Welcome to the DSV interim financial report for the first quarter of 2023. For the first part of this call, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, there'll be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. This call is being recorded. Today, I'm pleased to present Group CEO, Jens Bjørn Andersen, Group COO, Jens Lund, and Group CFO, Michael Ebbe. Speakers, please begin.
Thank you very much. Welcome to this conference call, where we will go through the Q1 numbers which we published this morning. We have prepared a small agenda for you, which you can see on page number 2. I'll go through the highlights and the business segments, whereafter Michael Ebbe will take over and talk about the financial reviews. Jens Lund will, of course, be available also when we get to the Q&A. Please also take a moment to read the forward-looking statements that we have also put on page number 2. If we go to page number 3, we are very pleased about the performance of the company at the beginning of the year.
It goes without saying that when we enter 2023, it was associated with more uncertainty, and not a lot of visibility and transparency. The fact that we can come up with a result like we have done this morning, pleases the management team very much. I have to say that. We have had a good start to the year in a somewhat slightly more competitive market that we are used to, caused by the declining freight volumes and the demand in certain sectors. What did please us tremendously, which actually outperformed our expectations, earnings also outperformed expectations a little bit, but the cash is king.
We had very strong cash flow in the year, which is actually on the same level as a year ago, despite a somewhat lower result. Very good to see, it was mainly due to a significant reduction of the net working capital, which also has a little bit to do with the declining freight rates. Nevertheless, we're very happy about it. The result this morning gives no reason to change the guidance for the full year, so we are reiterating the 2023 EBIT guidance of an EBIT result between DKK 16 billion and DKK 18 billion.
As we have always done, according to the capital allocation policy, absent of M&A, and when we are in the range where we want to be, leverage-wise, we do share buybacks, and we have announced a new three-month program of DKK 4.5 billion this morning, and Michael will elaborate a little bit on that. May I also just point your attention to the earnings per share development? I know it's not for the last quarter, but for the last months. We can show to a development of over 27%, which, yeah, is okay to our understanding. Page 4, Air & Sea, strong results. We did see a market which was declining.
The low activity in the market was as we had expected, compensated by strong gross profit yields. This is something that we had anticipated also, and even though we will probably see declining yields going forward, we will expect it to be offset by a more positive development in when it comes to the volumes. We have remained very disciplined in the pricing, which has been a clear focus for our company, and we have focused on higher yield in cargo. Of course, we are still kind of reinforcing our commercial efforts. We have lost a little bit market share.
It's, it's very difficult to establish exactly what the market has done, but we have put in the announcement that we have underperformed the market a little bit. It was a deliberate action. The overall aim is still to take market share. The market has been more volatile than normal in Q1, and we have decided that we will protect the yields. We have seen that the gross profit and EBIT has developed as we had expected. We are very pleased about that. It's also important to say when we talk about volume that we do communicate a lot about TUs and tons. You will see that in a minute.
The most important metric for us is still number of shipments, meaning number of invoices we are sending to customers. It has a somewhat different development. The number of shipments overall for the quarter was down in the region of 10%, meaning a more positive development than the overall volumes. So I know it complicates things a little bit, but that is actually a very important KPI that the division are using. Page number 5 speaks to the air freight product. You can see that we have declining volume development of 20% in the quarter, but we actually see a small increase in the yield. It is reflecting also here our pricing discipline and also the efficient management of the capacity.
We are pleased about the situation that we have when it comes to our charter network and the spot market that we are in. It's still volumes out of APAC that shows the weakest development. Overall, we are happy also here that we have seen the weak volume development being offset by higher yields. Page 6, Sea Freight, a little bit the same story. Also here, a good yield development, also reflected or caused by pricing discipline. We have tried to remain also here rational in our pricing and that has led us to achieving yields which are actually up sequentially.
Also here we've seen the negative development in volumes. We are down 12%. I didn't say that, but as with Air Freight, we have seen a positive momentum going into the quarter. There's also hope that this will continue into the in the coming quarters. In Sea Freight, it's worth noticing also that also here it's the number of shipments that count. We have a very positive development in our LCL product, which is, as you would probably know, a product where we combine cargo from different customers into one container.
When you count it, you will count it as 1 TU, but for us it can be up to, you know, many shipments in 1 container, meaning that you can make many times more yields or the profit on an LCL container than on average. That also complicates things, but it's also partly the reason that we have seen the good development on the yields. I'll flip to page 7, Road. I must say, really, really fantastic result in a also declining market. There are no basic statistics that we can use for the market, but it is our very, very clear understanding that we have taken market share gains.
We do see that the new Roadway Forward product is being embraced to a very high degree in the market. We have won some new significant contracts with customers that like the product that we offer in a more structured way now than what we did in the past. We've seen increase in gross profit and we've also seen that the Road division have managed to keep their very high EBIT of close to half a billion DKK in the quarter. This is something that we are very, very pleased about. The margins on the bottom half of the slide, I guess, they speak for themselves.
