Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the D'Ieteren Group conference call. I now hand over to Mr. Francis Deprez, CEO, and Arnaud Laviolette, CFO. Ladies and gentlemen, please go ahead.
Well, good evening, everyone. On behalf of Arnaud and myself, good evening to you. I'm gonna try and finish this day on a positive note for you. Three main messages we'd like to share with you today. On our H1 2022 results, we delivered strong performance, a 33.5% year-on-year increase in our usual KPI, the adjusted profit before tax group share. That really thanks to a number of things. First of all, what I would really qualify as an excellent performance at D'Ieteren Auto, despite a difficult market, really good results for D'Ieteren Auto. A full contribution of also very solid results of TVH. That's the first time we have them in our results for the full period of six months. We didn't have that last year, of course.
Then also continued very good results at Belron and at Moleskine. Second message, as you may have read early August, we did close the PHE, Parts Holding Europe acquisition on the fourth of August, and with that we added a fifth growth pillar to our family of businesses. The third message of today is that we are revising our guidance upwards from the at least 25% in PBT group share growth that we had announced in March to at least 40%. Basically, it's +25% becomes at least 35% if you take the same parameter, so meaning without PHE. Now that we have closed PHE, we will in H2 as of August 1, actually, so for five months, include PHE as well.
We expect this to add about another 5% to our PBT group share. The overall guidance then goes from at least 35 to at least 40% of adjusted PBT group share. Now, maybe before we go into the specific activities, this guidance is basically the guidance uptick is basically the result of a number of changes, which I would like to highlight on page four. We do uptick the guidance, not just only that we add PHE, which I already mentioned, but we also adapt the guidance at Belron, particularly at the top line, where we have been guiding on a low double-digit guidance. We are now talking about mid-teens organic sales growth for the year. The other items we are not changing, so a slight increase in margin we expect.
There will be some more transformation costs, EUR 150 million, of which EUR 50 million are fees to systems integrators, which we label as adjusting item. Also on free cash flow, we will be comparable to 2021, so no changes there. We do upgrade our guidance also on automotive, where we talked about +15% before in terms of adjusted operating results. We now talk about +25%. The cash flow, previously we talked of remaining positive but being declining. We're now talking about at least a stable free cash flow versus 2021 for automotive. The last uptick in our guidance that we do is thanks to TVH, where we used to talk about a double-digit top line, we're now talking about 20%.
Where we used to talk about EUR 230 million in adjusted operating results, we now talk about EUR 250 million. With that, you have the full picture on the guidance uplift. I can start talking a bit about the H1 results in more detail. On top line on page five, you can really see that the growth of about 30% was more or less across the board, with one exception being D'Ieteren Automotive. We had a very healthy growth, +30% in Moleskine, + 24% at TVH, + 19% at Belron. D'Ieteren Automotive, despite a big decline in deliveries of cars, - 17%, it actually managed to keep the sales flat, which I think is a stellar performance in and of itself.
The translation of this top line into bottom line, which you can see on page six, which is the combined adjusted operating results, is even a bit higher. Not +30%, but +38% across the different activities. There actually the contributions is particularly strong from D'Ieteren Automotive, with the flat sales, which increase the, adjusted operating result with about 20%, 19.5 to be precise. Moleskine of course from smaller numbers, +85%. Belron, a nice healthy +8%, and TVH +8.8%. As you can see from the burgundy color, the EUR 143 million is starting to contribute significantly to the overall EUR 729 million of operating results, when you take it over a six-month period.
The translation of that into our KPI, as already mentioned, we did a +33.5% in the PBT group share adjusted. You can decompose that in the contribution from the classical activities, if you like, which all have been positive. That's +13% overall. The biggest contribution extra actually does come from D'Ieteren Automotive. It's EUR 15 million, Belron EUR 14.4 million, Moleskine also a little bit, EUR 3 million, and the group level as well, EUR 3 million. Then of course, the EUR 55 million extra from TVH, which translates to the 33.5% on page seven. With that, you can actually see that already over six months of 2022, and even excluding TVH, EUR 308 million is actually more than what we had as a group over the whole year of 2019 after 12 months. Not after six months, but after 12 months. Nice progress as a group, I would say.
In the free cash flow generation of all that, we are at a very similar number compared to last year, so around EUR 208 million, with a somewhat smaller free cash flow at Belron, given that they've invested more in CapEx and in working capital to sustain the growth. But with a very nice free cash flow development at Auto, partially driven by yeah, there are hardly any inventories, and so working capital requirements were abnormally low, I would say, and continue to be quite low. But also some good cashing in on credit notes and so on we have with the factories, resulting in a very nice EUR 123 million.
As you can see, TVH had a negative free cash flow generation because they've really used the last six months to continue to build inventory. At this stage, building inventory for TVH translates very rapidly in additional sales, and so part of the +24% top line growth is also thanks to the fact that they had inventory, and they have continued to build that over the last six months. As a group on page nine, in terms of our debt structure, the usual table that we show every six months, with the cash position, if you like, at the group level, we were at about EUR 1 billion at the end of December. We're still at about EUR 1 billion at the end of June.
Basically around EUR 690 million, if you exclude the intersegment loans with Moleskine, Belron, TVH. That has already taken into account the dividend that we paid earlier in the year to our shareholders. That doesn't take into account some additional repurchase our own shares, about EUR 30 million, and some dividends that we had received from D'Ieteren Auto also in the spring, around EUR 50 million. Now, of course, the EUR 1 billion is not the number anymore of today. Since June 30, we did close PHE, and so we did pay the equity check on PHE of around EUR 571 million, which was the EUR 540 million previously mentioned, plus a kicker that ran, and so the continued cash generation is of course something we also paid for.
Compensated by EUR 200 million, actually EUR 212 million to be precise, of ordinary dividend that we received from Belron in the month of August, which was basically part of a dividend distribution discussion we had at the Belron board. That basically leaves us still with some cash at the group level, of course, today, but not exactly in the magnitude of EUR 1 billion anymore. Then last but not least, before we go into the specific activities on ESG, we mentioned it during our Investor Day at the end of April. We are committed to defining science-based targets by the end of 2025 for all of our activities in the portfolio, so we're working very hard on that.
The share buyback that we had initiated as of May is a solidarity-based one, so also has an ESG component, meaning that to the degree that the way it's executed, there is an outperformance in the pricing. There is some of the money that Kepler Cheuvreux, who is actually doing this work for us, is allocating to its foundation, and part of the money we are also allocating to our philanthropic approaches. Beyond the ESG elements we will be mentioning in each of the activities, we've also updated our code of conduct, which we will be publishing on our website as we speak. With that, I give the floor to Arnaud to give us a little bit more details on Belron.
