Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Heidelberg Materials Half-Year 2025 Results Conference Call. My name is Yusuf, the call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and that this 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 one on your cell phone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference will not be recorded for publication or for broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Christoph Beumelburg. Please go ahead.
Thank you, operator. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone listening. We have our Q2 results call, and we've prepared some remarks that you may have read already. Dominik and René will go through them real quick, and then we have ample time for Q&A. Over to you, Dominik.
Thanks, Chris. Thanks, everybody, for joining. Welcome from our side to the Q2 2025 call, where we will present you the prepared remarks. I think overall, great quarter for us. We are satisfied with the delivery of what we have promised. Strong revenue growth, 3%, but especially RCO up 8%, carried by disciplined pricing, by good cost management. Not so much volume help, clearly upside down the road. We have executed the second tranche of the share buyback as announced, to run it, and has been started during Q2 in magnitude up to EUR 450 million. We continue to be on the gas pedal when it comes to growth. We have closed the Giant Cement acquisition in the U.S. in April, and we've also successfully closed the transaction in Morocco end of Q2. In that respect, things are moving in the right direction. That's also true for sustainability.
Great progress here, minus 4% CO₂ emissions year over year. I think that's good because we wanted to pick up speed a little bit towards the targets of 2030, and I think that moves in the right direction. On the back of all of that, we are confident to confirm our outlook for 2025 with an RCO band of 3.25 to 3.55, a ROIC of around 10%, and a slight reduction on CO₂ emissions. Okay, we go to slide 4. When we come to the details of the results, you see revenues up 3%, EBITDA up 7%, EBIT up 8% even, and the operating margin moves up 81 basis points to 24.2%. I think that is pretty much in line with what we have targeted. H1 is a little bit weaker. That also tells you that Q2 has the right trend.
You see on page 5 the results for the first half, which is then 6% up in EBITDA and 7% up in RCO, margin up to 18.7%. What is important for us is on page 6. You see that volumes are still coming down a little bit, so there was no help at all from the volume side, which leaves the upside on the road. Good management of price over cost with a clear positive EUR 99 million that then leads to an operating EBIT of more than EUR 1 billion, first time for us in the history of the company. H1 2025, then even with a more pronounced picture on the price over cost, you see also here that the volume pressure for the first half, minus EUR 67 million, was a little bit higher for the first half.
That shows you that the volumes are ever so slightly leveling out and even coming back, which is good news, while the price over cost is even more pronounced in H2 than it is in quarter 2 versus H1. Overall, also that trend goes in the right direction. It's carried not only, but also by the Transformation Accelerator program. We have said we target the EUR 500 million. We are absolutely fully on track to get there. I would be even hopeful that we may even overperform on that one. For now, the clock is ticking, and we have about EUR 140 million in the pocket, but the trajectory is going in the right direction. Overall, I'm very satisfied, and we are very satisfied with what we see here. Europe, on a high level. On the revenue, basically more or less flattish, slightly up. Reported like for like flattish.
EBITDA margin moving up in the right direction, and also RCO on a high level moving beyond the EUR 500 million. For the EBITDA margins, you see increment up and also in aggregates up. There the trend moves in the right direction. North America with a little bit of headwind. Like for like revenues down, but reported 4% up because the growth is really moving in the right direction. I mentioned Giant Cement. EBITDA margin more or less flattish, RCO more or less flattish, and for the business lines, cement slightly up and aggregates quite significantly up in terms of margin. I think the underlying structure is okay. We just obviously need the market to come back in North America, which we are hopeful that this will happen. Asia Pacific, still, I think there is upside from our perspective, but we are turning the corner.
