Welcome to the Heidelberg Materials third quarter results 2024 conference. [crosstalk] I'm Sandra, the Chorus operator. I would like to remind you that all participants are 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 further 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 Christoph Beumelburg, please go ahead, sir.
Thank you, Operator. Welcome to our Q3 conference call. As always, we have management in the room, Dominik, René, Robert, and also from the IR team. We look forward to a lively discussion after our presentations, and with that, over to you, Dominik.
Chris, thanks a lot. Thanks a lot, everybody, for joining. Welcome to our Q3 results call. You've seen the presentation, so I can go through this fairly quickly, and then we go into the Q&A. I think it's been a good quarter. Results are up 3% on EBITDA and RCO level. Also, margin is up beyond 25% EBITDA margin. Revenue is flat. I think in this environment, this is a good development. The performance has been carried by many parts of the organization, but especially by North America. Also, through the highly accretive M&A deals, which we will go into some more details there. Going also into the next years, we have decided to launch the Transformation Accelerator Initiative, where we will chase EUR 500 million result contributions by end of 2026 on a yearly run rate. And that will be, we'll go into the details in just a minute.
René will then cover the free cash flow discussion, good performance to 1 billion over the last 12 months. Then everybody is here working vividly on getting Brevik up and running. That looks really promising, and we'll come on stream then in the first half of 2025. On the back of all of that, we are confident for the remainder of the year. That's why we have raised our outlook by lifting the lower barrier of the bandwidth from EUR 3 billion to EUR 3.1 billion. The new guidance on the RCO says it's between EUR 3.1 billion and EUR 3.3 billion, and we should be around 10%. Then the next page, page three, you see the development. Overall, flat like for like on the revenue side. As I said, EBITDA and EBIT up 3% and the operating EBITDA margin at above 25%.
You see also, if you look at the nine-month page next one, that the quarter is important for us when it comes to the trajectory and the trend line because you see that the quarter performance of Q3 compared to the nine-month performance, respectively the first half, is significantly better. Nine months is now down 3% like for like on revenues, 2% up on EBITDA and EBIT, but the Q3 performance is in all dimensions better than that. So you see that the trend line goes in the right direction. If you then look at the bridge, I think what's encouraging to see, okay, we lose a little bit on currency, we win on scope. I think the scope at almost EUR 30 million. And then what's important for us to see is that negative impact from volume has slowed down in the Q3 versus the first half.
So I think that's also encouraging. While the pricing and our costs is still holding up very well with good pricing and also a little bit relief on the energy side of things. But overall, I think that's an encouraging picture and important for us to track that as we go into the remainder of the year. You see this now also compared to page six, where you see that the volume block is much bigger compared to the, despite the fact that in absolute terms, the third quarter is obviously much bigger than the first and the second quarter. So in that respect, really, you see the machine is running in the right direction. And you also see on the scope effect, the nine months is EUR 49 million, while alone for the Q3 , we have EUR 29 million.
You also see the ship is sitting right in the water, and I think that looks encouraging also going into the remainder of the year and going into 2025. If you then look at Europe, I think holding up on a high level, basically flat on the RCO line. I think the demand recovery continues in Eastern Europe. I think Eastern Europe continues to be very strong from our perspective, while Western Europe is still a little bit sluggish volume-wise. I think that's not where it used to be, that clear, far off its peak. The good news is also there on the volume side, we see some flattening out in most markets, and that should give us clearly help going into the remainder of the year, but then also going into 2025.
It's no secret that the Transformation Accelerator is a global program, but it also tweaks towards the European asset base. We have already announced the four clinker plant closures in Hannover and Añorga and two French plants. That result contribution obviously flows into the Transformation Accelerator as one of the core pieces, but by far not the only piece. When you go to North America, really, we're happy, very happy with the performance in North America. Also relatively, I think this is a very good performance. Revenue is even up. RCO clearly up like 100%, and also the margin is clearly improving in a combination of volume still being sluggish, also because of the weather events, especially in the south of the Carolinas and Florida, but results being driven by good resilient pricing performance and very disciplined cost management.
