpret, this, different, different seasonality, paradigm.
Yes. In terms of price and cost inflation, it's important to note that we believe that the more or less 5% price effect that we have gained in the first half of the year is sufficient or more than sufficient to cover the inflation that we are experiencing on our cost, on our bill of material. Because if we consider the most important factors in our product, on our production cost, you will have that energy cost will be significantly down this year in comparison with 2022. Raw materials will be down a bit, not as much as you read on the newspaper, but raw materials impact will be down this year.
These benefits will be offsetted by the increase of salaries that we are seeing more or less everywhere in the world, and Europe in particular. All in all, I would say that the 5% growth in prices is more than enough to cover the growth in the business material and the production cost for the year, this is not of a particular concern for us. The comment on seasonality is a little bit more complicated. My point is that the after COVID world changed the rules in some way, and it is very, very difficult to make to make very significant and proper comparison on a quarterly basis year after year, because we may have very, very different or different dynamics between one year and the other.
This is the reason why I believe that we should look at the full year results, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. You will see, and we are seeing, and we, we see our element has been our progresses, our element has been our organic growth and the profit margin expansion. This is what is comforting us, and this is our guide, instead of becoming crazy in trying to track some trend from one year to the other, that is in the short, in such a short term, I would say erratic, considering the macroeconomic factors that we are seeing.
Thank you.
The next question is from Domenico Ghilotti with Equita. Please go ahead.
I have two additional questions. The first, if you feel confident to provide any comment on preliminarily 2024 organic outlook. Second, I understand, I feel that on the Water-Jetting you, you still see it a quite supportive outlook and also for 2024. I leave a comment to you. Second, I would expect that if you have any kind of say normalization in top-line growth, free cash flow will accelerate. So would you consider buyback?
Okay. Regarding 2024 organic outlook is a very, very good question. I believe that it's too early to say because our budget season, our budget process will start immediately after summer, and will be completed as always within the month of November. It is true that we have some visibility or some good visibility, at least for the first part of the year, thanks to the backlog that we have, in particular in some company that is going beyond December 23. As you noted, we are very confident that Water-Jetting will be very supportive for next year.
In terms of normalization of the free cash flow, and normalization, sorry, the impact on the free cash flow of the normalization of the top line growth is absolutely correct, to expect that if we will have a more normal organic growth in comparison with the, the spectacular one of the last three years, we should expect a far stronger cash flow generation going forward. Regarding regarding the buyback option, I would say that this is not on the agenda now, because we believe that we will have a lot of M&A opportunities in the next 12 months or in, in a midterm perspective. Our first aim and our first goal is to use the cash flow that we generate to make the group bigger and stronger through acquisition.
Okay, good. That's for, for M&A then.
Yeah.
The next question is from Michele Baldelli with BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon, everybody. There's a couple of questions. The first one is about the foreign impact that came, well, in H1, just to take it out from the total financial charges, if you can provide the data. The second question, question relates to the M&A in the front, but from your last point that you mentioned, that you said the buy is not an option because of M&A, while historically, share buybacks were used to also give part of the price through own shares to the families that were sellers. My point is, are you looking to certain targets that are larger, but basically they will not be, they will not be subject that are interested in more shares, but more on a cash base? Is this the, let's say, way to look at it? Thank you.
Sorry, Mr. Baldelli, could you kindly repeat the first one? Because the line is very disturbed. Can you please repeat and speak perhaps slowly?
Yes. The first point is about the Forex negative impact in the financial charges, if you can quantify how much it is?
EUR 6 million in the first half of the year.
Okay, thank you.
The second, the second question was about the M&A target, correct?
Yes, and the strategy around it, why you don't want to do probably share buybacks as before, and historically it was used the own shares to pay the seller, if, let's say, this is related to the fact that you are looking to larger targets, where probably the seller is not a family, and therefore they will not be buy your own share, so if this reasoning can apply or it's not be because of this?
Yeah, this is clear. This is clear. We already have treasury shares of approximately 1.7% of our capital, close to 2 million shares. I do not exclude completely buyback, but our preferred way of employing the cash flow that we expect to generate in the next 12 months or in a midterm perspective, in an even more significant way, is to deploy and realizing new acquisitions. This is the reason why I do not exclude the buyback, but our preferred deployment or utilization is for acquisition.
