Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Thai Union's analyst meeting for the second quarter of 2025. My name is Nuanwan Giriwath-Paisan, your emcee today. First of all, I would like to introduce our speakers. First, Khun Thiraphong Chansiri, our President and CEO. Second, Mr. Ludovic Garnier, our Group CFO. Last but not least, Khun Phinyada Sengsekbahan, Head of Investor Relations. Today's session will take around 1.5 hours, including the Q&A, and will be followed by a 10-minute break before the TFM result announcements. Without further ado, I would like to invite Khun Thiraphong to begin the presentation, ka.
Good morning to all the analysts joining us today and representatives from the financial institutions. Today, I am going to report on the results for the second quarter. For the most part, the profit was, sales was at THB 33.39 billion. There's a bit of a drop, 5.4% year-on-year. Nonetheless, mostly the drop is due to the foreign exchange impact in Thai Baht terms. It's a 4.7% impact, and organic sales dropped by only 0.7%. In the second quarter, we have many things that happened. For instance, the U.S. tariffs, and this has disrupted our operations quite significantly. We have the new tariff announcement. At first, we were looking at 36%, and this was something quite new to us. It was a limited, there was a limited time frame for us to ship our products out in the fourth to the fifth month and in the sixth month.
When I say disruption, I'm talking about not just impact from the U.S., but also we were looking at results from the tariffs this time around. Everyone was, of course, in a state of confusion. In the second quarter, nonetheless, in terms of our profit margin, it is in favorable territory. It's in line with our plans. We're looking at 19.7% gross profit margin. I'm confident that moving forward, we will see even higher numbers, higher than 20%. If we take a look at our operating profit, the adjusted operating profit, which does not include our transformation costs, we grew by 3.2% year-on-year. Our operating profit margin is at 6.4%. Our net profit has also grown. The adjusted net profit grew by 13.2% year-on-year.
Overall, for the second quarter, this is a quarter where all of our business categories have returned to positive territory, especially in our branded business in Europe. Otherwise, it's seasonal. We're looking at the summer season where sales are already strong. On the next page, you can see a clearer picture of our transformation costs in the second quarter at THB 233 million. We grew by 13.2%. If we do not include those items, we grew 4.4%. We want to emphasize our earnings per share. Earnings per share for us increased 18.5%. This is partly not just due to our operations, but also our buyback program, our share buyback program. This is to increase the return to our shareholders. The EPS was at THB 0.32 per share. For the first half of the year, our sales were at THB 63.17 billion.
Overall, you'll see that there's been a drop of 7.8% year-on-year. Our gross profit margin is strong though. It's at 19.3%. The other adjusted numbers, our net profit has grown 11.2% year-on-year. Our net debt, it has increased from 0.9x - 1.1 x. That is within our comfortable range for us. The reasons behind this are due to our dividend payouts and our share buyback program. These are the main reasons. We have inventory increase, inventory as well as in the past. This is in line with the season. It's nothing that we're concerned about. We are confident in the second half of the year, our net debt to equity will decrease as we will not have any share buyback to record. On the next page, you will see that our share buyback, we are a company that is very active in this regard. We have four programs.
The first two programs, we did seize capital already. The third and the fourth programs were just completed at the end of the year. I would like to reassure you that our share buyback is to be, it's not that we're buying the shares to sell them off again. We want everyone to rest assured. On the next page, this is about our dividends. As always, in the first half of the year, we paid 59% of our profit or THB 0.35 per share. This is higher than in the past two years, whether it was 2023 or 2024. The first half of this year is a higher level for our value. The ex-dividend date is on the 15th of August. The payment date is September 1st. We are confirming this date.
For me, the last thing I will discuss with you today is the announcement of our intention, the intention, to buy shares, to you from 6% - 20%. You can see from the letter of intent from Mitsubishi that they would like to increase their shares up to 20%. Why 20%? This is because at 6%, all they do is record the dividends. What they are hoping for is, in addition to being a business ally with us, they also want to record equity, meaning profit and loss. Mitsubishi is not a stranger to us. Mitsubishi is a close friend of ours. They have invested in our business since 1991. We do have a director from them, since we have had a director from them since 1991. Why have they decided to increase their investment?
