Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our Conference Call on the Results of the Second Quarter of BayWa AG. Marcus Pöllinger, our CEO, and Andreas Helber, our CFO, are sitting next to me and will guide you through the presentation. At the end of the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. All relevant documents have been sent out this morning, and in addition, of course, you can download it from the internet. I hand over now to Marcus Pöllinger.
Thank you, Josko. Good morning, everyone. We are glad to have you with us. I hope you do-- the ones of you who do, did join our Capital Market Day in Bamberg, I thoroughly hope you had a good time. At least no single tractor was crashed, so thank you for that one. We are very happy to present you a very strong first half year, 2023. Revenue and EBIT, if you follow me on slide four, significantly above our long-term average. Indeed, the first half year was the strongest or placed second when it comes to comparison, the first half year with EUR 186.9 million EBIT.
It was a very good, strong year, and please bear in mind that we had to face some external factors like the cyclone in New Zealand and the slump in residential construction in building materials. I will detail this on the material slide. The most important information today is probably that the management confirms EBIT forecast for the year 2023 of EUR 320 million-EUR 317 million. If you hand over to the next slide, page five, the development of the group multi-year EBIT comparison, as I already mentioned, is the, the, the second strongest first half year, and it is a clear sign of the resilience of BayWa AG, and it shows the excellence in trading.
We're talking about agriculture commodities, Cefetra and BayWa AG in Germany, the trading of the solar components and of course, and this is very important to underline, to underline the new strategy of IPP. A huge amount of the EBIT is contributed by our new IPP strategy and the energy trading team. If you now follow me on slide eight, Well, it's, it's worldwide known that the global capacity installation forecast and the combined average growth rate above 30% over the last years, certainly this is a trend that's unbroken. The world needs the renewable energies, as you know, it's part of our strategy to project these kind of energy-providing plants all over the world. The energy cost in Germany suddenly came down, this is of an important notice.
As the energy costs come down, it absolutely reflects the fertilizer as well as the price for solar modules. We do have put all the necessary depreciation into the forecast. There's a EUR 16 million deduct on the stock of the solar already in these figures in the first half year, as well as a deduct of our fertilizer in fertilizer we've got in stock here. We are very confident that we will reach our forecast in 2023, as already mentioned. If you go on the next slide, please, you see the slide number nine, the renewable energy segment. We are very happy with the results of the first year. First of all, we've sold some wind farms in Italy and U.K. and two in Austria.
There is more to come for the second half of the year that we have 380 MW project in the pipeline who goes on sale, and a 650 MW project rights which we will sell in the next half year. There is one big chunk of over 500 MW. It's just one project we decided to put on the shelf for the next half year. This will be part of our plan to reach the forecast. Now follow me on the next slide, the energy segment. It is absolutely not comparable to the first half year of 2022. As you all know, the energy prices rised back in this day, but now we see a level of, I'd say, normal or cooling off prices.
We're very happy with this business. It's above the first half year of 2021, and it is a business which we grow in lots of different ways when it comes to lubricants or to our LNG gas station, when it comes to electricity and the wood pellets, which we are now one of the biggest provider for wood pellets in Europe. We do see a strong demand for this kind of product now and in the future. If we now turn over to agriculture and start with, of course, our global grain balance. I think the most important information for you in, in this area of business is that we are-...
are not struggling with any when it comes to the corridor, which is now closed from Russia, when it comes to our grain, we receive from Ukraine. to make it for you more easier, to put it into perspective, we used to import about 2 million tons of grain via our Cefetra office from Ukraine full year in 2021. We are now down to 300,000 tons, so it doesn't reflect in the EBIT or the profit of the company because we're now sourcing in different places. it's the Ukraine conflict also is priced into the market.
It was, you know, when this conflict started, you, you, you could follow it in the, in, in the price volatility of grain at the stock market, Chicago Board of Trade or, or, Matif. This is now really calmed down. I have to say, the traders are getting used, the market is getting used to these signals, so we see a, a stable price and this is good for our cash flow. This is good for our working capital. We are now collecting the grain, at a much, yeah, lower price than we did a year ago. Put it in perspective, the price of grain dropped about 30%. Market development, as you, as I just mentioned on the next slide, and see the market development on slide 14.
