Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Drägerwerk Q3 2024 Earnings Call. I am Sarah, the conference operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Stefan Dräger, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Good afternoon, and thank you for joining our conference call on our financial results for the first nine months of 2024. I have with me Gert-Hartwig Lescow, Group CFO, as well as Tom Fischler and Nikolaus Hammerschmidt, both investor relations. We would like to take you through the results with the presentation that we made available on our web page this morning. Following the presentation, we will open the floor to your questions. Let's get started on page five with the business highlights. In the first nine months of 2024, we successfully paved the way to our annual targets with continued good demand, robust net sales, and higher earnings. At EUR 2.4 billion, our intake slightly surpassed the high level of the prior year period.
Net sales at EUR 2.3 billion almost reached the high prior year figure, which at that time was positively influenced by an important improvement in delivery capacity and a surge in demand for ventilators in China. Both in terms of orders and sales, we were able to grow in all regions except APAC. Our safety division performed better than the medical division, which was affected by the challenging market environment in China. Our EBIT in the first nine months increased to over EUR 18 million. This growth was driven not only by our operating business but also by one-time effects totaling around EUR 32 million.
Among others, this included the sale of a non-core business activity in the Netherlands and the sale of land in the US in the second quarter with a total amount of EUR 20 million, as well as the sale of a building in Spain in the third quarter, which contributed around EUR 10 million to the earnings. After the first nine months, our EBIT margin was slightly above the prior year level at 3.5%. Our focus remains on improving profitability. Regarding our FDA warning letter, there has been no relevant news since our last conference call at the end of July. We are still waiting for a response from the FDA to conduct the necessary re-inspection of our site in Andover. Actual timing and scheduling of this inspection is at the FDA's discretion. As communicated two weeks ago, we confirmed our annual guidance.
In the expectation of a strong year-end business, we continue to forecast net sales growth in the lower half and EBIT margin in the upper half of the previously forecasted ranges. I will come back to this in our outlook at the end of the presentation. With that, I turn over to Gert-Hartwig for a review of the financials. Gert-Hartwig, please.
Thank you, Stefan. I would also like to welcome everybody to this conference call of our results for the first nine months of 2024. Please turn to page seven for a view on the Dräger Group. As usual, I will be stating currency-adjusted figures whenever referring to growth rates. As Stefan said, we continue to see good demand for our Technology for Life. Overall, orders in the first nine months of 2024 increased by about 1.4% to around EUR 2.4 billion, driven particularly by growth in Germany and positive development in EMEA and Americas. However, orders in APAC decreased mainly due to the reduced demand for ventilators in China compared to last year and the current challenging market environment in China, which is leading to subdued demand affecting all Western medtech suppliers.
Net sales in Q3 and in the first nine months almost reached the prior year level despite the mentioned base effects. After the first nine months, net sales were only 0.4% lower at around EUR 2.3 billion. In both reporting periods, our safety division outperformed the medical division. Due to the good margin of the safety division, our group's gross profit margin increased by 0.4 percentage points to 44.4% at the end of the first nine months. Our functional costs decreased by 0.4% in the first nine months of 2024. This was mainly due to higher other operating income as a result of one-time effects. As Stefan said, the one-time effects contributed around EUR 32 million to earnings in the first nine months. Around EUR 31 million of this amount is included in the functional cost.
With around EUR 18 million of total one-time effects, the impact in our safety division was stronger than on our medical division with around EUR 14 million. In the third quarter, the one-time effects amounted to around EUR 12 million for the group, of which EUR 7 million in medical and EUR 5 million in safety. In the second quarter, we sold our fire alarm system business in the Netherlands to focus our activities on our core business. Additionally, we sold an unused plot of land in the U.S. These one-time effects contributed around EUR 20 million to our EBIT. In the third quarter, we sold the building in Spain, which contributed an additional EUR 10 million. The building was owned by our subsidiary, Dräger Hispania, which decided to move to a new location for rent.