Solutions, at first glance, it looks maybe not so good compared to a year ago. We are comparing to probably one of the best quarters the division have ever had. We've talked about it many times. The results of the division is always more volatile than what we have seen in others, in the two other divisions. Still, I think also here the margins, an EBIT margin of close to 10%, speaks for itself. It is industry-leading, or at least amongst the highest in the industry. We're very, very pleased about that. As we grow also, with our campus and consolidation strategy, you also need to be aware that it does change the mix a little bit in the reporting.
It will mean that we will get over time, higher depreciations, but also higher GP. You can see that also reflected here, in the quarter where the gross margin increased to 40%, and still we have, if I may just remind you, a conversion ratio of 24% and EBIT margin of close to 10%. We are sure that the whole division will continue and deliver very strong results for the full year 2023. With this said, before I just hand over to Michael, just wanted to, because I forgot to say that at the beginning, when we get into Q&A, if you also this time will restrict yourself.
I know it can be difficult, but if you can restrict yourself to pose only two questions, and if your questions have already been asked, not to ask it once again. With this brief overview of the results, I'll hand over to you, Michael.
Thank you, Jens Bjørn. On page nine, I will just have some few additional comments to the run through what Jens Bjørn has already done. If we look at our P&L, the first line is obviously the revenue and it was impacted by the lower freight rates and also the declining volume. More than 30% decline in that one. However, we managed to have continued strong yields, so it did not flow through to the gross profit level as well. Also came to an EBIT with DKK 4.7 billion for the quarter as well.
If we look a little bit about some of the elements in there, obviously the cost base, it's something that we need to carefully monitor, as we do. As you see, there's a slightly increase compared to last year, driven mainly by inflation. If you at the same time combine that with the number of FTEs, you can see compared to last year, we have reduced the number of FTEs with more than 2,700. Roughly, 2,000 of those is white collar. If you look, compared to the previous quarter, it's around 1,700 or so that has been reduced. We have already reduced some of the cost base.
It's clearly that we monitor that closely, but it is impacted by the cost inflation that in some parts of the world are close to two digits as well. That is a focus area for us, obviously. The tax rates is 24% in line with what we have expected. Then EPS growth, I think Jens Bjørn already mentioned that we had a growth in the earnings per share, mainly driven by the earnings as well, and decline in the average number of issued shares, where we reduced significant number of shares last year. That's on the P&L. If we slip to skip to slide number 10 with the cash flow, it's a very strong cash flow.
Jens Bjørn mentioned it also in the beginning. It's nearly as high as it was last year. That is something that we are proud of, driven mainly by, of course, the result, but also the significant improvement in our net working capital. I think Jens Bjørn already alluded to a little bit that it has an impact when the rates are declining, and we keep having money paid in from where it was a little bit higher. We have paid us additional money in tax, that's the increase in the cash flow is offset by that as well.
It's clear that for the net working capital, we continue to monitor and make sure that we have focus on this area. The gearing ratio, it's remained at one time the end of Q1 here. We expect our gearing ratio to increase a little bit in line with the EBITDA that declined. Every quarter, when we switch an old quarter for a new quarter, the earnings are a little bit lower, that will have an impact on the gearing ratio as well. Of course, we still have an aim to be well below two times on that one. We have a strong balance sheet.
We have our duration of corporate bonds and loans and credit facilities is 8 years at the end of Q1. So still a strong balance sheet and ROIC in line with last year as well. So all in all, a strong cash flow for the quarter. That has on page 11, has also led us to initiate a new share buyback under the safe harbor regulation. We have announced this morning that we have started a new share buyback of DKK 4.5 billion. So we can actually more or less continue the journey that we have last year, where we have one-to-one nearly the EBIT converted into share buybacks.
That has been started and will run until no later than 24th of July, where we will announce our Q2 as well. We concluded yesterday the share buyback that we started. It was the last time we announced the share buyback. That means that, based on the things that we have committed right now, that would mean that, or we have announced, that we approximately will have, when we come to the end of Q2 here, we will have acquired 9.6 billion DKK of shares back. I think that's that was it from my side. I think we jump to the Q&A session.
Thank you. To ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, please press five star again. We'll have a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question is from the line of Robert Joynson from BNP. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Good morning, everybody. First question from me on Air & Sea gross profit. You've previously spoken about the expectation that both gross profit per ton and the gross profit per container would be down by around 20%-25% for 2023 versus 2022. If I just back out what that would imply now for the remaining 3 quarters of the year if I use the midpoint, we basically would be looking at a year-on-year reduction of closer to 30% of the remaining 3 quarters. Effectively, the drop that you talked about would be more back-end loaded. I mean, to just in that context, is 20%-25% still the expected range, or is that maybe looking a bit pessimistic now for the year?