Thank you, Francis. Good evening, everyone. For Belron, very strong sales evolution for the H1 of the year with the growth from continuing activities of more than 20%. This was essentially driven by organic growth of 13%, contribution from acquisitions, relatively limited for this half, the H1 of the year, of 1.1%, and some positive currency impact of 6%, mainly linked to the appreciation of the U.S. dollar. In terms of geographical splits, strong growth of the U.S. even before the FX impact. This is not only due to volume, because volume evolution across the various geographies is more or less the same at around 7% per geographic area, but also thanks to quite an improved price environment for the U.S.
The Eurozone continued to grow once again with volume around 7%, a little bit less price inflation in the numbers for the H1 of the year. The rest of the world, they're more or less the same picture as in the Eurozone. The volumes, you know, we are now above 4%, 4% above the ones achieved in 2019, so we've more than recuperated the COVID years in terms of volume impact. In terms of value of the jobs, we continue to see some positive tailwinds there, essentially linked to the mix, but also some specific price initiatives that we've taken.
We expect to see more of those during the H2 of the year because it was a little bit more difficult to pass price increases through to the customer during the H1 of the year. ADAS and that continue to contribute to the growth, especially the ADAS recalibration fees. The volumes are up by more than 40%. Penetration rate is now above, on average for the period, above the 28%, coming from 22% during the H1 of 2021. We see some progress in the value-added products and services, where the attachment rate is improving marginally. In terms of operating profit, there we see a small contraction of the margin.
This was expected by us, as you know, in our guidance, because we knew that we would have strong growth at the top line, but inflation was affecting us for the H1 of the year. There is a small contraction there with some other element explaining that attrition in margin. The first one is the fact that we had hired at the end of last year a lot of new technicians which were not all totally 100% productive, so this has weighed on the productivity of the technicians. On top of that, we didn't enjoy like we did last year, the sanitization fees, which were quite generously contributing to profit. Also, we've had higher transformation costs.
You know, it's a delta of close to 26% compared to last year, and those three elements explain the delta in the marginality of the business. We continue to see a tight labor market everywhere, especially in the U.S., so that remains a challenge for the company. But we are hopefully being able to solve that in the near future. Adjusted profit before tax grew by 7.3%. This is linked really to the evolution of the adjusted operating results. In terms of adjusting items, quite, you know, you've got the usual one about amortization of brands and customer contracts. You remember also that last year we have been taking initiative to thank our employees, you know, by attributing them restricted share units.
That was a small impact in terms of accruing that cost in last year. Now we've got the accrual for the full period of the H1, and that has had an impact of a little bit more than EUR 19 million. You can expect to have that, you know, for the next four and a half year because we anticipate that it would be accrued on a five-year period. We have a little bit requalified some fees in terms of we've qualified as adjusting items some fees paid to system integrators in the framework of the transformation program. You remember that it is a very, very important program for us. We are revisiting and changing all our IT infrastructure and all the programs. Part of those programs are linked to people, to finance, to sales, the global ERP.
We consider that the system integration costs for implementing those programs can be qualified in our APM as adjusting items because they are not repetitive in nature because we only do that once. We've adjusted, by the way, the results of last year to take that into account, but we'll come back on that. You see the impact for this H1 of the year. There is also another element in the adjusting item linked to foreign exchange losses on the net debt. It's a translation in euro of the increasing value in euro of the U.S. dollar debt. This goes through the P&L for the moment. It will change as of today because we have now totally a matching accounting system between the European countries and U.S. countries.
It will go to the balance sheet and not anymore through the P&L going forward. In terms of free cash flow and net debt, very strong performance of the free cash flow with improved EBITDA. Of course, investments in the working capital as we are growing by 20%, higher CapEx due to the increased footprint in the U.S., and also increased investments in recalibration tools for the recalibration. Some higher cash flow from adjusting items I've just mentioned, and we've made some acquisitions during the H1 of the year, which were higher than last year. Still very solid free cash flow. In terms of net financial debt, it's stable at EUR 3.8 billion with a leverage ratio of 3.11x on the June, 13th, 2022.
In terms of large developments, important to note that GIC and Hellman & Friedman have reinforced their participation in the company. They've been acquiring a few shares from retiring management, so for a bit more than 1% and at the same conditions and as the ones prevailing at the end of last year. We have, of course, taken action for Ukraine and Russia. We stopped activity in Russia, you know, day one after the invasion by Russia of Ukraine. We stopped initially the activities of the franchisee in Ukraine, but we have restarted the activity in June, very recently. We continue to make big progress, you know, in the transformation program. The total cost for the H1 was around EUR 57 million.
As I mentioned, EUR 20 million of those costs were classified as adjusting items compared to EUR 13.5 million last year, but there was no adjusting element at that moment. The delta there is around EUR 26 million if you compare year on year. In terms of dividend, you know, we've not distributed the dividend during the H1 of the year, but we did pay a dividend in August and at the beginning of August, the dividend of EUR 411 million has been paid. This means EUR 212 million for D'Ieteren Group.
To continue on, because we had a strong liquidity position, and by the way, Moody's, the rating agency, had upgraded the rating of Belron during the Q1 of this year, and we moved from Ba3 to Ba2, so one notch improvement in the rating. In terms of outlook for the full year, we now guide for a mid-teen growth in organic sales. This is driven, you know, by still growing volumes, positive price mix impact, increased ADAS recalibration, and VAPS contribution. Also, we are expecting an improvement in the operating profit margin compared to last year, to full year last year. This is due to the fact that we expect a stronger contribution margin from the H2 of the year. You remember that last year we had a few headwinds impacting the operating margin.
We are expecting a much improved environment for the operating margin for the H2 of the year, and the free cash flow is expected to be comparable to the one of 2021. Even if we will have some outflow linked to growth of the business in terms of trade working capital. In terms of ESG development, we're also, you know, we've made big progress on our responsible business roadmap journey. We've improved quite significantly the glass waste recycling from 72% to more than 80% during the H1 of the year. We're also making progress in other areas of recycling other material that we have. We have also submitted or we will be submitting a greenhouse gas reduction targets based on the SBTi, and we'll be validating that hopefully this year, maybe next year.
