For the first part of this call, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Afterwards, there will be a question and answer session. To ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. This call is being recorded, I will now hand you over to the speakers. Please begin.
Good morning. Welcome to H+H conference call covering the first half of 2023. My name is Niclas Bo Kristensen, responsible for investor relations and treasury. With me on this call are our CEO, Jörg Brinkmann, and our CFO, Peter Klovgaard-Jørgensen. Yesterday evening, the half year report and related documents, including the presentation for this call, was put on our investor relations website. During the call, management will present the interim financial report, followed by Q&A session. Please be aware that this call is being recorded and will be made available on our investor relations website after this call. Before handing the call over to Jörg and Peter, I would like to direct your attention to the disclaimer on Page two . During this call, the executive board might share forward-looking statements regarding various aspects of our business and company that go beyond historical facts.
These statements are built on current expectation and assumptions, hence they are exposed to certain risks and uncertainties. Numerous factors could lead to substantial differences in actual results. For more details about the risk factors, please see the annual report for 2022. With that, I will now turn the call over to Jörg.
Yeah, thank you, Niclas. Good morning to everyone participating in this call this morning. Before I talk you through our Q2 results, I would like to comment on our guidance change that we've published yesterday evening. You will see from our Q2 numbers that volumes and earnings actually have improved compared to quarter one. Unfortunately, this positive trend that we were seeing doesn't hold. We are already seeing today that volumes in CWE and U.K. in the summer months of July and August are significantly weaker than we've expected. Additionally, we are observing increasing price pressure in the German market. This new development is impacting our top line, and we are looking into a more negative organic growth than expected, also hitting our EBIT for the second half of the year. We will certainly elaborate more on this throughout this call.
Before we do this, let's take a look into the quarter's financials. Please turn to Page four. During the second quarter, building activity in Europe remained at low levels. Organic growth amounted to - 26%. This result is mainly driven by a negative volume trend of approximately 40%. However, in a market that was declining in that magnitude, we were able to successfully implement the planned price increases throughout quarter two and pass on inflation to the market. The gross margin declined to 24%, compared to 32% in quarter two, 2022. The lower gross profit margin whereas last year, is only partly driven by a loss of overhead recovery, as we are mitigating this effect with our network efficiency measures. The major part is coming from a lack of margin on increased production costs, including the cost of energy.
As we are having fairly high depreciation, also from latest acquisitions we've done in Germany, the EBITDA margin is a good indicator and was still 12% in Q2 2023, compared to 23% in Q2 last year. However, the massive hit in volumes of 40% impacts our EBIT compared to quarter two last year. EBIT before special items amounted to DKK 38 million in quarter two, 2023, compared to DKK 177 million in quarter two last year, corresponding to EBIT margins before special items of 5% and 18%, respectively. Our free cash flow was negative by DKK 36.68 million, driven by restructuring costs and CapEx spend. Finally, financial gearing was 2x EBITDA, primarily driven by a negative working capital development in quarter one.
This remains within our long-term financial target of one to two times EBITDA, and we are carefully watching the development given the changes in the business. Overall, there were low volumes in Q2, which had a significant impact on our financial performance. Nevertheless, we've made good progress to lend price increases as planned, and we were seeing early effects from our business improvement measures, which I will come to later. Now I will provide an update of the situation in our markets on Page five. The new build market in Europe is most likely one of the hardest hit segment in our economy. The war in Ukraine has changed the parameters for residential new build completely. Never have we experienced such steep increase of interest rates. This, in combination with high building costs, forces people to completely rethink their building projects.
As a consequence of this, many are postponing their decision to build. Some same is valid for institutional investors, adjusting to the demand and more and more postponing new build projects, a picture we are seeing in all our markets. In numbers, we are looking into 30%-40% less building permits issued across our markets. Even lower is the number of mortgage contracts currently being issued, which are even down to 50% in some areas. If we study the data, in the last couple of weeks, we are seeing that the downward trend is kind of plateauing, and it looks like that the market has found a new base level. However, we do not expect a fast recovery. Without positive signs of the interest rate development or meaningful government support programs, it is very unlikely that the situation will change.
Only positive is that the demand for housing is still high, and the backlog is increasing every day. This situation will force governments to react sooner or later. Whereas we are seeing the same general picture across our group, the development is slightly different in each of our markets on Page six. Starting off with Central Western Europe. In Germany, permissions for new buildings from January to May 2023 decreased 33% compared to last year, and high interest rates have resulted in a reduction of new mortgage loans for private investors. Institutional investors hesitate to initiate new projects, and demand for one and two family homes from private investors declined from last year.
