Hey, good morning, everyone. Good afternoon, everyone in Europe. It's a pleasure to welcome back Telefónica Management to Communacopia. Today we have Chairman and CEO, José María Álvarez-Pallete, and Chief Financial and Control Officer, Laura Abasolo. Welcome back, and thanks again for coming.
Our pleasure. Thanks for having us.
Great. Just as a quick reminder for those in the audience, there is the ability to register questions online, which I can try and weave into the Q&A, and also potentially get to at the end if we have time. Firstly, I'd love just to pass over to you for a short introduction.
Thank you. The first message I would like to send is that, as a sector and namely us as a company, we think we have been having a very resilient performance during the COVID situation. It has, of course, impacted us in different levels. We have been having a very strong operational focus during the pandemic, namely in our four core markets. Thanks to that, we have been able to deliver year-on-year growth in both the second quarter and the first half of the year in operating cash flow and operating cash flow margin. We have been having a significant commercial improvement throughout the quarter, in particular during the month of June, and especially in the high-end value accesses layer of the market. We have been able to do that with a declining churn.
It is true that churn was kind of frozen during the pandemic. When markets were reopened and stores were reopened, very good performance in terms of churn. Therefore, all of this has resulted in an increased customer lifetime value. We have been able to do that because of our infrastructure, the infrastructure that we have been building. Another important message out of the pandemic is that digitalization has accelerated. In our case, online sales have been up to 39%, which is 11 percentage point more than a year ago. Digital channels are up 17% versus the first quarter. Strong free cash flow generation, almost $1 billion U.S. free cash flow in the second quarter. That should accelerate during the second part of the year. A significant liquidity position.
In spite of COVID affecting us in terms of weaker revenues in some layers like roaming or others, or handset sales, pretty strong or pretty resilient performance. That has allowed us to confirm our dividend. It is true that we have been giving up guidance as we have the structure before, but we have been guiding towards or indicating towards OIBDA minus CapEx outlook maintained at slightly negative to flat at the end of this year. Basically, we have reiterated the long-term guidance of 2022 organic revenue growth and an expansion of 2 percentage point of OIBDA minus CapEx. In terms of strategy execution, we have been basically sticking to the five messages that we gave back in November last year. Our core markets, trying to strengthen our position in our core markets, that explains the transaction that was announced in the U.K. with Liberty Global.
That also explain why we are trying to improve our position in Brazil through this potential with the offer that we have done for Oi mobile assets jointly with América Móvil and TIM. Again, pretty strong performance operationally speaking in the four core markets with OIBDA minus CapEx basically growing almost 2% year-on-year. We are trying to reduce our exposure to Latin America. We have not been able to perform an inorganic transaction, but we have been assigning more debt in localized currency to Latin America in order to try to reduce the volatility of the Euro returns generated in the region. You should expect from us to keep going into that direction, both in terms of leverage of debt assignment, but also in terms of inorganic moves. In the meantime, we are improving our organic performance in the region.
In organic terms, OIBDA minus CapEx have increased 10% in local currency in Latin America. In Telefónica Tech, we keep evolving. We have been working very hard in the segregation of the assets, the spinning off of our assets, people and products and services. Cybersecurity is almost complete. Cloud, we are significantly advanced. We have started to report pro forma revenues, and you should expect from us to keep reporting the overall financial estimates of that unit as we work in order to put that in value. In terms of Telefónica Infra, we have been transferring 10,000 towers from Germany, Telefónica Germany, into Telxius in a complex transaction. Now Telxius is one of the largest towers companies in Europe. We have been building optionality through fiber projects both in Brazil and in Germany.
Then finally, in terms of operating model, we committed with the market that we'll be expanding two percentage point of our operating cash flow margin going forward. We have significantly improved that during the first half of this year. We have now proof points that we are heading to the right direction. Overall, a resilient performance during the crisis. We affirm our strategic pillars, and if something, we are going to try to accelerate execution in the second half of the year. I propose to stop there and give round for Q&A.
Perfect. Thank you very much. I'd love to pick up on pretty much all of those topics, actually. Perhaps just starting with the impact of COVID, which you highlighted was quite material in the second quarter. Could you give us an indication of how some of the temporary COVID impacts might be starting to come back in the second half and things like the trends on roaming, but also sports in Spain?