It will be in advance of what we had, you know, proposed when we did the last financing of the company, where we anticipate to do that by 2024. We'll do that by at least one year in advance. We continue to make progress on the sustainable procurement with 22 supplier audit, which have been performed during the H1 of the year. For us, sustainable procurement is very, very important and we continue on that trajectory. In terms of people, society, we continue to give back quite significantly, but also we improve all the metrics around health and safety for the activities globally and at local level. Francis, this is Automotive.
Thank you, Arnaud. Yes, this is Automotive, and I'll start right away on page 21 with the market. It was a very difficult market environment for D'Ieteren Auto to operate in because the new car market dropped with 14% in terms of registrations, still plagued by shortage of components, and it's likely to continue for quite a while before this is fully normalized. In that environment, D'Ieteren Automotive did not push to maximize its market share. Our market share actually declined a bit with 129 basis points to 22.2. But the mix has very much been favorably developed by that, and I'll come to that in a minute.
Also in commercial vehicles, the market has been quite depressed with a decline of 30% almost in registrations overall, and also a continued market share decline for our brands. Given that, Volkswagen Amarok is end of life and we're waiting for the new model and some other prioritizations has been in production that actually led to less deliveries for our commercial vehicles for us. You can really see it visually on the left. In the last 10 years, we've never lived, not even in 2020 when we were closed for six weeks, we've never lived through such a low delivery of new vehicles in Belgium, 195,000 in H1. So historically, no number there. We have, as I said, also declined a bit our market share in that period.
If I look at the mix of products on page 22, it's the trends of the past that keep going on. New energy is commanding a larger and larger chunk of the market, 32% overall, of which 27% electric. Electric is really becoming a sizable piece of the market if you compare it to diesel, which is only 18% anymore. Of course, still 50% of classical fuel. The buyer mix actually goes hand in hand with this shift in fuel mix because it's mainly the B2B market who's driving the modernization of the fleet and the greenification, if you like, of the fleets of cars because they're updating their car policies, they're changing it to full electric to hybrid and so on.
62% has been B2B, and the B2C market has been, which for an H1 is quite abnormal, only 38%. That's really quite low historically speaking. The SUV mix keeps going in the same direction as in the last five years. We're now at about 51% of SUVs. But not only large SUVs, also small SUVs that are clearly in there. Within that market and in that mix, D'Ieteren Automotive did lose market share with the Volkswagen brand and with Škoda by the way as well, but did grow its market share at Audi and at Porsche and stable at the combination of SEAT and CUPRA. What works well at VW is the ID.4, for instance, but less Golfs and less Tiguans, they were just not available.
Audi, nice development in its SUVs, in its electric e-tron range, as well as in the A4, was nicely prioritized by the factories. Škoda was really deprioritized, and we've seen it in the numbers except for the Kodiaq and the Enyaq. We really were suffering from lower deliveries. SEAT and CUPRA stable at 2%, and Porsche, more than 1% market share. Not only thanks to the Taycan electric, but also the Macan, which was prioritized by the factories. In our relative market share, SUVs is getting really close to our average market share, 21.5%, so we're close to the 22.2%. Finally, I would say. In New Energy, we had a head start. We still have a head start.
We're at 25.5% market share, if you take the full electric vehicles. De facto, Audi is the number one electric brand in Belgium this year, ahead of the Teslas and the Toyotas or what have you that are also an electric solution quite a lot. In terms of financial translation of this commercial performance, I think the 4.8% return on sales is quite historic. It's a very good number, especially given flat sales and a delivery decrease of 17.2%.
It's thanks to a positive price mix, it's thanks to a continued premiumization of the car park, and it's thanks to a slowly but surely growing contribution of our other mobility services that are still small, of course, but are making less losses, to some degree, and starting to contribute, here and there also positively. A 19.5% increase in adjusted operating profit margin is really great. It's mix, but it's also cost control in marketing costs, but also in other costs. Structural initiatives we had taken last year that of course help our payroll this year. Also in historically loss-making activities like the Brussels-based retail, we have actually been profitable, and that's actually a historic event in and of itself. 4.8%, as I mentioned, really good.
No adjusting items really worth mentioning massively, I would say, on the operational side, a little bit on the financial side. Some of our Lab Box startups are somehow being reorganized, or we actually put some other capital structures around it with other people around the table. Our exclusive control, for instance, of LIZY or of MyMove has changed as a result. In terms of free cash flow, not surprisingly, if you have hardly any cars in the country, the stocks are low, historically low. That combined with a very nice EBITDA evolution leads to a positive free cash flow.
On top, we've also had quite some additional support of credit notes that we would have still outstanding of the factories that they actually we were able to cash in a certain number of them over the course of the spring of this year. That leading to a net cash plus result of almost EUR 13 million over the first six months for D'Ieteren Automotive. Latest developments there. Supply chain issues, still very low visibility, still new issues popping up every month. When it's not COVID, or it's not semiconductors, or it's not cable trees, then it's whatever, factories slowing down production for other cost areas or what have you. We're clearly not yet back to normal on that front. The order book as a result remains historically high.
We're close to 97,000 vehicles, doubling versus last year, which should support our market share evolution in the months to come. In terms of outlook, we have upgraded, given our strong order backlog, and we do anticipate slowly but surely a bit more normal deliveries. Not all solved this year, but for sure still go on for a big chunk in 2023 as well. Still for H2, this should clearly be better than last year. We are upgrading our guidance that we expect a growth in operating results above or around 25%, where we talked about 15% at the beginning of the year.
Our free cash flow will be similar to last year, which was, by the way, a very good free cash flow, and so that's what we're also expecting. If you see the little pictures on page 26, it'll give you some preview or pre-shot of the type of cars that will be coming into the market in the months to come. The ID.3 is I think a particularly interesting one, and the ID. Buzz for those who have nostalgia in a modern skin from the 60s. In terms of ESG development at D'Ieteren Automotive, ESG is not just a question of internal things on gender diversity, for instance, or on carbon emission reduction through the buildings and the showrooms D'Ieteren Auto is operating. It is also through its newer mobility activities.
You know, with EDI, we are de facto contributing in the rollout of more and more charge points in Belgium. We sold about 3,000, and we installed about 2,000 in the first six months. Poppy Fleet is being expanded, as we speak, not just with cars, but also with electric steps and other forms of new mobility. We did do some acquisitions that show that we continue to invest in newer forms or greener forms of mobility or support of that. The Taxis Verts acquisition is one example in Brussels, we did at the beginning of the year.
