Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the DFDS Q1 Report 2023 Conference Call. Throughout, all participants will be at listen only mode, and afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. Today, I am pleased to announce Torben Carlsen, CEO. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, welcome to DFDS's Q1 2023 Conference Call. I am, as usual, joined by Karina Deacon, our CFO, and Søren Brøndholt, our Head of Investor Relations. We are off to a solid start in 2023 as we achieved a Q1 result above our expectations. We continue to feel confident about the resilience of our combined ferry, road, and rail transport network and our supplementary contract logistics solutions. As you have seen, our passenger performance is strong. We are, of course, closely monitoring our markets as freight volumes did slow down in Q1. We'll continue to adapt our operation to mitigate impact from this slowdown. Let's take a closer look at Q1.
On page three, headline is that result is well in line with our expectations, but that uncertainty slowed trade volumes. Solid Q1 result achieved, DKK 1 billion, more than 20% up from last year. The developments in the trade markets were mixed. We saw a continuous slowdown in the channel and also in the Baltic Sea volumes. We saw lower volumes in our logistics business as well. Both freight ferry and logistics results were supported by higher unit revenues and margins. The passenger recovery is on track, and our two new acquisitions performed very well. Those were the quick introductory highlights, and then I'll pass on over to Karina on page four.
Thank you. Just a few initial comments before we dig into the numbers. As you might have noted already, we've made a few changes in our financial reporting. Firstly, the reporting segments in our management review have been aligned with the segments in the financial statements. We now have the ferry division and the logistics division and no business units under that. We have, at the same time, expanded the divisional reporting tables with additional financial information and some key figures, including the ferry freight volumes per area. We provide a split of the ferry numbers for revenue and EBITDA into freight and passenger.
When we look at the passenger revenue and earnings, we consolidate the passenger numbers from the Amsterdam-Newcastle and the Oslo-Frederikshavn-Copenhagen routes and the passenger activities from our RoPax routes on the Baltic Sea and on the Channel. When we assess the profitability from the passengers, from the RoPax side, we allocate all joint costs to the freight side. That's just one thing to be aware of. This is equivalent to what we have done during the COVID time, where we talked about the profitability of the passengers. The aim of the change is to simplify our reporting and also strengthen the focus on the overall direction of DFDS rather than spending time on discussing many smaller moving parts.
We think that with this change, we also align the number of segments to our peers and the way they report. The last thing to mention is that to further simplify the reporting, we have retired the aligned special items and no longer make the distinguishment between special items and normal operating costs. The results here, the initial comments, let's turn to page five. Revenue, an increase of 9% to DKK 6.3 billion, of which 6% was organic. The increase was very much impacted by the passengers returning, which added almost DKK 200 million in revenue. We more than doubled the number of passengers versus Q1 2022, where we still had some restrictions based on COVID-19.
In freight, we saw an increase of DKK 140 million, very much driven by bunker surcharges. The underlying ferry revenue was flat. The volume decline of 9% was offset by higher rates and other revenue. Underlying revenue in logistics was also on level with the Q1 2022, due to a reduction of volumes, especially in the cold chain. We'll come back to that later. We have the seasons, where we have one month of November and three months of losing, of course, also added revenue. Turning to Slide Six on the P&L. The EBITDA up 23% is very much driven by the recovery in the passenger business and a higher result in logistics.
Depreciation, small increase of 4% was basically all due to acquisitions. With a significant increase in the EBITDA and a lot of development in depreciation, we also saw a trick that results should go down to EBITDA, which was up 69% to DKK 403 million, and hence the margin increased 2.3 percentage points to now 6.3. Further down in P&L, finance cost was up by DKK 75 million. We do see higher interest rates. If we take interest rate then and it increased the margin, we saw almost a doubling in the numbers since Q1 2022. We also had an increase in net interest payment, which of course also had an impact on the interest cost.
In addition, I just have to mention that there was a one-off income in 2022 of around DKK 10 million relating to value adjustments, which should be taken into account when comparing. Normally, we don't talk a lot about the tax line because it's not a significant cost item. We have seen a significant development in this quarter because of a one-off charge in Turkey. They introduced an earthquake tax aimed at specific industries, and we were one of them. We have had to provide DKK 46 million for that. There's no change on our underlying tax and the effective tax rate. We still see that between 5% and 7% on a full year basis. To page seven.