So I think in that respect, it goes in the right direction. And a significant amount of that EUR 29 million in the scope effect comes already from North America. You know that we've done three acquisitions in this quarter in North America alone, and that really is a significant improvement also when I look towards the remainder of the year and going into 2025. Asia is maybe the one point where we are still waiting for a better dynamic to the upside. I think it's holding up well despite sluggish performances on the volume side and partially also on the pricing side in some of the core markets. That's true for India. It's true partially for Indonesia and Thailand. But also there, we now see at the latest development quite some hope at the end of the tunnel.
That's true especially for Thailand and Indonesia, which are important markets for us. Africa, I've been traveling, as you may have followed on LinkedIn, again in Tanzania, and great job by the local team that was the latest acquisition of Tanga, goes in the right direction. And to deliver these results in a very difficult market environment in Africa, I think it's impressive. The team is doing an excellent job. The results are basically flat and even, sorry, up by a notch. And also the RCO margin goes up. So in that respect, I think the local team, despite very difficult general circumstances in these markets, has done an excellent job. Then just briefly on the Transformation Accelerator, we basically target the €500 million that I already said by the end of 2026 in a yearly run rate.
It does mean optimization of clinker and cement assets with a clear focus on clinker, with a clear focus on Western Europe. You know that there is overcapacity in the market. It always has been. You know that we are clearly targeting to be the undisputed cost leader also when it comes to fully loaded costs, including CO2 footprint. So in that respect, it's clear that we do our homework in Europe with a very targeted program. And for the first two years, this program is now baked into this Transformation Accelerator. Next to that, we continue to work on the procurement side, clean further the back office and also some overhead topics. There's always room for improvement.
Then obviously also with the new addition in the management team with Axel Conrads now, we put a significant focus on asset productivity and asset performance, and we chase some significant potential on technical KPIs and obviously try to also improve our alternative fuel position and our SCM position for supplementary cementitious materials. If you go to the sustainability side of things, as I said, we are working super hard. I again worked with Brevik a couple of weeks ago. Everything looks very good. Mechanical completion will be done by December 1. That's our ambitious fighting target this year. So not by end of the year, but even a month earlier. We then go into what we call the hot commissioning. That will be an exciting moment for the team and for all of us.
And then we hope to see you also for the Capital Market Day in the first half of next year. And we are planning to do that in Brevik. So that would give all of you a chance also to take a look at what we are doing up there live. I can tell you from my own experience, it's really a fundamental milestone, not only for the company, but also for the industry. On the back of that, we are launching also the decarbonization project in Italy. There were a lot of discussions that our carbon capture work in Italy that the government supported. I think it's moving in the right direction. We are taking a cluster approach in Italy, similar to the one in Padeswood. So I think in that respect in the U.K.
So I think in that respect, things are moving in the right direction, but it's early days on that one. We work limitedly on circularity and also low-carbon product solutions. We've made an interesting investment into one of the key tech startups, EnviCore, in Canada that has a very interesting reprocessing of recycled construction demolition waste. That is really a very interesting setup. It's one of many, but that's just one that we are chasing this quarter, and then we talked about the project in Poland that is now fully up and running, and it's producing very encouraging results. We have a couple of technical optimizations going on, and we are working also on replacing aggregates and sand up to 100% in fresh concrete.
That is technically looking very encouraging, so we have a lot of hopes in that project down the road, and it's scaling up, obviously. With that, I leave it to René to go through the financial highlights with you. Thanks.
Thanks, Dominik. Hello everyone. René Aldach. So the top one is adjusted earnings per share, which is without AOR, increased in the quarter by 14%, which tells you if RCO goes up 3% and our earnings per share 14%, that's below RCO, the performance is really good. No big AOR items. Financial results very good. Tax results very good. And we had a last year in the discontinued operation, we had an increase of the provision, which affected last year negatively, but overall, the performance below RCO is very good. Last 12 months, we cash flowed at EUR 2 billion. That confirms what we said in the H1 call. We are traveling around the EUR 2 billion and should hit that number as well for the end.