Including this one-time effects, our EBIT in the third quarter was approximately EUR 24 million compared to around EUR 29 million in the prior year quarter. Our EBIT margin stood at 3.1%, down from 3.7% in the year before. However, in the first nine months, profitability improved, with EBIT increasing from roughly EUR 77 million to around EUR 80 million. Consequently, our EBIT margin rose from 3.3% to 3.5%. Additionally, the rolling 12-month DVA improved to around EUR 30 million. Let us now take a closer look at the development of the two divisions, starting with the medical division.
On page eight, in the third quarter, order intake was below the prior year level. Growth in EMEA, APAC, and Germany was offset by a decline in the Americas region, which was primarily due to the high level of the prior year when we received major orders from Mexico for workplace infrastructure. In the first nine months, order intake decreased by around 2%. This was mainly due to the significant decline in APAC in the course of the missing ventilator demand and the current healthcare reform in China, which is slowing down healthcare orders throughout the industry. While net sales in the third quarter were still slightly lower than the prior year's figure, the gap is much lower than in the previous quarters since much of the base effect is related to the first and second quarters.
Overall, net sales in the first nine months were around 5% below the prior year level at around EUR 1.3 billion. Mainly due to currency effects and higher expenses from inventory adjustments in production, the gross margin in Q3 decreased by 2 percentage points. After nine months, it was only 0.7 percentage points below the prior year's margin. Functional expenses decreased by roughly 2% in the year to date. In the third quarter, EBIT amounted to EUR 4 million after EUR 0.3 million in the prior year period. The EBIT margin decreased from 0.1% to 0.9%. In the first nine months, EBIT amounted to some EUR 28 million after EUR 2.3 million in the prior year period, while the EBIT margin decreased from 0.2% to 2.2%. As mentioned, one-time effects contributed around EUR 40 million.
The rolling 12-month DVA was significantly lower at EUR 67.7 million, coming from EUR 41.6 million, mainly due to an adjustment of the weighted average cost of capital, reflecting a changed interest rate environment. I will now turn to our safety division, which delivered another good performance. We are now on page nine. Our safety business continues to grow. In the third quarter, order intake rose significantly by roughly 12%. Orders for services and customer-specific orders recorded a disproportionately high increase. In the first nine months, order intake rose by roughly 7% to around EUR 1.1 billion, thanks to our higher demand in almost all product categories, especially occupational health and safety equipment, as well as respiratory and personal protection equipment. In both reporting periods, Germany was the main driver, with an increase of almost 37% in Q3 and 17% year-on-year year to date.
EMEA also performed very well. In the third quarter, net sales were roughly 1% below the prior year figure. This was due to the decline in EMEA and APAC, which offset the growth in Germany and the Americas. In the first nine months, however, net sales increased by roughly 6% to just over EUR 1 billion, thanks to growing sales in all regions. The gross margin went up by 1.4 percentage points in Q3. During the first nine months, it rose by 1.5 percentage points, thanks to effective price enforcement in particular. Functional expenses were around 2% higher than in the prior year period, mainly due to higher R&D expenses and higher sales costs in the region.
In the third quarter, EBIT and EBIT margin remained quite stable at EUR 28.3 million and 8.4% after EUR 28.9 million and 8.5% in the prior year. In the first nine months, however, EBIT increased significantly from some EUR 79 million to roughly EUR 108 million, thanks to the improved operating development and positive one-time effects of around EUR 18 million. The EBIT margin consequently rose from 8.2% to 10.7%. The rolling 12-month DVA also improved significantly by around EUR 31 million to around EUR 97 million, coming from EUR 66 million in the prior year period. All in all, a very positive development in our safety business.
Let's move on to some key ratios on page ten. In the first nine months of 2024, we recorded a significant improvement in the operating cash flow. Next to slightly higher earnings, also working cash flow contributed, especially with improved payables and receivables management. Furthermore, the sale of our business in the Netherlands also contributed to a higher free cash flow. Free cash flow after nine months is clearly back in positive territory. Following our normal CF seasonality, we expect to see a further improvement in cash generation in the fourth quarter. Net financial debt was further improved during the quarter, so has net financial debt to EBITDA, and with a leverage of 0.7, it is on a healthy level. Net working capital was around 6% below the prior year level at just below EUR 700 million.