The Go-Solar acquisition allows us to not just install chargers at people's homes, but to also offer a photovoltaic solution or a battery solution when people would see their energy consumption double through the acquisition of an electric vehicle. Go-Solar actually helps us address that issue because they install these type of solar panels. As you may have followed in the press, the Lucien bike network is growing as we speak and has opened a new experience center a couple of months ago here in our headquarters building in the Rue Américaine. We have about nine stores in Belgium now, and I think the Lucien bike Lucien brand name is in everybody's mind these days.
We've also acquired a small company, Joule, which specializes in leasing almost, I would say, of bicycles to more corporate and public sector environments, complementing what we can do with mobility solutions. With that, I would suggest to continue with TVH, which I will still cover before then handing over to Arnaud for Moleskine. TVH is the first time we have it in our numbers for a full six months. It's about EUR 800 million top line in terms of sales. It's which is in itself a 24% growth compared to last year. It's a volume growth, but it's also a price growth, and it has been through across all the regions and through across all the vertical markets. It's not just in materials handling or not just in construction, but also in industrial and in agriculture.
There's a little bit of inorganic with a company they bought at the end of last year, so the numbers are in there this year. They were not in there last year with TVH's Battery Supplies, company based in Deerlijk, Belgium, and which actually helps on the maintenance and replacement of batteries of forklifts. The translation of this very nice top line into adjusted operating results has been quite good as well, EUR 143 million, which is 18.1% as a margin. There has been some impact in the growth margin due to freight and cost increases compared to a year ago. Cost of containers were relatively high in the first H1 months. It's going a little bit better now. If you compare it to H1 of last year, that was clearly an impact.
The translation between EBITDA and EBIT, there is also a certain inventory write down in there because they have a very conservative policy at TVH. Once certain items of the inventory don't turn enough, they would actually write them down quite rapidly. This, of course, creates some amortization expenses between EBITDA and EBIT. All in all, for us, as D'Ieteren being a 40% shareholder, this adjusted PBT group share contribution is about EUR 55 million, starting to have a very meaningful contribution to the overall number that I talked about before. In terms of net debt, there's about EUR 880 million of net debt that includes the shareholder loan of EUR 100 million that exists.
It actually reflects the fact that over the H1 of this year, TVH has continued to significantly invest in inventory and in working capital overall, which impacts the free cash flow. Because as you can see on the next page, the free cash flow has actually been negative evolution, consumed EUR 43.2 billion. There was more CapEx, there was more inventory, there were some more receivables, but many of that was really at the service of pushing additional sales growth, which we have seen with 24% having been very, very nice. This 24% growth also generated a 24% growth in EBITDA. Of course, that somehow helps in the free cash flow, counterbalancing the other items I mentioned. In terms of latest development at TVH, some M&A always continues.
For instance, in H1, the Grupo MP Lapa Peças, if I pronounce it correctly, has been added to the group. It's not a huge company, but it's a nice complement to our activities in Portugal, and the integration has started already. There were significant investments, including CapEx investments, most of them related to real, I would say, growth-driven projects. We have the R7, a big palletizable high bay warehouse in Waregem, which has been completed and is fully up and running as we speak. The WB3 warehouse, which is the one you can really see on the highway, for a lot of the fast-moving items and which is a huge building, but it was only half automated, and so the other half is being automated as we speak.
That is a big project still going on. There's also an Innovatus project, which is more about digitalization and modernization of the whole IT infrastructure and process redesigns that go with it. Have been kicked off already last year, but is now really in full swing. Important technology choices have been made in Q1 of this year, and for the years to come, Innovatus will really be there to accompany us and TVH along the way in this modernization project. This will, of course, also include some investments. Then, last but not least, the war in Ukraine did have a very direct impact on TVH. I think we talked about that already in April. It was about EUR 50 million sales, in the combination of Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine has been relatively fast back into activity, and actually with the whole harvesting season, did an okay business. The bigger chunk of the EUR 50 million was really Russia. Of course, in Russia, we have decided to stop our activities there and fully align ourselves with the EU sanctions. We are in the process of actually selling the activities in Russia to the local management. It takes a bit of time, of course. It's not so easy to do, but this is therefore held in disposal accounting-wise in our numbers for H1 of this year. We are also upgrading the outlook for TVH for the full year.
Now we're talking about around 20% top line growth, instead of double digits, and we're talking about at least EUR 250 million of expected adjusted operating results instead of the EUR 230 million we had talked about before. We keep working on, of course, multiple acquisitions left, right, and center at TVH. ESG has also become center stage at TVH. It was already a lot going on, but I think since the end of last year, a dedicated ESG manager has been put in charge. He, together with the team, and with the management and with the board, has really developed a full comprehensive sustainability program, which is in the process of being translated in concrete KPIs, targets, ambitions on all the different dimensions.
Definitely more to come in our updates in the coming six or full year or half year results in the years to come, on ESG. With that, I pass to Arnaud for Moleskine and the remaining activities.
Thank you, Francis. Moleskine, strong performance during the H1 of the year with a 30%+ growth in sales. That was essentially led by the paper category, which did very, very well. In terms of channels, it's essentially the strategic partnerships where companies are, you know, reinitiating gifting programs and retail, which have been the stellar performers. Wholesale, you know, the growth of 23% was not bad. The only disappointment is e-commerce, where we had minus 18% for the H1 of the year. In terms of geographies, the Americas is progressing very, very well with a 50% growth, followed by Europe, the Eurozone, with a 24% growth and APAC due to COVID lockdowns and restrictions in China and Japan has suffered quite significantly during the H1.
In terms of results, we are improving the margin at the level of the operating results. This is linked to, once again, good contribution for the paper business, even if the gross margin is decreasing a little bit for temporary reasons, but strong discipline in terms of operational costs and people costs, which led to an improvement in the margin. And there are no adjusting items in the profit of the H1. In terms of free cash flow, we continue to generate a free cash flow, even if the H1 of the year, as you know, is not the most cash contributing for Moleskine. We have invested massively or quite substantially in inventory buildup because we expect a strong H2 of the year. This explains essentially the marginal decline of the free cash flow.
We increased marginally also the CapEx and the net debt to banks has been decreasing. You know, we are now at less than 1x net financial bank debt to EBITDA, and we have also, during the H1 of the year, reimbursed EUR 22 million of bank debt with the available cash. In terms of latest development, it's a little bit more of the same in terms of strategy. We defined a new strategy with the management in April 2020. We continue on that road of fewer, bigger, better. We see good progress on that front. We continue to invest also in the brand, in the brand positioning. In the cost, you know, we are investing more in marketing in general to defend and continue to position the brand at the right level.