Sure. First, let me try to summarize how we have reacted as a group to COVID. The first thing when the confinement was declared in the different countries, we immediately act on the offer, therefore we put more content in most of the places, we increased data allowances, we put more value the customers could feel that we care about them. In terms of home policies, we immediately started remote working. At the office, 95% of more than 120,000 people were working from home. That has never been done before in the history of Telefónica, it worked. We have the tools in place to have all the processes to make it efficient, we have been able to preserve the activity of the company. Also, our own employees have been working from home.
In terms of suppliers, we try to protect their weakest part of the supply chain by shortening payment terms to our suppliers, and therefore, also to try to contribute to our SMEs customers in order to improve their working capital. In terms of society, we created a fund in which we have been buying medical equipment in the different countries. In terms of our shareholders, we have been preserving our dividend. The impact of COVID on us in the first half of this year has been pretty significant, I would say. EUR 730 million in revenues in the second quarter and EUR 340 million of OIBDA. It has not been that we are immune, but we have been pretty resilient. We have been able through OPEX contention. OPEX has been down 4.9% and CapEx has been down 23%.
Therefore, that's why we have been able to preserve at the group level operating cash flow with basically a stable performance of minus 0.7%. We think that immediately after the lockdown was lifted, we saw a significant pickup in mobility. We opened our stores, and we have a different performance in the different countries. I will try to summarize the four core markets, so to say. In the case of Spain, June and July were robust. August was weaker because we have not been having roaming revenues coming from tourists because, in order to give you an idea, visitors from the U.K. or from Italy are down 80%-90%. Significant impact in roaming.
The reality is that we have been stronger on B2C because the football season has been extended, and therefore the period of time, the seasonality of time in which churn increased because there is no football for two months has been reduced to 15 days. Better trends in terms of commercial activity and net adds because of lower churn. Also in terms of second lines, the residential markets. Spain is evolving according to the guidance that Ángel Vilá, our Chief Operating Officer, shared with you at the time of our second quarter results. Heading towards the second half of the year, that should be stronger, both in KPIs and in financial terms at the first half of the year. In terms of Germany, GDP recovery in Germany is stronger than in Spain, and we feel that.
We feel that in commercial activity in all layers. In prepaid, in postpaid, and also in the wholesale segment in Germany that you know is very, very important. Germany heading towards a stronger, I would say, performance compared with previous quarters. In the case of the U.K., different elements. In terms of roaming, similar impact to the case of Spain in terms of handset revenues as well, and those are important features. Also in the case of the U.K., the SMIP, this is the Internet of Things, a big contract that we have for gas meter, water meters installment in the U.K. is taking time to retake the traction that we had before. It's improving, but it's going to be taking a little bit more of time to have the run rate that we used to have in terms of growth going forward.
Commercially speaking, strong, but not as strong as Germany. In the case of Brazil, I would say a strong recovery. A strong recovery in prepaid, which is important. Nice recovery in terms of postpaid, and strong recovery in terms of fiber adds according to expectations in terms of DTH, disconnections, and the voice wirelines evolution. Overall, to make a long story short, in the case of our four core markets, we are a little bit above our own expectations when we were running our simulation for the second half of the year. It should be a quarter according to our expectation or a little bit above and waiting for the fourth quarter to see how it looks like. Overall, according to expectation or slightly above.
Perfect. That's really helpful in terms of running through the markets. I'd love to just come back to Spain. There's a lot of focus, as ever in Spain on the current competitive situation. It sounds like what you're saying is that you're pretty happy with the performance in the mid and high-end segments. I'd love to get a bit more color on that and also addressing how you see low-end competition in Spain as well.
Sure. Before COVID, in Spain, we were heading towards revenue stabilization. It took us a while to head towards that because of the structure of the market and the intensity of promotions and discounts on the market. COVID has altered that, because of these roaming effects and others that we have shared. In the case of Spain is roughly 50-something%, 56%, 58% B2C, roughly 20-something% B2B, and 19% wholesale. In the case of B2C, high-end of the market, basically it's a two-player scenario, Orange and ourselves. Intensity, commercially speaking, is a more rational market overall. We have some tactical promotion as we speak now in the month of September because there is the over-the-top that used to have the football rights is no longer having them, and therefore there is roughly 80,000, 90,000 customers that are available for reconvert, so to say.