One reason is, I believe that there's a change in the generational change in the executives. Over the 30 or so years that they've been with us, there has been change in the organization. Their vision has changed. Their strategies have changed. In addition to this, the global business has also transformed over the years. I, myself, have had the opportunity to meet with Mitsubishi every two times a year. This has been the case for over many years now. We have shared, we have exchanged experiences, knowledge. We recognize the business is different these days. Consumer behavior has transformed. Customer channels are changing. In addition to this, the business models have also evolved. They have reviewed their portfolio in terms of investments. They believe that their diversified investment, which partly was in seafood, especially in Asia, whether it's in Vietnam or Indonesia.
I feel that they realize that investing that is very spread out is not very synergistic. It's not strong for deeper alliance in terms of business to strengthen business. That is, I believe, the rationale for their desire to increase their investment to 20%. We believe that this will lead to us being able to do work together and doing better. The price that has been saluted is THB 12.55. This is an all-or-nothing condition. He will become an associate of MCT. Our investor relations has shared a press release, certainly press releases that Mitsubishi has issued. This transaction, I only learned about the board's decision, the main board from Mitsubishi . They also announced this in their analyst meeting yesterday. This was their demonstration of the significance of this investment. If you have any questions, we can discuss this further.
On the next page, you can see that Mitsubishi is, its network, and it's mostly in Japan. Torii is a company that is the largest, world's largest trader of sashimi grade tuna. It supplies sushi and other species like shrimp and salmon. They're the biggest in Japan. These are businesses that we have been involved in for the long term. Even though they have a small shareholding in our company, the board's strategy is perhaps to invest in many countries. I believe that we will work together. They will consolidate their investments. More consolidation will be seen in terms of their investment. They will be able to increase and improve their costs efficiency. Cermaq, this other company of Mitsubishi . They have investments in Canada. It is the second largest salmon farming organization in the world. Cermaq has been a partner with us.
They sell us raw materials, raw ingredients, both in Thailand and for MerAlliance in France. Mer Alliance in France, where we also sell to other organizations. I'm confident that we will work together as we'll continue to grow. Mitsubishi will be a significant partner for us. The next company I'd like to mention is Nosan. They produce aquaculture feed. They are one of the main aquaculture feed producers in Japan and specializing in fish feed, whether it's kanpanchi or hamachi and other fish species. We have spoken with them. We believe that there is great opportunity for more collaboration between the two organizations. They also have investments in pet food. Mitsubishi is the 100% owner of the company known as Petline. This is one of the leading companies in Japan.
In the past, we may not have interacted with them so much, but we believe that in the beginning, this is a low-hanging fruit that will lead to expansion into these various businesses for us. Mitsubishi , just for a reference for you, based on 2024, their profit wins they have a profit of $6 million. They have investments in chemicals, commodities, and food is one of their group, one of their main business group. Thai Union in the past, we continued to do business with them, whether it's in terms of frozen business, salmon, and pet food. These are examples of business that we've had with Mitsubishi over the years. We'll go into more detail about our operating results. We'll return to this topic later. I'd like to hand things over now.
Thank you. Thank you, Khun Thirapong. I'm very happy to be with you this morning. I want to start, first of all, with our five-year picture. I think one of the very good developments of this quarter is really our gross profit margin, okay? Gross profit margin at 19.7%. This is a record high for us. You will see this is mostly coming from our ambient seafood and frozen seafood gross profit margin, while the pet care and the value-added are declining a bit. Very good achievement, and it's a real performance. We don't have any one-off in this one. It's really coming from the sustainable performance of the company. We do expect also this high gross profit margin to remain in Q3 and in Q4. That's why you will see in the guidance we have been upgrading our guidance for the whole gross profit margin for the whole year.
Our top line is still a bit soft, okay, declining by 5.4%. I will elaborate in the next slide where it comes from. You can see the net profit margin is improving, 4.5% adjusted, 3.8% reported. We are in a much better track. I think Q1 was a bit soft. We told you we were not happy with our performance in Q1. Q2, clearly, there is a catch-up. We want to confirm that in the next quarters. Just a quick focus on the top line impact. The FX changes we are facing are very violent. You can see here the USD rate has been declining by 10% compared to last year, euro by 5%, and GBP by 4.6%. Of course, you know we have a very significant portion of our revenue, which are denominated in USD, in Thai baht, in GBP, or in euro.
This has a very significant impact for us. I told you in Q2, our top line change is - 5.4%. On this one, 4.7% is explained only by the FX, okay, and mostly coming from the USD and a bit also from the euro and the GBP. The organic is still declining, okay? It's 0.7%. You can see compared to Q1, in Q1, the organic growth was - 6.9%. Now, we are almost at break-even. Definitely, in Q3 and in Q4, we want the organic growth to be back to profit, okay? We don't want to be negative on this part. Khun Kuan will elaborate on the view by category. On the raw material prices, I think Q2, we don't have a big surprise. It was very much aligned with our expectation. The tuna price spent around $1,510 for Q2.