The input resources, as, as I just mentioned, I'm very happy how the team in Austria, in Vienna, and in Munich and, at the BAH, in northern Germany as well as U.K., Cefetra. I'm very pleased how they did handle, the fertilizer, drop in prices, how they did, manage to put only the amount of fertilizer in our stocks to be able to supply the farmers, but not to put the company in any kind of, of risk here. I'm very happy how the, how the management did here. Next slide would be the agricultural equipment.
This is the one who really, who really brings us pleasure, and who will, like, compensate the EBIT loss in the building material sector is, is fully compensated, compared for the first half year with the agricultural equipment and the success. Those of you who met the team in Bamberg know that there's really... This is- I'd say it's a passionate management when it comes to agricultural equipment and the market is still very interesting. The years ahead, you wouldn't be able to meet any kind of Green Deal or reduction in fertilizer or, or plant protection without investing in a new technology, being able to grow your plants. Fruit, as I just mentioned, we see... We're very happy with the situation at Lake Constance.
We are, of course, due to the inflation and the uncertainty in the economy overall, we are in the, and the inflation, of course, we are not happy with the results of TFC. Customers are reluctant to buy exotic fruits when the prices are rising. they are not in the reds, but certainly this year is a tough year for TFC. as I mentioned in our last call, the Cyclone Gabrielle did bring us some problems in New Zealand. we will see a, I'd say, EBIT of EUR 1 million-2 million in this specific company. bear in mind, please, that it's all pre-insurance.
We are expecting an insurance compensation payment of EUR 10 million-EUR 15 million to stabilize our global produce business in New Zealand. Going ahead for the next couple of years, we are absolutely convinced that Turner & Growers will be back on track. Very great, great, great company, and here it comes to show that the strategy going from the or developing the core business from the pure grain or soya trader into a specialty trader with our companies, Cefetra, Dairy, Sedaco. I just kinda invite you to look at the homepage of Sedaco. You get a flavor of this company based in Dubai, is handling and is trading the specialties.
This is a new kind of strategy that team of Daan Vriens in Rotterdam pursued for the last years. We are now happy to say that over 50%, close to 60% of the EBIT is contributed by this new kind of business. Just came back from a management meeting in Manchester, where we've been presented great ideas to even increase the EBIT of Cefetra Group for the next couple of years. This is absolutely a growing field for our company. Agricultural services, as I just mentioned, this is the normal ag business in Germany, in Vienna.
What you can see is that we are absolutely in line with the year 2021 in the first half year, and taking into consideration that we had not a favorable weather in the first half year of 2023 when it comes to fertilizer and crop protection, so it was absolutely too dry. The agricultural equipment on the next slide, it's slide 17. You can see the increase to EUR 43.9 million EBIT, and there is more to come for absolutely more to come for the full year. Crop Production segment, as I just mentioned, we are now in the negatives with EUR -2.1 million. It's all pre-insurance. We will see an increase, hopefully, of TFC, slightly, slightly, slightly as well as the insurance.
We are expecting to close this year with a double-digit number in the EBIT. It's pre-insurance, as I mentioned. It might be interesting to see that the revenues actually increased by 30%, 13%, excuse me, one three. This is due to the fact that in Washington State, we used to only handle the materials, and now we are buying them and selling them. This is an increase of about EUR 60 million. It's just a change in the business behavior of TNG. Building materials, this is a bit of a problem now.
We were expecting that the market slows, but that the music, so to say, stopped as it did in the last couple of months, this was not into was not calculated by, by our team. As you can see, the housing when it comes to building permits in Germany, the housing is down nearly 40%. This is one of our main businesses, line of businesses we are in. I'm very happy that the team of Steffen Mechter managed to broaden the portfolio of the services our building and material segment or unit now provides.
We do have a project company, which is actually building this housing and flats, and we are expecting this so-called BayWa Bauprojekt GmbH to contribute EUR 10 million in 2023. To ease a bit the downturn of the building material business. Of course, we have started a strict cost management, I'd say two months ago, and we are checking every box to soften the I'd say, soften the landing of building materials. It's gonna be a tough year. This year, it's gonna be not easy next year, we do know or we do think, we strongly believe that building materials is a strategic unit of the BayWa Group, and we'll be back on track in the next couple of years.
Our goal is now to get the team of Steffen Mechter and all our employees through this difficult times to be strong and kick off as soon as the markets will kick off soon. For this period of time, the other units have to support the building materials. Luckily, the EBIT contribution of building materials, and bear in mind, the last EBIT of EUR 43.5 million, wasn't only the German market, it was also the Austrian market, and there we are in a franchise and idea, and in other businesses. It, it won't be that hard. Now I'd love to hand over to my colleague, Andreas, for the group financials.