Leveraged at 1.5, a little bit up compared to September 2023, while we've done again a share buyback end. Dominik mentioned some acquisitions in Europe and in the U.S. And this confirms that we are at the lower end of our corridor, and I think that's a very well placed. We've issued the second green bond to €500 million. The interest was very high, and the timing was very good. If you look now at interest, I think we did here a very good job. And then in the next few weeks, the first round of our second share buyback will be also finalized. So overall, all financials are trending into the right direction. Dominik, over to you.
Yeah, on the back of that, it's clear that we look optimistically towards year-end. That's why we were confident enough to raise our guidance by lifting the lower bound of the band that we gave you. So it's now the EUR 3 billion is now replaced by EUR 3.1-EUR 3.3 billion. And also the ROIC will come in around 10%. I think that we are very comfortable around that. The same is true for CO2 emissions. The numbers we will then show you again as our normal rhythm on a half-yearly basis. So with that, I'll give it back to you, Chris, and we're looking forward to your questions.
Thanks, Dominik. Thanks, René. Operator, you may want to start the Q&A queue.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered a queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questions on the phone are requested with only handsets while asking a question. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time.
Great. We have many people on the line. First one comes from Elodie Rall from JP Morgan.
Elodie, hello.
Hello, Elodie. Hello.
Hi. Hello, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. The first question I have is on the cost savings plan that you have announced. You are talking about EUR 500 million in impact annualized by 2026. Is it all incremental versus 2024? And how should we think about the ramp-up and the savings in 2025? And then related to that, in 2025, you had an EBITDA target, I think, margin of 22%. Does that mean that with that plan, you get there? Did you need that plan to get to that 22% margin? So that's a long question. I don't know if I'm allowed to a second one. So maybe you want to answer that one first.
Absolutely. Leave it there and then we see.
Okay. Let me do the second one, and then René maybe goes to the first one. So on the 2025 margin, we have our strategy running. This program is not being initiated to try and get to the 22% margin. That's not the point. It'll need to be precise on that. And we'll see where we exactly get in 2025. But this program is not launched just because to get to the 22% margin.
So, Elodie, then the other two questions you've raised. Firstly, the split. There should be roughly 40/60. There should be 40% coming in 2025 and 60% in the year after to come to 327. And then your first one, can you just add the EUR 500 million to our result? That is obviously there's a lot of inflation, and this EUR 500 million will take, let's say, a big part of the inflation hopefully away. So don't just add the EUR 500 million to the result because there will be a staff concentration next year and so forth. But everything is clear. Our ambitious target is to get as much of the EUR 500 million to be additional to 2024. But I think it's fair to say to René's point to take 100% would be an aggressive approach.
Right. The next question comes from Luis Prieto in Kepler Capital . [crosstalk]
Luis?
Y eah. Hello. Luis Prieto here. Thanks a lot for taking the questions and taking the time to help us. I had a couple of questions. The first one, if I recall correctly, in Q2, you highlighted that India and Indonesia were the only markets under price pressure. Does this still remain the case, and are we seeing any other countries joining the list? And the second question is a bit more of a general one on sustainability. Could you shed light on the current pricing differences between regular cement and evoBuild? Is it fair to assume that the margin is currently higher for these products than the standard offering? Thank you.
Yeah. First question, no, we don't see any major countries being added to the list of India and Indonesia when it comes to general price pressure. That's not the case. And I think we also see some uplift now, especially Indonesia on that pricing side. So I think we are working rather to get off that list with India and Indonesia rather than adding countries to the list. Secondly, cement and EvoBuild, absolutely, we are trying to get better margins from the sustainable products.
That's clearly our ambition. We need to be a little bit careful with the absolute price point because margin is, in that case, not necessarily meaning that you get an absolutely higher price point. There can be a difference between the two, just to give you that clarity. But absolutely, from a margin perspective, the target is clear to get more margin with the lower-carbon products than with the normal ones.
Thank you.
Thanks, Luis. The next question comes from Paul Roger from Exane BNP Paribas.
