Ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to BayWa's Analyst Conference Call on the results of the first quarter of the fiscal year 2024. Today's call is taking place under slightly different circumstances than you are used to. Firstly, we have brought the call forward by one day due to the public holiday tomorrow. Secondly, CEO Marcus Pöllinger and CFO Andreas Helber are not sitting next to me as usual, but 450 km southeast of Munich in Vienna. However, it doesn't change anything. Of course, both take part in this call and will guide you through the presentation and answer your question at the end of the presentation as you are used to. We have sent you all relevant documents for the call this morning, and of course, the documents can also be downloaded from the investor relations website.
That's it from my side so far, and now I will hand over to Austria and Mr. Pöllinger, CEO of BayWa.
Thank you so much, Josko, and a very warm welcome from my side. I'm sitting on this table with our CFO Andreas Helber. We are calling from Vienna. We had our supervisory board meeting this morning, and first of all, I would love to thank you for your interest in BayWa. And good news to start with: I'm very, very pleased that the supervisory board elected a new president of the supervisory board, Mr. Gregor Scheller. Today, he will be Aufsichtsratschef der BayWa AG. He's 66 years old and has a cooperative background and is a banker, which will make it very much easier for us to go forward. So, let me start with our first slide on Page four, the Q1.
As you already know, since you've got the presentation and our press release, the first quarter is not as good as you have expected, but let me put this into perspective. We have an internal budget plan of -EUR 46.1 million for the first Q for the first quarter, and we didn't meet that budget by EUR 15.2 million. EUR 23.8 million was the figure which Renewable Energy didn't meet their budget in Q1 due to the fact that they didn't achieve to sell a business unit called Power Solutions in the U.S.A. It should be a profit of about EUR 16 million. We will see this sale in Q2 at latest. So, we are quite happy with the first quarter because operationally the business units are doing in line, are doing good, especially our Technik and Agri, as well as our Cefetra is doing good.
Building Materials not as bad as we've expected, and Global Produce have, of course, a way to go, but it's not that we wouldn't say anything else, but we stick to the budget and we firmly believe that in the next three quarters we will be able to achieve our EBIT for the full year due to the fact that within this EBIT, over EUR 200 million are dedicated to the Renewable Energy, and we do have a very clear strategy and a very clear outline plan with the management of RE, which project of our 3 GW pipeline will have to be sold in 2024 to meet this budget. Follow me, please, on well, the fifth slide I already mentioned, so we jump to the sixth slide, which give you a brief idea.
Even though building material is not contributing to the quarterly results, the result without Renewable Energy is a result we are not proud of, but a result which is pretty much in line, taking into consideration that the business is about to start, as we always say in BayWa AG in the end of Easter. And now we already have the April figures, and they showing good future for Q2 to Q4 for Q2.
On the next slide, on Slide seven, you see an EBIT bridge, which will show you the EBIT of Q2, Q3, Q4, and the contribution and the way to EUR 377 million EBIT, which will be a profit after everything or after tax and interest, which will put us into the position not only to be profitable in 2024 but also to be able to pay a dividend again after the year 2023. You can see this on slide number eight. There's an EBT of EUR 75 million. So, as we have seen quite an unusual year in 2023, I think it's appropriate that your first question may be, "How will you achieve the sales in Renewable Energy?" And I would love to hand over to Andreas.
This is not as we used to do it, but I think we just should cut to the chase and just explain to you thoroughly what will be the measures for the way forward.
Yeah, thank you, Marcus, and also a warm welcome from my side. As Marcus said, this call should be done in a quite unusual way, not only from Vienna, but we cut a little bit shorter. I'm not running through all the different business entities, but just showing you how we want to achieve the target number on EBIT and EGT, EBT level. The crucial question is, if you look on the Renewable Energy business, for example, they are at a - 60,-65 now, and they have to go another roughly EUR 300 million in profit over the next three quarters to come. That looks quite ambitious, but it's, as you always know, driven by project sales that will come later in the year, mainly some of them only in the final quarter, Q4, which will come out of the performance turnaround in our Energy Solutions.