In terms of target, as you know, we have a very opportunistic approach, and then, as I have commented already several times, in recent quarters, in particular, after the successful White Drive acquisition, we are prepared to look at slightly larger transactions, but it's too early to comment, and we have. We don't have the possibility to comment on any specific target. You know how uncertain is any M&A opportunity.
Okay, thank you very much.
The next question is from Fraser Donlon with Berenberg. Please go ahead.
Hi there, Fabio. Fraser here. Just three or four questions from my side. The first is just on the Romania site. I think in the past you've kind of commented that there are some costs relating to that alongside the kind of insurance inflows. How would you kind of quantify that in Q2, in terms of, like, a net positive or negative for, for the group? Then how would you look at that as the factory, I think, reopens in the coming months. The second question is just on the kind of expansionary projects you have going on with the likes of Valeo. You know, how well covered are those, you know, through market share gains or commitments from customers looking into 2024? The third question is on Waikato, the acquisition you made.
I guess I was just interested to hear your view on why that's a kind of interesting end market to add to the group, the milk exposure. The final question, just talking about seasonality and that being a little bit more unusual. Given the group is kind of working through a backlog, can we kind of consider that maybe Q3 might be an absolute value, you know, a bit better than usual, but definitely maybe Q4 won't be as large as it normally would because I think season Q4 would normally be very good, but maybe it wouldn't be the case this year. I would just be interested to have a view on that. Thanks very much.
Okay. Regarding the Romania fire, we have the note and the details in the financial and press release, the positive impact from the insurance has been EUR 5.4 million in the second quarter this year. This is not a gain, this is offsetting the losses that we have experienced, both direct losses in terms of cost and indirect losses in terms of lost business and lost profitability from this company. You have to note that this situation is going on from May 2022. In this year, we had to face huge amounts of inefficiencies from a manufacturing point of view, and a huge amount of commercial problems as a consequence of the unavailability of the production from Romania.
For example, we had to move approximately 100 people from Romania to Italy in order to run the extra shifts in our Italian plants, in order to maximize the output of hoses in, in our Italian plants. This is, this is, of course, of course, crazy expensive in terms of, logistic cost and extra cost for these people. This is one factor. Another factor is the business that we have lost because we usually combine in packages, hose and fittings, and we have a manufacturing capacity that is target, at a good balancing between hose and fittings.
With the fire that destroyed the, the Romanian factory, that was 100% dedicated to hose manufacturing, we lost this balancing, and then we lost a lot of opportunities at the Interpump Group level, in terms of missed opportunities for fittings that were not offered, coupled with hoses to the market, again, with a significant damage. On top of this, of course, all the direct and indirect expenses that we have to face and that we have been reporting in the different quarters or in the different presentation in the last, in the last year or so. The reality is that we would have strongly prefer not to have this fire and not to have any reimbursement.
The second point, the expansion project, in general, is of course, a consequence of the impressive organic growth that many of our companies experienced in the last three years, in particular in Hydraulics, and the market share gain that we have achieved, thanks to our flexibility, thanks to the higher than normal level of working capital and inventory in particular, that we were carrying on already at the immediate restart after COVID, that allowed us to grow more than the market. For this reason, several of our companies, after this very significant growth, were constrained by space availability, that we were obliged to invest in real estate in order to adapt the structures of these companies. The last question was about Waikato. Waikato is a very interesting combination.
It's a very big, big, interesting acquisition, because it allows us to extend our presence in the fluid business, in the particular, in the milk treatment, in the milk solution. That is an application that is crucial for Inoxpa. You have to imagine that Waikato is a very, very good fit of integration or combination with Inoxpa, that already have a very well widespread network of subsidiaries around the world, and now can support the international development of Waikato, that today is very strong in New Zealand and Australia, but has a significant growth opportunity, not yet exploited in foreign markets. The last question was about seasonality that should be expected in Q3 and Q4. This is difficult to comment because of the factor that I explained to you, I explained to everybody before.
Also, it's important to note that quite surprisingly, last year, the fourth quarter has been the strongest of the year. Usually, the fourth quarter is the weakest or the second weakest. Last year has been the strongest, considering the exceptional environment in which we were living in. This is one of the reason why I do not invite you to compare quarter on quarter, but in this very fast changing environment, it is better to look at the yearly performance in order to have some idea of the real performances. Thank you.
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