A few words on the balance sheet and our cash flow. Starting to look at ROIC, we have introduced a new measurement when we talk ROIT, ROIC. We look at ROIC before acquisition intangibles, i.e., we take out goodwill and we take out customer contracts, which are increased due to the acquisition. That is to give an insight into our operational performance, not having these historical acquisitions to interfere. When we look at that, we have ROIC before acquisition intangibles increasing to 12%, and we have the traditional ROIC increasing to 9%, up from 4.6% in Q1 2022, and up from 8.7% at year-end.
The CapEx was reduced by the completion of new buildings in 2022. That also means that when we look at adjusted free cash flow, we saw a significant increase of around DKK 800 million because we no longer have these new build investments. Even after the acquisition of McBurney and the capital distribution in the form of the dividends and the share buybacks, we've maintained leverage in our target range. It was 2.9, of course, well ahead of the 4x earnings that we had in Q1 2022. On Slide Eight, the last couple of quarters, I have talked a little bit about our interest in debt.
We had a refinancing in the first quarter where we issued bonds of NOK 1.5 billion, NOK 1 billion with three-year maturity and NOK 500 million with five-year maturity. We have subsequently swapped the principals and buyback to Danish kroner, excuse me, in fixed rates, meaning that the bonds carried interest rates all in of between 5% and 5.5%. At the moment, we have fixed interest debt around 50% of our total debt. Turning to Slide Nine, looking further into the ferry division. An increase of 21% in EBITDA. If we look at freight only, freight increase focused at the volume reduction of 9%, which partly be offset by higher rates.
That means that all our networks were above last year if we exclude the Channel. The Channel we have talked a lot about, and it was also where we saw the largest decline in volumes. They were down 14%. The markets continued to decline. We saw contraction of 6% in Q1, and then we had the impact from the increased capacity from due to the new Capesize. Both exceed continued to decline, now 20%. With the truck situation there, of course, it's still impacted by the war. Then tough comparisons from 2022, where we also saw the impact in late Q4. Passenger activities are significantly up. We've already talked about the number of passengers coming back.
When we compare to 2019, the number of passenger are at index 85. Underneath that, both ships and also Copenhagen and Amsterdam new houses are ahead of 2019. It is the Channel that is impacting negatively. Despite only having an index 85, our EBITDA is actually on level with 2019. If we turn to Slide 10 on Logistics. EBITDA up 38%, of course impacted by acquisitions, but if we exclude acquisitions, we had 21% organic growth. The improvement came from both divisions, both dry and cold, where we in dry saw revenue up 6% adjusted for acquisition, and also a healthy improvement in margins. Cold chain revenue was down.
We have seen a rather significant decline in volume, not least related to the meat industry. Despite the volume decrease, we saw margins improve overall by improved tonnage management and also that we looked into overall capacity and was benefiting from better balances in the transportation flow. That was the run through of the financials. Back to you, Torben.
Thank you very much, Karina. On page 11, we see that during this quarter, our CO2 emission intensity on our ferry business reduced 7% across our route network, which is in line or actually a little bit ahead of our climate action plan aimed at reducing emissions by 45% by 2030 compared to the 2008 baseline. 27 of our 125 order new trucks were deployed in Q1. We expect to double the deployment during this quarter, with good and strong interest from customers who are willing to also adjust operational KPIs for this new equipment that requires slightly different needs in terms of loading infrastructure, et cetera.
Solar panel installations continue, were in this quarter completed in our last facility in facilities in Winterswijk and in Holland and in Neuenkirchen-Vörden in Germany. We have for 2023 included ESG targets for our emissions, our safety, and our gender diversity in all bonus schemes. Moving to page 13 and our outlook. We of course look to the expectations for the European economy when when trying to predict volumes and activity levels going forward. We still expect the ferry division in the EBITDA below 22 due to the freight slowdown that we've seen in Q1 and in April, led, as we mentioned before, by the situation in Ukraine with the war and the channel overcapacity.
Logistics in the DA is unchanged in terms of our outlook, which is ahead of 2022. This is driven by the operational flexibility that we've seen demonstrated in Q1 and also the positive impact from our acquisitions. On the CapEx side, nothing new to report. As Karina mentioned, we have no new building activity, and therefore the CapEx reflect the ongoing investment in our operations. Turning to page 14, key priorities for 2023.
