The first half was solid, and I would like to thank all of our employees for their contribution, their daily commitment. In a constantly changing geopolitical and economic context, we managed to stay on an ambitious course in the development of our Everyday strategic plan. Our commitment to product sustainability and the protection of purchasing power is at the heart of our ambition to move towards a responsible consumption model. We are committed to purchasing power, and we started internally with the payment of a support bonus to 80% of our teams to help them cope with the pressure exerted by inflation and energy crisis on their daily lives. This measure was particularly close to my heart. Now, let's move on to the key figures for this first half, slide three.
Half-year sales revenues amounted to more than EUR 3.4 billion, down slightly by 1.1% in published data. This reflects an improving trend with stability in Q2 after a drop of 2% in Q1 . Now, throughout the semester, in the context of supply chain disruption, we were particularly vigilant to ensure the availability of our products by working closely with our suppliers. Above all, we must not forget that we're coming out of two years of atypical consumption, 2020 and 2021, marked by lockdowns with a reallocation of household expenditure on domestic items, books, IT, and household equipment. Now, compared to the first half of 2019 pro forma, half-year revenue increased by 8.4%.
This seems to us to be the right indicator to reflect our performance, and it gives us the first signs of success of our Everyday strategic plan. The gross margin rate reached a level of 30.9% in the first half. It's a solid increase compared to the first half of 2021 of more than 120 basis points, which is mainly due to favorable product mix, the growth of the Darty Max subscriber base, and the recovery of ticketing. Thus, the gross margin rate is in line with the pre-crisis pro forma level for the first half of 2019, excluding the dilutive technical effect of the franchise. Finally, current operating income was EUR 19 million in the first half of 2022.
It was stable compared to that of the first half of 2021 and the first half of 2019 pro forma, excluding the purchasing power bonus effect of nearly EUR 7 million and the impact of rolling out new businesses during the first half. Now, let's move on to an analysis by retail channels and product categories, slide four. With the reopening of all our points of sale, in-store sales recorded solid growth in the first half of 2022 in all geographic areas. This massive return of customers to our stores is a great satisfaction for us. It reflects the relevance of our omni-channel model. Online sales accounted for 22% of sales, which reflects a return to normal after two atypical years when online sales were strongly boosted by store closures.
Most interesting is that the share of online sales is up by four points compared to the pre-COVID level. Again, this reflects the relevance of our omni-channel strategy. Also note the integration of the Google Cloud Retail Search solution, the Fnac.com site, which improves the online shopping experience with an easier and customized product search, increasing the conversion rate. I remind you that we aim to reach at least 30% of our revenues on the web by 2025. Now, by product category, hard goods volume fell due to a very high comparison base effect over the half year, while the average selling price continued to rise. Technical products recorded good momentum in teleconference, sound, and photography. However, it was offset by the decline in categories which had benefited from the strong equipment needs for teleworking and learning at home in connection with the health crisis.
I think you all know, now have at least one equipped workstation at home, which was not the case before the COVID crisis. We have a lot of potential customers in this respect. Editorial products continue to show sales growth, driven mainly by books, videos and audio, which benefited from both the reopening of stores and the implementation of the Pass Culture in France. Diversification categories keep a strong growth on the back of urban mobility. Finally, services are still going strong with a rise in the number of Darty Max subscribers and the ticketing recovery after the last health restrictions were lifted at the end of February. Now Slide five. To conclude my introduction, I'd like to highlight three strong strands of our strategy.
First, repairability. As part of the partnership concluded last March with Apple, all the 143 WeFix service spaces have joined the network of Apple-authorized service centers in France. 350 WeFix technicians are already trained and approved by Apple. This partnership confirms the group's ambition to reach 2.5 million products repaired per year by 2025. Second point, enlightened, responsible and sustainable consumption. Fnac Darty is the first retailer to have integrated an innovative tool into its e-commerce sites so customers can gauge the environmental impact of the various delivery methods. This tool helps reduce the environmental impact of the group's e-commerce activities as we are committed to. Finally, that's my third point, developing our services. We aim to become the leader in home assistant services.
We have enriched the Darty Max offer by integrating a new preventive maintenance service equipped with a video service, making it possible to identify products at risk, to better maintain them, and to anticipate breakdowns in order to extend their life. The number of products repaired so far amounted to 1.1 million over the first six months of the year, and we currently have more than 220 technicians undergoing training who will strengthen our teams. Now, for Darty Max, as you know, our goal is to reach two million subscribers by 2025. I will now hand over to Jean-Brieuc Le Tinier, who will detail the group's financial performance in the first half of 2022.