Then the second question on Air & Sea SG&A. It was down by around 2% versus Q4, which is similar to the headcount reduction that you mentioned during the presentation. Just on that theme, should we [expect] the headcount reductions will continue into Q2, i.e. headcount will go down further in Q2? Also should we expect that SG&A in the Air & Sea division specifically, will continue to decline during Q2 as well? Thank you very much.
I think I'll answer them. It's Jens here, Jens Lund speaking. I think on the GP, we've actually seen that the mix has changed a little bit on what we're doing. We see that the shipments have become smaller, we haven't seen the same decline as earlier mentioned in the number of shipments. I think we will probably not expect, what can I say, the GP for the year to decline 20%-25%, but more in the region of 20%. It could even be a little bit lower. You should expect that the yields, they come down, but perhaps not as much as originally anticipated. When it comes to the SG&A, it's, you know, on the decline.
We have, of course, had a situation where we've adapted the number of FTEs, you know, so that it fits the volume that we produce. We've not been out with large programs. We've sort of done it more as per natural reduction. We still have staff turnover and people that retire. This takes a little bit of time and is phased in, and that's the reason why we also expect in the coming quarters to see a little reduction on the SG&A side, so that we, as we always do, with an satellite business, adjust our cost base to the volume that we produce.
All clear. Thank you.
Thank you, Robert. Our next question will be the line from Michael Rasmussen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead, your line will now be unmuted.
Thank you very much. Well done, guys. Two questions from me. First of all, if we could talk a little bit about the groupage in Road. I noticed that you added a bit of the comments in this slide pack here, back from the capital markets day on your ambitions, yeah. But just how are you gonna drive this further? Obviously, I understand that it's a very appealing category. But are you able to drive this further organically, or would you be seeing any targets out there that has some systems, some terminals that would add interest to, or boost growth basically to that part of the business? So that's my first question.
Yeah. I think I can answer that as well. It's basically a structure where we today have approximately 200 terminals in Europe, and they are connected in, what can I say, a fixed schedule, almost as if you go on a train or on the bus, then you know when you depart and when you arrive. That's, of course, what is interesting in the smaller shipment segment, that you know, what does it cost and what is the lead time. That is very important, and then from postcode to postcode, so we can serve the whole market.
You then run a system like this, it is very important that you have many passengers on the bus or many pallets that you move, because then you can take advantage and leverage on the infrastructure that you have. Right now, the focus is on establishing this. I think all the lanes are up and running in the whole network here from the first of May. We cover all of Europe. Once that's up and running, we need further system support, you know, the Roadway Forward that we've talked about sometimes, where we can automate large pieces of this production of that network. We continue on that journey.
Once these items are in place, or perhaps sometimes even before, if it's relevant, you could add more volume to it, then you can take the infrastructure that you have and produce the volume that you procure in the same infrastructure. That's where you get the economies of scale and the benefits that lies in that. It's a long journey, but we have embarked on it, and I'm very confident based on what we've done, that we will continue to make significant progress in this area.
The second part of the question was M&A, Michael. It does not, it's not a prerequisite for the continued growth. It's, it can be also a very organic journey where we actually do have a lot of traction. It is, in a way, it's the same we offer, but it's done in a much more systematic and structured way, the way that we can commercialize this activity. We, that's why I say we have a lot of traction. That does not mean that we will not be open for acquisitions also. Should something come along, which would fit into the network, we would of course have a look at it. It's not something we need to kind of achieve the continued earnings growth in the division.
Okay, great. It was just the 200 terminals I was wondering a little bit about. I think, Schenker has, more than, 400 terminals, I think in Germany alone. Okay. My next question is actually linked, slightly to this one here, and that's, the comment that you made earlier, Jens Bjørn, on that you had gained c ontract wins, due to Roadway Forward. That surprised me a little bit because I thought that you were just on the very early phases of the rollouts in Eastern Europe and hadn't even gone into Germany there yet. Is this more of a local win? And do you expect to gain market share once you're up and running in large countries like Poland and Germany?
Well, Michael, maybe I didn't explain this well enough, because you can say Roadway Forward consists of many things. One track, which is also very, very, very important, don't misunderstand me, that's the TMS, so the transport management, so the technical, the IT, the digitalization of the processes. You're right in saying that this is very, very, very early stage. The other track, which we have already implemented, which we also call Roadway Forward, it's what Jens just elaborated on and explained to you before. It's the more centralistic approach that we have, where we have. It's not up to each and every country to decide when they have departures. We have a more central pricing structure now, more central procurement of haulage also.
This is something which we have gone to market with before we have actually implemented the digital part of Roadway Forward. This is what the market seems to like at this moment in time. Sorry for that confusion.
