Buenos días y bienvenidos a la presentación de resultados del primer trimestre de 2022 de Vidrala. La compañía estará representada por Raúl Gómez, director financiero, e Iñigo Mendieta, responsable de relación con inversores. La exposición se realizará en inglés. En el turno de preguntas, se recomienda realizar las preguntas en inglés, aunque se atenderán también preguntas en castellano. En la página web de la sociedad, www.vidrala.com, encontrarán documentación de soporte a esta presentación, así como un enlace para acceder al webcast. Good morning and welcome to the conference call organized by Vidrala to present its 2022 first quarter results. Vidrala will be represented in this meeting by Raúl Gómez, CFO, and Iñigo Mendieta, Head of IR. The presentation will be held in English. In the Q&A session, questions will be also answered in Spanish.
Nevertheless, it's strongly recommended to pose questions in English in order to facilitate understanding of everyone. In the company website, www.vidrala.com, you will find available a presentation that will be used as a supporting material to cover this call, as well as a link to access the webcast. Mr. Mendieta, you now have the floor.
Good morning to everyone and thank you as always for the time that you dedicate to attend this call. As announced, Vidrala has published this morning its 2022 first quarter results. Additionally, we have also published the results presentation that will be used as supporting material to this conference call. Following this document, we will dedicate the first part of our exposition to briefly explain the figures released today, to devote afterwards as much time as necessary to discuss on the business performance in the Q&A session.
Starting with the main magnitudes, in the first quarter of 2022, we achieved as most relevant business figures, revenues of EUR 278 million and EBITDA of EUR 23 million and a net income equivalent to an EPS of 0.03 EUR. Net debt at the end of the period stood at EUR 126 million, which is equivalent to a leverage ratio of 0.6x the last 12 months EBITDA. Turning to slide four, we look at top line performance, analyzing the annual variation of revenue broken down by concepts to arrive at the reported figure of EUR 278.9 million. As it is shown in the graph, this figure is the result of an organic growth of 17%. Incorporating the effect of the currency, the reported variation amounts to 18.8%.
Following the order of key business figures referred to at the beginning, we analyze with the same breakdown the variation of operating income. 2022 first quarter EBITDA amounted to EUR 23.3 million, reflecting an organic decline of 63%. In reported terms, EBITDA decreased by 62.6% in the period. These operating figures resulted in an operating margin, EBITDA over sales, of 8.2%, which represents a contraction of approximately 18 percentage points compared to 26.5% registered in the previous year.
Let's analyze now the free cash flow generation in detail. We will do so with the help of the chart on slide seven, which reconstructs the cash conversion accumulated for the last 12 months in order to fully normalize our annual cash profile. Starting from an EBITDA margin of 20.3%, we have dedicated 10.2% of sales to investments. Unusually, the aggregate of working capital, financials, and taxes represented, in this case, a cash inflow of 1.1% of sales. As a result, free cash flow generation stands above 11% of sales.
Finally, net debt at the end of the reported period closed at EUR 126.1 million. This figure is the consequence of the just mentioned cash generation, which has been mainly allocated to debt reduction, and the rest has been allocated to remunerate shareholders. As a result, the leverage ratio stands at 0.6x EBITDA. Now before turning to the Q&A session, I pass the floor to Raúl so that he can extract the main conclusions or highlights and make additional comments that he considers appropriate.
Thank you, Iñigo. Good morning. Good morning all. Thank you, Iñigo, for your introduction and thank you all for your time and your interest, particularly on days like today. Well, it's evident that we are living particular times. We are here today to tell you and to defend that our results published today do not reflect the intrinsic value of our business. First, demand for glass containers is growing, exceeding expectations, performing well even under the most difficult times that we have seen during the pandemic. This is a big thing. Consumers, packagers, brand owners, we are all increasingly preferring glass as the ultimate, the definitive sustainable packaging material. We didn't miss the opportunity of this favorable context.
We integrated our more, let's say simplified and maybe a stronger industrial footprint, and we serve our customers well under the many difficulties that we have seen across supply chains. Our sales volumes in the first quarter of this 2022 year grew by 7%-8%. All this is our greatest proof of underlying future for our business. Second, evidently very important, our margins during the first quarter of this year were abnormally affected by extreme external factors. Inflation was abnormally high, mostly in the energy factor, and not least, our prices were fully unadapted. In consequence, our margins dropped below 10% of sales.