The significant improvement in the 12-month rolling EBIT and the decrease in capital employed as at the reporting date also led to an improved 12-month return on capital employed of around 11% compared to 8.4% in the same period of the prior year. The positive business development, next to other things, has also resulted in a further increase in the group's equity position, as at September 30th, the equity ratio was almost 48%. Next to other things, this was mainly due to the adjustment of the calculation parameters for pensions. Now, I hand back to Stefan Dräger for the outlook of page 12.
Ladies and gentlemen, with our markets being intact, good overall demand, robust net sales, and improved earnings, we have successfully paved the way to reach our annual targets. Some one-time effects helped us to compensate for our prior year tailwinds. At the same time, we saw some bright spots in Q3, such as the significant year-on-year order increase in our safety division. Q4 is always our strongest quarter. This will be no different this year. The remaining net sales gap is not without challenges, especially since we are still not seeing any sign of improving in the Chinese market. Nonetheless, we confirm our full-year targets for 2024. We continue to expect, as previously guided, net sales growth of 1.0% to 5.0% of net currency effects and an EBIT margin of 2.5% to 5.5%.
At the same time, we continue to expect net sales growth in the lower half and EBIT margin and DVA in the upper half of the forecasted range. With this, I would like to end the presentation and hand over to the operator to open the line for your questions, please.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. We have the first question coming from the line of Christian Ehmann from Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Hello and good evening. Thanks for taking my question. So I have two at the moment. The first would be regarding your, let's say, feelings toward Q4. As usual, you need to get in most of the earnings for the year in Q4, depending on what kind of guidance one has in this model. And I would like to ask you to give me some of your parameters which contribute to your confidence for the Q4. And the second would be regarding the safety and medical division. So I appreciate that safety is very much better than medical. What kind of structural, what kind of effects for the positivity in safety are structural, and what kind of are seasonal? And what kind of effects for the negativity in medical are structural, and what kind are seasonal? Thank you very much.
Perhaps let me start with the question of the fourth quarter. Firstly, let me repeat that, the seasonality, and I think you said so much in your question. That is, in fact, typical over an extended period. The fourth quarter is by far the strongest quarter, in particular on the medical side of the business, and this year makes no exceptions, and the basis for the assumption that this year will be similar is, from a regional point of view, the sound development that we have already seen in North America, as well as in South America, where some larger tenders will be delivered in Q2, and the continued good development in Germany. For example, in South America, we had received large orders in Mexico, and they will partially be delivered in the fourth quarter. They will contribute.
Let me also reiterate, we do not, at this point, expect or have factored in any strong or quick recovery in our Chinese business.
And that is, and now Stefan Dräger speaking, leading to your second question. On both the medical and the safety division, what are seasonal effects and what are structural elements that could be behind? Well, firstly, I would say, and for both divisions, there are no, say, special seasonal effects other than the ones that Gert-Hartwig already mentioned that are typical for all the Dräger business. As we had quite a number of, say, government bodies, as, say, our customers, many of them are still in the calendrical system and spending the budget towards the end of the year. So that is why the overall Dräger business for both divisions has this structure. Now, on the structure side, for the medical, sorry, start with the safety division.
We decided in around 2017, I think, or 2018, that we wanted to invest more in specific capabilities in the sales organization, specific competencies. And that's what we did. And this is now paying off, as we have enjoyed a very good increase in development in the fire and gas detection systems business. And so we have new products coming to the market for the firefighter communication and location system, and also for the mining industry, for the oil and gas industry. And so it is supported by the competitive state-of-the-art product portfolio. But the general underlying reason is that we invested a couple of years ago. We decided to invest in specific capabilities in the sales organizations. That strengthens mainly the safety business because it is so diverse.