For the rest of the year, we don't expect very significant changes, okay? We don't expect a very violent increase or decrease. We do expect the tuna price to kind of remain stable. The shrimp prices have been softening. If you remember, in Q1, we told you they were high and usually high for two quarters in a row. Now, it's THB 139 per kg, which I think is much more in line with our expectation. On the salmon price, same situation as in Q1. We are enjoying some low salmon price since the beginning of the year, okay? This is good for our chilled business in France and also for our frozen business here in Thailand. We don't expect significant change to happen in the next quarters to come, okay?
All these key materials, the fact that there is not much volatility, is one of the key drivers for our gross profit margin recovery in Q2. On the FX, I already mentioned, you can see here the average USD was $33.1. In July, it has been declining a bit further. I think now we are within the range of $32.5, $ 32.6. Let's see what is going to happen on this one. Clearly, Thai baht has been strengthening since the beginning of the year versus all the key currencies. It has some negative impact in our top line. Euro has been rebounding back to EUR 37.5. Let's see also the next quarters and let's say for the GBP. You can see the USD situation is very different from the other currencies. Just a quick overview on our ratio. ROE and ROCE are improving compared to Q1.
I think we are on a good track. The inventory days are kind of flat compared to what we had in Q1, but they are increasing compared to what we had in Q4. This is absolutely normal, okay? Just for you to remember, in Q2, we build up our inventories, especially for our business in Europe. Why? Because Q2 and Q3 are the very high quarters of sales over there. We always have this kind of mechanism. Now, we can have a look here on the ratio on the right, net debt to EBITDA. Here, it's increasing. It was 4.5 in Q1. This is 4.7 in Q2. The key driver for this one is really the share buyback activity, okay? You will see that in the next slide. We don't have any concern on this one. The expectation is in Q3, it will kind of plateau.
In Q4, we should start seeing some decrease on the net debt to EBITDA ratio. On the net debt to equity, a small increase, also 1.1. We are still in what we call our comfort zone. We are very comfortable with these numbers. Quick overview here on our net debt situation. Net debt has been increasing since the beginning of the year from THB 53 billion - THB 59 billion. You can see the key driver is the box on the right, the red box, which is the equity by the share buyback activities for THB 4.3 billion. In terms of free cash flow, we are happy with the free cash flow generation in Q2, okay? We told you in Q1, the EBITDA was a bit weak. From our point of view, in Q2, it's much better. We are facing an increase in our change in net working capital.
This is mostly inventory buildup, nothing to worry about. The CapEx at THB 1.9 billion is really within our guidance and within our expectation. All the usual boxes, taxes, interest, dividends are fully in line with our expectation. You can see also the equity has been dropping from THB 56 billion- THB 52 billion. This is the impact from the equity treasury shares. You need to remember that we do record this one in a negative amount in part of the equity. Maybe one last thing from this slide is also the cost of debt is reducing, okay? On average over the year 2024, you can see on the box on the top left, last year, it was 3.65%. It has been reducing now to 3.38%. We see the impact of the overall decrease of the interest rate in the world. We are also benefiting from this.
This is one of the key drivers for our finance costs to decrease year on year. An update on the BEPS 2.0, the Pillar Two. If you remember, at the beginning of the year, we told you we were expecting an impact between THB 300 million - THB 350 million from these new measures. We are revising down the impact to THB 100 million- THB 150 million for the whole year. Why? There are two key drivers. First of all, you know that for us, the key impact is really in Thailand, okay? Our profitability in Thailand is lower compared to our expectation overall. The second point is our tax rate in Thailand is higher compared to expectation. It's higher because in some of our businesses, like TFM , please stay after. We are the analyst speaking on TFM after.
We had the end of our BOI for a few months. For a few months, we have our effective tax rate, which is a bit higher. There will be a new investment being performed and a new BOI to come in. Overall, the impact is our effective tax rate is a bit higher compared to the expectation. At the end of Q2, we already recorded something like THB 31 million for this tax in Q2. We do expect for the whole year to be around THB 100 million - THB 150 million. Just for you to remember, also, in terms of EPR, we expect for the whole year an increase by 2% - 3% compared to our historical effective tax rate. The last one is an update on Sona and Tailwind. The overall picture is we are on track with our expectation. Let me start first with Sona.