We see progress also in our omni-channel strategy, essentially with some large accounts in wholesale, but also in the strategic partnerships. As you've seen, we try to work well in advance with corporates in order to give them the opportunity to give the good gifts to their employees or their customers. For the outlook, we maintain the guidance that we had given at the beginning of the year. We are not expecting a big impact of geopolitical tensions on Moleskine. We are expecting to see at least 25% year-on-year growth in top line and an adjusted operating profit, which should more than double compared to last year. In terms of ESG development, we continue to make progress essentially with the recycled paper.
We have recycled 37 tons of paper during the H1 of the year compared to 45 tons during the full year of 2021. We're also making progress in our carbon neutral journey and expect to submit our reduction target with an SBTi before the end of the year. For the corporate and allocated, nothing really specific to mention. We also, you know, we have diminished the loss at the operating level. This is also, well, linked to the fact that we have increased some cost at the corporate level to reinforce the team, but we have also invoiced higher fees to the companies and royalty management fees to the company. We've had an improved results at the level of the EBT. The last comer in our family of businesses, PHE.
We are very, very happy to welcome them on board. They have had a stellar performance for the H1 of the year with a top-line growth of 14%, with 8.5% organic and an even better EBITDA growth, you know, growing by a little bit more than 19% year-on-year to EUR 143 million. That linked to sales development and operating leverage, even if we see some, like all our businesses, you know, some inflationary pressure, but the management has done a great job to mitigate that and make sure that we can increase prices, in that environment. We have also had a positive evolution of the free cash flow, even if we have, and this is a trend, you know, in all our businesses which are growing.
We've invested also quite significantly in the trade working capital, in the inventory with PHE in order to deliver the goods, to satisfy the customer, and also prepare for strong growth ahead of us. Net debt is totally under control, even diminishing at 4.3x EBITDA. We have, you know, that was done simultaneously with the closing more or less, you know. We've upped the revolver credit facility to EUR 180 million. For the rest of the year, we're expecting that the contribution of the five months of profits of PHE will contribute to 5% growth in our adjusted PBT group share.
All right. Thank you, Arnaud. Closing remarks before I open up for questions. We continued on the growth path, 33.5% growth in adjusted PBT group share in H1. Very much I think linked to the strength of our portfolio companies. They all hold customer-centric leadership positions in their respective markets. I think in the current inflationary environment that we're living in, this is a positioning that really helps us and that we see as key. ESG strategies continue to be developed and strengthened with a notable progress towards the science-based targets that we're gonna work on by 2025 at the latest. The PHE acquisition closed, and now happy to have an additional member of the family on board.
An upgraded guidance as I started this call, with now an expectation to grow with at least 40% if you include PHE for five months into our overall PBT group share number. With that, let's open the floor to questions.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. First question from David Havrlant from ING. Sir, please go ahead.
Thanks. Good evening, everyone, and thanks for taking my question. First question is on Belron. You seem very confident on H2 on your capacity to absorb inflation. What is your very latest view on volume trends, in particular, the driving season this summer? Then on pricing, so your capacity to renegotiate with insurer and cost, obviously. I'm referring to cost, too, glass prices, wage. And I know you see a bit the same question. How are you thinking about 2023? You think it will be tougher to renegotiate or should be kind of the same, too hard to say? That's my first question on Belron. On PHE, how should we understand the margin evolution here?
I think we like the comparison base to put it simply. Looking at this margin evolution, let's say year-on-year, but then also thinking about H2. How would you explain the margin evolution? Would you explain, is it really PHE benefiting from high inventories? Is it just phasing H1 versus H2? Any prudence we should have beyond 2022, having in mind the business plan that was unveiled at the capital market day. Final question, it's on auto. You had a very strong margin in H1, despite as Francis, as you said, the declining volume. How sustainable is it? Basically, can we dig it a bit on the mechanics of the margin in H1? Thank you.
Okay. Maybe I'll take Belron as a start. In volumes, we don't see any major changes in the volumes. As you said, we're pre-COVID levels, 4% higher. People have traveled over the summer, also with their car, very much so. We don't see massive changes, I would say, in the rhythm or the normal seasonality rhythm of driving or at least in incidents, type of levels that you would expect. Or they would not expect. In that sense, quite normal. The heat waves potentially might even have contributed to one or the other type of more instances in particular countries. Overall, I would say the volume expectations are relatively in line with what we have been seeing in H1.
Now, I compare it basically to H2 of last year, and I think in H2 of last year, we were seeing a real uptick, and we may not see a continued uptick anymore that we may have seen in H2 of last year. In that sense, it's more a stable situation, I would say. In terms of prices, I think we have mentioned that already at the beginning of the year, we are pricing through as we can, and we can price through, but there is a time lag typically between when you see the inflation in your costs and when you can actually increase the prices given that contracts may take you two, three years to have different insurance companies.
We do know and have a good visibility already today that over time, these things can be priced through. In terms of price, I think the 5.5% average pricing fees that we have here more or less is actually something where we don't see an issue going forward for H2. I think that's more or less on the Belron side. Volume and price is basically the real question that you had. These are the things put together that we feel that the slight increase in margin that we had guided already at the beginning of the year is still very much valid for the full year of 2022.
Thank you.
Arnaud, you want to say something?
Well, if you had a comment on 23, you know, it's really.
On 2023.
H2, you know, we are in the middle or the beginning of the budget exercise. It's still too early days, David, but you can imagine, you know, that there will be a few headwinds, you know, potentially on volumes, but it's a bit early to tell. But we're expecting that by gaining market shares as we do usually by continuing to increase price, you know, linked to the mix of the business, but also passing inflation cost to the customer at some point, and then making progress in productivity of the technicians, making some savings here and there. Once again, too early days to comment, but yeah, we on a fighting mode.
Okay, thanks.
TVH, yes, indeed. You know, we've not provided for a comparison versus last year because he will report under IFRS, and we had not a comparable basis. In terms of EBITDA and EBIT, you know, there has not been, you know, in EBITDA there is a relatively stable margin compared to last year. That is positive, I think even if the mix has evolved a little bit, and even if the acquisition that we did are lower in terms of marginality, so quite happy. You know, the end of the activity in Russia which was with a very good margin level is not helping there. We've been able to really make sure that we at least kept the margin constant there.