This is the rooftop installation, which are now showing a EUR -14 million loss in the first quarter. That's quite similar to the Building Materials business. It only starts during the year's picking up over the year, and they will turn into a profitable one, once the year turns to an end. And finally, the two biggest impacts we expect from the contribution to come from the Renewable Energy business will relate to the one-off sale Marcus already mentioned, the Power Solutions business in the U.S., which is pretty much underway. Expect the closing in Q3 at least, with a reasonable EBIT contribution. And finally, and this is also part of the plan, we put together some of the solar project rights, which is not a sale of completed projects but project rights, rights in the American portfolio.
They will add another one to that, and that will lead to reasonable profit in a higher two-digit million number EBIT contribution at least. So this altogether should cover the range or the difference that we have today. If it comes up to at least EUR 300 million or if we will be a little bit short on that, that is what will be seen. But I guess it should be in a range of EUR 250 million-EUR 300 million to go, and the remaining part will be offset, will be compensated by other parts, which I will come back to in a minute. Classical E nergy EUR -2 million for the first quarter. A bit disappointing, must say, the warm winter here in our areas brought it down, but you always know that it's EUR 10 million-EUR 15 million overall business for the total year.
So they have another EUR 20 million to go. That should also be doable if you look on the contributions in the previous years, so that should be no more in the normal case. Looking at Building Materials, Building Materials in fact was not as bad as expected. Marcus already said this, not expecting huge impacts from the economy in the Building Materials sector, in particular here in Germany, but an improvement expected to come in a range of EUR 30 million-EUR 35 million. That will be doable, too, of course, by a couple of measures we will take in this segment in particular and by a higher than expected contribution out of the building, the project building. How do we call it in English? The BayWa Bau Projekt GmbH . They will probably have somewhat better performance than expected.
That should bring us totally in a range of a way of EUR 30 million-EUR 35 million to go for the rest of the year. Coming to the Agri segments, and this is more or less normal business, starting with the agriculture, the normal domestic business. The start with EUR 18 million for the first quarter was pretty good, not compared to the year before. We had these very good contracts, coming out in the first quarter of 2023, but expecting another roughly EUR 30 million to go for the rest of the year, mainly driven by an improvement in the CEE situation. That should be doable for the rest of the year to total outcome of at least EUR 50 million contribution from that side. The technical equipment, our star on the horizon or on the not on the horizon, on the sky, I should say, performing very well.
24 million, after the first three months, another EUR 32 million to go, and if you compare it to the previous year, absolutely doable. Global Produce started with a EUR -10 million, and, do not mix it up with what we said. The start, the first quarter, also in the Global Produce in particular the T&G New Zealand business. This is the harvesting quarter. The harvest is through, harvest quality, harvest volume is good. We had no weather events in there. And in the EUR -10 million, we have not included yet anything of the insurance compensation we expect. So the way to go is, a delta of EUR 50 million up to the EUR 40 million, and this is what we still are seeing. The claim is making progress. I expect it to come in within the next three months at least.
I hope it will come to the majority of it, of the EUR 15 million claim we announced should come in the second quarter, maybe some remainder in the third one, but we stick to the EUR 40 million overall performance on Global Produce. And finally, Cefetra, from the EUR 15 million they have today, another EUR 50 million to go until they reach the EUR 65 million contribution we expect. So in a normal course, that should be doable as well. Depends on the volatilities, but due to the specialty business, they improved. I think they could do it. Now, the final question on the others, Sonstige, which is always a bit a miracle for you. I know that, with a - 20. The - 20 was EUR 6 million behind last year, mainly due to some temporary performance on Austria Juice business.