They have not changed a lot since we talked last, but we continue to very closely monitor the situation in the markets, and we adapt capacity to demand changes as we have done in Q1 and which is, for example, in logistics, a large part of the explanation for the strong results. We continue to pursue organic growth, and have seen that DFDS is involved in more tenders and more activities from customers than in the past as we become better and better at marketing our whole suit of services and offerings. We are also continuing to look at growth through M&A and other initiatives as always. Cash flow generation is high on our agenda.
Of course, with the increasing interest environment, that has moved up in the priorities. Emission intensity and safety improvements continue to be something that we talk a lot about internally and where we see strong results, first now on the emissions. Safety, we still have a way to go before we are pleased. And we continue to move various green transformation projects forward as we've also done so far. With that, we turn over for Q&A.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using a speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. The first question comes from Dan Togo Jensen from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. A few questions from my side here. Let's just take them one by one. Let's start with the, your expectations for Q1, because you told me, you started out saying that it was above your own expectation here in Q1. Could you be a bit more specific? Which areas in particular, surprised you, so to say, on the positive side in Q1? That would be the first question.
The passenger sides has performed well and also better than we wanted to project a quarter ago. Logistics, we've seen as Karina mentioned, lower volumes, and we have been very pleased to see that we've been able to improve the results despite this situation. This is also better than we had hoped for.
You expect these, so to say, beats to be sticky and sustainable throughout this year, there's no one-off character in any of this?
There are no, w ell, that's two different statements that you made there. There, you're correct. There are no one-off elements that in a significant way drive this. How this will continue to develop is, of course the open question given the economy right now. That's also the background for us speaking the outlook for the year.
Then I'd like to jump to Turkey. You have this earthquake tax, which is retroactive. Is this a one-off? We should be considered a one-off, so that will be one question regarding Turkey. Another one would be, you are in talks, at least you have disclosed you are in talks with Ekol, for the road business, international road business. What's going on in Turkey right now, impacted by the earthquake, the election, the economy in general? Can you give us an update here? How is that impacting these talks regarding a possible transaction with Ekol?
I think basically on the tax side, we can of course not get any guarantees when a government imposes a one-off whether they, at some point in time could do it again. All our intelligence says it is a one-off, and it was something that was related and calculated based on the 2022 result. It was something that should help fund the build up of after the earthquake. So in as far as I can possibly predict, yes, it's a one-off.
In terms of the broader situation in Turkey, then the earthquake has created some congestion issues in Mersin subsequently, which is our port closest to the earthquake area. That has led to some slowdown. What we can also see and hear from our colleagues in Turkey is that our customers are taking a cautious look and postponing initiatives as they await the outcome of the elections. There's of course an outcome that on Sunday there's a clear result in round one, but there's also an alternative that they go in round two. We expect for a couple of months that there is some slowdown in activities in Turkey as the markets try to decipher the result of the elections.
You know, I'm sure that this is not an official explanation, but maybe just human nature. It is our expectation that competition authorities are not going to come out with a final conclusion on the our ability to acquire Ekol while this political uncertainty exists. We think that will also potentially last a couple of months while whatever the outcome of the result is, you know, trickles down the administration.
You still have an appetite to increase your investments in Turkey despite these, sort of say, kind of rogue behavior from the government?
If you're talking about the one-off tax, yes, that's of course, unfortunately, I think when I read Danish newspapers, they talk about imposing one-off taxes also on dealers in electricity and all that. There's nothing that has made us worried about being in Turkey. Turkey is an extremely strong economy. Saw our highest growth in 2022 and, you know, probably a normal reaction by market players. It was the same we saw in the U.K. leading up to Brexit. Until you know exactly your conditions, you hold back with activity levels. No, we are definitely bullish on the Turkish economy if you look a little bit further ahead.
Okay. Just one question here, the final one from me, on the bunker spread, that clearly is benefiting you at the moment. Can you elaborate a bit on how the impact is in here in Q1, and how we should, so to say, see the impacts, from this in, in coming quarters? Thanks.
If you recall the development in the spread in 2022, it was taking off from April onwards. That means that when we compare in Q1 this year is a plus, but we will go into difficult comparisons from Q2, Q3 and Q4. That means that a slight help in Q1 this year and a reversal. A negative in the next three quarters.
Of course. Yeah, when you compare year-over-year, but the underlying benefit is still positive, I guess.