Hello? Hey. Good morning, Dominik. Congratulations on the results. So I've got a few questions on Transformation Accelerator as well, if I may. So firstly, can you quantify the magnitude of capacity closures you're assuming? You've obviously already announced four, but I wonder what the total might be in that plan. And then secondly, how will you actually track the progress? Will it be, I don't know, benchmarking, or is there some other method? And will management incentives be changed to align with it?
Okay. Let me do the first, and then anyone talk about the tracking, and then I can come back to the incentives. Now, I think on the capacity closures, very specifically, Paul, we just have included the four plans that we have announced. So that's Hannover, Añorga, and two plants in France. We have a longer-term asset plan in Europe, but for this program, it's running until 2026.
We only have sliced out these four clinker capacity closures for now. So down the road, there could be potentially additional things. But for this program, we have included the ones that I have mentioned that have already been communicated. But you remember, in the earlier calls this year, we promised you to come back with specific numbers. And this is why we then now also came up with a EUR 500 million that includes those four plants. And as I said, then we take the clinker capacity out, and there is a significant cost relief by plant that sits anywhere between EUR 7 million to EUR 10 million per plant alone, plus all the auxiliary costs that come with it. So I think that is a significant contribution to that Transformation Accelerator.
So, Paul, regarding reporting, and every country, let's say, has a target for each of the three pillars we have presented to you. And then we come to provide the measures on business line level and even on plant level. How do we come to that EUR 500 million? And that will be then tracked on a monthly basis. And as well, we will put, obviously, that into the respective budgets because otherwise, it's difficult to track and to incentivize. And regarding incentivization, obviously, our countries will get a part of their bonus willing to hit their targets, obviously. Yeah. It's very simple in our company.
That's why the timing of this program is now. You may ask, why do this? Well, we want to basically do the operating plan 2025 already, and that means also that it's incentivized. Because to Eloise's question early on, this is put on top of the normal stuff. That's why it is absolutely incentivized, country by country, function by function, to get to the contribution to the EUR 500 million already in 2025.
That's great. Thanks a lot.
Thanks, Paul. Next question comes from Cedar Ekblom.
Hey, Cedar.
Hello.
Hi, guys. Thanks very much. Sorry, another question on the savings or optimization plan. So of the EUR 500 million, you just said that you think the assets that you're closing will save sort of EUR 7-EUR 10 million each. I assume that that's a fixed cost number. So it would be really helpful to try and understand how much of the EUR 500 million is a fixed cost saving and how much of it is sort of more of a variable cost saving. You're buying this coal, you're buying this raw mass, etc., because you're closing assets. Because I think it'll be helpful then to actually understand what the impact is to numbers. So could you quantify fixed cost benefit of that 500? Thank you.
Cedar, this is a tricky one. Quite honestly, out of competitive reasons, we cannot and don't want to disclose the split between variable cost and fixed cost. I think it's clear that it's a contribution of both. But just to be very clear, there is also a significant fixed cost component in there because variable cost, as the name says, they come and go. If you want to make this sticky, you obviously also need to get after the fixed cost. It's a combination of the two, but we are not going to be super precise about where the contribution exactly comes from when it comes to fixed and variable split. The same is true for specific KPIs that we chase.
I ask for your understanding. But we're going to be transparent about the progress of the program, so we're going to come back to you exactly where are we. And so you will have the transparency around it.
Cedar, look at the slides in the pack. pillars one, two, and three. And if you look at pillar three, alternative fuel clinker incorporation, that all obviously goes into variable. Then on the left, you have the plant closures, which Dominik said as a big part of fixed. Then we do, let's say, productivity, obviously, is as well fixed. And then we tackle this procurement, especially third-party services. This we will tackle as well, and that is obviously variable, so as Dominik said, there's a fair mix, but you can assume that there's a relatively vast fixed cost in there.
Okay. And I don't know if you'd give it to us, but would you put any sort of broad-brush numbers around how much each of those buckets would contribute? Even if it's a range, 20%-30%?
No, it's not the same.
No, we don't give that by pillar. We have it here, but we don't, obviously. We need to have it internally, but we don't give that extra thing.
Okay. No problem. Thanks very much.
Thank you, Cedar.
Next one comes from Berenberg, Harry Goad.
Hey, Harry. Yeah.
Good morning to you, please. Sorry, another one on the transformation program. I think you indicated most of it is in Europe, but can you give us any guide on how it breaks down across, I guess, your global operating divisions? And then secondly, just separately, any update, please, on trends in European volumes, what you've been seeing in recent months, and then is there any sort of calls for optimism in Western European patterns? Thanks.
Yeah. Again, here, we will give you a tracking on the EUR 500 million, but we will not break it down into areas. You will see it in the area of performance in the end, whether there is a contribution or not indirectly. We're not going to break the program down into areas for the same reason that I said earlier. Now, I do give you the indicator that, yes, there is a large chunk coming out of Europe, but it is deliberately a global program.
There is also a significant contribution coming from all other areas, all other areas that include North America, that include Asia, that includes Australia, that includes Africa. This is, yes, when it comes to the asset clinker closures, that's where it's focused on Western and Southern Europe. The fixed cost element, to the earlier discussion with Cedar, the fixed cost element is also mainly coming from Europe because we always said there's overcapacity. We want to come down with our fixed cost asset heaviness in Europe. That inevitably leads to Europe. But other than that, it is clearly a global program. There is a procurement program in there that cuts across all of our areas. In that respect, all fine. On the Europe demand side, I said Eastern Europe is pumping along in a very strong fashion.
In those markets, it has been difficult in the last, let's say, 15, 18, 24 months. Mainly Northern Europe and Western and Southern Europe that are traditionally very important markets for us. We do see some bottoming out. It may be a little bit too early to celebrate that things are going up and through the roof again. That's clearly not what we see. However, we do see bottoming out. Volumes also very recently have been very encouraging. In that respect, we are moving in the right direction. Now, do we expect a volume explosion in those markets in 2025? No. Do we expect some more stability? Yes. The full rebound, it's very hard to predict. Let's wait to get it to 2025, and we keep you posted on that.
But it's clear for us with the large European footprint, there's a massive upside if that volume rebound comes, especially once we've worked on our Transformation Accelerator. And that's the purpose of the exercise.
Thank you.
Thank you. Next question comes from Tom Zhang from Barclays.
Hi. Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking our questions. Two for me, please. Sorry. The first one is on the transformation plan as well. It's a bit of a cheeky one, really. So you mentioned EUR 7 million to EUR 10 million for each of the site closures, and those feel like big actions taking down kilns. But then it does suggest a lot of the other EUR 500 million is still procurements and the technical initiatives. On those things that you were kind of doing already, what is really different, I suppose, with this Transformation Accelerator versus, as you mentioned, a lot of this is incremental to what you were doing as business as usual, cost reduction?
What's really different? And then the other one is just any idea on restructuring costs and any cash out that you would actually need to put in in order to realize this EUR 500 million over the next two years? Thank you.
Tom, I think the first one was different, and then Elodie will take the second one on the restructuring costs and the cash out. What's different is that if you look at our, not our, but in the industry's fixed and variable cost development over the last, let's say, three to five years, that's transparent. You can see it in our reports.
You can see it in everybody's report. I would say the increase sits around 15%-20%. Okay, there was inflation out there, but we are ambitious guys, and we want to roll that back. And that's what makes this program different to really alert everybody that there is something we need to roll back and make sure that we really are, as a company based in Europe, very, very competitive. And that's what we want to make another step change on asset heaviness, on competitiveness with this program. That's also why, to the earlier question of Elodie, we are trying to get as much of the EUR 500 million on top of the 2024 results and not just compensate other potential cost increases.
Let's talk about how much does it, let's say, cost. If you followed our H1 results, we have presented in the AOR already nearly EUR 200 million in permanent restructuring costs for the plants in Europe, and this is exactly for the four plants Dominik has mentioned, and also on the other two French ones, so there are these EUR 200 million already in our H1 P&L, and then, obviously, from a cash flow perspective, when the plants are closed, they need to pay restructuring. But for the rest, to be honest, to deliver the rest, I would not think there are big material results or, let's say, AOR or cash outflows of the company. It would be middle digits, middle double digit millions, which is not material for this kind of program.
