Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome and thank you for joining JOST Werke Q1 2022 Results Conference. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen and then raise your hand. If you are connected via phone, please press Star followed by one on your telephone keypad.
For operator assistance, please press the Star key followed by zero on your telephone or press the operator assistance button on the bottom left side on your screen. Our speakers today are Joachim Dürr, CEO of JOST Werke AG, and Christian Terlinde, CFO. I would now like to turn the conference over to Joachim Dürr. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you very much and a very good morning. Welcome to the JOST Werke AG Q1 2022 conference call. Christian Terlinde, who is at the different site today, and myself will guide you through the presentation, and are happy to take your questions afterwards. Let's look at the highlights of what I think has been a very strong start into the year 2022. The highlights of Q1. JOST has achieved a new sales record of EUR 312 million. That's +21% with strong growth in transport, 14%, and agriculture, 46% in Q1 . Our adjusted EBIT margin remained robust at 11% despite rising costs, and we achieved a new record for the adjusted EBIT of EUR 34 million in one quarter.
Our high operational flexibility and our proactive cost and price management were the key success factors to manage the volatile market demands. We needed those factors because we're operating in low visibility. We have supply chain constraints, the war in Ukraine, ongoing pandemic lockdowns on top of the existing problems with semiconductors and global transport. Based on that strong start, we confirm our positive outlook for 2022, despite a more challenging market environment. Let's look at the markets for Q1 2022, and if you look at it regionally, region by region, you can see that the market in Europe for trucks actually somewhat contracted.
That's due to supply chain issues that our truck customers had, mainly due to the war in Ukraine. We had truck production a little bit down in Q1 2022. Trailer production and trailer markets were up by 8%, and the tractor market was also impacted a little bit by the Ukraine war and also by some semiconductor shortages. That market also contracted slightly versus Q1 2021. However, JOST benefited from the overall strong demand, also in the aftermarket. With the price increases that we've put into the market, we outperformed the European markets by market share gains, some price impact, and also with our strong aftermarket position.
North America, very strong market. Continued to grow in trucks, 4% over an already strong Q1 2021, 13% in trailers, and more or less the same level for tractors. There we have a mixed effect. The higher value tractors actually grew and the compact tractors actually went down a little bit. It was an overall quite strong market environment. However, we had an extremely strong performance in that environment with a growth of 66% on sales. We achieved further market share gains and outperformed the market, and we also benefited somewhat from the product mix effect.
APAC, a very differentiated picture. China, extremely weak compared to an extremely strong Q1 2021. We all remember 2021 after the COVID shutdowns in 2020. There was an immense increase in production, an extremely strong market. That has dropped, and that actually dropped below the normal level.
The total APAC region, therefore, on the truck side, is down 47%, and on the trailer side with +11%. JOST dropped only 14%, so we were able to recover a big portion of that drop from the Chinese market with our other strong markets, namely Australia, India, South Africa and also other markets in that region. Overall, I think we have a very strong performance in a supportive market, but that shows already some signs, at least, in China and a little bit on the European truck side, of a more stable development rather than continued growth. With that, let's go to more details, and I hand over to Christian.
Thank you very much, Joachim, and also a very warm welcome from my side. A pleasure to be able to present to you Q1 results for our group. As always, let's start with the different regions. We start with Europe.
In Europe, you can see a tremendous sales growth up to EUR 180 million in Q1 . That is up 16% compared to the prior year. Organically, it's even 18%, so a strong development despite already some initial negative impacts of supply chain interruptions and also, of course, the war in Ukraine. Overall, JOST grew very strongly in both sides of the business, so agriculture as well as transport. We believe we were able to outperform the underlying markets quite well. This was certainly supported by price negotiations and therefore achieved price adjustments with our customers that we already started last year and continue to do so this year. Overall, the FX headwinds amounted to -2.2%.
When you look at the result, I'm quite happy that we are back from the 2.6% that we reported for Europe in Q4 last year. We're now back to 9.7%. That is, of course, slightly below the 10.6% margin that we achieved a year ago. We need to bear in mind that Q1 2021 was still a quite unaffected year or quite unaffected quarter by price increases or material price increases and inflation at all. I believe Q1 last year was probably the last normal quarter that we had seen. Overall, the margin went down to 9.7%, but we see a 5.8% growth in EBIT.