It's a fight between Orange, ourselves, but it's very tactical and very centered around this group of customers. Churn on the high-end is relatively low, and value is being preserved as we speak. There's this tactical fight for this segment of customers. In the mid-end, and mid-end for us, accounts for part of our Fusión tariffs with Movistar brand and also Orange, but also the MásMóvil, the Euskaltel, and the Vodafone brands, the Vodafone brand itself. On that regard, intensity is high, but we see some signs of rationality, and that's because of two major facts. The first one is the tender offer on MásMóvil. According to the numbers of the simulation we have been running, the returns that are going to be required for this new capital structure means that there is less room for doing aggressive promotions because of the wholesale retail pricing.
Something similar happens with Euskaltel. We think that at the mid-end, rationality or aggressiveness should be mitigated going forward. At the low end, very active, very intensive. With different brands, Lowi, the case of Vodafone, Amena, Jazztel itself, Digi. The low end, very dynamic, very competitive. We don't see any signs on that regard going forward. A lot of rumors around potential consolidation derived from some of the transactions that are being under place, but no facts, so to say. I think that if consolidation was to be proposed, it would be welcome. Whatever we can do to facilitate that in terms of wholesale agreements, long-term wholesale agreements at rational pricing, we'll try to be supportive if that was to be the case. For the time being, those are just rumors, not facts.
No, great. That was actually my next question, was consolidation. Perhaps I could just ask on top of that because that's a really clear view from your perspective. Do you see a change in stance from the European Commission potentially following the legal case in the U.K. around the O2 merger, potentially sort of helping consolidation theme?
Let me try to answer in separate buckets, so to say. I will try to focus first on the U.K. approval process and then an overall answer to the, I would say, mood here towards consolidation or potential regulatory changes. In the case of the JV, very, very aligned with Liberty in trying to have the approval process in an expedited manner. Not clear for us if this is going to be decided in the European Union or at the U.K., because the Brexit is in the middle. If it is in the European Union, that's good news because that means that it's in phase 1 without significant remedies. We are working in parallel with both the European Commission and with the CMA because it's not clear for us who's going to be the decision maker.
We think all the merits of the transaction means that under the theory of harm analysis, there is no impact on the vertical businesses in terms of the MVNO market or the mobile or the wireline broadband market, but neither horizontally. I think that it has all the merits to be approved in an expedited manner, wherever that's decided in the U.K. or in the European Union. In the meantime, we have been working very intensively through clean teams to solidify the synergy that we have been sharing with the market, the GBP 6.3 billion of synergies in the different chapters. Now we have much more comfort through these clean teams that those are executable and realistic synergies. The third pillar on that thing is there were two conditions precedent, one of them being the regulatory approval. The other one was the financing of the transaction.
We executed the financing of the transaction last week through three different tranches in three different currencies. Very successful financing effort. The transaction is just now subject to regulatory approval. Finally, the management team is being discussed as we speak with Liberty. Very advanced in order to be prepared for whenever. Having said that, we think it should be approved in an expedited manner and without significant remedies, either in the U.K. or in the European Commission. In overall, because we think it's an easy transaction to approve. It's fixed to mobile, no vertical or horizontal integration in the different markets, so no concentration. It's an easy one. I think it should be an easy one. Overall mood on consolidation in Europe. If the pandemic has proven something, is that networks are essential.
The only country in Europe in which the video signal has not been degraded was Spain, because we have the fiber network. Ultra-broadband network are essential going forward. 5G is going to be an essential part of the recovery program all around Europe, namely in Spain, but all around Europe. That means that this pandemic has been accelerating some digital changes that were supposed to occur in the next three- five year. Cloud adoption, video streaming, education, remote working. Every single thing that we were scheduling or projecting to happen in three years' time is happening now. Some of those effects are here to stay. The cloud effect or the education or the remote working, some of them are going to be preserved over time. That cannot happen without strong networks.
That means that in most of the countries, I would say in all of the countries, competition authorities and telecommunications constituencies are starting to realize that the networks have become obsolete. The definition of relevant market is no longer valid. I'm no longer just competing with Vodafone or with Orange or with MásMóvil or with Digi here in Spain. I'm competing with WhatsApp for voice. I'm competing with Netflix for video. They are not even recognized in terms of relevant definition of market shares. This is changing. A proof point of that is that last week in Spain, WhatsApp and Facebook has been declared telecommunication operators for the purpose of telecom tax. The definition of the relevant market is going to change, and that's going to be altering the concentration parameters going forward. I do think this is a game changer.
I don't know how much time this is going to take, but I think it is irreversible.
Thanks. That's really interesting. It actually brings me just about to my last question on Spain, which was often, I think for investors looking at the Spanish market, the fiber-to-the-home landscape is often seen as quite complex, partly because you have some overbuild, but often because you've got lots of different wholesale agreements between the different parties. Could you just update us on how you see this evolving and also how you think about the impact on Telefónica when you think about your wholesale business in Spain and maintaining or even growing your own network utilization?
Sure. I think that a very important message up front is that the wholesale market on fiber is radically different from the wholesale market of traditional copper or mixed networks, so to say. Why am I saying that? In the case of Spain, the price at which you unbundle a copper line is a theoretical cost calculated by the regulator, and it's around EUR 9. The NEBA, the access to our fiber network is EUR 70. That doesn't mean that we cannot sell below EUR 70. It means that whoever requires a NEBA from us needs to be at most at EUR 70. Because of those are brand-new networks, there is an incentive not to overbuild. Because if you have a dynamic bilateral commercial agreement focus market means that you reach agreement with third parties.
Initially, it was Vodafone with Orange, but then we jump on board on that, and now you have four different players that are exchanging coverage deployments with others. That means that for us, in the case of Telefónica namely, it is accretive because the more we shift one copper wholesale access for one fiber wholesale access is accretive in terms of revenues. For the first time in our history, we have more customers with fiber wholesale access than with copper, and that's why wholesale revenues are starting to grow. It increases or accelerates the return of your recently deployed fiber network, and it creates a market in which the regulator has no incentive to play because you have a very active and dynamic commercial market.
I think that in the case of Spain, the overbuild is mostly numerical because some of the accesses that Orange says they have or Vodafone they say they have, or MásMóvil say they have, are indirect access to us and vice versa. It's like myself in Germany, I have indirect access to a Deutsche Telekom network or to Vodafone cable network. I think that it doesn't need to be derived from an overlap of networks because then you have a sunk cost and you are not incentivized to realize the value of that network. In the case of Spain, it's a very dynamic fiber wholesale market with a cap put by the regulator, but with enough commercial flexibility for you to build on your tariffs. That's why wholesale has become a source of growth for our revenues in Spain.
Remember that wholesale is 19% of our revenues in Spain.
Great. Perhaps you already touched on, I think, the U.K. deal, and that's very clear in terms of the financing, your work on the synergies and the competitive approval process. Could you just update us on how you're seeing the U.K. competitive landscape? I think in recent weeks we've seen some moves from BT that a number of investors were seeing as reasonably supportive in terms of their change as the market leader.
Well, I think that our proposed transaction is an accelerator of some of the trends of the U.K. market. Let me put it that way. It would be a challenger to BT position in terms of converged leader on the U.K. market, it's going to have other implications. I'm going to try to evolve on that. There is already a very active wholesale MVNO market in the U.K., with significant amount of alternatives, that's why in terms of concentration out of this transaction, the MVNO for Virgin is important, it's not going to be a game changer of the overall wholesale dynamics of the MVNO market in the U.K. On the other side, on the wireline side, on the broadband side, you have Openreach access, you don't have a strong ultra broadband network yet.
I think this is going to be corrected. I think this is going to be accelerated in the short term. We are going to be accelerating jointly with Liberty Global. Liberty already had the plan to accelerate, now it's going to be accelerated. There is the potential to create another wholesale market on that regard with two different networks being accessed, and I think regulation on that regard is going to be very important. Finally, the convergence. Convergence in the U.K. is probably not going to happen the same way it happened here in Spain. Here in Spain, we were the leader, and we forced convergence because our copper network was in a very poor situation. I don't think that's the case in the U.K.
I think that convergence in the U.K. is going to be done in a way that is going to be less eroding in terms of ARPUs of the individual components of the bundle. It's going to create alternatives. I think it's going to also force others to take decisions. If they want to have indirect access or if they want to have a bigger scale. I think that the composition of the U.K. market has already changed before transaction is approved. I think that change is going to imply other changes going forward. I think that those changes should be aimed to build strong networks without the need of diluting ARPUs out of this buildup of the network.
