Good afternoon, everybody. Thanks for joining us today. We'll present the H1 results. I will share the presentation. Just one second. I think you can see it. I'm sorry. Of course, I don't see your video, so if somebody has to jump in, I just see my presentation. The first thing to say that we included in our outlook, let's say the context, the scenario in which we are operating in this moment, it's a challenging environment and even if some fundamentals are still strong, we see some uncertainties that may majorly depend on external factors. I think this is also a way that we to read the Q2 number, the H1 number is also in the light of the situation.
We think there are several points of the numbers that we present that are positive, but we do have to put it in context, as I said, and as we included in the outlook. Let's go ahead with the presentation. I'll go quickly through it. It has the normal structure that we normally present. Q2 numbers were EUR 100 million of turnover. That's +3.4% versus last year. Looking at the two divisions, the heating has +10.2% at EUR 82 million, and the metering has -20%. Gas metering, as we know, - 30.32%, as expected, I would say. Water metering, that is consistent at its double-digit growth rate.
H1 is at 195, that's +2.3%, versus the half year of 2021. Q2 EBITDA is EUR 9.2 million. That's -33% versus previous year. This brings us to the half year results of 2022 nearly EUR 24 million at 12.2% margin against the 15.2% of the previous year. We have a net income of EUR 14.2 at 7.3%. It was EUR 9.5 million last year. Net debt is around EUR 123 million at EUR 122.6 million. Let's go into some details. Here in this page, we present the key financials, some margins. EBITDA, we already commented. EBIT at EUR 10.5 million. It was EUR 16.2 million. That's -35%.
EBT of EUR 16.8 against EUR 11.4. We know that this margin includes the net effect of the warrant, the change in warrant, so that's why that also is in the net income, and that is why we present the adjusted net income. To take out the extraordinary factors, that's EUR 6.2 million against EUR 10.5 million. Cash flow, - 9.9%. It was EUR 6.2 million. We will go into detail. Working capital, trade working capital at EUR 62.8 million, more or less in line with the same number as last year. As we see the quarter results, we have already commented the EBITDA. We will go through that.
It is a very important volume effect, that brings us to EUR 9.2 million against the EUR 13.8 million of the previous year. Let's look at revenues, the bridge between EUR 190 million and EUR 194 million. As I said, we can see how, volumes is important. Last year was a challenging comparison because we're very in the middle of a very strong rebound and, we had performed well. This year, we have an impact of volumes for EUR 16.6 million, that we can mitigate with an increase in prices of the same amount, slightly more, and Forex helps us. At the end, at the half year, the increase is basically Forex if you look at it this way.
If we go into detail in the Q2, where we can see how the quarter produced a significant increase in this volume. It was EUR 10.6 out of the EUR 16.6, so it was quite not very positive quarter in these terms. Prices of EUR 11 and the Forex of EUR 2.9. If we take a look at the geography, here we are looking at let's say consolidated levels. This analysis is more significant when we break down by division. As you see, Italy and Europe are performing at a quarterly basis as with a negative change versus the previous year. Let's go into the detail of the divisions.
Again, here we have the heating sales of the second quarter and the heating sales of the half year. While Italy is still performing well, yeah, we have increased versus previous year in the catering segment as we had in the first quarter, and also in other direct heating applications, they're growing at 15%. But the central heating, the boiler market, is slowing down a bit versus the second quarter of 2021. If we look at Europe and we look at the second quarter in Europe, we see how that 7% decrease is, let me say, significant, bringing that half year slowdown, let me say, to 1.4%.
I have to mention here that we do have some cutoff issues in accounting, so really this is not really the management number that we should discuss, but this is what we have to report. The number is slightly better, but because of cutoff issues, we ship till the last, you know, last day. We had to take it out of the accounted revenue. Anyway, it's important to highlight that Turkey, it was down 8%, the customers in the central heating. In U.K., we have the same issue that we had in the first quarter, component shortages at local manufacturers who are not able to assemble and deliver, and that impacts our capacity to ship.