No, that's fine. It's gonna be very interesting to follow that in the years to come. Thank you very much, guys.
Thank you, Michael. The next question will be the line of Christian Nedelcu from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hi, thank you for taking my questions. Maybe the first one, coming back to yields in Air & Sea. Could you make any comments on how the quarter started, how Q2 started here, and maybe in particular in the context of the spike in the ocean rates that we saw over the last few weeks? I appreciate your answer earlier that the yields will drop maybe less than initially thought earlier this year. Has your view changed on the yields exit rate either in Air or Ocean? The second one, if I may, you talked about the restructuring cost that you will book above your EBIT line this year. Could you give us a bit of color around the size of the restructuring cost?
I guess, just to help us a bit in building the EBIT bridge for, FY 2024. Thank you.
I think if we take the yields during the first quarter, we've not necessarily seen what can I say? We've seen a volatile situation, but we've not seen a, you know, a very significant drop. Of course, they are expected to taper off some of the good yields we have. We've not really seen it yet. For the exit yields for the year, as we also mentioned, we can actually see that one thing is to measure TEU and tons, but if we look at the number of shipments, we are not that dramatically down. We have a, what can I say, a lower reduction. We see that the mix seems to have changed a little bit, and that of course, has an impact on the exit rate.
It's probably gonna be a little bit to the higher end of what we initially expected. Time will tell, of course, how the market, it evolves. Given the information we have now, we are, of course, very, you know, positive about the fact that we come out stronger on GP than we had sort of initially guided. I think it's because of this strategy where you try to protect also your income and still are, of course, looking after that you don't lose too much volume. I think this balance has been struck very well by the organization. We've seen that in previous crises as well. It's, in a way, it's nothing new, but it's always nice to get it confirmed.
Maybe, Michael, the restructuring part.
Yes.
Uh.
The way we account for.
Yes. I can tell you a little bit about the restructuring.
Talk about why we don't put it on the specialized.
Yes. I can say that I think it's important to understand that we haven't launched a huge global cost-saving initiatives. Of course, we monitor the situation locally, regionally in terms of the volume development, so we always have the right capacity to handle the needed volume. That's something that we do every month, every week. For the Q1, the number, you can say, of redundancies cost that we have expensed is roughly DKK 30 million-DKK 40 million. It is not material. The majority of the reductions in terms of headcount is done by a natural churn. You say, how much will it be for the remaining part of the years?
Maybe you can say we'll have additional DKK 30 million-DKK 40 million in the next quarter, and then we will need to monitor the situation and see if we are doing okay on that level in terms of productivity and service level towards the customers.
Maybe give a few numbers in the number of headcount.
No.
We talked about it before.
Okay.
Good.
Thanks, Christian. Our next question will be from Sathish Sivakumar from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Yeah. Thank you. I've got two questions here. Firstly, on the vessels utilization, you did make comment that it has actually slightly started to soften or decline. Any color on where are you seeing that softness or decrease in vessel utilization by markets would be appreciated. Then the second one on your LCL product that you mentioned, that one of the reasons why you're seeing ears being slightly more stronger in sea freight. What is the typical premium that you get on LCL product versus, say, the, other non-LCL product? Is this all LCL is because of your SMEs exposure? Is that what driving this product, in, let's say, increase in LCL contribution? Thank you.
I think the utilization is... When we were at our peak, we were sort of at 92%, 93% full. I think we are now perhaps more in the 90% area. That doesn't necessarily say anything because we have multi-client setups. I actually think that many of the customers have contracted more, but we've basically managed to attract more volume to our site. Some of our customers have seen larger decreases. For us, our utilization it's still due to the multi-client setup we have very high. I think we are still around the 90% mark. If you look at it for the individual customers, less segment, then of course you find some of them have definitely decreased their footprint with us. I think that's basically it.
I would say that it's across the board, but it's definitely from a geographical point of view. It's customers that are within retail, for example, they have a focus on, what can I say, reducing their stock levels, no doubt about that. When it comes to the LCL cargo, I think, what is it that drives the product or the profitability? Let's say you have one ton of air freight. Normally the handling, the custom clearance fees, et cetera, that you receive, they amount to certain fee levels that you get. It's more like per transaction. Let's say you have the same shipment and it is 500 kilos. You actually still do the same paperwork. You more or less have to do the same handling.
Of course, if you are the airline, you only have to move 500 kilos, not 1 ton. Of course, on the, on the freight, it means a lot. On all the other services, there's not that much of a difference. Let's say you consolidate a lot of shipments, and they are a little bit smaller, then actually your income per TU or per ton, it's very often higher, than if you produce it, you know, with larger shipments.