Sona, you know we told you that the in-year savings for 2025 amounts to $15 million. At the end of Q2, we had $5 million. This is supposed to accelerate in Q3 and in Q4. We told you we want to reinvest a portion of these savings, okay? All of this is not impacting our bottom line, but only a portion of that. You have some details on the below, but overall, the message is we are on track with the expectation. For you to remember also, Sona, the vast majority of this program will end by 2025, okay? In 2026, the activities will be extremely minimum on Sona. On the right, we have Tailwind. Here, the target was $17 million OP uplift for the whole year. After six months, we had $7 million, okay? Again, here, we are on track with our expectation.
Please keep in mind that the timing from Tailwind is a bit different from Sona. Here, the plan is to grow and to end by 2026, okay? Overall, the message is these two transformation programs, which are extremely important for us, are on good track. We were also very happy to have decided to launch these two programs since last year. I think we are in a much better situation right now to face with all the uncertainty, the tariff issues, and the competition with these two programs which are already up and running. Now, I will hand over to Khun Kuan for the business performance.
Thank you, Khun Ludovic, for the breakdown by business categories. Let's begin on the first page. You can see that in the first half of this year, we had a sales contribution for the various categories. You can see for ambient, it's the biggest portion for us, the biggest contribution. It was at around 50%. Same here in frozen, it was at around 29%. PetCare is at around 14%. And value-added is around 8%. The key thing that we would like you to take away from this page is in terms of our gross profit margin for each category. You can see that they are in a range that is in line with our long-term target. For instance, the ambient business, the gross profit margin is at 20.8%. The range that we gave you was 20%-22%. In terms of frozen, it's at 12% when the range was 10%- 12%.
PetCare is at 25.1% for 2025. The range for ITC was 23%- 25%. For value-added business, our gross profit margin is at 27.1%. The long-term target was at more than 25%. Taking a look at the second quarter for our ambient category, you can see that our sales were at THB 16.59 billion. This is a drop year- on- year by 4.5%, mainly due to this FX impact and our effort selling prices resulting from the lower tuna costs. At the same time, our sales volume was relatively flat compared to the same period last year. This is a result of the impact from the U.S. with our private label there that has declined. This is due to the uncertainty of the tariffs. Nonetheless, we have communicated with you that we continue to boost our sales and our volume for the branded customers and to continue to do this.
This is why the volume in the U.S. and in Europe have increased. At the same time, take a look at the Middle East. You can see that we have increased demand from that region. Our gross profit margin for the ambient sector is at 22%. This is the highest in the past 11 quarters. This is mostly due to our tuna costs and our tuna costs for inventory. If we take a look at the first half for our ambient business, this is for your information. What is important here is our performance in the first half. You can see that gross profit margin has increased to 20.8%. This is a result. The same as in the second quarter. It's due to our inventory. We have stocked tuna at lower costs. We have a higher margin. We also have a commercial push for our branded business as well.
Moving on to the second quarter for the first investments, you can see that our sales are around THB 10 billion, decreasing 7.4% year- on- year due to foreign exchange, just like the ambient seafood business. Another impact was the soft sales of the private label for shrimp in the U.S. markets. Nonetheless, in the frozen business, this is a business that has used chilled salmon, shrimp, and our beef businesses done by TFM. TFM, in this quarter, has a very clear growth performance. This has offset the decline in our frozen seafood sales in the past quarter. If we take a look at the sales volume, you can see that it has increased 8.3% year- on- year, mostly due to the sales volume growth in the feed business. Lastly, the gross profit margin has gone up to 11.7%, increasing 1.0% year -on- year.
This is in line with our target range that we told you earlier of 10% -1 2%. This is a margin that has expanded primarily due to the feed and shelf business. If you're looking at the first half for the frozen seafood business, the gross profit margin has also been favorable. This is our shrimp and feed business. Our gross profit margin is at 12.0%. On the right-hand side, you can see that TFM, which is our industry subsidiary, has revised their target guidance. The sales right now are forecasted to increase by 7% - 9%. We have lowered this from the previous target. Nonetheless, our gross profit margin has been adjusted for it. It is now at 19% - 21% for TFM. These are the two numbers that I want you to take notice of. In terms of the PetCare business, our sales were at THB 4.4 billion.