This is not sustainable. We are for now readapting our prices to the cost reality. As a result, we are today making public a guidance, an outlook for the remainder of the year, where we expect to see a sustained growth on sales of double digit. More important, we expect to progressively recover margins of 20% EBITDA of sales as long as our prices readjust or external inflation pressures relax. Finally, as a good indication of our confidence in the future, we will maintain our ambitious CapEx plan, and we'll do this preserving our solid financial position because we expect to generate a net positive free cash flow over the next nine months, over the remainder of this year.
Okay, this completes our exposition, and we now give way to the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Q&A session starts now. Questions by telephone will be answered first. If you wish to ask a question, please dial zero one on your telephone keypad. The first question comes from Francisco Ruiz from BNP Paribas. Please go ahead.
Buenos días. I do have three questions. The first one is Raúl, and you could give us a more detailed breakdown of the inflation in this quarter. I mean, inflation on total operating cost has been close to 50%. If you could detail how much has been energy, how much has been transport and packaging, how much has been the raw materials. The second one is. I mean, on the press release, and also you have mentioned in the presentation that you are implementing price increases. If you could give us how you are doing this, and which is the amount that we should take into account. I mean, some of the competitors have already announced that as well.
Last but not least, is on the free cash flow generation. You commented that free cash flow is this quarter around EUR 1 million, but the debt increased from Q4 by EUR 30 million. What am I missing there? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Paco. Well, first in terms of inflation, let's say that our indicator of where underlying external inflation for the manufacturing of glass containers in Europe were during the first quarter of the year around +60% year-over-year. 60%, six-zero, underlying external. This is an extraordinarily big number. Our internal inflation, including internal actions, including the effect of our energy hedging and other factors, were actually around 40%, from 60% - 40%. Our prices increased during the first quarter by slightly more than double digit. We saw some positive effect on margins due to the operating leverage coming from higher sales volumes. The combination of all this explains the difference on our margin is 1,800 basis points lower. So that's the number. Hope that helps.
Your second question is with regards to our prices. Well, probably our price increases were below the industry average during the first quarter of the year because of different reasons. Most of the reasons is the difficult time we need to negotiate or we need to execute price increases under abnormal volatile inflationary circumstances as the one we are seeing. The reality is that our prices were our internal sales prices were particularly unadapted this first quarter of the year. For now, starting in April, we are readapting our prices. In some cases, we are following new methodologies as a periodical cost related to reviews or cost surcharges, and that will work. That is actually working. That will immediately, and actually has already, repositioned our margins where they should be. It's that simple.
From April 1, our prices are significantly readjusted, and that means that from April 1 our margins are significantly different than what they were during the first quarter of the year. Your third point is free cash. The free cash flow generated during the first quarter of the year actually hasn't been a negative surprise for us. It's even modestly exceeding our initial expectations. The free cash flow that we have seen during the first quarter is basically following the typical seasonality of our free cash generation. The reason for seeing a positive free cash before dividends and a negative debt variation after dividends is actually this, dividends. Mentioning also that we are intensifying beyond our cash dividend payments, we are intensifying share buybacks. That's all the reason. That's why we refer to free cash after CapEx, before dividends and share buybacks. There is nothing more behind this.
Raúl, could you give us the amount that you spent on buybacks this quarter?
Iñigo, please.
The amount, Paco, should be around EUR 5 million-EUR 6 million.
Okay.
We can have a quick chat after and have the exact figures.
Okay. Brilliant. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Iñigo Egusquiza from Kepler. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, Raúl and Iñigo. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two additional questions, if I may. The first one is on if you can share with us the breakdown in terms of pricing and volumes by market in the first quarter, if there is any difference in terms of this breakdown, like continental Europe, the U.K. and Italy. This is the first question. The second question is just a clarification on your guidance for the EBITDA margin. So, taking a look at the slide, you are... I mean, the guidance for the EBITDA margin is to improve quarter by quarter to reach this 20% level by the fourth quarter or to be at that level on 2022, the full year. Thank you.
Iñigo, on your first question regarding the breakdown in terms of pricing and volumes by region. Okay, there are no big difference between continental Europe and the U.K. in terms of pricing, okay? Pricing are in both cases in the range of plus 10%, okay, in the range of double digit. There are difference in terms of volumes. We see a stronger demand in the U.K. also helped by, you know, the filling business. In the specific case of Italy, that is, as you know, a small part of our business that we see in this case, a stronger dynamics in both prices and volumes, okay? Both in the range of 10%-20%, but in the high end of this range.