That's the reason why we say, "Listen, we're down, let's say roughly 20% on air freight, but we are perhaps down less than 10% on the shipment volume." That's sort of then what keeps the yields up, because we then manage to consolidate this in our gateways, just as an example. I think it's this dynamic you see. Of course, serving the SME segment, is an advantage because you would typically have many of these smaller shipments that you can consolidate. I would also say that the division has, you know, done some work on the strategy, where they actually put extra focus on gateways and CFSs, the container freight stations. It's actually also a product of the efforts that they have put in.
Have we lost?
Thank you, Sathish. Our next question will be the line of Dan Togo from Carnegie. Please go ahead, you will now be unmute.
Thank you. Maybe some color also on the market share gains that you hope to have at some point. How will that be achieved? Will this further boost the LTL and LCL, so to say mix, and of course, be beneficial to yields going forward? Will it be attacking more larger clients in order to gain volume fast, so to say? What will the strategy be here, and how should we think of that mix going forward? Maybe some flavor on how Q2 have started. I understand that March, so the exit of Q1, was pretty healthy.
Can you give some color on how we've started Q2 volume-wise, and do we see, so to say, a normalization and then a beginning build-up towards some sort of summer peak in volumes? Thanks.
We don't disclose too much about the current period of time, Dan, or the current period that we operate in right now. I think we can say that, we've seen more or less a continuation of what we've seen in April or in March going into April. No big change, no massive pickup, in volume or anything like that, but not the contrary either. No big signs, I have to say, of any peak, up to summer yet in the volumes. You can see, read the port statistics and stuff as well as we can. When it comes to market share gains, it's just simply saying that, over a long period of time, you should expect us to take gains.
This is what we ask ourselves, a company with our position and capabilities should be able to grow faster than the market. Of course, we've never been the company with the highest growth. We have, though, been a company with the highest margins, and highest earnings, in some ways at least. This is, of course, what is the most important for us. In sea freight, it will come from both. It's not that we a re not attacking the FCL market. We have actually also had some nice gains in the quarter on that, which has probably not been reflected in the numbers. It's the same with the staff reductions, of course. If it happens in a quarter, It does not have a full effect in that current quarter, it will only have an effect in the coming quarter.
Of course, we are happy about the LCL network. We've taken more ownership. We do produce more in our own system. We use the so-called consolidators to a lower degree, and that has also helped the. It's a little bit more difficult. You need to put more time into the operations when you produce it yourself instead of just booking it to a consolidator. Of course, the reward is a higher profit on the shipments. I think growth, or I know that growth will come from both a focus on all products as such in the sea freight space.
A change in mix going forward. More or less the same mix with the between, full loads and part loads, or will it be skewed towards the part loads?
LCL will probably number of shipments, but a number of TUs, not because it's not massive amounts. I don't know if we have the numbers at hand, but how many, what percentage of LCL of number of TUs, it's only about 5% or something like that. You would probably not see it in the TU numbers.
Okay. Thank you.
More or less same.
Right.
Thanks, Dan. The next question will be from the line of Muneeba Kayani from Bank of America. You'll now be unmuted.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. On your guidance, you've maintained the sentence there which says that you assume markets will gradually recover in the second half of the year. Just wanted to understand, what's your visibility on that at this point? Or do you have more conviction in that second half recovery now than when we spoke at the 4Q earnings call? That's my first question. Secondly, just going back to air and the yields which were sequentially up in the first quarter. Just trying to unpack how much of this was, this mixed with the smaller shipments versus just a benefit from a declining spot trade. Can you help us break that down? Thank you.
I can start by answering the questions about the guidance. Yeah, you can say obviously a couple of months has passed since the last time we spoke, so in that manner, we should have a little bit more visibility. We don't have such a clear visibility about when you can say the expected turn or when the inventory levels will have been lowered so much so you can say it start to generate building of inventories as well. We continue to expect with the knowledge that we have and what we can see now, that in Q3, we don't know when, then we expect to see a growth in volumes again.
I think on the yield side, I don't think we can disclose more than we have done. We can just see that we don't necessarily have, what can I say, reporting where we get the full visibility on what is actually the impact of declining rates and what is the impact of us doing more LCL. We don't have, you know, a very precise view on that. We can say that the LCL, it accounts for, let's say 5 to 6, 7% of our volume. Of course, we know what we then make on income per file, and we can then see, you know, that on the small shipments, we have the same, more or less, average income. That's sort of how we measure that. We don't have a consolidated view on it.
Thank you.
Thank you, [Munee]. Our next question will be from the line of Sam Bland from JP Morgan. Please go ahead, your line will now be unmuted.
Yeah, thanks. Second question. I've got 2 that they're sort of roughly on that last question, actually, and about the benefit from falling spot rates. I suppose, like, unit margins went up quarter-on-quarter. You talked about it being to sort of focus on yield. Did customer mix change particularly quarter-on-quarter, and that's why the unit margin went up? Or was it something else that improved quarter-on-quarter? The second question is, you, if we take that guidance for the full year, the 20% decline in yields full year versus full year, that implies quite a sharp decline as the, as the year goes on. What's the thing that sort of gets worse on the yields as the year progresses?
