Good day and welcome to BayWa Analyst Conference Call, Q2 2022. Today's call is being recorded. I'll now like to turn the call over to Josko Radeljic. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to our analyst conference on the half year result of the fiscal year 2022. As you probably have seen, we have disclosed our group EBIT roughly two weeks ago via an ad hoc. Additionally, we have given you idea about our EBIT expectation for this year. Today, Professor Lutz, our CEO, and Andreas Helber, our CFO, will give you a deeper insight into the development of the business and the financial figures. At the end of the presentation, we will be happy to take your questions. For formal reasons, let me also note that we have sent out all relevant documents and that you can download it from the investor relations website. I hand over now to Professor Lutz.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to our half year analyst conference. I'm more than happy to provide to you the excellent, most excellent and best figures ever in the 100 years history of BayWa. I just call the number of the page, and then we go through the presentation. What is the headline? The headline is we have really an outstanding increase of earnings across all our operational businesses and business models, up to 12, nearly 13 billion EUR. For those of you who are with us for many years, you know exactly that, as I start in 2008, we had 7.5 billion EUR, now nearly 13 billion EUR in the first half and the 7.5 billion EUR, this was the overall result in 12 months.
The EBIT is up to EUR 329 million, which is also an excellent performance. For you guys, as analysts and fund managers and so forth, EPS 3.33, as we say, call this in German language, this is a Schnapszahl. Maybe the key outlook, headline for the future is, because normally with such figures, I don't know what we need to discuss here, but the outlook will be for the future, for the next years, because in several business models and business segments, we are much better than we thought we will be in 2022. The increase of the profitability was expected over the next years because we have a sustainable step-by-step increased plan budget for the next years.
We think, I mean Andreas Helber, our CFO, and myself, that the future management will keep the profitability on such a level. Nevertheless, we go through a review process in November, and we are coming back with a full year analyst conference then in March next year with some more concrete explanation for the guidance without, of course, as always, without providing figures to you. The overall picture is extremely positive. Some highlights, and well, you can read it on your own on page four. Interesting is that we face the closing of the sale of our greenhouse activity in the United Arab Emirates.
The Cefetra specialty strategy has been embedded by a majority takeover of Brüning-Holding GmbH in Hamburg, which is a nut and dried fruit trader. You know that in Serbia, we acquired, we means RWA, our subsidiary in Vienna, acquired a compound feed company called Patent Corporation. This legal entity is for the very first time consolidated now in our balance sheet. Page five and six, you see the outstanding performance in Q2, and then the overall performance in the first half year. We come to the energy sector. There is nothing new in the market developments. I do not want to repeat myself because we explained it last time very in some more details. The key is solar business all over the world, then the onshore wind energy.
In the future, we'll see also some figures regarding the offshore activities because we won just in front of the coast of Scotland, 1 GW tender for an offshore operation. On the right side, you see the heating oil development, so the increase and the volatility on the one side, but the increased prices was very useful for our business development. We turn to page nine. You see the results. The revenue is up to EUR 2.7 billion. This is really outstanding. The reason for that is the growth in the solar business and the solar module trading business. The PV modules up 77% year-on-year, and the inverters +52%. The question is obvious, do we have problems with the supply chain?
At this point in time, we do not see really a decrease or a broken supply chain. Our storage was very high. This was the reason for the overall positive development in the trading and distribution business, not only in the renewable energy, but also in agri and building material. Our stock inventory was extremely high. This was planned by the management. It was a very smart move to be in the position to deliver all the goods required goods from the customers. It was very smart. Of course, the other way around, if we had now negative figures, I would say this is the market development. You'll see here EUR 2.785 billion EBIT has to do especially with the growth, as I said, in the solar business and the energy trade.
We expect Outlook 2022, another record high, in the performance of r.e., and we expect 1.2 gigawatt to be sold or to be included in our new IPP strategy. The high level and the high volumes on PV components will be sustainable over the next months. Page 10, you see the excellent performance in energy business, EUR 1.4 billion revenue, EUR 20 million EBIT has to do with the high demand for heating oil especially, but also pellets. People fear that something is going to happen in the winter period, of course. I return to the agri business. The key message I have for you guys is on page 12. This is the global balance sheet for agri products. Grain, of course, especially excluding rice.
You see here with -13, which is the storage level for 2022, 2023, we are not really in the position to be able, for instance, to replace a default or a decrease or a decline of volume coming from Russia and Ukraine. Page 13. Well, I do not want to explain that. This is self-explaining, the agri products, the price development at the MATIF and Chicago Board of Trade. You'll see also on page 14 the development for fertilizers, which is extremely important for our business success this year. On page 15, you see the Cefetra Group based in Rotterdam, EUR 3 billion revenues and EUR 36.6 million EBIT. The reason for that is, we have a price rally, of course, and the volatility is always supporting the agri commodity business of Cefetra.