Enrique, thank you very much. I'd like to start by diving into the details for each region results and before commenting on the group's operational and final performance for the half. Let's start with France and Switzerland. Slide seven. Like revenue was down only -1.2% on a reported basis and 1.9% down on like-for-like basis for the half. This is good resilience which allows the group to outperform markets and further gain market shares throughout the half. This was confirmed by data coming from the Banque de France, published on July 20. Looking at the product category breakdown, telephone, sound and photography up compared to last year. Similarly, books continue to show solid momentum, with all stores remaining open and the beneficial effect of the Pass Culture, the financial aid given to nearly two million young beneficiaries only one year after its launch.
Conversely, IT equipment and televisions suffered from a high comparison basis, and this is due to the pandemic and the football Euro Cup that was held in June 2021, and that boosted TV sales. Home appliances suffered from a decline in volumes linked to sluggish consumer trends during the half, following a high level of sales last year. At the same time, diversification categories continued to perform well, in particular games, toys and urban mobility. Nature & Découvertes showed growth in revenue compared to the first half of 2021, a time during which all stores were actually closed for several months. However, in-store traffic for H1 2022 is still down compared to pre-crisis levels. Finally, services performed well, driven mainly by solid growth from Darty Max subscribers and the recovery in ticketing since the last round of restrictions were lifted late February.
Now bear in mind some shows and events are being postponed due to the health crisis, and yet consumer appetite remains strong, mainly for concerts and shows. Current operating income for the zone was at EUR 17 million, down compared to H1 2021. The half year current operating income includes the impact coming from both the one off purchasing power bonus the group paid out in March 2022 to employees, as well as the operating expenses mobilized for the rollout of new activities. This includes the partnership between WeFix and Apple, with training given to 350 technicians during Q2, and also the opening of 14 new Fnac shop-in-shops in Manor stores in Switzerland. Let's now move on to the Iberian Peninsula. Slide eight.
The region posted strong revenue growth of +7.1% on a reported basis, 6.2% up on a like-for-like basis for the half. Growth was driven by a solid store performance boosted by comparison base effect that was more favorable than in other regions. Remember that the region was penalized by protracted health restrictions last year. Thus, after Q1 2022, up to 7% on a like-for-like basis, the zone posted growth of +5% in Q2 . All product categories drove growth in the area, especially books, telephones, photos and sound. IT saw more moderate growth given the high base effect. Lastly, services posted solid growth over the period, driven in particular by good credit dynamics.
The Iberian region continues to be affected by a high inflationary environment and a particularly aggressive competitive environment in Spain, especially for technical items. These effects penalize the zone's current operating income, which remained negative in the first half of the year, EUR -1.9 million, but up from 2.3 million compared to last year. That is thanks to solid commercial results and good cost control. Now let's turn to performance for Belgium and Luxembourg. Slide nine. Belgium and Luxembourg posted a decrease in revenue, - 7.3% on a reported basis and - 7.6% on a like-for-like basis. This is on a backdrop of steep increase in inflation. Product categories were penalized by a very high basis of comparison, in particular for appliances which suffer from lower sales volumes.
Nevertheless, there's an average basket that remains high. On the contrary, services posted good performance in the first half, driven in particular by the continued rollout of Vanden Borre Life, which is a repair subscription in Belgium, which is equivalent to Darty Max. Compared to H1 2019, sales are nevertheless on an upward trend. In a country where salaries and rent are indexed on inflation, in itself quite high, the team's solid commercial execution enabled the region to outperform the market and post a resilient current operating income of nearly EUR 4 million over the half year.
Let's now turn to the income statement, slide 10. I'm not going to go back over revenue and gross margins, as Enrique already commented on that at the beginning of the call. Let's move on to operating costs, up EUR 45 million compared to H1 2021. This increase is mainly due to the impact of the closure of some stores in the first half of 2021. That was due to COVID restrictions. In light of those restrictions, the group actually benefited from short time working measures.
In addition, Fnac Darty committed to shoring up purchasing power of employees most directly affected by current inflation. That is why last March, the group paid nearly 80% of employees a one-off purchasing power bonus that amounted to nearly EUR 7 million. It also granted an average increase to the overall pay envelope that was higher than in previous years. In addition, rollout of new activities during H1, namely the WeFix partnership with Apple and the opening of 14 new Fnac shop-in-shops with Manor, has generated exceptional rollout costs.
Lastly, the relevant performance plan put in place by the group and implemented across all departments made it possible to offset nearly the whole impact of inflation that it had on salaries, rents and energy during the first half. Thus, in keeping operating costs in check, the group posted a slight decrease in costs expressed as a percentage of revenue compared to the first half of 2019 on a like-for-like basis. Current operating income was EUR 19 million for H1 2022. That's down compared to H1 2021. However, excluding exceptional items, namely the purchasing power premium bonus and the impact coming from rollout of new activities, current operating income for the first half of 2022 is in line with that of H1 2021 and also H1 2019 on a like-for-like basis. That means excluding Nature & Découvertes.
Non-current items amounted to -EUR 14 million for the first half and were mainly the result of exceptional costs related to the restructuring of our shops, including the closure of Fnac Italia too. Operating income was therefore EUR 5 million. Financial expenses amounted to EUR 18 million, an improvement of EUR 7 million compared to H1 2021. They include the payment of financial interest on the group's long-term debt, interest on lease debt related to the application of IFRS 16, and the fair value through profit or loss of the group's financial assets. Improvement recorded is mainly due to the upward reevaluation of the fair value of the group's shares in the Daphni Purple Venture Capital Fund, in which Fnac Darty invested back in 2016.
After taking into account these items and the tax expense of EUR 3 million, net income group share of continuing operations for the first half of the year amounted to EUR -1.7 million. Now let's move on to the analysis of free cash flow at the end of June. Slide 11. In total operating cash flows excluding IFRS 16 amounted to EUR -76.4 million, down from last year. This withdrawal is mainly due to the decrease in EBITDA in line with the evolution of current operating income, as I just previously mentioned, and also the unfavorable evolution of working capital requirements. The latter was actually impacted by construction of tactical stocks at the beginning of the year in the context of a marked rise in inflation and shortages of certain components that are essential to manufacturing processes of products sold by the group.
In addition, Fnac Darty ensured the supply of new Manor shop-in-shops opened in Switzerland during this semester. As a result, by end of June 2022, the group had a higher level of inventory than end of June 2021. As for CapEx, the group maintained good management of operational investments over the half year. This is in line with the expectations. That was a slight increase due to investments made for the opening of new Fnac shop-in-shops at Manor. The group continues to aim to maintain its annual capital expenditure at a nominal level of approximately EUR 120 million, excluding investments dedicated to modernization of logistics equipment that could be included during the year and excluding investments related to the partnership with Manor.
Over 2022, taking into account macroeconomic context, the group adjusted its CapEx envelope down, so it should be slightly below EUR 140 million. Moving now on to slide 12, financial structuring. The group's financial position is healthy. Equity more than EUR 1.5 billion. End of the first half, group net financial debt, which was traditionally higher than at the end of the year due to the seasonality of activity. At June 30 2022, group net financial debt excluding IFRS 16 was EUR 586 million. At the end of June, the group had nearly EUR 350 million in cash on hand, to which we can add a credit line of 500 million, which has not been drawn to date.
Maturity of this line has been extended to 2027, with another option to extend to 2028. Fnac Darty is being rated by Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Scope Ratings. The latter two raised group's long term credit rating by one notch to BB+ and BBB respectively with a stable outlook. We're very satisfied with the increase in ratings which underline Fnac Darty's solid financial management. Finally, this half was marked by payment of a second ordinary dividend of EUR 2 per share, which was paid on June 23 and represents a payout ratio of 37% of net income group share of continuing operations from 2021. At the end of June, net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio excluding IFRS 16 calculated over the 12 following months, that's amounted to 1.6.
This is in line with the group's target of maximum leverage equaling to 2x. You isolate the seasonality effect of the dividend payments because let me remind you that last year we paid a EUR 1 per share in July 2021, and this year we paid out a dividend on June 2022. Leverage amount at 1.4x at the end of June 2022 compared to 1.1 end of June 2021. As the year is not yet over, we have major year-end commercial events which are crucial to our end-year results. We will therefore communicate during annual results the level of shareholder returns for 2022. Is in line with the Everyday strategy. Fnac Darty still aims for payout ratio above 30%. I'll now quickly hand back over to Enrique, who will tell you a bit about group prospects.