In the performance, you see that EBITDA margin goes up. You see that the RCO goes up. You see also that margins both in cement and aggregates go up. I think that indicates that Asia is finding some stable ground from where we then can further accelerate. Talking about acceleration, Africa-Mediterranean-Western Asia is clearly performing on a very high level. 25%, or almost 25%, revenue up. EBITDA margin significantly up to 25.8%, and results almost 50% up with just 44% up to EUR 144 million. EBITDA margin in cement really good now at 27.8%. If you go to page 13, you see that also good results on the financial side come with good results on the sustainability. Obviously, for us, key milestone in Q2 was the opening of Brevik. Some of you were present there. This is the world's first carbon capture industrial scale plant in our industry.
We are well on track also with acceptance tests and delivering the first, storing the first CO₂. That looks really promising, and we are happy that on the back of that, in H2, we will start with the sales of evoZero cement, which is a unique product globally, and we will clearly market that to some very exciting customers and projects. Circularity moves on with our development in Poland, both on recycled aggregates and also recarbonation. The combination of EcoCem there and also our Goraszków cement plant are doing in the hyperlocal vicinity around the plant a very good job, where we will now deliver the first concrete with 100% recycled aggregates. I think that's great news. Circularity is also being advanced quite substantially. Last but not least, especially also for our emerging markets, very good news from Ghana.
You heard us talk about the erection of the Cape Town clay plant. We are now in the market with the low-carbon product there, locally sourced and locally produced and locally sold, which for import markets like Ghana is a very important advantage because you don't get stuck in ports with clinker imports, but rather produce locally. 100% local content in that respect, that's great, and the market is very well accepted. The product is very well accepted in the market. If you go to the details of the sustainability performance for us, we continue to build our world leadership in terms of clinker incorporation factor, now down to 68.5%. That's very good indeed. We started back in 2020 at almost 75%, so significant progress there. What is also very important to see is the acceleration of the alternative fuel rate.
You see that we jumped up from 30.6% to 33.5%. The above 50% target is clearly in reach. Big contribution from that end, and we are very confident that we will get to the above 50% by 2030. On the back of that, obviously, the CO₂ emissions came very close to 500 kg on a global scale, in reach with a target for 2030 of below 400 kg. With that, I would hand over to René, and you go to the financials.
Thanks, Dominik. Hello everyone, as well from my side. What you see here are the quick snapshot of our financials. You see the adjusted earnings per share is very nicely up. It tells you that below RCO, everything is in shape. Also, our free cash flow generation in the last 12 months remains strong at around EUR 2.3 billion and very close to our 50% conversion target, which is good. Leverage is similar to last year at around 1.56. As Dominik alluded to, our shareholder return is, let's say, progressing with the second tranche of the share buyback, which is ongoing. I think overall, very solid financials in terms of cash flow and below RCO. If we go to the details on slide 16, the full P&L, you see our AOR, additional ordinary results, is EUR 108 million better than last year. Why?
Because last year we had the big impairments in restructuring costs for the plant closure in Europe in our numbers. That obviously there's a little bit of relief here. Financial results flat, which is based on a very, very low level for the size of the company. Income taxes is EUR 50 million up. Why is this? Because we had last year, due to the impairments of plants which we closed, we had a positive DTA of around EUR 20 million. This year it's EUR 20 million negative. That's EUR 40 million, let's say, accounting effects on taxes. The good thing is the current income taxes, which is a very determining or a big factor for ROIC, stays flat year over year, which tells you that our effective tax rate here for current taxes is improving. The rest, you know, non-controlling interest growth is slightly up. Why? Because our Africa result is very strong.
Here, for example, in Ghana, Tanzania, we have some minorities overseas that result goes out. In total, group share profit goes up roughly 20%, which is then translated into earnings per share. I guess very, very solid financials below RCO also. Coming to the cash flow on slide 17. Overall, the cash flow is roughly EUR 100 million up versus prior year. Where does this come from? Obviously, change in EBITDA up. You see that the cash outflow from working capital is EUR 120 million better than it was last year. That's what I said, what we are targeting to improve our working capital. This is what you see here. This is a little bit compensated. You see here non-cash items and other. We had to pay some cash out of provisions for the restructuring. You have seen the currencies moving.