It's so many different markets that we serve that is actually around 30 different single markets. There is no such thing as a safety market. For the medical, which is, of course, a little bit disappointing that it has a slight downturn overall, there's one single very big factor. That is the situation in China, which was a large contributor to our medical business in the past, and then it has a very poor development in this current year, and as Gert-Hartwig pointed out, we are not expected that it recovers quickly, so that is the greatest single effect. Without this effect, we wouldn't have this discussion. It would look reasonably well overall, and there are some smaller effects. For instance, in Korea, there is still ongoing strike of the doctors in the healthcare system. So that is also muting the investment for medical equipment.
We have, in addition, had a big boom in the corona times. You remember the ventilation. We quadrupled the output of our production, and that continued until well after the pandemic. That is the reasons why it is not as strong as the safety business. Plus, the product architecture and the portfolio, as I said before, we are still working on the last steps of replacing the current architecture. It goes back to the year 2003 when it was decided, the architecture for the therapy systems. That has now happened for the last couple of years, a major effort. We're looking forward to harvesting the fruit in the years to come. In general, the market outlook is as positive as for the safety business.
Thank you. A couple of follow-ups, if I may. When I look at the, sorry, you said that the Q4 is, as we all know, particularly strong for the medical side. Given that we see a weakness this year, do you see any indication for the Q4, especially given the development we saw up until now? And if I sum it up correctly, your confidence for Q4 comes mainly from the safety division and from the good order book from North, South America, and Germany. And my second question would be to the structural effects in the safety business. So is it reasonable to assume, and I'm of course looking at 2025, that the good growth rate you saw for the safety business overall for 6.5% year over year, is this something one could expect to continue in 2025 and even might be maybe even beyond in 2026? Thank you.
Yeah, in general, it is rather safe to assume that safety continues on a good development. However, please keep in mind that some of the growth, in particular in 2023, came from the improved price defense. So we were able to increase prices significantly. And so that effect was even slightly greater than the volume increase. And the pricing increase will probably not continue at the same slope. So this factor will continue, as now everyone is aware in the organization how important that is, in particular as we put profitability first. However, it will probably go back to a slightly lower rate of improvement for the price defense. So aside from that, it's safe to assume that it will continue on a positive development.
Your point before, the good outlook for the Q4, I would say it's not only the confidence based on safety and some regions, because we also expect a good Q4 for the medical side. As Gert-Hartwig pointed out, there are larger orders in the mix for the regions that he mentioned. And there is other than in China, there is no, and to a slight extent in Korea, there is no fundamental problem that would prevent a similar ratio of the quarters as we typically have in Dräger. So that's on that part.
Thank you very much. Very helpful.
The next question comes from the line of Alexander Galitsa from HAIB. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Thank you for taking the questions. I'll have several, maybe starting the first set of questions related to medical division. First, whether you could remind us why last year in Q4 the gross profit margin was the lowest throughout the year despite much higher revenue. I presume that maybe the hospital infrastructure orders that you saw last year from medical played a role, but whether you could clarify that. And then related to that question is now looking at sequentially higher volumes, obviously in Q4, and current mix you have in the backlog, would you expect your gross profit margin in Q4 this year to improve sequentially? That would be the first one.
So firstly, the Q4 gross profit margin overall was lower since we wrote down our factories for the FFP masks.
That is in safety.
That's in the safety division, but that is for the group the largest factors. We, at this point, see no comparable write-down either in the medical or in the safety division, and you're correct, we had a higher share. The larger orders that I mentioned, for example, in Mexico, they are more coming from therapy, so there should be a similar hit on profitability. Having said that, it is not unusual that large orders in particular also are executed with a larger discount to the customer, obviously, but we do not expect a steep hit on the gross profit margin, but in fact, a significantly higher net sales overall in safety and in particular on the medical side of the business in the fourth quarter.
Okay. Can I just clarify these Mexico orders? Because if I understood correctly, last year in Q3, you had also a big order in, I think, in the category of hospital infrastructure. So now we're talking about Mexico orders in Q3 2024. Are those different orders? Or if you could clarify, do we have big order last year and big order this year, or is it the same?