Especially the specialty business, especially the specialty niche wording. So the niche businesses where we invested over the last years a lot of money in Tracomex and company, you know that, I guess. This is a very interesting development because more than 60% of the profitability comes from the specialty strategy. It was the right decision to go this to make this move and to leave a little bit volume and to reduce the volume for the commodities because this business is much more risky than the specialty business. Interestingly enough, we have an overcompensation of a loss of EUR 70 million, which we had in Odessa due to the default on grain contracts because we didn't get the volumes out of Ukraine. We had four Panamax vessels in the harbor of Odessa.
Three had to leave just before the attack, empty, and one was 50% loaded only. In other words, the EUR 70 million loss was created by spot market procurement activities of Cefetra to fulfill the contracts with customers. Sixteen, you see here, really outstanding performance of the agri trade and service segment, which means Germany, Austria, and Eastern Europe. Revenue nearly EUR 3 billion and EUR 134 million EBIT. This is really excellent if you take in consideration that a few years ago, we had still a loss situation especially in Germany, but also Germany is back on track.
Reason for that, fertilizer, we had some windfall profits, but especially in the trading activity, the open book, which was very positive, has come true, so to say, now in the P&L statement. Excellent results. Page 17, the same with our agri equipment, the machinery business, more than EUR 1 billion revenue in the first six months, EUR 35 million. We have a stable order intake. The order backlog was in the first months very high as well. Just to fulfill the contracts with the customers was and is the reason for this outstanding performance. Maybe you ask what's happening with the chip crisis. How do you manage that? First of all, here, stock inventory was high. First of all.
Secondly, we are also shipping from, for instance, Fendt, AGCO tractors, to the customers, without all the necessary chips, so to say. It's much more mechanical as it was over the last years. The car industry has the same situation. Global Produce here, we are more or less in a stable performance. Revenue is more or less the same in the last year. EBIT a little bit higher. The reason for that is that TFC, our tropical fruit company in Maassluis in the Netherlands, responsible for the shipping of avocados, nashi, pears, and whatever. Here, the logistic costs are extremely high because the containers are, as you might know, very expensive. Normally, you pay $1,200-$1,500 per container. Now we're up to $10,000-$12,000.
The peak was around about $20,000 per container. The outlook is nevertheless positive. We expect a similar result than last year. Building material. The market tendency, it's page 20, is intact. Still, it's on track. No significant changes which leads in 2021 to a super result, EUR 1.1 billion revenue and EUR 43.5 million EBIT. As I said, order intake extremely positive. The growth all over the entire product range. We have positive earnings in the contribution from our building project GmbH, and we are selling now apartments step by step over the next years. As you know, it's our goal to have a split 50/50 building material and 50% the project development of houses and buildings and the sale of apartments and flats.
The outlook is positive. All is in so far fine. Bottom line, first part of our presentation, excellent results. Congratulations to my team. Congratulations to all the employees and the stakeholders of BayWa. Unfortunately, the share price is not there where I expected to see the share price. It should be more than EUR 100. Yeah, that's my feeling. In so far, there's still room for improvement over the next hours. You guys are responsible to help us here to increase the share price. That's this is my statement. Andreas, you come now to the explanation of the financials.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, also from my side. Couple words to add maybe on the financials, then I'll continue on page 23 with the other activities. As you know, this is our cost center covering all the administrative costs. You see that we are a bit down compared to last year at roughly EUR 38 million. As we already indicated at previous conferences and previous calls, also on our capital market day, we expect this number to be full year in a range of EUR 70 million. The higher cost for the first six months comes out of the highly increased premiums of our D&O insurance.
You probably have been aware of that effect of other companies, that the D&O insurance went up dramatically, and that brought up by EUR 3.5 million for the first six months. A couple of exchange rate differences and costs of our. I just read through the translation here. Digital merchandising management system. This is really strange. It's our SAP ERP system that we are going to remove and improve it. So EUR 1.5 million additional costs for the first six months. Nevertheless, on level, for the full year, contribution of EUR 70 million costs. Coming to the next three pages, and that summarizes what Klaus just guided you through the excellent performance of all three business units.
You know that we changed the terminology on the segments, which are the individual segments now comprising the business unit Energy. This is renewable and the classical energy. You see the numbers. Be reminded that the bigger part within the r.e. business, they are standing at EUR 85 million for the half-year period, will only come in the second half of the year. This also is reflected in our outlook that we gave earlier this month with EUR 400 million-EUR 450 million overall EBIT contribution for the full year 2022.
The numbers here for the energy segment all up wonderful performance and mostly driven in the first six months on solar trade and the energy trading business, not so much on project sales. Next page, agriculture summarizes the excellent performance of the four segments as Klaus indicated, with up EBITDA on EUR 275 and the EBIT at EUR 222. This is an excellent performance, of course, driven by all segments, but strongly by the domestic business here in Germany and in Austria. Very easy. The next one on building materials, which is a business unit as it is segment. Jumping over that. That brings me to the summary of the income statement.
