Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Prosegur Cash Q2 2022 Presentation Results Webcast. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question during the session, you will need to press star one one on your telephone. You will then hear an automated message advising your hand is raised. Please be advised that today's conference is being recorded. I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Miguel Bandrés, Head of IR. Please go ahead, Miguel.
Thank you all. On behalf of Prosegur Cash's team, I would like to welcome you to our 2022 Q2 Results Presentation that will be carried out by Javier Hergueta, our CFO, and myself, the company's IRO. The meeting should last around 30 minutes, and we'll review the main events that have taken place in the quarter by region, the key financials for the company, and the drivers behind our performance in the period. In the last portion, we'll hold an open Q&A session where we will address all the questions you may have that need clarification. Should we don't get to address all points today, we'll answer those remaining on a one-to-one basis. I would like to thank you all for attending. Please remember that this presentation has been prerecorded and that the webcast can be found on our corporate webpage at www.prosegurcash.com.
To start, before turning over to Javier, I'd like to share, as we normally do, some relevant news that have appeared in the media during the quarter regarding the world of cash that will hopefully give some light to our context. These news cover a range of topics, from the relevance of cash in Latin America, the growing fears on cryptocurrencies, regulatory changes in Spain making it compulsory to accept cash by retailers as a means of payment, or the ECB's emphasis on why cash is essential to a payment system. First, I would like to highlight some news published by Cash Matters. In it, they cite that cash is king in our main region, Latin America. According to the 2022 FIS global payments report, transactions have clearly recovered versus 2020, growing by more than 12%.
In this region, cash clearly prevails as the main payment method, as it's being used for over 35% of all transactions. This recovery rate is about the growth experienced by the region's economy, underlining the relevance of cash in these countries where we operate. The second piece of news comes from Reuters. In it, Agustín Carstens, General Manager at the Bank for International Settlements, warns that the long foreannounced fears on crypto are materializing. He specifies that the frequent and recent implosions in cryptocurrency markets expose and give light to the dangers of decentralized digital money. These events should be carefully monitored since they pose a strong threat to the system.
The third news was published by El Mundo newspaper in Spain, and it recalls the coming into force of the new General Law for the Defense of Consumers and Users that cash payments have to be accepted by all retailers in Spain as of May 28, 2022. Not observing this law will imply growing penalties. This is a very important piece of law that puts into perspective how important cash payments are for the system and how regulators are becoming aware of this fact. In the same piece of news, the General Director of the Spanish Mint underlines the relevance of cash, the record high circulating cash levels, and the fact that there are 1,600 million unbanked people in the world to be protected.
In the last and fourth piece of news, in this case published by the digital Spanish newspaper Vozpópuli, the ECB underlines cash as the most effective backup for the payment system. Cash's character and unique attributes of safety and resilience make it a fundamental support to the financial system. The many threats that Europe is suffering on multiple fronts have moved authorities to point out and defend cash as a key safety element for the European economy. Now, I'll review today's agenda. First, Javier will share the highlights of the quarter. Second, I'll analyze our sales and profitability performance, as well as our transformation pace by region. Javier will review the main financials of our results for the first half of the year. I'll give you a brief update on sustainability.
Lastly, Javier will review the key messages of the quarter in order to just wrap up and then open the Q&A session. Please, Javier, go ahead and share with us your view on this period's key highlights.
Thank you, Miguel. As said, the key highlights for the period certainly show a very strong performance of the business and that our commitment to our perform and transform strategy is paying off. The high points worthwhile underlining being, first, the very remarkable growth of our business in euro terms. Sales reached a record +36.2% growth in Q2, taking the turnover figure for the period up to EUR 473 million, which is our strongest quarterly sales figure since Q4 2018, and making total growth for the first half of the year climb back to +27.6%.
This has been possible thanks to an extraordinary solid development of our organic growth. If Q1 had already started with a strong 18.8% organic growth, this second quarter, we've seen a very relevant 27.4% improvement that totals a EUR 62 million growth in absolute terms and translates into a 22.5% organic growth on a six-month basis. EUR 191 million more than last year's first half. This clearly underscores volumes are for sure returning way faster than the growth of the economies where we conduct our business, and hence, sales are accelerating in a very healthy manner. This is reflected in our fifth consecutive quarter, posting strong, consistent organic growth, showing the strength of both our business model and our underlying asset base.