Yes, good morning, everybody. Also from, from, from my side, it's a pleasure again, to, to have you. What I'd like to do on the next page is, first, have a look, especially for Mr. Schwarz, on the other activities, also running again through the summary slides, for the entities. I think what's risk to be done, because, we just heard about, the problems that we are facing in the building materials, segment in particular, how do we plan to go to, to reach the forecast that we confirmed with, with the range of EUR 320 million-EUR 370 million? There must be some upside, anywhere else, because, we have the, the problems, that, Marcus just described on the, on the building materials sector.
I will give you a flavor for each business unit, where we, where we stand or state today, and where we are going to, to be at the year-end expected. Starting on slide 23 with the other activities, this is, you know, the, the comprising of all our administrative costs, which are not allocated to the single business entities. You see that we are slightly better, -20%, compared to the year before. That was, the year before was also or, or still influenced by some COVID costs, COVID-related costs, and so on. This have, these costs have gone, and we were lucky to get a better result also from our fruit, increased participation in, in Austria, with a higher equity result in there.
The fully expected year for the other activities, which is, somewhat a black box for you, therefore, last year it was -EUR 103 million. We clearly pointed that out in the, in the releases that we published this morning, that we expect to cut compared to, to last year's number in the range of 10%. That would be a very conservative approach, I guess. I just recalculated it, and I guess it should be something in the, in the range of even better, 10%-15%. It should be down by EUR 85 million-EUR 90 million for the full year's perspective. Turning on to, to the, the next slide on 24, you see the summary for the energy segment, including the renewable energy business and the classical energy business.
Once again, do not compare clearly to, if you look on the, on the full-year perspective, on the 2022 numbers. If we go to the 2021 numbers, I think we will clearly exceed them. I guess the, the total energy segment with both entities, including, will be in a range of EUR 240 million-EUR 265 million for the full-year perspective. You see there's a lot of way to go. It's similar than in the, the last year, first six month period, but there are projects that is ongoing and coming into the second quarter and or in the second half year, and still we're expecting a very strong energy trading and solar trade business.
On slide 25, this is the summary of all our agriculture entities, including the four ones. You know, the traditional domestic agribusiness, the technical equipment one, Cefetra Group, and Global Produce. Marcus in that described the situation in Global Produce, where it is now with -EUR 2. The expectation for them is in a range of between EUR 10 million and EUR 20 million, I would guess, coming through a stronger domestic business in New Zealand, as well as the insurance compensations that we expect. Cefetra will have a very strong year again, slightly similar to what we have seen last year, expecting them in a range of EUR 50 million-EUR 60 million. The agriculture business, the domestic agriculture business was very, very strong last year.
Remember this, that will be a, a normalized business today, expecting them in a range of something EUR 30 million-EUR 45 million, and very strong performance, again, on the technical equipment division. We already saw it for the six month periods, but this is still expected to be also the outcome on level, maybe even higher than last year, in a range of let's say, EUR 65 million-EUR 75 million in total. The, the, the one thing that we have left is the building material on page 26, and to see it, we are on a zero baseline, which is the, the weakest result within the last five year, and that will also be the outcome for the full year.
We do not expect even where we have the contribution from the building, the project company and our Austrian friends, that could not offset and compensate a lot of the burden that we have to carry on the building materials wholesale business, expecting them to be in a range between EUR 5 million and EUR 20 million in total. This is, of course, less than what we expect or what, what, what we received in the two lucky last years with EUR 70 million, especially EUR 73 million and EUR 21 million, EBIT-wise. This is what we have to compensate this year. It will be offset and, as I mentioned, by the other entities and by a better result on, on the cost structure. Marcus mentioned it.
We are actively and strongly working on cost reduction, any corner of the company, any corner of our corporation, that pays in on a better result in the other activities. Summarizing it for the six-month period on page 27, you see the numbers where we are, the EBIT in a range of EUR 187. Both quarters, the first quarter and the second quarter, has been similar strong, as you mentioned, from the first quarter call that we made, April was a weaker one, May was extremely strong, and also June was, was good, so that brought us to where we are. You see that we also need this EBIT to cover the higher interest charges that we extremely faced in the first six months period.