Overall, it's, I might say, too nice not to look at it for a minute. Revenue up at EUR 12, over 12, nearly 13 billion for the first six months of the year. The EBITDA, which is also an important number for our leverage structure for the full year, is up at EUR 455, and that has been the full year number last year, accordingly. What we expect, and that's also good for the leverage, at least something in between EUR 750-EUR 800 on EBITDA level for the full year coming, to the EBIT of EUR 400-450 million. That could be the number where it comes out.
The good news also, if you look on the EPS which is at EUR 3.33 per share. That reflects that the increase in results mostly come out of the mother company's share. That's good news also to see that the improvements being made in the various divisions are coming through also in our domestic business. Very strong performance on domestic agri business as we have seen it. I mean, it's a snapshot after the half year period. The equity up at EUR 1.2 billion over six months.
That's of course driven by the excellent performance through the net results, but also by the increase in equity by the downturn on the interest rate on the pension liability. That is reflected in the interest cost on one hand, but also on the positive effect on the equity, on the interest, on the pension accruals. That brought in some EUR 150 million. We had a counter effect from the valuation of our shareholdings in the RWA in Austria that also went through the equity with a negative effect of some EUR 59 million or net EUR 40 million after tax. That brings the equity position to EUR 1.97 billion, where it is with the equity ratio of 15.5%, so well over 15%.
That will increase towards the year end as we are going to reduce the overall total asset number due to the seasonality which is in here now within the half year that will go out towards the year end. Not a lot of things to say. We reduced inventory on the agri-products. On the other hand, we increased inventory, so we are level on level on the same level at least after six months. We increased the inventory on the project side, and these are the projects that we are going to sell in the second half of the year. This is also reflected in the cash flow statement, final page of the presentation. So far, cash earnings strongly up after six months at roughly EUR 390 million.
From operating activities, mainly flat. That's reflecting the valuation or the variation in inventory on one hand, and a strong increase on receivables due to the half year cutoff in our activities. Investing activities up to EUR 183. This is reflecting the investment, mostly the investment in the Serbia feed compound feed facility, Patent Co. You remember that the closing was already in the first quarter by our Austrian colleagues in Vienna. Financing activities, all good on that. That completes the cash flow statement for the first six months. That should be it in short. We already made the outlook. Klaus made the outlook on the segments.
We overall got the guidance up to EUR 400 million-EUR 450 million, which has been published earlier this month. I think this reflects the excellent performance, even we are a bit more cautious on the second half of the year. I think we are coming to that in a minute in the Q&A session, mostly driven by the domestic ag business, where we expect a more or less flat or even a little downturn because of the business is almost through and we are in the harvesting season. This is the main driver on the ag business, but the performance of the renewable is still to come. That brings us up to the guidance that we published to the market. I think that should be it.
Now we are coming back to Josko and, to your questions.
Thank you very much, Mr. Helber. Thank you, Professor Lutz. We are ready now to take your questions. Please start.
Thank you. If you'd like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please make sure your mute function is turned off to allow your signal to reach our equipment. We'll pause for just a moment to allow everyone an opportunity to signal for question.
Hm?
If there are no questions, we can stop this conference.
No, no, there are.
We'll take our first question from Oliver from Warburg. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Hello, gentlemen. Congratulations.
Hello. Good morning.
Good morning.
Hi. Good morning.
Congratulations to the spectacular results. It's so nice to see all the pieces to fall into the right places. Still I need to disappoint Dr. Lutz and ask a few questions for me.
No, I would be disappointed if you hadn't had any questions. I would nearly commit suicide here, I tell you.
I promise I won't keep you away too long from your morning coffee in that regard. First and foremost in my mind, guys, can we just get serious for a second here. The outlook. I mean, what you have to do now is to send all your employees on a prolonged holiday until the end of the year, with the exception of the people working in BayWa r.e., and you still will be at the mid-range of the given guidance quite comfortably. Is your message to the market really that all other segments are likely to be result neutral until the end of the year?
Well, as Andreas pointed out that we are in the harvest season for Germany now, but I do not expect a flat development. Let's go through the different businesses, okay? Yeah.
Yeah.
First of all, I don't see a flat development in Cefetra. Cefetra will increase the profitability. I do not see a flat development in BayWa Global Produce. Here we increase. Of course we have to. If I say it's a similar performance to like last year, now we have I think EUR 16 million. So there are another twenty something to go. So we will have more than EUR 40 million. We see in Cefetra something like. Well, I don't know, EUR 50 million-EUR 60 million, for instance. And what do we have else? The normal energy. Well, this depends of course on the energy crisis situation of course. Gas and oil, what's happening here in Germany and in Austria, because these are the main markets, the key markets for us.