Thank you, Jean-Brieuc Le Tinier. To conclude this presentation, we are very satisfied with the performance of the group in a complex market with high levels of rising inflation in a geopolitical environment still uncertain. Over this first half, Fnac Darty outperformed its markets while preserving its gross margin. The second part of the year is key for the group, and we remain fully mobilized. We have three priorities for the second semester. First, to continue to outperform the markets, thanks to our positioning as a benchmark omni-channel player. Secondly, to preserve our level of gross margin by managing our supplies efficiently, by offering a range of adaptive products, and by continuing to develop Darty Max. Finally, and third, to continue the solid control of our costs to offset inflation as much as possible.
In addition, as Jean-Brieuc Le Tinier previously indicated to you, we have revised our envelope slightly downwards by 20 operational investments of EUR 140 million for this year. Of course, we continue to execute our strategic plan everyday. We are resolutely committed to an informed choice and sustainable consumption that meets strong expectations from our clients. We are on the right track, and we confirm our objectives to achieve cumulative free operating cash flow of approximately EUR 500 million over the 2021, 2022 period, and free cash flow operating income of at least EUR 240 million on an annual basis as from 2025. Thank you for following this presentation. Jean-Brieuc Le Tinier and myself are now available to answer your questions. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you want to ask questions, now is the time to do it.
I will let you know when you can ask your question. First question. Good evening. Three questions. First, on the sales trend, have you observed a slowdown at the end of Q2 , second part on inventories? At this point, you see too many inventories in competitors, and you think there might be a pressure, increased pressure on pricing during the second half. Third point, on the comprehensive environment, the world environment, and how do you respond to it? Clearly, there's a worsening of the environment in France, not so quickly, but what sort of adjustments are you going to make beyond your CapEx plan? Are you going to or do you want to recontact suppliers, you know, to reduce your sales, to slow them down? Can you reduce costs and prices? Thank you.
Thank you very much. As you could see during the first half, we had an improvement over the first half last year. We were at -2.1%, and we did better. No slowdown. No excess. Well, clearly, the new environment is not very optimistic, but in actual fact, objectively speaking, our sales during the first half were pretty good. As regards to the level of inventories, everyone seemed to adjust their inventories vis-à-vis a difficult market and a difficult environment, a disrupted environment. We have a bit more inventories. We wanted to protect ourselves and to have a lot of availability because stores and partners were growing. If we have plenty of products available, we should be able to have enough with a high level of quality in our inventories. Now, what about our competitors?
Do they have less efficient inventories? That's hard to say, but we haven't seen a worsening of our inventory condition. We believe that we're going to raise inventories in a deflationary context. We haven't seen anything untoward in this area. Your third question now. How would we respond to negative trends? Well, you see, we always have a capability to make adjustments to the extent we can in bearish and bullish contexts. We have plenty of credit, plenty of finance to rise up to the opportunity. Now, savings plans are on , we see that there is more inflation, and so we are trying to cut expenses even more.
Clearly, we cannot offset the whole of inflation during the second half, but we can offset some of it. Now, what is critical is that we should overperform the market. As we said, we need a high level of business and high quality to protect our situation and our reputation. Very much.
I have another question from Société Générale.
Good evening. I have three questions. The fact that the sales in France have been brought early, has that had a positive impact on overall turnover for H1? And what will the impact be on Q3? Also for proprietary brands, what will that impact be on overall sales and then margins? Will it actually have a positive, negative impact on that?
My final question, Amazon Prime subscriptions it was increased, the price was increased recently. Is that an opportunity for you or does it not really affect you? Sales will have a residual impact, but really there's no need for further comment on the sales. Because obviously the sales, they don't really impact all categories. After the sale period, we had the heat wave and that. As we've seen in terms of heat waves, that has an impact on some of our business. It actually had a bit of a delayed effect. There's not much really more I can say about that. As for the proprietary brands, roughly 3%. Then obviously that depends on the availability of our own items.
I imagine what you're getting at is that are there some consumers who are going elsewhere to find similar products as opposed to buying proprietary brands, but there's really minimal impact there. Obviously, Darty with white goods, we're more in the third and fourth quartile for price impact. Again, we don't really necessarily see the same, positive, negative effect that you were probably getting at or what you see on other items. For your final question. I'm really happy because I've been telling my teams that, you know, one day it was gonna happen. That, if you constantly have heavy losses, that you're going to have to cut things up. We actually have seen what's happening in Europe.