That will be reduced a little bit in the second half of the year, since we have this basic effect from previous years coming now in our favor into the second half of the year. This is the first point. The second point is that we are strongly reducing the cash requirements within the second half of the year, both on the agriculture trading business, but also on the renewable energy side. I expect cash downs for the second half of the year in a range of between EUR 500 million and EUR 600 million, coming from project sales on the renewable energy side, but also from lower requirements on the agriculture trading business. That brings us to the last slide or no, the last one, on slide 28.
The balance sheet, total assets, uh, slightly reduced, uh, for compared to year-end. That's absolutely normal, uh, in this time of the year. It's on base, uh, compared to, uh, the previous year number. But keep in mind that we, uh, sharply increased our IPP portfolio already, and this is reflected on the non-current asset base, which is up by some EUR 400 million or EUR 700 million, EUR 400 million to year-end, and EUR 700 million to the previous year, offset it by the non-current, by the, by the current assets. That's reflecting the outflow of our grain commodities, mainly, it's not, not, not that much already infected by the renewable energy business, renewable energy business, but mostly by the outflow on the, on the cash of the commodity business for the first half year.
This is also reflected on the cash flow statement. You see it on page 29, the high cash flow from operating activities with EUR 500 million +, that includes or that reflects the higher cash inflows from the trade of our commodities. We are a little bit behind schedule on the outflow. This is fully done now by the end of June, July. July is already over. By the end of June, we were a couple of weeks behind schedule, but all good, and you see it reflected on the financing cash flow, negative.
The reduction of the total capital requirements. Investing activities reflects the higher building up of the IPP portfolio only on the renewable energy business. That was work through for the financials for the first half-year and a little bit more, in particular, the outlook for the full year. The good message, I could only repeat it from Marcus' opening statement, we stick to our commitment still, after six months, with EUR 320 million- EUR 370 million. This is, I think, good achievable for the full year's perspective. With that, I hand over back to whomever, Josko.
Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Helber. Thank you, Marcus. Now we are happy to take your question, and it's your turn to ask any further questions.
Okay, first one is Marcus Meyer from Baader Helvea.
Good morning, gentlemen. Congratulations to this good result. I have two questions, in particular on what you said, that you're actively working on the cost structure. Can you quantify how much you have done on the cost structure, and with what kind of measures? In this regard, do you also expect a certain restructuring of the business materials unit? Then lastly, you have elaborated how the trends over the second quarter was. How are the first weeks of the third quarter? Can you give us an indication on this? This would be helpful. Thank you.
Thank you very much. I take your question. First question is our cost-saving program. First of all, we stopped any hiring. We have a normal fluctuation of about 120 employees who are leaving the company, going into retirement, whatever. We don't, we don't hire any more than, then we achieved to this point, EUR 10 million already, cutting every cost every quarter, even traveling costs. We are expecting to get EUR 10 million-EUR 15 million out of this cost-saving program in this year. The second question was about construction, building materials. Could you repeat it, please? I didn't get that.
Yes. if you, if you expect a certain restructuring of your business materials, I guess part of this, what you've just said, that the hiring stop, as has also happened there.
Yes.
as the overall measures needed for this business to-
Yeah.
to bring the cost base down.
Absolutely. There are all boxes clicked, if I put it this way. We are looking at the infrastructure. Normally, we adapt our infrastructure to the market situation every year. We have 121 branches, and we always revamp them and revise them if we need them, if the market need them, or if we can, like, compensate any kind of branches with a digitalization solution. We are about to sell or close six of our branches. This is one of the measures within the program we started. The third question?
The third question was basically trends into the third quarter, if you can elaborate.
There's, starting with building materials, there's still no silver lining, so this will, we will, have to face this market environment or these, macroeconomic uncertainties for the next couple of months. To be honest with you, the ag business is, the agricultural business is doing very, very well. The future started in a very strong July. We do know that, or we now see an increasing demand for fertilizer and crop protection products due to the low storage, by the farmers in our markets, as well as in the CEE and Austrian markets. As well, crop, global produce is doing okay, as I mentioned before, not, not too good. Did I-- Of course, our, our, agricultural, equipment is doing very, very well.
