Welcome and thank you all for joining the Quarter 3 2019 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode until the question and answer session of today's conference. To ask a question, you may press star, followed by number 1. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this point. I will now hand the call over to Christian Reinaudo, CEO of Agfa-Gevaert.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for attending this call, about the Q3 results of the group. Let me first have a quick reminder. You know that this year we’ve changed the organization model, we’ve changed the format of the presentation. IFRS 16 came into the picture. In due time on the slides, we use different set of numbers to compare things, so that I will be clear again if needed, to make sure that you have a good understanding of the comparisons. Having said so, I would like to move to the slide two of this slide deck. A milestone in the transformation process. Basically, as I said, there are two key topics this year in terms of strategic evolution of the group. The first one is this alliance with Lucky that we continue to develop. I would say that we are running as expected.
As expected means that it's not a walk in the park every day. On the other side, all the milestones that we needed to achieve have been achieved, in particular, the setup of this common platform for the sales in China. That was done actually in Q2. In Q3, you start to see that on the top line of Offset, we have, of course, the mechanical effect of this consolidation in terms of top line. This is not the end of the journey, of course, but it is a significant first step that we need to implement and to deliver. I will comment on this when I speak about the Offset division.
The second big milestone in this transformation is obviously the auction process for selling a part of our IT business, which is, I remind you, the totality of our hospital IT and integrated care, and the part of the emerging IT which is connected to the business and integrated in the hospital IT business, in particular, in Germany, the so-called platform, Multiple Impact . This is also, as I said last time, a process which has been launched in autumn, which is progressing well. We strongly believe that the auction process will be finished before the end of the year. Moving now to the slide three and the sales acquisition of the quarter three and the nine months.
You see that the biggest division is still, I would say, Offset in spite of the decline of the business in the market, with 37% of our activity in sales and with 23% of the Radiology Solutions. Here we must say that we enjoy significant growth, in particular in the hardcopy after the huge efforts we have done in China in the last three years, because of the DR business, which has performed well in the third quarter. HealthCare IT with 22% is the third of our division, Digital Print & Chemicals, which I remind you is basically the sum of our former inkjet business and former specialty product, is 22% of the activity. Basically, four divisions which have very comparable size, with the exception of Offset, which is a bit bigger. Moving to the slide four.
I'm very happy to report again this quarter a growth of our top line, which is a growth of 1.1% if you exclude currency exchange rates, which is 2.6% as shown in the numbers. Which would have been even bigger, 5.7%, if we were to eliminate the business that in the comparison, the business that we have decided to stop in the U.S., which was a business we inherited from the acquisition of [inaudible], dealing with the reselling of media for the inkjet activity, which represents roughly EUR 15 million on the quarter. As we said, I think before, something in the range of EUR 60 million on a yearly base, so half of that in 2019. The first quarter where we had these numbers out of our consolidated numbers is the third quarter, for which it was EUR 15 million.
If you, of course, restate this with the EUR 15 million on top of what we have done in Q3, or you remove the EUR 15 million from last year, you would have a growth of 5.7%. Good news. Of course, we should be very clear and transparent. Part of that is due to the consolidation of the sale of Lucky in the domestic market in China through the common sales platform. These sales are not generating neither gross margins nor EBITDA at this stage. It's the first step. Of course, we're going to work on the profitability of this activity in the quarters to come, and I will be more specific in a few minutes. Gross profit is out 0.8% in the quarter. Here you have a mix of things.
Of course, the mechanical effect of the consolidation of Lucky sales in the U.S., you also have the cost of aluminum, which is not that big or significant enough, you have, of course, the mix, both regional and product mix. In particular, regional mix that we see in a lot of our traditional businesses, moving to countries where the prices are lower, the competition is more intense, in particular with Chinese competitors. The value selling programs that we have launched, less performing because the value is not the main characteristic of these markets. The growth margin is declining by 0.8%. On the year-to-date, we are slightly higher than last year. Of course, the mechanical effect of the consolidation of Lucky is weighing on that in the quarter 3. SG&A, both in value and in percentage of sales, are going down.