If it's, you know, I guess I'm thinking it might be that this benefit from lower spot rates dissipates, but maybe it's something else. Thank you.
You are spot on when it comes to your spot. Spot on when it comes to that, because, of course, you're right in saying that, we've always talked, as far as I, or as long as I can remember about this also so-called delay effect, that benefits a company like DSV when rates are dropping. Of course, there will always be a delay before that is settled in customer rates. The opposite, of course, applies when rates are sharply going up. That penalizes a company like DSV. It's probably to a lower degree than what it normally was because everybody is super aware about what is happening in the market right now. There's been no change quarter-over-quarter.
You can simply not change your customer mix from one quarter to another. It will take many, many years if a company needed to change its customer mix. Unless you kind of eliminate a very large degree of existing contracts, which you would never do, then you can never go from being a company only dealing with small customers to a company dealing with large customers or the other way around. It's simply not possible in our industry. I know people perceive us sometimes as an SME company. We love all our customers, the small ones, the middle-sized ones, but we also are very, very happy with the superpowers of the blue-chip multinational customers that we deal with.
They are, very important to our strategy as well. I don't know, Michael, do you wanna say something?
Yeah, I can say a little bit, maybe a little more about the guidance. I think, you asked what has gone worse. I think the truth, I don't know whether anything has gone worse. If you notice, we've changed our wording a little bit in terms of the basis or the conditions for the expectations for the remaining part of the years. Where we previously expected a decline in the volume of 2%-5%, where we said now we expect around 5%. That means that of course, in the second half of this year, we expect a more increase in number of shipments. I think in terms of the yields, it has been said a lot about the yields.
It's a little bit higher than the, than what we have anticipated, and both Jens and Jens has talked about that. That will of course also influence the remaining part of the year in terms of expectations, since we have already first quarter have had a little bit higher yield than anticipated.
Is there some element of it which is, as volume recovers, the sort of volume that comes back tends to have a lower yield than what you have at the moment?
Yeah. That's the expectations or the scenario that we have worked with a long time. As we also got more and more information, you can say, from wherever month passes by and maybe the value-adding part of the shipments is like Jens has also explained earlier on the call, can maybe mean that the yields will not decline to the same level as we, at one point in time has expected.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Sam. Our next question will be from the line of Alexia from Barclays. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Thank you. Good morning. It's Alexia from Barclays. Just two as well. Just firstly, on the number of shipments, you said 10% down for sea freight for volumes down 20%. Can you just clarify for sea freight, just for completeness, so we have that number in hand, please? Secondly, on the share buyback, Michael, you mentioned you will have done DKK 9 billion by the first half. Should we expect the same amount for the second half? Thanks.
I can just make it very. I know it's on the desk of Michael. On behalf of the whole company, the board of directors and everybody, the strategy of DSV of continuing to do share buybacks and use the free cash flow to do buybacks absent of M&A, is very, very clear. It's almost carved in Scandinavian granite. We will not change that. If we don't do M&A, we, you can expect a continuation of the buyback program. Michael, please feel free to.
No, I think that's exactly. If we earn the cash, we will, and we don't have any thing like as [Bjørn] mentioned, then we will buy back shares as we have done so far.
The minus 10 Jens, a little bit on the shipments and Air & Sea.
The example I gave was actually on air freight. We're approximately down, I think, 20% on air freight. We're probably down 10% on the shipment count. I think on the ocean freight, we also see that the shipment count is roughly down half of what can I say, the decline of the gap is sort of approximately half. This means that we have more LCL, more, more smaller shipments relatively to what can I say, TEUs or tons that we produce.
Okay. That's helpful. Can I just follow up then, for the full year, if we're thinking volumes down up to 5%, should we expect a 50% decline of shipments which kind of help us think about FBEs for the full year? Is that sort of roughly what we're talking about in the current environment?
It's hard to say. I actually think that the strategic focus we have on these products will at a certain point in time mean that we will have a more disproportionate, what can I say, shift towards some of these smaller consignments, because we really have a big focus on the consolidation work we can do in our gateways. So that's basically where we're at. It's, but this is the numbers we have right now, and there's a focus on continuing that journey, because this means we add more value to the shipment. After all, what really matters is how much GP do you make. This, what can I say, the number of TEUs or tons is not necessarily the only, what can I say, yardstick you can measure on.
For us, it's actually the shipment count that is the most important. The other ones are more objective, because they can all be compared across companies.
The shipment count might be different. Some companies count in a different way. We've seen when we've done M&A, and we count in our way. In reality, we can only compare to our own numbers.
Great. Thank you.