We have some negative effects on our currencies on our cash flow here in that number also. Overall, if you then look at CapEx, you know, very disciplined, we are even EUR 40 million below last year. I think that is everything what we promise here. Again, we deliver. If you go to the next slide, slide 18, there's a net debt bridge. You see here our net debt per end of June stays at EUR 7.2 billion, which is a leverage of 1.56. You see that in the last 12 months our growth ambition here is clearly visible. We spent EUR 1.4 billion on M&A. For the shareholder returns, again, above EUR 1 billion, I guess it's confirming what we said. In that EUR 7.2 billion, we closed Asment Témara late June, so there's the Asment Témara number in there.
Pro forma, the leverage would be lower if you include also the Asment Témara results, which you obviously don't have in here. In reality, the leverage will improve even like for like in the next few months. For the outlook, Dominik, then I hand over to you back again.
Yeah, thank you, René. I'll close with a final chart. On the back of all what you have heard, we have then confirmed our guidance or will confirm our guidance to come in in RCO between EUR 3.25 billion and EUR 3.55 billion. ROIC around 10%, CO₂ emissions with a slight reduction. Just as an indication, CapEx will stay around EUR 1.2 billion, and the leverage will stay around the midterm target of 1.5 times. That's it from our side.
Thank you so much, Dominik and René. Operator, you want to start the Q&A session, please?
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode while asking a question. Anyone with a question may press star one at this time. The first question comes from Luis Prieto, Kepler Cheuvreux . Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thanks for taking my questions. I have two, if I may. The first one is if you would be able to break down the price over cost building block of your Q2 EBITDA bridge between price increases, cost inflation, cost efficiencies, Transformation Accelerator, and sustainable products. The second question, with regards to your awards of the EU Innovation Fund subsidies in two of your European plants. Should we assume that the remaining CCS projects will all be awarded EU subsidies and in what timeframe? If you could, I may squeeze in another one. If you can comment on what happens to the Mitchell Decarbonization plans after the U.S. DOE subsidy cancellation. Thank you.
Okay, Luis, hi, it's René speaking. I will take your first one, Dominik will take the second. Price over cost for Q2, the good thing is all regions' price over cost for Q2 are positive. The best news is the highest number is in Europe. That's, I think, very convincing. Dominik said price increase was obviously in AMWA. We had fixed costs for all regions going into the right direction. In Q2, we had even fixed costs below last year of EUR 36 million. There you see clearly our Transformation Accelerator effect. Overall, we are very happy that every region now has price over cost positive and sales price, again, also for all regions up versus prior year.
Okay, Luis, and then on the CCS projects, a couple of thoughts around that. First of all, EU funding is nice, but it's by far no guarantee that these projects will fly, because in most cases, the EU funding is by far not sufficient to make the projects go. That's also why you see outside of Credits, there is not even one FID decision taken in the industry. I wonder why, because you need to complement these things with many, many, many other things before you can actually FID a project. Yes, everybody's so focused on EU funding. That's nice, but let's wait and see how these projects really come to the FID status. For us, that's one, not an important decision point, but by far, by far not the most important one. Just to be very clear, just to set the scene a little bit right on that one.
Yes, there is a new round of EU Innovation Fund awards coming, and obviously, we have applied with quite a few projects for that funding round. We are confident that we will get a positive decision on some of them. Let's wait and see how that goes. On the U.S., it's very similar to the behavior that we see, that we read in the paper of the administration. Yes, they have canceled the, formally not only our grant, but I think overall $3 point something billion grants to, I think, a lot of projects. We are now in negotiation with the administration how we deal with that situation. We formally have appealed that decision, and we will now, you know, we have started to negotiate and see how that will play out. We have certainly not given up on the Mitchell project to send a very clear message.
We are confident to somehow find a solution with the administration because I think they, my understanding and our understanding is that they want investments happening in the U.S., and they want also jobs to be created, and both would be done through the Mitchell plant. That's why let's wait and see how this plays out.
Super clear. Thank you.