Also in the energy sector, we expect another few million EUR on top. This is a very conservative approach. r.e. much more than EUR 200 million. It's something between EUR 200 million and EUR 250 million. You know, if you don't know what's happening, you take the middle off and you are not far away from the truth, maybe. This is also a significant upside. What do we have else? The question is the domestic agri business, which is of course a mixture of Eastern European activities of Germany and Austria. In Germany, I do not see an increase of profitability at this point in time. It will go down. It will go down because we are through the outputs for the agri resources like fertilizer and crop protection.
We are in the harvest season, so I do not expect anything at this point in time. We will have to take some tough decisions regarding the intake of storage for fertilizers in autumn. After the summer season, which ends in I would have said Germany, but Bavaria is of course Germany more or less. The rest is appendix. In the middle of September then we start the discussion, what do we do here? We don't expect a profitability increase at all. It's a decrease. It's hard to say what's happening in Eastern Europe at this point. Also our new compound feed company in Serbia. If you look at the overall political situation at the Balkans and especially Serbia, we don't know what's happening. We are conservative here as well.
We think it's a flat development. The RWA will also be, let me say, flat. The issue is Germany, the agri business in Germany, where we expect a decrease in profitability in the next six months. The rest is going to be, of course, much better. Building material, EUR 60 million, maybe EUR 65 million, something like that. At the end of the day, operational performance around, well, my calculation is more or less EUR 500 million. Then we have the overall costs and the investments in innovation, digital, our digital activities and all that stuff. It's every year the same. This leads us to EUR 400 million-EUR 450 million. Maybe again, the truth and the reality is in the middle of. This is my explanation going through the key businesses of BayWa.
Okay. Thank you for that. My calculation was deviating a bit from yours, Dr. Lutz. I was taking, let's say, a peek at last year's second half numbers. EBIT was at EUR 122 million for that period, attributable to our r.e. was, give or take, EUR 40 million in that timeframe that used, let's say, EUR 80 million for all the other activities. I said, okay, give or take, maybe flattish, given the markets and the risks you already alluded to. We'll get a, let's say, a contribution of r.e. of—when I got you right, doctor—Mr. Helber, of more than EUR 100 million, which would equate to 100 plus 80.
That's like, give or take, 180 plus the 330 we got in the first half year. That would exceed even EUR 500 million by some margin. That was my, let's say, back-of-the-envelope calculation that I did.
Yeah, this is not such a deviation if you take only the operational performance. The operational performance is absolutely in line with what you are saying, from our calculation point of view. Then we have the overall cost and the innovation, investments and all that stuff which is not included in the different business segments.
I completely agree.
Mr. Schwarz, maybe just to be clear on that, the rates almost run on energy business for the second half of the year. Also on the technical agricultural equipment business. They had very strong performance in the first six months, though, as Klaus said, the increase there is just in a couple of millions anyway. The big contributor for the second half of the year is the r.e. business. We have to state that we are expecting a downturn from that excellent result of EUR 135 million for the six-month period on the agri business. That goes down to at least EUR 100 million or even less. This is the one thing.
Overall, on the 500, to be clear on that, if you calculate the 500, you already deducted the cost portion, I guess. We have the 500, and then we deducted cost portion. That brings us up to the range of between 400 and 450. Maybe it could come out even better, but this is our conservative assumption that we gave to the capital markets.
Okay, let me probe you on that one. What has to happen for you to go down to EUR 400 million? Does the world needs to implode, or is it less severe than that?
Taiwan.
Taiwan, gas stop.
Okay.
The question, what's happening at the commodity side, taking in consideration that the reality is that one train, truck or not one, trains and trucks, plus the one vessel with 26,000 tons, which is nothing, is the end of the story. Then we will have a problem in providing enough commodities to the like African and the Arabic African world regarding the question, do we expect starving situation over there? That's a key thing because this will have immediately an impact on the price development upside. If you see a significant upside, then it's better. If this is not the case and Putin if Putin is fulfilling his promises, Lavrov was on this PR tour, I would call it, in Africa.
If he's fulfilling exactly his commitments and promises, then I expect flat or even a decline in the commodity prices. We have some very detailed analysis about the development then in Ukraine. Maybe you have heard about it. We had this big news conference with more or less all relevant magazines, TV stations and blah, blah, concerning the evaluation with the Vista our satellite data evaluation company made. This is really pretty interesting, but the uncertainty is extremely high. We are more on the conservative side. We say 400-450, but as Andreas said, maybe it could be better as well. The key driver is not agri at the end of the day, it's renewable energy.
Got that.
One additional word on the building materials sector. As we already pointed out, the Capital Markets Day, there are some slowdowns called this way in the second half of the year. We'll probably not go into the range of last year's result of EUR 73. It will be a good performance, but this is also one of the weaker developments for the second half of the year. Nevertheless, that's also important already looking at 2023, we are already within the r.e. business, within the project stage, shifting projects into 2023 to also make this year a good one. Additionally, we are in the harvesting season. We made pretty good contracts already, as we did last year.