However, the underlying housing demand remains high due to a continued shortage of housing, especially in the larger cities, and the number of building permits issued continues to exceed the number of completions, adding further to the construction backlog. Although there are some reluctance to undertake new projects in multifamily houses before selling current portfolios, the rental market remains also undersupplied. In a challenging market environment where we are beginning to see downward price pressure, our CWE business has delivered -20% organic growth in Q2 and -14% for the six months compared to last year, as we were able to expand our market position while so far maintaining prices and pass on inflation. Continuing with U.K. In the U.K., high interest rates are making mortgages less affordable, and combined with high inflation, they are reducing consumer spending significantly.
Currently, mortgage rates are the highest they've been in 15 years, at levels of 6%-7%. In the U.K., we are observing a lack of housing. The U.K. government recently said that they want to build one million homes, for this to work, we need interest rates to go down or government support programs like the recently stopped Help to Buy being reissued. In the U.K., the number of new home registrations fell by 42% in the second quarter of 2023 compared to the same period last year. For the quarter, in the U.K., we were able to maintain prices and increase volumes with foundation blocks and new customers, which resulted in - 18% organic growth in Q2 and - 26 for the first six months of the year. Finally, going to Poland.
In our Polish market, we are starting to see demand recover slowly, although still impacted by the high level of economic uncertainty, with building activity further constrained by growing inflation and continued high interest rates. The number of building permits in Poland decreased by 35% from January to June 2023 compared to last year, with developers being the most affected. In this market environment, our Polish business delivered an organic growth of -45% in Q2 and -40% for the first six months. The Polish government has recently introduced a program called Safe Credit with a 2% interest rate. The purpose is to encourage, especially younger homeowners, to realize their investments now. Fundamentals of the program is: if you are buying a home for the first time, you can use the program to get meaningful financing at a reasonable interest level for 10 years.
While its impact remains uncertain and the program is fairly new, the initiative demonstrates that housing remains on top of the government's agenda, and we will observe the effects the program has. Despite the huge volume decline, we have implemented price increases, which are needed to pass on inflation. However, the competitive environment in Poland is challenging, and we are monitoring the market very closely to protect our leading position. Next, on Page seven, I will provide an update on our business improvement initiatives. The situation in all markets is extremely tough, and the July and August development shows how quickly the market can change. This is an area we cannot change and we don't have influence, but we are using the current market environment to proactively improve our business.
It is important for me to make clear that our initiatives are all aiming for a stronger organization in the future. Instead of only managing costs short term and eventually give up on future opportunities, we are reorganizing our company to be much stronger in the future. As we are a manufacturing company, the first crucial element is making our plant network more efficient. By consolidating plants in certain areas and redirecting volumes to bigger and better performing plants, we are achieving cost savings through scale. In this context, we've already shut down five of our former 32 plants and laid off 20% of our workforce. The total network capacity, however, will not suffer from this move, but will remain on former levels, lowering a more efficient supply in the future, and also comes along with better service for our customers.
Our efforts are based on lean manufacturing principles, and despite our current situation, it is exciting for me to see the first results coming in. The positive side effect is that with high utilization, our energy usage and CO2 emissions are improving up to 20%, which will also help to drive our ESG agenda in the future. The current lower sales volumes also open up to look into our organization and processes, allowing us to adjust our SG&A cost base. This is mainly achieved through better and standardized business processes, using more and more digital tools. The biggest potential in this field for the group exists in our CWE region, where we have untapped potential from former acquisitions by further integrating the business into one very lean organization. On top of fixed costs, we are driving several procurement initiatives during the current economic situation in many areas.
We are making good progress and have recently strengthened our group procurement function, and we have now also announced a central role for this. All our initiatives will certainly help to support the performance this year, but even more, we are building an even stronger company for when the markets will recover, driving both a great customer experience and better results in the future. Well, this concludes my opening remarks, and I will now turn the call to Peter for an update on our financials.
Thank you, Jörg, and welcome from me as well. I will take you through the financials for the quarter, starting with the revenue on Page eight. Total revenue decreased by 27% to DKK 231 million in the quarter, compared to DKK 1 billion last year. Organic growth was - 26% for the quarter, compared to + 13% last year. Organic growth across the group was driven by 39% lower volumes, offset by 13% price increases compared to last year. Price increases have been implemented across all regions, are increasingly coming under pressure. Revenue in the CWE decreased by 19% to DKK 355 million, compared to DKK 444 million last year.
