The conference is now being recorded. Welcome to the conference call regarding the publication of Gerresheimer AG's Q1 results to 2022. At the moment, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. Now I hand over to Mrs. Carolin Nadilo, Head of Investor Relations at Gerresheimer AG.
Yeah, thank you, and hello, everybody. Warm welcome from my side. Thank you for joining us today to review our first quarter results for FY 2022. With me today in Düsseldorf are our CEO, Dietmar Siemssen, as well as our CFO, Dr. Bernd Metzner. As usual, we are presenting a set of slides accompanying the management notes, followed by the Q&A session. Please note, this call is being webcast live and will be filed on our website, too. As usual, and before we start, I have to remind you that the presentations and discussions are conducted subject to the disclaimer. We will not read the disclaimer, but propose taking it as read into the records for the purpose of this call. Now it's my pleasure to turn the call over to Dietmar.
Hello, and good morning also from my side. Welcome everybody. Thank you for taking the time for the call. Bernd Metzner and I will now run you through the excellent first quarter and update you on our revenue guidance also for 2022. Moving to the agenda, I will start with a brief summary of Gerresheimer's progress in Q1. Bernd and I will then walk you through the CapEx deep dive before also Bernd discusses the details of our business performance in the first quarter. I will then wrap up with the outlook, and that's, after that, we'll be happy to take your questions. Most of you are familiar with our Formula G strategy process. With Formula G, we are successfully transforming Gerresheimer into a growth company, an innovation leader, a solution provider, and a system integrator.
Today, you will see the next milestone on our journey, very strong quarterly results. We actually focus on three key priorities in 2022. Accelerate. We accelerate our growth even further. Our focus is on High Value Solutions which continue to deliver. Execute. We consistently execute on our Formula G strategy process. We're translating our strong order intake into profitable growth. Innovate. Innovation is actually the backbone of Gerresheimer and the Gerresheimer story. Further investments in our R&D capabilities lead to further growth. A few words on the current geopolitical challenges. First and most important, we all, of course, hope for peace in the Ukraine as quick as possible. Business perspective, I would like to add the following. We actually do not have any material direct exposure, neither to the Ukraine, to Russia or also Belarus. We are well-protected against volatile energy prices due to our long-term hedge.
We can definitely rely on this resilience of our supply chains, which has been proven and demonstrated over the last couple of years. Thanks to our pricing power, we are well-positioned to manage inflationary pressure. As we did successfully in 2021, we will also respond to further price accelerations fast and decisively. We are very pleased to see that the implementation of our Formula G strategy process is now clearly showing strong results. Our performance in the first quarter of 2022 is outstanding. Revenues grew organically around 19%, and the adjusted EBITDA by more than 10%, and the earnings per share more than 8%. All business segments and regions strongly contributed to this success with our key growth drivers contributing over proportionally.
This includes, not new to you, High Value Solutions, our contract manufacturing business, products and services associated with beauty solutions, as well as our regional expansion. They all grew revenues by double digits, and revenues in High Value Solutions were up even more than 15%. This now visible growth is a direct consequence of our well-targeted investments. The strong start into the year and the ongoing high demand in all business areas give us the confidence to now increase our revenue growth guidance for 2022 from high single-digit to double-digit. We clearly see Gerresheimer firmly on track to deliver another record year. In the last calls, we regularly received questions from some of you recently on our CapEx plans. Therefore, we have decided to highlight this topic and give you more insight into our CapEx priorities. This illustrates how our investments are driving Gerresheimer's ongoing transformation.
Our fundamental principle is easy. We invest where we see growth opportunities by following our clear strategy to grow sustainable and, of course, profitable.
Three examples of these opportunities. First, the several times mentioned global megatrends. We assess opportunities through the lens of global megatrends. Better access to healthcare in emerging markets or more self-medication are just two examples of these trends. We align with and invest in such trends if these investments will generate sustainable and profitable growth. Second, the customer focus. With a clear focus on the needs of our customers, we successfully filled our books with record order intake over the last months and years. We are expanding and optimizing our global footprint and are investing in capacity to serve our clients. Third, the transformation. We position ourselves as a system integrator and solution provider. This opportunity follows a particularly important megatrend in our client base. The outsourcing of critical parts of Big Pharma's own businesses is starting to become the norm.