This supported the performance in the first six months of this year. We made already some good contracts that will come through only in the beginning of 2023. Also on that side, we are not unhappy with the performance that we see in the second half of the year and also not what we see already for 2023.
You see here again how important the international business is for us, and here, especially renewable energy. You know that we have a agreement with EIP in Zurich over the next years. The budget goes till 2028. Without going into details because we are not allowed to publish, of course, the detailed figures. It's interesting, in 2022, we expect more or less the result of, let me say, 2024, 2025. We have not a postponing, but a pre-success, I would call it this way. I'm not concentrated today. I don't know what's happening. A pre-success story. You understand what I mean?
Because the plans were a little bit different, and now it's extremely important to go through a review process of the budgets in November, because maybe it will be even better in the next years. It could be. This depends on the performance of renewable energy. This is the key driver for much better overall results also for BayWa. This needs to be discussed with Zurich. This needs to be discussed with the operational management, because what I expect then as chairman of BayWa r.e. again, as you know, I'm supervisory board chairman. What I expect is the detailed explanation from the operational management. What does it mean if we are ahead of accomplishing the promised budget over the next year already now, what does it mean for the future?
From a logical point of view, to take Heribert, your calculation and as you are from your personality point of view, and maybe I need you as a consultant for this, we need to discuss this with Norbert and the others, that from a normal point of view, we have to add this on the expectation for the next years, this over budget success at this point in time. I don't know. This needs to be reviewed very carefully. Please do not add just the over-performance on the expected budgets for the next years, because this will put too much pressure on the management.
Okay. I'm fine with that. Then we have to deduct some euros from your EUR 100 price target of BayWa, of course.
This is very good point.
I know, I know. I'm so sorry for that. Second question, Mr. Helber, could you give me the number of, when looking at your almost EUR 2 billion equity, how much of that is attributable to BayWa r.e. and how much of that is attributable to the rest of the group?
You might see that. Now, that's only in the profit on the equity. Let me look after that. Do you have a third question, then I could look after the second one.
Oh, well.
Keep in mind that we have to. I guess it should be roughly, I guess it now out of the. We have the increase was EUR 500 and EUR 300 was original, so it brings it up to EUR 800. EUR 51 is to BayWa. EUR 800
Mr. Helber is calculating.
I would say EUR 1.5 to BayWa, EUR 400 to r.e.. Then now we recheck it, and I'll give you the right number in a minute.
The question is, what are we doing then with Andreas if he was wrong?
Yeah.
We are on the 20, so. I think there is some margin for error here. Don't be too cruel on him. That wouldn't be fair.
Yeah. Okay. Further question.
Yeah. My third and last question is, obviously, a splendid result, very good cash flow in H1. Still, looking at your both long-term and short-term debt commitments, obviously also driven by the expansion in working capital, they have not come down, but have slightly gone up. When trying to extrapolate that to the end of the year, especially keeping in mind that there will be a huge influx of cash from r.e. products sold until the end of the year because that tends to be back-end loaded. Is there, let's say, a target for financial net debt that you might be willing to share for the end of the year?
I have no financial target on it. I would say the level as we have it now, which is driven by seasonality, of course, would probably be on level also for the year-end. Why that? Because I'm expecting higher intake from the harvesting season. We are just preparing that. We have a different price level covering the harvest which is coming in. On the other hand, we have some postponements on project sales towards the year-end. We expected the original plan was some EUR 400 million-EUR 500 million on project sales coming in at year-end. That's now down at EUR 300 million. It will be a slightly a number.
I expect it on a level EUR 4.1 billion-EUR 4.2 billion maybe. That would be my target range.
Okay, cool. Thank you for that. That was all my questions.
I'm expecting if I'm reflecting your question to go into the direction on calculating leverage or the overall debt position, be reminded that a higher portion of deductible inventories, you know, the way we how we calculate.
Yep.
The leverage on the readily marketable inventories is to be expected by year-end. Last year, it was roughly EUR 900, I guess, or EUR 800, something like that. I expect that number to be at least EUR 1 billion or maybe EUR 1.1 billion of in total due to the higher pricing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Due to higher prices but lower fertilizer volumes. That was my expectation as well.
The fertilizer levels, I think the inventory levels have not that big a big impact as it has on the harvest products.
Absolutely. Okay. Thank you for that. That was all my three questions.
Thank you. I have a proposal as compromise. EUR 100 will be your recommendation. It's half year, so EUR 50 for the half year is fine.
I take that into account.
Do we have further questions or what are we doing now?
We'll take our next question from Heinz Müller from Dr. Kalliwoda Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Before Mr. Müller starts, could I answer the second question of Mr. Schwarz? Sorry, Mr. Müller, just a second. Mr. Schwarz, are you still around? I hope so. Just to answer the second question of the share of equity towards r.e.. That's, as I said, roughly in a range of EUR 400 million-EUR 450 million. EUR 935 million is the total equity on the r.e., and 51% of that goes to BayWa, and the remaining part goes to the minorities or to r.e.. It was not that bad, my guess.