In Austria here, they took a couple of write-offs on inventories, but that will even out over the next few months to come. The total plan for the Sonstige is EUR 96 million for the full year. I expect this to be improved by some EUR 20 million, so in a range of EUR 75 million-EUR 80 million down. We expect a higher dividend payment coming in from Austria, roughly EUR 5 million from the dividend on Raiffeisen Bank International, which is not included in the plan so far. So this will, and the better performance from Building Materials will overall compensate potential shortfall that we might see on the renewable business overall if they should not achieve at least the EUR 335 million that we expect in total. So that is the whole picture for the rest of the year.
I think it's better than going through the markets, each by each, but we can also do that. But I think it's important that you get the flavor. We are on track, even if it looks a bit curious if you compare the performance of the first quarter to the ones that we showed the last two or three years. But be reminded, the first quarter is of only limited importance and limited meaning for the whole year, and normally we start with a huge minus, and this is typical seasonal business for BayWa. And we stick to the plan. We stick to the forecast, the guidance we gave, and we expect the improvements over the next three quarters, as Marcus showed on the Slide seven, how it should be. So that should be from my side.
Thank you, Andreas. Before you start with your financials, let me just highlight two other things, just give you a flavor where we are. We started our 10-point measures to reduce working capital. We are absolutely in line within the Agri/Tech. We reduced over EUR 150 million already. Building Materials did reduce the working capital. We started a streamlined project within the headquarters and within, as well as BayWa AG as in the BayWa r.e. in BayWa AG. We call the project is called Umbrella. We already see a reduction of EUR 10 million, and we want to reduce the overhead costs, compared to 2023 till 2026 by up to 30%. So this is doing well. On the other side, for the BayWa r.e. group, they relaunched a target operating model. They are doing very well. The Solar Trade is absolutely on track.
We will put this on the ramp within the year time, and it should be at least signed, if not closed, in 2026 to get the working capital back in the AG, as well as we already started to define our portfolio and define the companies we are about to sell, as you know, you are familiar with our 10-point plan here, and there are EUR 70 million-270 million working capital, which should be reduced within this measure. So, we are in line. I am confident that these projects will be finalized in 2024, and I would hand over to you, Andreas, for the financials. Please.
Yes. I guess it's mostly all said. I just don't want to jump through the individual slides and do the summaries. You've got the numbers in front of you. Once again, this is a snapshot after the first quarter without hindsight. If you don't mind, we should just jump to the Q& A session, and I guess it's more important to hear what people might ask.
Okay. Thank you, Mr. Helber. Thank you, Mr. Pöllinger. As you said, Q1 is of limited importance. This is also reflected in the length of the presentation, but I think that's a good idea to have more room and more time for questions. We would start now the Q& A session.
All right. The first question is coming from Guido Hoymann from Metzler.
Yeah. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Yeah, quite a number of questions. So let's do it one by one. So first of all, can you, you know, throughout the housekeeping, can you give me an update on the RE's development pipeline?
Is it on?
Yeah.
Yeah. On the development pipeline, what do you mean what we have or what we are going to sell or what the?
No, the full pipeline, you know, it's I think it was 22 GW or something like that in the last.
30? 30 GW? The pipeline was at 30?
Mm-hmm. Okay.
Yeah. Just, just look it up. And Mr. Radeljic, if you have the numbers in front of you, you can also jump in and give me the I think you have the, the pipeline in front of you and could give it directly.
Yeah. I will do it, but so far, I think it was just a question regarding the whole pipeline of 30 GW with the bench not ready.
I'm faster. I've got it in front of me now. The pipeline is 32.6 GW.
32. Mm-hmm.
8.9 is wind.
Mm-hmm.
15.6 is photovoltaic, and 8.1 is battery storage.
8.1. Okay. All right. The second one would be on this bond placement. I think, as we have all seen, it didn't work. I think your plan is now to replace that with bank loans. Can you give us an indication how much these bank loans cost you and, you know, if there's any problems with governance or anything like that, you know? So is it, so to say, not worth mentioning, or can that create any sort of problems?