All right. Next question comes from Elodie Rall from JPMorgan .
Hi, Elodie.
Elodie, hello.
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. My first question is on volumes, please. Still negative in H1. Would you expect that to turn positive in H2? Notably, could you give us a bit more color on what's going on in the US? If the exit rates are any better, if you think the outlook is going to improve. Europe? Do we forecast a bit of positive volumes from here? Sustainability maybe on the strong trends in Africa. I just have a detailed question, like a little bit of a housekeeping question, but it's this line in operating results in group services and other, which had a big swing of EUR 24 million in Q2. I was wondering what drove this swing and if they should reverse in H2. Thank you.
Thanks, Elodie. Let me take the first one, and then I'll give the second one to René. I'm sure he's already looking forward to that one. Elodie, let me comment maybe and bring you some color on the volumes. In general, broadly, we should have seen the worst on volume decline, but we can't give you a guarantee which quarter exactly the turning point is reached. Whether it's happening, let's say, more towards the end of 2025 or more in 2026, hard to tell. That's also true for Europe. You know that the early indicators, if you look at permitting situation, everything that goes in the right direction, but it typically takes 6 to 12 months before it really kicks in. In volumes. In that respect, whether it's the tail end of 2025 or the beginning of 2026, very hard to say.
That is probably true for both the markets that you described, Europe and the U.S. I think in the U.S., we have the special situation that the interest rates have not yet moved down, and that obviously doesn't help the rebound of the housing market. You know that's very interest rate sensitive. That's the one point that I think we need to continue to watch in the U.S. The second question for me is the mindset of the current administration, whether they want to continue with the uncertainty that they create through the current discussions or whether they want to slow down in that respect and bring some certainty to the table down the road. Personally, if you ask me, I'm hopeful that looking a little bit at the midterms in November 2026.
I internally said, if it doesn't calm down fairly soon after Labor Day this year, in our industry at least, you won't see a positive effect anymore before the midterms. Let's wait and see. I remain hopeful that the U.S. will see some rebound, and then I can be the weather guy because you know that the weather was a little bit volatile in the U.S., to say the least. Let's wait and see. I don't know. That's something I can't manage nor guarantee, but it certainly was an unusual weather pattern in the U.S. that we've seen, and let's see how that plays out in H2, and that will then also give the full-fledged answer to the volume. Africa, we continue to be very positive. Things look for the key markets for us look absolutely in the right direction.
There's no reason to believe that Africa can't continue to click along as they did. René?
Elodie, the good thing is you are in detail in our numbers and reading what we published. That's good. Thanks. You give me the hard-time questions. This is, you know, there's the EUR 24 million, let's say, delta to prior year, you know, but that is, let's say, accounting on group level, provisions back and forth, in and out. Will this turn worse? I don't think so. Will we get something back? I would answer yes. There's no structural issue there. It's just movement, timing of provisions and what have you on group level. Okay, René. Thank you. All good, Elodie?
Yes, yes.
Okay. Next question comes from Tom Zhang from Barclays .
Hi. Thanks very much for taking our questions. First one, just back on the U.S., please. You mentioned positive pricing in all regions, but I guess, you know, slightly negative like for like still in Q2, so challenging volumes. Just wondering how you're thinking about price into the second half. Is carryover pricing still going to be enough, or do you think there's a bit of a risk around price cost in the U.S. in the second half? Maybe if you could split that cement versus aggregates as well, because I guess the margin progression has slowed a little bit in cement. The second question, just on APAC, obviously a very healthy rebound that you can see in the APAC RCO, maybe just a little bit more color generally on what's driving that recovery and how sustainable that is as well into the second half. Thank you.
