Good afternoon, everybody. I will help myself with the presentation which was distributed, which is on our website. I will share it. Just a second. Here it is. Let me put it in full screen, and then we can go through the numbers. Highlights. As we see, the numbers were at consolidated level. The top line was minus 11% versus the same period of 2022. That's EUR 83.6 million. We have the divisional sales that have a different trend. Heating & Ventilation down 17.6%. Federico focused in his introduction main drivers that were regarding this business unit. He gave the rationale, and then we will see the impact of the numbers. We have the Metering at EUR 20.4 million, that's +23%.
With gas metering going, well over 30% increase at EUR 13.7 million, while the Water Metering business is at +7% at EUR 6.7 million versus the same period of previous year. The rationale in the Heating & Ventilation was already highlighted by Federico. We have this strong destocking that is affecting our top line due to the, to the supply chain strategies that the customers put in place in 2022 that has brought high inventory levels throughout the industry. We think this is a short-term volatility, and we will go into more details of this at the end of the, of the presentation. Metering, well, Smart Gas Metering is performing well thanks to the strong competitive position in the domestic market.
We have strong relations with the major players, and we are benefiting of this high market share in Italy and their projects. The Water Metering is a bit slower in terms of growth rate. We were used to the 20+% growth of last year. This year is a bit slower, but throughout the year we expect a double-digit growth again also in this division. All said this, we have the 2023 Q1 EBITDA at nearly 10% of on revenue. That means EUR 8.3 million. As we can see in our bridge, it was mainly impacted by volumes and cost inflation. I would say that the comparison with Q1 of 2022 is very challenging because in that period we were full steam in terms of volumes.
We already had implemented a price increase to our customers and our cost base was at a less inflationary impact. It's a difficult challenge, that 15.6% of Q1 2022. Coming to net income, we have EUR 1.3 million positive at 1.6%. It was 5.3%, EUR 5.3 million at last year, the same quarter. Net debt at EUR 143 against EUR 130, and against EUR 125 of the last period, of the Q1 of 2022. Again, in this quarter we account the as extraordinary settlement. That is the major reason of this change in net debt. Going to the key financials, I think we already mentioned most of the data.
We commented most of the data in the highlights. I won't go through all the table. The highlight only the additional numbers in this table, which is the cash flow from operations. As you see, it's minus EUR 10.3 million. It was minus EUR 17.1 in Q1. The environment was completely different. The sentiment was different. Net trade working capital is higher, EUR 77.8 against EUR 70.4. We want to highlight in this scenario that we have an action plan focusing on short-term savings to preserve profitability. We are working on short-term actions. We are working on longer term strategic initiatives that we can eventually discuss later on today. Let's look at the top line. Just to go through it. Again, the 10.9% year-on-year change.
On the top part of the slide, we have the division breakdown. On the lower part, we have the geography breakdown. It's 83.6 against 93.8. If we look at the revenue bridge, we can see the strong impact of volumes of EUR 15 million. We have a positive contribution coming from prices and Forex is minor effect. Let me say as a general comment, speaking of pricing, we know that the gas metering was performed at 2022 with a constraint on the pricing because we had internal, we had one, we had a portfolio of tenders that were priced at pre-inflationary levels. Now we are having an impact, a positive impact, and that's part in those EUR 4.3 million.
Going into Heating & Ventilation, I would say the impact is a general trend.
We can see the Italian 20% minus. I think here we see certainly the impact of the incentives, regulations. Italy was one of the countries that has a very major important incentive scheme. Now coming to the end of that or the uncertainty or the announcement effect of changes has certainly slowed the consumer on this part of the demand. We also have some specific direct heating appliances that have performed particularly bad in this period. I'm referring to pellet stoves. Heating is down EUR 1.4 million. It's about 4%. We have certain areas that are going well, thanks to fans.
We have a big increase in Turkey, thanks to fans. We were.