No, not so hard. So the only conditions, the bank facility payment or the backup facility that we got from a couple of banks is lower than the one that we had to put on the coupon, at least. I'm not. I don't want to. I don't know if I'm allowed to have to ask banks for it to put this in public, but it's the norm. It's higher than the normal cost, but it's lower than the 6.75 that we offered on the bond. Secondly, covenant. We have an ongoing waiver covenant breach on the interest coverage, which is set out for the, and otherwise, we are not in default with any of the covenants.
Okay. Then the next one would be.
Once again, maybe one comment on the bond transaction. As you know that we went out in early April, trying to replace this 2019 bond, we knew that would not be an easy one because as an unrated company and for good reasons, we had no rating so far. And being in this environment where a lot of companies with ratings went to the market, and as a bond benchmark size was not easy or did not work out to find attention on the market. We were aware of that already last year when we started the process. No, nothing that we were too late on the process. We already discussed it in early January. Then we said together with the accompanying banks to go out in April.
Finally, we said it's not attractive enough for us, and we have the backup facility, and we stick to the commitment that we want to reduce our leverage. This is one of the most important reasons for us sitting here because if we all got it replaced in full, there's no motivation to really reduce the leverage. So this is the first step into the serious commitment that we are going to reduce it, and we are going to pay back the remaining EUR 200 out of the reduced capital employed in agricultural equipment and solar trade module business. You know that. We elaborate on that, and this will be done by June.
Okay. Very clear. Thank you. Maybe then, the next one would be on the inventory write-downs in Solar Trade. Can you quantify the write-downs?
Yeah. That is doable. In Q1, we saw another drop down by probably the last one. We are now currently seeing it going to the other direction again. But within the first quarter, we saw another slight drop down that put another EUR 10 million on write-offs on inventory.
Mm-hmm. EUR 10 million.
We expect also to be fair on this, but already also included in the numbers, a slight, another probably write-off on ongoing inverters income. They are just checking this out in the second quarter in the range of EUR 5 million-EUR 8 million. That should be it.
Okay. EUR 5 million-EUR 8 million. Okay. And the last one, on your IPP portfolio, where do we stand there by the end of March? The size in GW. And I just, you know, cross-checked. I think in 2022, you mentioned a target of 2 GW by the end of 2024. And I assume that this target is no longer valid. And what would be actually a realistic target for the IPP portfolio, say, by the end of this year and maybe also end of next year?
So we are currently sitting at the end of March at 838 MW, and the target for the end of 2024 is 1.8 GW, and 2025 is, it's the gearing is wind should be 0.5, and the rest should be solar. And at the end of 2025, the IPP should be up to 2.6 GW. But please bear in mind that the most important thing for our company and the deleveraging process is the cash and cash in. So if I have to decide whether I want to stick to an even higher EBIT by selling project rights and not putting this project into the IPP portfolio, I will do so. So EBIT and cash is prior to the increase of IPP.
We will see we've got 30 GW of projects in our pipeline, and only 10%-50% will be as an installed IPP portfolio. But more importantly for me, as I'm sitting here in Vienna, at the headquarters of my second-largest stakeholder, is to be able to show a good result in 2024 and pay dividends. So the cash and the EBIT is prior to IPP. So I don't mind if I will sit at 2 GW in the end of 2025.
Okay. Understood. All right. Thank you then, gentlemen.
Thank you very much. The next question comes from Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research.
Thank you for welcoming, Mr. Schwarz.
Hello. Thank you for taking my questions. Yeah. Firstly, 2024 seems to be like a real rollercoaster ride for you guys. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think Q1 was the worst quarter that at least in recent history of BayWa. And so we are aiming for or you are aiming for the second-best result by the end of this year, which, as you already pointed out, will require a lot of measures and puzzle parts falling in the right spots to make that happen. And I'm just wondering. I can understand that you have a lot of pressure to bring BayWa back into profitable terrain.