Iñigo, with regards to the guidance on margins, we know that our message is not particularly specific quarter- by- quarter or month- by- month because circumstances today are still very volatile, particularly on the energy factor, particularly in terms of inflation. What we are seeing is that our target is to recover a 20% margin for the remainder of the year. We still don't know if that will be possible because that will depend on these external factors. We are today, April 2022, recovering this level, thanks to the readaptation of our prices in place since the beginning of this month. For the remainder of the year, we still maintain this level depending on external factors.
Please also take into consideration the typical seasonality of our margins that they tend to be lower during the last months of the year. That's all, okay? Today we are reaching this level. That will be a good target, at least for the second quarter. This is at least our target for the remainder of the year. That will obviously somewhat depend on external factors that are still excessively volatile.
Okay. Thank you, Raúl and Iñigo.
Thank you. The next question comes from Beltrán Palazuelo from DLTV. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Raúl. Good morning, Iñigo. I have three questions, if I may. The first of all is regarding margins. When I see one of your competitors, your French competitor, I see their margins are, let's say, abnormally higher than yours. My understanding is that their hedge position was higher going into the year. My question is, does that give them a competitive advantage in the rest of the year to use their hedges, let's say, to win market share? The other question for you is what hedges do you have coming in the year? The second question is, I think you do have a mention on, let's say, buyback, and maybe so let's say with what intensity are you willing to execute the buyback?
If you could give us a little color on an M&A. If you put the depreciation, it's practically you're not winning money, so I suppose other competitors that are not that competitive are losing a lot of money. What is the look on that front? Regarding 2023, you put in the presentation, how hard are you willing to flex your muscles? What is the target of 2023 margins if, let's say, the costs stay where they are? Are you really willing to let's say, flex your muscle to go to 26% again, or you don't know yet?
Okay, Beltrán, thank you very much. Well, your first question, I won't refuse the answer. I won't say that I'm not aware of our competitors' results, obviously. Those you probably refer to are examples of the big names in this industry. They should be reflecting real or underlying business conditions across this industry. The good results are probably basically very good news for us because it proves that our deterioration is not structural. I fully believe that our industrial footprint is more competitive than before, is stronger than average, and we are further investing to further improve the quality and the competitiveness of our assets. The reason of our different margins are mostly, in our opinion, mostly temporary, okay.
It's true we were probably less protected in terms of hedging against energy inflation. It's obvious also that our prices were evidently particularly unadapted. We all play in the same business field, and we are particularly competitive in this business field. Seeing the big names in this industry showing this level of positively surprising resilience during the first quarter of the year, I repeat, is very good news for us in terms of what that means for the future underlying profitability of this business. Thinking in what our price readaptation measures could mean for us in terms of market share dynamics, but we have no chance. It's our obligation. Above all other things, it's our obligations to adapt our prices because they are or they were completely unadapted.
We are aware that our different pricing dynamics could create some market share dynamics, some movements. We are also aware that the macro context is probably, you know much more than us about this, becoming more, let's say, challenging. Let me please remark that demand for glass container has been particularly resilient in different economic cycles. Our inventory levels today are particularly tight, 15%-20% below historical levels for this time of the year. Probably we need to build up some inventories. We are doing what we need to do in terms of price adaptation, and we think we have under control the potential consequences or the potential results that could have, particularly the margin recovery we are expecting.
In terms of buyback policy, Beltrán, as I said before, we have already acquired 78,000 shares. This means around EUR 5 million. There is still remaining 90,000 shares. This is a share buyback that was announced for 1% of our share capital and was extended at the last part of last year. The idea is to acquire these remaining shares probably quickly after our earnings release. You know that we have been now in a blackout in our blackout period. Probably after this share buyback, we may announce additional share buybacks for 1% of our share capital. This is a relevant message. We are intensifying under current conditions share buybacks.
Your final question, following this point, Beltrán, is M&A. Well, what I can say is that our approach in terms of M&A remains basically the same. Probably the only difference is that our, if I may say this, financial position is stronger than before. It's even more solid. Our approach tells us that we're a company interested in growth. We strongly believe that we can create value adding new units into the business. We probably, let me say that, have some credentials or track record on that sense. We have more than EUR 400 million of available liquidity for expansionary CapEx if we find an opportunity. We want to grow the business. We want to diversify the business. We want to create more differentiated package of services to our customers. Please do not forget our different services in our flagship U.K . site.