Honestly, not enough to my opinion, and I think this is a program we're going to re-intensify in the months to come, in particular in the preparation of our budget for next year. At least we see the cost declining in spite of the value of the dollar and these kind of things. The percentage of sales come again back closer to the 20%, which has been our target for long. The R&D costs are slightly up. There are some one-off effects in the quarter, because last year we had some tax credit on the R&D that we don't have this year so far. Anyway, you should read these numbers assuming that the effort in R&D, the group is constant. The rest is immaterial, I would say, changes due to more one-off effects. Other operating items, it's a zero this quarter.
You see that on the year-to-date, we are at minus seven compared to last year. I would comment on that. We are ending now the first phase of the alliance with Xeikon, which was about the IT selling and this kind of things, which was, of course, partly recorded in this line. Of course, this has an impact on the quarter and on the year-to-date numbers on this line. The result of all these numbers is that our adjusted EBITDA is at 9.1% above last year, 6.9% of the sales compared to 6.5%. The year-to-date is also above the value of last year in percentage of sales. It's EUR 127 million, which is a mixed effect of good things in the three divisions, which are not offset, and I think it offset, as we will see later.
If you go a bit on slide five, the restructuring and non-recurring of the quarter is not that big. Compared to last year, we are at EUR 7 million compared to EUR 15 million. On the year-to-date basis, we are at EUR 22 million compared to EUR 28 million. Honestly, the quarter four will bring some restructuring. I keep the guidance that in terms of restructuring this year will be above the average guidance that we give. The non-operating result, basically financing costs and pensions, is constant compared to last year, both in the quarter and in the year-to-date. The taxes are higher. I will not comment on that because you know there are variations based on the activity. The key thing is to keep in mind that the EUR 20 million of cash effect on taxes for the full year will be basically the number this year, once again.
The net result, in particular because of this pretty big amount of taxes recorded in the quarter, is at -EUR 12 million, compared to -EUR 5 million last year. The year-to-date number is at EUR 9 million compared to EUR 8 million last year. On slide six, just to make sure that we fix the things we just said. We continue to have a positive evolution in the top-line growth. The signs that we have seen in the first half are continuing. It is due to two things at a high level. First, the mechanical consolidation of the sales of Lucky in China, and two, the good behavior of our growth engines in general, with a little weakness this quarter for the pure inkjet business, and we'll come back to that.
A good performance on behalf of the public cloud, which is the consequence of what we have reorganized in China. Of course, an impact negative of EUR 15 million on top line, which is due to the decision to stop the non-profitable business of media reselling in the U.S. The comment on the gross margin has been made, and I can move now to the slide seven, showing the situation of our net financial debt. You see in blue on this chart, the comparison with the past, that means excluding the effect of IFRS 16. You see that the debt is a bit higher than what it was at the end of last year, but declining compared to the end of Q2. This move will continue.
A bit more than half of this decline in the quarter is due to the massive effort we are doing on the working capital. As I announced in the second quarter results, we have decided to generate EUR 100 million of cash before the end of 2020 on a yearly basis out of this working capital. We are well on track. You will see in the next chart that we are already EUR 20 million below where we were at the end of 2018. The plan is to deliver about half of the plan this year in 2019. Moving on slide eight to make sure that we speak about the actual numbers. You see inventories, of course, reference is Q4 2018, it's not the Q2 2019.
The trends that I described are trends which are related to the situation that we had in Q2, and the comparison on this chart, which is the comparison which is going to be presented quarter after quarter to track the progress we do on the EUR 100 million savings compared to 2018, is the relevant one to comment on this program. Trade receivables are somewhat flattish in DSOs, but going down in terms of value at EUR 349 million compared to EUR 374 million. The payables are going up both in days and in value.
The consolidation of these three elements is that our working cap is declining by 1% of sales, the target being still to achieve the 35% that we have achieved two years ago by reducing by EUR 100 million compared to the EUR 653 million of 2018. On slide nine, a very quick update on the corporate costs. As you know, that we have decided to put together the real corporate functions, which are not related to the activities as such outside of the P&L of the divisions to better reflect the profitability of the divisions themselves. These costs are constant compared to last year in the quarter three at EUR 3.7 million negative. I move now to the offset division on slide 11. You see the vast majority of the business is, of course, about the digital computer to plate.