But still, you said that we are currently sitting in the IPP portfolio at 838 MW, and if I, if I got that correctly, and the target by the end of the year would be 1.8 GW. That means that in the remainder of this year, we should see around about 1 GW go to the IPP portfolio, which would, give or take, I, I guess, indicate a capital requirement of EUR 1 billion. That is quite a chunker, I would say. How, given that the Solar Trade is not to be sold before, let's say, cash in 2025, how is that to be financed? That would be my first question.
Yeah. Mr. Schwarz, maybe I could come back on this question because we must clarify a little bit of thing. The number we just mentioned on 1.8, this is the planned number from RE. This includes all the projects that are in execution. These are projects being in execution are dedicated projects to the pipeline. They are not yet already IPP projects producing energy. To be very clear on this, taking this 830 MW that we have today, the addition of projects being finalized in 2024 will be on solar 136 MW and in wind 45 MW. So this sums up to some 200 MW additional in the production mode. Do you understand what I mean? So these will be finalized and will also be capitalized projects.
So this is all the cash which is required and which is already mostly under construction or in the way of doing it. And we have two other projects within the wind business, the number 45 that I mentioned of roughly 25 MW, which might be brought not into IPP but to sale if required. So the final number for you to calculate how will it be finalized or how will it be financed for 2024 once again, the focus in 2024 is reducing the cash, getting the cash out, reducing the leverage, not building up IPP firsthand. The number I mentioned, the roughly 200 MW, is the number that we assume to be added up to the IPP portfolio by the end of 2024. And the remaining portion is the one which is dedicated to the IPP portfolio but not under construction yet.
Okay. Thank you for that. Very clear and understandable. Secondly, just an observation. It seems to me that both Q1 results and also the remainder of the year is predominantly, let's say, reigned by what will be happening at BayWa r.e. So it's that seems to be a case that the tail has started to whack the dog. And this is also, let's say, complemented if I'm looking at your capital structure. When I'm looking at the, let's say, the equity portion of the share of minorities, which is, give or take, EUR 800 million, that is all almost equivalent to what BayWa shareholders themselves have in terms of equity. So is there perhaps some pressure from your co-investor in BayWa r.e., when it comes to fleshing out those plans?
Have you, let's say, the liberty to postpone, to really postpone, let's say, projects in BayWa r.e., if, let's say, you run into problems with BayWa AG in that regard? So as you said, we are flexible with the IPP portfolio. You are flexible with selling projects and so on and so forth because you want to basically retain cash and generate cash. But that's probably not what your co-investor wants in BayWa r.e., predominantly wants. So is there some friction between the partners?
Mr. Schwarz, I suppose I'm just talking. Very, very interesting question. Thank you for that one.
We're first of all. I wouldn't say that the tail whacked the dog within the BayWa AG because, as you know, the whole group, our strategic cornerstone and our strategy clearly outlines that we will grow in Renewable Energy and in Cefetra. So, these companies are certainly not a small part of our group but our, I'd say more or less starting to be our core business. So first of all. Second of all, we are the major stakeholder in the BayWa r.e., and we are financing the whole business. So, our stakeholders and our need for cash and our clearly targeted dividend payment in 2024 are prior to the building up of the IPP portfolio, as I said. And if it takes us one or two years longer to build up this portfolio, it's going to be the case.
So we are quite strict on that one. But maybe, Andreas, you will.
No, I think that's very, very clear. I mean, if it's, do we have friction with them? No, I would say, also outcome changes that we lately saw here in BayWa within the collaboration between us and the Zurich-based shareholders is better than ever. They understand our needs. They understand the family they married into, to say it that way. And I think all what we do is to make decisions together. We firstly now and, as Marcus said, our first focus is now not on building up the IPP portfolio but first do the homework, streamline the portfolio, clean up the dishes, sell the Solar Trade business, sell Power Solutions, and so on and so on. And then we focus on the other things. Everything is doing in the best meaning and understanding with our friends in Zurich.
