Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Getlink Group Q3 2020 traffic and revenue conference call. I now hand over to Mr. Jacques Gouno, Chairman. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you, Marie. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. It's a real pleasure to have this call with you. I am with Yann Leriche, CEO, Géraldine Périchon, CFO, and jurists Mike Schuller and Jean-Baptiste Roussille, plus of course Anne-Laure Desclèves and Romain Dufour for the presentation, and the relationship with both shareholders and the press. In fact, you have the dream team. I know it's not usual to organize a call for Q3 results, but, I think it's an opportunity for you, ladies and gentlemen, to have a direct contact with the new executive team, and perhaps to have some comments about this, what I can say, pretty good Q3. Better than expected, as some comments have been already made. You have seen that we have a very strong cash position, which is, I would say, quite a good benchmark.
We have, of course, to explain what would be our vision, our views regarding second semester, because we are really in the second wave of the sanitary crisis. Negotiations on Brexit are, as expected also, ongoing, even if we have no specific fear for the outcome. Of course, this has been already indicated, due to the sanitary crisis, even if we are fully confident in our robust business model, we are no longer able, of course, to confirm the initial guideline for end of this year. I'm sure that the dream team I mentioned will answer to your questions. Immediately, I give the floor to Yann Leriche. Yann, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Jacques. I will start this call with a short introduction. Géraldine will present you the Q3 traffic and revenue. I will finish by giving you a few insights into our Q4 action plan. On page four of the deck with our key messages. First, as you have seen, we had a robust truck traffic in Q3. Volumes were down only 3% over the period. Our market share was at 39.3%. This confirms our strong competitiveness. Car traffic was down 30% in Q3. Revenue was, however, less impacted thanks to a strong yield. What was remarkable during the summer is the speed at which customers came back after the end of the spring lockdown. The last week of June and the five weeks of July were our best ones ever in terms of booking.
This quick catch-up in terms of bookings led to truck traffic early August, which was only 5% down compared to 2019. Our Q3 market share was also remarkable, with an all-time high at 72.4%. Eurostar. Traffic was truly impacted by the pandemic. As part of their rebound strategy, they are preparing the opening of the Amsterdam-London route, which is confirmed for the end of next month. With this Le Shuttle on one side and railway traffic on the other side, we finished the quarter with a strong cash position, as Jacques just mentioned, at EUR 596 million, which is EUR 85 million above what we had in our account end of June. This amount is also to be compared with our H2 debt service of EUR 120 million.
As mentioned earlier on, we will finish this presentation by sharing with you our Q4 action plan, but before that, Géraldine, for the Q3 traffic and revenue.
Thank you very much, Yann. Good morning to you all. I'm very happy to be here with you and to have the opportunity to speak about Getlink's Q3 performance. Let's start with slide six with the overall revenues. They are at EUR 305 million in Q3, down by 17% compared to last year. Year to date is down 25% at EUR 622 million. This shows an improvement to compare to what we saw in H1. As a reminder, we were down by 32% in H1 2020, and 53% in Q2 compared to last year. We'll get to that in the next pages, but you can see that we have a strong Q3, given the context, of course, for the Shuttle and Europorte, whereas the railway segment is still suffering.
On slide seven, you can see that we had a revenue performance roughly in line with 2019 at the Shuttle, with EUR 181 million of revenue, and that we had a decrease in the railway segment of 57% compared to last year. Let's get into more details about the Shuttle performance on the following slides. On page eight, as explained by Yann, you can see that we had robust traffic in Q3 for trucks, which were down by only 3%. Regarding cars, slide nine, unsurprisingly, the volume decreased more than for trucks at -30%. I'll spend a few minutes on this, as it is the result of a very contrasting period.
Yann mentioned a few minutes ago that we saw a fast return in volumes as soon as the travel restrictions were lifted, with record-breaking bookings during the first week of July, and volumes down by just 5% versus 2019, just before the quarantine was reinstated in mid-August. Volumes were also down by only 46% compared to 2019 in August. I'm saying only, of course, because compared to the rest of the travel industry, this is a very impressive and resilient traffic number.