In terms of EBIT, the impact, you know, the impairment that we've taken, which is penalizing because the rule we apply there is very, very conservative, you know, whereby we have written down part of the inventory, which is, you know, not really slow moving. We could not say that. But, you know, according to the rules we've imposed ourselves, you know, we had to take a write down. But nothing really something to worry about. We are quite happy about the development of the margin in general for TVH. We are expecting to have a H2, which will have potentially a little bit better profitability margin than the H2 of last year. Relatively happy there.
Compared to what Steve indicated in Investor Day, we said that in the near or in the certain future, we could see a margin attrition due to the mix evolution of the business. We have not seen that really during this H1 of the year, and we probably won't see that for this year.
Your question on Auto. 4.8% is of course not a number that we will sustain forever. The mix has been particularly favorable. At some point in time, we do know, of course, that I mean, somehow smaller cars and so on will also be delivered and be served as they are. We also know that we didn't have a Salon de l'Auto this year, and there will be one next year. There are certain marketing costs that doesn't make any sense to actually do when there is a shortage of cars in the first place.
What you see is probably a little bit of a combination of great hard work by management, but also a somewhat abnormal mix, and a shortage of vehicles, where the discounts being given on cars, there's just a shortage of cars all over the place. In a more normal market that would not do. We stick to our midterm guidance, which is to try and be ahead of the 4% return on sales and also keep. The 4.8 is not automatically a guarantee that we're gonna move north starting from this.
Thanks very much, Arnaud.
Thank you. Next question from Emmanuel Carlier from Kempen. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi, good evening. Thanks for taking my questions. I will do them one by one. First on Belron, on the transformation costs. The guidance is EUR 230 million-EUR 250 million of costs. Is this a number that will go up or is it just timing?
No, I can address that, Emmanuel. It will go up. You know, it was EUR 250 million that we had guided for. As we have changed a bit the scope, you know, increased the scope of the program, there is a natural increase. Also, as you know, we live in a little bit more inflationary world, where we see some cost increases. We are now guiding for, you know, around and above EUR 300 million.
Okay.
The benefit of it. It's important that for the moment.
Mm-hmm.
The only thing you see are the costs. I've commented, you know, on the delta compared to last year. This is what you see. You will see the benefit starting in 2023.
The benefit is unchanged. That's still, if I remember well,
Gone up, yeah.
Gone up, you know, because of the scope increase. Margin increase.
Could you remind what is the benefit that you expect?
2 percentage point margin uplift.
Exactly.
By the end of 2025.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Okay. If I look at your 2020 guidance, I think it includes on the REBIT line EUR 65 million of transformation costs. If I remember well, I think it included EUR 80 million.
It's a little bit more than EUR 80 million for this year, but we've upped that number to,
EUR 115.
EUR 115 with little number in CapEx there, but EUR 115, that's the total cost.
If I understand correctly, out of the EUR 150 million, not all of that is included in your PBT definition.
No, no, indeed. You know, so got this approximately EUR 150 million of total spend, you know, cash spend for that. EUR 108 million, you know, we start to be very precise there, you know, for the cost which will go to the P&L. Out of that cost, you know, there will be approximately EUR 50 million that will be qualified as adjusting items because they are related to costs that we pay to the system integrators.
that means that the P&L effect will be EUR 65 million. I think it was EUR 80 million at the full year 2021 results, if I remember well. Is that correct?
Yes.
Yeah, okay. Thank you. On ADAS. So the penetration was up pretty nicely and above the run rate, I think you commented on at the CMD. Is this a trend that you expect to continue this year?
You know,
I think it was at 400 basis points.
Yes. We guided generally, you know, for an increase on a year-on-year of 4%, so it's 6% here for the H1 of the year. You know, we are happy about that development. As you can imagine, we've probably gained market share in the recalibration. We are, you know, happy because also the new car sales are not evolving quite positively. Normally that has an impact on the numbers of recalibration because the newer the car park, the better it is for us. We conclude that we're gaining market share and we'll see for the future. You know, the guidance of 4% is still valid, you know, year-on-year. We may do a little bit better because it's the second year in a row indeed, you know, where we increase it by 6%.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you. On TVH, but also on PHE, I was wondering if you could disclose the difference between volume growth and price growth.
Well, it's extraordinarily difficult for TVH, you know, because it depends which kind of parameter you are comparing, you know. Is it the same customer, same SKU? There is an increase in SKU which makes it difficult. By and large, you can say that of the organic growth, you know, it's more or less 50/50. You know, 50 volume, 50 price. Okay? For PHE, let me come back on that. Let me check. I think that we have at least a 5% price increase, in.
Okay. The final question, could you maybe explain a little bit more in detail why at PHE the EBIT line was much stronger than the organic top line? I know that you mentioned operational leverage, but does it mean-
It's the opposite. The EBIT is growing-
Ah.
less fast than the top line. It's because, you know, we've-
Yeah.
Taken an EUR 11 million write-down on inventory. That's the main explanation.
Okay. I see. Yeah. All right.
PHE.
Thank you.
PHE. The question was for PHE or for TVH? Sorry.
Yeah. No, no, for PHE. Yeah.
Okay.
I think, yeah. Mm-hmm.
PHE, it's correct. There was a higher growth in EBITDA than in top line.
Yes. Once again, it's leverage of the infrastructure we have. Part of that is fixed, you know, and we've been able to mitigate some cost increase and reflect that in the sale value. It's a good fall through from the growth, which is linked to the fact that part of, you know, the infrastructure is fixed. If you move more volumes on that infrastructure, you know, you've got a positive leverage impact.
Yeah. No, no, I understand that, but it looks like the benefit is stronger than in previous years, no? I'm wondering why that is. Is that just because you're in an inflationary environment and as a result of that, you can pass on price increases?
We can, but it's more, you know, the leverage we've got on the operations.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question from Michiel Declercq from KBC Securities. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. The first one is on PHE. Basically you guide that in the H2 it will have a contribution to the adjusted profit before tax of 5%. If I calculate this correctly on last year, that would be around close to EUR 25 million. On a yearly basis that would be EUR 55 million approximately. If I'm not mistaken, you were previously guiding that PHE could add roughly EUR 100 million on a full year basis. I'm just trying to understand why this is lower now.
No, it's not lower.
That's my first question.
