Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Brenntag SE Q3 2023 results call. At our customer's request, this conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions via the phone lines. May I now hand you over to Thomas Altmann? Please go ahead.
Thank you, Sarah. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of Brenntag, I would like to welcome you to the earnings call for the first quarter of 2023. On the call with me today are our CEO, Dr. Christian Kohlpaintner, and our CFO, Dr. Kristin Neumann. They will walk you through today's presentation, which is followed by a Q&A session. All relevant documents have been published this morning on our website and can be found at brenntag.com in the investor relations section. In that same area, you will also find the recording of this call later today. Before we begin, allow me to point you to our safe harbor statement, which you will find at the end of the slide deck. With that, I'll hand over to our CEO, Dr. Christian Kohlpaintner. Christian, over to you.
Yes, thank you, Thomas, and good afternoon also from my side, and thank you for joining us today. I will start with the highlights of the third quarter, 2023, and Kristin will walk you through the details of our financial performance later. As usual, we are both happy to answer your questions after the presentation. Brenntag showed overall a solid performance in the third quarter of 2023 due to its resilient business model. The macroeconomic environment continued to be challenging, with ongoing geopolitical uncertainties and inflationary trends. However, over the past quarter, Brenntag has seen adverse market conditions continue to normalize, with volumes increasing sequentially as it has been anticipated for the second half of this year. Sales amounted to EUR 4.1 billion, which is 15% lower compared to a strong prior year period.
Operating gross profits stood at around EUR 1 billion, which represents a decline of around 4%. Our operating EBITDA came in at EUR 381 million, which is a decline of 12% compared to last year's quarter, and operating EBITDA amounted to EUR 303 million, a decline of 15%, respectively. Earnings per share stood at EUR 1.18, compared to EUR 1.60 in the third quarter of 2022. The combination of our solid operational performance and the continued inflow from working capital again led to a very strong cash flow for the group.
The free cash flow for Q3 stood at EUR 442 million, which adds up to EUR 1.3 billion for the first nine months of 2023, our highest free cash flow ever recorded in the first nine months period. A remarkable result, which again demonstrates the strong cash generation capability of our business. We have made very good progress on the execution of our share buyback program initiated in March, and we are happy to announce that we have completed the first tranche of the buyback program in the amount of EUR 500 million on October 20. With the completion of the first tranche, we also announced the cancellation of the acquired shares previously held by Brenntag.
We will continue with the planned execution of the second tranche in the amount of up to EUR 250 million, starting early 2024. Now, let me say a few words on the outlook for 2023. The solid performance in a challenging market environment and the continued sequential volume recovery observed in Q3 provide a rather stable basis for the remainder of the year, despite slightly softening pricing levels. We now expect our operating EBITDA to be around the lower end of our guidance for the financial year 2023, which we had already specified during our Q2 results call. Besides our solid operational performance in the third quarter of 2023, we are making good progress on our strategic initiatives. I will talk about our progress in terms of M&A in a minute.
Further details on our next strategic steps will be presented at our Capital Market Day later this year. The Capital Market Day will take place in London on December fifth, and we look forward to meeting you there. Let us now take a closer look at the environment Brenntag was facing in the third quarter. As already mentioned, the macroeconomic environment remains challenging. General inflationary trends are continuing, and the war in Ukraine, or most recently, the escalating conflict in the Middle East region, as well as conflicts in Kosovo and Nagorno-Karabakh, are increasing the geopolitical uncertainties and might lead to additional stress on and new disruptions within global supply chains. This might pose further negative economic effects, which are, however, difficult to predict. Demand in certain end markets remained subdued in Q3 and is still impacting companies across the chemical sector.
The combination of modest demand pickup and normalized supply chains led to declines in chemical prices globally. Also, many customers are speculating on further declining raw material prices and thereby taking higher inventory risks. Even though also Brenntag has been observing and anticipated gradually normalization in prices, we are in generally less affected by the cyclicality in the chemical industry, and our earnings development shows low volatility compared to chemical producers. With our broad geographical footprint and diversity supply network, we are well-positioned to manage through these uncertainties and continue to be a reliable business partner for our customers globally. Due to the continuation of sequential volume recovery seen since the beginning of the year, and indications that customers reach the end of their destocking cycle, we expect rather stable business conditions for the remainder of 2023.