That's quite right. It's actually different orders. It's to a large degree to similar healthcare group, but it's different orders. We had a larger share of workplace infrastructure, and we have a higher share of therapy devices this year.
Last year, we also had some therapy business as well in Russia, which is now more or less diminishing.
Just to confirm in terms of profitability, my understanding was always that workplace infrastructure carries lower margins than the therapy devices. Is that also the case with this Mexico fitting of the hospital in Mexico?
Generally, right. On the gross profit margin you refer to, they also, of course, trigger fewer expenses. But on the gross profit, you're quite right. And that's also for Mexico.
Okay. Thank you. And then moving on to safety, a couple of questions here as well. I wonder why Q3 top line in safety was flattish in Q3 year over year, despite you basically having a better year-on-year book-to-bill in Q2 that you carried over into Q3, which should have been helpful. And then simultaneously also in Q3, order intake in safety was also on a good level. Just wondering whether there is anything specific you could call out as the reason why Q3 top line was softer despite the rather positive, I guess, backdrop in terms of order intake.
That's a good question. I really cannot call on anything specific. It is the nature of the business. If you break it down to lower time or you go down to days, it is becoming more statistically, I'd say, up and down. So I wouldn't think too much about it.
Okay. Fair enough. And then whether you are just wondering whether you're confident to haven't seen this sort of a small blip in Q3 in terms of flattish revenue, whether you're confident to return to revenue growth in Q4, considering that also it seems that Q4 comparable did not really have the benefit last year from the book-to-bill that you're having this year. I guess the question ultimately is, what's your confidence level to return to growth in Q4?
Well, it's reasonably good for both the medical and the safety division.
Okay. Perfect. And then if I may, just to squeeze the additional one in terms of order intake in safety, I think throughout the first three quarters of this year, there is a divergence in performance between regions. I think Germany and EMEA consistently growing, while Americas and APAC are more muted. Just wonder whether you can speak to this divergence. What is doing well in Europe and why are you much less successful in Americas and APAC, and what are your expectations for this trend going forward?
So for APAC, also on the safety side, there is a weakness in China. So that's a key driver for the weaker development. And as far as—
Also in Japan, so— and Korea, there is, say, challenging. There's no, say—there is not much to do with the rest of the world, but it's an individual challenge in these markets.
In the US in particular, I mean, you obviously have now benefits from the intensified, I guess, sales and marketing activities in Europe. Are you expecting has something changed in the US, and whether you're expecting to see similar maybe uptake in the business you have witnessed in Europe for safety division?
Yeah. To be honest, I think that's a good question so we are, say, deeply looking into that as we gave it all the, from our point of view, necessary ingredients for growth and need some, say, care to find out why it's not going as it should.
Okay. And then very last one, the currency, you mentioned currency headwinds and higher expenses for inventory adjustments having an impact on profitability in medical division. Could you maybe quantify that? And also what are these inventory adjustments? And yeah, thank you.
We have not broken that out on an individual basis. The inventory adjustment is really a side effect of the lower production in the medical. When you think about it, it's not so much, if you will, the write-down of the inventory, but it's higher inventory cost due to the fact that we have lower utilization in our production on the medical side. It's actually, if we compare, say, the realized margin based on, if you will, what's realized in the market, the lower margin in the medical is actually mainly due to these FX effects and the low- capacity utilization.
Okay. And the FX effect, the headwind, is stemming from what currencies in particular and whether you're expecting, based on current, I guess, trends in this respective currency, whether you're expecting much of the headwind in the coming quarter?
So the second part is a bit difficult. We regularly assume that currencies are what they are. We do have some, but we do not—i t's very difficult to make a forecast on the individual currencies. And it's really across the portfolio of currencies that we have affected. There is not, as of today, a huge impact. But overall, on the net sales side for the group, the impact is about one to one and a half percentage points or so on the net sales. So all in, it's not even anything that I would call a large FX impact. Of course, it is noticeable, in particular on the medical side, since the relative profitability is already on a rather low level.