Second, I would like to highlight once again the very strong performance of our transformation initiatives, which, as you know, are critical for our future. New product sales have improved by close to 40% on a six-month basis and over 55% if we exclude divestments. Despite the improvement of the overall sales figure of the company driven by the aforementioned organic growth, new products have surpassed that growth and are able to account for 23.4% of the total sales. That's an increase of 200 basis points in reported terms and represents an improvement of 380 basis points, should we exclude divestments in that calculation. We're closer to the 25% hallmark, and we are confident these solutions will continue to grow, being paramount to our future.
Just to put this accelerated growth into perspective, only three months ago, the percentage of new products over total sales was 30 basis points smaller. Next, as we have been experiencing for the past quarters, and is in this one as well confirmed, our profitability margins keep on improving at a very good pace. Overall, EBITA for the first half of the year is almost 33% higher than a year ago. If we look at it on a Q2 standalone basis, growth is over 80%. In relative terms, the overall margin on a year-to-date basis reaches 13.6% of sales, meaning an improvement of an extra 60 basis points from 13.3% in Q1 to 13.9% in Q2.
This gives a fact-based idea of the result of all of our efficiency measures to date that have improved comparable margins versus a year ago by almost 350 basis points. Cash flow generation, a critical measure of our performance, has more than doubled versus Q1 and has reached EUR 37 million in the second quarter, totaling EUR 54 million on a year-to-date basis. This cash flow improvement, together with the growth in results, allow us to deleverage ourselves to 2.1x EBITDA, clearly below our 2.5x EBITDA internally set comfort level. Lastly, stressing our continuous commitment to sustainability, we have not only increased our proxies base, but as well improved our ratings.
In this slide number five, I would like to share not only the very strong local growth we are experiencing, but as well, how we are being able to translate that growth into profitability by leveraging margins. The macro environment in which we are developing our activity has been positive for us in inflation terms, and it's likely to remain so into the coming quarters. Prices have been accelerating for the past quarters, and this has a clear beneficial effect on the speed at which cash is exchanged in society. We see this has a positive impact in our business. As well, cash is growing in relevance in the share of wallet of consumers as they become more and more aware of the importance of trying to defend their purchasing power and value how cash can help them in this duty.
On the sales front, we can see that growth in local terms for the first half of the year reached 26.1% versus a slower 3.1% improvement a year ago. We see volumes clearly accelerating, and it's important to note that this local growth has been strong in all our geographies, ranging from Asia and Europe in the low middle teens, close to 15%, to the extraordinary above 30% local growth that we've seen in Latin America. I would like to point out that last year's decrease in Europe growth was due to the divestment of our AVOS business in Q1 2021. It's important to again stress that the level of sales we've reached this second quarter of 2022 is higher than that of any single quarter from Q1 2019 included onwards.
At margin level, we see a strong improvement from EUR 91 million a year ago to EUR 120 million in 2022. Not only that, if we factor out the capital gains we materialized in the first quarter last year, and we compare profitability on a like-for-like basis, it has climbed by over 70% from EUR 70 million a year ago to EUR 120 million this year, improving margins by more than 350 basis points up to 13.6%. This margin improvement clearly reflects in our P&L how we have been able to absorb in an efficient manner those incoming extra volumes. We have indeed a more efficient and a scalable operation.
As well, looking at EBITA in absolute terms, the EUR 65 million we achieved in Q2 2022 is the highest figure we have attained for 10 straight quarters. This gives an idea of the momentum we are in as we progress in 2022. I would now like to turn to the next page to talk about transformation. As we have stated, transformation is absolutely key for our company today, where it's a growing reality that prepares us best for the future. To that end, we devote a lot of our energy and resources, and we are pleased to see that these efforts are proving fruitful. If we look at new product sales in the first half of last year, they totaled EUR 148 million.
We have been able to grow that figure by 39.4% to reach EUR 206 million in the first six months of 2022. Not only that, if we exclude the divestments we made a year ago, that growth has been of 56.2%, adding EUR 74 million of new sales to our P&L in the period. I want to remark, we are particularly proud of the fact that it's the first quarter ever in which we break the EUR 100 million milestone in new product sales, and in fact, we reached EUR 112 million in the second quarter of 2022. In terms of percentages over total sales, these were 21.4% a year ago and have increased by 200 basis points in a year to 23.4%.