This is something that we highlighted also in the first quarter, and it's not getting better in this period. If we break down the families, we see it's more the flues and the mechanical controls, but that explains the downside, the decrease in the U.K. We have this strong trend in Central Europe for many quarters, still going strong. New products introduced, it's +15% in this half year. America is up half year, nearly 30% or nearly 18%, 17.4% at the same Forex. We have fireplaces, we are increasing, we are recovering some backlog that we had for electronics. Same thing in the central heating.
While the storage water heating is a bit slowing, a slower increase, it's 14% increase, slightly lower than the other segments of the market. As for Asia Pacific, as we see, it's 26%, 20% at the same Forex. China has a steady growth that we have already described in the replacement market, in the retail market, and Australia also is growing well at 18.9%. This is the overview of the heating. Metering, we break down gas metering and water metering Q2 and H1. Let's start with the gas metering. -30%, not unexpected. We are so on the major trend. We know that the foreign sales are behind our plan.
In fact, also in H1, we are around 7%, and we are in delay in the U.K. market with respect to our plans. Let me say that it is not unexpected, and the trend is the same that we introduced, that we discussed the last time we met. We are working, of course, on the due diligence with the suppliers, with players of the market. We are working for certifying and, let me say, participating to offering, but still we don't have shipments yet to the U.K. significant enough to report anything. A different story in the water meter. It's consistent double-digit growth at quarterly and half-year basis. Let's say it's all organic because, you know, we are still offering the same product families, the same product. It is a growth opportunity.
That is as also other opportunities once we deliver to the market the new products that we are working on in R&D. This brings us to margins, to the EBITDA bridge. It was EUR 28.9 million, 15.2%. It is now EUR 23.8 million at 12.2%. As I said, the impact of volume, which was basically all accounted in this quarter, because if we look at the previous report, this was basically in line. We accounted a volume impact significant in the quarter. We did not able to offset it with the price increases. I would say operations is basically in line other than nearly 50% of this extra of this increase in operations cost is due to logistics and transportation.
That is the nature, the item that we are experiencing a higher than expected increase in transport cost related to basically energy cost that is transferred to the freight management and so on. This is the major point that I would like to highlight in this bridge. The Forex impact is positive and the minor item of 0.5. This is the bridge of the EBITDA. After the EBITDA, under the EBITDA, we already discussed the major, the main point, which is the fair value accounting. D&A is in line, and so we report a net income of EUR 14.2 million at 7.3% of revenues. It was EUR 9.5 million at 5%.
If you are adjusted for the fair value accounting, it's 6.2 against 10.5, as we already commented. Nothing particular to say on this table. Working capital, I mean, we have an increase from the beginning of the year of EUR 17.4 million. That's an increase in terms of revenue of 4.1%. It's a typical seasonality, higher than usual because of the shortage issues that we are managing with suppliers and with procurement strategies. All in all, if you look at it with respect to the increase that we had in the previous half year, it was less, let's say, it's smaller increase than the one that we had in the first Q.
We are still managing procurement with the same policy to buy components and provide service to customers. That is still an issue, even if it is less critical than some months ago. Cash flow. Well, on the left we have the cash flow statement, the impact on EBITDA. This is current cash flow of EUR 24 million against nearly EUR 30 million. A change in working capital, the trade working capital of EUR 16 million. Other items also an increase. This is a VAT timing issue that will get fixed during the next month. We have a CapEx of nearly EUR 12 million against EUR 8 million of last year.
This brings us to a cash flow of -10%, and then we add the other charges and the dividends paid, bringing the change in net debt to EUR 16 million. This brings us to 122.6. It was 120 the last year, and it was around 125 at the end of Q1, if I remember properly. Basically as expected, this is the cash flow and the net, and the composition of our net debt. As I said, Q2 for us was a more volatile market. We have to read these numbers in this context. We have a backlog that is positive. Visibility is limited due to worsening of the scenario that we foresee.
We, of course, have a view that the general situation, the external situation, will make it more difficult to manage and plan business activities. We have lower visibility, but of course, we will keep working on the main strategies that we have in place. I mean, now we have a global footprint that we want to optimize. We want to ramp up the new plant, which is not yet running, and we have to manage the supply chain issues, adapting to availability of components and logistics. Pricing policies, I mean, are not changing. We are basically in line with our plan, so we will transfer as far as possible the increase in material and energy cost.