Of course, there is always the potential among the impact of Brexit and all those equations, but it would delay the process somehow, but I don't think it's going to change the fundamentals. It makes no sense that as we speak, the U.K. has a 4% fiber penetration. Spain, you have 80. It makes no sense. This is going to be corrected, in an accelerated manner, I think especially after Brexit. I think that the dynamics of the U.K. markets are going to be accelerated by our transaction, probably.
Yeah. I'm keen to get through the whole portfolio. I was keen to just move on to Germany. Now I think to summarize, potentially the German mobile market seems quite rational. You mentioned that the GDP recovery has been stronger. How do you think about Telefónica Deutschland's positioning? I ask that because it was very interesting on the last call where you started to potentially discuss your own fiber build in Germany, alongside existing wholesale agreements to essentially make Telefónica Deutschland a stronger converged competitor against the likes of Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone.
Yes. First, let me elaborate on the fundamentals of O2 Germany. Our network problems in Germany were the result of the integration of the E-Plus and the O2 network, because we wanted to redensify the networks rather than to switch off one of the networks. It took us probably 18 months more than what we anticipated to have. That's why we have been lagging behind in terms of quality in Germany for several quarters. That was solved a year ago, a year and a half ago. Now we are back on track, and we have, in terms of customer satisfaction, in terms of quality of the network, in comparable terms with Vodafone and catching up with Deutsche Telekom.
We have a strong mobile network in urban and suburban areas in Germany, and that's helping us now to get traction on the mobile side, on the revenue side with our own brands. We have always got traction on the wholesale market, but now with our own brands. The O2 Free tariff is a good example out of that. I think now we have a credible mobile B2C operator in Germany, and it's growing. It's slightly growing in years. It's now accelerating some CapEx deployment to even catch up further down the road. Now we are starting to develop our effort on B2B, especially starting on SMEs, but also medium-size and some big corporate. You should expect a robust performance of O2 Germany going forward.
If the market was to accelerate this convergence in Germany, we have accessed 10-year granted access to Deutsche Telekom wholesale, ultra broadband network, with technological evolution granted, which means that if they go from VDSL to fiber, we have that evolution granted. We were remedy takers on the Vodafone KDG transaction, we have agreement with a third player in Germany. As we speak, we have a robust semi-hedge converged strategy in Germany. We have decided that because it makes no sense in the case of Germany, that Germany has 8% of fiber penetration, again, compared with 80% in Spain, it makes no sense. This is going to be corrected. It makes no sense to overbuild. We are going to stick to this indirect access of Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone on the largest cities on most of the territory of Germany.
We think there is space to create another company, which is not going to be majority controlled by us, which is going to be able to deploy fiber as a wholesaler in rural areas of Germany. That's why we are having conversation with investors, but also with Deutsche Telekom and Vodafone themselves as wholesale customers to be part of that fiber deployment in Germany without overbuilding. That's the strategy that we are following in Germany.
Perfect. That's really clear. Perhaps just moving on to Brazil, also had a question actually from the audience on Brazil. How do you think about the consolidation there that's been reported? Both in terms of the benefits, or whether there's any potential concerns around having approval for consolidation. Also, you mentioned in your opening remarks that you were seeing as a pickup despite COVID in prepay and also postpaid. I'd love to pick up on that competitive and actual structural trends in the Brazilian market as well.
Certainly. Brazil, in spite of the depreciation of the real this year, which has been pretty severe, is a very attractive telecommunication market. Just give me as a first signal, nobody has noticed that. In the first half of this year, in EUR, free cash flow from Brazil of Telefónica is higher than a year ago. That's not the case in OIBDA, but just in free cash flow, both online, free cash flow in EUR. That means that they are growing strongly, not just in terms of operating cash flow, but also in total free cash flow. Very strong unit for us. We have roughly 100 million customers in Brazil. We are the leader in the Brazilian market. The Brazilian market, as we speak, is a four-player market.
We have the possibility of building a three-player market in Brazil, which is the largest country in Latin America. This is once in a lifetime opportunity. It took us a while. Ángel was saying in our conference call about the alignment of stars. It took us a while to align all the stars in Brazil. We started working with TIM, then América Móvil joined. We put a strong proposal for Oi in this judicial process. It was important because the creditors of Oi needed to decide who was the stalking horse for the final auction of the asset. Initially, it looks like Digital Colony might be, but they didn't reach a final conclusion of the negotiation. We finally were able to be declared a stalking horse last week.
