Dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the webcast of E.ON SE. At our customers request, this conference will be recorded. After the presentation, you have the opportunity to ask questions via the telephone line. If you have a question for the speakers, please dial zero and one on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If any participant has difficulty hearing the conference, please press star key followed by zero on your telephone for operator assistance. May I now hand you over to Verena Nicolaus-Kronenberg, Head of Investor Relations, who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead.
Many thanks. Yeah, hi, everybody. Welcome to our Q1 Results Presentation. Thank you for joining via telephone or webcast. Today I'm here with Marc. He will update you on our operational and financial performance in the first three months of 2021 and our outlook for the remainder of the year. As usual, we will only highlight the main messages to leave enough room for questions. With that, over to you, Marc.
Thank you, Verena, and good morning, and a warm welcome from my side. Dear analysts and investors, we have seen a fantastic start to the year. During the first quarter of 2021, we achieved a strong operational and financial performance throughout actually all our business. EBIT and adjusted net income are up 14% and 19% respectively. Our synergies ramp-up is unfolding as planned despite ongoing COVID-19 restrictions. COVID-19 did also not have any real impact on our other operations, which is in line with our expectations. This gives us a lot of confidence for the remainder of the year. On the deleveraging plan, we are making excellent progress. We are fully on track towards achieving our target of a debt factor between 4.8x and 5.2 x already by the end of this year. Our pension provisions have improved by EUR 1.7 billion.
Due to the seasonal pattern of our operating cash flow, this massive improvement will only translate into our economic net debt numbers during the course of the next two quarters. You should actually be familiar with that by now, that Q1 brings a seasonal buildup in working capital, which then fully reverts in the second half of the year. In essence, I can fully confirm our guidance for 2021 as well as our midterm delivery plan, including our synergy target of EUR 780 million by 2024 and our dividend commitment. Before I update you on the operational highlights of the quarter, let me spend a few words on the new E.ON Management Board remuneration system that we put up for resolution on approval at the upcoming AGM next week. One of our priorities at E.ON is sustainability.
Sustainability is the integral part of our corporate strategy and guiding principle for all our decisions. As a consequence, it is obvious that the sustainability performance of E.ON should be part of the long-term incentive of E.ON's board remuneration. With a proposed remuneration system, the following sustainability dimensions are planned for the 2022 long-term incentive tranche. First of all, climate action. We measure our progress of carbon emission reduction. Secondly, diversity. We will further increase the share of our female executives. Thirdly, health and safety of our employees, and therefore the reduction of serious incidents and fatality frequency. The fourth dimension is our performance in key ESG ratings, and therefore an overarching element when it comes to sustainability.
In this context, I would also like to point out that as a financial performance element, we will include a return on capital employed component next to the established total shareholder return into the long-term incentive for our management board. I am confident that investors will appreciate the new elements of the remuneration system and largely result on the approval of the plan at our AGM next week. Let me now turn to some operational highlights in Q1, which further back our confidence on guidance delivery. In Energy Networks, we are committed to grow our power up by 45% per year for many years to come. Sorry. I repeat. In Energy Networks, we are committed to grow our power up by 45% per year for many years to come.
With a record demand in Germany for connections in new-build residential areas as well as for renewables connections, we are very confident to deliver on this pledge. We are also very happy with the progress in Customer Solutions due to several positive developments. First, the npower customer migration in U.K. has been completed. We have started to close down npower systems with the majority of people leaving by end of Q2, and the full npower wind down expected by the end of 2021. In parallel, the migration of E.ON U.K. customers is already significantly progressing, with currently already around 500,000 E.ON customers migrated to E.ON Next. Expect that number to significantly increase over the coming weeks. We plan to have migrated the majority of E.ON customers by the end of this year already.
We are also fully on track to renew our IT stack in our German retail operations, with more than 4.5 million customers having been migrated so far. Second, we see a significantly growing demand for our Future Energy Home service. In Q1 alone, we have sold about 30,000 additional units from PV, batteries to efficient heating systems. We already have more than 1.2 million active service contracts, which makes us confident that we will be able to double the earnings contribution of that business in the course of this year to more than EUR 60 million. Some may say this is small. I say the momentum is great, and we're just at the beginning of this market to evolve. Thirdly, and finally, in our Energy Infrastructure Solutions business, we were able to fully monetize from the colder weather with excellent availabilities of our heating plants, especially in the Nordics.