That is a meaningless thing to say because there has always been a spread between the two fuel types, and that was of course the background for investing in scrubbers. So I think the only thing that is meaningful is to compare to what was it last year as Karina just said. There'll continue to be a positive impact for the full year as far as we can predict. If you just compare to that there is a spread between the two fuel types.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Mikael Vidfäldt Rasmussen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you. Three questions from my side. First, a follow-up on Turkey. Do you still expect volumes to be growing for the full year despite that we've seen these issues and you also flagged that the uncertainty or the awareness from customers is likely to continue in the next couple of months? That's my first question. My second question also relates to the BAF, but more to the top line impact. In Q1 you had ferry revenues growing 4%. You had volumes declining by 9%. That's a 15% difference here.
I do know that, yes, both types of bunker oil was up in the early part of Q1, but then they were actually down for the quarter as such. Just to understand the delayed impact here, is that, you know, roughly a few weeks, a month that we're looking at? Because when we look at the Q1 year-on-year prices, then the negative impact is rather visible here. Then, finally on the channel. We now start to see that Irish Ferries are starting to lose market share, both versus you guys, particularly if we look in the batch numbers, but also versus P&O Ferries. As I see it, prices are relatively aligned between you three.
If you could add some commentary on that, and also if you could add some comments on the Seafarers Act. Thank you.
Okay. You may have to repeat the third one, but let's start with Turkey. We continue to see growth in Turkey for the full year. Modest one digit growth in Turkey despite the situation. In terms of BAF, the impact is close to DKK 100 million.
Yes. It's up from Q1 two, 2022 on top line.
You know, on top line. You can say the compensation of the lower volumes is a mix between, on the revenue side of the BAF and the price increases on the ferry side. The channel, and sorry for missing the first part of that.
Yeah, I was asking into the market share movements. We see that, for example, if you look to Irish Ferries, I think they're down nearly 400 basis points versus their peak market share, which was a one-off. I understand that. Just if we look at kind of the recent months, they continue to lose market share both to you and to P&O. When I look at pricing, it seems to be relatively in line. If you could comment on those dynamics here. I guess it's probably something to do with your charter share agreement with P&O. Torben, if you could add some comments on the Seafarers' Wages Act.
Yes. Yes. Yes, that's how I go. The market share. I don't know what pricing you refer to. There's no publicly available information on the freight prices. We of course have some guesses, but even we don't know exactly what the price picture is. The passenger, you can scrape the websites because it's a very dynamic market. Our impression is that we are probably able to command slightly higher freight prices than both P&O and Irish Ferries. The loss in market share by Irish Ferries recently is driven by gains by P&O primarily as they are recovering from their out of service period last year. We are able to maintain slightly better market share than our production share.
As I said before, probably at higher average freight rates than the competition. Why is that? We've always been able to maintain higher prices, we believe. Of course now with the space charter agreement with P&O, we have a solid freight product that allow us or our customers to have frequent departures, which we believe is helping us maintaining our position. When you look at P&O's numbers, probably also a part of why they have recovered so strongly, of course, we only have those official numbers to guess upon. We, you know, it's a tough market. As we have said all along, we believe we are the strongest operator.
We are doing good. We are doing better than also maybe to the first question of today before. It's also an area where we are performing better than we had expected going into the year. In the situation that we have there, we are quite upbeat. Of course, we have preferred that there was not this lower capacity situation. On the Seafarers' Act, it's a complex picture. It's both legal action in France and in the U.K. We are happy to see the politicians believe that a level playing field should be established. It takes time to take effect.
In the meantime, you can say we have a slight cost disadvantage on the total operation. We have also said publicly we'll continue to live with that as long as we can see that the politicians are working towards a leveling of the playing field. Nothing new really to report on that.
Okay, great. Thank you very much, Torben. Thank you.
You are welcome.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your telephone. Your next question comes from Ulrik Bak from SEB. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, Torben. Also a couple of questions from my side. The first one on the capacity utilization, which is a nice detail to have on the ferry side. Can you perhaps share which geographies saw the highest and the lowest utilization levels and what those levels were? Because we see the average, but we still don't know the lower and upper bounds of that.
Ulrik, the sound quality is very bad. It's difficult to hear your question.
Sorry. Is this better?
That's better, yeah.