We are active in both domestic and international markets for rollout in the new meter business. We expect a challenging context, and in this context, we expect to grow in a range between 3% and 5% on the consolidated top line, and the EBITDA margin will be between 12% and 13%. We slightly adjusted our expectations, but we have to include these uncertainties in our outlook. This is my overview, and of course, I'm available for any comments and questions, of course.
First question comes from.
In the meantime, Federico here. Good afternoon, everybody. Can I speak?
Yeah.
Okay.
I hear you, I hear you well. Okay.
Okay. Paul, thank you for the presentation. A question, if I may. The first one is on the supplier in Ukraine, if you have any impact in the second quarter, if there are any further impact expected in the coming month. A second question, if I may, is on Tunisia. We are seeing that there are some trouble there and also political trouble. Just to say, when this new plant would be operational and contributing? And finally, if you have any update on potential penetration in new market for gas metering, gas smart metering, such as India or U.K., or whatever. Thank you.
We have connected also with us, the Chairman, so Federico de' Stefani. I don't know, Federico, if you hear the questions?
Yes, I did.
Okay.
Good afternoon, everybody.
If you would like to answer.
Okay, the situation with our supplier is progressing as planned. We are phasing in insourcing production from Jabil, our supplier in Ukraine, so that's progressing. We know it's located only a few miles away from the Slovak border, so that's, I can say, under control. As far as Tunisia, we see. First of all, well, let me say that from our point of view, situation is not more dangerous than it used to be or more difficult or more risky than it used to be. There are some important modifications to the legislation that are being carried out.
We see from what we can read and also hear from our people in Tunisia the situation is improving and not getting worse. Despite this, since we don't want to play or take any, let's say we want to manage the geopolitical risk. Don't forget that our number one rule when we established Tunisia the Tunisian plant is that everything that is produced in Tunisia can also be produced in other plants of the group. If something happen, we will have to move production to another plant of the group, but there will be no significant disruption if anything geopolitical happens in Tunisia. That's the way we think we are addressing the geopolitical risk in Tunisia.
Third point about our penetration in foreign markets. We are still positive on starting sales in the U.K. before the end of the year. I know it's something that we have been aiming at for a while, but we are still positive that we will get initial sales. It is becoming, you know, as I say, it's getting more difficult than expected, but let's say that we have potentially interesting prospects in the U.K. Our strategy is to focus on key markets like Italy and U.K., and we have some tactical opportunities in other markets. For example, we are selling to Greece.
We're looking at India as an opportunity, mainly for commercial and industrial, and Croatia. These are just tactical opportunities. Our main shots are U.K. and the new development plan, rollout plan that the most important Italian utilities are deploying. We expect important sales also for the Italian market before expected, probably already in 2024. As we already discussed, the Italian utilities have decided, at least the most important ones, to anticipate if you look, for example, at the long-term plan of Italgas, it's clearly stated that they are planning to substitute new smart meters before the rollout, the second rollout that was planned by the authority.
We expect it somewhere, sometimes in 2024.
Thank you.
Thank you, Marco.
Thank you, Federico. Adam Forsyth? We cannot hear you. Emanuele Negri. Yeah. Emanuele.
Yes, good afternoon. Good afternoon, everybody, and thanks for the presentation and for taking the questions. I have first, a quick follow-up on the Tunisian plant from Marco's question. I'd like to know when do you think that the positive impact of the Tunisian plant on profitability will be on full capacity, and when will we see it on the EBITDA margin and EBIT margin? And if you can just give us some colors of the amount that you think you can save in terms of profitability from the Tunisian plant. Talking about the first half, we see a reduction in volumes, so I wonder if this reduction in volumes is both on the heating division or it is mainly linked to the trend of the metering division, which is going down.
The other question I have is about the future trend for the next years, so beyond the current year. What do you see in terms of demand trend in the heating division, given all the guidelines we had, with the REPowerEU about heat pumps and about hydrogen and biomethane? What do you see, if you can see some positive or negative impact from this regulation? Thanks.