Several factors explain this number. The fact that we provide an end-to-end contactless and safe way to travel, the fact that we offer the fastest journey time and a reliable frequent timetable, as well, of course, of the quality of our service. The last element explains the Shuttle revenue performance is yield, and that has been quite strong in Q3, mostly explained by the increased proportion of reimbursable tickets, of Flexiplus customers, and last-minute bookings. This is illustrated, slide 10, where you can see that our total yield, trucks and cars included, over the last nine months is up by nearly 14%. That's to be compared to the average annual rate over the last five years of 3%. The picture is different for railway, as you can see on page 11.
Eurostar passengers were down by 89% in Q3, the rail freight missions by 23%, and the total revenues down by 57%. The significant difference in volumes and revenue effects that you can see is explained by the fixed portions that the railway customers pay to us. Eurostar has better recovery perspective than airlines, thanks to its green credentials, the relative easier and reassuring safety procedure, and city center to city center journeys. As mentioned by Yann, the launch of the direct London-Amsterdam service and the acceleration of the Greenfleet project also provide some good perspectives for the business. Finally, page 12, you can see that Europorte made a solid performance in Q3, with EUR 32 million of revenue, which is up by 3% compared to last year.
This excellent performance was made possible thanks to the agility of the organization that allowed us to more than compensate the decrease of missions that were ordered by the current portfolio of contracts with additional last-minute spot missions. I will now leave the floor to Yann for the Q4 action plan.
Thanks, Géraldine. Q4 action plan. Here we have three main priorities, which are one, performance, two, agility, and three, discipline in the execution. Performance first, it's both about cost and revenue. Please go on page 14. Regarding our cost, we launched a program called Shield, aiming at reducing OpEx, CapEx, and employee costs. First, OpEx, we are reducing all our external costs, consulting, outsourcing, SG&A, and others. We are also accelerating all our productivity programs. CapEx, here we are reviewing one by one all our planned investments with the objective of optimizing their amounts and schedules. Of course, all safety, regulatory, and proxy projects are maintained. Last, employees cost. Here we have implemented furlough in the U.K. and activité partielle in France to adapt our workforce to the level of traffic we operate.
We do not plan today to make people redundant, as we do want to be able to fully benefit from the end of the travel restrictions when they come. As mentioned earlier on, we have learned this summer that the traffic will bounce back very quickly when the restrictions are over. Our cost reduction plan, Shield, is managed by our heads of finance, HR, operations, and sales. They have weekly meetings to review the actions dedicated to reach our savings targets. We will not communicate about these targets, as they depend on the level of traffic we'll have over the next month. On the revenue side, we are developing a new pricing engine, which will go live early next year. The goal of this engine is to segment our customer base more finely than today, especially as to their vehicle size.
We are also developing value-add services for our freight customers. Let's go to page 15, agility. To bring costs down and be able to adapt quickly to the demand, we want to have a workforce as flexible as possible. To do this, we have developed a program called One Team, One Mission. As its name indicates, we are one team with one mission, which is to best serve our clients at the best cost. We are training people to jobs that are not their usual ones to get the flexibility that we need, and this will help us best manage the year-end freight traffic increase that we expect with the pre-Brexit stockpiling. Géraldine, about our financial structure.
The group has always boasted an active management of its financial structure, obviously now is not the time to change those good habits. In an abundance of precaution, we have signed a waiver on the Eurotunnel term loan financial DSCR covenants. This covers the next three testing periods, December 2020, June and December 2021. The last two periods are options which are available if we require them. We are also closely monitoring the financial market conditions to be in a position to seize refinancing opportunities, for example, of our Green Bonds. This is to further improve our strong liquidity position, but only if the market is favorable. There is no necessity. We are just being opportunistic.
Okay, finally on page 16, discipline in the execution. We have two projects we give specific attention to, Brexit and ElecLink. Brexit first. The infrastructures and facilities are ready. We are currently supporting our client to get ready for January 1st. We, for example, organize weekly webinars with our freight clients. We are also testing all our new IT systems. The main one is our Eurotunnel Border Pass, which will enable freight customers to digitize all their border documents and send them to us in advance, in order to then cross the frontier seamlessly. Finally, ElecLink. As you know, we are now working in a very constructive manner with the IGC and CTSA. We have weekly meetings with them. We got from them a first consent, the first one we were expecting on October the 7th. It was the authorization to test the power station.
We now expect the second one, which is about holding the cable in the tunnel, in December. Thank you for your attention. We go to the Q&A session.