A good example is Hudiksvall in the Stockholm area with 97% availability in Q1 2021. Operational excellence matters, we are just good at it. Let me move to the financial performance of E.ON in the first three months of 2021, on page four. EBIT came in at roughly EUR 1.7 billion, which is an increase of 14% or EUR 200 million compared to the same period last year. I have already elaborated on our strong operational performance. On top of that, we also benefited from a weather-related recovery in margins. You may recall that last year, our financials in Q1 were significantly impacted by extraordinarily mild winter months. In contrast, weather conditions this year were pretty much in line with expectations. Also, the impact from COVID-19 has been as expected, including bad debt provisions. On the segment, earnings and Energy Networks are roughly stable compared to last year.
In Germany, the year-on-year earnings increase from normalized volumes was largely compensated by expected developments on the cost side. The Central Eastern European and Turkey segment benefited from the first-time consolidation of VSE in Slovakia after the acquisition from RWE in Q3 last year. Customer Solutions earnings momentum was strong, with an increase of almost EUR 300 million year-on-year, doubling the EBIT relative to Q1 last year. Apart from normalized weather conditions, the U.K. benefited from our restructuring efforts and the full migration of npower customers onto the new platform. With an EBIT of EUR 86 million in the first quarter, we feel very comfortable with our target of above GBP 100 million for the full year. Be reminded that especially in the U.K., the seasonality is usually very pronounced towards the beginning of the year. Q1 earnings of our non-core businesses are down by roughly EUR 80 million year-over-year.
The decline is mainly attributable to the negative impact from the purchase of further production rights for our two German nuclear operations. Be reminded, we continue to depreciate the production rights that we eventually obtain for free based on successful settlement of nuclear lawsuits until the very date of law becoming effective. The legislative procedure is fully on track, with the first parliamentary reading already concluded. As indicated, we will most likely adjust our guidance in Q3 already. The result of our Turkish upstream joint venture was negatively affected by lower hydro generation and an adverse FX development. Let us have a brief look what the earnings development means for our bottom line. Our adjusted net income came in at more than EUR 800 million for the first three months of 2021, up 19% versus last year, reflecting largely the increase in our operating results.
Economic interest results, income tax rate, and minorities are fully in line with expectations. Let me now turn to the development of our economic net debt. Compared to full year 2020, economic net debt is largely unchanged. While this looks boring from a headline numbers perspective, there is a lot of positive momentum below the headline. Pension provisions improved by roughly EUR 1.7 billion over year-end 2020. The decrease of the defined benefit obligation due to an increase in pension discount rates of 40 basis points in Germany was accompanied by a better-than-expected financial performance. This is temporarily compensated by our operating cash flow, which reflects the usual seasonally low cash conversion in the first quarter.
In our B2C commodity sales business, high energy consumption during the winter period causes a negative cash balance for us in Q1, as the cash inflow from installment payments is equally spread across the year. In our networks business, likewise, the redistribution of feed-in tariffs for renewable generators in Germany results in a further temporary increase of our working capital. As usual, we expect the seasonal effect to fully reverse during the remainder of the year. Backed by our Q1 performance and assuming interest levels to stay at current levels, we are on good track to achieve our debt factor target of between 4.8x and 5.2 x already this year, once the settlement of the nuclear lawsuit is put successfully into law. Let me conclude my presentation with our outlook on page seven.
Backed by a strong start into the year, I'm happy to confirm all our targets for 2021 and our midterm delivery plan until 2023, including synergy delivery and our dividend promise. Furthermore, let me also reiterate that we feel very confident with our EBITDA target of EUR 7.6 billion-EUR 7.8 billion and our EBIT target of EUR 4.6 billion-EUR 4.8 billion for 2022. Thank you very much for your attention, and over now to Verena for the Q&A session.
Many thanks, Marc. We will directly start with the Q&A session. Please be reminded of the two questions per questioner rule in order to be able for everybody to ask questions. First one on the line is Alberto Gandolfi from Goldman Sachs. Alberto, over to you.
Verena, thank you and good morning. I'll stick to the rule of two questions. I just wanted to ask you the following. I appreciate you just gave a guidance six weeks ago or so, but if I take your first quarter and I add back Q2, Q3, Q4 from last year, when COVID-19, trading losses, warm, lower synergies, you broadly get to the mid-range of the guidance. I guess the question is, what does it take for you to guide in the upper end or revise upward the guidance altogether, or is there anything that concerns you during the rest of the year we should think about? That's the first question. The second one is on Customer Solutions.
Again, very strong underlying, I was wondering if you can maybe share with us more of the savings in terms of OpEx from migrating the U.K. customers to the new platform. The U.K. seems, I wouldn't say the tip of the iceberg, it's a big business for you, but how about replicating that to Germany? I guess that's not in the synergies target. How much savings could you achieve by doing the same as in the U.K. in the larger region? Thank you so much.
Hi, Alberto. Thanks for the questions. Let me start with the second one. Just to remind everyone that once we will have migrated all customers onto the E.ON Next platform, we'll not only then have shut down the entire npower B2C operation, but we will also bring then the legacy E.ON B2C operations into a further optimization mode. This will go hand-in-hand with further cost savings on the E.ON legacy platform as well. All that together will mean that we will lower our cost base in the U.K. B2C scheme by more than 50% on a cost to serve basis. With that improvement, U.K. operations are then getting on eye level with the cost structure which we already have today in Germany. The answer, therefore, on your second question, Alberto, is twofolds.
The magnitude of efficiencies which we are seeing in the U.K., no, they can't be easily replicated in Germany. The good news is that we are in Germany already at the efficiency frontier also relative to key benchmarks and competitors. Be assured that we will further push the performance curve for the entire market going forward. Again, retail operations is not just about the level of OpEx, it's also about how you spend it, about how effectively you are engaging with your customers, and how satisfied they are. Which, by the way, is also an executive incentive for the entire management board, how satisfied our customers are. On the first one, the guidance, you can take away from my comments that with the start into the year, we actually have a lot of confidence with regards to our full-year guidance. Again, it's still three quarters out.
Generally, our portfolio is there, resilient and robust as demonstrated last year, when I think the hit was as bad as you could imagine. I think this year, the only major risk which remains is actually weather, i.e., fourth quarter temperatures. Except for that, we are pretty confident with our guidance. Please also understand that we will not adjust now the guidance spontaneously in the call. Just work on with the confidence which I'm sending.
Thank you.
Thank you. You're welcome.
Thanks, Alberto. Next one on the line is Sam Arie from UBS. Sam, please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the presentation, and congratulations on a, looks like a very good quarter. Marc, I think the question I wanted to ask was just coming back to the midterm guidance, because you've reconfirmed midterm guidance today as well, which is very helpful. I think when you set it out at full year, you were already kind of indicating that from 2022 to 2023, the picture was quite flat. I think now with a good outlook for 2021 and then also potentially the, I think I'm right in saying the nuclear compensation coming in possibly on top before the end of this year. The way it looks to some people is actually maybe quite a flat growth outlook through the next few years.
I'm just wondering, is there anything that you could say about the longer-term picture today in terms of where you might be able to find more kind of EBITDA growth than we've currently talked about, or should we think of it as basically quite a flat picture, but very solid with a growing dividend against that?
Yeah, Sam, that was a long run-up. On mid-term guidance, actually no change. Full confirmation. That means that our core business is actually growing every year, including 2023. I would like to remind you that we will see the phase out of nuclear from 2022 to 2023. When it comes to our core business, guiding set profitability from 2022 to 2023 means that the core of us is growing quite nicely. That's how we are managing the company also beyond 2023. Admittedly, I'm not in a position now to extend the guidance today to 2024 or beyond. For that, you will have to wait until our Capital Market Day in autumn this year.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thanks, Sam. Next one on the line is Peter from Bank of America. Peter?
Yeah. Good morning, thanks for taking my questions. Two questions from me. Firstly, just following up on the U.K., can you maybe talk about what customer acquisition and churn trends you've seen so far this year, especially as gas and power prices have gone up quite sharply in the wholesale market, which is normally bad for new entrants. Linked to that question, do you have a view of what a sort of sustainable EBIT margin is in the U.K. based on your cost base? My second question is just on Sweden. I think the court there has asked the regulators to go back and recalculate the allowed return. Do you have any visibility on the timeline for a decision? Have you included any upside in your 2023 guidance?
Yes, Peter. Thanks for the question on Sweden. Your second question, don't expect the court case on the allowed return in Q3 to bring about the clarity before next year. This is somehow June 2022. If you maybe might go on mute. I hear a lot of echo there. Maybe it's coming from you, Peter, or from someone else. Whoever that is, maybe you can be so kind to go on mute.
I have already muted the line, Sir Spieker.
Thank you very much. We haven't as of now included any upside into our guidance. Our guidance is based on the currently approved regulatory return. Any upside would come on top of our guidance. On the question with regard to U.K., we do not see at this stage a significant improvement in the market environment. We do see churn rates and customer trends in the same level as last year. Our E.ON-branded products are showing stable customer accounts. We saw during the first quarter of migrating npower, some minor losses still at the npower brand. In total accounts in U.K., we have gone slightly down in the first quarter, but again, that was only due to the remaining npower accounts. Message here is, we are not seeing a significant improvement.
Again, we are restructuring the business with a target to deliver decent profitability even in today's market environment. What a normal market environment and EBIT margins for U.K. should be like, that is an almost philosophical question. If you ask me, what you should expect for a commodity retailer is something between 2% and 4% EBIT margin. If you're a mixed operator like us, probably at the high end, and you will also have some competitors at the lower end. If you're then able to gradually transform your business into more service and solution-based products, then I would see that EBIT margin to go up rather than 5%-10%. I think that with regard to EBIT margins. When that is to happen in the U.K., I think it's a bit philosophical. Again, be reminded that we don't want to be active in philosophy.
We will turn around the business without any improvement in the market environment.
Thanks, Marc. Sorry, can you just clarify, I missed the beginning of your answer to my question on Sweden. You said a court case wouldn't bring about clarity before 2022, and is there a particular time during 2022, did you say?
Yeah. Look, the first milestone to wait for is actually end of August, as currently the regulator has decided to appeal the first positive verdict by the courts in Sweden. Hence why we have this extended appeal line now until end of August. We do expect that the regulator will bring up then a more refined appeal argument. If the court doesn't turn that down, that case, obviously, the court case would be done by end of August. If the appeal is being admitted, then the final court decision will only come during 2022.
Got it. Thank you.
Yeah.
Very clear.
Nothing changes our financial guidance. At upside, our guidance is based on the currently allowed returns.
Thanks, Marc.
All right. Thank you, Peter. Next one on the line is Lueder Schumacher from Société Générale . Lueder Schumacher, please go ahead.
Good morning, Marc. Good morning, Verena. Thank you very much for the very efficient presentation. 12 minutes, that must be close to a record, I think. My two questions are both on the Customer Solutions division. Clearly a very impressive quarter, but can you maybe quantify the volume impact a bit more? You mentioned normalized weather as one of the four beneficial factors, and that applied across the regions. If I look at the power sales volume you give, they're down 2.6%, gas is up 3.2%, and it doesn't really look like a massive volume impact. Maybe this looks completely different if you include the wholesale market. If you could just shed a bit more light on the volume impact, which clearly, given the temperature difference, should be quite big.
Maybe also generally on the four factors you mentioned on slide 15, that drove the performance of Customer Solutions, EUR 92 million. Can you maybe give us a rough idea how this splits between those four factors?
Hello, Lueder. Yes. I should be able to give you some more insight. It's not invited to ask back. Let's start with the volume effect. First of all, be aware of when we look at our total volume numbers in terawatt hours, that there is obviously always portfolio optimization ongoing, i.e., on what segments we're actually focusing. You should expect that we are focusing on high-margin segments. When volumes go down, that is not an automatic indicator for low profitability. That, first of all, addresses the point where you felt that there is a disconnect between profitability and volumes. We are optimizing the margins in our sales portfolio. You should expect a natural disconnect there also during further quarters.
With regard to the volume development, on the profitability side, it has pretty much been a consequence of normalizing weather conditions as temperatures have moved back to normal expectations. Overall, on the Customer Solutions side, normalized weather stands for a high double-digit, almost a triple-digit EUR million amount. The key markets that have been affected almost equally by that is Germany and the U.K. When it comes to the profit drivers on page 15, the restructuring benefits in the U.K., given that we have seen an almost EUR 100 million improvement in the U.K. year-on-year, you can imagine that another mid-double-digit EUR million effect stems from the restructuring benefits. The synergy ramp-up in Germany has a similar magnitude.
The other businesses is basically growth, not so much on the commodity retail side, but very much in the Solutions business across the various markets, which now start to show some momentum even in our group numbers. I mentioned in my speech that the level is still low, but the momentum is extremely positive.
Yes, very clear. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thanks, Lueder Next one is Deepa from Bernstein. Deepa, please go ahead.
Thank you. My two questions. Germany is now proposing to increase its decarbonization to 65% by 2030, and some say that renewables need to now be 77%. I'm just wondering, obviously, there's been talk of increasing auction volumes and so on, but it still seems that volumes of onshore wind are far lower. I'm just wondering, obviously in connection with your ongoing discussions with the regulator and the investments needed, what do you think is really needed for Germany to hit these targets, and how feasible do you think these targets will be? My second question is regarding the recent board change that you announced yesterday with the head of the Customer Solutions division stepping down. I just wanted to, again, check with you that do you see any risk on the momentum in the Customer Solutions business with the departure of Karsten Wildberger ?
Thank you.
Hello, Deepa. Let me start with the question on decarbonization. I fear I'm a bit preaching to the converted, so I will keep it short and crisp. Our two key messages when it comes to German policies is do it market-based. Auctioning is the right momentum, but make permitting much easier. That is the bottleneck. We have conflicting permitting regulation, which even if you have market-based auctions and a lot of investor interest actually to participate, you face that permitting problem, which is a political topic which needs to be resolved. For us, this is not a concern at all. As just pointed out in the past, our growth is built on a number of growth drivers, and the renewables build-out is only one of them.
If I look just at the increase in customer demand from increasing digitization, data centers, if I look now at the momentum which we are seeing in mobility, our outlook on our growth opportunities is unchanged, and does not get affected by the situation around RES build-out, which we are pretty easy. With regard to Karsten may have decided to seek a new professional opportunity and challenge with CECONOMY, German-based electronics retailer, which is obviously something which we regret in the sense that he's leaving on the other side. With his personal decisions, we wish him all the best for this next step. What you should not do is take any read across now to what that means for E.ON. Our growth, our business is built on many strong shoulders.
As you could see, just our U.K. management team turning around the business, and you can imagine that equally competent management teams are around in all of our markets. Don't read into that any threat from that. Our supervisory board will consider how to replace Karsten, and we are very confident to keep up the good momentum from the first quarter also during the rest of the year and the future.
Thank you.
Thank you, Deepa. Next one on the line is James from Deutsche Bank . James, please go ahead.
Hi, good morning, and well done on the good results from me. Two questions from me, both on retail. The first is that in the answer to one of the earlier questions, Marc mentioned that the German retail business was at the efficient frontier. I was just curious what you meant by that, whether when you say that, you mean it's at the efficient frontier of the kind of bigger retailers, or whether you think it's also at the efficient frontier if you include some of the very efficient digital new entrants. That's the first question. The second question, also on retail, is I was wondering whether you could share some thoughts on what you think the key for the retail business is going to be over the medium term. Obviously, in the short term, it's delivering on the synergies.
Over the medium term, is it just getting all the customers onto a digital platform? Is it being super efficient? Is it offering other value-added services? I'd be very interested in if you have some thoughts you could share on that. Thank you very much.
Yeah. Thank you, James, for your questions, and welcome to the call. On the German retail business, and when I talk about kind of pushing the efficiency frontier, I think ultimately that is a mindset with which we look at efficiency. Efficiency in the retail sphere is not just about cost, it is also about while being cost leader, being able to offer the most flexible and best service and experience to our customers. That boils down into our initiatives in Germany to also there move the entire business onto a new IT sales stack, with which we are well on track. I mentioned the 4.5 million accounts which we have migrated already. By the end of this year, we will surpass the 8 million, and then by next year, get the large part of the rest of the portfolio onto that platform.
That platform will then also be white label capable, i.e., we will be able then on that machine to also run operations for our other market participants. You are only able to offer your IT stack and service platform to others if it is really in the top quarter in the market. That is the strategic logic behind that. I think that also is a segue into answering the second question. We're extremely positive about our Customer Solutions business beyond just realizing synergies. I mentioned this time in my speech that what we call Future Energy Home business, which is above all the business around residential photovoltaic, battery business, and energy efficiency. We are bringing that business this year to an EBIT level of EUR 50 million.
This is obviously something where we strongly leverage our existing brand and market position and then try to gradually improve the business and earnings mix in that business. That's why we are so positive about it.
Thank you very much.
Thank you, James. Next one is Rob Pulleyn from Morgan Stanley. Rob, please go ahead.
Hey, thank you. Two quick questions from me, please. Firstly, given the one key result shines the spotlight somewhat on the Swedish heating business, and given recent multiples for such businesses look very interesting, to what extent does management see any benefit in monetizing some of these unappreciated assets to reinvest more in E.ON's heartland networks? Secondly, just a bit of housekeeping, given the surprising move in the pension provisions, given the plan assets. Could you perhaps give a bit of an update as to where those provisions would be today, given we've seen another 12 basis points of yield strengthening since the end of Q1, and maybe your plan assets have continued to perform very well. Thank you.
Yes. Hi, Rob. Let me start with the pension provisions. At the headline sensitivity for 50 basis points movement is EUR 1.5 billion. With a 20 basis points move, it would be around EUR 200 million, ceteris paribus. That is about the sensitivity, which you should expect and which has actually also worked during the first quarter, where we've seen a 40 basis points improvement in Germany, and that has translated into a higher uptake. It's a bit more than the sensitivity we are showing, as normally we would assume a slightly compensating movement on plan assets. Q1 has been with the performance of plan assets also being extremely good. The 40 basis points during the first quarter have actually translated into EUR 1.7 billion more than the sensitivity which I've given you indicates. I regard the sensitivity as the better heuristic for future movement.
On Swedish heat, that's a very simple question. The question is always, are you the best operator and best owner of the business? For us, the heat business is the growth business. Our focus is on making sure that around the existing heating networks which we have and the existing municipalities and city networks, which we have to gradually increase our footprint there. You're also reminded that we've earmarked about EUR half a billion of CapEx every year into growing our city energy solutions business, and that is very much highly efficient heating solutions. We are focusing on growing that piece, and therefore we are also a happy owner of those positions and are not reflecting about selling that. We want to grow it much more.
Fair enough. That's very clear. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Rob. Next one on the line is Piotr from Citigroup. Piotr, please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thank you for the presentation. I have two questions. First one, I'd like to ask you about the gross margin for the Customer Solutions business, because we only see one figure. Can you say broadly how much is the margin generated on the just selling gas and power, and how much is from the other businesses like services, boilers, fixtures, and maybe selling financial products? How much is this now, and how much is this going to be in the future? Do you see a significant change there? Your new platform, how well-suited this platform is to cope? I understand this is a much more simpler platform, that's why you can reduce the cost. How well-suited this is to cope with this potentially more complex products going forward when you have to compete more broadly with different services, I guess?
Piotr, with the second question, you are spot on. I'm happy to repeat that actually, because repetition just underscores how important it is generally and how much it is in our focus. With renewing our IT architecture, it is not just about reducing OpEx. It is that simultaneously, you need to be able, with a future IT architecture, to be highly flexible, which means on the timeline, to be able to flexibly fast respond to market changes, but also to be flexible when it comes to customer offerings, and broaden your offerings without increasing your cost base. Again, that's a call for don't reduce our IT renewal to just saving OpEx. It is as important to improve the effectiveness of our platforms. On gross margin, we are not releasing market-by-market gross margin levels.
As a high-level indication, so that you can broadly classify the returns of those businesses. In terms of EBIT margin, for a residential commodity retail market, I would typically over time expect profitability of the market segment to be between 2% and 4%. Obviously we want to beat our quarter. We are striving for the upper end. When it comes to more service-based offerings, EBIT margins clearly lie above 5% and are backed up by longer-term or medium-term to longer-term contracts. Finally, on the asset-backed businesses like district heating, Energy Infrastructure Solutions, their EBIT margins don't really matter that much to us. Our key performance metrics are their capital return numbers. That falls a bit off the EBIT margin perspective as the asset intensity is high. Much to your questions. I hope that helps.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Piotr. Sam, I recognize that you had only one, however, very long question. Do you want to place another one?
I was going to ask a quick follow-up. Sorry for my first question was long, but it had a very short answer, so probably on average, I'm equaling out. Marc, listen, I just wanted to come back on one point because you said in your introduction that you are bringing back ROCE into the management targets, which we talked about for earlier as well. I apologize if I missed something, but did you say what the ROCE target would be that you're building in? Because that would be a helpful input for us as well.
Yeah. First of all, it is about seeking the approval for the system, and this is how the corporate governance framework works, before we then will talk about the specific ROCE targets. First of all, this is about the system where a material component will be best going forward on return on capital.
Okay. That might be something, I guess, then we get at the CMD.
Yeah.
Thank you.
We're sure that we are well above our cost of capital.
Okay, very good. Thank you.
All right. There is no further question on the line. Thank you very much for your interest. Obviously, the Investor Relations team is more than happy to answer any follow-up questions that you might have. This concludes our call. Thank you very much.
Yeah, also thank you very much from my side. Have a nice day. Stay healthy. Bye-bye.
Bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This conference has concluded. You may disconnect.