We are, above, of course, as I just mentioned, above the previous year, and July is doing very, very well. As well, the energy sector is doing on a low basis, is doing good, too. Most importantly, of course, our renewable energy segment has a very strong second half ahead. So there's a lot of work to do for these guys. There are over 380 MW projects to be sold in the next months. They are on track, and we are very happy that even the IPP port or, as well as we have seen in the first half year, the IPP portfolio and the energy trading is doing very, very well, as well as the solar trade.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Okay, next one is Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research.
Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions.
Good morning.
Most of all, thank you for fleshing out the outlook for the various segments you have. Very, very helpful. Thank you for that. That brings me directly to my first question. Mr. Helber, you fleshed out that the financial results will be less negative in H2. That could have an positive impact or should have a more positive impact on net results than in the first half year. However, as results in the second half of the year are earmarked to be much more driven by BayWa r.e., isn't there the component that also the share of minorities in net results will be substantially higher than in H1? Wouldn't that drive, let's say, a reported EPS to BayWa shareholders in the negative again?
Uh.
That would be my first question.
Very deep, deep going one, I expected it. No. I mean, firstly, I would say from the financial result, I spoke about the interest coverage or the interest burn that we have to take. That was up to EUR 150 million for the first half year. Giving up EUR 70 million each quarter, and I expect that to be reduced in the second half of the year. That was my comment on that. Your comment on the, is going on the net result and the EPS, you're absolutely right. We also had a big part of our results coming from the renewable energy business now in the first half year.
That will also, of course, contributing or paying into the minorities for in the second half, but also for the mother company's business. That from the, from the expectation on the EPS for the full year, my expectation is somewhat on the range of being level of 2021. That was EUR 1.63. If we would come into a range of EUR 1-EUR 2 on the EPS, this is my expectation for the full year.
Okay. Thank you very much for that. Just to confirm, you, you are expecting at year, at the year end, the, the interest results to be, minus EUR 250 million. Is that correct?
In range, I would say EUR 250 million-EUR 260 million.
Okay.
Yeah.
Got that. Thank you very much for that. Secondly, can you provide an EBIT contribution for the solar trading business in Q2, please?
In Q2 or the second?
Whatever you prefer, you can give me the half year's number or the Q2 number. Any of those two is appreciated.
The first half year was EUR 60 million contribution-
EUR 60 million.
... by solar trade, it's supposed to, to reach up to EUR 105 million. There is all, as I mentioned, the drop in the solar panel prices is all managed and already integrated. If you look in the last year, it was a much higher EBIT contribution of solar trade because of the market circumstances we found there. It's, it's a, it's a safe number.
Yeah. Thank you very much for that. That brings me directly to my next question: Has there been any inventory write-downs in the solar trading business?
Yeah.
In H-
There has been very much pleased that in this wonderful, first EBIT, which is, as I mentioned before, the second strongest in history, there is EUR 26 million or EUR 27 million included as a bonus, university bonus for our employees, due to the fact that the company celebrated its 100th birthday, birthday, and there is EUR 61.6 million deduction of solar panels integrated as well.
Okay. Got that. Yeah, lastly, regarding the, the rather dire outlook for the building materials business, I, I guess, as you were citing the, the numbers of housing permits being substantially down in, in, in Germany and probably also in Austria, not familiar with that figure. Are there considerations in regards to taking advantage of short-time labor? Basically trying to get some subsidies from the German state for the time being, to bridge that huge drop, I, I imagine, in capacity utilization.
Absolutely. Great question. Thank you for that one. As I mentioned before, we are clicking every box, and this one is included.
Okay. Thank you so much. That was all my questions.
Okay, next one is from Heinz Müller from Dr. Kalliwoda Research.
Mr. Schwarz, excuse me, just to, to confirm it, we are now, we are now about to calculate and to analyze every scenario we could go for the next time in building materials. It doesn't mean that we do it right now, and it's not confirmed yet, yet, but we are, we are checking we, everything, every measure we can do, and of course, short term is included, but there's no decision about going into short-term work right now. Yeah. We are calculating it. Sorry.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Heinz Müller speaking, Kalliwoda Research. Good morning. I have a question regarding your ag input business. The European Union has the intention to reduce the number of active ingredients and in consequence, the number of plant protection products. What do you think will be the impact on your ag input, input business? Fortunately, all my other questions were, have been already answered. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Müller. This is a great question. First of all, as you mentioned, the Green Deal is, sees a reduction of fertilizer and crop protections to 20%-50%. This will impact our business, of course, but as I mentioned before, we are continuously revamping our infrastructure and therefore, all our stocks and stock inventory, and we are reducing this kind of business. To be honest with you, this line of business wasn't a great EBIT contributor in the past, so we don't see any kind of impact when it comes to reduction of our revenues in this field.