Yeah. Thank you, Yann and Géraldine. I think that, of course, we made such a quick presentation because we want to give room for a Q&A session. You have seen through this presentation that, first of all, and I would like to add that we have the full support of our employees and unions, which is absolutely key. We are very flexible, we are motivated, we are looking carefully to the future, and we are taking all the actions which are requested in order to deal with any situation. Once again, as we did in the past, I think we are still the leader of the Détroit route and we consider that we are in a very well positioning regarding all the competition. Now, please ask your question, and so I give the floor to Marie in order to explain how we can welcome that.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question by phone, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. We have the first question from Nabil Ahmed from Barclays. Sir, please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. Thanks a lot for organizing this call, really useful. I actually had three series of questions, if I may. The first one is maybe on the technicals of the covenant waiver. I think in the release you mentioned that the waiver is subject to holding specific cash levels at the original level. Could you please elaborate a bit on that? Second question's on the Shield plan. I'm aware that the situation is what it is, and there's a lot of uncertainty, but if you could help us understand what sort of cost and CapEx benefits you expect from the initiatives you'll be taking. If you can guide us on what sort of OpEx and CapEx trajectory you would expect for the remainder of the year, that would be useful. Finally, one question on cash.
I think you're mentioning an improved cash situation at the end of September. Have you drawn on additional credit lines? Is it related to the cash flow generation of the third quarter? Any comments you could make on that would be useful. Thank you.
Thank you, Nabil. This is Géraldine, I will take your first question. Regarding the waiver, we cannot disclose the exact terms as they are confidential, but I can tell you that the agreed conditions are essentially a fee that is minimal compared to what we currently see in the market. A cash level maintenance that is well in line with our usual policy actually, regarding the amount of cash we leave in the Eurotunnel subgroup.
Okay. Regarding the Shield plan, as mentioned earlier on, we are not going to disclose precise amounts. As told, we target OpEx, CapEx, and employee costs. We are reducing in all fields our cost. We want to keep some flexibility in our program, just because we know that the year-end can be good, especially in terms of freight traffic, and we want to be able to take all opportunities as they come, and not just focus on reducing costs. Our goal is to maximize value first.
And finally-
Yann, perhaps we can remind that we made EUR 27 million savings in the Q2, including of course, EUR 9 million coming from the state aid related to activité partielle and furlough. It means that in three months, we have been able to generate a significant savings, and I'm sure that the team under Yann's management, of course, will do something very strong. Géraldine.
Yes. On the third question on cash position, Nabil, this is purely cash flow generation. We didn't draw on any line to generate that amount.
Can I just add a follow-up on CapEx? I think previously you were guiding on roughly EUR 70 million for 2020. Is that still the order of magnitude we should expect for this year?
No, we will not give any number on the CapEx level.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you. Next question comes from Cristian Nedelcu from UBS. Sir, please go ahead. Mr. Nedelcu, your microphone is open. You can ask your question. Maybe there is a problem with your microphone. Next question comes from Virginie Rousseau from Oddo BHF. Madame, please go ahead.
Hi. Just a question on ElecLink, please. Could you explain to us how comfortable you are to get the authorization to pull the cable in December. What are the following steps, and could you remind us your target in terms of, say, the BPA and timing for that? Thanks a lot.
Okay. On ElecLink, as mentioned, we have now a strong working relationship with them. There was a meeting on October 8th, so very recently. During that meeting, the head of the French delegation of the IGC and the head of the U.K. delegation of the IGC both told us that the decision would be taken on December 10th. We have a working program in between, but they were very confident that with everything that we gave them, that they now consider that all the file, all the documents that we gave them are comprehensive. They are not asking for new questions. They consider that we gave everything that we had to, so this is the first step. Now they are working, discussing with us, but there is nothing new. We are very confident that they will take the decision on that day.
Of course, it's their decision, it's not ours, so I cannot tell you that it is 100%, but I can tell you that we are very confident given the current context of working. Once we have this second authorization after the first one that we just got about the power station, we have 18 months of work of hauling the cable and then the final testings before the cable go live. We haven't changed our revenue forecast compared to the one that we have disclosed, I think for the first time in 2018. We are still on the same numbers. For the moment, the conditions are still the same, so we still target the same EBITDA target as the one that we initially communicated.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Cristian Nedelcu from UBS. Sir, please go ahead.