Now we are waiting for the auction to happen probably in the last month of this year to decide who is the buyer of that. Being the stalking horse, you have the advantage that you have already a negotiated contract that whoever else needs to agree on. Then you have the right to match the offer with a small increase. This is an amazing value-creating opportunity to consolidate the market for four to three with enough competition, because competition is being judged region by region, and the weaker part will get Oi customers. I think it's a massive value-creating option that is on top of the table, and it has taken us a while to build that optionality.
Now we have a single proposal from the three players with an agreed split of the asset, with an agreed way to split the asset in terms of the different vehicles that needs to be created, agreed and negotiated with Oi. Now just pending for the final stages of the process and for the auction to be declared in the last month of this year, potentially. A massive opportunity. In terms of the trends of the market, Brazil GDP decline was half the GDP decline of Spain, to give you an idea, during pandemic. Recovery is much faster in Brazil than in Spain, because even though fiscal stimulus has been lower, direct fiscal stimulus to families because of COVID has been much more efficient. That has been having a boost in the B2C landscape, especially in the mid to low end.
As we speak, the depreciation of the real is proven to be bad for us in terms of conversion rate of FX, but very good for the country in terms of exports and in terms of the dynamics of internal debt, because most of their debt is local debt denominated, is local currency denominated. I think that wherever you approach it, a lot of value lies in Brazil going forward. Part of that value is being hidden because of the FX move of the real. I think that if we are able to finish this transaction, it is a massive value-creating transaction in terms of synergies and value for the market itself.
Thanks very much. I think the last two topics I'd love to just squeeze in is firstly, whether there is any updates on the Hispam pillar of your strategic plan. Again, given the COVID backdrop potentially making that slightly more challenging. Then perhaps if we could just finish up on the balance sheet and the credit rating discussions that you are having at the moment as well.
Sure, Michael, this is Laura. On Hispam, the messages are similar to the ones we did in Q2 results call. We keep on working on the organic performance, and despite COVID having affected the revenue, we did a lot of work on the OpEx and CapEx side so we could maintain profitability, and also our operating cash flow grew around 10% in Q2. A lot of focus on free cash flow on the operating side. We keep on working on the turnaround of OBs such as Peru and Chile. In the case of Colombia, they had good results. They even grew in service revenue in Q2 despite COVID, and in general in the region, we keep on building a valuable customer base, with a lot of focus on fiber and IPTV, which are at record levels, even with the pandemia.
On the inorganic side, we keep working very thoroughly on the spin-off process preparation as probably a plan B, as we are also having conversations on potential M&A transactions. COVID obviously makes more difficult those M&A conversations, but they are all open, and we keep on working. We are very aware that the Hispam performance and the FX volatility attached is hurting our share price, and we need to decrease the equity of Telefónica around Hispam. In the meantime, we are also reducing that volatility, increasing net debt at a local level. We re-issue a EUR 500 million bond in Colombia that replaced a hybrid that was quite costly. Even from, not only from a debt allocation, but also from a P&L and free cash flow perspective, it was a very good operation, and you should expect us to go farther in that regard.
Unfortunately, we had proof points on the U.K., we had proof points on the infra, but Hispam needs still a little bit more time to go. You want me on balance sheet? I think we need to work at different levels. We have worked very much on the net debt absolute figure reduction, and I think we did it successfully and we did it with the right equation, because net debt was reduced not only with disposals, it was basically reduced by a strong free cash flow. We were also having an attractive shareholder remuneration, and on top of that, there were some disposal of assets in the last three years that increased return on capital on top of reducing net debt. The leverage has not moved in the same direction, because also the FX, and we have also been reducing the EBITDA in reporting terms.
We think you have to look at the leverage ratio, not in isolation. It is very important indeed, you also have to look at it together with the prospects of the company and the CapEx requirements of the company. In the case of Telefónica, we strongly believe the CapEx peak is behind us in all core OBs. We definitely are not there at the leverage ratio level, so we will keep on working on that one. As María said in the introduction, we need to do it in the same way that creates value for our shareholders, not just with the only goal of reducing the net debt figure.
Perfect. There's so much more we could talk about around the group, but I think that's basically our time up. Just leaves me to thank you again for attending. We really appreciate it, each. Great to have you.
Thank you very much for having us. I hope next time is going to be next year in New York physically. Thanks for having us.
Yeah, exactly. Hopefully. Thanks.