Paul, do you want to take the Tunisian plant question?
Yeah. Yeah, well, we expect to see some more important results when we will be able to adjust our footprint as planned, locating more production in Tunisia and less production in other plants, in higher cost plants, meaning the other plants that are producing electronics. This will take place, let's say during 2023, and we will see what you said, full speed. Well, it would be during 2024, full speed when we really saturate the volumes of the Tunisian plant. The strategy, you know, when in the outlook we say we want to address our industrial footprint, what we are saying is trying to manage the ramp up on one side and the downsize on the other.
This is a complex operation to do, especially in the shortage situation that we had in electronics. We think now that we will be able to do it, because certain conditions are changing from the outside, so we will see it happen during 2023 and go to regime in 2024. The impact on margins, I would say between 1.5% and 2% margin. This is what we expect to see at full capacity, coming from that plant.
Remember that we are already seeing some specific benefit of some specific productions, but, of course, what we are not seeing is the reduction in manufacturing overheads and the platform and production platform because we have an overcapacity or overstructure in this moment. This goes for,
Okay.
I don't know. Yeah. Please, go ahead Federico.
All right, I think I can take the following two questions. Volumes in the first part of the year, in the first semester, Europe-wide have been on a consolidated level slightly below last year. It's a combination of absolutely different trends in different countries. We see Italy, for example, with the Superbonus doing extremely good, and other markets being slightly below previous year. For example, U.K. has been suffering because of lack of components, different components from ours, but many boilers in the U.K. in particular have not been built because of lack of certain components.
Other countries like Germany, for example, have reacted negatively to the war, to the Ukrainian-Russian crisis, and war, and in the sense that gas products have created the uncertain situation and the war in Russia and Ukraine has created the uncertainty in end users with regards to gas-related products. While in other markets, as we mentioned, Italy, you know, the market has been rising double digit, significant double digit, almost 20%. We see different trends, depending also a lot from the way different countries react and from the way different countries also incentivize these kind of products. Incentives are playing a bigger role than in the past.
We expect, for example, Italy next year, due to the Superbonus not being confirmed, to have a reduction, but we expect other markets to compensate that. I mentioned U.K, and Germany, for example. Being global, I think has a lot of, you know, advantages like in this case and we've seen, you know, China, Far East growing. We see important markets like Italy expected to reduce next year, in the next months, but other markets compensating for this, for this reduction. America, for example, North America, have suffered from a reduction of new homes construction permits. We're suffering, and we're expecting a reduction in fireplaces.
Other applications, like water heater, for example, are not expected to decrease. Expectations, I think we have already given our forecast for the year. Next year, as we said, is gonna be. We know that in our market, October, November is a very important time for what we call the new heating season, which starts more or less October, November. We will get to know much more about expectation for 2023 around that time, say November. Yeah, that's. With regard to new technologies, we are seeing an important growth of electrical electrification.
Heat pumps, electrical heat pumps, where we know that hybrids, so boiler and heat pumps will play an important role, especially in certain markets like Italy and Netherlands. We are monitoring and we are very optimistic about the trend of the electrification and hybrids in particular. As we said, we are working for a strategy also on electrical products and heat pumps and electrification in general.
Thank you, Federico. Adam, would you like to try again?
Can you hear me now? You can. Excellent. Apologies for that, technological incompetence on my part. Three questions if I may. Just firstly, is there any opportunity to pass through the higher logistic and transport costs in pricing or is that pretty much set where it is? Second question, could the latest we've seen in the U.K. on other people's components, is that something that might be resolved in the near term? I mean, is that something we might see a rebound from in the second half, or is it likely into 2023? Just finally, more general comment, if you can, the U.S. is hopefully gonna bring through a bill, the Inflation Reduction Act. It used to be called the Build Back Better Act.
Looks like it may go to Senate this week. In that there are quite significant provisions, $9 billion in energy rebate programs, major tax credits for home energy efficiency, which includes heat pumps, and electrification of lots of heating, including water heating, and I wonder how you see that panning out, if that's a potential opportunity or even perhaps a threat for you.
Yeah. U.K., you're right. There will be. We're expecting a rebound in the second part of the year.