Great. Okay. On your capacity utilization, which is a new information that we haven't had before, which I really appreciate. Perhaps you can mention which geographies saw the highest and the lowest utilization levels and what these levels were, the maximum and the minimum utilization across the geographies. Thanks.
You know, I'm sorry, Ulrik. I don't have those details. It's, I guess, you know, by nature the channel has very low utilization. You know, Ro-Ro services have very high utilization. It's, it's all relative. I suggest that maybe, if it's something that we can disclose that you send us on an email and we can try to help you. It's not, it's not, details that we can share now.
All right. A question on your passengers. April volumes correspond to 84%.
Ulrik.
Yes, please.
Can you really get close to your microphone? You're very hard to hear.
Okay. I'll try again. Sorry. The April passenger volumes corresponded to 84% of the 2019 level. How much further upside to this level compared to 2019 do you expect there is in the current competitive environment? I know you said that Other routes were above 2019 levels, but given the competitive tension on the channel, do you expect this 84% to improve?
I think it all depends on how the high season on the channel develops, whether one thing is, of course, the overcapacity which has taken parts away from us, but it's also a market that is still suffering. Whether it's suffering from COVID or Brexit is I guess, hard to say. We will extend the space charter agreement and have started testing, extending the space charter agreement with P&O to also include tourist passengers. We are hoping that will help in terms of market share versus versus the ton. It really remains to be seen how the appetite for traveling between France and U.K. develops.
On the two, o n the other services, we are quite confident that, you know, Amsterdam, Newcastle, Copenhagen, over time, will recover even further as also the international segments come back.
Okay. That's clear. Another question about the bunker spread. Over the past couple of months, we've seen the spread decline quite significantly. In that context, did you anticipate such a decline? Can you, by any way, share what you have factored into your guidance in terms of this bunker spread for the rest of the year?
We did anticipate it because we can also look at the forward rates which were going down. Yes, we did anticipate that. I don't think I can give you a specific number what we have factored in, but we have factored in a decline. I think, frankly, not at the level where we are today, because it is relatively low compared to what we've seen in last year. We have, definitely factored in that it would be significantly lower than 2022.
It's, there's nothing in our outlook that worries us, in relation to the fuel development.
That's very clear. The question on logistics. I saw you did quite well in Q1, but is there any particular seasonality in this part of your business with cold chain and the dry goods where we should expect an improvement later on in the year?
There is seasonality. It's, you know, October, November month are always very, very large in all trade segments. But nothing like in passenger, of course. When you talk about improvements, it's of course always compared to the same quarter the year before. You will see stronger results from logistics. Whether we are able to maintain the 23% organic improvement, you know, depends a little bit on how the softening of the volumes continue over the year.
In terms of margin, the margin you printed in Q1, is that just one step in the right direction, or could it improve even further over the coming quarters?
It's too early to say. We work, of course, very hard on keeping the market margin improvement that we have. It is a challenge, in an environment with easing volumes.
That's very clear. Thank you so much. No further questions from my side.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Rory Cullinan from RBS. Please go ahead.
Right. Yes, good morning. My first question relates to the Baltic Sea, where you'll now start to sort of lap comps which were impacted by the Ukraine-
Rory, sorry, we cannot hear you. Your line is, I don't know if it's our end, but if you can try to, o ne more time.
Sure. My first question related to the Baltic Sea, where you're now starting to lap comps. Excuse me. Where you're now starting to lap comps that were impacted by the Ukraine war. Do you think you can grow volumes over the remainder of the year in the Baltic Sea? The second question relates to your sort of stage of your CapEx cycle with no ferries on order. Clearly this year it looks like sort of more than the equity free cash flow, depending on what happens with Ekol, could be deployed on logistics M&A. Is that something we should expect going forwards with the leverage just come from increases in EBITDA?
I think you asked in the Baltics if now that we have comps that were also, you know, created during the war, whether we can expect increases in volumes. I think realistically, the impact of the war. There was a quite slow ramp up of the volume impact as companies gradually stopped their activity in the Baltics. We do not expect the volume uptick in 2023 in the Baltics, probably to the contrary. In terms of CapEx, we do not expect any major CapEx from shipbuilding. I think in 2024 there will be some conversion costs for some of the vessels to be able to travel on methanol.
It will stay at those levels, you know, for the coming years. Then you're right, then of course there are acquisitions that already this year we have spent some of the improvement on the McBurney acquisition, obviously. Yeah. Was that an answer to your second question? We couldn't completely hear it, but I hope that that answered your question.