Very clear. Last one from my side before I step back into the line. As you mentioned, you are still planning the sale of the solar trading business, and the timetable seems to be unchanged. Given that your equity ratio has now, let's say, is now at an all-time low at, if I've calculated that correctly, at 12.3% after Q1, you are basically increasing, and you also stated there that you need cash inflow. You're basically looking more and more like a forced seller from the outside. I guess you will have a different view on that thing.
But from the outside, obviously, there is somebody who wants to sell a business which is not performing at its best at the moment, to say the least, and requires cash, because it seems that the trajectory has been, let's say, not improved over the last quarters and also not in Q1. When I'm looking at net debt, the net debt level has increased in Q1 once again. So I guess there's still interested parties out there for this kind of business. But I guess that the price tag has incrementally come down due to the performance of the business recently and also perhaps because of the perception of BayWa as a seller as such.
So, are there plans to basically, let's say, plug that requirement that exists in regard to cash by other divestments outside the solar trade business? Or is that the only business, basically, or major business, so to speak, that is up for sale at the moment? Or are you mulling the sale of other assets as well?
Thank you, Mr. Schwarz, for this great question. Let me start with your last question. As I mentioned before, we are looking very thoroughly at our portfolio. And yes, there are other companies we will sell, and we will start this processes pretty soon, more detailed on this at the half-year conference.
So secondly, I know that Solar Trade is the market environments of Solar Trade business worldwide is not the best, and it's not the best time to put a company like that on the shelf. But on the other hand, Solar Trade is a very, very profound, very good company. It's Europe's largest solar wholesale company with an excellent management and excellent teams and sales forces worldwide. And as I mentioned before, we are improving every day the performance of Solar Trade. So to give you an example of what we did, we had 4 different offices for purchasing our Solar Trade's panels, solar panels worldwide. We have now a combined purchase office in the Netherlands. We are operating with a new system to monitor our sales. So we are getting better every day, and we are breaking down our fixed costs as well.
To put it very clearly, you might be right. It should, it could have been easier to sell this business two years ago. But we are now, we now have to deal with the current situation. And as you know, the price tag is always defined with a discount of the future. And the future for this business is very good. And so we will see a decent price. Will we see the price that we're on in the market when we start this project? Certainly not. But we will see a price which will put us into the position to deleverage the company and to get the cash back in the BayWa AG. And we will, I'm very confident that we will be successful in 2024. Andreas?
Yeah, I think it's quite fair to say so. And if you ask Mr. Schwarz, are you a forced seller? I mean, we want to sell it. We force ourselves because we want to deleverage and, let me repeat, we want to deleverage the company. And we made the decision a year ago because we will not make it to finance all the growth ambitions, in particular, in the Renewable Energy business. And therefore, it's valid. We have other options. We have other projects that we are going to sell, the Project Klaus, for example, in there. You have it. I guess you have got the presentation, the whole list of the 10-point plan. There are other issues coming up. And yeah, it's we force ourselves.
As Marcus said, we will do it.
Thank you for that. I'll be stepping back into the line.
Thank you, Mr. Schwarz.
Thank you very much. At the moment, there seems to be no further questions. So if you have any additional questions, please press nine followed by the star key now. Thank you.
Mr. Schwarz, any further questions?
Do you hear me?
Yes, I can hear you well.
Okay. Very well. Then I would like to continue. Just a bit of technicalities. Could you elaborate a bit, how much working capital by the end of Q1 2024 was tied up in solar trading?
Yeah. It was in the Solar Trade, it was EUR 538 million.
Mm-hmm.
100 million, EUR 105 million cash. So 100 clearly 100 million less than the end of December.
Okay. Very well. Could you quickly enlighten me, given that you have the clear intention to sell the business, you have initiated the selling process, I guess, as you are speaking with interested parties and so on and so forth, why is that not accounted as a discontinued business as you are reporting under IFRS rules?
Yeah, because we made the decisions, in accordance with our auditors, that it should only be accounted for as discontinued operations, once the decision is clear to come. We are more likely to, you know, I have the ambition to sell it, but if I need, maybe, a fixed proposal or more concrete response from investors. So we not decided it because if we do it, we can easily do it, you know, that it would immediately offset my depreciation and improve my result. But would that be fair? I guess not.
Yeah.
I would say it's a loss out.
Yeah. I was just wondering. That's no judgment at all on what you're doing. And lastly, I would like to ask about company working capital moves in Q1. I know that we don't; there's no cash flow calculation provided in Q1 results. That's a standard for BayWa. But nevertheless, you wanted to come down in working capital by give or take EUR 500 million already by the end of 2023. That didn't happen. And if I'm looking into the numbers in 2024, I would say correct me if I'm wrong, that didn't happen in Q1 either. Obviously, with the oncoming, let's say, divestments in RE, given project rights and given projects, that number is about to come down from those divestments.
But on the other hand, you are or you will be increasing the IPP by EUR 200 million, or give or take, to the end of this year. So what is this EUR 500 million target of working capital reduction still standing? Or, when it is, when is it going to be executed?
Yeah. We must be careful on not mixing it up. And you know that we have a very seasonal business. So what we see now, the slight increase on the debt portion after Q1, this is mainly the seasonal one from the agribusiness which will flow out by the mid of the year or over the course of the year. We still have, looking on the assets we have on hand by the end of the year, the ambition, of course, to reduce it by EUR 500 million. And this is partly, of course you are absolutely right, offset by increasing IPP finance. But this is all only non-recourse finance. So what we are focusing on is to get cash out on the let me call it the running assets?
Do you know what I mean? So the assets that I'm turning year on year in the agriculture, resources business, in the equipment business, in Building Materials, whatever, name it, solar trade, of course. But then, on the other hand, by building up the IPP, this is not taken from this cash portion. These are separated funds on the non-recourse level. Does it make sense? So if you I know this is not shown then in the gross leverage and in the gross debt position because that's the EUR 200 million will stick in the gross debt position. But nevertheless, it's a reduction of the cash on hand that I have by the remaining EUR 500 million.
I appreciate that. I clearly understand that because I guess latest by the end of this year, we will get the, let's say, the adjusted numbers in regard to net debt, how much of that is in non-recourse and how much is straight debt. And so once again, I'm aware of that fact. However, the interest payments really don't care about whether it's straight debt or whether it's non-recourse debt. So my thinking is, okay, yeah, you will reduce working capital, and you'll replace, let's say, some of the straight debt that's currently on the balance sheet by non-recourse debt. However, the interest payments for the debt will hardly budge if, let's say, the composition changes. But the absolute gross numbers, as you put it, will remain in the same ballpark.
Yeah. Fair enough. But it's the one thing is if I reduce it by EUR 500 million by really short-term borrowings at this most expensive stage and replace it partly or it's not a replacement, as I said. It's but putting it against it another EUR 200 million maybe of the non-recourse long-term finance with another cost impact, that overall is a reduction of EUR 200 million-300 million at least and with a lower interest rate on the remaining EUR 200 million. So I'm not saying I'm not stating that we are bringing down the interest cost in 2024 down by EUR 100 million. This is not in the projections. It's said it should be around EUR 40 million.
This should come out of the reduction of this net portion of EUR 300 and by a further reduction of interest costs, expected to come in the second half of the year. And this is the part of EUR 15 million out of the EUR 40 million that I expect in overall reduced interest costs.
Got it. Okay. I think that basically covers it from my side. I think, I'm very much looking forward to strategic discussions past the half-year results when you come up with additional details regarding further divestment. And yeah, all the best for, let's say, generating the best last nine months results in BayWa history in 2024. I keep my fingers crossed.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Schwarz. Appreciate it.
At the moment, there seems to be no further questions.
Okay. It seems that Mr. Schwarz has covered all questions by the participants. So I recommend that we close now the Q&A session. And I would like to thank you for your participation and interest. The next call will take place, as usual, on a Thursday, on 8th of August, 8:30 A.M. Until then, we wish you hopefully a long and relaxing weekend. Thank you very much. Goodbye.