Ladies and gentlemen, as already mentioned, we are making good progress on our strategic initiatives, and I would like to highlight our strong focus on value creating M&A here. M&A remains a key strategic pillar for us and an enabler of future growth. We have successfully closed or signed seven acquisitions this year, with a total enterprise value of more than EUR 370 million. The majority of our acquisitions was associated to our specialties business, and in particular, focusing on attractive end markets like nutrition, personal care, and pharma, catering clearly to our strategic ambition to grow in these areas. Our most recent specialty acquisitions include the closing of Colony Gums, a U.S.-based manufacturer of stabilizer blends and service provider, that will expand Brenntag services and product portfolio in nutrition in North America.
We also signed the acquisition of the operative business of Chemgrid Group in South Africa, an independent specialty chemicals distributor with a focus on personal care, food, and Material Science, thus expanding our footprint in the life and Material Science markets in the African region. But also our M&A activity for Brenntag Essentials is clearly aligned with our strategic targets. Here, we just recently announced the acquisition of Old World Chlor Alkali at beginning of November. With this acquisition, we will expand our leading market position in the distribution of caustic soda in North America, and further strengthen the distribution network in the region.
With all acquisitions closed, all already signed in 2023, and given our full pipeline of potential acquisition targets, we will continue our M&A execution and are well on track to reach our planned annual M&A corridor of EUR 400 million-EUR 500 million in 2023. Now, I would like to hand over to Kristin, who will talk about the financial performance in the first quarter in more detail. Kristin?
Thank you, Christian, and also from my side, a warm welcome to everyone on this call. I will now talk about our key financial figures for the third quarter, 2023, and I will start with the development of our operating EBITDA on this level. As a reminder, when talking about growth rates, we generally talk about FX-adjusted rates. This is particularly important this quarter, as we face a significant translational FX headwind. Please have a look at the bridge on the left-hand side of slide 7. In the third quarter, 2022, we reported a very strong operating EBITDA of EUR 384 million. The translational foreign exchange effect into three this year, had a negative impact of EUR 26 million. Our acquisitions contributed EUR 1 million to the operating EBITDA growth. This represents an organic operating EBITDA decline of EUR 57 million.
Overall, we reported an operating EBITDA of EUR 203 million for the whole group. Compared to the very strong prior year performance, this represents a decrease of 15%. Our results were overall characterized by the continuously challenging market environment. Volumes were below the prior year period, and gross profit per unit decreased slightly compared to the third quarter, 2022, but broadly in line with our expectation of gradual normalization in the course of this year. Compared to the second quarter, 2023, we continue to see sequential volume improvements, partly counterbalancing the also sequentially slightly lower gross profit per unit values. On the right-hand side, you find a more detailed view by division and all other segments. Operating EBITDA growth for Brenntag Specialties was - 20%, and for Brenntag Essentials, the growth rate was -13% year-over-year.
I will talk about the divisional development in more detail in a minute. The group EBITDA conversion ratio came in at 30%, which is 440 basis points below the very strong prior year quarter. Coming to page eight. Brenntag Specialties reported an operating gross profit decline of 6% to EUR 371 million in the first quarter of 2023. Operating EBITDA declined by 20% and reached EUR 135 million. The EBITDA conversion ratio for Brenntag Specialties was around 36% and below the prior year level of 43%. The results of Brenntag Specialties were affected by negative volume developments in combination with falling sales prices and the corresponding impact on our gross profit per unit compared to last year....
Even though volume sales sequentially recovering throughout 2023, prices normalized as expected, leading to results below the prior year period. Let us have a closer look at our focus industries. Pharma and Water Treatment performed very well, but as already mentioned in Q2, due to their relative size, both could not compensate for lower demand in other segments, where customers continued to order lower volumes in anticipation of currently falling prices. Nutrition and Personal Care, HI&I, showed a negative performance compared to the strong prior year earnings, especially driven by volume and price declines of non-branded ingredients. The performance of the Saterial Science sector continues to be negatively impacted by muted construction activity across all regions. Operating expenses for Brenntag Specialties increased year-over-year, driven by M&A, ongoing inflationary trends, and additional costs in connection with our strategic initiatives.
Let us take a closer look at Brenntag Essentials. Brenntag Essentials reported an operating gross profit of EUR 623 million, which is a decline of 4% compared to the prior year. Operating EBITDA stood at EUR 199 million. This is 13% below the strong prior year figure. The EBITDA conversion for the division came in at around 32%, compared to the highest prior year level of 36%. All regions saw a decline in EBITDA compared to the strong performance in the third quarter of 2022. In EMEA and North America, this was mainly due to declining volumes in combination with an anticipated normalization in gross profit per unit. North America, this normalization was less pronounced, again, underlining the robust performance in the region.
EMEA, we observed a stronger gross profit per unit normalization compared to a relatively higher prior year level. The APAC segment, an increase in volume compared to last year, was achieved both organically and including acquisitions, resulting in overall gross profit growth for this segment. Operating expenses for Brenntag Essentials remained largely stable compared to the prior year period. On an organic basis, the division was able to reduce costs, which is attributable to overall lower volumes compared to the previous year and also to our cost-saving measures. Sequentially, the division saw a slight continued increase in volume compared to the second quarter of 2023. Let me briefly address the development in all other segments. In all other segments, which mainly include the holding companies, we recorded a negative operating EBITDA contribution of EUR 31 million. Compared to last year's results, this is an improvement of 22%.
The improvement is driven by a significant year-on-year reduction in costs in the third quarter of 2023, which is next to the impact of our cost-saving measures, mainly the result of lower variable. In summary, the results are broadly in line with our expectation in a continuously challenging market environment. Moving to slide 10, where we look at the income statement in more detail compared to the third quarter last year. We generated sales of around EUR 4.1 billion, a decline of 15% compared to Q3 2022. Our operating gross profit stood at around EUR 1 billion. This represents a decline of around 4% compared to the strong prior year quarter. Operating expenses, excluding special items, remained stable compared to the prior year period on an FX-adjusted basis. Here, I would like to add that this includes additional costs incurred through acquisitions.
Excluding M&A, we are pleased with our organic operating expense development. On an organic basis, we were able to reduce our OpEx by a double-digit million EUR amount, driven by first signs of our cost containment measures in combination with lower variable personnel expenses, as well as lower volumes compared to last year. As we are executing our Horizon Two strategy, further costs associated with our DiDEX and IT initiatives were incurred in Q3. However, these additional costs were more than compensated by the reduction in the other cost items I just mentioned. Let me assure you that we will continue to focus on our cost development and execute our cost containment measures as indicated in our Q2 results call. Special items below operating EBITDA had a negative effect of EUR 24 million.
This is mainly related to costs associated to a fire at a site in Canada in the amount of EUR 17 million, among others, for loss of inventory, repairs, inventory repairs, remediation of the resulting environmental damage, and maintenance of our business activities. Depreciation and amortization together remained stable with a combined amount of EUR 94 million. Net finance cost of EUR 25 million was significantly below the prior year period figure of EUR 40 million. This is mainly related to one-off gains from the valuation of purchase price liabilities. Our financial performance translated into a profit after tax of EUR 178 million and earnings per share of EUR 1.18.... This compares to the very strong prior year quarter profit after tax of EUR 249 million, and earnings per share of EUR 1.60 last year.
Coming to page 11 and the free cash flow. In the third quarter of 2023, we generated another very strong free cash flow of EUR 442 million. The significant increase in free cash flow generation is mainly due to the cash inflow from working capital, whereas we reported an outflow for investments in our working capital in the prior year quarter. Our working capital turnover was lower compared to the average working capital turn of last year, and stood at 7.2 times. The prior year was characterized by a strong working capital turn, particularly at the beginning of 2022. Since the start of 2023, and in the currently challenging market environment, we are observing continued improvements on our working capital management, particularly driven by lower days of inventory held and higher days of purchases outstanding.
We remain focused on our working capital management, and we are confident to further improve our working capital in the upcoming months. Looking at our balance sheet, our net financial liabilities amounted to EUR 2.1 billion at the end of Q3. Our leverage ratio, which is net debt to operating EBITDA, remains on low levels and stood at 1.4 times. This includes the first tranche of our share buyback program in the amount of EUR 500 million. Thereof, around EUR 439 million were realized at the end of Q2-Q3. In the meantime, however, as already announced, we have successfully completed the first tranche of the buyback program on October 20. With the completion of the first tranche, we also announced the cancellation of the acquired shares previously held by Brenntag.
On the right-hand side of the slide, you can see our current maturity profile, which visualizes our strong financing structure. With this, I would like to hand back to Christian to talk about the outlook for 2023.
Yes, thank you, Kristin, and ladies and gentlemen, let me close now with the outlook for 2023. The solid performance in a challenging market environment and the continued sequential volume recovery observed in Q3 provide a rather stable basis for the remainder of the year, despite slightly softened pricing levels. We now expect our operating EBITDA to be around the lower end of our guidance for the financial year 2023, which we had already specified during our Q2 results call. For the remainder of 2023, we continue to expect a tough operating environment characterized by geopolitical uncertainty, macroeconomic challenges, but also a continued slight sequential recovery in volumes. We also see indications that customers reach the end of their destocking cycle and observe that prices started to stabilize towards the end of Q3. Therefore, we expect rather stable business conditions for the fourth quarter.
To this, I would like to close the presentation now and thank all of you for participating in today's call, and we are looking forward now to your questions.
Thank you. We will now begin our question and answer session. If you do have a question for our speakers, please dial star one one on your telephone keypad now. Once your name has been announced, you can ask your question. If you find your question is answered before it is your turn to speak, you can dial star one one again to cancel your question. One moment, please, for the first question. Our first question comes from the line of Suhasini Varanasi from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two, please. One is on the outlook, where you are now guiding for the profits to be around EUR 1.6 billion, lower end of the range on EBITDA, and EUR 1.3 billion on EBITDA. This effectively implies, based on what you've delivered in the first nine months, for profits to be sequentially higher by about EUR 10 million versus Q3. But normal seasonal patterns would call for profits to be sequentially lower quarter on quarter. So can you help us understand the moving parts here, please, and the confidence levels around this guidance? Second question is around the commentary that you made, that your performance in Q3 is providing a rather stable basis for the remainder of the year, despite slightly softer, you know, pricing levels.
I appreciate that you've spoken about, you know, the sequentially stronger volumes throughout the course of this year. Maybe thinking about early 2024, how should we think about the current run rate of pricing, which has now stabilized, and volumes? Does it effectively imply declines in GP if these trends continue in the early part of 2024? I appreciate it's too early to talk about 2024, but just, you know, what does it imply if these current trends continue? Thank you.
Yeah, Suhasini, thanks a lot for your question. I think the first one on the outlook, Kristin will explain a little bit the moving parts. On the sequential volume development, I think you have heard me saying throughout the year that actually we see a sequential volume recovery already since the beginning of the year, region by region, of course, differently, but also industry segment by industry segment, different. North America has been more robust than most people have thought it is, and we see this clearly also reflected in particular in our Essentials numbers in North America. That momentum we see at this moment continuing. We see also in Q3 the first signs of a recovery in domestic demand in China.
So we have seen sequential volume increases there, and the second positive aspect to that is also that pricing in China is getting up, which is typically a good indicator that the demand situation in China is indeed improving, and that will have collateral effects also into Asia. So that's, I would say, also the important news of Q3. Last but not least, Europe, you know, still, we still don't see the full volume recovery yet. However, we had encouraging signs on the specialties business in Europe, where we see also sequential volume increases. And, for the first time since, if you ask me, eighteen months, probably, we see also a recovery in demand in the Material Science pieces, which is construction, coatings, et cetera.
That all, you know, leads us to the point that from a demand standpoint of view and from a volume standpoint, development standpoint of view, we repeat what we have said in Q2. We believe second half will have higher volumes than first half of 2023. I think we can confirm this again today, and we believe that 2024 will also be, from a demand standpoint of view, better than 2023. Again, when 2024 volume and demand and how it will develop quarter by quarter at this moment is difficult to predict, but we see that actually the large destocking cycle, and one of the longest I've ever seen in my experience, is actually coming, at least what we observe, coming now to the finish line, and that will lead naturally to a different volume scenario than we...
What we had in 2023. On the pricing front, then I hand over to Kristin. We saw stabilizing prices, now towards the end of Q3, continuing also into the Q4, which is, again, you know, still, I would say, an encouraging sign, that we do see this. So we have not seen, selling prices, et cetera, going down beyond the levels we, which we had the last couple of months. And, combining all of that, we believe that we will have rather stable business conditions in the absence of any geopolitical, effects, towards the end of the year. This is, you know, why we, guide you accordingly. But Kristin has more granularity here, to give you a flavor here. Kristin?
Thank you, Christian. Hi, Suhasini. Yeah, also from my side, what we expect to see is a volume increase, a sequential volume increase. We think that this will continue, and what we also see that the GP per unit values are flattening right now, which makes us cautiously optimistic that we will be able to keep our results stable for the remainder of the year. If you compare or if we compare ourselves with last year's fourth quarter, we also need to say, say that it was a rather weak quarter due to also some special effects we have included here, for instance, also the one-off payment for our employees. So therefore, I think it's also not wise to compare that with that quarter in too much detail.
Therefore, all in all, that leads us to the fact that we are able to reach our guidance towards the end of the year.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, and one moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Rory McKenzie, from UBS. Please go ahead. Your line is now open.
Good afternoon, it's Rory here. Three, please. Firstly, can we have just a bit more detail on the volume and price impacts in Q3? Could I assume that organic volumes are maybe down 3%-4% year-over-year, so a bit better than Q2, and equally, therefore, average gross profit per unit is down 1%-2% year-over-year, so a little bit worse than Q3? And then I've got just two questions on margins. Firstly, does your guidance reflect bigger reductions in organic operating expenses in Q4? On this call, you've referenced some cost containment measures, but organic costs were, of course, only slightly down in Q3, and group EBITDA conversion margin was down a lot year-over-year, so it's not defending profits yet. So what are the plans for Q4?
And then finally, just on Brenntag Specialties, could you maybe describe more about where you are with your cost investment versus cost-saving plans in Specialties? The conversion margin gap between you and your peers is kind of getting up to sort of record levels at the moment. So can you maybe talk more broadly about what your plans are for the Specialties profitability and when we would hope to see that recover? Thank you.
Yeah, Rory, thank you very much. I'll take the last question and would give the two first ones on, on details on volume, organic growth, profit per unit to Kristin. So the margin question. On Specialties, I mean, let's, be very clear, we are not satisfied with the performance of Specialties at all, in particular on the conversion, conversion margin. So I think we have, performed relatively well compared to, I mean, again, you know, we don't have the peer numbers on Q3, as transparent yet, because, you know, one of them only announced this morning in a, only for nine months numbers, so we need to have a clear look on that. But our assumption is that on a gross profit level, we are performing on par, on the gross profit impact on specialties.
On the conversion margin, it is a sign, of course, of the investments we have to undertake to upgrade the company going forward. I think you've heard me frequently saying that we are now fixing things we should have fixed some time ago, which is our investments into the safety of our sites. These are, of course, investments into our digital and data investment, and these are, of course, investments in the skills and capabilities this company needs to have, also in specialties, while we are progressing in our separation and making those divisions more and more independent and autonomous from each other. But that we cannot be satisfied with that, that's, I would say, obvious, and we are working very diligently and very hard to you know get this in the right direction.
Kristin, you want to answer the two other questions you already had?
Yes. Hi, Rory. So first of all, in terms of volume and price, your assumptions are quite right. We see very low single digit GP per ton decrease compared to last year, and a bit higher decrease in volumes, but also here a low single digit amount. So you are quite right with what you assumed. In terms of organic cost development, yes, we saw an improved cost position compared to last year. And we are very well on the way with our cost out measures we have initiated in the course of this year. But you also need to have in mind that still our costs below the GP include some variable costs, which are dependent on our volume.
We have the investment into our future, and we still have inflationary trends. So against that background, I think to have a reduction overall of a low single-digit number organically is an achievement, but of course, we will also continue to focus on our cost position for Q4. So all the cost containment measures are ongoing, and we are also making good progress here.
If I can just follow up on your comments, Christian, on specialties. I appreciate, you know, the environment is more difficult today than it, you know, it was before, but it sounds like something needs to change within specialties, and it's not just that new cost investments need to kind of ramp up and get more productive. Are there broader plans to, you know, rationalize the specialties business, or will that just take time until the business is more standalone? Just trying to work out what you think has to change there next, if you can't just rely on the market.
Rory, I think, this is, you know, a discussion we will have at the Capital Market Day on December fifth, where we give you more granularity of how we want to tackle the medium to short term, sorry, the medium to long term, performance gaps or the reasons for that, going forward. I mean, you heard me saying also in the last earnings calls that we need to address the portfolio quality of specialties, and this goes in many dimensions. It goes into, you know, the strategic supplier management, and this is a fix which doesn't happen overnight. I mean, this is as you speak, but we had already in Q3 interesting wins of new suppliers for the specialties business. That goes in the quality of the products which we are distributing.
We talked lengthy around the non-branded ingredients we have in that portfolio and how their share is compared to the rest of the portfolio. And of course in particular also of how we are driving our focus into the life sciences versus the Material Science sector. So all of that, I think we will provide you more granularity in four weeks. So I kindly ask you to be patient up to that point until we can talk about it in detail.
Okay. I appreciate that. Thanks for now, and yeah, look forward to December. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, and one moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Annelies Vermeulen from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon. I have three questions as well. So firstly, just on. I wanted to follow up on the comments you made around your customers. So you said that some of your customers were speculating on pricing coming down and taking more inventory risk as a result. Could you perhaps talk more broadly around, you know, the kind of conversations you're having with your customers? What are you hearing, you know, what they're saying about their expectations for next year? I appreciate it will vary, probably quite significantly by geography and end market, but any kind of high-level comments you can give, based on those conversations, would be interesting. Then secondly, also follow up on China. You mentioned, you know, you're seeing some signs of recovery.
I think, you know, when you listen to some of your peer commentary, and that, that's not just chemicals peers, but also peers with other, you know, in other site- other industries with exposure to China, it sounds like China is still quite challenged. So again, is there any more granularity you can give on where you're seeing those signs of recovery? Is it specific customers or, or end markets? And, and how, how material is that? Or is it still a case of, you know, the majority of the recovery still needs to happen, and that's more of a 2024 story. And then lastly, my last question, just on M&A. You know, you've had a relatively busy year. Are you confident that that can continue at the same pace going into next year?
I appreciate you give guidance on annual M&A spend, but any comments on the competitive environment for deals or, or multiples or, or anything that has changed since the start of the year, with regards to potential for acquisitions? That's it. Thank you.
... Okay, Annelies, thank you. So I will take those three questions together. So on the customer side, again, let us remind us the average order size of our customer is EUR 4,000 per order. So very frequent interactions with our customers. They order very small parcels, typically, you know, a pallet or even less, less than that, EUR 4,000 per order. That's the customer base we are serving. And of course, what we clearly can see is that, in this, you know, day-to-day discussions with those customers, the customers see, well, you know, product is available, supply chains have normalized.
I don't see as a customer, I don't see any necessity why, you know, to build a safety buffer at this moment, because I know if I need a material, I can call Brenntag, and then they will deliver within 4 hours if I need it. So that's, at the end of the day, what we currently see, totally different to what it was 12, 18 months ago. A customer's first question was always availability, and then, in particular, also building safety buffers, as you can see across all industries, that we have been working, working off, this, you know, safety buffers out of the COVID times, and the destocking cycle being unusually long and intensive. As I said, in my 30 years in the industry, I've not seen it so long.
So, that means that the expectations for next year is that, despite or in the absence of any geopolitical shocks, you know, this buying behavior of our customers will be relying on secure supply chains. So that means we will see the, in my point of view, very clearly Q1 and Q2, the underlying demand this industry has, and that is at least my prediction, is different from what we see in second half of this year. So this is why I believe volume recovery in 2024 and volume scenarios in 2024 will be better than in 2023. On China, I'm talking here specifically around the topic of domestic demand, which we are also serving here.
For me, it is clearly visible since about, I would say four or five months, that we see the volume recovery predominantly in the solvents business, which, you know, we are, we are strong in, in China. It's our essentials business, business, actually, which has a good position in China, where we see indeed improvements here, which is a good sign because that is an early indicator of how the industrial environment is looking there. But the most encouraging sign for me is the pricing scenario, because that's a strong, strong indicator that, you know, demand and supply in China comes a little bit more into balance. Still, Annelies, I would, I would support that view that maybe the big turnaround story is more in 2024 than in the fourth quarter this year.
But I think at least, you know, to where we are coming from, from a relatively muted and challenged situation in China, we see some optimistic signs or positive signs, if you want to call it that way, in China, and that will have collateral impacts also for the rest of APAC. On the M&A side, yes, it has been a busy year. I mean, we have guided you that last year in our Capital Market Day, that we are intent to invest around EUR 400 million-EUR 500 million now every year on M&A. I think we are on an extremely good track to deliver on that guidance for the rest of the year because we have still one or the other target in the pipeline.
The pipeline is very healthy and well filled. Competitive environment is not fierce at this moment, I would say. I think we can acquire assets still, I would say, decent multiples. I think it is not as fierce as it used to be maybe two years ago or one and a half years ago. One also needs to be clear that now, gradually, sellers' expectations are facing a little bit more reality than they did maybe 12 months ago, where, you know, we are coming, in particular, the specialties field, from irrationally high valuations to now a little bit more normalized view. That, I think, is offering, again, for Brenntag, good opportunities as we have also exploiting and harvesting this year.
That's great. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you. And one moment for our next question, please. And our next question does come from the line of Dominic Edridge from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Hello there. Thanks for taking the question. Just two from myself. Just on both on Essentials, the focus. In terms of the normalization of margins at a higher level that you referenced in the report, can you just explain why that's particularly the case for Essentials in North America? Is that due to better demand or the market structure? And maybe say, do you feel this is sustainable given the way the prices do seem to be stabilizing as well? And could you also discuss the situation in Europe and maybe how it differs from North America, i.e., in Essentials? And then the second question was also, obviously, OWI was a major acquisition that you've made in Essentials in North America.
Can you maybe discuss the benefit to your network and the potential synergies and just sort of say how the framework we should be thinking about you maybe doing more deals, on the essential side of things? Thank you very much.
Hey, Dominic, thanks for the questions around essentials, which I try to answer. And again, you know, you heard me talking in the past about the underappreciated business we have here, and thanks for bringing that up. I would say North America, fundamentally, I've been saying 12, 18 months ago, that the U.S. market is more robust than many people think it is. And I think this has materialized in the development, in particular in the essentials business strongly. We also believe that at this moment, we gain market share in North America. I think we have enough evidence to clearly state that against not only one single competitor, but numerous competitors there.
That is, of course, supporting the performance in Essentials in North America quite strongly. And again, you know, as demand supply in North America is not totally out of balance, I mean, the pricing in North America holds up very well. I mean, this is. I would have expected a more stronger reaction over the last, I would say, 4, 5, 6 months. But this is where we see that the pricing levels have indeed stabilized, and this is where we can indeed now play out to our strength of using basically this last mile delivery ownership that Brenntag indeed has in that North American market.
Europe is a little bit different because the European market, from a volume and demand standpoint of view, is not in the same spot as North America. I think we still see a softening on the demand side. We still see, of course, impact on high energy prices. We still see impact, of course, on competitiveness of our customer base here in Europe, based on the pricing levels we are having. So here, I would say we have a different scenario, but nevertheless, you know, Essentials is navigating quite well. Also last year, one has to have in mind that last year in Q4, for instance, in Essentials in Europe, we had a very strong business due to the energy shortages and discussions, which have basically offered enormous arbitrage opportunities for us.
This has also now normalized, so we will not expect a special effect in Europe on Essentials, as we had it last year. On the acquisition of Old World, I mean, this was for us, a fantastic acquisition, I must say, because it's helping us to close significant white spots we had in our network, when it comes to our alkali chain, in particular here, to caustic soda and potassium hydroxide. And again, it serves, you know, our strategy, what we have said, that we need to own the last mile delivery into our key markets, and that is North America.
As one example or prime example, caustic soda and potassium hydroxide is definitely one of those areas where we want to be stronger, and so we were quite happy that we could acquire that company, I would say, in sign and close even on the same day. So we'll have a contribution from that acquisition already still into this year.
Thank you very much.
Welcome.
Thank you. And one moment for our next question, please. And our next question comes from the line of Isha Sharma from Stifel. Please go ahead, your line is open.
Hi, good afternoon. I just have two left, please. Is the reduction in the CapEx guidance by EUR 50 million simply phasing or are there cancellation of some investment? And the second question would be on the cost savings. At half year, you mentioned mid-double-digit EUR millions in the second half. Could you tell us how much of this were already realized in Q3? And should we expect any incremental savings coming in 2024? Thank you.
Isha, I think I'll leave both questions to Kristin here.
In terms of reduction, CapEx, first of all, it's the major part is really phasing. A little bit is also driven by the fact that we cannot capitalize as much as we thought in earlier times, for our IT investments. So that is also a major... a minor part here, but the major part is, as I said, phasing. On the cost savings, I indicated, in the Q2 announcement that we have a two-digit million amount of savings. As I already said, we are on a good track here to realize those, and that will also continue, of course, in Q4.
In 2024 and also the upcoming years, I think that is something we'll discuss in a bit more detail in the Capital Market Day, where we also announce a lot about the opportunities for both businesses and the overall group. I think in that context, it makes maybe a bit more sense to discuss the overall picture. Isha, if you maybe a little bit patient until December 5.
Of course. Look forward to it. Thank you so much.
Thank you. One moment for our next question, please. Our next question comes from the line of Thomas Swoboda from Société Générale. Please go ahead, your line is now open.
Yeah, good afternoon, everybody. I have one question left, please, and it's more general. Some of, or a couple of chemical companies here in Europe have been commenting that there have been significantly more imports from China this year. My question to you is, did you see that reflected in your books? Are those imports going through your infrastructure? And if not, is this possibly a partial explanation why Essentials in Europe are lacking in the recovery process? Thank you.
... Yes, Thomas, thanks for that question. I think the exports out of China into the European, but also North American market, have been put pressure on the price, in particular in Europe, and has led to, I would say, non-competitive positions in many domestic producers. We do participate partially in that effect. You might know that we have a global sourcing organization in China, which brings material out of China into Europe and into North America, certain product groups, which we are entertaining here. And here, we have seen, in particular, the last month, the highest volume shipped, ever out of China into those target destinations.
So we do participate in that trend, but, you know, it's a give and take because on the other hand, the pricing levels in the European market in particular are impacted by that. The good news is that as domestic demand appears to pick up now in China, you know, the export out of China at any cost probably is getting a little bit less strong than we have seen in the last four or five months. But again, this is too early to really say that this will be the trend, but it's exactly what you describe, and you have seen from others, that the export volume out of China is quite substantial at this moment.
This is very helpful. Thank you.
Welcome, Thomas.
Thank you. Just as a reminder, if you do want to register for a question, it is star one one on your telephone keypad. Once again, that is star one one on your telephone keypad to register for any questions. As we do have no more questions registered, I'll hand back to our speakers.
This brings us... Thank you, Sarah. This brings us to the end of the conference call. Thank you very much for your interest in Brenntag and joining us today. We would be delighted to see you at our Capital Markets Day on December fifth in London. If you have not registered yet, we encourage you to do so, but please be aware that we only have a few seats open. Please reach out to our IR team in order to register. As a reminder, our full year results will be published on March seventh, 2024. Ladies and gentlemen, that's it for today. I wish you all a good day and a great week. Goodbye.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This conference has now been concluded. You may disconnect your lines.