We are now investing in new products and new technologies to answer to that need. We seize these opportunities, we increase our capacity, we expand our business regionally, and we sharpen our focus on R&D and also services. We have a clear roadmap with a focus on High Value Solutions. Four specific examples of this. One, we are expanding our syringe business across a number of different regions. We will more than double our capacity in the next six years by investing in China.
Clearly on growth investments. 40% of our CapEx is needed for the maintenance of our infrastructure and to keep the existing capacity level. We call it a percentage of sales into profitable expansion projects to drive. On the right side of the slide, you see the breakdown of our gross CapEx spend.
This demonstrates our strong focus on High Value Solutions and shows that we put our money where our mouth is. Investments in High Value Solutions means also investments in higher margin businesses. We benefit from dynamic market development, growing their share of our revenues, and bringing higher margins. Finally, let's take a look at the financials of our investment program. With our investment program, we are committed to an attractive ROCE target growth. In this project, it is all about improved project planning to find the optimal specification for machines and production processes, and finally, about the best buy and source. We are convinced that we have huge potential in this area to improve our capital efficiency. 15% return on capital employed midterm.
After this CapEx deep dive, I will now elaborate on the key financials for the first quarter, 2022. We had a very good start to the year. Reported revenues increased from EUR 303 million in Q1 2021 by 22.4% to EUR 371 million in Q1 2022. We had an FX tailwind of around EUR 10 million, mainly coming from a stronger U.S. dollar. The organic revenue increase amounted to 19.1%. This organic revenue growth rate includes a tailwind of around 6 percentage points from pricing. Going forward, we are very well hedged. Adjusted EPS increased by 10.5% to EUR 0.63. Stripping out the FX tailwinds, organic adjusted EPS growth amounted to 8.5%. Before we come to like to zoom into the pricing effects that supported our revenue development.
In Q1, our organic revenue growth rate for the group was 19.1%. The strong revenue growth can be divided into volume and price effects. For the price component, we can separate two effects. First, the tailwind from contractual pass-through effects, mainly related to higher resin prices, and a strong contribution from all business units within the Plastics & Devices division. First, our contract manufacturing business reached strong double-digit revenue growth in the first quarter. Another impressive quarter. Reported revenues improved from EUR 147 million by 25.7% to EUR 184 million. FX support was EUR 6 million, translating into an organic revenue growth rate of 21.8%. Both business units, Molded Glass and Tubular Glass, showed double-digit revenue growth rates.
The strong growth in the tubular glass business was once again fueled by the high demand in High Value Solutions, especially ready-to-fill vials. The adjusted EBITDA increased from EUR 26 million by 15.3%. This positive development was especially fueled by our strong adjusted EBITDA growth and the lower cash out for the net working capital build-up. Due to this strong improvement in the operating cash flow, we were able to almost fully compensate for the EUR 33 million increase in net CapEx. We already discussed our detailed CapEx plans before. One cannot judge the CapEx spend on a quarterly basis given the volatility of the spending pattern and phasing effects between the quarters. In any case, the high Q1 CapEx sales ratio is definitely not representative for the remaining nine months of the year. What were the key CapEx projects in Q1?
We expanded our capacity in Europe, particularly in Wertheim in Germany and Chalon in France, with a focus on high-value vials. Both investment programs are supported by federal subsidies to ensure critical vial supply in Europe. Other important projects include the continued implementation of our syringe strategy and the production ramp-up of the new auto-injector in our contract manufacturing business. What is the outlook for the cash flow? Depending on the execution of our investment program for profitable growth, we expect a positive free cash flow in 2022, and we will start to significantly deleverage by the end of 2023. On this positive note, I now hand back to Dietmar to elaborate on the promising outlook for the current year.
Thank you, Bernd, for the insight into the CapEx details and also these very strong figures for the first quarter. How can we sum up? I would say we have made a very strong start into the year. All business segments and regions successfully contributed to this success. All our key growth drivers reported double-digit revenues expansions. We continue to deliver on the implementation of our Formula G strategy process, and Gerresheimer also benefits from its resilient business model. The excellent start into the year and the ongoing high demand in all business areas now gives us the confidence to increase our revenue guidance for 2022 from high single digit to now double digit growth. You can sum it up very easy. Gerresheimer is on track to achieve another record year.
With this, thank you for your attention for the moment. We are now happy to take your questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Dietmar and Bernd. Let's enter Q&A session. The lines are now open for your questions. The first question comes from Falko Friedrichs from Deutsche Bank. Good morning, Falko.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you. My first question is on your raised sales guidance. Can you provide a little bit more detail on which areas you think are performing better than you thought a few months ago? So the reasons behind that sales growth guidance increase. Secondly, could you quantify the headwind from higher energy prices you felt in Q1? And how should we think about this developing over the next quarters in light of your hedging strategy? Thirdly, many people seem to be worried about the extreme scenario of an energy shortage, so a complete shortage, because we're being cut off from Russian supplies. How do you think this could impact Gerresheimer? And are you preparing for such an extreme scenario by, for instance, having already discussions with the government? Thank you.
Thanks, Falko, for your questions. Just to start with the sales guidance increase. What we have seen is that basically we are more successful. As one aspect, we are more successful in our price adjustments than we have originally expected. This is one topic what helps us here. What is even more important, we see that also our volume growth is simply higher than we have originally expected. That's basically the reasons. If you look at it in detail, I think in our area of devices, we are growing more strongly in our forecasts. Same is true for plastic packaging including Centor. We see the same tendency and trend also in our packaging division.
Throughout the year, you can really say that we are growing faster than we have originally expected. This is something to respond to this question. Therefore, you cannot single anything really precisely out. Regarding the headwind for energy price, thanks for this question. We had in, I think, in Q1, it's fair to say that, after all countermeasures, I think we have net headwind of around EUR 5 million as far as the energy costs are concerned, so things which we were not able, and where we didn't have any countermeasures, in place. This was, if you look now at the plan, the peak of our energy costs actually comes from October, November, and December.
This is on the back of our, actually of our hedging, which we have implemented and gets into full force now, on for the full year 2022, starting with the first of January. This helps us in the end of the day. That's the situation regarding the energy price development.
Yeah, I probably take over the third question, which is for sure a very relevant question concerning the scenarios of the gas supply. We intensively discussed it and are working on this. Of course, it's for us, I see this a very theoretical question, but let me elaborate in the following way. From our point of view, it's extremely unlikely that the supply will stop completely. Thus, a shutdown of parts of our facilities extremely unlikely or even more unlikely too. We have fixed contracts with leading European energy suppliers in place which have to be fulfilled. Further, in Molded Glass Europe, we are hedged to around 90% with regards to gas and electricity over a long period of time, actually five years. In other parts of the business, we are hedged up to 100%.
What is more important is the point that we are system relevant and system critical. As clearly proven during the COVID-19 pandemic, Gerresheimer has a great responsibility on our shoulders for the health of millions of people out there. Our products stand for security of supply in clinics, in doctor practices, and vaccination centers. Our products are insulin pens, inhalers, prefilled syringes, injection vials, and so on. They ensure the availability of important vaccines and medications. As such, we clearly so see ourselves and the governments as well to be system relevant and system critical, and we do not expect that we are really hit by reduction of gas supply, for example, or energy supply. The authorities itself, because you asked whether we are in contact with the government. It's not only the German governments, because we are in contact with the governments.
The authorities are aware of our business model since the outbreak of COVID-19, and we already now have received positive feedback from the government towards our status of system relevant. I think there was another question in terms of the hedge. I think I answered it. I think we are hedged to more than 90% in the Molded Glass areas. I think very important to mention is also in the other areas of our business, besides Molded Glass, Europe, we are very well-protected, looking isolated for 2022, up to 100% for gas and electricity, but also long-term, also in these areas, parts of this, even with clear 100% green energy. I hope this answers your questions.
It does. Thanks a lot.
The next question comes from David Adlington, from JP Morgan. David, please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks very much for taking questions. Just 2, please. The first one on the EBITDA development and on P&D, I'm surprised that we haven't seen more drop through in the business. You say that you're able to pass through resin price increases and energy costs onto this material, and it seems like mix is improving as well. Surprised at the sort of lack of EBITDA margin improvement. Equally on PPG, where you talk about just EUR 5 million headwinds from energy prices. Surprised at the level of margin contraction if that is the case. Just wondering if you'd speak to that, and then I've got a follow-up, please.
Just first of all, we posted an excellent first quarter, double-digit growth for both revenues and adjusted EBITDA. I think what is really important in times of inflation that you cannot look simply on the margin. You have to look at how the growth of the EBITDA actually is. You see that clearly also, if you look at the profitability level. Basically, we passed on around EUR 20 million of costs to our customers without any additional profit. This basically has the amount of, let's say 1 percentage points of margin dilution. If you add this on, then you have the same level as previous year. Again, you had, in addition, this kind of headwind of EUR 5 million as mentioned before.
On this aspect, I can only say we are very confident for continued strong momentum in our adjusted EBITDA performance during this year, 2022, and show a very clear path with some clear EBITDA growth, even clearly overcoming all this geopolitical and inflationary uncertainties.
Okay, thanks. Just on the CapEx for this year, I think previously you talked about a CapEx ratio to sales, a similar level to prior year, so around 13%. Just checking whether that ratio would be reduced given the now higher level of sales expected. Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks for this question. Basically, we will stick to this 12-13 percentage points range, also when the sales are actually increasing. The difficulty is you cannot, let's say 1 percentage point, it's always a question back and forth. It's a little bit more about phasing and timing than anything else. It's very difficult to pinpoint this to the last percentage points. We are expecting today, based on higher sales numbers, that we will be around 12 percentage points, plus or minus 1 percentage point for the full year.
Super. Thanks very much.
Veronika Dubajova from Goldman Sachs.
Hi, guys. Good morning, and thank you for taking my questions. I have three, please. Just trying to reconcile a little bit the EBITDA guidance against the growth that you've already delivered in the first quarter. If I look at sort of double-digit EBITDA growth in Q1 already, and obviously I presume the energy headwind ceases as you move through the remainder of the year, especially in the second half, given what you commented on, Bernd. Just kind of curious, are there other headwinds that you're seeing that you're concerned about at this moment that leave you in the high single-digit EBITDA growth? Am I missing something or are you just giving yourself some wiggle room? That would be my first question.
My second question, I noticed in your CapEx update, which was very helpful, thank you for that you have had follow-up orders in the Czech Republic. I presume that's on the inhaler contract. Curious if you can specify the magnitude there, and when you would expect those to come through. And then my final question is just a quick update on Gx and whether you have entered into any incremental conversations around potential contracts for the pump since we last spoke a quarter ago. Thank you.
Yeah, I would take the first question regarding the EBITDA topic. As it's clear we have a strong revenue momentum in our business, and our increased top-line guidance includes negotiated price increases, which aim to offset cost inflation and therefore do not drive the margin performance. I elaborated on this before. In today's volatile market environment, we take a conservative approach to our full-year adjusted EBITDA. As usual, we will revisit our guidance at Q2 in three months from now, when we release our Q2 numbers. This will be, in our point of view, the ideal point to discuss about our margin and EBITDA growth, especially for the full year.
Yeah, I can take the topic on CapEx. The CapEx you actually see in Horšovský Týn is a very specific one. It looks but you have to see that the CapEx is actually spent not in a quarter, but it's spent over time, in various stages. What you see here in Horšovský Týn, because you're referring to this, is of course the inhaler, that's correct, but it's also other projects that are very helpful. In principle, you have to see that there is CapEx ongoing in the contract manufacturing in Horšovský Týn, but also in Pfreimd, but also in other areas of the business.
In the end, what we are doing here is it's the result of the very strong order intakes that we had in the last months and years, and it's actually the foundation for the most likely double-digit growth you will see over the loop of the next years in this segment of the business. The third question, actually, I forgot. Huh?
It was on Gx and whether you've had any more conversations on potential contracts for the pump, Dietmar.
Yes, you can imagine I will not be able to elaborate on this. We are very successful in various talks, not only in the pump business for new contracts of the existing pump, but also especially the new Sensile large molecule pump. It's early stage, and I cannot elaborate in detail on these things. You clearly see that the advanced technology now is really showing positive results. The projects are very well underway, and we see an increasing. We have strong confidence in that this business will now show positive results in the years out.
Okay, thanks, Dietmar. If I can just follow up on the Horšovský Týn. Has the Glaxo contract been scaled up since you last talked about it, or is it something else that's driving the increased CapEx here?
It's this, and it's also other projects that we actually did win on top in the second half of 2021.
Excellent. That's all I was looking for. Thank you, guys.
Thank you. Next question comes from Oliver Reinberg, from Kepler Cheuvreux. Good morning, Oliver.
Morning. I take a question. Yes, first, back again. Can you talk about what? Okay.
Oliver, we can hardly hear you. Sorry for interrupting. I think the line is-
Is it now better?
Yeah, much better.
Is it now better? Sorry. Three questions were made. First question will be on gas supply. Can you just talk about to what extent can you replace gas with other energies in your respective businesses? I guess in Molded Glass it doesn't work without gas, but is there any kind of business outside Molded Glass where there's no ability to substitute gas with other energies? Also assuming the kind of worst-case scenario, which hopefully will not materialize, if the plastic plants in Tettau and Belgium will be cut off from gas supplies, is there any kind of thought that you can share with us in terms of any kind of backup or emergency plan here? Second question, please. Thanks for the color on your capital deployment strategies.
Can you just talk about to what extent have your CapEx plan changed, if at all, on the back of this kind of energy crisis? Has this driven any kind of shift in terms of focus, how to speedily deploy this CapEx, in which region to deploy it, and also the mix between glass and plastics? The third question, please, on competitive landscape. Obviously, this kind of energy crisis is affecting us on a kind of global scale, but Europe is probably most a topic here. To what extent does this affect the kind of competitiveness of Molded Glass? I guess the European players here have to cope with high energy costs.
For capacities outside Europe, or is it simply not possible on the back of higher transportation costs? Thank you.
I think that I take over some of these questions here. I think, the gas replacement is something that is actually taking place over time. We have the first oven, for example, in our facility in Momignies, that is now 100%, only, energy, no gas, energy. But it's something that takes place over time. One more time, I don't see a risk of really reduced gas supply into the facilities of Gerresheimer as a realistic scenario, because we are system critical, system relevant, and we will have the supply and, the guarantee of the gas supply. So I don't see the scenario to be realistic. That fits also to the questions concerning the so-called cosmetic plant in Tettau. We have no 100% clean plants. There's no doubt.
In Tettau, there is a majority of cosmetics, but there's also other products like pharma and also healthcare. This means you cannot just switch off one of the facilities because you say it's cosmetics, because you would also switch off the other products. A relocation in a regulated market like pharma is not a realistic short-term scenario. I don't expect any really negative influence on this. The CapEx on energy prices, I don't think that we have shifted because we already in the past had already planned our mold plans for replacement of so-called hybrid ovens. It's a result of our sustainability strategy.
We will set up the first oven in Lohr actually this year, which is a modern state-of-the-art hybrid oven that will use a higher amount of non-gas, but classic energy, very often green energy or 100% green energy, plus the ability to switch to hydrogen, actually, as the technology develops. It first comes into Tettau this year, and the next one comes into Lohr next year. That's to the CapEx. Otherwise, there is no changes due to the energy situation and also energy prices. The competitive landscape probably is also a very important point. There's no doubt that the long-term hedge gives us quite a strong position in the competitive landscape.
We are happy that the proof of our strong push-through of the cost inflation is a confirmation of our strong market position. There's no doubt the strong hedge gives us quite a competitive advantage, and that's very helpful.
Thanks so much.
All right. Our next question comes from Daniel Wendorff from ODDO BHF. Good morning.
Yes. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for taking my questions. Two, if I may. The first one is about the competitive landscapes for your RTF syringes and RTF vials. RTF vials seems to be a rather newly evolving field. So is that very similar in terms of market share competition there, like with RTF syringes? Are there new competitors coming in? That would be my first question. Then my second question on the margin development in the glass division, in light of what we saw over 2021.
I appreciate you will talk more about this after Q2, but maybe you can give a comment on my suspicion that the margin pressure actually should rather only ease in the second half of the year with then the comparable basis being also higher on the cost side of this business. Is it fair to assume that in particular in the second half of 2022 the margin pressure on the glass division should ease? Thank you.
Yeah. I'm actually happy to take the first question. It's because it's a very interesting topic, the ready-to-fill vials, yeah. One more time, what does it mean, the ready-to-fill vials? In the end, we see that something happens that is very similar to the syringes. You're completely right with this. Many years ago, there was a lot of bulk syringes, and only a minority of the syringes actually were delivered in ready-to-fill. What does it mean, ready-to-fill? It's actually washed in a certain way, sterilized in a prepacked packaging. Now, the market for ready-to-fill syringes is in principle 98%. If you look at the vial area, the vast majority of all the vials, especially borosilicate vials, is all classic vials, where the customers, the fillers are doing the washing sterilization processes.
There's now an increasing trend towards ready-to-fill, and we are, of course, benefiting from this. At the moment, this market is dominated by small lot size biological customers, and here, of course, we enjoy very strong services and also nice prices and thus margins. We believe that in the future, this trend will more and more go over and more of these vials will switch into ready-to-fill, which is a tremendous opportunity for us because you get higher prices, better margins for these products. In principle, you take over a certain part of the value chain of the filler and customers of today that is not core for them. To come to the competitive landscape, there are already a very limited number of players in the world that are actually able to produce vials in high volumes to the necessary quality.
The washing is even more tricky and complicated. In principle, the washing that needs a certain way of clean water is tricky, and the players that can do this ready-to-fill are in principle the players that are able to produce syringes. It's the Becton Dickinson's of the world, the SCHOTT, the Stevanato, the Gerresheimers. With one exception, that Becton Dickinson is actually not focusing on vials. As such, the number of players in the world that are benefiting from this ready-to-fill trend primarily are the players mentioned. There is a very hard barrier to entrance for further players to come in.
Mm-hmm.
The margin development, probably you do wanna take this, Bernd?
Yes, mm-hmm.
I take this over. Thanks, Daniel, for this question. Actually what we see in PPG for the remaining nine months, actually we are benefiting overall with volume growth with very attractive products especially High Value Solutions, so should benefit us. We are benefiting from the fact of the hedge we'd elaborated before on that, so we have a very stable cost situation here. We are also benefiting from the fact that we are really able to get really additional price increases through the market. On the back of this, we think and expect that indeed we will in Q3 and Q4 it will basically ease then on back of this, really, the margin pressure.
That's indeed our view on the second half of the year.
Thank you.
Now we have a follow-up question from Oliver Reinberg. Oli, please go ahead.
Okay.
Can you hear me well? Can you hear me? Hello?
Yes, we can hear you. Please follow.
I'm sorry. Okay, yeah, thanks for taking my follow-up. Three actually, if I may. Firstly, in terms of stocking, I mean, obviously the kind of whole world is aware of a potential risk of shortages. Can you just talk about, have you seen any kind of stronger support or stronger orders on the back of this? Has Q1 been potentially benefiting from that? Do you actually have any kind of potential to increase capacity output if your client base are desperate for higher stocking levels? That will be question number one, please. Secondly, on pricing, I mean, it's very encouraging to see that you were able to pass on four percentage points via price. Can you just talk about how challenging is this kind of process and how much understanding you receive from your client base?
Is there any kind of chance to get any kind of color? What is an assumption for the effect from price increases without pass through for the full year? Given this ramping up, is it fair to assume it may be more than 4% in the full year? The last question, please. On personnel costs, obviously the personnel cost inflation is a major topic. People are being squeezed on gas stations, supermarkets. If this will be more of a pressure point in 2023, can you just talk about what potential wiggle room you have to offset that in terms of shifting people around, regional relocation, any more automation? Any thoughts on that would be helpful. Thank you.
Just, yeah, I think I take the first one with the stocking, and then you can take the other ones, Bernd. I think the stocking I can answer relatively short. We don't see this trend and behavior from our customer actually. We would be able to service more requests if they would come, but it's not a behavior that we actually see at the moment, and it's not what is driving the Q1 at the moment.
Maybe, Oliver, I come to your second question regarding the, let's say, the pain for the price increases. I have to say last year it was very tough because we were, especially in certain areas, in our business, leader of the pack and to increase the prices, and this was definitely tough. Now it's a little bit different because, especially given our energy price cost situation which we have, now everybody is really going out to the customers, increase the prices. On the back of this, let's say, regarding the challenges here to adjust our prices is a little bit lower than in the last year.
Definitely it's a must and therefore we also go for a next price round, as far as especially PPG is concerned. Regarding your third question regarding personnel, I can only tell you that based on our planning, we see a 4% personnel cost increase. And therefore we have this quite good under control. Just to add on what you just said regarding the organic growth, without any support of pass-through effects and without any effects of here-to-stay price increases, which are part, by the way, of our guidance, and we would also then, if you take all this out, we would also grow high single digit in our perspective for the next nine months.
We have to mention, I would like to add this, that the wages, we should not only look at this with a perspective of Europe alone or Germany alone. I think we are a global company with sites everywhere in the world, and the wages are actually developing different. We are handling this as any cost increase everywhere.
Perfect. Thank you very much.
I hope you can hear me now. Are there any further questions? All right. As this is not the case, we would like to thank you for joining us today. All the best. Stay healthy. Bye-bye.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may disconnect.