It's really the five months have this peculiarity that the month of August is in there. In most of the footprint of PHE, August is basically a holiday month in Italy and Spain and France and so on. You can really not extrapolate at all. De facto four months I should be talking about rather than five months. Given the seasonality that you have in the business, we still stick to what we said before. On an annual basis, the more or less EUR 100 million is a typical type of thing to expect. You cannot take the five months number at face value. We announced that for 2023, by the way. The EUR 100 million?
Yes.
It was for 2023. Yes, that's right.
Yeah. Okay, makes sense. The second question is on Belron and talking a bit about the labor scarcity in the U.S. Obviously, you're preparing always for this in the H2 of the year. Just wondering how you are looking at this at the moment, and do you believe that you will have maybe capacity constraints or.
Well, last year we had a catch-up to do because we were starting from a very low base, and so we recruited probably more than we would have done in a normal year in November, December of last year. That has been spilled over in lower productivity this year in H1 and so on. I think for H2, we're kind of trying to go back to a more normal situation in terms of absolute number of FTEs that we wanna target for. What we do continue to see in the U.S. is that the attrition rate is still relatively high, so people are still switching jobs more than in classical pre-COVID situations, I would say. That may require still some additional kind of replacement, if you like.
In terms of absolute numbers of technicians and other people that we're planning for, we are of course taking into account that we are now at kind of back to a little bit ahead of pre-COVID levels, but that we also anticipate volumes to soften maybe a little bit going forward. We're trying to be a bit more cautious, that means in terms of overall capacity, because what we have in place is nobody is absent from COVID, which in some states here and there you still have. We should see a bit more of a normal recruiting scene.
Okay, that's clear. I just had one more follow-up question on the increased transformation costs. Most of it is clear, but I was just wondering, you mentioned that costs will now be more around EUR 300 million over the next years in 2020-
For the full program, huh? Not for the next years.
Yeah, for the full program. I was just wondering, so you highlighted that EUR 50 million this year will be qualified as adjusting items. In the upcoming years, will there also be parts of the increase that will be classified as adjusting, or is it just in 2022 that is just the case?
All the systems integration that is linked to a one-time effort. We did restate a little bit of last year. We have the EUR 60 million of this year, and there will also be some amount next year. But if you add it together last year and this year, we've already almost spent more than half of the total envelope of EUR 300 million. As benefits will start to kick in, the net cost of the whole thing will start to turn positive. We have said that next year, the first year, we should start significantly to see that look at a better balance between cost and benefit.
I was just wondering for the remaining years, how much of the envelope of the investment, so I take EUR 300 million minus the costs that have been done in 2022 and 2021. How much of the remainder will be classified as adjusting items? Can you give some color on that?
Probably, you know, 40%.
Yeah. All right, good. Thank you very much for the answers.
Thank you. Next question from Kris Kippers from Banque Degroof Petercam. Kris, go ahead.
Yes, good evening, and thanks for taking my questions. A couple of one remaining. First one would be, looking at Belron, two follow-ups. On cost inflation firstly. You've said indeed that the contracts you have with insurers will be caught up. If you look at cost inflation, which might also come in again in the second round with wages and things like that, are you well-positioned to tackle that? Secondly, also on Belron, given of course the fact that you are now in a, let's say, less flexible environment due to the ADAS items you have to foresee versus the flexible ones previously, in any economic downturn, does it have an impact on the operational leverage? Should demand drop materially? Yes or no? Thank you.
the labor cost, I think labor cost was an issue in the U.S. last year, yeah. We had already anticipated that increased wages to technicians and call center people there last year, and warehouse people. I think the majority of that change trickles throughout this year, 2022 completely. We feel we are in a good position compared to where we were a year ago, so we don't have this catch up to do any more, quote-unquote, on changing labor costs items for the U.S. In Europe, it's of course a bit different.
Inflation has only really started to pick up this year, and in some countries like Belgium, you have automatic indexation and so on, but in many other countries you don't, and there, so you have more of a kind of a staircase adaptation to these type of costs. As you know, in some countries in Europe, you have Audatex systems which allow you to upgrade your labor hour or hourly rate, almost automatically or semi-automatically. In others, you have to go to the insurance contracts and negotiate that, in there. For labor cost, we have a good visibility, and we can anticipate it. In that sense, we do feel that we have this under control, as this continues to unfold, in the years to come, whatever labor inflation will be there. On the second question, remind me. That was on the.
Flexibility of Belron given the ADAS.
No, I don't think. Imagine you have a recession and you suddenly have a lot less demand, that operating leverage you would have on ADAS is not there. I mean, of course, we have invested in the Bosch equipment and in the CapEx equipment that you have as a CapEx, but you write that off over a number of years. It's not something that you would Certainly see having a direct impact on our margin or something like that. I don't foresee certainly that this will put us in a worse position than anybody else, on the contrary. Typically, in recessions, we can grow our market share even more and come out stronger.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question from Alexander Craeymeersch from Kepler Cheuvreux. Sir, please go ahead.
Yes, good evening. Alexander Craeymeersch from Kepler Cheuvreux. Just one remaining question on Belron. I'm just trying to get a better feel here. In general terms, in how many B2B contracts have you been able to pass inflation in H1? What I mean is, can we expect a much stronger price increase in H2 this year, or will it be much more in H1 2023? What are your thoughts on this?
No, compared to H1 2022, you know, that's what we know, we're expecting a higher price increase, you know, or value increase in the H2. For 2023, we'll see. We'll continue, you know, if there are inflationary pressure to pass that through to the customer. On top of the model mix and the intrinsic value of the windshield, which is increasing by the year because of size and technology.
Yep. Okay. Maybe on PHE, is there a leverage strategy already implemented? Is there any big refinancing coming in?
PHE, indeed, you know, there is a current financing, which was variable, portable that we have maintained. As I mentioned, we've increased the FCF to EUR 180 million, and we'll be looking at windows of opportunity in the market in order to refinance the current loans and bonds that are in place. It could be, you know, in 2023 when the markets, you know, the financing market conditions will be improving. We continue to make progress in terms of leverage because of the increase of the EBITDA, because of sometimes the leveraging linked to the free cash flow, which we are making acquisitions to. We are working in order to improve the rating.
Okay. Do you expect to give any guidance on the PHE financials over the coming weeks or months or next financial report?
We've given here. You know, we've mentioned that we expect the contribution to the H2.
Yeah.
It's not H2, you know, it's the next five months or the last five months of the year, you know, to have around 5% contribution from PHE to or adjusted PBT group share.
Yep. Okay. All right. Thanks.