Thank you very much for taking my questions too, if I may. The first one on the car shuttle pricing. I guess, what are the lessons learned from what you've seen over these last few months in terms of the pricing strategy in the car shuttle on a mid to long term? Do you reckon that some of these price increases can be sustained for the next few years, even after things normalize? The second one, I guess, just looking a bit at your headcount. I think in 2006 you had somewhere around 2,300 employees. In 2019, you have around 3,500. Your headcount increased by 45%, while in the same time the shuttle volumes were up 25%-30% during that timeframe. I guess, what explains that disproportionate increase in headcount? I'm just trying to better understand the opportunity of cost optimization here going forward. Thank you.
The first question was about the car Shuttle pricing. You've seen that our yield increased over the past month. Here, actually there are two effects that are combining. The first one is that people are booking later their trips compared to last year, one. Second, the mix of product that we sell is not the one that we sold in 2019. People go to more expensive products. For example, our flexible product reached an 11% share of our sales, which was a record compared to 2019. Those two effects are very important. What we have learned over the summer is that also people are willing to travel back if they can.
Just after the end of the lockdown, we had record bookings for five weeks in a row, the best booking weeks ever, which is very interesting and a lesson learned for us, which is that clients are willing to come back. Based on that, we are very confident about the future, but we also acknowledge that we must really understand what are the new needs of our customers with the COVID, with a few other factors. Their needs might change in the future. That's why we are working hard on trying to better and better understand their needs and to refine our pricing engine for the future. This is what I mentioned before. We'll have a new system in place early next year.
You know that to capture all the value of our customers, we absolutely need to segment them as finely as possible and to understand their willingness to pay. This is what we are working on. Yes, of course, this will help our yield going forward.
If I may add some comment, Yann, I would just mention that everyone knows the Flexiplus scheme and the investment we made, which are very profitable because in August. Perhaps thanks to the lockdown which has been imposed by the British government. Flexiplus represented.
Jacques, we are losing you. Hello?
Jacques?
Yes, Jacques is online, but I think there is a problem with his microphone.
While Jacques is reconnecting, I will say a few words about the second question. The increase that was mentioned in staff is linked to the Europorte business that joined the group in 2010. If we look at the period just for Eurotunnel from 2006 to 2019, the increase is +17%, which is lower than the increase of traffic.
Understood. Thank you very much.
Jacques?
Jacques is not online for the moment. Maybe will be reconnecting.
Let's take another question, maybe.
Yes, for the moment, we have no more questions. Ladies and gentlemen, just to remind you that if you wish to ask a question, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. We have a new question from Nabil Ahmed from Barclays. Sir, please go ahead.
Since I'm taking the opportunity. Can we discuss a little bit the truck Shuttle as well? I think October, November is usually the time where you're starting to have conversation with your customers of next year's pricing. This obviously a very unique environment in many ways, but how do you approach pricing in the current situations? Also, if you could say a word about the market share loss you experienced in the second quarter, whether that has changed in the third quarter, and how customers are responding to the various cost-cutting measures that you might implement there.
Your first point was about the pricing for freight business for next year. You're right. Discussion has started with our main customers. We don't change our global strategy regarding pricing, which is a reasonable increase year-over-year. This is what we are applying this year. With the first contact that we had with our customers, they understand. There is no specific issue to be mentioned here. Of course, the discussion are a lot about what will happen on January 1st. They asked us a lot of questions, and they have identified that on the market, we are the one providing the best prepared and providing the best answers. We get even question from haulers that are not our clients today, which is very interesting because that shows that we are the market leaders on that field.
I'm not sure I fully understood your second question. Cost-cutting is different from our relationship with our clients here. We are just optimizing the way we operate internally. This will have no impact, of course, on the service that we deliver to our clients.
Question on market share.
Oh, yes. Sorry. There was also the question of the market share of Q2. Yes, which dropped a bit. What happened in Q2 is that when the COVID started to spread, people, of course, were wondering how all of this would work. Some drivers were not so confident about getting in the train with us or in a bus when you go from your truck to your car. All of this has been addressed very quickly. We have invested a lot in getting prepared for the COVID. We have overhauled our buses and trains, so it is not an issue anymore. You see that our market share has rised again significantly over the summer, and we even had a record market share in September regarding trucks.