Yeah, it partly answered it. I guess the other part of it was just, could this be a representative year where you know, you've already done one logistics acquisition and you're eyeing up Ekol or going forwards, should we expect a slightly lower run rate on logistics M&A?
Well, the acquisitions are of course more random. I would probably exclude these larger acquisitions in your planning and, you know. Hopefully if they come they add value rather than the opposite. In terms of the CapEx level, could it increase 10% or so, or even 20%? Probably, but it's probably a good level to reckon with the next couple of years.
Thank you.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Lars Heindorff from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thanks, Torben. Thank you for taking my questions. A few questions regarding the logistics division. The incremental margin that you delivered is actually quite impressive in the first quarter. I just want to get some more flavor on actually what is driving this. Is this caused by the recent acquisitions which is kicking in, and there are some significant margin difference there compared to what you used to have? Or what is the reason for this? A second question also regarding logistics is, I don't know if you can indicate sort of, again, ballpark numbers, what kind of, what share of your total volumes are moved by your own trucks, i.e. own production?
Okay. Let's start with the margin question. The margin improvements come from three elements, I guess. We've had, we always have some units that for one or another reason perform below expectations, and we've been able to create some quite strong turnarounds in some of those units. We have in general been very good at passing on the cost increases to our customers, and that now starts to then also mean that our margins pick up to where they should be. Thirdly, yes, there are good margins in the acquisitions, and that has probably also helped a few basis points on this. That's the margin.
Well, in addition to these, you can say the problem units that have been turned around, there's also just been a very general very good balancing of flows. In some instances we've even lost flows that maybe have helped us because it has created a better balance subsequently. Hopefully a solid improvement that we're able to maintain. The other question.
About the share of.
Yeah.
Haulage.
That's a little more. It's very regional where we have the, you know, our cold chain has a high share of in-house haulage, whereas our dry business has a very low share of in-house haulage. It has to do a little bit with the specialization of the flows. I don't think that we have a specific percentage for you.
Okay. The reason why I'm asking about this, of course, is the margin improvement besides the impact from the M&A, I mean, higher own production, if you have better prices and volumes, i.e. all else equal should lead to a more significant lift in the margins as well.
I think what we've seen with declining volumes, on the cold side in meat, for example, is that we've had to reduce some of our in-house haulage, both by, you know, reducing on the number of trucks and number of drivers in the cold business in Parmally, Poland, where we run the trucking operation. So I don't think that this is driving a structural change in margins. We are of course, we can say, very focused on making sure that we adjust the capacity as volumes are softer.
Okay.
Also the in-house trucking.
Yeah. Sorry to interrupt. Then, just to follow up, you said you had three areas or three units which have been performing weakly with, w hich has now been improved. What are those three?
No, I think I said there were three reasons for the improved margin.
Oh, sorry.
Yeah.
All right. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, man.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Dan Togo Jensen from Carnegie. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Just to follow up here, because you keep on returning to this, the meat, the weakness in the meat industry. Can you share your thoughts here? What's going on? Is it more structural, because consumers are trending away from meat, or is it a temporary thing because meat has simply become too expensive and, we're seeing this recession like, or slow down at least, in the U.K., for instance, where, you simply can't afford meat for a while, and then it will swing back at some point? Some thoughts there would be appreciated. Thanks.
It's, you know, it's a marketplace that of course we have colleagues that follow closely. But I think we've seen that production moved from Denmark to Germany to Holland and back and forth, depending a little bit on the prices that the slaughterhouses are able to pay for the producers. It's simply the reflection of that, depending on these movements that may impact our flows and volumes. Is there an underlying trend of meat dropping by half to 1% per annum? Probably, but that's not the reason for these swings. We don't believe they are structural. It does just pose some challenges for us in balancing the flows.
Okay. That means that, you know, this can swing back at some point and be an opposite factor, basically, depending on where you source your meat?
Correct.
Thank you.
Thank you. This concludes our Q&A session. I'll now hand back to Torben Carlsen.
Thank you very much, and thank you for the, for the good and many questions. As mentioned, we remain confident about our ability to perform in 2023 and maintain our financial strength. On the back of this confidence, we continue to pursue development opportunities, both organically and otherwise to enhance our customer offerings and to strengthen our network. We look forward to speaking to you again soon. Thank you very much, and have a good day.