Here we also had some problems in the beginning of last year when we had difficulties in supplying. Anyway, this area is performing well. As you can see in the table below, it is one of the product family that is going well with a 9.2% increase. If you take out the impact of the pellet stoves, it's a plus 20%. That's an area which, I mean, gives us a positive contribution towards last year. Other areas of the Europe, there's not really much to add. They're all in the same negative trend, basically, even if I wanted to highlight the heat recovery units in the central heating, in the Central Europe market is plus 30%.
This is another area where we have recently announced the our initiatives in product development in these kind of applications. America, well, we know that the water heating business, Federico commented both this trend, the reason this situation where we have lost some or certainly some market share due to the dispute, and we have yet to build up the marketing and sales activity, and the fireplaces are certainly impacted by general market, general economic condition. Asia Pacific, 22%. Let's say China, Australia account a decrease versus last year. On the other hand, they had a very import good Q1 of 2022 as a rebound of their post-COVID.
Even there is some comparison that is difficult to challenge in this quarter. Anyway, I think Tom Federico gave the flavor of this quarter, difficult, and here we have the details in the different markets and product families. Coming to metering, where we have some good news. We know that in gas metering, we have a 40% market share in Italy. We have good and strong relations with customers, and we are building the next generation of smart meters. We are also performing well thanks to their tenders and their projects on the Italian market, anticipating some of their plans in substitution of the already installed smart meters. Still, we are not much to.
in the foreign markets, not so much. It's less 5%, so it's not as good as we wish. We are in delay in the U.K., but that opportunity is still open because we know that that market is in strong delay in their installment capacity, and that is giving us more time to become, to start sales. So we, I, we mention it even if, even if this, in this current quarter, there is nothing really to report. Water Metering, as I said, it's 7%. It's a bit slower than what we were used to, but it's a combination of timing of their portfolio. We are positive on their full year growth, here we give a breakdown of their international business as well.
Coming to the EBITDA, the impact of volumes is very important, EUR 6.7 overall. There are some, mostly depending of the decrease in heating, then we have a positive contribution of the gas metering in particular. Pricing net is positive, we're able still to transfer to the market, the inflation of the purchasing. Operations is basically, I would say some, The impact, if we have to speak of one major rationale, it's the impact of inflation on labor rates and transformation rates, which was established higher this quarter, and it was lower in the Q1 of 2022. This is the major, I would say, comment on this, on this bridge.
Happy to go into details if later on in the Q&A sessions.
Under the EBITDA, really not much to say on the Q1 2023. We finally got rid of the fair value accounting, we have net income of EUR 1.3 million at 1.6% of revenue. To compare it with last year, we have to go to the adjusted net income, which is EUR 5.3 million at 5.6%. Not much to say. We have an increase in financial charges because of the higher net debt and of the higher gross debt and the impact of interest, even if 90% of our debt is hedged at in 2021 conditions. Working capital. Well, here we have the first item to comment, is the increase in inventory. This is.
I mean, it's not what would be expected given the level at the end of 2022. We do have, let's say, part of this EUR 101 is finished product, we do have the impact of slowing down of sales, we do have the impact of the conditions of our supply chain. Long, very long lead time orders that were placed during 2022 that were still being received. We are still paying the effect of a very difficult supply chain of 2022. This is the number that we expect to see going down from here on to the end of the year in a very important manner. The other parts of the working capital are basically following the trend in volumes.
Overall, it's an increase from the beginning of the year of EUR 4.1 million, meaning 4.2% of revenues. On a year-on-year basis, it's an impact of EUR 7.5 million. We see the impact of this in our cash flow. From current cash flow of EUR 9.1, we burn cash in working capital EUR 3.2. Of course, last year was a different scenario, we know that. Other working capital is where we put the settlement of the dispute with the customer. CapEx pipeline was very strong, EUR 5 million, that brings us to the EUR 10.3 million of the period, EUR 12.2 in terms of net debt. That's from EUR 130 to EUR 143.1 at the end of the period.
Here we provide the breakdown of the debt at the 3 end of periods that we display in this, in this table, and highlighting that we have 90% of the debt is at fixed rate since origination. We do not have the impact on our, on our finance charges of the scenario that we have in interest rates. Our final comments, I think I can leave it to Federico to finish, wrap up this presentation, and then we are available for Q&A.