Perhaps two other comments. First of all, in Q2, ferry operators have accepted that drivers remain in their trucks, which is against all the maritime rules. We raised the point at the transport minister, and of course, this change impact has been quite important for a while. At the same time, also, the ferry operators were offering a free lunch all over the day for guys, so it was very attractive. It is a kind of business operate move from ferry operators to attract hauliers and drivers. Obviously, it has not been long enough because we recovered, as it has been mentioned, our market share. I would like to add that of course, we will have to look at
In the future that, as we already experienced, we could benefit of a kind of stockpiling before end of the year, which is different, of course, from the year negotiations you are mentioning. Once again, such flexibility and the fact that we are ready to meet any requirements from our customers is a key strength in order to recover traffic and market share, or to maintain at the best level. Once again, flexibility is absolutely key in our business, and we can react very rapidly when we have decisions to make.
Okay. That was actually my next question. How do you read the + 2% in September in trucks? I think there was possibly some calendar that filled the number. Are you experiencing pre-Brexit deadline stockpiling again? How do you think the next months will fare in the truck business?
Yeah, as mentioned earlier on, we will not disclose our forecast for the end of the year. For sure, what we experienced before with the first and the second Brexit is that, yes, there was a stockpiling effect. That is one strong possibility for the end of this year.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Charles Maynadier from Kempen. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I just have one question on the dividends. During H2 results, you mentioned that you were expecting to resume dividend payments in 2021. Could you confirm that this is still the case? Could you also give some color on the amount that you could be paying or on the policy that would be applicable by then? Thanks.
Perhaps I take the lead of the answer, Yann and Géraldine, because it's a board's decision, of course. At this point in time, the board has not considered any change on its policy, which means that serving dividend remains a priority for the board in order to consider shareholders. Clearly, of course, it will not be at the same amount that we were used to delivering. This decision has to be made last in December if we consider on first payment, at first installment, depending, of course, on the final situation. The last decision regarding amount for potential dividend will be taken the 28th of April 2021 at the AGA. Having said that, keep in mind that we have a very strong cash position that we, as Géraldine said, we will consider any market opportunities in order to reinforce this cash position.
It depends on the amounts to come, except the fact that we are still in the mood to find something to serve dividends at a reasonable amount in order to grant shareholders.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Charles Maynadier from UBS. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Maybe two follow-ups, if I may. The first on a hard Brexit scenario, how do you see the impact on freight volumes? In particular, there are some product categories like foods, meats, dairy, that have high tariffs between 20%-50%. How do you see the impact on volumes there? Equally so, how do you evaluate the risk of volumes moving away from the Dover Straits routes to other alternative routes? The second one on Eurostar, would you remind us what percentage of Eurostar traffic is business? Going forward, do you have any estimates around what percentage of the business traffic is structurally impaired by COVID-19 and working from home and technology and so on? Thank you.
Okay. You have two questions. The first one is about the Brexit and the impact on the freight volumes. Here, a few answers. The first one is that the goods that are getting imported or getting exported to the U.K. or from the U.K. already are subject to the change between the currency change, the currency level between the euro and the pound. We are adding with the Brexit, we'll see a possible new tariff change, but there are also some fluctuations with the currency. This is the first point. The second one, after all the Brexit discussion that we see happening today, we can also expect the United Kingdom to be able to bounce back and not to let its economy getting down. You have seen all the measures around the freeports and other that are coming for sure.
We cannot make the bet that all of this will have negative effects. They are leaving EU because they want to be stronger, especially economically wise. That's why we are quite confident that the traffic will remain strong. As to Eurostar, we don't have the precise level of business travelers, but it's a fair share of their traffic. Here, it's a very interesting point. Yes, for sure, with the COVID, but also with video conferencing, we can expect on the long term, some people not traveling anymore, back and forth during one day from London to Paris and back from Paris to London. This is for sure. At the same time, if we look at history of mobility, everything that was encountered so far, whether disease in the past or new technologies, none of them had the impact of reducing mobility over time.