Understood. Thank you.
This is not a mass layoff program that creates restructuring costs. The ones that have significant impact on that, René has just shared with you, and that way it is already baked into our 2024 number.
Thanks, Tom. Next question comes from Tobias Woerner from Stifel.
Tobias.
Yeah. Hi, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions too, if I may. Number one, when we look at North America in terms of like-for-like at the revenue and the EBITDA level, 0.9% and 11% respectively, how much of that is, or I take it Mitchell is part of that like-for-like, and how much of that is related to it, just roughly to give us a sense? And then secondly, in the past, you talked about trying to crystallize the value in your North American assets, which have significant aggregate exposure, and we all know what that is valued. Have you any further thoughts on those? Thank you.
Tobias, I think on the first one, again, there, I think the indication that in the past, we can also for competitive reasons not disclose exactly how much Mitchell impact is there. But one thing is clear. It is a significant contribution for Mitchell, but by far not the only one. So if I look internally, it really comes from all parts of the U.S., maybe less so even from the southern parts because you know that the southern parts have been heavily impacted by weather, especially in September. So it's maybe a little bit more from the northern parts than from the southern parts. But I think I hope that answers your question, and then on the U.S. assets, we stick to what we have said. We don't take anything off the table. We continue to watch the development.
You saw the recent news in the last couple of days again. There is a lot of movement, a lot of either speculation or specific plans that have been disclosed. Very interesting for us to watch that situation. We sit on a very, very valuable asset base in the U.S. that is performing at very competitive levels. And we continue to watch what's the best way to valorize that. And as we go along, we then take the right decision that is in the best interests of our shareholders.
Thank you very much. And sorry, if I may follow up, quickly. Any thoughts on that? They tend to be known as shrewd M&A people, not willing to give up quickly. Would you reconsider your position there?
We don't comment on any speculation. They're not the competition. It's nothing for us to if you ask us whether we are playing in that rumor pot there, no.
Thank you.
Okay. Thanks, Tobias. The next question comes from Citigroup, Ephrem Ravi.
Hi. Thank you. Hi. Thank you. Just two questions. Firstly, on the sustainability slide, obviously, you have a new demolition center in Poland. One of your competitors clearly has much bigger plans. They already have apparently about 100 demolition centers or recycling centers already. Is this a business that you are looking to grow very fast, or is this going to be very selective and one-off? And secondly, just a clarification on your transformation program. The four plants that you mentioned, which obviously the French plant closes next year, but the other two, and Speed also has closed. Is that included in the 500, or 500 is incremental to these four plants that have already had restructuring costs taken? Thank you.
Okay. René will talk to the second one, and I will. It's good to raise the one in Poland because the one has nothing to do with the other. We have hundreds of sites that do demolition of concrete waste. There's nothing specific. Sorry that we didn't be transparent about this, but there is nothing. Hundreds of our aggregate sites do recycling of concrete. The Polish one is a completely different approach because it's not demolishing concrete and then using that at subbase somewhere in road construction or anything. This is targeted to get high-level sand, first A-class sand and A-class rock that can eventually to 100% replace technically fresh sand and fresh natural stone.
So I think in that respect, that has a completely different ambition level. And I don't know that there is any project like this going. If you have knowledge about it, let us know. We are always willing to learn. That would be fantastic to share ideas. But from our perspective, we are really trying to lead the pack there.
And the four plant closures we are talking here right now, they are included in the €500 million targets, the values of these.
Thank you.
Thanks, Ephrem.
All right. Thanks, Ephrem. The next question comes from Rajesh Kumar from HSBC.
Rajesh.
Hi, Dom. Good afternoon. So I have to as well. Firstly, on the EM portfolio, Asia has not probably performed to your liking, and Africa Middle East is coming back. But looking just on the asset base on return and returns, what do you think is the optimal return and where those assets are kind of currently generating those assets generated versus what it is for the group? So that's my first one. And just on the technical one, on the scope effect, if you could just give us what's kind of the scope effect you are looking for Q4 and into 2025 based upon your acquisitions in 2024, and what's kind of the what do you call the cash flow impact for 2024 results?