Yeah, Tom, thanks a lot. Maybe I'll take both of the questions, and then René, if you have some additional comments, just jump in. On the U.S., I'm positive on pricing in the U.S. That's true for cement and aggregates. Maybe a little bit more positive for aggregates than for cement. In general, the pricing momentum from our perspective is fine. The clear answer to your price over cost question, absolutely, the clear target is to keep that well into the positive, and I have no indication that that won't work. In that respect, we are very confident that we can keep that positive. When it comes to APAC, you know, APAC for us consists of five, six different key markets. I think Indonesia, to be honest, volume is okay, but overall market development is fairly sluggish, not where we expect it to be. Obviously, that's the big upside.
If that comes back, that would help us quite significantly. Good news is that India is clearly coming back after some difficult years for us in India. There, the performance has really rebound. The same is true for Thailand. China is not super important for us, but remains very sluggish from our perspective. Then René, you may want to comment on Australia. That's an important market for us.
Oh, you've seen the weather events in Australia in the first six months, so that was obviously not so helpful. From my perspective, you know, Australia should even perform better, much better in H2 than in H1. That's probably what I have to say to Australia. Did you mention Thailand, Dominik? Yeah, Thailand is super strong. Yeah.
Okay, thanks, Tom. Next one comes from Ephrem Ravi from Citi.
Hey, Ephrem.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. Two questions. Firstly, North America, trying to get a sense of the impact of the acquisition of Giant in your financials. I suppose most of the difference between headline and like-for-like growth is Giant. Very rough math looks like the EBIT margin is substantially lower or around half of the rest of your North America business. Is that correct? If that is correct, what would be the steps to kind of improve the margins there? Secondly, a little bit more strategic question. You had identified supplementary cementitious materials as one of your key growth areas in North America in your capital markets day and the natural given your low carbon cement offering in Europe. With CRH buying eco-materials, do you think you should be moving a bit more quickly in that area before the assets get taken? Thank you.
Tom, I will take the first one there. I'll do the answer to your question. Is it Giant? You are clearly wrong. Because Giant really closed somewhere in April. Remember, last year in August, we did some acquisitions in the ready-mix and aggregate space in the U.S. That is the impact, what you see here. Be careful first six months. The first three months in the U.S., you can have even negative results due to winter and what have you. That is not Giant index. Giant, to give you the view, Giant is fully on our business plan. That's positive. We should see in H2 obviously improved numbers here, but bear in mind we bought the aggregate and ready-mix stuff in the U.S. in August. You will have consolidation impact until August for these, and then it's over. Dominic, over to you.
Yeah, Ephrem, thanks a lot for the SCM question. You are absolutely right that SCM for us, not only North America, but also globally, is a focus. We never denied that. In fact, that's part of our strategy. When it comes to your specific question around North America and the specific transaction, to be very clear from our perspective, it's not about speed, it's about discipline. We are disciplined on the execution of acquisitions, especially also in North America. From our understanding, the market is a little bit heated. We are going to stay disciplined. On the specific acquisition, I'm not going to comment on what our competition is doing. I can only tell you in transparency, we have looked at this exact same asset a couple of years back, and after significant due diligence, have declined to execute.
We absolutely had it on the radar screen, but denied to execute. That's where we are.
Thank you. The next question comes from Pujarini Ghosh from AB Bernstein .
Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Sorry for coming back to the U.S. pricing topic. In the CMD, you had highlighted that over the past few years, you've increased cement and aggregate pricing at around 5% to 6%. This year, we've heard from you as well as some of your peers that pricing probably is not as strong. I understand that it's still positive, but could you probably give us a bit more color into that? One question for René. Coming back to the free cash flow and the non-cash item that you pointed out, could you just explain what's going into that? You talked about currencies and provisions. Maybe if you can give some more detail. Thank you.
Let me, first of all, you don't have to excuse for your question on pricing. I think it's a big focus for us. Absolutely fine. We have no problem. If we can't comment on details, we'll let you know. I think in general, to answer your question, it is positive. Pricing both in cement and aggregate. Obviously, with the regional market difference that I can't go into any additional details, it's probably a little bit more pronounced positive in aggregate than it is in cement to my earlier comments. Absolutely, we are still focused to realize good pricing in North America. Keep in mind, there is also now in the translation into Europe a significant currency impact for us because obviously local currency has moved quite a bit, but we report in euro.