I will give one example, which is telephone. Telephone in the past didn't prevent people from traveling, even if they were able to communicate in a much better way. What is happening usually when in such changes is that mobility stays, but the kind of mobility that we face is changing. Meaning that, yes, business people might not travel as they were doing in the past to meet, for example, their own teams or to meet clients that they already know, but they are going to reinvest the time that they save to meet, for example, prospects. You know that you can do a lot with Skype or Teams meetings, but it's working well when you already know people. When you want to have new clients, when you want to meet a new prospect, of course, an in-person meeting is better.
For example, we can expect people change the reason why they travel. If we look at history, there is no data supporting the fact that mobility could go down. That's why we are also here confident that traffic will bounce back for different reasons. Everything that we are doing currently at Eurotunnel and Getlink more generally is to understand where this new mobility will be so that we are for sure the first one to capture it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Next question comes from Nicolas Mora from Morgan Stanley. Sir, please go ahead. Sir, your microphone is open. You can ask your question.
Yes. Good morning, guys. Just three questions, please. First one on CapEx and CapEx savings. We understand you've been a bit more open with investors on the trajectory of CapEx over the next years, especially on the delaying a bit of the heavy maintenance and the truck Shuttle rolling stock purchases. Could we see, at least for the next two, three, four years, a meaningful, let's say, cut to the expected pickup in spending, especially for the fixed link? Let's say to the tune of what, EUR 70 million, EUR 80 million that you were expecting for 2020? That's the first question. Second one on the debt. You mentioned options, especially potentially a refi of the Green Bond. Since it's been just issued, let's say two and a half years ago. Yes, the price was expensive, but just can you walk us through a little bit on your thinking?
What are you aiming to do? You expect cheaper price despite the current environment? You want more maturity? Just to understand a little bit what would be the incentives for you to deliver on that refi. Last point, because of the lack of visibility, I understand you don't want to guide on any savings, on any volumes and so on, but do you feel today broadly comfortable with the level of consensus EBITDA for the year 2020? I think we're on EUR 325 million. Is this something you feel comfortable with the amount of data you have today on traffic and so on? Thank you.
Okay. I will take the first one about the CapEx and by the way, also respond to your last question. We won't give any guidance here on the phone today as you have understood, and same for the CapEx level. Yes, everything that I have mentioned, we did mention it because we have internal targets that we are working on, especially regarding the CapEx. CapEx, as you know, we have some of them that we are not going to touch. I mentioned beforehand the one related to safety, to regulatory reasons and also to Brexit. We keep that. For the rest, we are taking all our CapEx projects, and one by one, we review them. Of course, some of them are easy to modify, to postpone, or to reduce, related to the level of traffic that we have today.
There is, for some of them, a mechanical impact, but it's not all that we are doing. We are also trying to optimize each of them, wondering each time if the timing is the right one, wondering each time if we cannot, with technology, with digital, with data, also optimize what we are doing and operationally so that we can optimize CapEx. To your question, yes, you will see the level of CapEx compared to our previous plan be reduced in a manner that you will be able to see in our accounts. Jacques?
Just perhaps, Yann, I would like, of course, that we will not make savings on the CapEx related to safety and in order to keep the high quality of the maintenance in the tunnel. On top of that, of course, some of the CapEx have been already launched before the sanitary crisis happened. There is a kind of trend that we have to monitor. Perhaps an additional comment on CapEx in 2020. Regarding Brexit, of course, we have some final investments to make, and we made it. We may consider that in the amount of CapEx for 2020, we have an additional EUR 7 million-EUR 8 million on the French side and perhaps GBP 5 million on the U.K. side.
If we consider the total amount we invested to be Brexit ready 1st of January, you may consider that both in 2019 and 2020, we have spent in France, let's say, more than EUR 40 million. When we have the clear understanding of the full amount, let's say end of November, December, we intend to claim the reimbursement of this EUR 40 million on the French side, and we claim the reimbursement of the additional GBP 5 million on the British side, keeping in mind that Great Britain has already paid GBP 33 million in three installments in order to deal with the Brexit adaptation of our terminals. The key issue is the fact that we hope that we can extract from the French government at least EUR 40 million of reimbursement. In 2019, 2020, CapEx has been looked at with such issue in mind. Next is on debt.
