Hello and welcome to ROCKWOOL A/S conference calls regarding the result for the first quarter of 2026. My name is Kim Junge Andersen. I am the CFO of ROCKWOOL A/S, pleased to present Jes Munk Hansen. For the first part of this call, all participants will be in a listening-only mode. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. First, Jes will go in and give you an update of the results for the first quarter of 2026. Afterwards, we will be ready to answer all your questions. Yes, I must ask you to, which is the forward-looking statement. Please be aware that this presentation contains uncertainties. Now we can go to the next slide, number three. Yes, I will now hand over.
Thank you, Kim. Also, welcome from my side. As Kim said, I will start on slide three, where we have our key numbers. ROCKWOOL Group delivered resilient performance in Q1 despite a challenging operating environment, with revenue growth of 2% by Eastern Europe, the U.S. and Europe. The EBIT margin, as you can see, reached 13.2%, what we believe is a satisfactory result, though two points below the record high of last year. Weak construction market, particularly in Canada and the U.K., pressured the margin, as did higher logistics costs and an increased cost base. To Page four, focus on the revenue in Q1, where overall, the construction market continued to be affected by the geopolitical turbulence. The first two months of the year were impacted by adverse weather across Europe and North America. Volume demand recovered and onwards.
Successfully restarted the Swiss factory in Flums, the Flumroc factory during the quarter, but the production stacked on performance in the quarter. Additionally, the conversion to electric melting and upgrades to one of our production lines in our Roermond factory temporarily reduced the growth, higher volumes and a minor increase in overall sales prices. Page five, where you see the revenue by business segments. Insulation revenue grew 2% with solid growth in the U.S. and key markets across Eastern and Southern Europe. That growth was partly offset by decline in Germany and Switzerland. In our Systems segment, revenue grew 4% in local currency. ROCKWOOL Europe Asia delivered solid growth across key markets and achieved growth while our Rockpanel business had a stable quarter. Page six, where we look at the regional in the quarter.
We sustained the growth momentum while Canadian revenue declined in a very challenging market characterized by weak residential ongoing trade uncertainties. In Western Europe, revenue declined 1%. Solid growth in Southern Europe was offset by market-driven declines in the U.K., delay in construction to the hard winter in January and February. Eastern Europe delivered strong 15% revenue growth, driven by solid growth in Romania and Hungary, while Poland in the quarter. In Asia, revenue grew more than 7%, with decent growth in several of our markets, where we look at the profitability in the quarter. Although the EBIT margin was down 2.2 percentage points, we consider this a good result, managing market conditions to a record-high profit level last year. Margins in the quarter were impacted by several factors. First, in Canada and United. Second, higher logistic costs and a higher cost base.
Third, additional costs related to in Switzerland and the plant in the Netherlands related to the electric conversion and other upgrades of the production line there. Overall, these accounted for about 1.5% of the margin. That is equivalent to approximately 1 percentage point. While production is up and running in Switzerland, we do expect the run-on melting technology and these other upgrades in the Netherlands to affect the margin for the rest of the year. Last year, first quarter donations to the Foundation for Ukraine reached $6 million out of the total donation of $13 million, while no donation was recognized in 2026. On the next page, we'll see by segments. First, the Insulation segment. Looking at profitability by segment, the EBIT margin in Insulation was down 1.7% compared to last year. The result was impacted by several factors, including the ones I just mentioned.
In the Systems Division segment, margin decreased 3.7% by inflation on input costs that were not sufficiently offset by sales price increases. Additional factors include increases in provisions as well as increased scale in our new business area, which is part of the Systems segment. These new businesses mainly consist of our water management system and our prefab construction. Let's look at our investments in Q1. Our biggest investment in Q1 related to the construction of new factories in the U.S. A new technical installation in the U.S. and the production expansion in Romania as well as a large looking project in Germany. The new factory in India is expected to come online during this summer.