That's a decrease of 1.5% year- on-y ear. This is mostly due also from the FX impact and effort selling prices that are lower. If we take a look at the graph on the right-hand side, you can see the proportion of the premium mix compared to the mid-price mix. In the last year, we had a proportion for the premium mix that was quite high. This was an exceptional rate because usually, our target for premium mix is at 47% -5 0%. Our PetCare business was able to achieve 50.4%. This year, it has been decreased to 46.3%. This is one reason for the drop in the profit. In terms of sales volume, it has increased 10% year- on-y ear, mostly because of increased demand from our U.S. key customers. We continue to see demand from Europe and Asia and Oceania that is lowering.
The gross profit margin is at 25.6%, which is down by about 6% from last year. The reason is that last year was an all-time high in our PetCare business. This is also due to a high premium mix. The gross profit margin has dropped because of the drop in premium mix and higher depreciation. This is from our ITC factory expansion and also the increase in the minimum wages here in Thailand. On this page, we would like you to take a look at ITC adjusting its guidelines for the entire year. Taking into consideration the 19% tariff that was effective from the 1st of August , the sales growth expectation is therefore 3%- 5%. Gross profit margin is 23%-2 5%. Our CapEx has been decreased from THB 1.5 billion down to THB 1.2 billion.
Lastly, our value-added category, you can see that the sales has had THB 2.37 billion, decreasing 9.2% year- on- year. This is a decrease in profit in all of our segments. We have value-added, we have packaging, and we have ingredients and supplements and byproducts in this category. Every category, the profit has dropped except for the ingredient business where we have seen an increase in sales. In terms of sales volume, it has increased by 2% year- on- year. The driving factor is the sales of byproduct and packaging and ingredients as well. The gross profit margin is at 26.3% in the second quarter. This is similar to what we had in the same quarter of last year. We have the byproduct ingredient and packaging higher margins to thank for this.
In the first half of the value-added business, we would like to highlight that this category has a high profit margin at 27.1% for this quarter. We expect in the future that this business category will have increasing growth margins. I would like to pass things back to Khun Thiraphong to speak about the U.S. tariffs and the outlook for 2025.
Thank you. I'd like to take this opportunity to go down into detail about the tariffs for all of you. For the most part, the announcement for Thailand, you know, is at 19%, the U.S. tariffs. Therefore, I am confident that Thailand, especially Thai Union, will remain very competitive. I believe that with a tariff of this level, we have great opportunity to compete.
What we need to keep in mind and monitor is our domestic consumption because we believe that the prices in the U.S. will be adjusted upwards more or less due to the increased tariffs. Nonetheless, as you analysts perhaps know better than I do, speaking with various experts, many agencies say that in the short term, the first few years, the U.S. economy will continue to be strong. With the access to foreign markets at 0%, their negotiating power of all the countries is that it should be 0% for all the countries. Therefore, U.S. exports will increase. Therefore, their manufacturing sector will improve, their employment, their labor market is quite tight. It will become even tighter. This may lead to an adjustment in the wage, increasing and improving wages. I believe that there will be a trend for the interest as well. It perhaps will lower. This will help the purchasing power of consumers to improve. This is what we expect. We've discussed this internally. We continue to monitor this.
The key highlight on this page, aside from Thailand at 19%, which is the final tariff, what is important is India is at 25%. China, we don't need to talk about that, at 30%. Ghana has adjusted upwards to 15%. What is interesting is Ecuador, which I said once that it is a winner in terms of tariffs. It increased from 10%- 15%. The gap between us and Ecuador is only 4%. Therefore, I believe that overall, we should be able to compete better. We should have less worries. I mean, of course, we do have concerns, but those concerns are less than before. In each category, take a look on the next page. In terms of our ambient seafood business, we have a refined base tariff. Normally, we have the base tariff at 12.5%. Ghana is the only country that has a base tariff at 0%.
Uganda always has the lowest total tariff of 15%. We have prepared our operations there to have Ghana export to the U.S. Same here. Take a look at Seychelles. This is also another production base for us. The total tariff is at 22.5%. Thailand is at 31.5%. This is the same as the Philippines and Indonesia. There, we don't have any advantage over them. Ecuador is at 27.5%. Vietnam is at 32.5%. Therefore, we would like you to rest assured that in terms of our ambient business, I am confident that in this situation, it's a very favorable situation for us. We should have better than the 36% scenario. Our production base in Thailand, we will continue to maintain our competitiveness. Again, this allows us to, it make us more flexible in terms of business and o ur global network in Lyons, Georgia, from now on, they will have a bigger role.