Thanks, Alexia. Our next question will be from the line of Parash Jain from HSBC. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hi. Thank you. This is Parash here from HSBC Hong Kong. My question is, when we look at the Air & Sea yield, from your perspective in terms of securing the freight trade both on the air and sea, is it fair to say that with respect to sea freight, probably those rates have close to bottom out, whereas with respect to air, probably there could be further downside you would expect going into the second half with more of the Chinese belly capacity returning back and probably the air cargo demand likely to train sea cargo? Do you see that with the development in terms of the price at which you can secure the air and sea space? That's my first question.
I guess it's a fair assumption when you say at least we have more firm on the sea freight side than maybe on the air freight side. It is relevant to assume that the sea freight rates, even though it's not so relevant for DSV, that they have somewhat bottomed out. We have also seen, I'm sure you're aware of, that the rates have picked up a just a little bit recently. Then of course, you could argue what happens when the new capacity comes in later on this year and at the beginning of next year. It's relatively speculative, we have to look at that.
If you compare air freight rates to pre-pandemic levels, the cost of jet fuel is much higher and that keeps the rates a little bit also higher than what it was. It's also correct what you point out that when we see more belly space coming in, if demand is not picking up, of course, rates could drop even further. Again, it's not so relevant for DSV as we are more in the spot market, and we don't we are not big risk-takers in the company.
Also something that pleases us very much that we have gone into this year with no commitments made in 2022 in terms of fixed capacity that was priced at much higher levels. In the few cases where we have that's a 100% bulletproof back-to-back agreement with customers. It's sometimes tempting to sit and see if you should secure some capacity. You think you know all about what happens in the market, but often you are mistaken, and this is why we have always been short.
Yeah, no, fair enough. That makes perfect sense. My second question, just moving on the demand expectation, particularly going into the summer of this year. I mean, there has been expectation and commentary from a lot of retailers at this part of the year that a lot of the inventory destocking cycle may come to an end in May, June, and we will see some sort of pickup. When you continue to guide a decline of up to 5%, and that mathematically just implies somewhat positive growth for the remainder of the year. Is that based some sort of pickup in volume going into the peak season, or is just the low base of last year will do the trick?
Combination of both. Of course, comps will be easier as we did start to see the decline in 2022, but you're also right in saying that one day inventories will be not maybe empty, but lower than what they were used to be, and that should of course, be positive for future demand. If that's gonna happen in exactly May or June, we just don't know. It's not a bad assumption anyway.
Perfect. Thank you, and have a lovely day.
Thanks, Parash. Our next question will be from the line of Ulrik Bak from SEB. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Yes. Hello, everyone. Two questions from my side. I'll take them one by one. Another one on the yield increases in Air & Sea. I understand that it's partly driven by these more shipments than volumes. What has changed compared to Q4, where we saw a sequential drop of 15%-20% in the yield to now when we now see a 5%-10% increase sequentially? Also the trajectory for the rest of the year, do you expect it to be more gradual or at some point a steep drop? That would be the first question. Thanks.
I think the volatility is down in the market. There was still volatility in, at the end of last year. Of course, if you sit in a market with a lot of volatility and you are a broker that sit in between it, offers some opportunity. I think now that the market is very transparent and very clear, of course, the possibility, what can I say, to make extra margin on your shipments is lower.
For the remaining part of the year, of course, we expect as we've already said, that it will come down. It's been very volatile, so it'll probably come in some steps depending on what is happening. I don't think that you can just draw a line and then say, "This is how it's gonna pan out." I think we can't add more color to the yields today. I think we've sort of been around that topic. Let's have the second question.
Yes. Okay. That goes to the LCL share of your volumes. You mentioned, I believe 5%-7% of the Q1 volumes were LCL. How much can this share potentially grow to? Do you have any target to that? Also, have these LCL share volumes benefited from the declining volumes, meaning that customers don't have to move full containers or full tons of cargo? Is an element of that. Thank you.
Just to clarify, when we say a 5%, it's a 5% the number of TUs. Of course, in, as a proportion of the shipments, it's higher as you have more shipments in one container. I don't know, Jens, if you wanna...
No. It accounts for, according to our estimations, probably in the 15%-20% region of our GP. That's at least what we have extrapolated out of the systems. We don't have the exact, what can I say? At least not here, the exact number for the other thing. This, what can I say? Proportion of our business we intend to grow and we intend to continue to develop. It is not, what can I say, as impacted by the container freight rate or the air freight rate per kilo. It's not as impacted when the market fluctuates, because there's a lot of, what can I say, standard charges that comes on a shipment, as I explained before, that are virtually flat fees.
Of course, if you can increase that part, and now with the footprint we have, with the global reach and with the number of terminals that we have also on the Air & Sea side, it is something that we can leverage on and take advantage of.