Only 13% is due to the analog business, in particular, the film, which is the most significant part of it. On slide 12, the numbers. You see what I said already, the sales are up in the quarter three by 3.6%, 1.9% excluding currency exchange rates. Year to date, we are still slightly negative compared to last year. Of course, the consolidation of the sales of Lucky will continue to grow in the quarter four, and we expect the full year of sales of this division to be at least equal to the one of last year. Gross profit suffers, as I said, mechanically from this consolidation of sales, which are not at this stage bringing any gross profit, which is about half of the gap compared to the Q3 of last year. The rest of the gap is due to basically two effects.
The impact side on pricing, in particular in the emerging markets, and the shift of the volume of sales to these markets, because the mature markets are declining. The second one is the effect of aluminum costs, of course, on the gross profit. SG&A, down in value, down in % of sales. My comment of a few minutes ago is that this is not enough in my view. We are going to work hard on this structure of cost and SG&A, in particular, in offset, to adapt the cost structure of the business to the situation of the market on one side. The alliance with Lucky normally should progressively show some improvements in terms of the cost structure of the alliance and in terms of, hopefully, the pricing capability, thanks to the technology evolution that we are bringing to our partners in China.
This will take a bit of time. We see the first effect, as I said, on the top line. The rest will come in the next quarters, and of course, we will comment quarter after quarter on the impact of this alliance, which is a significant part of our future strategy for the remaining Agfa after we have sold the IT business. The R&D is constant. You see that we still spend a significant amount of efforts on the R&D, in particular, in plates. You've maybe seen that we have launched the famous direct to press plate of Agfa, which was, I would say, long awaited. This plate is bringing a lot of parameters which are making of this plate probably the best in the world, and we hope that we can grab a significant business in the quarters to come out of that technology.
The EBITDA of the division is only at 1.6%, EUR 3.4 million on the comparable basis with last year, which was EUR 5.9 million. Year to date, we are EUR 30 million compared to EUR 31 last year. The EBIT is negative this quarter, very limited value negative, and it is the first time we have a negative EBIT for long. On slide 13, to again clarify and synthesize the comments I just made. The alliance with Lucky, which is coming up to speed, showing the first effect on the top line. This alliance should continue to bring positive effect on the top line, but hopefully also on the other lines of the P&L in the quarters to come.
The offset division is fighting in the declining market where there is a strong decline, of course, in analog, but also a significant decline in the digital because where we happen to be the leader in the world, but also in commercial print volumes. There is a shift to these countries where the Chinese competitors are stronger compared to the position they may have in Western Europe, Japan, or the U.S. The gross margin, as I said, for half of it suffers from the radical consolidation of sales, which are not bringing a significant gross margin. The rest is due to the shift I was talking about, plus the premium cost.
The plan in this domain is obviously to continue to grow the sales, to work on the cost structure, in particular SG&A, to get the benefit of the new VCF plate that we are introducing as we speak, and of course, to work on the pricing strategy and through our programs on value selling in particular. Moving to the Digital Print & Chemicals on slide 15. You see the repetition of the business. Basically, the former inkjet business is half of the division, and the rest is the former SPA for 14% of the total in the Electronic Print, 39% in the Films and Foils, where, of course, we report the number of . On slide 16, the top line and the numbers in general of the P&L. Top line is declining by EUR 13 billion.
As I said, EUR 15 billion are due to the stop of the reselling activity of media in the U.S. Excluding this effect, the top line would have been slightly growing, as it is since the beginning of the year. The gross profit is, let's say, flattish in the quarter, roughly still growing on the year-to-date numbers from 27% to almost 29%. The SG&A is declining. Of course, the value part of that is due to the fact that we have eliminated part of the business. In the ratio to sales, you see that we have a positive effect of the actions we are taking. The R&D effect in the quarter is linked to the one-off I was talking about. On the year-to-date pages, you see that we are somewhat flattish also in this domain.
The other operating items, you see the effect in particular amongst other things on the Xeikon alliance, which is coming to an end in this first phase because there is still some activity in terms of selling the ink and this kind of stuff. For the first phase, it's over. The adjusted EBITDA is at EUR 2.8 million compared to EUR 7.6 last year in the same quarter. Then, of course, if you look at the impact on the line other operating item, you understand that the major part of the difference is coming from this effect. Basically, a division which has suffered in Q3, honestly, in the equipment, in the jet, because as opposed to the Q2, which was pretty strong, Q3 was a bit weaker. We hope that Q4 will be back to the normal trend in this inkjet business.
The rest of the activity, which is the former specialty product, has continued to deliver pretty strongly. On slide 17, you see that on SYNAPS, on Security, Carbon, and the rest I have commented. I move now to the former healthcare activities, the Radiology Solutions, and then VIP. On Radiology Solutions on slide 19, you see the split between the hardcopy film at 58% of the sales of this division. The CR/DR, which are the equipment from X-ray, which are 36% of the activity. The classic radiology, the so-called screen films, which are 6% only of the activity. This is a business which is, as we said several times, declining pretty fast and not really profitable, but it's the business where Agfa enjoys a position which is a significant one, and the factory of Mortsel has fixed costs which are amortized also through this manufacture.
Moving on slide 20 to the Radiology Solutions P&L. You see a strong increase of top line, which is due basically to two business units. The hardcopy film, in particular in China, because we now reap the fruit of the efforts we have done in the reorganization of our market, both in terms of volumes, of course, and in terms of pricing. The second pillar of this growth is the DR business, which has performed well in the third quarter, in particular with the increase of our service revenues, which is the recurring part of the business. The gross profit is down in the quarter but up on the full year. There is a mix of both products and regional sales which is explaining the quarter. On the year-to-date basis, we see an improvement in the gross margin.
SG&A is declining in terms of ratio to the top line, but increasing in cost. Part of it is due also here to some exchange rates in the U.S. and China and the overall structure of the business. Some efforts also we do in sales in the DR activity. R&D is constant, the EBITDA is improving to 14.9%, both in the quarter and in the year-to-date results compared to 12%-13% last year. A division which is in good shape. Two boosters, the hardcopy film, in particular from China and the DR business, and a reasonable mix effect on the gross margin in the quarter, but which is not changing the trend of improving on the full year basis. HealthCare IT on page 23, a split between the two major divisions, HCIS, 40% of the business, and Imaging IT, 60%.
As you know, a part of the group, IPS division, is going to be attached to the part of HCIS that we sell. This is the business which is, in particular, in Germany, attached only to the ORBIS platform. It is a special platform, Multiple Impact, basically. In total, the part of the turnover that we sell is a little bit above 50% of the sales of this division. On slide 24, the P&L of this division, which performs well. 5% growth in the quarter. That includes currency exchange rates, which are representing 1.3%. Excluding currency exchange rates, we are growing at 3.7%.
To say that this top-line growth is reflecting also the fact that rightly, I think, Luc and his team have decided to exit from some countries where the business is somewhat defocused compared to the core business, and the profitability was not significant enough. Of course, if we had continued the activity and the effort in these few countries, the growth of the company would have been a bit higher. The quarter 5% growth is in line with what you could expect from this business, and 3.9 on the year-to-date basis is also reflecting the situation. What I can say on this top line is that, and I think you know it's the reason why we have decided to sell only part of our IT business. In fact, you have two models in this business.
You have the part that we sell, which is basically around the ORBIS platform, which is a business which has become in Agfa at a certain level of maturity, which is now well established, either in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and growing leadership in France. This business is steadily growing, it's steadily growing in profit also, and this is the business we sell. On the other side, you have the [inaudible] imaging platform, which is the core of our Imaging IT that we keep in Agfa, which is excluded from the sales process, which is the business which has, as I said several times, suffered from our success in order intake in 2016, and we have badly executed in 2017 and 2018. The good news of 2019 is that we are completely recovering now. The order intake in the U.S. is getting up again. The platform is very stable and solid.
The sales team and the service teams have been reshuffled. Now we see a faster execution, implementation of contracts, and a better profitability that you see, of course, in the improvement of the gross margin. This business, which is going to be kept by Agfa, is going to deliver the same kind of success story. I believe that's what we have done in Offset Solutions in the past years, and this will be in the next three to four years. That's basically the essence of what we're trying to do. I just give a bit of color on this because I know that some of you are still struggling with the. I don't want to disclose the numbers on this page. The reputation of profitability between the parts that we sell and the parts that we don't sell.
It's clear that the profitability of the division is highly influenced by the profit of the part that we sell. Okay? The ratio is far above the 50/50% of the sales. The CNA of the division is under good control, and transport can be the same way. The adjusted EBITDA is at 12.8% for the quarter compared to 8.9% last year. We see a similar pattern in the year-to-date of plus 3 points so far and 4 points in the quarter increase of EBITDA, which is the combination of everything I said so far: good service efficiency, improvement of speed of implementation, good sales of software in the business, and both divisions, although in a different stage in their maturity, performing well. Slide 25 summarizes basically what I already said, commenting the numbers. I believe I move now to your questions. Hello? Teresa?
Okay, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by the number one. Please unmute your phone and record your name clearly and slowly when prompted. Your name is required to introduce your question. To cancel your request, you may press star followed by the number two. One moment please for the first question to queue up. I have one question on queue. Please give me a few seconds as I get the names. First question comes from the line of Stefan. Your line is now open, sir.
Yes, good morning. Stefan, J.P. Morgan. To follow up on some of the last remarks, could you confirm to us that if you look at the margins in the HealthCare IT, that it enterprise Imaging IT, which will be kept within the current infrastructure, it's profitable at EBIT level? That is the first question. The second question, on the offset business. No, sorry, on the hardcopy business in healthcare. hardcopy did quite well. Direct Radiography also. Despite this, gross margin is lower and it's declining. Can you give some more color on the gross margin impact on the HealthCare business, on the Radiology Solutions business? Thank you.
Good morning, Stefan. Yeah, on the speed of profit on the IT division, I confirm, of course, that the EBIT is positive. EBIT is positive on the imaging IT we keep in the company. As I said several times, the EBITDA is not into the level of what we expect it to be. If we have a positive EBITDA, let's say, we think it is to make it clear for you. While the rest is at the level of the previous, as I said. The hardcopy and the DR. Obviously, you rightly said the DR gross margin is lower than the average of this business. Several factors in this. Number 1, we are still a bit smaller in size. Second, the business model of DR is a business model which is highly on the service efficiency and the service structure.
This business understanding, because it's a hockey stick that we have been living in the first years after we decided to launch this business, is not yet totally in our hands, I would say. There are some infancy issues in some products. There is the guarantee periods, et cetera. The business is now growing, and of course, the margin on service has to be improving over time. This is on track. The weight of this business in the total, as you see on the pie chart, is lower than the hardcopy field, which has the biggest margin. The situation on the hardcopy field is that there's a little trend in the market to price erosion. What we have done in China has helped us to recover, of course, in terms of margin in China, because we have eliminated a layer or sometimes more of distribution.
Certainly in CR, we have a margin which is starting to erode because the business is declining pretty fast, and there is a resistance on the market. The mix is in line with what I just said. I would not be worried about the change of the margin in the profit stream, which is really due to some shift. A strong growth in DR, lower growth, of course, even decline in CR, so that's having impact on gross margin of CR, DR. The hardcopy film, there are plus and minuses. We grow in China. We have a more complicated business as we speak in Latin America. This is really the kind of things which are impacting the gross margin. Look at the underlying numbers, and this is, I think, more reflective of the reality of this business.
Okay. Thank you. Perhaps the third question on the offset printing and the alliance in China, where you have lower gross margin. Do you believe that on leveraging sales in the next quarters, you can increase gross margin for the Lucky alliance in China? Is there a risk for having additional sales growth with structural price pressure and so a growth in business, but a structural pressure on margin? Thank you.
Let me be clear once again. This alliance with Lucky, as we said since the beginning, has basically three pillars. One pillar, which is the cost effectiveness of manufacturing, because we benefit from the cost manufacturing in China more and more. Both our factories, by the way, our internal factory in our JV and the factories of Lucky, are cheaper, of course, than the factories we have in the rest of the world. That's the first pillar. This is starting to kick in, but not yet fully. Second, there is a technology pillar, which is in terms of process, the support we give to Lucky to make sure they deliver without a significant increase of their cost, a better quality, which normally should help us in the mix of products to sell at a better price. Thirdly, there is the go-to-market. The go-to-market is starting in China.
That's what we have established. The go-to-market is, I would say, a common utilization of our sales platform, which gives Agfa visibility, of course, on the pricing strategy in general terms in China. Therefore, when you have information, you have a better way to act and react on things. Of course, the product evolution, which in the DFE is kind of fixed, has to be also carefully watched because we don't want to produce a product like our JDF plate, which is probably the best in the market from the moment it is launched now, with prices which are the level of restricted levels in China. That's very clear. The journey that we are trying to push with Lucky is based on these three pillars. The first stage of the rocket you see now starting to kick in, that's the growth of our top line.