The industry is becoming particularly dynamic under the available active circumstances that we are seeing today. Our eyes will remain open. Having said that, we are obviously not immune to the inflationary geopolitical or economic circumstances that we are seeing. Obviously it is sometimes in life, there is always a moment in businesses where simply the right thing to do temporarily is to do nothing. This is where we are today. Our priority, our real priority today is to recover margins where they should be in the confidence, in the understanding that what is important in this business, underlying demand conditions are performing particularly stronger than expected.
Okay. Thank you very much, and, thank you for the hard work.
Thank you. The next question comes from Iñigo Egusquiza from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hola, Raúl. Iñigo. Sorry to come back again. Just two more questions from my side. A follow-up on M&A following Beltrán's questions. It seems, I mean, from your comment that M&A is slightly more, I would say more hot or is more reactivated compared to the past. I imagine that if a company like Vidrala is suffering and EBITDA margins are below at least 10% with your efficiency, with your model, with your partial hedging, I imagine that some of small and midsize players are suffering a lot. Probably this could be an acceleration on M&A. I don't know what's your view on this point.
The second question is on the energy cost inflation and the agreement reached yesterday between the Spanish and Portuguese government and the European Union. I don't know if you can share with us what could be the implication for your industry with this price cap on natural gas pricing. What could be the effects and what's your view on thoughts? Thank you.
Okay. Thank you very much again, Iñigo. Well, in terms of M&A, let's say that, let me remind that our priority today, our very priority today is to recover margins where they should be. Okay, we are publishing a guidance, particularly ambitious guidance. This guidance says that, we do not expect to, be different to some of our competitors. That means that the underlying profitability in this industry is still there, and it's our job and our priority today to recover this level of underlying profitabilities. This is the first priority today, and we won't do nothing more than this in the short term, okay?
Having said that, it's true, it's very real that we are seeing particularly interesting dynamics across this industry, where probably a smaller, less sophisticated players that were particularly profitable in the past are today suffering proportionately more. That could open a door of potential opportunities for potential interested companies like we are. We maintain our eyes very open. I don't see M&A activity, relevant M&A activity in the very short term. We are thinking in M&A on a probably broader perspective, not only glass manufacturing assets, but other verticalized activities, something that could create profits, margins, sales capacity, market share, and basically future. But you won't be surprised in the short term, probably. I repeat, the first priority for us is to recover margins, and we are in the path of this, okay?
Your second question on energy inflation. Well, let me say that, our energy hedging today for the remainder of the year is approximately 40%. An additional 35% of our sales are comprised by customer agreements with customers with what we say price adjustment formulas. For the remainder, for the 25%-30% remainder, we are readapting our prices under different methodologies, as we said before, for example, cost or energy surcharges. That means that we are today much more protected to any external volatility on our energy cost. Having said that. We are seeing some positive news from government actions to defend or to contain inflation.
Luckily or unluckily, most of these actions are today referring to the price of power, to the price of electricity, and not to the price of natural gas. 70% of our cost is natural gas, not electricity. In the case of the extraordinary volatility that we are seeing on natural gas prices in Europe, basically due to the circumstances, the sad circumstances that we are seeing around Ukraine, we are protected by our new hedging policies and by our new pricing initiatives. The government actions that we are seeing are intended to contain the prices for electricity, and we are less, this is less beneficial for us.
Okay. Gracias, Raúl.
Thank you. The next question comes from Manuel Lorente from Mirabaud. Please go ahead.
Hola. Raúl y Iñigo . My first question is on revenue guidance for the next nine months. When you compare your sustainable double-digit growth guidance for the remaining of the year with a +17% organic growth delivered in Q1, it might seem, let's say, supportive, right? It's also true that comps are getting tougher and tougher. Revenues in the first quarter last year were EUR 230 million, and the run rate for the remaining of the year was roughly EUR 285 million.
Double-digit growth for the remaining of the year, according to my number, implies at least a double-digit growth price over the one delivered in the first quarter, and on top of that, at least another positive contribution from volume between 5%, 6%, 7%. Meaning that, the underlying assumption beneath that guidance is that with prices surging roughly 20%, 25% compared with last year, you are not assuming any deterioration in volumes. That's correct?
Okay. I will be very clear in that sense. Today, after the new initiatives started in this month in terms of pricing re-adaptation, our prices today are double the price increase that we saw in the first quarter of the year. Okay? This is the reality today. As a result of this, we are in the path of recovering margins towards this guidance of 20%. Having said that, we are very tight on inventories, and this is not a question that we are assuming. The duration is that we can't sell more on volumes for the remainder of the year. A significant growth in the top line will be secured only due to the pricing initiatives. Okay?