Being this growth remarkable, if we exclude the aforementioned divestments, their increase in share of total sales has been larger, reaching 380 basis points. As it was the case with overall local sales, all regions have contributed to this increase in penetration. Only Europe has not because of the mentioned divestments, but however, if we exclude it, then Europe has well been able to improve its transformation ratio. It is as well worth mentioning that all new product business lines have firmly contributed to that growth, certifying that our strategy is not only delivering to date, but it's well-balanced into the future. Now, I would like to share some thoughts on a very relevant transaction we recently announced, which is the JV agreement for consolidating the Australian cash market that involves the two leading operators in the country, Armaguard and ourselves, Prosegur Cash.
The transaction will involve all Prosegur Cash-related services in Australia and will enable us to have 35% stake in the resulting market leader. We are confident that this joint venture will be very beneficial for the future development of cash services in the Australian market, as well as for our Australian investment. Some of the key impacts this transaction will have for us are, first, and once closed, it will imply we account for this operation on an equity method basis. Second, we estimate that the involved one-off effects, subject to the final figures for the transaction at closing, will have a positive P&L impact. Third, we are highly confident that this transaction will be accretive in EBITDA margin terms. Fourth, once concluded, our cash flow generation will significantly improve.
In terms of timing, we expect to close this transaction by the end of the fourth quarter of 2022, once we have granted the required approval by the Australian antitrust authorities. This is another example of value creation through our active portfolio management strategy that adds to the inorganic activity we announced in Q1 this year, reflecting how we are dynamically pursuing avenues to best prepare our company for the future. I will now hand over to Miguel so he can review our regional performance.
Thank you, Javier. I'll start with the review of Latin America, our most relevant region that totals 68% of our revenue. In the first quarter of 2022, we saw an increase of total sales of 26.4%, reaching EUR 277 million. In this second quarter, that growth has increased even further to 42%, reaching EUR 324 million. If we take into account the first six months of the year, sales have jumped by 34% over the same period in 2021. The main driver behind that growth has been a healthy organic improvement, which reached 25.4%. Inorganic helped with a 7.1% increase over total sales.
Finally, we see a positive impact of 1.8% due to foreign exchange, which is an important message since it's the first time since the IPO that we see a positive H1 accumulated FX impact to the region. Turning now to transformation. New product sales have reached EUR 164 million in the period, which is a 64% increase over the same period a year ago. The penetration of new products has improved by an outstanding 490 basis points, reaching 27.2% of sales. Lastly, in terms of margins, the region has been able to very effectively absorb incoming volumes. EBITDA has increased by EUR 35 million, an equivalent of 42.8%, reaching EUR 118 million in the period, which implies a relative margin of 19.6% of sales.
This improvement represents a +110 basis points over a year ago. Regarding Europe, sales have as well behaved in a very positive manner. They have reached EUR 218 million in the period, a EUR 38 million improvement versus the same period last year, which represents a 15% growth. Organic growth accounted for 18.3%, indeed a very relevant figure and well above the GDP growth of our footprint. It further to underline that this growth has accelerated as we advanced in the year after slow first months affected by Omicron. Inorganic brings a -3.7 reduction over total sales due to the divestment of AVOS that took place in the first quarter last year.
If we analyze the transformation performance in the region in reported terms, we see a 21% decline, reaching EUR 31 million in the period. However, if we look at the underlying performance, excluding the aforementioned divestment. Sales have grown by a very healthy 33.6% on a year-on-year basis and have reached 14.1% of total sales, which is an improvement of 90 basis points when compared to the same period a year ago. At margin level, EBITDA for the period has reached EUR 8 million. In reporting terms, this is a 53% decrease over last year's EUR 16 million. However, like for like, and taking into account that in the same period last year there was a EUR 20 million capital gain, there is a very significant improvement of EUR 12 million. I'll now turn to analyzing the performance of our Asia Pacific region.
Sales have grown by 16% in the first six months of the year, reaching EUR 64 million, a EUR 9 million improvement over the same period last year. It's important to highlight that organic growth has reached 13.1%, and here we as well see a positive impact of foreign exchange, which accounts for 3.2% of sales. New products have grown by 27% in the first half of 2022 and now account for 19% of total sales. This is a 160 basis points improvement over the same period one year ago. We here see a very relevant commitment to our transformation strategy with a very strong development, especially of our ATM-related initiatives.
Lastly, in terms of margins, despite posting a EUR 5 million loss in the period, this is a remarkable reduction of 35% when compared to the result one year ago. This reflects that the combination of our commercial strategy, coupled with strong efficiency measures, are bringing the expected results and positioning us well on track towards profitability. With this, I'll give the floor to Javier so he can share with you the evolution of our key financials.
Thank you, Miguel. Firstly, I would like to review with you the evolution of the key figures in our profit and loss account. Looking at sales, they have reached EUR 883 million in the period, a growth of EUR 91 million versus the same period last year. This represents a 27.6% increase. If we look at the chart on the top right-hand side of the page, we can see the breakdown of our sales growth. The most important point to underline is that over 80% of that growth is driven by a healthy organic volume improvement, while inorganic brings in an extra 3.6% increase despite the divestiture we materialized in the first quarter last year.
Lastly, the change in trend of foreign exchange that we have been announcing for some time now is materializing, bringing a 1.4% positive impact to overall sales. In summary, we see a healthy and record sales growth. When we look at profit at the EBITDA level, we can see there is a substantial improvement of 32.7% when compared to the same period last year. In the first half of 2022, we reached EUR 120 million, while one year ago we totaled EUR 91 million. Now, if we turn to the graph on the bottom right-hand side of the page, we can see how EBITDA margins have improved even further in underlying terms once we isolate the capital gains we made in the same period last year.
Taking this into account, the EBITDA growth has reached 71%, climbing from EUR 70 million in 2021 to the aforementioned EUR 120 million in this first half of 2022. In relative terms, this comparable improvement has gone from 10.2% last year to 13.6% this year, which is an improvement of over 350 basis points. This reflects, as I have already mentioned, that all the efficiency measures we've been taking along 2020 and 2021 are paying off and are allowing us to lever our operations with the incoming volumes. If we move below EBITDA, we see that intangibles reach EUR 12 million, an increase of EUR 2 million over the same period one year ago, and drive our EBIT margin to EUR 109 million, 12.3% of sales.
Financial results in the first half of the year accounted for EUR 27 million versus EUR 19 million one year ago. This increase is mainly caused by the foreign exchange-related accounting impacts we referred to in Q1, which have a non-cash effect and are neutral on shareholders' equity. In terms of taxes, they reached EUR 38 million in the period, implying a tax rate of 47%, a clear enhancement over the 50.2% reported one year ago. Finally, as a consequence of all this, our net profit for the first six months of 2022 reached EUR 43 million, which is a 42.7% increase over the EUR 30 million earned one year ago. I will now turn to review our cash flow statement.
We start from a EUR 170 million EBITDA, and we reach a free cash flow of EUR 54 million, implying a EUR 37 million generation in the quarter, well above the EUR 25 million in Q2 last year. Provisions and other items add to EUR 12 million, higher than those reported in the same period last year. Income tax accounts for EUR 48 million, a relevant increase over last year when some countries recovered amounts paid in advance to tax authorities. Capital expenditures amount to EUR 28 million in line with last year's. It is important to underline that a substantial portion of this amount is related to client CapEx linked directly to generating new products revenue.
Overall, this figure is the result of a very tight control on CapEx. Next, working capital variation reached EUR 52 million, reflecting the strong growth environment in which the company has been performing to date. Nevertheless, working capital management remains an absolute priority for the company, and DSOs have improved versus a year ago. This EUR 54 million free cash flow represents an 84% conversion ratio, improving versus 79% last year. Interest payments decreased to EUR 9 million versus EUR 11 million one year ago. M&A-related payments reached EUR 12 million in fulfillment of prearranged obligations, and dividend and treasury stock totaled EUR 24 million, in line with the dividend distributed to date, as well as the execution of our treasury stock program as approved in December 2021.
Lastly, others reached EUR 39 million, a touch below last quarter's figure, and as in Q1, this is mainly due to the cut-off date impact of cash certification to customer in some countries, and it's important to reckon that this impact nets off over the quarters and typically has a total year neutral impact. Total net cash outflow summed EUR 30 million in the period, driven by the different elements mentioned above. If we look at the chart on the right-hand side of the page, where we can observe the evolution of our free cash flow yield, we can see that this is at 9%, a figure which we reckon continues to make our stock very attractive. Going to page 15, we see how our total net debt is evolving. It includes deferred payments, IFRS 16 debt, treasury stock, and net financial position.
Total net debt has decreased to EUR 717 million from EUR 724 million a quarter ago, despite the continuous efforts in financing of the development of our top line, which again, in this growth environment, is worth underlying. At the same time, when we look at the ratio between our total net debt and EBITDA, we see that we are achieving a relevant deleverage to 2.1 x, thanks to resource improvement and net debt reduction. This is not only within our internal threshold of 2.5x , but as well, the lowest in the last 12 months. In terms of our main debt maturities, we can see that there are no significant changes and no important maturities are expected until 2026. With this, I finish the financial statements review, and we'll pass to our final block.
Thank you, Javier. I'll now go on to give you a brief overview of our main initiatives related to our strong commitment to sustainability. First, I'll go over our emission offsetting initiatives. In 2022, we've renewed the emission offsetting plan that we started back in 2021 by supporting a wind farm project in Punta Palmeras, Chile. This endeavor has the capacity to generate clean energy for 60,000 households. Project avoids the emission of 119,000 tons of carbon dioxide in coal power plants and the import of some 215,000 oil barrels in order to generate the same amount of energy. With this initiative, a pioneer one in our industry due to its scale and ambitious targets, the company achieves to offset all the carbon dioxide emissions generated by its European operations.
This emission offsetting initiative is one of our vectors in terms of sustainability, and it's an integral part of our sustainability master plan. Another front to which we pay strong attention are proxy relations and ESG indexes. Prosegur Cash, together with Prosegur Compañía de Seguridad, have been the first companies in the industry to obtain and publish their Standard & Poor's global ratings ESG scores. Resulting from this analysis, Prosegur Cash has achieved a score of 64 out of 100. It's worth noting that this analysis has been awarded the ESG Assessment Tool of the Year by the Environmental Finance Awards. S&P Global Ratings has very positively valued our initiatives in terms of environmental sustainability, underlining especially all the initiatives we have underway in terms of greenhouse gas emission management and those of waste management policy.
Regarding social front, the report especially underscores our commitment to our customers as well as our corporate governance initiatives. This positive score stems from those recently received by the company from other relevant proxies and ESG ratings, such as Sustainalytics and FTSE4Good, which have improved their marks versus a year ago. With this, I hand over to Javier for his final remarks. Thank you.
Thank you, Miguel. To wrap up, I would like to share with you what I think are the most relevant highlights of our first six months of this year. The performance to date only continues and improves the good beginning we had in the first quarter of this year. We continue to deliver along the lines we've committed to and remain loyal to our perform and transform strategy. I'm sure that as we keep on advancing into the next quarters, we will confirm this positive trend. Firstly, it is important to underline the consistent improvement of our business in euro terms. Growth is solidly backed by the organic return of volumes paired with our multiple commercial initiatives. As well, we must remember the importance the current and growing inflationary environment has for the positive evolution of our business as well as the positive currency tailwinds.
In euro terms, in these first six months of the year, we have seen a very substantial improvement of 27.6% versus last year's figure, enabling us to reach EUR 883 million in the period. Another very important line for us is the sales of new products, our very nurtured transformation initiatives. Sales of new products have increased by 56.2% ex-divestments, reaching EUR 206 million, and representing now 23.4% of sales. We are convinced this transformation is the way to have a better and more prepared company into the future. If we look at profitability margins in terms of EBITDA, we can see that they have reached EUR 120 million in the first half of 2022.
A very remarkable 71% increase over the comparable figure one year ago, and a circa 350 basis points increase in relative margin. This is the second key aspect which we think is fundamental to a better company. Now, after two years of a strong and unprecedented efficiency measures, we have a leaner operation onto which we bring profitable new volume. The discipline with which we are managing the company has enabled us to generate EUR 54 million of free cash flow in this first half of the year, of which more than 2/3 was generated in Q2, despite the fact that we have had to finance strong growth. The efficient growth of the business, coupled with the cash flow discipline, have enabled us to improve our balance sheet, taking our leverage to 2.1 x total net debt to EBITDA.
This shows our balance sheet robustness to face the future with confidence. Lastly, our commitment to ESG remains not only intact but increased, as we have seen with important projects as the one in Punta Palmeras, Chile, that allows us to offset all of our European operations emissions. As well, it's worth recalling our efforts in terms of increasing our portfolio of proxies and improving the ratings we've been graded with. We are sure that only working relentlessly on sustainability, we will achieve a long and successful future. Thank you all for your attention, and we can open now the Q&A session.