Yeah. And the single most important currency, the U.S. dollar versus euro, please keep in mind that we have a pretty, say, comprehensive natural hedging as we have cost expenses and source, say, in our supply chain about as much as we have income in U.S. dollars.
Not quite. I'm sorry for jumping in. In fact, the U.S. dollar is an unusual currency. We have even higher costs all in, including material.
I said even better.
In the U.S. dollar. So for almost all currencies, we are, of course, long as a non-European currency. So a stronger currency is positive for us on the bottom line. For the U.S. dollar, in fact, a weaker U.S. dollar is, if you will, harmful on the net sales and on the profit contribution from the country, but positive for the EBIT for the group due to the fact that many materials that we use in safety and medical are denominated in U.S. dollars. The one currency where we are almost balanced out across both medical and safety is the British pound, which is due to the fact that our SCBAs on the safety division are manufactured in the North of England.
In addition to the contribution from the market business in the U.K., we have a counterposition from manufacturing the SCBAs for the global market.
Perfect. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from the line of Jean-Marc Müller from JMS Invest AG. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for taking my question. I have a question on cost management. I mean, I look at Dräger since many years, and obviously, cost management has never been the forte of the company. And this year again, I must say, it's rather disappointing how costs are being managed given the lower top line development. If I adjust the functional cost for the one-offs, the positive one-offs, the costs are up over nine months by around 3% on a top line, which in EUR is down 1%. And that on a base, which is already super high, I mean, you're overspending on R&D and on other functional costs, and still the costs go up any further. Also, you mentioned in medical, pretty poor capacity utilization because of the weak sales development.
I mean, when are you willing to address these issues and really take a look at the structural costs, at the capacity utilization, etc., and maybe make adjustments which will lead to a sustainable different margin profile for the company, especially in medical?
Yeah, so our primary focus is on profitability, and cost is a factor that is important for that, and I mean probably expenses, and so I mentioned in my previous answer, one of the reasons why we spent a significant amount in R&D, in particular in the medical division, to catch up from the legacy of the previous architecture, which is ongoing, and to make a long story short, when are we willing to make significant cuts into the expenses? At the moment, we do not believe any longer in the future that we would do it.
But you have been overspending now for many years. I mean, eventually, we should see the benefits of these extra costs that have been burning the P&L now for many years. And I don't see it. The gross margin medical is still subpar. And I don't see it. If you overspend on R&D, that's fine. But eventually, one should see a great product coming out of all this, which will then lead to higher volumes and higher margins because it's then potentially the better product. And I've seen neither of it.
Yeah. You are right, Mr. Müller. That's absolutely correct. And it's also disappointing for us, and in particular, myself, that it takes longer than expected to see the benefits and to harvest the fruits. However, we still believe very firmly that it's going to come. Otherwise, we wouldn't do it. And on the R&D side, on the capacity under utilization, we are aware that that is a burden. And we are working on reducing the capacity in the medical production side. So that's not something that we somewhat decline in general, but we do it after we do a thorough reflection of the pros and cons.
Okay. And on the EBIT level, I mean, obviously, upper end of the range, I mean, no surprise given that you have EUR 32 million of one-offs in there. How do you see 2025, given that you have now this very high base effect on the EBIT level? Do you think that there is a chance that you can overachieve 2024 results in 2025, or will it not be possible to compensate for the EUR 32 million one-offs that you had?
There is a chance if we do the calculations that we might overachieve in this year. However, the general overall goal is, as we indicated previously, to achieve profitability steadily by 1% point per year and to have a figure that is, for the time being, about the same as the last digit in the current calendar year. This year would be a 4% target. For next year, it would be a 5% target. Yes, we have the one-time effects this year. It is not completely excluded that we have more one-time effects in the future. However, it is not that we have these because we need to kind of, say, make our result look a little bit nicer. We are in, as I said, for the long-term goal and the profitability growth.