Organic growth in the region was - 20%, as a result of lower sales volumes for both AAC and CSU, partly offset by higher sales prices equally for both product categories. Revenue in the U.K. decreased by 21% to DKK 222 million, compared to DKK 281 million last year. Organic growth in the U.K. was - 18%, which was demand-driven, partly offset by higher sales prices. Revenue in Poland decreased by 45% to DKK 154 million, compared to DKK 279 million last year. Organic growth was negative, also DKK 45 million, driven by a decrease in demand across both categories, slightly offset by sales price increases. Of the total revenue in the quarter of DKK 731 million, AAC and CSU constituted 71% and 29%, respectively.
Now moving to a review of our core earnings on Page nine. Earnings for the quarter is influenced by various factors. Firstly, we have obviously experienced a significant decline in sales volumes across all markets. Secondly, we have implemented price increases, which cover the past inflation on direct production costs, but not the full margin. Lastly, while we are adjusting our capacity to lower levels by utilizing more effective plants, the low volumes still negatively impact our incremental production costs. Together, these factors are negatively impacting our margins. Gross profit amounted to DKK 178 million, compared to DKK 320 million last year, corresponding to gross margins of 24% and 32%, respectively. EBITDA before special items amounted to DKK 87 million for the quarter, compared to DKK 227 million last year, corresponding to EBITDA margins of 12% and 23%, respectively.
The decrease compared to last year is driven by a lower gross profit and the SG&A cost base. However, this was partly offset by continued focus on adjusting the organization to the reduced sales volumes. EBIT before special items amounted to DKK 38 million in the quarter, compared to DKK 177 million last year, corresponding to EBIT margins of 5% and 18%, respectively. The significant drop in sales volume and EBITDA impacts our EBIT, as depreciation remained the same compared to last year. On Page 10, we will see the development in earnings for the first six months of the year. Gross profit in the first half of 2023 decreased by 41% to DKK 332 million, compared to DKK 564 million in 2022, corresponding to gross margins of 24% and 30%, respectively.
The decrease in gross profit margin is driven by the same reasons mentioned previously, including overhead costs spread over lower volumes and lack of margin recovery on past inflationary pressure on production costs, including energy expenses. EBITDA before special items in the first six months of 2023 decreased by 59% to DKK 159 million, compared to DKK 386 million last year, corresponding to EBITDA margins of 12% and 21%, respectively. Finally, EBIT before special items for the first six months of 2023 decreased by DKK 228 million compared to the first half of 2022, corresponding to EBIT margins of 4% and 15% respectively. Again, EBIT is negatively impacted by the lower EBITDA, combined with a fixed depreciation level. Next, please turn to Page 11 for a review of our net debt in the second quarter.
On 30th of June, 2023, net interest-bearing debt totaled DKK 875 million, corresponding to an increase of DKK 71 million since end of Q1. The increase in net interest-bearing debt for the quarter is driven by the lower earnings and CapEx. The company's financial gearing was 2x net interest-bearing debt to EBITDA, which remains within the company's long-term financial target of 1x-2x EBITDA. As investments for the year have been scaled back since beginning of the year, and we expect a stable inventory level, we expect net debt to decrease in the second half of the year. However, given the updated guidance, we anticipate that the net debt to EBITDA ratio will exceed our long-term target during the year. This, however, is not expected to put us in covenant risk.
The company's net interest bearing debt, excluding leasing, totaled DKK 800 million on 30th of June, corresponding to an unused committed bank facility of around DKK 200 million. Next, please turn to Page 12 for an update on special items and restructuring costs. The initiatives Jörg mentioned, includes restructuring of production costs and SG&A expenses. Total restructuring costs are now increased to expect it to be around DKK 100 million, still with a payback of less than one year. In the current quarter, DKK 45 million of restructuring costs related to the initiatives have been recognized as special items, resulting in a total of DKK 55 million for the first six months. The majority of these have been paid in the quarter, while the rest will be paid during Q2 and Q3 mainly.
As a result of the close down of five plants, a comprehensive evaluation of the recoverable amounts of production and related equipment was conducted, leading to the acknowledgment of impairment losses amounting to DKK 97 million. In the second quarter of the year, we faced a situation where gas contracts entered into in 2022 led us to sell unused gas to the market. This caused a loss of DKK 16 million, as the fixed gas prices for the sold gas were higher than the current market price. In addition, a loss of DKK 6 million was recognized by adjusting the fair value of the gas commodity forward contracts during the quarter. Next, please turn to Page 13 for an update on our financial guidance.
The ongoing challenges in the market are clear, and despite a positive trend in Q2, we have seen lower volumes in July and August, which leads to an update of our financial outlook for 2023. Consequently, we anticipate sales volume decrease of 30%-35% across all markets. In addition, we see an increase in competition in Germany. These directly impact our guidance, with updated organic growth to be negative, ranging from -20% to -25%, down from the previous estimate of around -15% to -20%. EBIT before special items are now projected within the range of DKK 30 million-DKK 100 million, down from the previous estimate of DKK 100 million-DKK 175 million.
We are using the current environment to improve our business, while we are seeing the first effects of these in the P&L, increased competition and increasing energy costs will negatively impact our earnings rest of the year. This concludes my prepared remarks. I will now turn the call back to Jörg for closing statements.
Now, thanks, Peter. Before opening for questions, let me conclude with a few final remarks on Page 14. The levels of new build activities across our markets are extremely low. The volume decline in the first half of 40% is severe, and we do not see significant improvements for the second half, especially now after the two summer months. Second, prices are under pressure. However, significant higher raw material costs and energy costs compared to last year drive us to maintain price quality in the market wherever we can. Third, as the market situation remains challenging, we are taking proactive steps to improve our operations. We are driving the efficiency of our plant network, improving our SG&A base, and keeping a strong focus on procurement to support the balance between price and cost.
All this we do to build an even stronger company for when the markets recover. With that, we are now ready to take your questions.
Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, you may do so by pressing five star again. There will be a brief pause while questions are being registered. The first question is from the line of Sebastian Grabe from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Hi, guys. Can you hear me now?
Yes. Hi, Sebastian.
Okay. Yeah, perfect. Okay, thank you for taking my questions. I will take them one by one. First here, on your guidance, what kind of end market volume assumptions are, are behind the updated guidance? As I recall, we have previously talked about around 30% decline in U.K. and CWE, and, and 40% decline in, in Poland. How are these, How are the updated figures?
In general, of course, our market data is always a little bit delayed. As Jörg mentioned, it's basically the most recent data we have from market development. What we have seen during these summer months is that we have seen a further decline during the summer period. Of course, thereby we're also indicating that the market volumes will, markets will, will further, further drop. In general, our, our overall view is, is still that Poland is worth it, and the 40, maybe up to 45%, and that the U.K. and CWE is around the 20%-25%.
Okay, okay. I hear you talk about end market volume development or your own internal volume development, just to be clear.
These are the market developments.
Okay, cheers. Thank you. If we look implicitly, in H2, it seems like you expect volumes to increase from H1, despite softness in July and August. Could you maybe help understand what is behind this assumption, and how do you really see volumes play out, play out over the coming quarters?
I think that, of course, if we first start with the first half of the year, then Q1 was very, very low, and we saw extremely slow start to the year. Still with the positive trend curve for Q2, and that has actually come through. We have seen volumes picking up gradually for every month during Q2. You would say our base assumption before was essentially that, that positive projection would continue up to a certain level and then be stable for rest of the year. What we're seeing now is that, that positive trend curve has basically been broken during these two summer months here.
Our base assumption essentially is that U.K. and will come back again, whereas CWE is just increase the market pressure. What we have seen, and as a positive sign, is that Poland actually have been fairly stable throughout this period, and therefore you can say that builds more on our confidence for the, for the Polish volumes.
That's a matter. On top of this, what makes it really hard to predict is that builders, they take their own choices how to manage capacities. I mean, think about it, the whole industry is faced with that downstream. They're deciding when doing holidays, when taking capacities out, right? How to actually streamline their own operations, and that is certainly impacting our business. But in general, there is, I mean, there's always seasonality, and obviously there's also seasonality in that current market environment. That is how that volume split is built over the year.
Okay, okay. I totally understand, that's, and that's totally fair. Maybe just to follow up, if you extrapolate on the current trading environment, I know sequential volume improvement from July, August, what kind of development are we looking at in H2 compared to H1, let's say?
Well, we always know that activity is somewhat slower during summer, and there is a natural seasonality around that. What we've seen in these two months is just that it's much more severe than what we typically see, and we also have seen an, an extended vacation period or, or summer, summer break. For us, we're not really assuming that the volumes on the July-August levels would continue for rest of the year, and therefore, for us, that's not really a, a scenario.
Okay. Okay, that's fair.
From today's perspective, we believe into a stronger autumn, and then, if you look at the quarters, Q2, Q3 is pretty much same like Q2, and then the Q4, if you look into that factor, certainly in December, right? I mean, that is what I'm talking about, seasonality. That is how that is built.
Okay, thank you. Thank you for the details. Y ou say that you see increasing pricing pressure, particularly in Germany, but, but, if I look at the relationship between your sales volume guidance and the organic growth guidance, I see no change in the implied ASP development. So how does this really make sense?
I think, overall, of course, we're talking guidance ranges here. You can say our, our guidance includes a certain impact of a price pressure. I think first and foremost, it's an expression of balancing price and volume, and that is our core. We do not believe that price decreases is the right way to go. We have still a impact from a high inflationary environment, and therefore, passing through is still the core focus for us, but it may come with reduced volumes.
... Okay, okay. And on that note, Peter, maybe just to remind us again, what is your pricing strategy across divisions? And, and, and, and maybe a little more color on your thoughts on, on, like, this balance between protecting leverage in the, in the, the organization a nd pricing, if you could share some, some thoughts.
Yes. I mean, that whole discussion starts with inflation, right? I mean, we, we shouldn't forget that raw materials, we buy that for, for higher prices than last year. The energy costs are higher than, than they were last year. Literally, the inflation is really driving the need for price increases. If you look into our first half earnings, you can see the price quality of this company, right? Even if the market was going down 40%, we were able to lend price increases of around average, 10%, right? I think, that is, that is actually. It shows actually how we are operating and how we're executing this.
What we are seeing is, and that is, that is, what we've announced in July, August, actually, we're seeing more price pressure. I mean, t he whole industry is volume constrained, and, and so we, we see that our, our, our duty and also our commitment, and also there's the need from that inflation, to really keep the price quality in, in all our markets, right? Certainly, not, not giving up on our position, right? There's also always a fine balance, very regional, plan. What a, a clear message is, we, we, we cannot give up on the price quality of our business. That would be the wrong way to go.
I think also what we're saying, to add on to that, as we also previously mentioned, part of our business is small, fixed pricing frame, fixed frame agreements, where we have a, a fairly good idea on the pricing. The other part is more project-based. What we also mentioned earlier is that under you know, this current environment, we may go into selected projects in certain regions offering selected lower pricing, in order to get some volume. It is also something that is to some extent, regionally based and project-based.
Okay, that's very clear. Last one from me, positive cash flow in H2, question mark?
Yeah, essentially, you can say that, of course, our EBITDA is still at a positive basis, and as a result of that, you know, the underlying business is making money. The rest is really within our control in terms of CapEx spend, which we have scaled down compared to previous years, so we do expect a lower CapEx than last year. Also, bear in mind that we spent quite some working capital in the beginning of the year to build up a stock to utilize the full production set up before we scaled back. That also means that we still carry around thre months or so of stock in our balance sheet.
Depending on how the markets and the, and the cash situation develops, we will have the ability to also reduce that stock if needed. Therefore, a big part of the cash flow is within our control.
That's very clear. Thank you for taking my questions.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press five star on your telephone keypad. It does not seem like we have any more questions from the conference call. Never mind. We just got two questions in here. We will take it, Peter Sehested from ABG. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Yeah.
Yeah, thanks for taking my questions. I have two. I'd like to dwell a little bit into the price dynamics. I guess you are an active, as, I mean, you said it yourself, you are probably an active player in sort of, you know, balancing prices for volumes. It also appears, or I speculate, that this occurs on a, let's say, regional or at least very local basis, and not sort of across the board in, in, in Germany. I nevertheless would like to understand what are sort of your decision parameters for when you decide whether you should, you know, trade off the price for volumes, in which regions, why, what kind of competition you're seeing there?
Just a little bit more flavor on sort of the, the low-level practicalities that, that, that you consider, when you do such a deal.
Say more specifics.