The sustainability investments are mainly related to electric conversion and on May 5th, we signed an agreement to acquire Ravago's stone wool factory in northeastern Hungary with a capacity of 40,000 tons. The acquisition will support our long-term priority to meet regional demand. The transaction is expected to close on May 26th, of course, subject to closing conditions and regulatory approvals. The acquisition is not expected to materially impact our 2026 outlook. We have our cash flow for the quarter. As expected, financial positions turned into net debt of EUR 3 billion. That brings our ratio at the end of Q1 at 0.4, which is well within our policy of maximum ratio. At the end of Q1, we had a credit facility of EUR 400 million. Cash usage for working capital during the quarter was unchanged to Q1 last year.
Development in working capital ratio was mainly due to the planned stock build and a higher than usual seasonal increase in trade receivables due to the revenue uptake of the quarter. Free cash flow decreased EUR 68 million compared to the same quarter last year. Last but not least, to our outlook on Page 12. The revenue, as previously, we are now expecting between 3% and 6% in local currencies. The growth outlook is based on the increased activity we saw in March and thereafter, sales price increases in the range of which will mainly take effect from the midyear. We continue to closely monitor, of course, the ongoing geopolitical and macroeconomic uncertainties.
EBIT, the EBIT group margin for 2026 is still expected to be between 13% and 14%, as the announced sales price increases are net input costs and logistic inflation, whereby maintaining profit margins. Investments in 2026 include expansions, as already mentioned, in India, Romania, United States, and France, along with the acquisition of land for further manufacturing sites in several countries. Overall, our total investments are expected to reach around EUR 700 million in 2026. I hand back over to Kim Junge Andersen.
Yes, thank you very much, will invite. I just have a small request for you. When even if we limit to two questions at a time, please allow us to answer at a time. Thank you very much.
We will now begin the question and answer session, and we will start with two questions from each questioner. To ask a question, dial star then one keypad. If you are using a speaker phone, please pick up your Handset before pressing the key. To withdraw your quest, press star then two. At this time we will pause momentarily to assemble our roster. First question is from Ben Rada Martin, Goldman Sachs.
Thank you very much, Jez and Kim, for the time today.
My first question was on cost inflation. Thank you for providing some of the color in terms of the pricing change you're looking to put in. I'd be interested in what you're seeing in terms of energy cost inflation and transport inflation as we go into the back half of the year. I suppose, maybe towards EUR 5 and similar for delivery costs. That would just be my first question. Thank you.
We have an increase in cost inflation, including transportation. It is so that, as you know, our energy consumption consists of three. One of them is foundry coke, which is the largest energy source. Of course, we also have electricity and gas that we also use in the manufacturing side. Coke is where we have these fixed price agreements a quarter at a time. That has not increased significantly between quarter one and quarter two. There's not so much, of course, on the gas and electricity. They are more, say, correlated to the general sort of energy inflation in the market. There, we have seen increases. We have, as mentioned, we have a coverage in place for like half of the expected consumption for the second half of the year and, of course, cushion this a bit.
Inflation coming in the second half also on transportation, mainly in the North America. We still believe that the 6%-8% price should be enough inflationary impact in the second half.
Excellent. Maybe just a second one on capacity expansions outside of the ones that you're investing in now. I'm thinking facilities, Sweden, Italy. Could you maybe share an update on some of the timelines for these projects? I'm interested, just given, I guess, the uncertain economic backdrop in Europe, seeing in terms of interest rates moving higher, some excess capacity in the market. Could some of these later facility openings be flexible in, I guess, their opening times? How are you planning for some of those additional factories?
I'll give you a couple of data points. You spoke specifically, let's take those. Next year, we open up Romania factory. Where we are adding capacity, existing facility there, of course, you should also notice that the capacity we have bought in Hungary adds 40 million kilotons. That is for Romania. Just a small little detail, Romania is better served from Hungary due to the mountain range going through. That's a small little detail. Romania will next year. The acquisition will add another 40 kt there. The next one coming online in Europe will be the Soissons factory in France. 2019 is that expected to open up.
And—
Yeah, that was Soissons. I don't want to give too many details on what we have announced, but where we haven't set a date yet. After 2030, it will be Italy, the one in Birmingham and outside of Stockholm, peaking capacity. I think it is important when we talk capacity also to talk about productivity. We are very focused on, of course, also optimizing existing. We are a manufacturer that pays great attention to productivity. The usual approaches with lean and kaizen. There's quite a lot more than we can pull out of our existing footprint, capacity utilization, just in Europe but throughout the group.
Excellent. Maybe just to follow up on that, it seems like maybe the France factory a little bit delayed versus there. Is that a conscious effort on your side or some of the progress is taking a little bit longer to move on that plant?
It's not significant. The delay that originally was caused by getting building permits, that's what's pushed it originally. Else, the project is fairly on time. Of course, what we're trying to hit here is this expected uptick in Europe in what we call the renovation wave. As you know, in Europe, the new EPBD issues that now are falling in place, we are following very, very closely, country by country, and are modeling what volume uptake will take place the next few years. Our logic is driven by the expected uptake due to the EPBD regulations.
Very clear.
Next question is from Anna Schumacher, BNP Paribas. Great.
Thanks. Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. The first one, a bit more detail on your volume expectations for this year, possibly by region and occasion. It's just that if I take the midpoints of your price, say, 2% for first half and so, that gives full-year price increases of about 4.5%, which is the new midpoint of your local currency guide. I would assume, yeah, any detail here would be helpful.
Anna, we had a little bit of trouble with the sound apparently. Could you maybe just repeat? Thank you.
Sorry about the sound. Could you just provide a bit more detail on your volume expectations for this year? Possibly by region?
Yes, thank you very much. I mean, as Jess said, a volume pickup here driven by some positive moves in some of our key markets. We can also see that in the second quarter, we see a higher volume. Most likely that there are competing materials that are increasing prices faster and higher than we are. Our increase are mainly coming around. So in our forecasting assumptions, we have assumed that we will have a little bit of stagnation on volume in the second half. To be seen whether that will be realized is the assumption that we have put in the 3%-6% growth for the full year is that volume will start to be a bit stagnated compared to last year in this year. Anna, was there a second question?
Hi, sorry, I was on mute. You call out quite solid growth in Northern Europe, and from your comments, it sounds like it's mostly volume. What is driving this? Is it new build, renovation, new channels? Thanks.
Okay. We had a little bit hard time. We just repeated it to each other here. I understood your question was targeted towards Southern and Eastern Europe, the volume pickup we've seen. Yeah, as you know, it is very important to understand we compete against glass. We compete against foam plastic products. When we look at the developments in cost, we do believe that the foam plastic products are harder hit than we are on price input cost in the market, or at least of their price points and availability are under strain. We are winning, I believe, market shares across, and that drives growth in East Europe, pure products. In Southern Europe, it's been a growth the trajectory we've been on for quite a while.
I think we should highlight again that in Europe, particularly also again in Eastern Europe, Romania, Poland are getting more and more attention. We become more competitive price point-wise against the flammable products, then there's a tendency to shift over to stone wool. Some of the growth.
Great. Thank you.
Next question is from Zaim Beekawa, JPMorgan.
Morning, Jes and Kim. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is just on pricing. I see you've announced 6%-8%, but given your hedging levels and also the comments that you've made on foundry coke, being flat between Q1 and Q2. How much of that announcement do you actually need to be realized to protect your margins this year?
First of all, it is important to understand that input costs, of course, vary across regions. It's a different profile on input cost in North America than it is in Europe, just as an example. We are harder hit on transport cost in the U.S. because we have longer, further transport patterns in the U.S. The diesel price that has gone up in the U.S. hits us there. Input cost depends a lot on the regional profile, so to say. Our pricing is, of course, also adjusted to local market condition and product groups and applications. It's not like one for all that all products, all regions, all must get exactly the same number. In totality, in order to balance out the inflation, it is going to be around the 7% that we need to harvest in order to balance out inflation.
Okay. Thank you. My next question is just on some of the one-offs. I think you called out specific factors, Canada, U.K., but also Netherlands, Switzerland. How much of this would you expect to be a sort of for the remainder of the year? On the topic of one-offs, I think you mentioned India starting online this summer. Will there be any one-off startup costs related to that? Is this already in guidance?
To take your last sub-question first because it's the quickest to answer. India, it is minimal what you will see affecting the numbers. It is single digit in India. It is already in the guidance for that startup that is well planned. The bigger issues, you could say, the bigger challenges that also will take longer time to get resolved is the market in Canada and the market in the U.K. Both are down a lot. You can just read public market reports about construction industry in Canada. Canada is hugely affected by the trade uncertainties with the U.S. Investments in commercial industrial and in residential has stalled. They're actually down quite significantly. That, I don't think, will resolve quickly. I do want to note that we believe we are winning share in this suppressed market.
Because the overall market is down so significant, even market share gains from our side, it does not result in growth in Canada. The U.K. is a different story but has been somewhat quick in decline the last six months now and is caused by a couple of things. Our read on it is that the macroeconomics in the U.K. is generating a lot of uncertainty and hence subdued willingness to invest in construction. That is one thing. The other one is that the U.K. has instilled a new process for building permitting, which we believe in the long term will benefit us a great deal. Because it is very much focused around fire and fire regulations. They're struggling with getting the bureaucracy of this new permitting process to get up and running. The backlog of permitting is dramatic in the U.K. right now.
As that resolves, we do see an improvement in the situation in the U.K. Else, the U.K. market will also simply depend on the macros in that market.
Thank you. Sorry, can I just follow up on sort of the other issues with Netherlands and Switzerland? Would that be a drag again in Q2 and beyond?
It won't change much in those two markets, but they're small for us. You won't really see the material impact in the overall numbers.
Perfect. Thanks for taking my questions.
Next question is from Claus Almer, Nordea.
Thank you. A few questions from my side, as wished. I will do them one by one. The first question goes about these price hikes. As I understand, there is a three to five months of delay between the energy cost inflation to new and higher prices. Is there a reason for this long delay, not least as this appears to be later than your main competitors? That would be the first one.
Claus, it is quite different in the various markets. There are different traditions and different laws that govern and also commercial contracts. That govern how you can increase prices. Some places we can increase prices faster and some it simply takes a three-month warning period. I don't think that's unusual.
I know it's not all fair question. It's also more compared to your key peers who seem to be a little bit more aggressive or faster in implementing these price increases. Maybe they have a bigger problem than you have. That might be the reason.
There can be many reasons. That's not what we have registered in the market on our direct peers. We have also not used force majeure or instruments like that. You could be very right that some of the foam and plastic products are in a very different situation because their input costs have gone up dramatically more as they are based on petrochemical products almost completely.
That makes sense. The second question, is there any of your more meaningful markets where you have decided not to raise prices?
No, no, none of those.
Okay. That was all for me. Thank you so much.
Next question is from Anders Christian Preetzmann, Danske Bank.
Thank you very much. Hi, Jes and Kim, thank you for taking my question. My first one is on the recent acquisition you've made in Hungary. I was wondering if this signals now a preference for doing acquisitions in capacity-constrained markets and whether you could maybe give us some examples of other markets where you could do similar transactions to gain volumes.
I think your observation of that it is a somewhat consolidating market is correct. We don't have a very strict, you can say, M&A search process. We are a little bit more opportunistic in our approach and will only do it where it makes sense, obviously, which means where we need the capacity, but also where the acquisition target has a high technological level that fits into our quality levels. That simply limits the opportunities that arise.
Thank you very much. I thought so too. My second question is on the data center opportunity in the U.S. I mean, yes, you've mentioned in a recent interview that the U.S. pipeline alone, that includes around 1,500 potential data center projects, which does underline a sizable medium-term opportunity for you guys. I was wondering if you were able to quantify this a bit for us. Maybe what the average ticket size is for a data center project? Considering your situation in the U.S. right now, would you even have available capacity to meet this increased demand?
Thank you.
First, I have to start and say that we have not been a big player in that arena the last few years. The way data centers now are constructed is turning in our favor. Let me explain briefly why. A few years ago, the main focus was building what you call data centers, mainly data repositories. It was cloud solutions. There was a lot of focus on bits and bytes and building that. That had a certain building envelope that was not demanding what we can offer with our products, not to the same degree. As these investments now move over to a slightly different type of data centers, namely AI data processing. The equipment in these facilities becoming significantly more expensive. It's basically high-end processors, as you know. They require both more cooling and more stringent fire protection.
That is moving into our strength, the cooling insulation from our technical insulation team and the fire protection. The numbers are big, yes. It is around 1,500 projects. They are in very different stages. Some of them are early planning, and some of them are being implemented. It's a big pipeline. Of course, we have organized around ourselves harvesting that increasingly. Just to give you an idea, and they're, of course, all different sizes, but just to give you an idea, it's mainly the big four that we work with in this arena. We won two big projects. I don't want to mention the customer name, but that alone generated around $1 million in fire protection and in cooling insulation. Please don't multiply that with 1,500.
Next question is from Alexander Craeymeersch, Kepler Cheuvreux.
Hello, thank you for taking my questions. My first question would be on the net working capital. It was somewhat higher, I think, stands at 14.2% of 12-month sales. It's almost a percentage point higher than usual or at least than last year. In your report, you mentioned next to the seasonal developments that there was planned higher inventories. I'm just wondering what you're planning for considering you mentioned that second half sales volumes should stabilize?
Yes. Thank you, Alexander. When we build inventory, it is not to keep that inventory for several quarters. It is typically to keep inventory for a few months. The buildup of inventory at the end of Q1 was to cater for some maintenance shutdowns in some of the factories, amongst others, in Norway. We also had all the growth that we had in Q1, in fact, came in March. There was higher sales in March compared to March last year, and that simply built up accounts receivable. We are typically collecting within 20 days after the month. There was a buildup in accounts receivable, and then there was a higher inventory due to this inventory buildup to be used in the second quarter.
Okay. Thank you for that. The second question I would have would be on the margin. A colleague of mine already alluded to it. Basically with the 7% price increases that are taking effect as of Q2, I guess it's reasonable in relative terms that there's going to be some dilution effect on the margin. I'm wondering if the prices remain where they are and if volumes don't change dramatically, that basically we would end up at the 13%-14% guidance more towards the bottom end of that range and less towards the upper end. Is that correct?
We are guiding in the range of 13%-14%, but I think it's fair to say that what we see, the volume growth we have seen here in quarter one also in quarter two are mainly within our flat roof segments. That's where we have an average selling price that is slightly lower than a selling price that is slightly lower than the average. That's one element of it. I would say to quantify whether it's going to be close to the bottom of the range or in the upper end of the range, I think I'll just wait until I see the Q2 results, and then I can guide you slightly better on this one here. It is mainly in Q2 we're going to see the bulk impact before prices started to pick up.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question is from Yassine Touahri, On Field Investment Research.
Yes. My first question, thank you very much for answering. My first question would be on your CapEx program. I understand that this year you're probably targeting nearly EUR 500 million of investment in capacity and sustainability. It's probably the largest investment that you're doing in the group history. I understand that this is going to continue for the foreseeable future, like this EUR 500 million investment per year. What kind of economics do you target on those investments? What kind of return? If you can explain a little bit how does it work, the timing and the potential impact on earnings in the coming years?
I mean, for sure, Yassine, it is clear that to build these four capacity expansions at the same time in parallel is a step-up. Having said that, they are, of course, being built in different geographies. We see growth in all three geographies, Asia, Europe and North America, so that we need to build capacity. I would have wished that we could have built the factory in France two or three years earlier. That would have sort of smoothed out a bit of CapEx impact because we haven't opened a new factory since 2021. It would have been fantastic to have that factory in France a bit earlier. Having said that, we need the capacity. They are now coming sort of in subsequent years, going live into the market. Whenever you open a factory, you typically have the first 12 months of running-in cost.
That is typically for the larger factories, not the one in India, but for the three other ones, are typically in the range of EUR 10 million-EUR 50 million as a one-off cost in the first 12 months of operating. After that, it sort of becomes normal operations. These factories, of course, are all with the latest technologies. That means they will hopefully, when they are fully utilized, will be the most profitable and most effective factories we will have in the group. How to put a number to that? We have not really done that exercise. As I said, it is, of course, a part of the plan that they will contribute to a very good return once they're up and running. We are in an industry where it takes three to five years to build these factories.
That means we have to be patient. Shareholders have to be a bit patient because we do need that capacity to continue to grow the company and also profitable growth.
What I'm trying to understand, when we look at, for example, historically, when you were investing EUR 100 million, you were able to generate approximately EUR 100 million of sales. A bit more or a bit less depending on the investment with mid-teens margin.
Is it what we should expect?
If you're investing DKK 500 million, we could expect additional sales over time with a return of a margin a bit above the group?
There is no one rule of thumb. We are building in North America. It's the most expensive place in the world to build, but it's also the place where we have the highest both sales and contribution profit per produced tons. It all sort of links in. France also have a relatively high CapEx number. Again, it is also pricewise and contribution profit-wise in Europe, one of the most attractive places. Romania is a place where you can say the sales price are low, but the CapEx is also low. It all sort of ties in. As I said, all of the factories will be more productive than any of existing ones. I don't have sort of a one number to give you that if we spent EUR 100 million.
Yeah. I understand that when we look at this number, which is quite high with EUR 500 million of addition of CapEx on top of maintenance, and I think a lot of investors try to understand what returns do you target on those investments? Do you have a minimum number that you're targeting?
All of them are living up to sort of our internal sort of thresholds, which we have said before that we have sort of a threshold around 15% return on invested capital. That they are sort of all of them living up to that. As I said, it's very different market to market.
The 15% is before tax?
Yeah, that's before tax.
Thank you.
Next question is from Allison Sun, Bank of America.
Hi, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. The first question, I just want to confirm, Kim, you mentioned this sweet spot Flumroc and the Roermond electrical conversion as 1 percentage point on EBIT margin in Q1. Is that correct? Should we expect some margin recovery in Q2 if operations normalize?
Yeah, the Swiss one was not the conversion. That was the factory breakdown in the autumn that stretched into the beginning of Q1. That factory is up and running now. That that impact is not going to continue into Q2, whereas the one in Roermond is sort of a bigger conversion we are doing on a major line down there, and that will impact also the result in Q2.
Okay. Thank you. My second question is maybe more specific on the return on CapEx in this Norway front where you have DKK 15 million added.
What kind of I mean, ROCKWOOL, right? What is the timeline should we be expecting? Is this going to still be at 15% as you just mentioned?
No. The investment we're doing in Norway, I think I alluded to somewhere, is just a warehousing that we have decided to acquire a land and construct a warehouse instead of renting several warehouses in the area. That is not a factory per se. It's just a warehousing project.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question is from Pujarini Ghosh, Bernstein. Hi.
Thanks for taking my question. I have just one. On your recent acquisition, could you give us some coloring to the transaction value, how much sales you expect from the plant once it's fully consolidated so we have some numbers around it?
Yes. Hello. I mean, as I said, the plant has this capacity of 40,000 tons. The acquisition price, which will be revealed in the annual report anyway, is sort of in the EUR 45 million. It will not have a substantial impact in the financial results for this year, neither on sales or on earnings. As I said, there is a regulatory sort of period until we can start to consolidate this into the group.
Yes. You mentioned that this year, it's not going to have so much of an impact. Once it's fully consolidated, do you have any expectation of how much sales it could generate?
We will not reveal that. We do have an expectation, yes. It'll be blended into the entire group once we release the 2027 numbers.
It is a running business.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question is from Julian Radlinger UBS.
Yeah. Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you very much for your time. Two questions for me. They are both on Q2. The first question is, can you, and I think this has been asked a few times in one way or another, but can you talk more specifically about the margin impact you expect for Q2 just from the fact that you are not increasing prices yet and you may have some of that input cost inflation. Is there any way for us to just understand if you isolate that price versus cost headwind? Is that meaningful at all? How should we think about that?
Julian, we will not do an outlook quarter by quarter. You just have to be a bit patient with us. As I said, my take it, at least in the forecast assumption, is that we will have, you can say, an impact from the higher input cost in Q2. Then we will cover margins gradually in Q3 and Q4. The full year that we have, you can say, the same expectation for margins on EBIT for the full year. That means we'll most likely do a bit better in the second half compared to the previous outlook.
Understood. Switching to the top line. The market challenges in the U.K. and Canada are very clear. Canada specifically declined quite meaningfully last year in Q2. I remember this well. I think it was one of the reasons for your profit warning at the time. My question is, with Eastern Europe accelerating so meaningfully like we've already seen in Q1, and the base effect in North America becoming meaningfully easier for Canada and the U.S. still doing well anyway, is it fair to think that volume growth in Q2 could be well ahead of Q1?
No, as Kim said before, we don't think Q2 will be way ahead of Q1 on the volume side. We don't see that. No to that.
Do you follow my reasoning, though, with the base effect being significantly easier in North America? Is there something I'm missing?
It's also based on easier comparables in the latter half of last year. I agree.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Next question is from Chase Coughlan, Van Lanschot Kempen.
Hi. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for taking my questions. I also just have two. Firstly, on the Systems margin, it's obviously still under quite some pressure, and you explained that there was some inability to pass through prices in time to offset rising costs, bad debt provisions, and so on and so forth. Could you explain a little bit about your expectations for the rest of the year? Are a lot of those problems, primarily pricing, going to be recovered throughout the year? How should I think about the phasing of that divisional margin for the remaining quarters?
Yes, I can give you some insights to that. First of all, the bad debt, of course, we're still working on getting secured. Do we expect an improvement in the profitability in the Systems division as our measures take effect in those markets? Some of them are in Systems, as you know, more project-based businesses, and it takes a little bit longer to flush it through depending on how the projects are set up. We do expect an improvement in that area.
Okay, perfect. My second question then, I recognize you just mentioned that you don't necessarily expect volumes in the second quarter to be much above the first quarter. Something that's been, I guess, spoken a lot about sort of across the entire building materials sector is this idea of prebuying in the second quarter ahead of price increases. Is that not something you think could potentially impact volumes going into the second half, I guess?
Yes, Chase. I mean, we didn't comment on the second quarter. I did comment on. I think the volume in the second quarter for sure will be positive. It's the volume in the second half that in our assumption that we have given you at 3.6%. There, we have assumed that volume will be stagnant compared to last year. Whether this is going to be the case, we don't have an order pipeline, as you know, more than two months out. We are still sort of a bit uncertain how the autumn season is going to pan out in this uncertain times. As you know, there might be a little bit of prebuying here in quarter two. Our distributors, similar to us, we cannot prebuy a lot of physical products because it simply takes up so much space.
You typically see if they buy forward a single day, it's like a 5% growth in a month, but that's more or less it. I don't think a lot of pre-buying will take place simply because the physical constraints that our customers will have on their own storage space.
Okay, great. That's very helpful. Thank you for the clarification, gentlemen.
The final question is from Zaim Beekawa, JPMorgan.
Thanks, both. I just had a quick follow-up with regards to Germany. I think you called out that in the decline in Q1, was that solely due to weather? Were the trends in April also good? Thank you.
It was a significant impact not only in Germany that the weather was so bad. All outdoor work whether or not roofing or, you can say, facades were at a very, very low level in Northern Europe. Yes, the improvement has continued.
Great. Thank you.
This concludes our Q&A session. I would like to turn the conference back over to the management for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much. Yes, I thank you for today's earnings call and for all your very good questions. We appreciate your interest in ROCKWOOL. If you have further questions, please feel free to reach out to me. You may find the ROCKWOOL contact details in the Investors section in our corporate website. Have a very nice day. Thank you.