Now to your question, what is the non-cash items in other? We have our discontinued operations there where we have some cash outflow. We have changes in provisions over there. We have a result from disposal of assets, yeah, because if we have a positive asset, the impact will be taken out there, and you get the positive one in net CapEx. That's probably these are the four, items, four, five items, and then some other smaller movements which we had in there. I hope that answers your question, Pujarini.
Yes.
The next one comes from Yassine Touahri from On Field Investment Research .
Yasinne.
Thank you very much for taking my question. Just a question about your view on pricing in Europe this year and next year. I understand that this year there is a bit of a pause in the price increase compared to what we've seen over the past two or three years. I'd like to try to understand how you're thinking about next year. Do you feel that you will be able to increase prices substantially because there will be less free allowance? Do you feel like in the U.K. the independent import might put a bit of pressure on prices or on your market share and might cap the price increase? It would be great to think a little bit about to understand the way you're thinking about those developments for next year.
Yeah, thanks, Yassine. I think on pricing in Europe in general, our policy has not changed. We are absolutely targeting to cover at least inflation in our pricing. That's true for cement and aggregate. I think that has worked well. That's clearly the message. Are there regional and market differences? Absolutely. Can I go into any more details? No, you understand the reasons from a legal perspective. In general, to be very clear, the inflation coverage has worked in both business lines, and we are very focused to continue to make that happen and where we can advance pricing above inflation. That's obviously also our target if possible. The mid and longer-term outlook from pricing you indicated, I think, is positive because, yes, the costs will rise dramatically, especially those players who have a higher carbon footprint. That's the name of the game.
That's why we are so focused to reduce our carbon footprint globally, but especially also in Europe. With that, create a cost advantage down the road. That also turns into the advantage to work more flexible on the pricing side of things and also with lower carbon profits on higher margins. In that respect, the pricing sentiment from, I can only comment on Heidelberg Materials, but in our head, pricing sentiment for Europe is clearly positive.
When you see in the U.K. a lot of import terminals being built, potentially taking 15% to 20% of the market when you look at all the capacity, and when you see in France a company like EcoCem announcing that they want to take 5% to 10% of the market, what do you think can be the, how do you think the industry can react? How do you think you can avoid losing market share versus those new entrants?
You know, it's a competitive game, guys. You know, this is what it is. That's why I always said, you know, I want to be able to compete with the Chinese and everybody who I'm facing in my local markets. It's not something I can manage. It's the competition that's true now for the UK, and it's true now for France. Hey, guys, we need to be competitive against imports or other local players. That is our clear mantra. You know, I cannot keep everybody out or do something else. For me, that's not the name of the game. We want to be the best operating player in each of the markets we are operating in, and the local team has to face imports in the UK and deal with it. The same is true for France.
If they deal with new competition, they better make sure that they learn the lesson and understand that they need to get even better in order to outperform them. That for us is our clear focus. When it's, you know, CBAM has not been enacted fully. You know that the UK is discussing also about CBAM. Let's wait and see how this plays out. I tend to believe this is more a short-term game that you are talking about now. The mid and long-term economics for that may not work if CBAM is enacted. Let's wait and see. I put not all my hopes on CBAM, but that certainly will give some tailwind to bring a different market dynamic along and really also honor those who are deeply decarbonizing. That's the purpose of CBAM.
Yeah, thank you very much.
Thanks, Yassine. Next question comes from Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley.
Cida.
Hello.
Hello. Just a couple of follow-ups. Can you make any comment on Pavewood? That was a project that we spoke about at BCMD as was potentially going to get approved in the not-too-distant future. Has there been any change there? Can you please talk a little bit about how you view the landscape in Germany? You guys are obviously there. You're a big player in the construction and infrastructure space. Maybe you've got a little bit of color for us in terms of how policymakers are thinking about the grand ambitions on infrastructure spending. In the current sort of backdrop, are there any projects actually getting approved? Perspective, they would be really helpful. I appreciate all the comments on sort of pricing discipline and understand that fully.