Yeah, good morning. I mean, the, the, the pricing, Peter was saying that it's, it's really different by market by market, actually, right? When you're starting in U.K., we are a leader in U.K., it's our, it's our responsibility actually, to, to, to maintain a price level in the market. You know, that actually... That actually works quite well, actually. When you, when you then go to Poland, we are not leader by size, but certainly we feel responsibility to really maintain a price level in the market. We've done that in the first half of the year. Balance, very fine balancing, actually. You know, the competitive landscape in Poland is a bit different than in our other markets.
So far, actually, we're balancing that very fine out, actually, the volume price mix, and we're gonna continue with that as well, the second half. What has, has changed actually is the situation in Germany, but the German situation is a different one. We are not leader in Germany. We are a smaller player in the marketplace, actually. So that is, is certainly not us driving it. So that is, that is, that is, that is where we need to now react and finally balance volumes and prices. If you look in the first half again, we were able to land the planned price increases, which were needed.
In the, in the second half, it's still our commitment, but the environment is changing, and we are, we are managing through that.
Okay, you are saying that the reasons why prices are dropping is not that you are initiating these price pressures or rebates or whatever you call it yourself, but that you are met with the customer saying, "We just got a lower price from your competitor?
Yeah. Very, very, very clear. You know, you're looking to the competitive landscape, right? There is, there's also local players, also having, having different, different strategy and dynamics. They're certainly impacting the, the price quality in the markets. To, to your question, a clear no. It's not us using the, that, that momentum to, to increase our position here, but there's a need for the whole industry to make sure that we increase prices and fight for inflation.
Yes. Just a follow-up question on pricing. Are there differences between the competitors who sort of engage in, let's say, this price volume balance, i.e., do the smaller mom-and-pop shops act differently than versus the largest player in the market?
Naturally. Yeah, naturally. I mean, that, that is what I was saying, right? It is different if you are a public company or privately owned company, right? I mean, every company has different strategy, different dynamics, and that was valid, actually. I mean, it's part of that industry, actually, right? It's also still valid in that environment. Yes, there are different dynamics, and that is exactly the issue where we need to balance that, but then find out the volume price gain.
Cool. Thank you. My second question is a little bit of the same, but just on volumes. You, you gave some explanations to why there was this dip in July. It could be, you know, vacations, whatever, because the underlying drivers behind this, high interest rates, low mortgages down, et cetera, et cetera, they are basically unchanged. What's a stable level? Can, can you provide a little bit more flavor what you see in the market, or why there's a... Is it, as you mentioned, just more vacation, some of the builders taking a breather, saving a bit of cost here during the summer, or just a little bit more case story just to get a more feeling for?
For what's driving the market.
Patterns of mortgage and intentions.
This is... You are right, the general market environment, I was describing that, right? Actually, I think most people have never experienced such steep increase of interest rates, right? It's not the level as such. I mean, interest rates 10 years ago were higher than today. That is not the issue, actually, right? It is the speed and rapidness actually, that is very special in this environment. That led, and as you said, led to low mortgage being issued to future homeowners, right? That is actually reducing the demand. You are right, that is not a new situation. That is actually not changing even more, and that is what I was also saying.
We see that this effect is kind of plateauing, actually. It seems to be, we have also obviously a new base level here. The question is, however, how builders react to that, because they're also faced with 40%-50% less, some even worse, actually. There's customers reporting even worse building activity than that. The key question is: how do they streamline their own operations? Everyone has different strategies here, right? It looks like that there is a lot of builders taking an extensive holiday over the summer, adjusting their own capacity, and that is actually what we are experiencing, right?
That actually makes it really hard to predict, when and how does the industry, i.e., the builders, adjust their own capacity and, you know, manage throughout that new demand situation. That is, that is actually it.
That was, extremely helpful. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Peter.
We have a follow-up question from Sebastian Grabe from Nordea. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Yeah, thank you, guys. Just the last one from me. Just to be clear here, the fact that your full year guidance suggests zero EBIT in H2, this means that we're gonna see gross margin pressure in H2 compared to Q2, right?
Yes, of course, we are making the all the initiatives that we're making. We also, including also increasing the restructuring amounts to really scale back our organization so that it fits to the, these new sales volumes. We're making a lot of efforts in order to protect that EBIT, obviously. There are the increased competition, the lower sales volumes still impacting us. Also, bear in mind that whatever savings we're making on the production side, it initially goes into an inventory and then being sold off. You won't see the P&L effects of the production cost savings before you actually sell those goods. Finally, another area are the energy costs as such.