We are working on several aspects continuously that will continue to improve the profitability in the future, including next year. Also, to complete the picture, and being completely honest, the environment is not making it really easier given the geopolitical changes and the general economic, say, environment, in particular in Germany. However, the goal is still intact, and we go for it.
I understand that the environment is not easy. I mean, I understand that. And there's not much you can do there except really manage your cost base hard. And I don't see that happening.
Yeah. Yeah. I think, yeah, as we have this great diversity, there are so many things to do, and we are addressing. Given one example, so you might not be aware, and it's not probably normally even worth mentioning. We are reducing the number of Niederlassungen-Standorte in Deutschland by and cut this currently about in half from, what is it, I think, 16 locations down to around eight or nine. And there is further reduction to come. And there is about more than 1,000 people who live in these places are affected. So it's not that we are not doing anything. It's not that it's only that we are not, say, making provisions for the big bang that probably you would expect. That's not going to happen.
I mean, I think you get this question quite often, but I mean, could you split the business, the medical and the safety business? Or are there, I mean, do you see substantial synergies having those businesses together?
We do. So if we would go for the short term, then we would split them and sell them both individually. However, as the Dräger overall serving many different stakeholders, in particular internationally, we have made the experience that one Dräger company in a certain country, be it France or, say, India, where I just returned from a trip, that's why I caught a bad cold, it is greatly beneficial for Dräger to have a one-company approach. So per country and legislation, only one organization. That is, all the generic functions can be combined, and it is a lot more efficient, and so it makes us much more attractive as an employer, and we get better people who can give better service to our customers.
And then we can afford that I mentioned earlier. You might remember the more specific capabilities in the sales channel in the countries based on this approach. It would be difficult if we split, and then the individual entities become too small and are typical.
Okay. Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
We have now a follow-up question from Christian Ehmann from the line of Warburg Research. Please go ahead.
Thank you. I was still wondering about the effect of the silence from the FDA. How is the impact on your planned product launches for next year? Does this postpone any of your plans? Thank you.
Oh, there is currently we do not see any impact on the product launches, and the lifting of the warning letter, unfortunately, it has to wait. To our information, the FDA is undergoing a heavy reorganization in itself, and that is why currently we do not get answer to all our inquiries, so where we stand with, let's say, setting up and scheduling dates for the inspection, there is no answer because they are busy with reorganization.
In fact, if I may add, for some of our approval processes that were in line with the warning letters, we had received or have received positive replies. We shouldn't overestimate that in terms of business impact, but the positive indication, and it's one of the factors that gives us optimism that we will receive a positive answer since on the product level, we do or we have received over the past few months positive feedbacks on at least some of our approvals that were with the FDA.
There's no negative indication. It's just, as you said, there's a bit of silence.
Thank you.
We have another follow-up question from Alexander Galitsa from HAIB. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for taking the follow-up. Just housekeeping on your interest expenses. I think your guidance is EUR 20 to 26 million. We've seen EUR 12 million as of nine months and roughly EUR 4 million per quarter. Just wondering, given that net debt also went down as of Q3, is there a reason why interest expense should increase substantially in Q4, or are you just still being conservative, not adjusting this part of the guidance?
Mainly the latter, but please keep in mind that the interest expense also includes the interest expense for the pension obligations, which are really set, if you will, through a regulatory type of mechanism. And they have not gone down significantly over that period.
Okay. Understood. And just a quick one on the, I guess, the further one-offs potentially in 2025. So is there generally, should we expect more divestments of buildings, or how big is the scope for this sort of a cleanup, if you will, where you sell idle facilities, etc.?
There are no comparable plans at this point.
As I previously said, there are no things to take into account. However, that does not mean that there wouldn't be any.
Perfect. Thank you.
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Okay. If there are at this moment no further questions, then in the interest of everybody's time, I would say thank you to all of you for being with us and the lively discussion that we had on the subjects also from our point of view that really matter. Thank you very much, and have a pleasant afternoon. Thank you and goodbye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines.