Thank you very much for the introduction. Josko Radilic is, of course, with me as well and our CFO, Andreas Helber, but I'll start immediately because I'm a little bit busy today. First of all, our financial year 2019 was very successful. We provided all commitments. We accomplished all our goals with one exception where we need a little bit more time.
And this is page number, what is this, 4, the financial year's highlights. I would like to emphasize a little bit. Operating earnings increased. Also, we are in challenging markets still. And last year, of course, then we had this settlement over €68,000,000 with the antitrust authority in Germany.
Nevertheless, we started an official liability claim against the Federal Republic of Germany due to some misjudgment and mistreatment of Baiva by the officers, and we would like to get the money back. Whether we are successful or not, we will see over the next 2 years, I guess. It will take a little bit time. How did we manage that you do not see in the operational result, the €68,000,000 of we had some adjustments in the corporate portfolio, so we made some sales. And the overall earnings we made with these divestments covered more or less the €68,000,000 not completely.
You will see that at the end of my presentation because there were some lawyers and other consultancies fees we couldn't cover completely. But nevertheless, it's not really an had not really an impact on our overall performance and results. We were very successful to issue the green bond. This was the very first one in Europe. For our green company, the amount of money we got from the capital market was €500,000,000 So we are very proud of having this green bond now in our financial structure, in our financial portfolio.
This was a great success. And we are still in the ongoing negotiation process for the private placement. We intend to do with a minimum amount of money of around about €500,000,000 with a minority shareholder. So we are not through the process yet because the result 2019 was much better than we thought. So we have to embed that in the plans for the future.
And unfortunately, of course, now we are affected by the coronavirus crisis. And all the discussions and negotiations are only possible via Skype video conferences and data room. So this is an unpleasant situation also for the business for our business relationship. And so far, it will take a little bit longer as we thought, but we are in still in very promising discussions with candidates. So what is the overall picture?
Page 5, the revenue is up 2.6%, very first time more than €70,000,000,000 The EBIT the real EBIT, not an adjustment and super adjustment and something like that, it's €180 €8,000,000 We suggested to the Supervisory Board, and the Supervisory Board accepted that unanimously to make a suggestion to the AGM of €0.95 So it's an increase of SEK0.05 in comparison to 2018. We would like to participate, the shareholders, in the success of BioVantage operational performance. The employees we have in the consolidation in the balance sheet are here still 8 in 8, but today that's 20,300 employees. Years. So the overall picture is very positive.
You see Page 6, the comparison over the last years. So this is the most successful year in 2019. Also, we had all these challenges. You see on Page 7, the comparison for Q4 of the last years. Last year, we had 144,000,000,000 so 2018, 144,000,000 now 111,000,000 Why?
It's quite simple because in 2018, we sold most of the wind and solar projects during the last weeks. And this year, it was a little bit more balanced over the fiscal year. So we come to Page 8. You'll see the expansion strategy over the last 12 years. It's very successful.
So 65% of the overall EBIT contribution is coming from Renewable Energy and some others like global produce, international grain trading activity and our expansion business. Nevertheless, it's quite interesting. Also, we have these problems in the agri business in Germany and in Austria, consolidation, restructuring, refocusing and all these things, you know probably, we are quite stable in the traditional fiber business as well. Coming to Page 9, the energy segment. So that's the combination of the conventional energy business and then our rising superstar, the renewable Energy Business, we have a revenue of SEK 4,400,000,000 EBIT SEK 127,000,000,000 So it's a record high, an increase of 32%.
More than 2,800 at Ultimo employees now, we have more than 300,000 people employed in especially the renewable energy sector. We sold nearly 1 gigawatt or 9 11 megawatts last year, which is also record high. Meanwhile, coming from 5.7 gigawatts, we have in under management under the operational management, which means maintenance and handling and all that stuff. 8.3 gigawatts is still very, very fast growing this business, though the service business will become much more important in the future as well. And also interesting, of course, low level margins are small.
Nevertheless, the wood pellets business is increasing over the last year. But last year, we had 24%. That's significant and interesting and interesting growth due to the green and renewable and sustainable orientation of Baibars. Coming to Page 10. I don't want to jump in the details here.
It's interesting and for us clear, of course, and it's not really new for you guys. In the Renewable Energy sector, wind and solar is still increasing all over the world, especially the solar business. And then solar projects all over the world are increasing. The volume is going up. And so far, over the next years, our project business is really absolutely safe.
We have more than 13 gigawatts in our portfolio as options. And so far, it's clear what's going to happen here. The conventional energy was interesting market environment, a record high. We made a transaction. As you know, we sold our fuel station business, Tesol, to one of our partners, Avia, in Germany.
So in the future, we will have a lower profit, but in 2019, it was really great. Coming to Page 11. See nearly €2,000,000,000 revenue in Renewable Energy sector, €101,000,000 EBIT. We had all over the different business subsegments an increase. And I'm very proud that our solar module trading unit is very profitable.
Again, you know that over the last years, we had some problems due to the market development. We were in underwater. We had minus EBIT contribution. Unfortunately, meanwhile, we are back on track. We are number 1 in Europe.
And so far, it was for us very important to keep going with this business. Now we are very profitable again and SEK 100,000,000 the first time that we provide more than SEK 100,000,000 EBIT. You'll see in Page 12, that's just for your information. And looking back a little bit, Normal average growth rate over the last 10 years. We had our anniversary celebration last year, 10 years renewable energy with fiber is 32.4%, and we expect an increase over the next years as well without discussing at this point the impact of the coronavirus crisis.
Page 13, that's just an example of a cooperation. Abi Inves, this big one of the largest brewers in the world is one of our partners here for Solar Energy, which will be created by Baibar RE. That's an interesting cooperation. It's a global cooperation. And I think that's a good example also for future type of Informa joint ventures or corporations with other big companies.
And if you have questions with that, you can answer that later on. So Page 14, you see the conventional business, €2,500,000,000 of revenue, slight increase and €26,000,000 EBIT, it was volume driven, but also a little bit price driven. And well, we had a little decrease in the sale of fuels. Nevertheless, the profitability was good. And we had a decrease, a little downturn in the lubricants business, but the rest was very profitable and very positive.
So you see Page 15, the P and L statement of the Energy segment. If you have questions, Andreas is taking care of the figures later on. So we come to the Agriculture, still the largest one. We started this time with the Energy business because from the EBIT contribution is the most important one, the most innovative one, of course. And now agriculture with €10,800,000,000 revenue is the largest revenue part of Baeva, of course, nearly €100,000,000 EBIT.
So it's not a quantity initially sharply. Nevertheless, with 10,500 employees and 32,000,000 grains and oilseeds we are trading. We are not really pleased with the performance, especially in Germany and Austria. So we go right now through a very detailed restructuring plan. It will take 2 years roundabout till we are back.
I wouldn't say on track because we just are in advance with regard to the changes in the markets, the consolidation process, the changes of the behavior of the participants in the markets in Germany. So the big farmers in Eastern Germany, for instance, they have enough storage capacity themselves, so they do not really need us anymore. So digitalization automation will take care will play a significant role in the future of our German and Austrian Agriculture business. And the international operations, I'm coming to that in a moment, are very successful. So the market development, first of all, the products business, grain business, grain trading and origination and so forth, well, we had commodity prices in 2019 with the sideways movements in the second days were stagnating a little bit.
And the key figures are minus 29 1,000,000 tons in the season 2018 2019. So the storage is decreasing and minus 11 is forecast for the season 2019 2020 we will see. So that's important because consumption is still high, is increasing, and we are reducing on a global basis the global grain balance without rice. We are reducing the storage volume the storage volume. Coming to Page 18, you see we have a little decrease in our fiber, grass supply and trade business, which is international operation for grain trading.
And specialties down to SEK4.8 billion. Why? Because we are reducing the volumes we are trading. You see that just SEK 32,000,000. We were up to SEK 40,000,000 the previous years, but this was just turn money without profit.
This is nonsense business. So we reduced the volumes. And the key success here is that specialty business is and the strategy for the specialty business is successful. You see €19,100,000 EBIT, of course, in comparison to last year. It's a decrease significant decrease and we are not happy with that.
But the €20,000,000 this EBIT comes from the Specialty business. And we always said we would like to have around about SEK 20,000,000 coming from the new participation of the companies we acquired and which are part of the Basque organization. The rest decrease comes from Iran because we had to stop the supply of milling wheat. We have problems due to the crisis, the trading crisis or trade war, how you want to call it, between China and the United States and some changes in the supply flow of soy, the soy business from Argentina, Brazil to China and from the United States to Argentina and to Europe. So all these changes unfortunately had an impact on our P and L bottom line result.
We come to Global Proteus. Global Proteus was very successful in 2019. You see on the left side a little bit the volumes of apple harvest just for your information. On the right side, unfortunately, in German language, upsell price means apple price, prices for apples in Germany. You can make your own judgment.
Donat wants to comment on that. More importantly, Page 20, you see the increase 4.5 percent of revenue, euros 843,000,000 and an increase of our EBIT of 35%. But we have to admit that part of the €36,000,000 is the sale of the headquarter in New Zealand, Mount Wellington, a few millions, I don't know, a few millions, I guess, euros 8,000,000 or €9,000,000 or so, whereas this more or less the operational performance. I'm happy with this development. Also, we had quality and quantity and size issues with the apples from New Zealand, so Jazz and Envy.
Page 21, we come to the inputs business, which was very complicated, and it's going to be also not easy in the future. We have a decrease of 6% in the fertilizer volume year to year, the same for the crop protection. And also the seed is a little bit lower than in 2018. Why? It has to do with, a, the farmers basing in Europe b, the legislation which was changed and also the increase of the organic farming.
So where are we? Page 22. Of course, we are not happy with the result. It's nevertheless a little bit better than in 2018. Revenue, €3,400,000,000 €7,800,000 EBIT.
Of course, this is not acceptable, and that's the reason why we are going through a restructuring process. So I can only beg for your patience over the next 2 years. I expect that we are then back on a much better level because we are cutting costs. We are restructuring our site structure in Germany. We are going to reduce the sites from more than 200 down to 80, 200.
And we are focusing ourselves a little bit more on the deep harbors sites in the East Sea. And we hope that we can start with the expansion of Mukram, this big harbor site, which is important for us that we can load also with Russian and Ukrainian grain, the Panamax vessels in the future. But this will take 2 years maybe from now. It's not through all these processes. The permissions are not yet finalized from the European Union, the federal government and the state government in Germany.
So that's not really positive. We are also reducing the capital employed in this business segment. Now we come to Page 23. Again, a very, very good result in the Agri Equipment business. It's not as high as it was in 2018.
Nevertheless, the new registration for tractors in Germany is stable. And also the sentiment on the right side on 23, you see this pharma sentiment that's more feeling. The mood, the atmosphere in the business is not too bad. And you see on 24, Page 24, that we are stable on the revenue side. And €32,800,000, that's really great success again.
And for us, it's also important to see that the billable hours in the service business is very high. It's higher as in the previous years, and this is also the proof for the investments we made in new service stations in Germany, especially. And in Austria, we are more or less through the lower times. And now we are back on track. And it has also to do with the new products delivered by John Deere.
So Page 25, P and L statement. Don't want to waste too much time on that because Andreas is coming back to the overall figures. So Building Material, again, successful with SEK 32,100,000. We have in revenue plus of 5.3 percent up to 1,700,000,000 SEK 1,700,000,000 SEK 1,700,000,000, sorry. We are in a boom situation in Germany, especially you see that on Page 27.
So the German construction industry has a plus of 8.4 percent and homes completed 4.5%. 300,000 new homes were built last year. Nevertheless, we have some political issues in Germany and Berlin, for instance, this gap for rental fees and so forth, which is not constitutional, by the way. And from a political point of view, it's absolutely stupid nonsense. And it remembers me the GDR times, I thought, we had overcome, but some of these left wing politicians are as they are.
And we see that in Berlin, by the way, already there are some the people are a little bit reluctant to invest in real estate and in buildings. It's not the case in the southern part of Germany. Here, the world is still in order, conservative, business oriented and so forth. In Berlin and other northern state cities, it's a little bit different. So I do not deny that we have a problem with the apartments and the flats and the prices, the rental fees and so forth in Germany.
Nevertheless, the only answer can be building, building, building of houses and apartments. And to make a gap is maybe nice for populists, but is not really the solution for the problem. It's just stupid and nonsense. On Page 28, you see the revenue of SEK 1,700,000,000, a slight increase of 5.3% and more or less flat profit €32,000,000 29,000 you'll see the P and L statement and 30 no, 2030, Page 3030. Our investments in digitalization and innovation, another SEK 14,600,000 over the last years.
We invested a lot of money in the product portfolio of PharmFEX. We are market leader in Germany, just the 1 25% of the agri land is using Next Farming, which is our product portfolio from Next from FarmFacts. And we have 18,700 customers. So far, we are number 1 in Germany, nevertheless, still loss making. And the task for the future is that FarmVax is going to be a European company.
We need to conquer the European markets as well. You see on Page 31 the result. And now 31 is a little bit a market overview. I do not want to jump into details here. That's investment.
And so far, the losses are necessary to make BioWare safe for the future and also to help the farmers to become more digitalized. And as I said at the beginning of my small presentation, it's very important in Germany that the farmers are going to be digitalized. Otherwise, we are not really competitive in the European markets. And so far, that's the big change in the future. And the farmers and we together have to invest a lot of money in this type of technology.
So that's my first part here, summarizing, 1st of all, very successful performance. I'm happy that we can offer to our shareholders €0.95 so an increase to 2018. This was also the expectation. And more or less, we accomplished all our goals. And I ask you for a little bit more patience in the private placement process for bioreneurable energy.
And I'm going to hand over now to my colleague and friend, Andreas Helve, for the group financials.
Yes. Good morning or yes, yes, good morning still good morning. Also from my side, being back here in office, very happy after 2 weeks of home office, so physically good and physically here. And I just want to keep it rather short on the financials because I think it's more relevant to talk about the running business and what we expect for 2020. And looking back on 2019, Claus pointed already out the most important things.
And just to look on the 2019 from a financial perspective, I think it's worth to summarize again that we achieved the increase in result and we covered the settlement on the antitrust issue. Even we did not expect in the beginning of the year to have such a burden from the settlement, but it's done and we made it that we have no negative footprints from this settlement in our P and L in 2019. And I think this is the most relevant thing looking on 2019. But if you look on the overall performance and we run through the segments, if you put all the operators the operational segments together, energy, agriculture and the Building Materials segment, for the first time in 2019, we achieved the €250,000,000 EBIT contribution over the 3 segments with the outperform, of course, the Energy segment was €127,000,000 but also the Agriculture segment where we have the structural problems, Claus mentioned, in the domestic business contributed all in with the 4 sub segments with Global Products and the Ecocultural Equipment as well as the international trading activities, another rather €100,000,000 of EBIT contribution and finally, the building materials with over €32,000,000 So just going to Page 35, I think 34 has already been covered for the contribution of the final quarter.
If you look on the summary of the income statement for the first time, we achieved SEK 17,000,000,000 total revenue number. The EBITDA went up to over €400,000,403,000 and the EBIT of €180,000,000 already been mentioned. It's worth to be mentioned also that contribution of €10,000,000 on EBIT level comes out of the IFRS 16 effect. So it's not the real operational increase in performance. But if you look on the operational increase in performance from the 220 on the operational segment, 227 to the 256.
This is an operational increase, of course, but we need to keep in mind that within the result, we covered another roughly €20,000,000 on onetime costs related from fees for the antitrust issue, but also upfront costs for the Emerald project, where Claus is probably coming back to that on your question side, a portion roughly €8,000,000 onetime external upfront costs for the investor search in the Renewable Energy segment. The overall income for the consolidated group is 61.1, an increase of 11.3 year on year, and that's mainly related to the tax quota that you see. It more or less normalized again with 23% versus the 40% that we had last year. And these 23% tax quota also includes a write off of deferred tax assets in an amount of roughly CHF 4,000,000. The earnings per share not diluted is CHF 105,000,000 and the part of the income net on the consolidated net income per share is €1.74 Looking on the balance sheet on Page 36, you see an increase on the total assets number from €7,500,000,000 to €8,800,000,000 We have to keep in mind that roughly SEK 600,000,000 is related to the first time adoption of IFRS 16.
We have been projected and report that throughout the year. So the effect on the asset base, it's roughly a bit over €600,000,000 The remaining €600,000,000 mostly relates to the RE business, which is strongly picking up. You saw it on the megawatts number that we turned in 2019, and we expect a similar improvement or similar development in 2020. And a lot of these projects that we are going to sell in 2020 are already in preparation. So this is related to the increase in there.
It's good news for that. Given the equity ratio, that's a bit down by from 18.5% to 15.3% currently. This is mainly related to 2 effects. The one effect is the leverage effect on the increase of total asset and the other effect is further downturn on the interest rate on our pension liability, which came down from 1.85 or 1.9 what it was the year before to €1,100,000,000 at least now. So this is the lowest number I really could expect, but it had an increase on the equity of roughly CHF 60,000,000.
That's these effects are running not through the P and L, but directly into the equity, into the retained earnings and it was a reduction of this amount. If you look on the equity ratio adjusted that we always point out because the interest rate also can change and it will probably also change coming out of the corona crisis, I expect this, that's the adjusted number would be 20%. And I think I'm coming in a minute to a little bit projection what the IPP, the investor case would meet on the equity ratio. This is one reason we are looking for an investor to speed up with the ROE business, but that will also have an increasing effect on the equity and the equity ratio for the overall group. Going on with on the cash flow statement on Page 37, you see that the cash earnings are as strong as last year's more or less level.
The cash flow from operating activities slightly negative, rather reduced compared to last year, but that reflects the increase in assets on the working capital side for the time being at the end of December 2019 and the cash flow from financing activities reflecting more or less the green bond that we issued in summer 2019. Overall, it's stable. Looking on the debt situation within the whole group and also on our trading business, the debt situation still is adjusted net debt 2.4 against an EBITDA of 4.03 with a ratio of 6, but that's including also the project business. Last year, it was 6.2. It's already still including the project development business, and this will be excluded.
You see on the Page 39, which is relevant for our trading business, we are down at 3.2, coming from 4.2 ratio with 8.60 net debt with an EBITDA of 265. So that's okay. That's in the range of 3.0 to 4.5 that we need for the investment grade ratio. Looking on Page 40, this is the simulation that I mentioned before that we made looking from the 2019 equity situation to the 2020 once an investor comes in with an expected increase of 500 or 500x plus on the equity side. And through the business plan and it shows it up to 20232028, the equity ratio will further increase because of the planned retained earnings increase of the proceeds from the investors and from the benefits from the RE business.
The economic profit on Page 41 reflects pretty good what Claus already mentioned. We are well on track with mostly all of our activities, of course, outstanding. The energy segment, both renewable as well as the conventional side, global projects, okay. Agricultural equipment okay, and building materials also okay. The one bleeder that we have and that's been already discussed is the arbitrage services domestic business with too high invested capital and a too low return for that.
This is the focus that we are working on and where we have to reduce the capital employed. Looking on BOST, it seems worse than it is because this already included in 2019 a loss of the BMTI International Trading Activities with Iran, Claus mentioned it, with a number of €6,000,000 which has been closed down now and also the invested capital reduced by some €80,000,000 So if we reflect that these two effects against each other, then also BOST will earn its cost of capital and will be back on track in 2020 so far. One word on the last page, 2,040 2, the other activities before I hand over again to Claus for the outlook. This is a number of 53.1%, definitely too high and probably above what you expected. But please keep in mind, these CHF53 1,000,000 includes a portion of CHF18 1,000,000 to CHF20 1,000,000 overall, the external adviser costs that I mentioned, the fees for the attorneys on the antitrust issue, defending costs and but also the €8,000,000 onetime on Emerald activities that we had, the financial advisers, the lawyers and things like that, which are already fully included here in this number and which will not come in, in 2020 in full, I guess.
So we stick with that, what we always said, €35,000,000 to €40,000,000 should be a normalized other activities part. And that should be it for the financial, and I give it back to Claus.
Okay. Thank you, Andreas. We are coming now to the operational outlook, which is very difficult task today due to the corona virus crisis situation, which is really affecting most of us and all over the world and the countries in which we are making our business. So normally, the operational outlook outlook for 2020 without the coronavirus impact, that would be very positive because the energy sector is in excellent shape you see on Page 45 that we plan very first time more than 1 gigawatt to be sold, 1.2 gigawatts for instance. The agribusiness, especially our global produce sector, is in excellent shape.
The order intake for the agri equipment business is higher than last year. And while the Agri input business will be under pressure again, Nevertheless, we expect an increase of our international trading activities and the specialties. And the building material is also still in a booming period. So the question is, of course, what means corona now for our business. First of all, at this point in time, we do not have a serious impact on our business.
The Q1 will be good. 2nd quarter, we will see maybe there are some impacts due to the supply chain where we have some problems. We are facing some problems, especially on the international level, but we can't quantify it at this point in time. And so far for the 1st 6 months, I'm not so negative. But we are running on-site, which means every 2 weeks, we go through a very detailed forecast process to have a feeling for the development and also to cover issues, to handle issues.
And at this point in time, it's a little bit unclear yet. What did we do? We have a crisis management team in Germany and in the most important business countries for BioWare as well. I think we do all which is necessary to protect our people. The health of our people is key, is the most important aspect and also the health of our customers and other stakeholders.
And of course, liquidity is also number 1. The most important, let me say, KPIs, so to say, for Baiva, it's not really a result at the end of the day if something seriously is happening. And so far, corona will affect us. At this point in time, it does not sound as if it is very serious, but it can be changed within 2 or 3 weeks. One thing is clear to me that the complete shutdown we have in many countries where we are in the business is not easy.
It is not easy to overcome the consequences. I just had a phone call this morning with some political advisers of our federal government and also some local governments. I had a phone call with New Zealand with our management in Auckland. We are in permanent contact with the management team and the crisis management team in Austria. Austria is responsible also for Eastern Europe and all the CE countries.
We are in a permanent contact with the United States. And also with Latin America, we opened our offices again in Shanghai, in Beijing, in Hong Kong. Singapore is not really affected. Thailand closed the borders last day, I guess, or 2 days ago. And so far, there will be an impact.
I'm very concerned about the supply chain management in Europe. Yesterday, the presidents, prime ministers, fellow chancellors and so forth tried to find a solution to open the borders again for transportation and for logistic provider. Verbally, there is an agreement. But in reality, it's really not easy. On the workers for the harvest are not available.
For instance, in Germany, this is affecting also other European countries. We have a gap of around about 300,000 people in Germany. This is important for the farmers. But of course, if it's important for the farmers, it's also important for us that we get the volumes to be traded, especially in the global produce business. And so far, there are a lot of open questions I can't seriously answer at this point in time.
And I think you will understand that because no one can make a significant forecast or a very serious forecast at this point in time. Order intake is good. The options we have in the renewable energy sector is extremely high, more than 13 gigawatts, the highest option volume ever had. The order intake for the Agri equipment is very good. The global produce business sounds as if all is in order.
Also the exports from New Zealand to China, of course, the exports from Washington State to China, this supply chain has been broken, but not due to the corona crisis. It has to do with the trade war between China and the United States. This was the case already last year. We stopped our activity in Iran. Andreas mentioned that the BMTI impact last year on the P and L was around about SEK6 1,000,000.
So we don't have that anymore. The specialty business is running pretty well. And then so far, I'm not too negative for 2020. With coronavirus without a serious impact from corona, I'm positive. So we will see what's happening.
Final remark from my side, a personal one. Maybe you have heard about or you read about it that my contract has been extended the other day by the Supervisory Board till 25. So I turned a few days ago 62. And if I make it with a new contract, so I'm going to be 67. And you know guys, Dan, the 67s are more the 35 or 40 agers in the future.
And so far, I'm fit. And I'm really happy to have the honor to be the CEO of Baibars also for the next 5 years. And I can tell you something privately. It was not easy that my personal supervisory board was convinced to accept prolongation of my contract, but our Chairman of the supervisory board made it in a private meeting in Vienna as we could still travel to Vienna. It's my wife.
And finally, she accepted it, and Marfrig Nussel made really a great job. So far, you have to deal with me over the next years. So thank you for your attention, and we are now more than happy to take your questions.
Yes, who's going to be the first one?
Please go ahead. Markus Schmidt from BHF. Your line is open.
Yes. Thanks for taking the question. I've just one actually. There was a statement made by the Ministry of Agriculture in Germany that ag companies and for instance, fertilizer companies are systemic relevant. So my question is if you have been in touch with them and what that means in terms of support, if needed, because I have a bit of trouble to translate this message and what it could mean for Baibars.
Maybe I have a few here or comment.
Well, Russell speaking. We are what was the word system relevant in New Zealand. It is called essential service company, which we are. And not only in Germany, in Austria, of course, in New Zealand and some other countries, because we are in between the farmers, the retailers, the farmers, the brewers, the malting companies and so forth, so the industry so to say, fiber is system relevant. This means that we are we have still the permission to open all our sites.
Even the building material sites are opened in Germany. Unfortunately, not in Austria, but all sites related to the agri business and the energy business are still open. And I think that's the key message that we are obliged to take care of the customers, to take care of the population and to support the supply chain for food to the people in the different states. And in New Zealand, it was as far as I'm correctly informed by our management, it was also mentioned in a speech of the Prime Minister that Genesys grows is one of the key which is true by the way, is one of the key companies of New Zealand and so far essential for the service to the domestic people, the domestic market. And by the way, we see that also.
If I said that Q1, the likelihood that we are negative also, the likelihood is not very high because we have it's not a boom. It's just the type of buying of customers, which is a little bit unusual. We have high volumes in the input business in the Q1 from the farmers. They just fulfill their own storage. We have a similar demand in the global produce business, the highest demands we ever had.
I'm now more than 12 years with Baiva. And in this period, we never had such a high domestic demand in the global produce sector for fresh food and especially for pip fruit, apples and so forth. And this applies more or less for all different business segments. And although the building materials sector, the demand is incredibly high. But we are only in the B2B business allowed to service companies and craftmans and so forth.
We are not allowed to provide goods to the private sector, which will be punished. Is this an answer?
Okay. So Yes. So the implicit support is more operational than implying support for the capital structure in terms of or debt funding if needed, if I understand it correct?
We are not discussing financials at with the political institutions. Our financial situation is absolutely safe. And it has maybe we will be preferred or so but I don't know. I didn't take care of that on Andreas as well because the financial structure is not an issue for us.
We'll now take our next question. Please go ahead, Corie. Your line is now open.
Hello?
Hello?
Yes. Who is there?
Can you hear me now? It's more Gabriel.
Yes. We can hear you.
Yes. Hello. Thank you very much. It was a little bit tricky. First of all, I have a question regarding Sorry, who
are you? I'm sorry. Could you introduce yourself, please?
It's Marc Gabriel, Bankhaus number.
Good morning.
So I have several questions for you guys. First of all, looking at the potential investor in Baiva Renewable Energy, assuming you will have a partner which injects, let's say, CHF 500,000,000 at least, which you will, as you stated, use for further growth. But looking at the business contribution, revenues goes to a minority shareholder, you would have been left with almost no profit on the net profit line. So that's my question. How much additional earnings contribution do you expect from that partnership in the buy or renewals?
That's the first question. Then the second question would be, I wanted to understand why you increased the dividend given the EPS of only €0.86 per share and still a negative free cash flow. So you're paying dividend out of the substance of the group currently. Is that a little bit too risky? And third question would be on the real estate deal you did for the half quarter of Turner and Groves.
What was that can you please quantify that amount? And the final question is on the revenue contribution of additional. In your report on Page 91, you showed the book value of real estate assets with a EUR 1,400,000 EUR 1,377,000 number after EUR 827,000,000 last year. Could you give an explanation why that increased so much? Thank you very much.
Gabriel, I'll answer the first question. Renewable Energy, okay. We are in a very it's a long process, I have to admit, for the private placement, which is true. So why is it so? Because the performance was better than our plans.
That's the one thing. The other thing is that we had to adjust our business plan and the potential partner is going through a due diligence, let me say, a review of the figures 2019. In other words, we expect a better business plan for the future ex corona. I have to say that because this will have an implication, and it's unclear which impact we are faced. And so the business plan for the next years has a forecast from an overall result that we are going to double EBIT and we are going to more than double the EBIT and the PBT.
At the end, bottom line, we get more money out of RE as it is right now. And therefore, we plan this capital injection of €500, whatever,000 to use for the growth strategy in Baibar. And it will strengthen also the equity of Baibar Corporation itself. And so far, that's positive. And we are planning to change a little bit our strategy as today the build on operated and transfer strategy as you know.
And we would like to add a part a new business segment in RE. It's called IPP, which means we take more assets on the balance sheet to have a stable income and a positive stable cash flow on these assets than in the balance sheet of Baibar RE AG. The GmbH will be transferred in an AG. But we are now in a very complicated process. I have really to admit that because all the discussions are on the phone, video conferences.
And this is not easy if you want to take a new partner on board. And well, it takes a little bit more time. So it's not a safe bet at the end of the day that we really will make it very soon. It has to do with the crisis. That's clear.
And Mr. Gabriel, if I may, just to add what Claus mentioned. Yes, you are completely right. Looking on the earnings per share for 2020 'twenty one, once the investor comes in, it might have or it will have the decreasing effect by the 50% or 49%, which the investor takes into the minorities. But then and this is the thing behind it, given the business plan that we have, it's not only this upfront contribution of €500,000,000 plus that the investor will bring to the party.
But he's built to have more capital injection in there. And that should leverage also the result the overall result on the PBT and the EBIT level, but also then on the EPS, which remains with Baibak Group looking on the EPS number. I hope that makes it a bit clearer. It's a process of 1, 2, 3 years, and then we are back on the level that we have. And then the leverage comes that it's more than 2.5x increase in this result.
Looking on the dividend, I know the discussion that you have and we always have this, we are looking paying the dividend out on the undiluted earnings per share, which is 1.0 5%. You mentioned the €68,000,000 which includes also the under IFRS, the contribution on the hybrid, which is disclosed as equity and which is not a part here of this EPS thing, which we have to adjust for the diluted or the undiluted and diluted earnings per share. We think the overall performance of the group and if you look on the total net income, that was 174. We always have this discussion. But for that reason and the performance of the overall group, we think that we can pay the 95% the €0.95 per share, which comes out of contributions out of the different parts of our group.
The effect on the headquarter in New Zealand, the net effect after reducing the advisory costs and things like that transaction cost was roughly €15,000,000 €15,000,000 But just to be very clear, it's very clear that could not be reduced now looking on 2020 as the performance ex corona always. But the performance in the business plan says that this one timer in 2019 should be compensated by an improvement on the operational performance that we strongly see already in the apple harvest, which just started in the New Zealand business and the very promising pickup business here in the Q1 within our New Zealand business. You asked for Tesol, the revenue or was it the result number? No, it's the revenue.
The revenue of €60,000,000 or something.
Just the revenue.
€60,000,000 something million. Yes, €70,000,000 something million.
So the total sales contribution to conventional energy
was 100,000,000. €600,000,000,000 Yes. €600,000,000 Yes.
Okay. Thank you.
And then the last question was on the increase in book value on the real estate. Just a second. We
have a couple of buttons.
Mr.
Gabriel, give us let us give the chance to check the TESOL revenue. We are discussing it currently here. Let us recheck it, yes, once again. We'll be coming back on this TESOL issue. The increase on the book value on the real estate of some €600,000,000 I do not have it in front of me here now because a lot of our colleagues are in the home office, but that must be the impact of the IFRS 16 on the real estate.
Okay. Understood.
What I said, the right of use, it's now into the long term or the fixed assets. So that's not an increase in the book values. In total, that must be the effect of IFRS 16, which is currently 600,000,000 roughly 600,000,000.
Okay. Thank you very much.
So let's see. We got the Kyzyl. No, we are
NOK 1000000.
It's roughly NOK 375,000,000. So that's the correct number, €375,000,000.
€375,000,000. I just explained to my new personal assistant what it means to the necessity to have the absolute correct statements
here. Perfect. Thank you very much, and good luck for corona crisis time. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr.
Gabriel. Same for you, Mr. Gabriel. Stay healthy. We need you.
We'll now take our next question from Lundt Heikkel from Pareto Securities. Your line is open. Please go ahead. My apologies. We're taking our next question in fact from Heinz Muller.
Please go ahead, your line.
Thank you. Heinz Muller, Kalevoda Research. First of all, congratulations, Mr. Lutz, due to the extension of your contract.
So I
would like to raise several questions. The first is, do you expect due to corona postponement of the AGM, what was also announced by several companies and in consequence of the dividend payments? Second question would be, you mentioned that the digitalization would become more important. So when do you expect the positive EBIT contribution of the Innovation and Digitalization segment? And the third question is, could you give us an indication regarding the impact of the new regulations regarding the application of fertilizer, which is called Dungofortner in Germany and perhaps an explanation of the remark couple increase of sales in Austria of 13%.
Thank you.
Mr. Muller, thanks a lot also for your personal remarks. We know each other now more than 12 years. It's time as time goes by, it's unbelievable. Coming to your first question, the AGM.
Well, we discussed that internally to postpone the AGM, but we plan now that it takes place on the I think it's the 26th May. It will be a virtual AGM, always under the prerequisite that today the German Federal Council, the Bundesrat, is going to approve the legislation from the Bundesrat, the German Parliament. If this is the case, we can have the AGM on the 26. And the Munich Conference Center, this International Conference management center here, where we have our physical AGM always, is offering an interesting virtual network to all of us, not only BABA, of course, also the other stock listed companies. And so far, please, we would like to stick with the 26th May.
So no postponement for the dividend payment as well, if this is the key of your question. Okay. The second one is digitalization. Well, I tried to explain what it means and why we see the necessity for the digitalization and also the automation. By the way, automation is key also for the harvest period for the farmers to become a little bit more independent on all the harvest workers coming from Eastern Europe, which was not easy over the last years as well, by the way, because they have meanwhile enough jobs at home and also not bad paid.
And so far, that's now only a little bit stronger or let me say worse due to the corona crisis. And then so far, the digitalization is extremely important. To become profitable in Germany and Austria alone is not possible. We can't forget about it because we are talking about niche markets. So the European approach is extremely important.
And I know I was mentioning that over the last years again and again, But the farmers, not only in Germany, also in other countries, are still very reluctant in investing money for this new technology. And we are starting discussions as soon as we can meet physically again because you can't do that only via the phone and video conferences. We start to open FarmFX for either further investments from third parties, which have an European network we can use to provide our next farming products on a European level. And if this is the case, and it depends, I would say, on the speed to have these partners, well, I would say 2, 3 years it will take till we are profitable. But the prerequisite is that we are international.
Without internationalization of this digital business, then it's just supporting our traditional business, but it will not be profitable. Then the fertilizer. The fertilizer legislation, we just received at this moment, 10 minutes or 9 minutes after 12, the Federal Council, the Bundesrat, approved the new fertilizer legislation here in Germany. So we expect an increase of the digitalization in the farms because they need the software tools to be in compliance with the new legal requirements. And the pharma for the farmers, this is very complex and very complicated to be really completely aligned and compliant with the new legislation.
And so far, I see here an upside potential for us. But we are talking about some software licenses, and this is not really the solution for the profit question. And the upside in North Sierra, 13% more revenue. Andreas, do you have an explanation for that?
Actually, not yet. I think that has to do with a couple of effects, one coming out of the energy business, GEnol and Via Pfau, the Wehrmachtriah, that had an increase. And we changed a bit of consolidation. The activities in the Czech Republic are now fully reported through Austria. That might have another effect, but let me see what they no, I think that should be it.
It's not one crucial effect.
And we had some volumes indeed in the oil business. And in the fuel business. We are really one of the leading fuel station companies in Austria. That's one aspect, volume and maybe also price driven. The same impact as we had in Germany.
Saw some improvements also in the technical equipment division on some of these entities. And finally, there was one new consolidation, City Queen, in that I think that's it's not one effect in total. Yes, that's it.
And the compound feed production
was
also much better. Well, that's always excellent performance, as you know, current and it was also compared to 2018 on a higher level.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Krun Tien Peltz from Pareto Securities. Your line is open.
Yes. Good afternoon. This is Klintin Kirk from Pareto Securities. I got two questions left, if I may. First one, a follow-up question on the question by Mr.
Gabriel. I would like to know, as you sold 3 assets, when I'm not mistaken, how much EBIT has been contributed by these 3 assets, which are TESOL, Catassel Zentrum Bayern and AAG Auto Haninck Geshef? That would be my first question. And the second question, a more general one. We saw a lot of stress on asset prices in the recent weeks because of corona prices.
So I guess that much of your customers in the energy project business, they have they're looking at different asset classes. Do you expect some impact from this in the next year or in the running year, depressing prices for projects that are running and that should be sold in 2020? Thanks.
Anson, your second question, Andreas is calculating still. So I don't I do not expect a decrease of the margins in the project business, maybe we have some postponements. This can happen due to the supply of devices and equipment we need to build the wind and the solar facilities. And the Solar Mudol trading, by the way, is intact. That's absolutely on track.
I don't expect anything, especially because China has opened the plants again. So the supply chain should not be broken. And our stock inventory is also on a level where we do not see at this point in time significant impact from coronavirus on the business. But maybe there are some postponed projects in this year. But this is also, I wouldn't say normal business.
It can happen. And it's usual the usual stuff. The most important thing will be what's happening in the 4th quarter and especially in the last 6 weeks of this calendar and fiscal year for Bayer as always. So we have a little bit time to lead us also through potential impacts due to the crisis. But it's not at this point in time, I'm not able I'm not in a position to tell you something about the financial impact on this.
We are still very positive.
Yes. And Mr. Hinkle, if I may, the answer on the contributions of the other 2 sold participations. The one that we saw was Tissot. And Claus also already mentioned, I think the EBIT contribution for 2019 was €10,000,000 which was really outstanding.
But for the other 2, it's the AK and that was the car dealerships and the Karsee B, which is the cartographers in Torombeijen, they were only at equity in. And the contribution of RAG was roughly about €2,000,000 to €3,000,000 or €2,500,000 net profit at equity. And the car SEB was, I guess, €500,000,000 or €800,000,000 Minor issues on that effect. And maybe one word on both transaction, the big one, Tesol and the RK, I think that was we were very lucky to have made these disposals last year. I think both the industries would be probably more hit than
sort of
corona if we still have them in.
In. We'll now take our next question from Ann Margot Crowe from Edison Investment Research.
Good morning, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my call. And I'd like to thank you. I'd like to agree that €60,000,000 is definitely the new €40,000,000
Thank you. Should we switch off all the other lines?
Thank you.
And I have a question about the digitalization, because you've stressed that, you need to increase the coverage to get it to profitability and mentioned perhaps working with partners overseas. I'm wondering what types of partners they would be, what countries and whether you'd be looking at primarily partners serving the arable industry or whether it would be appropriate talking to perhaps other suppliers. So that was my first question. And perhaps we'll take that and then I'll ask my second question.
Yes. Okay. The answer is we are looking for partners who are closely linked to the farmers because the farmers are the customers. And access to the farmers, this is absolutely crucial for this digitalization process. That's our experience in Germany and Austria and some Eastern countries because the farmers are reluctant still, especially the 60s, unfortunately.
The younger generation is maybe a little bit seriously, is maybe a little bit different, but they are reluctant because they fear that cloud based datas are too easy to get for, let me say, official institutions, if you know what I mean. And so far and so far, you need someone who understands the needs exactly and the mood and atmosphere and so forth of the farmers. That's very important. And we started some discussions in U. K, for instance, in France, in some Eastern European countries already, so the access to the farmers.
But not only a distribution company, let me say, for inputs is a potential partner. Of course, they need to be also involved in this software business, in the digitalization business because this is a very complex one to explain the products to the farmers, why it's useful for him to improve his processes, to reduce the cost, to become more competitive and at the end of the day also profitable and to understand the structure of the product. So the software is not easy to explain. It's not only a turnkey solution type of software. It is always necessary to have a very individual adaption of the our cloud based next farming package for the farmers.
Otherwise, it does not really work. So that's the intention. We did not really start incognito this process because our resources are right now more with a private placement in renewable energy. And they had to take care of all these divestments last year. We discussed now and in so far 2019, and we thought we can start at the end of the Q1 in 2020.
But now we have, of course, this problem with the crisis, corona crisis because we need physical meetings. We can't do that over the Skype and video conference systems at this point in time. So I do not have that we have such a significant delay. As you said, as you see, we have this loss, which is an investment, but now it's really time to start the rollout process in Europe. I don't speak about abroad, by the way, overseas in the United States or so.
That's not they are not really waiting for our software products. There's the Climate Corporation and others, Indigo and all these companies, which have also software packages and portfolio, which are similar to Bribos.
So would that be working you mentioned working with companies, potential partners who were involved in providing inputs to farmers. Is that primarily arable type farming? Or would livestock farming or mixed farming be appropriate too?
It doesn't matter. Most important thing is that people understand the needs of farmers and understand also the mentality of farmers and reluctance to invest in such type of technology. So I had a little bit to be honest, 2 years ago or so, I was a little bit too optimistic that farmers are willing to invest a lot of money very fast in this digitalization. This was, from my point of view, a little bit too aggressive or too positive. But now, for instance, take the automation and the rapporteur for the support in the harvest period.
I think that we will have pushed forward due to the crisis. And maybe you know, we have this joint venture with Google in Silicon Valley called Abandoned Robotics. And we have 2 operators in operation right now in New Zealand to support the apple harvest. And it's not yet it's still a prototype machine or a prototype robot. But if you are through all the technical adjustments and improvements, we will sell these AGRI equipment in Europe as well.
And I hope that we can maybe in the autumn period now in Germany, we can use some of these prototype rollers to support the farmers for the harvest. Here, I see really an interesting business segment for Bayer as well. Well, this type of property is only for the harvest of apples, but you can adjust the technology also for others.
That would be interesting watching that development. And then my other question was relating to the changes that you're making within the agricultural division. And you said that this was not just sort of a straight or let's cut some cost restructuring, but very much refocusing, realigning the business because of a change in what the market is doing and what the market requires. And you mentioned, one of the issues being larger farmers no longer needing storage because they've got their own. Is there anything else that you might be able to pinpoint?
1st of all, it depends where we are with the agribusiness. Our international operation, buyback, cry, supply and trade, we reduced the cost over the last years down about €13,000,000 €14,000,000 Then we changed the strategy coming from pure commodity trading, not origination, but trading and supply chain as a supply chain manager, especially for soy, wheat and corn. Most of them was an import coming from Argentina, Brazil and the United States. We changed that a little bit in reducing the volumes down to 30 something 1000000 tons and investing money in specialty companies, companies who are providing the compiled feed industry, for instance, with minerals, vitamins and some other components and also little organic products and niche products on the organic basis and so forth. And this was necessary because the volatility of the prices and the volatility of our result in the commodity trading was not really acceptable.
And you see that this year again. So with that or last year, 2019, again. With other words, for the stability of the BOST organization, it's extremely important to be invested in specialties. And you see that the SEK 20,000,000 that's coming more or less completely from the specialty business. This was the first strategic change.
The second one in Germany was cost cutting. And we are in the process of cost cutting, especially in Eastern Germany, because the farms over there are much bigger than in Western Germany. And cost cutting is necessary because we can't afford anymore the costs. And farmers invested, the big farms invested a lot of money in silos and logistic capacity. So what is our task?
Our task is to handle then the logistics for the farmers and to use the deep sea harbors in the East Sea and for the export because we can organize that for the farmers. They can't do it. And so we have more and more functional responsibility or functional task to the farmers in the future. It's not only that we are the infrastructure for the farmers in East Germany. We are more a service provider, logistic provider, supply chain, manager.
And this means we have to reduce the sites. We have also reduced unfortunately the workforce step by step on a social basis, social plan and all that stuff, which is required in Germany. And then I think we are back on a profitable level over the next, let me say, 2 years. And in Western Germany, it's a little bit different. Here, we need more digitalized service centers for the farmers.
The farms are much smaller than in Eastern Germany. We need silos. We need the infrastructure. But this must be a little bit much more modern as it is right now. We have to invest money.
But also, we have too many sites, around about 200 something, and we are going to reduce it down to 80, 85. That's our plan over the next 2 years. So which means new services, we support the customer, the farmers with our digital products. It's a mixture of different things we are doing in especially in Germany. It's a different story in Austria due to the so called Lagerhaus infrastructure.
It's a different business model. And in the CEE countries, it's also a mixture of origination, supply chain management for the farmers, digitalization, services and so forth. So it is a very complicated and especially a complex task to come back on track with the traditional agribusiness. And of course, we have to obey the consolidation process. It is due to the legislation changes and also the competitiveness, which is not really very good in Western Germany.
A lot of farmers have to surrender unfortunately. So the size of the farms are increasing as well. And insofar the consolidation process means that we have adapt our business model to the size of the farms in the future. And that's one reason why we have to reduce the number of agri sites here in Western Germany. Is that something logical to you?
It does. It's quite similar to the pattern that's happening in the U. K. And that fewer farmers, but the farmers that there are becoming much more sophisticated, much more professional in what we're doing.
Yes, absolutely. U. K. Is through the process. And so far U.
K. Is for us a type of example, good example. Or whether it's best in class, I don't know, but it's a good example. Eastern Germany is not really a good example for Western Germany. It has to do with the different structures and you can't compare it.
There was the former GDR, the socialist communist cooperatives. That's a completely different story as we had in Western Germany. So it's more U. K. Yes, you're right.
It's a good comparison like that.
Thank you. Thank you very much for taking my questions.
Yes, my pleasure.
We will now take our next question from Roland Feda from ODDO BHF. Your line is open.
Yes, good afternoon. Three questions from my side. Firstly, if you were to assume that the crisis would take or would last until, let's say, midyear? How fast could you manage down labor costs or your rental costs? Would you consider opting for Kotzebeit, for example?
2nd question, could you specify your undrawn credit facilities? In other words, what's your current liquidity situation? And third question, could you specify the restructuring costs you're planning for the German agricultural business for the next 2 years? Thank you.
The
last question, easy. It's a complex way to go, of course, but it's €17,000,000 €17,000,000 restructuring cost. Then the question with regard to the liquidity, Andreas, you are going to answer, please? Please?
I think we are financed through, as one would say. We are bilaterals. We have the long term running programs as the hybrid and the Schultein Dalian and all these programs. They are on the long term good for it. And then we have bilaterals.
But please understand, we are not talking about liquidity lines that we have here in the context. So it's all safe, I would say, and it's financed through. That's what I could say on that.
Then you're talking about
the crisis situation? Sorry.
Yes, of course. I mean, of course, we are looking on all these programs also that the governmental sites are offering if one could think adapt or not. But I'm feeling very comfortable on that situation now.
I think on the political level, due to my different jobs I have also for the German Raiffeisen Organization or the German Chamber of Commerce and so forth and the close contact to politicians and the Prime Minister and also the ministers and federal government in Berlin, we argue that it we can't, we in Germany, the economy can't handle the situation for a too long period of time. So otherwise, we are really creating significant social troubles, and this can't be paid by the federal budget so easily because someone has to earn the money to make the money. It does not come from the bank account alone. And so far, I'm also in a political position, so to say, together with my colleagues. Coming to
Karl Sivar, may just a final remark on this. I mean just keep in mind that we are still in the circle. We are still open. So our business is running. It's a different situation to what we have seen on shutdowns in different industries.
Our business is running. So this is not the issue for us to make this very clear. As Claus pointed out, this is a system relevant company being relevant for the consumer industry as well.
For the food supply security, which is absolutely crucial, Coming to the short time work issue, so to say, the short time work, we did not apply with the different authorities at this point in time because we don't have a necessity. Maybe once upon in Lake of Constance, it could happen. We had that a few years ago already. But at this point in time, we are fully in charge for the supply chain management, as Andreas said. I'm not quite sure whether we asked for short time work subsidy in Austria, didn't we?
Yes. I think in Austria, yes. In Austria, we did because we had to close their building material stores. And so far, Austria is an exception. But in Germany, we did not do anything with regard to the short term work.
Maybe one follow-up specifying the situation with Building Materials. Do you see any change demand pattern from customers in Germany yet? Or do you expect that to come? Or what's your view on that?
At this point in time, we have a very high demand, higher demand as last year from the craftmans and the building companies at this point in time. But I do not think we can expect that this high demand will be continued over the complete fiscal year. So maybe we will have a dip. And it depends it really depends, of course, on this shutdown period. This is the most crucial thing.
At this point in time, we do not see any negative impact. The supply chain with the material we need for the distribution to our customers, the supply chain is on track. So we don't have a broken supply chain. And due to the fact that China is open again, well, I don't see a negative impact. Maybe we will have on the investor side for new buildings, we will see some problems over the next months, then we will have an impact as well.
But this is always a little time delay in between. Maybe we'll see that also maybe earliest in the 3rd Q4 or also in 2021. At this point in time, we don't have signals from the markets which are so negative.
Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Axel Hellinghaus from DZ Bank.
Hello. From my side, congratulations to contract extension also for me and the important permission of your wife. Just one question to the RE business. So what were the catalysts for the RE project sales being 912 when you thought in November it should be around 6.50. So it's really pretty high.
Were there some special catalysts for that?
Yes. Beside these physical projects that we sold on that, that was mainly what we communicated on the 600 megawatts, 700 megawatts throughout the year that was add up by some project rights, which they sold. I guess it was in the U. S. And elsewhere where they it's just not a finalized project, but it's project rights.
And so that accounts also for the megawatt numbers.
Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Our next question comes from Oliver Schwarz from Warburg Research.
Thank you for taking my questions. First of all, congratulations to the extension of position in the Eisle Yes. You'll have to deal with my questions for another 5 years. So sorry for that.
That's the only reason why I extended my contract, Jeshua.
Well, glad to hear that. Coming back to those silly questions. First of all, corona I tried to prove you wrong. Corona related question here, due to the crisis and to, I guess, margin cost and else, price for soft commodities went down quite substantially over the last couple of weeks. Are there any inventory write downs at Bayer in Q1 related to that?
That was my first question.
The answer is quite simple. No, nothing.
Wonderful. Wonderful.
Especially rape seed. I think you referred to other companies, which made a significant loss with the rape seed due to the long position they had. We are not involved in that. Our well, we didn't make money, to be honest, but especially we are not in a lost position and we closed all the positions. We don't have any open contract at this point in time.
Glad to hear that very well. Another question refers to some points in your P and L. I saw that advertisement spend has gone up by 9% year on year in 2019. That's substantially more than the EBIT increase or sales increase. What's behind that?
What's behind the increase in advertising?
This was, I guess, yes. We had Agri Technical, which was very Okay.
Fare related costs.
To push the FarmFlex, the next farming product portfolio. So we this was expensive, to be honest. And the previous year, we didn't have such an event.
So in the current year, that's expected to come down because there's no Agri Tecnica this year, right?
Not an Agri Technica. It will come down due to FC Bayern Munich because we will not be any of the key sponsor or main sponsor of Bayern Munich Basketball. We are reducing our engagement on a much lower level. But there is one event maybe. It's unclear whether it will take place.
That's the ZLF, the German agri fair in Munich.
Yes. Okay. So okay. Next question is mostly, I guess, related to the legal issues you had to face in 2019. I saw that external personnel went up by 20% and costs for, let's say, anything to do with jurisdiction and the like went up by 41%.
Also. And together, those 2 costs, €31,000,000 67,000,000 almost were half of your EBIT or we settled half of your EBIT in 2019. As you are currently in a legal dispute with the German state over the payment of the €69,000,000 to the respective authorities, Are we to see those costs to drop materially? I hope Mr. Helber said that what we saw in others may come down by €20,000,000 So that will be, let's say, from judging from those 2 cost blocks, taken together like 20% down to €80,000,000 Would that be a fair assumption?
You mean now for 2020?
Yes, correct.
No, no. Because for this litigation against the federal state, it's called Anshaftungsglargen, paragraph 8 39, afne undreussig, civil code, German civil code. The costs for that are max, what did the calculator on the bus?
It's max 3,000,000, euros 3,500,000, but it comes over a couple of years. It will not come only in 2020. This is the overall amount. So yes, it should be substantially down. I do not expect the €8,000,000 on Emerald.
It might have an counter effect on what we have to pay to the investment banker at least. But this is what we do not expect, and we do not expect all these RE related due diligence, vendor due diligence, KPMG and what it all was. So this is included in that amount and that should be significantly down.
So if I take the external personal cost of €31,000,000 and the legal cost legal related costs of €6,000,000 to €7,000,000 coming up to €90,000,000 If I deduct there roundabout €20,000,000 or €25,000,000 I should be on the right path? Or would that be too much a kilo?
I'm a bit unclear now. I don't have the what you're looking at on now in front of me, but I'm a bit unclear on the external personal costs.
I guess that's consultants and the like. It's called dempersonnel in the German.
No, this is not included in there. The external costs are 3rd party workers within the company mainly. The advisory costs, also the legal advisory costs, that should be all in legal advisory or things like that specific position. If that makes sense, I think that it would be worth to bilateral work through this. I think it's better to have both that we both have the same document in front of
us that we look after.
But you're right. This will be a decrease because we don't have this complex legal advice anymore for the antitrust litigation investigation. And this AnsaftungsAnspruch we are going to move forward. I think the key amount or most of the amount of money we have to pay to the lawyers will be in 2021, not this year. Okay.
Thank you very much
for that. And another specific question. In the other operating income and the P and L, in the other item of this compound of income. I saw that there were FX related capital gains that had no relation to the business. And I saw that the capital gain increased quite substantially in 2019.
Could you quickly elaborate on what was that? Because that sounds to me a bit like pure speculation on FX. And how is that to going to evolve in the current fiscal year?
Mr. Schwartz, definitely, I don't know, once again, where you're looking on it now, but we do not have any currency losses or gains, which are not related to the business. So speculation, which I'm not knowing where it is now, but I can really say there is no income or losses from speculations that normally should be offsetted by another position under the other operating expenses. So there we have the offset effect. And all that we have in there is from hedging activities on the mainly on the currency issues in RE related Australian dollar or U.
S. Dollar or whatever it is. So be sure that we do not have any speculative position in our books elsewhere, not even in the aggregate trading, but at least in no way on the foreign currency books.
Okay. Glad to hear that. And a very last question, I promise, I'd like to pick your brain a bit more in relation to what Marc Gabriel tried to weasel out of you. Basically, judging on the EPS, which is now following the adjustment for the hybrid dividend, down to 0.068 dollars per share and was 0.0.56 dollars per share. In relation to that, the dividend payment of €0.90 for last year sorry, for 2018 and the planned €0.95 for 2019 seems to be rather high as it is basically 30% roundabout ahead of net profit.
And on the other hand, you increased your net debt level because you need more funds basically. So you're basically distributing money you are lending from 3rd parties as a dividend. How long do you think you have to go down that path basically? Or is there some rationale behind that? Is that a demand from a key shareholder or something?
And completely unrelated to that, on Page 40 of your presentation, if we can come to that please for a second. I'm not quite sure about your calculation behind those numbers. But looking on 2020, I see the total assets increasing by EUR 450,000,000 and the equity increasing by €550,000,000 as a projection in this calculation. What is behind that? What are the prime assumptions that lead to those numbers?
Okay. Mr. Schwarz, I would answer this question.
Firstly, the first part
on the dividend and on the debt spot. Let me be very clear on this. I don't like this EPS concept to be very honest on it. And we had discussions also with the auditors to show the diluted one or to show the undiluted one. They forced us to show both and the diluted one if it's a hybrid in or not.
I say the following. We have the overall performance of the total group. All if it comes then to the EPS, you only calculate the part of the mother group. I have all the cost, which is included in Baiva AG and which covers a lot of functions for the whole group, if you take the concern for us. And you might say they are not worth working, but if it's part of cost, then if you take compliance, if you take whatever it is, sustainability management, all the things that we have to do as a group today, this is all related and the whole cost is only related on the mother part of the net income, which is then divided through the number of shares and comes to the EPS.
On the other hand, I have the majority of all these companies where I can distribute and I can, how to say, guide the distributions and the dividends out of these entities into the mother company. This is the one thing. Therefore, I'm looking on the overall performance on the net income of the whole group. This is for me relevant if it comes to dividends. I know this concept is not very uncritical, and you might have a different view on it.
But I like this more because it shows the whole performance of the group. And the second thing on the debt structure, look at the year end, we discussed it several times already. At the year end, I have the highest point. The SEK1.6 billion, for example, which is tied up at year end as total assets in the renewable energy sector is already reduced now by another €300,000,000 of cash ins in the meantime in 2020. So this is reducing and this is floating.
So I don't know if it's fair enough to say we are distributing the substance. And if you ask anyway how long can you go through it, I mean we are preparing the thing mainly for the future. And this is in particular with the Renewable Energy business. And once we increase the performance and we increase also the results out of these activities, this will further strengthen the dividend contribution of the dividend that we can divide.
Okay. Thank you.
And in relation to Page 40.
Maybe I understand all these arguments and I understand also a little bit the concerns. And I understand all that. But for me, the most important thing is the operational power of the group and of the buyback cooperation with all the subsidiaries. And over the last 10, 12 years, we moved more and more to a half, so to say, half time, part time holding structure. And the most important EBIT contribution comes from our either international business or the new businesses.
And so far, we soon are going to start a project to review the legal structure of Fiverr to have, let me say, a more clear picture legally with an immediate consequence also for the dividend policy of our subsidiaries and also the overhead cost structure for the overall group. Because I'm also not happy with the permanent regarding the question, can we provide to the shareholders the dividend? And how do we organize it? Is this affecting negatively the 5 RK? And what does it mean and so forth.
So we are going to change that. But this is a significant project we are dealing with over the next, let's say, 12 months. And we are going to start that in the Q2 2020.
Great. Thank you very much. And
finally, on your question on Page 40, unfortunately, I'm currently not I can't answer that. I've seen the equity effect should reflect the investment of the investor, which is 5 60 or 530 plus x y zed, but I don't I can't comment now out of the blue from the total asset base. But I will check it and come back to you on that, if that's fair enough. Yes.
It was just that there was a discrepancy of total assets and equity, the increase in both parts. That make me wonder what's behind that. But yes, thank you very much for that.
I just want to give
an answer out of the blue now. I think it's Understandable.
Thank you very much.
Back to you.
Thank you. Our next question comes from Doctor. Norbert Kelliwater from Doctor. Kelliwater Research. Your line is open.
Yes. Hello. Thank you for taking my question, super. Yes, I have only one question regarding your acquisitions in Canada. And please, maybe you can quantify this earnings potential because I think that's a nice market.
So as I heard, you have there a market potential of 3 gigawatt. So how is it working the last year? And how do you see this in this year contributing to your EBIT, please, yes?
You mean the acquisition Power Hub in Canada? Yes. Yes. Okay. That's working quite well, but I don't have the figure in I don't know it by heart.
We check it. Just give me a second. We are looking for the contribution. Just a second, please.
If you have
another question, maybe we can answer that before.
Yes. So maybe this past, so you said that you are restructuring that. And is it referring to the personal stuff? So can you give us a figure which personal stuff costs we can expect this 2020?
No. This was the previous years. So we are through the restructuring process for Abast already. And we reduced and was it 2 years ago, I guess, the cost around about €30,000,000 So in 2020, we are in a normal operational mode. And important for us was the investments in the specialty companies like Royal Ingredients, like Tetramax, like well, then our the company is I forgot the names.
The company is in U. K. And so forth. So this is a contribution of around about €20,000,000 EBIT. €1,100,000 in revenue, yes?
So that's a little startup we acquired in Canada. So the EBIT contribution is still quantity initially sharply.
Okay. Yes. Thank you so much. Yes. Nice weekend.
Yes. Same for you.
There appears to be no further questions at this time.
Good. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. Salud. Thank you, Mr.
Helber. Thank you also to our service provider that the lines are working. This is not always the case in these times. And yes, I hope we will see now soon in a hopefully healthy and stable environment. Until then, we wish you happy and a nice weekend.
Thank you.