Okay. Rajesh, let me do the first one, and then René will take the scope effect for the remainder of Q4 or for Q4 and then going into 2025, although there's not a discussion about the 2025 number yet. But nice try. Let's get to the Q4 number, and René will give you some transparency around that. On the emerging market portfolio, if I understood your question right, we are going to continue to optimize the asset base. There are still a couple of countries that we have on our list that could potentially be either built or divested, more the latter than the first.
So bear with us. I think there are a couple of things in the pipeline, but we have no haste whatsoever to execute. We do this only if we drive shareholder value and if we increase the focus on our emerging market portfolio and performance of our emerging market portfolio as a whole. So that exercise is not finished, but we communicate always when we have results, not just thoughts. So in that respect, bear with us. As the pipeline turns into a reality, we'll come back to you and let you know. But it's an ongoing effort, obviously.
What I said already in the H1 call, year to date now, the scope EBITDA is EUR 76 million, and I said it will be north of EUR 100 million, and that will be north of EUR 100 million end of the year. And for 2025, you know we have not yet had our budget discussion, so I cannot give you the answer. Obviously, for 2025, we've had the full effect of the US acquisitions, so that will be a small contribution, obviously, but I cannot tell you the number right now.
Okay. Thanks, Rajesh. Next question comes from Gregor Kuglitsch from UBS.
Gregor, hello.
Gregor, hello.
Hi. Good afternoon, folks. So a couple of questions. Sorry to come back to this saving program. I know that there's been sort of 15 questions already on that. But just sort of so we can get a picture kind of what's incremental to what you would have done anyways because I appreciate the plant closures. That's sort of idiosyncratic, but things like back-office procurement gains, optimization, fuel substitution, all that sort of stuff, I think you've always been doing. So just to give us an idea sort of compared to, I don't know, the last two, three years, how much of that is really additional or incremental to what the company would have done anyways. And then the second question is, can you provide us with an updated guidance for this year for year-end net debt? I think you're saying the cash flow is EUR 2 billion from memory, which I think last year was EUR 2.2 billion or EUR 2.3 billion, remind me. I guess within that, what's sort of the delta between last year's and this year's cash flow? Do you think it's kind of similar? Thank you.
Thanks, everyone. You know that we don't formally guide on net debt, but maybe René can give you an indication of where we think, at least from a corridor perspective, we land. On the program, I think the incremental discussion we had already a little bit earlier. I think it's clear. We continue to optimize as we go along. But as you probably well know, A, the asset footprint optimization in Europe is nothing you can do as you go in. Certainly, that's a major effort. All the frameworks and the boundaries you have in place also to get that executed in Europe.
So that's absolutely an extra effort with a significant contribution to the EUR 500 million that goes on top of normal business, at least also if I compare it a little bit what I see elsewhere. So I think in that respect, that's absolutely incremental. And then we have a significant procurement element in there that's also incremental with a deliberate focus and also extra resources and efforts to put a significant focus. And the same is true for the technical side of things. You can argue we obviously always watch these KPIs and also our variable and fixed goals, and I think we've done an excellent job also during this year. However, as I said, we have a new CTO in place, and it's clear that he has additional ideas, additional focus.
And that additional ideas and focus, that's why we bring this new board member to the table that we create additional results. If this would just be administering the normal stuff, Gregor, that would be not enough return on additional board member, if I may say so. So there must be additional returns coming. So my clear ambition is that the vast majority of this is clearly additional to what we do anyway. Otherwise, we don't need to launch any initiative.
Got it. Thank you.
Second question, what was the free cash flow for last year? It was EUR 2.163 billion, and we should be, as I said, we should be around that now, EUR 2 billion. If it's EUR 2 billion or EUR 2.1 billion, EUR 2.15 billion, that's dependent on working capital at the end, so that's difficult to predict. But that should be the number. And regarding a net debt position, last year we were at EUR 5.3 billion. The net debt position will be probably a little bit higher than this because we had the acquisitions, we had the share buyback, we had increased dividends, so our net debt will be higher than last year, obviously.