Obviously we're going to see the Darcos law that is going to be rolled out when it comes to the free delivery of books, and that's going to have a bit of an impact. We've got Amazon customers paying low subscription fees for free delivery, but they're going to see a huge boom in the price of subscriptions and price of deliveries. That will probably have a significant impact on our business. Now, we haven't felt it yet, but we think that maybe around April next year, we should see something coming through. Again, we don't know all of the fine details of it, but it's going to happen. Yes, I think really there is going to be a bit of a shift from in-store to digital channels. Really we do see that it is quite a strong competitive business model that we've got there.
Anyone else? Questions? Next question, BNP.
Good evening. I have three questions. First, the breakdown of the EBITDA. What is the contribution in terms of product mix, services, and so on? The adverse effect on CapEx trends. Second question, your capability to outperform the market, we saw that vis-à-vis the Banque de France. In the Banque de France report, but you're saying there is no significant change in the trends since the end of H1, the first half. If you're capable to outperform the markets because you have excellent products, would it be possible to have the same high level of performance as first half? Third point on governance. Mr. Křetínský contributed to the equity, currently holds 20%. What sort of communication do you have with them? What kind of communication, and why is it he doesn't want to go any further?
I will take the last question, and then Jean-Brieuc Le Tinier will answer the other two. I said there was no worsening at the end of the first half. I didn't comment on the results after the first half. Someone is staring at me, but we haven't said anything else. We cannot talk about July. What I said is that we haven't seen a major change since the end of Q1 . Now, as regards governance. The gentleman you mentioned took a 20% stake. He is second after Vesa, second shareholder. Well, he's very interested in this retail model. He knows very well because he is in various companies in many countries. So that's a reason why he values a model such as ours. A centrifugal model, not located in Paris.
We have high value service model, so he's interested by that. Also, he took a position quite quickly, thanks to the market trends. He said that at this point, he doesn't want to be on the board, among other reasons, because he is very satisfied with the quality of management and the strategies currently implemented. He doesn't feel that he needs to change that. Don't change a winning team, so he doesn't want to be on the board at this point. Will that change in the future? Well, we'll just have to wait and see. It would be a very measured step if he were on the board. I don't know whether the board will grant him a seat. He might, but at this point, he doesn't want any.
We have a lot of communication with him of a high quality. Very constructive dialogue. Thanks to this, Mr. Křetínský invested in our company, and we are glad that we managed to attract someone who could support that company in its current strategy, beyond other shareholders that also support us. On the first question, which relates to the breakdown of EBITDA in terms of the origin of sales. We don't do that. We do not communicate this, only on the regions basis or product category. If you want to look at the composition of the EBITDA, the margin, the gross margin and operational expenses, the gross margin has gone up by 20 basis points. There's a negative franchise of about 15 basis points by the franchise.
In the 35 basis points, roughly, there's ticketing that is recovering, services and customers are coming back into stores. That's to fully understand the trends of the gross margin. As regards expenses, they are decreasing vis-à-vis sales. In euros, they increased by 45%. There are three components that explain those EUR 45 million, rather. First, the closure of shops last year, there were less expenses because shops were closed. Then there was the bonus and the 14 shops and shops with Manor that are now within the scope of consolidation. Inflation, almost no impact on us. We managed to offset almost all of inflation by improving our results. We did that during the first half, and we hope to do it during the second half.
There might be a more inflation during the second half. Whether it be on margin, on expenses, I told you where they were, but we'll find out.
Very clear. Thank you very much.
If you would like to ask a question, please press star one. We have a question from Société Générale.
Thank you for the answer you just gave us about the cost breakdown. I actually have another question. With the opening of the shop- in- shops, is that going to have an additional cost for the first half? And are we going to expect to see a similar impact in the second half? And the same when it comes to closure of shops. I thought it would have been completely neutral for second half. Anne-Laure, are you talking about costs? What are you talking about exactly? I'm talking about the bridge. So you've got an H1 2021 compared to 2022. Is that going to have a follow on effect from the, on the second half? If you could just confirm that or not.
When it comes to the rollout of the Manor shop-in-shops in the first half, are we going to see a similar impact in the second half? If so, could we just have a general idea of how much that is going to have in terms of the bridge costs. For shop closures, we aren't going to have any shops closed in or we didn't have any shops closed in the second half of 2021, except for a few tiny instances in the Iberian region. They were only minor. There's not going to be much of an impact there. In terms of your question about Manor, the costs for the half are a few dozen billion euros. A dozen or so. We'll have a clear understanding of costs for the second half.