As we have also previously mentioned, we come from some, you know, fairly old energy hedges, which were extremely positive for us in and we renewed part of those into new gas hedging contracts, which come into play starting this second half. Therefore, we do see a shift at the underlying energy cost, which will also impact us negatively. You have a few different dynamics in there.
Okay, that's very clear. Thank you, Peter, and, and thank you, Jörg. Niclas.
Sebastian, just one clarification. You asked before about sales volumes in the m-- sorry, market volumes. I think I said that Poland was around - 40, whereas the other two were... I think I said 20 to, to 25. That is more the, the internal view, whereas the actual underlying market is closer to 30%- 35% drop. Just to, just to clarify that.
It makes, makes, makes a lot of sense. Thank you for, for the clarification.
Oh, you're welcome.
We have another follow-up question from Peter Sehested from ABG. Please go ahead. Your line will now be unmuted.
Thanks for taking my follow-up. Just follow on, on the hedging. Can you just give a brief guide, so high-level guidance, of how much of your expected gas consumption in the second half is hedged, how much is spot, and give us an average price for the hedging?
Overall, if you look across our markets, Poland is still to a large majority, a coal market, which we wanted to convert more and more into gas, obviously that comes with a cost. We are, we are managing that balance between coal and gas. As such, we do not have longer hedges in Poland. It's more of a spot market in general. The tradition around gas hedging and energy hedging is more in the CWE region, in the U.K. region. We have the benefit of, as mentioned before, former hedges being made years ago, which really have puts us in a, in a favorable position.
At the same time, during last year, we entered into hedging arrangements, which are more unfavorable compared to the current spot prices, and those are coming into play. You know, this year we have a more of a balance, and then, and next year, we will be moving more into the spot market, but still carry some of the unfavorable hedges.
Okay.
To add on, Peter, to add on that, this is hedges coming back from summer last year. It, it was the policy to be as point in U.K. and CWE to hedge for longer. There was a renewal, a renewal situation last summer. That is when these hedges were made, so they are now materializing, actually. We are changing from a very favored position from old prices to this, this new price level, actually, which puts us in an unfavorable position from actually July on. T hat was the strategy.
Certainly, I mean, that, that whole energy situation and this, to Peter's point, we are, we are, we are actually moving more towards a short-term hedging model board spot to be to have enough room to maneuver and react to that. Still it is, it is contracts lasting from summer 2022 that we are now face this.
Okay. It's just because previously you said of you, you've sold some gas, and that has made me assume that you were fully hedged for this year, but now you say you're, you're more balanced. Is it fair to assume, you know, let's say you are 80% hedged and 20% spot for Q for the second half?
I think it's more to say, I mean, we're, we're quite elaborate in the interim report board around the, the gas sold, so it's more depending on the individual contracts respective to the individual areas of where we consume that gas. That means that we have areas where the gas contracts that were entered assumed a higher production level than what we are currently seeing, given the current situation. It's not a general view that we across the group are fully hedged, but it's more that there are certain areas where we are hedged above our current production levels.
Okay, understood. Then, just, the final question is on M&A. I mean, we've talked about this before, previous meetings, clearly not a focus right now, but, at some point, this turns around and, do you see any, let's say... What is your view now with, compared to three months ago? Do you see any opportunity of competitors getting a bit weaker, or should we forget all... should we just forget about M&A for the next couple of years?
No, I think, you know, the long-term strategy for this company hasn't changed. Actually, there is a so we have a very clear view on potential M&A targets that could fit nicely into our group. I think with our business improvement measures that we are executing at the moment, and especially how we're driving efficiency of our plants, that is even more exciting, actually, for future value creation. However, the question is when is the right timing, right? I mean, we're coming from from all-time high markets in 2022 to a significant downturn in the market. The answer will be in the middle. The question is when will prices stabilize? We are still, I mean, we're still open, but the question is really timing.
Certainly our priority, at the moment, as, as management of this company, is to manage through these, yeah, rough quarters here, with low volumes, making sure we're focusing on our price quality. Making sure we drive through our business improvement measures, and then navigate through these next rough quarters, without not losing sight for it. Our priority is very clear on making sure we get the company safely through that rough waters.
No, that makes sense. Thank you very much.
As there are no further questions in line at this moment, I will hand the call back to the speakers.
Okay, thanks for participating in, in this call, and thanks for your questions. Yeah, looking forward to see one or the other, during the next, days, on the road. Have a good day. Thank you.
This concludes this conference call, and you may now all disconnect your lines.