In Vietnam and Seychelles, we have more flexibility. We are ready. We're poised to take action. Our raw ingredients, the prices are different in the various areas. You might ask that, but we can use the benefit of our network to create the best benefit for our organization. If we take a look at the frozen business, this is even more favorable because the tariff helps Thailand significantly. Thailand is at 19%. Ecuador is at 18.8%. You must understand that before this, other countries had anti-dumping duties and/or also countervailing duties. If we combine all of that, Ecuador will be 18.8%. Indonesia is at 22.9%. India is at 34.8%. Vietnam is at 58.1%. We have to invest in India. We continue to monitor things there closely. I think that in India, we will continue to keep an eye on things there. Their government, of course, will not be complacent.
Thailand, in terms of our frozen business, we have seen a lot of benefit and advantage from the tariffs. On the next page, in terms of our PetCare business, we have always told you that our premium product, our wet-based products, especially cat foods, there are only three main competitors: Thailand, Vietnam, and China. Therefore, you can again rest assured Thailand may be at 19%. Vietnam is at 20%. That 20% today, Vietnam is a small-scale player. We are 10x bigger than them. Therefore, Vietnam's competitive ability has not increased. We don't expect any significant change for Vietnam. China is at 30%. In terms of PetCare, we are again, we are happier, less concerned, less worried. We are not complacent. There are a lot of changes. We are keeping an eye on Vietnam. We have a production base in Vietnam.
We are ready to change in the future. We are flexible. This is our main plan. Aside from tariffs, everything that we have done in the past up until now, the transformation programs, for instance, analysts, of course, you may not be happy about this because of the cost involved. I would like to tell you that we are very lucky to have started this in 2024. I believe that if we hadn't started in 2024 and we began after the tariffs were announced, we would be facing much difficulty. Our cost resetting, especially when the tariffs took place, we have been very focused on this. We are not going to stop regardless of the impact of the tariffs, whether it's good or better than expected, because cost and quality are two key essential factors that will make us even more competitive in the future. Change will happen. There will be things that we cannot expect.
Internally, we will continue with these efforts. We will be very serious and focused on these. In terms of our commercial focus in every category, whether it's our ambient business, branded, from our cost resetting, our brand is even more cost-competitive than before, making us even stronger in terms of competition in volume and market share. We also have our marketing support, which we will continue with. We want our 5%. We will continue. We will not stop. We hope that our brand will have a bigger role and that we will be able to create to be leaders in every business, every market that we're in, our OEM business. Whether it's ambient seafood, we will continue to push growth there. For the frozen seafood business, we don't need to worry about that. We have adjusted things.
We have a star team, our structure, and we will see more opportunity there. In our feed business, you will have the chance to listen from the executives at TFM . They have done extremely well. The future is in Indonesia, we said before, but in Thailand, we can create new opportunities and in other countries as well, where we hope to see Thai Union Feedmill grow. The PetCare business is the same thanks to our Tailwind project. We hope that whether it's in terms of cost or M&A growth, new markets, new categories for ITC, you can see that their results, their top line growth, we are not stopping. We will continue to push forward. This is our strategy that we will push on with.
In the cost, I would like to tell you that in terms of our Sona programs, the cost will end at the end of this year. Don't worry about cost in that regard. For Tailwind, the cost will be concluded next year. That is information for you. Our guidance, our outlook, our top line growth, we want to be realistic because in the first half of the year, we had a -7%. In the second half of the year, we expect things to improve. Our growth, we expect to be at -1% to -2%. This is based on the current exchange rate. We hope that if the Thai Baht does not change so much, our sales will improve. The gross profit margin, we want to push forward with this. Our guidance has been adjusted upwards to 18.5% -1 9.5%.
We are looking at the upper end of the range that we provided. Our SG & A is on the same level, 13.5% - 14%. CapEx, we are going to manage it within a number that is lower than THB 4 billion from this point forward. For the next few years, we don't expect to extend anything that much because our capacity, we are already invested in beforehand, and it was sufficient enough. We will focus more on investment in automation, digitalization, AI, as all to be enablers to increase our effectiveness and efficiency. As for our dividend policy, it remains the same. We will continue to pay out two times a year, at least 50%. This is the guidance for you for today.
Okay. I would like to thank everyone for joining us today. We will take a 10-minute break, followed by the TFM result announcement. Thank you very much.