The next stage is something we have to do internally anyway in Agfa, which is to cut our costs. The SG&A costs are not adapt to the evolution of the business, which is declining in most places of the world. There is a reflection on procurement of our limited in China, and if more, there is a reflection on the cost in the manufacturing activities, and there is a reflection on gross margin results of the pricing strategy. Again, improving quality should be reflected in the capability of Agfa/Lucky to price differently. That's basically the program, which is a significant volume of activity. Stefan is running that largely from China, because as you know, he's the CEO of the JV and he's also the chairman of this alliance with Lucky.
It helps, but it will take a bit of time. I think we need to be patient. You will see that starting to kick in in 2023.
Okay, thank you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Maxime. Your line is now open.
Hi. Maxime Stranart. Hi, Jean. Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. First of all, what should we expect in terms of sales from this JV with Lucky for this year and for years to come? Secondly, what will be the impact in terms of free cash flow, given the fact that margin is rather limited at the moment? Thirdly, we can see a decrease of 1% in SG&A over the Q quarter. Can you shed some light on the drivers of those decreases? Thank you for your answers. Bye-bye.
Yeah. Good morning, Maxime. As you know, I'm not a big fan of giving outlooks on this kind of details, breakdown of costs, et cetera. I gave, in my answer to Stefan, I think a good set of colors on the efforts we are going to do. The sales of the JV with Lucky are going to grow because we not have a full quarter yet in Q3. As I said, we have a program which is a full consolidation of the sales of Lucky with Agfa, but the sales platform that we use together is progressively increased to the different provinces in China. The process will take some time, and honestly, I don't know how to say and how to quantify that.
The speed of this kind of evolution will depend on different things, like the market evolution, the pricing strategy, the speed of our partner, which is a subsidiary of a state-owned company, to follow the pace. There are elements also, of course, in terms of transfer of technology for processes if we want to go outside of China one day. There will be a continuous momentum of growing business because the market sustained a growth in China because Lucky is a strong partner and the number one seller in China, and thirdly, because we are going to expand the scope of our common sales platform progressively. At which speed, I cannot tell you. Just we are the first partner, let's track that together in the next quarters, and you will have an idea of the evolution. Free cash flow, again, it's too early to say.
There are plenty of programs on the way. We don't expect the free cash flow coming from this alliance itself in the very short term, because as I said, it's a mechanical consolidation of sales, and the cash flow will come if and when we are successful in the other pillars, which are cost reduction and improvement of pricing strategy. The SG&A, this is more an Agfa question than a Chinese question. It's probably a bit early to tell you. I think we will be clearer in the reports of the full year, because by then we will have done already the work on the budgetization and the normal efforts we do at the end of the year.
What is clear is that the minimum target of this division should be to continue to have cost level declining at the same pace at least as the business, which is becoming more and more complicated, as you see, because we have reached a sort of threshold now in the activity of the world. There are other structural changes that we have been working. One of them is the one we have introduced this year by having a common regional management between different divisions. It proves not to be enough, so we have to continue to reflect on that. I believe it will be easier to tell you that after we have done the budget exercise, so when we meet again in early March.
Okay. Thank you for your answers.
Thank you. At this point, we do not have any further questions on queue. Speakers, you may proceed.
Okay, maybe we can leave the next 30 seconds for Mr. De Schryver , because normally he has questions. If there is no question, we can then close the call. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you, all of you. Just to summarize, two big things which are mobilizing the top level. It's the alliance with Lucky and the same process, the auction process for the selling of the IT business. Top line growth, which is not due only to the consolidation of Lucky, but also to a good behavior of most of our growth engines. Overall profitability, which is slightly above last year so far. Of course, the Q4 last year was pretty strong, so we will see what could happen in the full Q4 this year, but we must be a bit careful at this stage.
Another point that, of course, I didn't mention yet because it didn't come through the slides. The decline of the interest rate in the world is not going to help our pension liabilities. This is something, of course, that is not really operational. There is not so much we can do, but it is something that as an information to the market, I have to say. Most of you may be aware that the interest rates and the discount rates are declining, and we expect an impact on our liabilities and therefore on our equity and our balance sheet in general terms, when we actualize the numbers early next year. Thank you, and we talk together again early March. Bye-bye.
Thank you. That concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.