Thank you. Next question from Peter Vandekerckhove from One Investment. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you. I just have two short financial questions, please. The first one is just to complete Emmanuel's question about the financial impact of the restructuring program. You also adjusted the 2021 base, and I was wondering if you could just give a comparison for the change to the 2021 base and profit for the different view on accounting and the change to the 2022 guidance cost, just so we have the two things, you know, together. The second question, please. Sorry.
The base, you know, has been moved indeed. You know, the benchmark or the KPI, you know, went from 474, you know, which was the result as reported in 2021. Due to the change that we've applied to some transformation cost, the new base is 484, and it's on that new base that we're guiding for at least 35% improvement in the PBT group share.
Yeah.
Before PHE. PHE is adding 5% on top of that.
Yeah. Okay. No, that's clear. Thank you. The second question, just on TVH. Is that H1, H2 implied profit split a relatively normal year profit split? I think it's 60/40. I know it's hard to define what a normal year is, but just to understand, is that the H1, H2 we should expect going forward?
Well, yes. I'm just doing the math now. It's probably. Well, depends on the growth. We've seen significant growth in the H1 of the year. We see that sort of continuing at a high level. It depends a little bit on the momentum till the end. Normally, yes, 60/40 is the right proportion.
Right. Okay. No, thank you very much.
Thank you. We have a new question from Emmanuel Carlier from Kempen. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. I still have two questions left. One is on capital allocation and the balance sheet. After the PHE transaction, the dividend of Belron, you still have EUR 600 million in net cash. Should we expect D'Ieteren continuing to look for maybe a next pillar? Or do you believe in the current environment, it makes more sense to be a bit cautious and just do nothing? Or do you prefer to use that cash maybe for, I don't know, Belron, PHE or TVH? That's the first one. Then the second one, if you look at the last couple of weeks, which business is, in your opinion, the most sensitive to the current difficult macro environment?
Well, on the capital allocation, we continue, of course, our origination efforts both in the fishing ponds that we've been working on for the last couple of years, building our deal flow. We're continuing to look at files and pursuing opportunities and, of course, helping our activities with their M&A. Well, the small M&As, they can do, of course, on their own, but also any larger M&As they may want to contemplate or management may want to contemplate. We continue to do that and if ever they knock on our door for additional capital support on that, we're of course very much open to do that as well. In that sense, no change of strategy, no change of focus. This cash that we have available is there.
Again, as usual, there's no time pressure. We're not in a rush at all, and we just keep working diligently, systematically and with discipline, as I think you have been seeing in the past couple of years already.
Do you see more attractive M&A opportunities in the current businesses you have, like Belron, TVH, PHE?
Yeah. In the public environment, of course, you're seeing the real price corrections. In the private, it's quite divergent. You see very different things. We, of course, are interested in quality assets. It makes us look a little bit more carefully at all the different things to make sure that we don't overpay. We'll see where this will all lead to. Yeah. I think we did this when COVID was hitting. We had lots of uncertainty. Okay, this is a different type of uncertainty. We of course do our calculations and know when we want to pursue or when we step out of a process, for instance.
Which businesses are more or less sensitive. I mean, we have leaders in their respective industries. They are very customer-centric. Many of them are actually benefiting from moments where people are postponing procurement of new things, yeah. Okay, automotive, the new car sales has its role, but PHE delivers a lot to cars of a certain age. As people may be driving their older cars a bit longer, repairs still need to happen. TVH is of course supplying people with equipment that they keep up and running. There are some elements that kind of help in a bit of a slower macroeconomic environment. Also not gonna go that far and say there is no cyclicality whatsoever. I mean, if you're in automotive, I think is the biggest example.
They've gone through a massive decline in volume in the last couple of years. It's really drastic. Nevertheless, they've kept on increasing, their profitability and working on that. Even if you were to see a cyclical move, we are in positions where we feel strongly that we can work on it and overcome it and then come out of it, stronger, whenever things go better again. We'll see where things will evolve. We also have activities that are on a global nature, and so the U.S. is not the same as Europe, is not the same as Asia, both from the inflation levels, just from the demand changes. This gives us a certain resilience as well, that it doesn't have to go good everywhere for us to deliver good results.
Yeah. Thanks.
Thank you. We have a new question again from David Vagman from ING. Sir, please go ahead.
Yes, thank you. One more follow-up on Belron. Could we discuss the potential evolution of the restricted share units in the coming year, assuming, let's say that you will be hit by a recession. Is it all, you know, still related or linked to profitability? How much of a buffer is it, basically? Second question also on Belron. How do you rate the, let's say, the capabilities of competition to, let's say, pass on similar price increase or if they are actually adjust their costs, compared to Belron?
David, on the restricted share units, this has no impact, economic impact on D'Ieteren, you know, because those restricted share units have been granted but not yet vested on the shares which are held by the EBT. It's shares that are controlled by the company already, okay? That's important to know. Then the valuation, you know, in order to accrue for the final value of those shares, it's based on either the most recent transaction on the Belron shares. We confirm the value that was given by the new investors in December because they've acquired additional shares just after June at the same value, so there is no reason to revisit the valuation. In the future, if performance is deteriorating, you know, we may revise that. There could be reversal of accrual of provisions.
Okay, we'll see. Also the opposite, you know. If we believe that the value of Belron has been increasing, you know, we'll reflect that in the accrual for the restricted share units. Okay. In terms of competition, well, difficult for us to really opine on that, you know. Because competition is different in nature country by country, continent by continent. We believe that, you know, if we compare ourselves to the OEM dealers, we still have a massive price and competitive advantage. Compared to some franchisees, they also, you know. And it is essentially linked to the much increased complexity of the job we need to do.
I think that we still enjoy significant cost advantage in terms of procurement, in terms of logistics, in terms of capability to deliver the high quality of jobs. So I don't see our position, you know, changing on that front. We had the opportunity a few days ago to visit again the warehouse, the distribution center of Belron in Belgium. You know, this is the European distribution center. It's quite impressive to see the change linked to the technology of ADAS and the impact it has on the size of the windscreen, the space you need to stock that windscreen, the care you need to have when you handle that windscreen because there is the ADAS bracket.
You know, in terms of cost, I think our size and the way we are operating still gives us an advantage compared to competition.
Thank you. Thanks.
Thank you, gentlemen. We have no more questions.
All right. Well, based on that, I would thank you all very much for listening into our H1 call, and wish you all the remainder of a great evening. Bye-bye.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.