If I can just say also, it's not that LCL is something new in DSV. We have always done it, but it has been done in a somewhat decentralized way. It's one of these journeys that we're on in our company as we have grown. We've not always been fast enough at what you say, using and leveraging on our new scale. We have seen with the size we have now, we are, if not the then amongst the top, yeah, top players globally on the LCL. That gives some benefits if we look at this at a more structured and centralized perspective. We are still extremely dependent on the local knowledge that we have in the network.
If we can make a more centralized setup, where we agree, a way to organize the LCL, all of a sudden, we do become more competitive. That, that is partly also just by focusing on this product in a different way, the reason that we have been more successful. I'm sure we will find another, a lot of other areas in our company that can see kind of the same effect going forward.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Ulrik. Our next question will be from the line of Lars Heindorff from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Thank you. No questions regarding yields. Maybe then I can sneak in two and a half. It's regarding Solutions, -9% revenue growth in the first quarter. I don't know if you can help us a little bit about the trajectory going forward here. Is this -9%, is this caused by volume, prices, a combination of those two? How should we view that as we head into the coming quarters? The half question here will be around the gross margin, as you mentioned earlier. Is 40% sort of a new level where we should expect gross margins to be? The last one will be on net working capital. A very impressive improvement there. In the first quarter, obviously helped by the lower cargo rates.
Should we expect it to be around this level or will things start to normalize and rates doesn't decline any further? Do you expect that to go up again, the net working capital as a % of revenue? Thank you.
Michael, you take net working capital.
Yeah.
I'm sure Jens will go into Solutions.
Yes, I take net working capital. I think we haven't in the old days, we would like to keep it at 2%. I think we said that it will be in the range of 2% to maximum 3%. I think that is we will strive whatever we can to keep it at 2%, but it might be that it will be in the range of 2%-3%.
I think on the, on the other stuff, the GP is gonna be, I think, you know, the way we account for it, the way it looks, it's gonna be in this area. It's probably even gonna be trending, perhaps a little bit higher, the more automation we put in. It is kind of a direction we're going in, Lars, when it comes with that. Because you take out headcount, they are counted above, and then you put in depreciation instead, and that's sort of below the line. Of course, the volume/prices, I think it's, it is a little bit of a reduction in volume. As I also said, our utilization is a little bit lower, not dramatically lower.
A little bit lower and, of course, that all adds up when we look at it. There's been somewhat less activity, and we've had a little bit of a lower utilization of our warehouses. Given the size of the business we have, it's, you know, all of a sudden it means quite a bit if you look at the numbers and the results. I'm confident that sort of we are bottoming out, and then that we can expect that we will have some good quarters ahead. I think the comps in particular on some of the quarters last year in certain areas we, you know, we were producing, what can I say, extraordinary results. I think now we're just producing very good results.
Thank you.
I don't think we should be ashamed of a margin of 10%.
Thank you, Lars. Our next question is a follow-up from Muneeba Kayani from Bank of America. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Thank you. It's Muneeba Kayani from Bank of America again. I just wanted to ask on M&A, how could we finish a call without a question on that? What are you seeing? Any color you could provide on that, please?
It's a little bit the same as with the share buyback program. It's carved in stone also, the strategy of DSV. We've said it a million times, our industry is super fragmented. We believe in consolidation. We think we have generated a lot of value, not least to our shareholders, by doing M&A in the past. Actually, also to a lot of other stakeholders, surrounding the company. That's for another day. There are no changes to that philosophy. We are strong believers in M&A. It's a combination of some name targets that we have always, throughout all the years, been working on. Some of them we have managed to buy, others not, maybe, because they might not have been put up for sale.
Then, of course, also remaining opportunistic, being ready if an opportunity all of a sudden arises. The company is ready. We are beyond the GIL acquisition, so, I guess, one thing that prevented maybe a little bit M&A in 2022 was elevated price expectations from the sellers due to, of course, the very strong performance of many of our colleagues around the world also. It's our belief and understanding that this will be kind of recalibrated into 2023, when we get a couple of quarters under our belt with more normalized earnings. We have the expectation that sellers and buyers can meet on a more level playing field.
Yeah, we are optimistic about M&A, and nothing as such have changed in our strategy when it comes to doing acquisitions going forward. Thank you for the question.
Thank you.
Thank you. As there are no further questions, I'll hand the word back to the speakers for any closing remarks.
Yes, thank you very much for all your detailed questions. As always, it's been a pleasure, communicating and interacting with you. You know where to find us if we have not answered your questions to a satisfactory degree. You're always welcome to reach out to Flemming Ole Nielsen and the rest of the investor relations team. They'll be ready to engage with you. We'll go on roadshow speaking to investors now in the coming weeks, and we look very much forward to that. With these final remarks, I wish you all a nice day. Thank you and goodbye here from Hedehusene.