Thank you. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. Once again, if you need to ask a question, please press star one one. Please stand by while we compile a Q&A roster. We're now taking the first question. Please stand by. The first question comes on the line of Enrique Yágüez from Bestinver Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Good morning, Javier and Miguel, and thank you for the presentation. Have two questions. First of all, regarding the transaction in Australia, I know that it has not been closed yet, but I don't know if you could provide further details about how the pro forma figures will look like in terms of revenue, EBITDA, and also the potential impact in your cash flow profile when it will be fully integrated. The second question is, regarding the announcement of the launch of Loomis Pay in Spain in the second half of this year. I don't know how could affect the competitive landscape in Spain and your commercial proposal. Thank you very much.
Good morning, Enrique, and thank you for your questions. Regarding the first question on the potential impact arising out of the Australian transaction, as we stated in the presentation, there's a one-off impact arising from it, which we understand that for sure will be positive, but which is depending on multiple factors. Then looking at it on a run- rate basis, what we expect from the combined entity is to stop losses and to be self-sustainable from a cash flow perspective. If you take those factors together with the change in the accounting method that we will be applying when it closes, you can arrive to the conclusion that it will have, for sure, positive impacts in our numbers, both at P&L and cash flow.
If you put all that together with the fact that our Australian business is representing roughly two-thirds of the Asian region within our numbers, I think you can get to quite accurate conclusion on the potential impacts of it. Those are the main lines of what we expect to bring to us in the future after the closing. In relation to the Loomis Pay question, first of all, I would like to say that we think that Loomis is a very respectable player and we don't generally comment on our competitors. Having said that, I mean, we look at similar kind of solutions in the past, and we reached the conclusion that it was not fitting our geographies and client profiles, and we decided not to take forward any similar actions. In line with that, I would say that we don't expect any significant impact of that in our markets.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one one on your telephone. There are no further questions on the phone lines. Please continue.
Right. If there are no further questions, then I think we can leave it here. Nevertheless, thank you all for.
Apologies.
Attending and taking the time. Yeah.
There are more questions coming through. I'm so sorry. Would you like to take them?
Sure, sure.
Sorry. The next question. Please stand by. The next question comes from the line of Isabel Carvalho from Oddo BHF. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Yes. Thank you for taking my question. Is, following this deal for the Australian business, do you still see achievable the guidance for 2023 margins you provide at your last Capital Markets Day of EBITA margins of between 14% - 16%? Thank you.
Hi, thank you for asking the question. In relation to our expectations going forward, I would like to say that, irrespective of the transaction itself, which will for sure be helping our numbers, we think we are right on track to achieving our objectives. As we mentioned in the Capital Markets Day, we were expecting an EBITA margin of 14%-16%. We think we are well on track and will probably reach that level even before the expected timeline. We think we are now on a very good momentum for the business. There's been really strong delivery and we feel confident that we will be exceeding the consensus for the full year figures in 2022. Therefore for 2023 as well, we are very confident that we will be meeting those targets set in the Capital Markets Day, even without considering the potential upside coming from the transaction.
Thank you. We will now take the next question. The next question comes from the line of Enrique Parrondo from JB Capital. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Hi, good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. Just a brief one on the working capital. There's been a significant increase on a year-on-year basis, resulting from the higher increased activity levels you mentioned, but what should we expect for the coming quarters? Thank you. Hi, hello. Can you hear me?
Hi, Enrique. Yeah. Sorry.
Hi. Sorry.
I was hearing you pretty well. I understand the question was related to the working capital and the expectation for it in the coming quarters. On that front.
Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. On that front, I would say that right now we are experiencing a very strong growth in the business in the last couple of quarters. The increase in the working capital consumption is directly linked to the increase in the activity level. Nevertheless, it remains at the forefront of our day-to-day keeping tight control over that. In fact, we have improved the DSO levels compared to the same period one year ago. Going forward, it will remain one of the key priorities for us. If we keep that in mind, together with the fact that there's always some seasonality in working capital consumption, I would say that we should be expecting a consumption figure above the one last year because we are experiencing higher growth, but will probably be lower in absolute terms than what we are seeing in the figures in Q2 right now.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. There are no more questions at this time. Please continue.
Okay. Thank you, all of you for attending and taking the time. Nevertheless, if there are any further questions, you know that our investor relations team remains available for all of you. Just wishing you a nice summer break to those of you who are on leave now and hope to speak again in the Q3 results presentation. Thank you very much.
That does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect. Speakers, please stand by.