Okay.
Let's say that in Heating & Ventilation, we see sales for the full year 2023, lower than previous year. As we said already, reasons are destocking and mainly regulation uncertainties. We are, this is what we see for the rest of the year, or most of the year at least. We have obviously, based on the new organization through business units, we have set up a very strong action plan focused on reducing costs. Of course, with the objective of preserving profitability. We have a very strong focus for the year on cash generation through the use of working capital.
We know that, as we said many, many times, we have allocated significant resources to serve the market in our stock, in our warehouse. This is going to release cash all over the year. We are going to reduce our CapEx and we are reviewing obviously our operating model. We know that we are going to move production to lower cost countries.
This is just one of the plans and the of the of the actions that we have in our in our plan. Generally speaking, Heating and Ventilation fundamentals remain positive. We are present in different geographies, as we know, and we continue to be fully confident on the role of gas in the energy transition.
We know that we want to be being world market leaders. We want and will be present in all technologies, whether these are going to be standalone boilers, hydrogen boilers, hybrid systems, heat pumps and boilers. Mechanical ventilation and heat pumps will also come and are already part of our product development strategy.
On top of that, moving to Smart Gas Metering, we see a positive year. Not only a positive quarter, but we have a positive backlog in terms of orders for Smart Gas Meters for the Metersit products, at least in the Italian market. We have been able, as already mentioned, also to reprice tenders, and therefore we expect higher profitability from Smart Gas Metering compared to previous year.
These are general comments. I think now is time to Q&A from your side. Mara, if you can please.
Yes
control.
Yes, I'm going to do that. Again, this is the time for your questions. If you have one and you're. Raise your hand. Sorry. Raise your hand.
Okay.
And your-
Giada. Giada can be up.
Okay. Giada, it's your turn.
Thank you for taking my questions.
If you could give us a little bit more details about your strategy towards heat pumps. Second question is if you could give us an idea about the incidents on total sales of mechanical ventilation not related to gas heating. Third one is about your perception on the evolution of the different regulations in Europe about hybrid systems and in general heating. I mean, Ecodesign, energy labelling, EPBD. What's going on there? It seems that you are not so. I mean, you're rather positive. Thank you.
Thank you, Giada.
Okay. Let me say that, generally speaking, our plans include all these scenarios that you mentioned.
In heat pumps in particular, we are developing fans for that market, and our plan is to be in the market by 2024. We're ready, samples, customers testing, but we see us being ready in the heat pumps market not before next year. Regulation is obviously changing, and we know. I give you an example. Germany decided or announced, sorry, project or a plan to Phase out fossil boilers and incentives by 2024. Fossil fuel-based boilers by a very short term.
They're now, you know, reviewing it with, by adding, now discussion is three or four more years to that because obviously people, countries realize that, you know, in theory, you can do without gas. In practice, it's impossible to Phase out. That's why we continue to say that natural gas is playing a very crucial role in the energy transition, which will take much longer than announced. This will give us the time to be present in all technologies. Obviously with different market shares, with different value or share of wallet. Let's say we are going to be present in all these areas. We are leader in in boilers. We are leader in hydrogen boilers, mechanical ventilation.
Next year we will be also ready in heat pumps. Biomethane, we're already there, so we're already market leader there. We need to add fans for heat pumps, and we will do it next year. Fans, extra heating, maybe you have Mai, a more precise number. If you don't-.
No, I think it's around 50% of our fans, if we count.
Yes.
From the-
So it is.
Of the EUR 9.5 million of fans of the Q1, I will mention the families because it's the. We have, as I said, heat recovery units. We have the pellet stoves. We have the other areas, the air management, also more or less about 50%.
about 7% of the total.
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
More or less 7% of the 2 number. I don't know, maybe we want a few more comments on regulation. Regulation is changing, will continue to change. There's no clarity, you know, that we. I'm personally present in the advisory board, sorry, in the executive council of EHI, so we debate on a regular basis with the European Commission and also at the level of each country. We see there are changes, continuously changes. Germany announcing and then forcing to delay. U.K. is now planning a ramp up of heat pumps. We know that U.K., in the U.K., heat pumps are still almost non-existing.