Wow.
Can I stay here?
You can stay here, and you get a reward. You have to pay a bottle of champagne for me. That's your reward.
Okay.
You are allowed to pay now. Yeah, Kalliwoda.
Yeah.
Good morning.
Yeah.
Congratulations from my side to you on the very impressive figures, which were far beyond our former targets, especially with regard to EBIT. Congratulations. My first question is, with regard to the innovation segment. Very small, but I think, due to the subsidy program, Bauernmilliarde, farmers are heavily investing in improved equipment, especially slurry applicator, fertilizer distributors, and sprayers, which were equipped with highly sophisticated software and GPS hardened software. Why this is not still visible in the figures of the innovation and digitalization segment, which still show a loss? The second question is, with regard to the cereal prices. Due to the fact that grain exports from Ukraine will become possible again, do you think that the high grain prices will decrease to former levels? Those are my questions.
Thank you. Yeah, Müller, I start with the second one. We have a detailed evaluation, as I said, from Vista regarding the harvest and the storage in Ukraine, and especially logistic systems, the distribution systems and all that stuff. This is still broken more or less. We should not be misled by publications and reports on TV and also online and so forth. I don't expect a decrease in commodity prices at this point in time. Of course, it depends a little bit what's happening if really 20 million tons from Russia and Ukraine will be shipped to Africa.
If this is the case, business as usual, you know, hedge funds in the Chicago Board of Trade and so forth, they are in the position to influence significantly the share, not the share price, sorry. The commodity prices at this point in time, we don't have any forecast which shows something that like that. More flat plus increase. That's one answer. The second one is, of course, the Bauernmilliarde is a great success so far, that last year and this year the farmers are investing. It has also to do with the high liquidity situation for the farmers due to the commodity prices. It has to do with the mistrust of farmers in the future of the euro. If you remember, we had the discussion 14 years ago in the financial crisis already.
Also to protect their businesses in so far. The problem is only that even selling software licenses and consultancy contracts and maintenance contracts to farmers regarding the digitalization process and also to improve the processes through software applications is not sufficient to carry the load of investments in all these cloud-based new products of BayWa. What is the point? The point is you will see here much better figure only if we can reach an international and global approach. This is not new. That's what I'm saying for years. I have to admit that we are not really successful in a global international rolling out process for all these software applications. This has to do that we do not find the right resources. I mean, the workforce.
For instance, we are right now negotiating. Just to give you a flavor, negotiating contracts with farmers, with big farmers, much bigger than here in Europe, in Thailand, for instance, in India and other countries. The problem is only who is going to service the customers in these countries. This is not easy because to find the people is really tough. The Fachkräftemangel, as we call it in Germany, is really a significant issue we have to deal with. I don't know. Is this sufficient as an answer for you?
Yes, of course. Thank you very much.
We'll take our next question from Guido Hoymann from Metzler. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Good morning, gentlemen. Three questions from my side, please. The first one is addressing the U.S. dollar movements. I think the U.S. dollar has been obviously very strong this year. I assume that it has been supportive for your r.e. business. You had to reduce. Am I right here? Can you quantify the impact on your results? That would be the first one. The second one, I think we have addressed it partially already, but you know, to sum it up, you mentioned in your Q1 call the risk of component shortages, especially in r.e., i.e. PV components, but also in the agricultural equipment segment. Has the situation actually improved a little bit? Is it still bad? Or how is the situation here?
Because you know, particularly in r.e., you know, which is of course your major growth driver, probably also for next year. Yeah, and I understand that you had piled up quite some stock. You know, if this runs out, yeah. Could that threaten your, let's say, short, medium-term prospects? Last but not least, maybe more of a sort of a strategic question and maybe somewhat strange, but is there any chance actually to re-increase your stake in r.e. again? You know, we know that you have diluted it to 50% or whatever, one share.
You know, talking about also about your fair value of the company, we should of course. I think most people are aware that 50% of your r.e. profits or EBITDA, you know, go out of the group in the end. Is there any option, you know, thinking about increasing the stake again? Thank you.
Okay. Mr. Hoymann, yeah. I start with the components because this is easy to answer. We have great storage facility in renewable energy, especially. Our supplier portfolio is much broader than it was in the past. What we did or what the operation management did is to take action and to try to become much more independent on China and to buy as much as possible because we do not expect a decrease of components due to the demand on a global basis. So far, with regard to the first quarter analyst conference, I can say at this point in time, we do not see a broken supply chain for the components in the solar business. The last question, interesting one, by the way. I don't know what to say.
Well, one thing is clear. We just started one year ago together with EIP in Zurich to move forward with renewable energy. Our BayWa r.e. is going to be much more professional, also from a corporate governance point of view. We are preparing, we call it capital market readiness, without making an announcement that we are willing to do so. It's becoming very independent company. Of course, the consolidation is clear for us. We do not want to be diluted more, but it was more than necessary to get a capital injection for the business, which is so fast-growing and also to improve our bottom line significantly.
As we might remember, we said originally, if we start with EIP as partner, which is a very good cooperation, by the way, also from a human point of view, that we will have a decrease in the results in the first year. The opposite thing is happening at this point in time, and we do not see a decrease at all. So far, no change. Storage good. Broader supply chain range as we had. A re-increase in r.e. at this point in time is not really subject to be discussed internally.
That's all.
It's a good point, Andreas. We do not have a put/call or whatever option. It is just.
Mm.
They bought a stake on the basis of the valuation and also two years ago, one and a half years ago, and then we are looking forward. Our goal is to finance, to get a growth strategy for r.e., including IPP. This is a significant change to the original strategy of r.e.. Years ago, as we started with this business, it was our intention to get a revenue around one billion euro and fifty million profit. We are now in a completely different scenario. Now the question regarding the
Finally, Mr. Hoymann, the question on the U.S. dollar impact. This is a very limited one. Normally, within the financing cycles of our entities, we are financing local currency. Where we have an effect is on r.e.. Overall, net impact was for the half year, EUR 3.1 million. Secondly, we have an impact in our global produce business within New Zealand, and that came out with NZD 3.5. It brings it down to EUR 2 million, roughly. Overall, the impact was a loss of EUR 5 million.
Okay. All right. Thank you.
We'll take our next question from Anne Margaret Crow from Edison. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good morning, gentlemen. I would like to extend my deep congratulations regarding the first half results as well. That's brilliant set of results.
Thank you very much, Mrs. Crow.
Thank you. I have a couple of questions regarding the projects part of building materials. It's good to see that you're getting profits coming through from project sales there now. Could you give some view of what percentage of profits from that business unit the projects are now? What you are aiming for, and what the capital investment required to reach your goal is likely to be.
Yeah.
In particular, is that capital that you require self-financing? Is that going to be generated from previous project sales or will you have to finance that from other means?
Mrs. Crow. Yeah. Can we answer this building material question immediately because that's complex. The team here was checking out the figures and so forth. What I wanted to say is the overall goal is to have a split. It's similar to Cefetra in the agri company in Rotterdam. 50% should come in the future from the project development business, as a project means to develop building and sell it, and 50% from the normal building material sector, so trading and distributing of different stuff, not stuff, building materials to the customers. 50/50, that's the overall goal. The concrete split is. Where is the split?
Now for the first six months, Mrs. Crow, we have an EBIT contribution of EUR 5 million. This is the contribution in 2022 for the first six months. Expecting a couple of millions coming on that in the second half of the year. As Klaus said, the split is 50/50, so it sums up to a total exposure of some EUR 20 million-EUR 25 million on contribution out of the project business when it's fully impacted. For this year, I guess something between 7-10 million. That should be a reasonable number for this year. On the financing, this is quite interesting.
We have an overall exposure of some EUR 200 million dedicated to the project business, but it's more or less, as you said, self-financing. That's the typical way how it works in Germany. If you buy these or if you build these projects and you sell them, the buyer has to give money step by step. And so we get the money before we fully transfer the ownership on the project. You know what I mean? It's a-
Right. Okay.
Financing of the customer. That makes it very interesting from this financing side. Not that we always have to contribute the 100% or the total finance of this project. These projects sum up to an investment volume of up to EUR 10 million, EUR 5 million, EUR 6 million, but not that we have to finance it 100% by equity, but it's pre-financed by the customers.
Right. No, that's very helpful. It means it's not a drain on your resources, which is good.
Yeah.
Thank you.
We'll take our next question from Sven Saule from Kepler Cheuvreux. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hello, gentlemen. Good morning also from my side. Congratulations. I have only one question. Could you maybe elaborate the strategic rationale behind postponing the project development business, some of those projects in r.e., to the next year? Is this due to personnel shortage or because you think that. Or obviously it is the case because trading business is generating enough earnings in your view. Because the demand in the project business will presumably not drop in 2023. I'm just wondering why, what the strategic intention is behind postponing some of these projects.
Okay. Maybe there's a little bit, misunderstanding. First of all, the earnings coming from the energy trading and the components business are sufficient, and we are exceeding our budget already. Secondly, there's indeed no decline or drop in the expected project development over the next years. Please correct me if the figure is wrong, but I think we have about 20 GW.
Right.
Twenty, round about 20 GW in the pipeline as options for building wind and solar plants all over the world, more or less, and it's increasing day by day. If you say postponing, then this is a tactical approach because in the beginning of investing in renewable energy, more than 10 years ago, we always said we make sure to the capital market. We make sure that we have a sustainable development and profitability. Insofar, that's a logical point of our strategy published many years ago. That's the one thing.
The other thing is that indeed we have a shortage in workforce, and as I said already in my presentation, that for instance, if I have the figure correctly in my mind, Matthias Taft is looking more or less for around about 10,000 people all over the world, not here in Germany of course, but all over the world for the project development. This is not easy. You need engineers, you need project managers, you need lawyers, especially because this is legally extremely complex and sometimes also complicated, you know, to build all these types of renewable energy facilities. It's a mixture. Nevertheless, one thing is also clear.
If there is a customer and saying, "I need to have in the fiscal year now for me the acquisition of blah, blah, solar or wind plant," then we are going to try to fulfill the customer's needs and wish. If this is not necessary, so we play a little bit with the question of what do we need next year to make our budget also to be sustainable and you can better as a fund manager or investor, potential investor, you can calculate on a safe basis what does this mean for the upcoming fiscal years.
Okay, great.
Is this?
Thank you very much.
Is this sufficient for you? Okay. Thank you.
Very, very clear. Thank you.
We'll take our next question from Norbert Kalliwoda from Dr. Kalliwoda Research. Your line is open. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hello, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Congrats, Mr. Lutz and Helber. I have some questions.
Good day.
Yeah. First is, you have, LNG fuel stations and power stations for e-mobility. Can you give us some insights about the profitability and your budget? How was the development in the first half year? This would be helpful.
Up to this.
Yeah. A minute.
We check it out. I don't have it by heart.
We have to look after the answer.
If you have a further question, please proceed.
Yes. My other question would be, especially China, the apple industry, the new plantations, because this is a huge market, you said. There are two main brands, Kanzi and Jazz. So, is there any further competition expected? What is the development there, in this market, in this huge market of the apples in China and worldwide? Thank you.
First of all, the development is extremely positive. We have some customers in China, especially the Golden Wing Mau Group, with all these royalty fees and licenses for Envy. It's not Kanzi, by the way. It's not Kanzi and Jazz. The most demanded apple variety is Envy for the Asian market. Over the last years, we started a project with our Chinese partner. You know that, or maybe you don't know it, with this Golden Wing Mau Group, which is a key distributor, a wholesale company for the retailers in China, especially Shenzhen and Shanghai area and Hong Kong. We started a program that the farmers in China can plant Envy, variety Envy, and we get a royalty fee for that.
This is going to be also in Europe and all over the world, in the United States and so forth, a key part of the future business of global produce in New Zealand or for Turners and Growers, our subsidiary over there. That's a great success. In other words, we don't see a decrease due to crisis or war or whatever. It's the other way around. The demand from China is extremely high.
Okay. Yeah, good. Finally, please, the pension accruals. You mentioned EUR 30 million. No, as it improved. Can you give us again the reasons for the improvement of your balance position pension accruals?
Yes, of course, Mr. Dr. Kalliwoda.
Mm-hmm.
Firstly, the improvement or the reduction on the pension accrual was some EUR 150 million.
Aha.
Don't get the numbers wrong. Something in the range of EUR 150 million, and that came through the actuarial gain that came through the interest rate on the pension accrual. The interest rate on the pension accrual was on a level of roughly 1%, and it went up to roughly 3% now after six months. This increase in the interest rate brought the pension accrual down by, Mr. Seifert just gave me the right number. It was. I was also wrong. It was EUR 180 million, not EUR 150 million.
180 was the effect, the reduction effect on the accrual through the increase in the interest rate on the actual calculation.
Okay, good. Thank you.
The answer on your last question on the impact on e-mobility and LNG, this is only, to be honest, a very small one. It was overall EUR 1.1 million for the first six months, compared to EUR 0.8 million the previous period. Last year it was EUR 800,000 increased by 1.1, but this is still on a very low level, let's say it this way. It's only building up the e-fuel stations and the LNG ones. The LNG, I think there was not much business on the LNG construction this year.
No. Yeah. You see here you have these political statements, all this blah, in the public newspaper and so forth, but the reality is, there is a slowdown.
Mm-hmm.
This is for us here regarding energy change in environmental policy and all these things. It's not easy and especially
Yeah.
It's not easy to get for all these activities, the permission from the authorities.
Okay, ja.
Because at the same time as in Germany, that's clear. I really know what I'm talking about due to my second job.
Yeah.
Second.
Okay. Danke schön. Thank you so much. Danke.
Yeah.
Bitte?
For the others, we made a selfie, and I said he should sell it because then he is going to be very rich.
Kalliwoda, you can sell it as an NFT in the modern world.
Yeah.
Before you destroy it.
If it's EUR 1 million, we'll soon make EUR 1 million. I get EUR 900 and you EUR 100. That's how you fairly divide it. Catholic Church.
EUR 900?
Okay.
You managed it to dial in. Thank you very much for your interest, for your participation. Next, call will take place on tenth of November, but I'm sure we will hear as before. We wish you all a nice summer break. Thank you very much.
Bye-bye.
This concludes today's call. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.