We're not going to close these on the first of July. I mean, we've opened them up. We've already got all of the opening costs, all of the marketing costs, all of the training costs. It's quite a significant cost there when you put it all together, so that will have an impact on EBIT. In terms of ROCE, this is going to have. In terms of the bottom line, it will have a bit of an effect there. We'll have much more in terms of top line margins, but we'll have a better understanding really later on in the year. Obviously, when we try and compare H2 in 2022 compared to 2021, there is going to be a shop-in-shop impact. Are you going to open more of them?
Are you going to roll out more shop- in- shops within the Manor shops, Manor stores? No, we've finished rolling out all of the shop- in- shops. We've opened all the ones that we wanted to do. The impact is going to be spread out over the full year. There's going to be the whole impact when we look at the cost and also the new income is going to be spread out over the full year. We'll have better insight in February 2023.
Next question comes from the line of Adam Crocker from Logbook Investments. Please go ahead.
Hi. My question was around capital allocation. If my numbers are right, it looks like you guys are planning to generate about half of your market cap in free cash flow through by the end of next year. You know, a pretty sizable free cash flow after that. Just wondering your thoughts on dividends versus buybacks and because you, it seems like you're gonna have a lot of cash to allocate relative to your size. Wanted to know how you thought about allocating it. Thank you.
Well, at this stage of the game, we were very clear regarding return to shareholders. 30%, and we confirmed this today. Now, we have M&A as well as buyback options. But the question, the issue will rise during the accounts next year. Now, currently, we have a leverage goal of 2x, so we have some leeway. Because of the economic context, we're going to stay very conservative in terms of additional returns to shareholders. We're gonna wait and see before we do that. The question, there was another question, can we refinance and so on? Yes. There was the early part of the question I didn't quite catch. Could you repeat that?
No, it was just that, you know, you have a little over EUR 1 billion market cap. Seems like a manageable amount of debt. You know, I think that is prudent. If you're generating EUR 500 million of free cash flow through 2023 and then expecting to generate EUR 240 million annually from 2025 onwards, that is just a lot of cash, and it seems like a very attractive valuation for the stock today. I was wondering just how you thought about, you know, a dividend, which is a decent dividend, versus buying back the stock and/or any other options out there.
Maybe you're saving it for, you know, it's a very competitive environment or whatever the cases are. I just wanted to really understand how you thought about, you know, stewarding all that cash because your business seems to be generating a lot of cash going forward relative to its size.
I understand now. It's a very clear question, actually. Well, the first attempt at an answer, are we going to increase dividends? Well, it's one of our commitments. 2021, and that's what we did during the first half. As was said, we are currently in a context where you will agree, which it is fairly uncertain. I think it is reasonable to wait until the end of the year to see where we stand. Both of us have given some indications, as regards 2023 and further on. With the shareholder return policy that we have, it will be an opportunity, as you said, to increase dividends even more as we create those that cash. Yes, indeed, we are going to distribute more money than we did before.
Now, we will be coming into a time, a period, where we have to be very targeted. Opportunities to speed up our strategic plan, but we are still keeping a very close eye on opportunities. It's nice to have the financial leeway to carry out those transactions. The trend is confirmed. If the trajectory is confirmed, we'll be more than happy to be generous and to share with our shareholders the wealth of the group to boost its value.
Okay, that makes complete sense. Understanding, you know, the history of the company and the nature of the industry, it makes sense to have an amount of conservatism. I totally agree with that. You know, I just wanted to understand how you guys thought about that balance, because there probably is a balance, but it sounds like you've thought about it. Thank you.
Thank you for your comments. Maybe we'll have an opportunity to talk this up. What we did is to provide incentives to the markets. We want to have returns to the shareholders, and we have initiated this momentum. I think those are good news because we believe our dividend is fairly significant. What is important is to stay the course. Let's not forget that the markets is going to restructure and consolidate, and we want to be part of that movement. We want to be part of that momentum. That money could be used in that way as well. Thank you.
Thank you.
If you'd like to ask a question, please press star one.
Provide incentives to the markets. We want to return.
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Okay. Thank you very much for tuning in to this evening's session. You're more than welcome to head off to join other calls if you'd like to. Thank you for joining us for our half year results. We hope to see you soon. In the meantime, wish you all an enjoyable vacation, and see you all soon.
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