Thank you.
Thanks, Greg. And the last question comes from Yassine Touahri from On Field Investment Research.
Yassine, hello.
Hello.
Hello. Hello. Thank you very much for taking my question, so maybe first a question on your guidance. I think the mid-range of your guidance implies a growth in operating earnings of something like 15%-16% in the fourth quarter, so it's a big acceleration versus what we've seen so far, and even if I take out the acquisition one-off effects, it looks like you would be expecting an organic EBIT growth of maybe 10%-15% in Q4 compared to only 3% year to date. So what is driving that? Is it because you're expecting better volume? Is it because you're expecting better price cost? And do you have any evidence of this acceleration in earnings growth in October?
And the second question would be on your margin in the U.S. It looks like your aggregate margin went up quite a lot in the third quarter by approximately 300 basis points. It's a little bit surprising when I'm looking at this result compared to all the other companies that have published margin as a stable under pressure in aggregate because of the weather. So what is driving that? Is it cost? Is it a better volume performance? It would be great to get a bit of color on that.
Yeah. Yassine, let me start, and then if René wants to jump in, I think let me know.
You have done your homework, if I may say, Yasin. I think you've done a good calculation. Indeed, this would mean that the growth in Q4 is substantial. We are confident that we can pull this off. It goes back to our earlier discussion about the trend line. Q1, Q2, Q3, and what we see now in Q4, also what René indicated on the scope effect, I think there is good momentum, and this good momentum is also supported by what we have seen in October now in terms of performance. So we sit very confident here. It's ambitious, fair enough, but we are an ambitious company, and we are confident that we can deliver this. Otherwise, we would not have shared this with you in that matter. So that's the answer to that.
And then the second one, margin in the U.S., I cannot comment on the competition, but from our perspective, sometimes you lose with the footprint in brackets Europe. Sometimes maybe also you are helped a little bit by the footprint. You remember that our business in the U.S. is not 100% in the South. We have a significant business in the Northeast, in the Midwest, and also in the Northwest. And I think overall, you should assume that some of the margin improvement not only comes from the South, but also from the other parts of the U.S., where, in all fairness, the weather events were less pronounced than in the South. But overall, structurally, we see good margin improvement in all of our North American business, and we are confident that that will continue also going into the end of the year.
Maybe just to follow up on the fourth quarter, I see that the fourth quarter last year was very weak. You had a decline in EBITDA growth, while the other quarter were better. Is there any one-off, or did you have any lack of land sales, for example, in the fourth quarter of 2023, or are you expecting an acceleration of land sale in the Q4 of 2024?
[crosstalk] No, no, no. Q4, no big land sales missing last year or coming this year. So that will be operationally. If you look, 50% of what is EUR 700 million-EUR 800 million is just, let me talk, EUR 100 million improvement. And as you have said, Q4 last year was not great. All is not good. So as René said, looking at the recent trends, we are very confident with our Q4 forecast.
Do you see volume growth in October?
I think we need to be a little bit careful with what, but we are very satisfied with what we have seen in October.
Thanks, Yassine.
Thank you.
Thank you. I don't have any more questions other than that. Maybe some closing remarks from you, Dominik, before we?
No, I think a big thank you to all of you. Thanks for joining. I think we moved the timing a little bit to accommodate your schedules. Thanks for making it possible. From our perspective, I think you've seen we go with all confidence into the remainder of the year, and that also should set a great base for an interesting 2025, which will be super exciting for us with the opening of Brevik, but you probably also understood that it's not all about Brevik.
That's a major milestone for us, but it's clearly also our ambition to overall continue to grow the company in a very profitable manner also in 2025. So let's stay on top of that, and then thanks for joining.
Thanks for joining. We see some of you at the analyst dinner tonight. Looking forward to it, and then we are on the road the next couple of days, also in London. So we see you all there. Thanks a lot, everyone. Thanks, everyone. Bye. Thanks. Bye. 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. Goodbye.