Okay
We expect the U.K. In particular to improve in the second part of the year. I mentioned Germany. Germany, the reduction in Germany is due to other factors that I already mentioned, but specifically in the U.K., yes, we expect those volumes to be recovered in the second part of the year. Then in general, I think the US, North America and the US has an important potential in terms of more efficient heating. In particular, a potential new legislation coming for furnaces, residential furnaces moving to modulating, so higher efficiency. These are already mandatory in California, but we expect also other states to move on and especially the central government to move in that direction.
We know that there are potential opportunities in North America due to legislation and incentives for higher efficiency products. Our experience that it takes a long time, even longer than in Europe, for those incentives to become real. We have been talking for years about this higher efficiency policy legislation. So far only I think two states, one of them being California, have adopted it. It will make a big difference if they do it at the central state level, so a national level. We know that in North America there is potential. There's a high potential there with gas and higher efficiency products with running on natural gas.
As I said, in Europe it's the other way. In Europe, it's the clear trend is electrification and combination of electrification combined in a hybrid solution with gas or, as we mentioned before, biomethane or blends of hydrogen. We know that there are important projects, for example, in France when it comes to biomethane, the target, and they're gonna achieve it. In Italy, we have seen some opportunities and some signs of targets being set for biomethane. Hydrogen, as we know, is a different story, and hydrogen needs to be produced. Technology is there.
I think today in the Ariston, which is, as you know, our customer, Ariston clearly stated that they are positive on their solutions for 100% hydrogen boilers. As you know, we have presented at the last trade show in Milan, at our stand, there were boilers from our customers, including Ariston, having our components in it. It's going to be a mix of opportunities. The clear trend is electrification. It's not the only trend, and there will be mixes of different solutions, as we have always said. It's also the position of the National Association. I mean, sorry, European Association. It's not only my position or the SIT position.
It's the position also of the Association of the European Heating Industry. Of course, as I already said many times, the electrification trend is the one that we really want to catch, because it's already a reality there, but as I said, since we are leaders, we need to be and we want to be a multi-technology player, and we want to be a leader in each segment. Not only gas or biomethane or hydrogen, but also a combination of those.
Thank you. Just on the ability to pass through transport and logistics costs.
Yeah. Well, I leave to Paul, but the point is that yes, we have in the heating business, we are able to transfer those extra costs. We're also seeing some raw materials going down, so we expect our prices to be not that fast to adapt to the new situations. Hopefully, there will be, you know, some time before we, you know, adapt our prices to raw materials, assuming the raw materials will continue to go down. We know that we are dependent mainly on. We're using mainly aluminum and copper.
Yeah.
Aluminum is obviously very much related to cost of energy. Copper is a different story.
Yeah.
Copper has been going down already in the past few months. Being the leader, of course we need to be, you know, adapted to the market. We cannot be too expensive. You know, being a leader, I think we can play a role and, you know, and there are not many players that can substitute us, so we want to play the leader of the price in a smart mode. Not losing volumes, but at the same time not losing value on the market or giving up value to the market.
Great. Thank you very much. That's really helpful.
Thank you, Adam.
Thank you, Federico.
I don't see any additional question. Yes, Marco Cristoforetti.
Sorry. Really a very small thing. I had an estimate of a higher tax rate for Q2, and instead it was 32% if I calculated well. Just to know what are you expecting for the year-end. Thank you.
If you measure it on reported EBT, we expect it to be in the same range that you're seeing now, around between 15% and 16% of EBT. Because we do have the effect of the warrant inside, so it's reconciled to the nominal percentage. We would have to have more detail. Looking at the number that we report, without taking out the warrant, we expect it around 15% or 16%.
Thank you.
I don't know if this helps you.
Thank you, Paul.
Marco?
No, okay. It's okay for me. Thank you, Mara.
No, I can't. Marco, it's okay? Sorry, I can't hear you.
Yes, yes, she said it's fine, Mara.
Okay, great. Sorry. If there are no additional questions, I would like to say happy holidays to everyone.
Thank you. Bye bye.
Bye.
Thank you. Bye bye.
Thanks. Bye.