The plan that is under discussion in the UK is to gradually introduce a minimum percentage of heat pumps over years as a percentage of total boilers sold. It's constantly changing. We see the Italian example of the Superbonus, which is again under continuous change, and in my opinion, obviously we need to be ready for every scenario, and we will develop our product offering by 2024 also in heat pumps.
In mechanical ventilation, we are already present. We are developing new products there and sampling customers also in heat recovery units, meaning mechanical ventilation.
Thank you, Federico.
Just to be clear, we're talking about electronics and fans.
Emanuele, your time.
Yes. Thank you. Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for the presentation and for the Q&A. I have a couple of questions. The first one is on the profitability. You told that you are implementing some short-term actions to preserve profitability. Just wondering if you can give us some example of this action and what kind of impact do you expect from this action in term of savings of cost? The second one is on pricing. In a context of ra w materials normalizing, cost of energy normalizing, and limited demand in heating, do you believe that you'll be required to somehow lower your selling prices and so have a negative pricing effect on the year in heating?
I will take the first one, and Paolo may take the second one. Yes, short-term actions. Of course, we are moving production in the next month to Tunisia from the Netherlands, and there will be a very significant reduction of our overheads in that area, as well as other high-cost countries that we already operate in. We are on one side, we are reducing people dedicated to gas boilers, but at the same time, obviously, we need to also continue to invest in what we call the electricity, the green electricity scenario. We are reducing our workforce, which is dedicated to boilers, cassa integrazione, and this kind of short-term actions, for example.
Paolo.
Yeah.
Go on.
Sorry. Talking about, let's say, actions that we are taking, for example, with regard to the cash generation, we talked about not making some investments. We, let's say, so far we have been very, very flexible in serving our customers. I give you one more example, Emanuele. Our customers do place orders to us, and if they get delays in their own order intake, they just leave us the product, right? We are going to change this gradually and, you know, making sure that our customers absorb the quantities that order to us. Let's say we're, you know, being a little bit more or less complacent with our customers.
You know, I think this is something that the market will, and will have to understand and accept.
Emanuele, I'm not sure I caught your second question, if you don't mind repeating. Sorry.
It's on pricing. We are observing some normalizing raw material prices and cost of energy, so I was wondering if you would be required to lower your selling price in heating division, considering the demand side.
Well, no. At the moment, we are able to stick to our policy of the increase that we planned at the beginning of the year. Of course, this is a strong statement. Negotiations take place, but we are maintaining our position on this. I would exclude the major effects. Of course, it's one of the arguments that our customers are making to us, with referring to the change of conditions. We are defending the position at this, at this moment.
With gas meters, Emanuele, obviously not getting any requests because these are fixed contracts.
These requests come in Heating & Ventilation, do not come in Metering.
Okay, thanks.
No additional questions, if I'm right. Okay. Now.
Emanuele?
Emanuele, another one?
Sorry, there are no more question. I was searching for some details on the CapEx you were talking about, because you said that some non-strategic CapEx will be reduced. Can you give some details of what you mean with non-strategic CapEx, and what will this mean in terms of CapEx for the year end?
We are planning to reduce initiatives that can be postponed and do not, let's say, influence the product development strategy that Federico highlighted. We are focusing on the heat pump, on the ventilation and heat pumps, and, of course, other projects that we regard other segments will be postponed or canceled.
Emanuele, maybe, a good example can be a photovoltaic system, which we did have planned for this year. It's about EUR 3 million. This is not going to be, made.
Invest
in.
In this period, yeah.
In this period.
All in all, we expect to have an overall CapEx, let's say, near to EUR 15 million full year. That's more or less EUR 10 million less than last year, as you know.
Great. Thanks. Perfect.
Additional questions? No, I don't see any more questions. Okay. I would like to say thank you very much indeed for participating to this call, to everyone, and let's speak again after the six months release results. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Bye.
Bye-bye.
Thank you, everybody.
Bye-bye.
Goodbye. Goodbye