Having said that, I won't say that we are foreseeing any volume deterioration for the remainder of the year. Particularly, we are not foreseeing that because of external demand conditions. Demand is performing well, exceeding expectations. I don't know. We are probably from now being a little bit more aggressive in terms of prices than some of our competitors. Believe us, unfortunately, most of our customers, most of the demand we serve are today more focused on securing availability of glass for the next coming seasonally relevant months than on prices. We are not foreseeing any significant volume deterioration, at least for the remainder of the year. Obviously, the following years will depend on the macro context and the competitive dynamics.
The reason for us to show you this guidance, double-digit top-line growth, that I am now clarifying that is mostly related to price increases, is that to help you, that in combination with our new guidance on margins, obtain an expected or a forecast of EBITDA operating profit in value for the full year 2022. Just to help you understand that whatever happens for the remainder of the year, our EBITDA in value and in margin will be very different than how it was in the first quarter of this, let's say unforgettable first quarter of 2022.
No, no. I mean, I really appreciate the guidance. Giving a little bit of visibility for us is extremely helpful. My only concern is the underlying demand beneath that guidance. With such a price increase, right? I believe that is something that we might see or might not see on this first quarter, but sooner or later, prices should then demand, no?
Yeah. Obviously, this is a very obvious question, and this is a point that we are considering. Anyway, we have no choice but to adapt prices that are completely affected by extraordinarily inflationary circumstances. That is the first question. The second question, our demand is so solid today, as you can see in our numbers and the numbers of our competitors. Demand for glass container is so evidently strong, exceeding expectations. We are even entering the seasonally more intense period of sales, the summer season, that we do not see any negative reaction on volumes to our new pricing dynamics, at least for the remainder of this year. Okay.
That won't be the case. We won't sell more because we are tight on inventories. We have no capacity to sell more, to grow on volumes. This is another reason for us to be so, let's say, ambitious on our pricing initiatives. For the next years, we don't know, but for this year, we do not see any significant risk of volume or market share deterioration in our numbers.
Okay, that's perfectly clear. Just one more final question on pricing. Raúl, you have mentioned that one of the issues that explain this set of results this quarter have been the price adaptation, you have called something like that. Anyway, can you describe a little more in detail what are you doing differently from now in order to be sure that you are really in line with market trends in terms of pricing? What are you doing differently in order not to be in this position that you have been suffering in the first quarter of low prices not really encompassing market results?
Well, when I try to compare myself with other competitors, probably we were less protected in terms of energy hedging. Probably our inflation is slightly higher, not significantly, slightly higher. Second, our comparison basis is tougher than for some of our competitors because our first quarter 2021 was particularly solid as a difference to other players in this industry. Third, our prices are. Our price increases executed in this first quarter of the year were slightly below average in the industry because of probably also a negative contribution of the mix effect, an effect that has been basically positive for other competitors. The combination of all these explains our different margins. For now.
Mm-hmm.
We don't know what other competitors are doing in terms of, pricing initiatives, pricing dynamics to readapt prices to cost. What I think is that energy hedging is temporary by nature. If I do consider that energy hedging is temporary by nature, and if I make a calculation of excluding the effect of energy hedging, there is, an extraordinary negative gap between prices and costs in the first quarter of the year. This is the reference we need to monitor across this industry. As a consequence of this reference, we can see that some smaller competitors in this industry, probably less sophisticated, probably with an even lower level of protection in terms of energy hedging than we have, are even more aggressively readapting prices today. There is no chance for them.
We are simultaneously seeing that bigger names in this industry are also officially announcing new price increases. Looking at the future, you will probably agree with me that prices will be adapted. With the needed time will be adapted to the real cost context. That means that prices need to at least double the price increases that we have seen during the first quarter of the year. We are probably going to be a little bit more aggressive than some of our competitors, but in the needed time, prices will be adapted to that. That means that we shouldn't see any significant movement on market shares across the industry. Okay.
Okay. Thank you, guys.
Thank you. The next question comes from Luis de Toledo from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Yeah. All my questions have been already answered. Maybe commenting on next year price evolution, you referred that the smaller players are also being very aggressive. Sector leaders are doing these initiatives, whether permanent or temporary. I don't know if you would be confident on your capacity to sustain this second price rise throughout next year. Thanks.
Thank you, Luis. This is a very relevant question, and I wanna speak in terms of aggressivity, I want to speak in terms of necessity, okay? What we are doing is adapting our prices to the reality of the inflationary cost context we have, in the time. I'm pretty sure that the price of a glass container in Europe will reflect the real circumstances of cost within the time, okay? In the short term, if we are more aggressive than some of our competitors, we are particularly protected because we are tight of inventories and we are today losing or missing some sales opportunities, so we are particularly well adapted to any potential reaction in that sense.