Regarding the financing, I am not going to comment this much further, as you may understand. I'm just going to say that we have an active and responsible financial management. There is an abundance of liquidity in the market, so it's normal that we are looking at options, and we are looking to find the right balance between extra liquidity, economics, and technical parameters of invisible operations.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Vittorio Carelli of Alvento Capital Partners. Sir, please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you for receiving my call. A quick one on the debt. Which kind of size of impact should we expect on the reported debt at the end of the year due to the effects in terms of translation of the different trenches? The second one is related to the slight, or I don't know, sizable overrun in the CapEx in ElecLink. What have been driving the increase of CapEx expected by the end of the project, please?
The first one, I'm sorry, I'm not totally sure I understood the question. Regarding the transfer between the tranches, I think at the Eurotunnel subgroup level, I don't see a significant change. There is some amortization of the debt, as you all know, but it's not going to change a lot of things. Regarding the rest of the debt, for now, we have the EUR 550 million Green Bond issue at the top of Getlink.
Okay. On ElecLink, you were speaking about the cost. Yes, the cost went from EUR 600 million-EUR 685 million. This is a pure mechanical effect with the delays of the project. You have in mind that with the IGC, sorry, what did I say? EUR 600 million-EUR 665 million?
Yeah.
65, not 85. Yeah. This is pure consequence of the delays on our side, the management of the project. There is no overcost due to any issues so far. Project management is strong. Unfortunately, the IGC delays have impacted our financials.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Victor Acitores from Société Générale. Sir, please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. I have a question with the dividends regarding the waivers on the debt side. It's only the clarification on that, is that you are available to pay dividends when you have the covenants below certain levels in 2021? Thank you.
Regarding dividends and waiver, again, I remind you that this is a topic for discussion with the board, but I can say that the waiver agreement that we have signed does not prevent any kind of dividend distribution.
In order for clarification, you are able to pay?
The ability to pay regarding governance and dividends will be related to the usual documentation that we have in place in the company. The waiver does not impact that at all.
Yeah, I think it's a key point. I think it's a key point, of course. We want by any means to keep the possibility to serve dividends, even reduced, of course. The consensus is very low, but really it's a board priority to be able, of course, to pay dividends. We are managing all the financial structure, the waivers, and relationship with creditors in that way to be able to keep a possibility to serve dividends.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Marcin Wojtal from Bank of America. Sir, please go.
Yes. Good morning. The first one is actually on your gross cash position, I think EUR 580 million. Would you be able to disclose how much of that is actually within Eurotunnel and how much of that sits at the Getlink holding company level, if you can make that distinction? Second question, this is related to fixed payments that you receive in your railway service, which I believe, I think is around EUR 100 million per year, and I believe it's mostly from Eurostar. Should we assume that there is still no risk to that payment? Are you still confident that this is basically pretty stable revenue stream, considering traffic recovery is probably a bit slower than expected? Thank you.
On the first one, regarding the split at the two levels, there is roughly EUR 200 million at the Getlink holding level and EUR 400 million in the Eurotunnel subgroup.
Okay. Regarding the fixed payments of Eurostar, first you're right. They pay us an amount which is in the magnitude of EUR 100 million. The contract that we have with them has a different mechanism, but some of them, and actually one of them, which is linked to power, will of course change. If they run less trains, we are going to charge them less power consumption. Mechanically, the amount is going to be reduced. Then they also pay a share of the CapEx investment that we make. If we save money, thanks to our CapEx plan Shield, mechanically here also their share is going to drop. The contract is there, it's set. It's strong and stable.
Due to less services run and due to CapEx savings, we can expect a slight decrease in the amount that they pay us over the next month.
Sorry, could I follow up here? Are those meaningful reductions or are we talking EUR 10 million or much more than that?
I won't enter into the details. The main part, which is flexible, again, is the power that they consume.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. We have no more question for the moment. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question by phone, please press zero one on your telephone keypad. Thank you.
It seems that there is no further questions?
No, there is no other question.
Okay. Very nice.
Okay. If there is no other question, thank you all for your attention. The next publication is on November the 5th with our traffic. Jacques, you want to add a word?
Yes. No, just to say that we have been pleased to explain where we are. You know that we are keen of transparency. We have been awarded for such transparency. I think we are delivering more information than some other competitors and perhaps on other issues in that matter. The team is still available to answer to your questions, Mike and Jean-Baptiste, of course. We really are comfortable, even if we are in tough times, which is quite obvious. Once again, transparency and confidence are the two motors of the company. Thank you very much. Have a nice day. Bye.
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This concludes the conference call. Thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.