The EU and the reduction of the portfolio of this product is, is to my favor, to be honest, because it will ease the handling and it will reduce the portfolio we can, we have to provide to the farmer. The farmer needs to put any kind of fertilizer or crop protection on the field. For example, it would be absolutely no impact for BayWa if the EU would ban glyphosate. They just have to buy certain and different products. It makes my handling even easier if I don't have to provide this big portfolio to the farmer as he now is asking for.
Okay. Thank you.
There is another question from Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research.
Yeah, sorry for coming back. It's.
Come back.
... tiny one, I promise. Can you shed some light on the ordering pattern in agriculture technology business, please? given that, the Bauernmilliarde, I think, expires at the end of this year, which might have driven at least some of the sales, that in, in new machinery.
Yes, great question. Thank you so much. You have to be aware that we are the largest seller of, or trader of the eco product line, and this is mainly driven by tractors, and tractors are not affected with the Bauernmilliarde, and therefore, there won't be a great impact on our revenues. The so-called Auftragseingang, so the order intake is high. It's high, as I mentioned before, you can't do any kind of organic or precision farming without the machinery. This the machinery part will be changed in the next years. BayWa in is in Canada, in the Netherlands, in South Africa, in Austria and in Germany, will benefit from this new line.
Right. Thank you so much, for that, very much, very clear. May I squeeze in a another tiny one?
Sure
... any impact from the end of the Black Sea grain deal on BayWa and its trading business?
Not at all. As I, as I mentioned, when the war started, we had a... We, we, we used to import 2 million tons via Constanța, and we had two vessels in Odesa, but we brought them out, and we are now getting the grain via Danube and via ships who are going on the rivers and via trucks and via trains. We have reduced our, the amount of grain we are now importing, as I mentioned before, from 2 million tons to 300,000. There is no impact on the Ukraine for BayWa.
Marcus, if I, if I may add something, I don't know, Mr. Schwarz, if you have seen the, the latest reports from Romania, the, the Russians are also attacking now the Danube, harbor-
They do, yeah.
... river, Danube River harbors. Uh, uh, and what has been affected in the first half year was our business in Romania, which is done by RWA. Uh, uh, the, the, uh, uh, the going through in the first six months of, uh, uh, Ukrainian crops through the Ukraine, uh, was a bit difficult, as to mention, I think we, we talked about that also in, in Bamberg, when we met.
Yes.
A lot of this grain stayed in the Romanian area and put pressure on the prices there for the farmers in Romania. That was also, this is included in our result, but that was a very weak result on the Romanian business coming in through RWA in Vienna.
... On the other hand side, it also increased volatility and also absolute price levels once the deal wasn't prolonged. I was just wondering whether the positioning of perhaps allowed for some, let's say, profits from, from that situation. We can, we can talk about the morals of that extensively, I guess, but I'm just interested in the mechanics, because either way, your position in the grain market disruption like that could lead to, let's say, higher profit or may shave off some EUR millions of your profits. That's, that's basically what I, what I'm, was aiming for.
Mr. Schwarz, starting a discussion about moral in a trading business is perhaps not the time and the place here. Of course, we do get benefits from the volatility in the market and whatever drives the market, if there are capital investors who are going into this commodity, or if there's uncertainty on the supply side. Maybe I've mentioned it in Bamberg. I'm very happy how the team in Rotterdam and the team of in Munich and in North Germany and in Hamburg, are connecting the dots together, have a mutual strategy, an aligned strategy, and we are in this, let's say, pretty uncertain markets.
We are very conservatively based when it comes to going into a certain positioning.
Understood. Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
Okay, next is Guido Hoymann from Metzler.
Good morning, gentlemen. three questions from my side, please. The first one, again, on, on global produce. You reached an EBIT of around EUR 11 million-
Mm-hmm.
If I'm right, in Q2, actually exceeding previous year's EUR 9 million. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Maybe, you know, it's, it's a relatively strong performance in spite of all the problems you spoke about. The second one would be, you know, since we have been addressing the write-downs on modules and fertilizers, are there any inventory risks in the other segments? For example, in the conventional energy segment, you know, pellets, gas prices, et cetera, have fallen quite significantly since the beginning of the year, or maybe also in the construction materials segment. Is there any remaining risks on inventories? Maybe last one, since, you know, almost 70% of your EBIT will come from RE this year, and in particular, also from the IPP business.