Are there any sort of regions though where you are seeing a little bit more competition or where the commercial approach of your competitors in the market is a little bit less disciplined? That would just be interesting to understand. Thank you.
Okay, Cedar, thanks for your two and a half questions. We'll dive into them. Easy answer on Pavewood, fully on track. We hopefully get a final decision over the summer. That's been always the target. From our perspective, that is still fully on track. When it comes to Germany, you've seen all the different announcements around infrastructure packages here and there, yet it's not fully through the legislative circus. We expect this to happen in the early autumn. Now it's summer break also in Germany, and then they go into the early autumn execution. You have stability on the planning, and then I think it takes a couple of months, as I said earlier, six, nine, twelve months in order for it to kick in. I would not expect, to be very honest, any significant lift-up from these large infrastructure spends in the remainder of 2025.
Maybe it's a very tail end, but then more so in 2026 and going forward. Then it really kicks in. You know the mathematics around it. If only half of that comes ever true, that's a big boost for the German market. In that respect, whether it's energy transition, whether it's data centers, whether it's defense spend, I think that is a big tailwind for the industry in Germany. That's a little bit the thought around the timing. In the meantime, you know that the interest rates are coming down. Early indication is that also housing and private construction comes back a little bit. There are small signs of hope also on that end, different to the U.S. I think maybe we have even a couple of different factors going in the right direction when it comes to Germany.
And pricing, Cedar, you know, as I said, there is no concern for us in terms of any landslides or any clusters of markets where things go in the wrong direction. I think some of the markets have been asked by your colleagues upfront that are a little bit more volatile in this respect. I ask for your understanding that we don't comment on any specific markets for antitrust reasons.
Cedar, just to give it a little bit more color, I don't go into the details, but if you look, Europe up, North America up, Africa-Mediterranean-Western Asia up, Asia flat. That's a little bit by region. I think that's not a bad story, I would have said.
Great. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next and last question comes from Marcus Cole from UBS Investment Bank. Marcus.
Hey, Marcus.
Thank you very much for taking my questions. The first one is just on Africa. How do you think about sustainability growth there, not just in the second half, but also moving into 2026? The second one is just, can you remind us on your ambitions to M&A in emerging markets? Thank you.
Yes, Marcus. First of all, sustainable growth, we've made that point very clearly in the capital markets. Africa is the only region in the world that has population growth in a meaningful way. That will certainly also eventually drive the growth to be sustainable in Africa. The second driver is urbanization. You heard us say in the capital market that urbanization trend is fully intact, and that's also true for the big centers in Africa. We are very positive on the mid and long-term perspectives for Africa. That's why we are operating in Africa. As I said, it's the only global region that has sustained population growth. In that respect, we feel very comfortable. When it comes to M&A, you saw that Asment Témara has now closed. That's an emerging market transaction in Morocco.
We'll continue to build out in our core markets, not outside of our core markets, but in our core markets. We're going to continue to build out our market position. We also turn out lead markets where we believe that's not our core market. You know that we are in transaction in Congo. Let's wait and see that that gets closed. We've sold other smaller emerging markets, and we strengthen the position in our existing emerging markets. That's a little bit strategy in the last couple of years, and we've communicated that we'll continue down that route for the foreseeable future.
Thank you. There's one more that sneaked in. Nope, disappeared, as I just said it. I think this concludes our conference call for today. Thank you for asking your questions. The fact that we only have 45 minutes probably says that we were very straightforward with our answers and the results. We are going on the road again after the summer break. The next conference we are attending is the Morgan Stanley Conference in London. We're also roadshowing in the U.S. in September. Feel free to reach out to us if you want to see us and meet us. In the meantime, have a very good summer break. Speak to you then in September.
Thanks. Thanks a lot, everyone.
Thank you. Bye.
Enjoy the holidays.
Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing ChorusCorp, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.