Also, much more important than this, please do not forget that the demand conditions are particularly solid for glass containers across our areas of activity. I should say, I can see that the inventories are basically tight, short all across the industry. Vidrala is not an exception. Our inventories are particularly low, but I can see that industry is basically tight now that we enter into the intense summer season. Summer seasons refer to the typical seasonality of our sales. I won't say that we are today particularly concerned about any particular negative reaction in terms of the market share movements after our price new initiatives, okay.
Let me say again, it's not a matter of aggressiveness, it's a matter of necessity. What we are doing is just adapting our prices to the cost context, and I think that we can do this because demand is really, really solid and inventories are tight.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. The next question comes from Ignacio Romero from Banco Sabadell. Please go ahead.
Hello, good morning. Raúl, please, could you please repeat again the figure that you gave before, relating to the, what the price increase is today, in the today versus the first quarter of last year? I didn't hear you well. I'm not sure if you said that it was double the figure that it was in the first quarter of this year. That would mean around 20%. I'm not sure. Could you please clarify that?
Yes, sure. Our price increases on average during the first quarter of this year was 10%. Today our price increases are double this level, okay? Starting in April, thanks to the new pricing initiatives. Please let me remind you that our new pricing initiatives are basically based on methodologies that will periodically review our price increases related to the real cost context in terms of things like energy surcharges or cost surcharges. What we are protecting for now is a specific level of margins, not an specific level of price movement, okay? If hopefully that happens, if inflation relaxes for now, our prices will automatically and periodically relax, but our prices will recover the levels we need to recover.
Very clear. Thank you.
Thank you. There are no further questions by phone. I return the floor to Mr. Gómez and Mr. Mendieta.
Thank you. We have received several questions directly by the webcast. I think that most of them have been already answered, okay, on M&A, on hedging, on breakdown between volumes and prices. There is only one that is remaining, and it says, "Could you give more detail on the ambitious CapEx plan in place?" Also, there is another question that speaks about how should we think of the new capacity contributing in 2022, and if we will be able to replenish inventories in 2022.
Okay. With regards to CapEx, well, we are under an ambitious investment plan, under which we plan to invest more than 10% of our sales in CapEx over the next five years. Particularly in this, let's say, particular year, 2022, we plan to execute this CapEx without consuming cash or without significantly increasing our debt. Okay? This is a lot to say under the circumstances, the inflationary circumstances that we are seeing. Okay? Looking at the future, what is more important for me is to understand that only a portion of this ambitious CapEx plan, less than half, around 4%, 5% of our sales will be CapEx for pure replacement. It will be, let's say, unavoidable CapEx. Okay?
The major portion, an additional 4%, 5% of our sales will be a voluntary expansionary CapEx focused on expanding our capacity, amplifying the range of services we provide, such as logistics or beverage filling services. More important, an additional 1%, 2% of our sales will involve CapEx dedicated specifically and exclusively to investing in the sustainability of our business. This is new. We will invest in self-generation power facilities in many of our sites. We will invest to enable the electrification or the hybridization of our furnaces, our glass melting furnaces. We will invest in increasing the use of recycling content, recycled content in our glass containers. For what we need to invest and to create our own facilities and logistics solutions.
We will closely work and invest money with customers, suppliers of technology and competitors to find the best solution for what we consider the manufacturing facility of the future. We are living a process of transformation in the glass industry. We are living this process of transformation under particularly solid circumstances. Our footprint, our industrial footprint is today stronger than before. We entered into the U.K. seven years ago, and we have heavily invested in those very remarkable facilities. We bought our toughest competitor in Portugal five years ago. Not least, we exited from the very unprofitable Belgian site three years ago, just days before the pandemic started. We are selectively and heavily investing in our existing facilities.
Just make a calculation of our average CapEx per site, of our average scale per site, of our average margins before the inflationary crisis that we are living today, just to obtain your own conclusions about where we are exactly in comparison with our competitors and how and why we see the future with this level of confidence in terms of our ambitious CapEx plan.
I think we should have answered now all the questions also received via webcast. If not, please, we invite you to contact us in the following days. Once again, thank you for the time that you have dedicated to us this morning. As always, remind you that we remain at your complete disposal for any further questions that may arise. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Señoras y señores, la conferencia ha terminado. Gracias por su participación. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.