May I ask what your what your electricity price and expectations are, in particular, also looking forward, say, to 2025, 2026? You know, given that the forward prices have fallen quite significantly. So do you share with us your price assumptions or electricity price assumptions in your, in your, in your models, say, for 2025, 2026? Thank you.
Should I start, Marcus?
Yes.
Mr. Hoymann, thank you for, for your question. I'll start with the, the TNG one, and the comparison quarterly wise. You're absolutely right. The second quarter was, was quite strong, on the global products, in particular for, for that, that comes out of, TNG. That's quite normal because that's the marketing season for the New Zealand crop. The, the crop that we, that we got from the trees was, very well priced, higher qualities-
Mm.
A very good marketing window. That was reflected in the second quarter, and I guess will also come in the, the marketing season now closes in this third quarter. As I mentioned before, the fresh business in TNG, this is the domestic business, vegetables and, and, and all fruits that stays in New Zealand.
Mm.
Was also, tomatoes, very, very important. That was also stronger-
Mm.
Than the year, than the year and the quarter before, and the first quarter was, of course, influenced by the cyclone, the, the, the immediate or cyclone impact. Therefore, it was pretty much negative and being offset by the second quarter with the contribution of 11, higher than the previous second quarter.
Mm-hmm. Okay.
On the risk of further write-downs in other entities, within the business, I could state a clear no. We don't see that. That's, it has been in the, in the, solar trade business due to the high stock that we took in for strategic reasons, end of last year, then, facing-
Mm.
The price reductions. That was all now included in the numbers. The, the, the crop in the agriculture sector, we look on the agriculture sector, the, the input business is through, the commodity business is out, so mainly out, the, the, the outflows I mentioned. We are very conservative on our stocks on the agricultural equipment division. That has been automatically been done, and also the, the, the, the guys on the building materials work very hard on reducing, stocks and inventory, and we do not see any significant-
... further write down risk on, on, on, our inventory, on, on these parts.
Mm-hmm.
On the, on the forward pricing, the, the only thing that I could say from, from our discussions with Matthias and the renewable energy team is, you're absolutely right. We have a very bright result coming in from the IPP, the energy trading. If you look on the IPP, that has two components, or the, the energy trading business has two components in there. The one is the, the IPP business, which we are building up, and the contribution of that was EUR 30 million for the first six months in the year, I guess. The higher portion comes out from the energy trading, which is not only covering our own IPP, but also the other extra energy trading business.
There, in, in fact, we benefit from, from the pricing situation last year and this year, and this is what we also see coming down significantly when it comes to 2025- 2026. I don't know if we have a clear number on the, on what price on kilowatt we expecting, but that is, I guess it's more than normalized and it's on, it's on level from the, the pre-war situation. That was my takeaway from, from what I discussed with RE Marcus.
Yeah. Absolutely right. Maybe to give some more detailed information. Of course, we are, we are... It, it, it absolutely. I think your question is about if we, if we're building up our IPP portfolio, how will the EBIT contribution of this IPP portfolio will be in the next-
Mm-hmm
... couple of years, and how do we, what kind of hedging strategy we've got for this price?
Mm-hmm.
And so we-
Exactly.
We, we are very lucky that our Chief Risk Officer used to be in energy trading in his in in his former positions in other companies. We ask him to provide a very clear and structured IPP hedging strategy for this portfolio, and it is in line with the way BayWa works. It's very conservative. Over 75% of the revenues here are in a fixed hedge, and the others are on a so-called merchant market. The, the risk in this business is reduced on a... Let me just go into this detail. The VAR, the value at risk for a, in is EUR 11.5 million for the current business and will be in in this range for for the next couple of months. All right. Very, very clear, very detailed.
Thank you for the answers.
Thank you.
Okay, there are no further questions at the moment. I wait a few more seconds. This is not changing, and I hand back to the host for the conclusion of the conference.
Thank you very much. Yes, we are at the end of the conference. I think some of the question has been covered already in Bamberg. Nevertheless, thank you very much for your questions and your time. The next conference call will take place on 11th of November. In the meantime, I think we will see us at a couple of conferences that will take place, and we wish you a nice summer break. Thank you very much. Bye-bye.