In absolute terms, that is EUR 17.5 million, and that is significantly more than the EUR 4.1 million we achieved a quarter ago in Q4 2021. We did also here have some negative FX effects of roughly half a million included here. Overall, the result would have been better had the Euro been slightly stronger. With this, I would like to go over to the next region, and that is North America. North America, the growth story continues. This is all I can say, I need to say. If you look at the results or first of all, look at the sales numbers, you see a growth of 65.5% compared to Q1 2021.
Also in absolute figures, from EUR 55 million, we're now up to EUR 91 million within one year. Even if you take out the strong appreciation of the US dollar, it's still a 54% growth. This is already a significant indication that we have further increased our market share in North America. This is already challenging on the landing leg side, where we already command a very high market share of above 80%. Now we also will continue, and we are continuing to grow on the fifth wheel side. This is also very nice. Aside from that, we see some growth also in the ag side business.
There we are no longer significantly impacted by supply chain disruptions. That was very helpful in both business lines. If you compare it also to Q4 last year, you'll see there a EUR 20 million gain in sales as well. Overall, a very successful quarter for the region North America. That is also visible if you look at the results. A 91% increase of the adjusted EBIT from EUR 4.1 million to EUR 7.9 million, and now an adjusted EBIT margin of 8.6%. Certainly, the much higher capacity utilization, and therefore an operating leverage, always support that development. As I mentioned already before, the ag side was significantly supported by the higher or the better logistical situation. No longer terrible logistics disruptions.
Therefore, we could benefit on both parts of the business, agriculture as well as transport. Let's move to Asia-Pacific, Africa. Asia-Pacific, Africa, Joachim already mentioned that basically, and I had said already during the two previous calls about in Q3 and Q4 last year. It's a two-sided development. On the one hand, we have the rest of Asia-Pacific, and that is India, the Pacific region, which is Australia, New Zealand, but also South Africa, and last but not least, Southeast Asia with Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan, and so on. Those countries are continuously developing very nicely and very strongly. On the other hand, China.
China, where we had a tremendous Q1 and Q2, 2021, and with the significant pre-buy effects due to the new emissions regulation, China VI, going into effect July 1st, 2021. We had the sudden drop, the expected sudden drop in the Chinese truck market, where it just significantly contracted. Just to give you an overall idea, while in 2021, China made up 55% of our sales in the region, in 2022, it's down to 30% of the sales. But that, again, it shows how balanced and how well-balanced our portfolio is and how important it is not to be in one country alone.
Yes, China is the biggest economy, but still, for us, the other countries are just as important, and they're now pulling the weight for the region. This is very, very helpful to have that balanced exposure there. In terms of profitability, Asia Pacific Africa remains our stronghold with 18.2% margin despite China going down so much. It's a very, very positive development. Obviously, with such a decline in sales, it's not possible in absolute terms to remain on the same level. We are still, with EUR 7.3 million, extremely profitable. It's the best region that JOST has, and therefore, a very positive development from our end.
Of course, this is something we have said several times, but let me stress it again, the countries outside of China have a significantly higher share of off-highway applications, which means heavy-duty applications. These typically come at a much, much higher rate of return, and therefore, we were able to even increase the margin compared to prior year. For the group, what does that mean? If we move to that slide, first of all, a 21.2% increase in sales on paper, 19.3% organically. Very happy to say that we are continuing to grow our agricultural exposure. With the acquisition of Ålö, of course, there was a significant boost.
The ag sales have been somewhere between 20%-25% for the group. In Q1, ag sales make up 28% of the group, and therefore it's balancing our portfolio even more also on the industry side. Positive development. I am also extremely happy to report that we've achieved three consecutive months of over EUR 100 million in sales, and Joachim mentioned that this is a new sales record for JOST. EUR 312 million in sales, three consecutive months over EUR 100 million in sales. Very, very positive, of course. Also supported by the sales price increases that we were able to pass on our costs to our customers. Also, we have a slightly better balance between OE first fit and aftermarket sales.
Aftermarket makes up now 27% of our sales in Q1. The regions very much again, and you hear me say that quite a bit, also there is a nice balance. Europe made up 52%, Asia Pacific 24%, North America 24% of our sales. Therefore, we are much less influenced by negative developments in one region, which of course is positive for us as a group. Still, the Europe exposure certainly is significantly higher than in the other regions. In terms of profit, also there new profit record, EUR 34.4 million in sales, and an 11.0% margin. It's a 15.5% increase in adjusted EBIT. Again, I will now just repeat what I already said.
The very high operational flexibility means that we are able to react on quickly changing market environments. On the other hand, high sales mean also high operating leverage. On the other hand, we cannot neglect the fact that rising material costs, rising energy costs, rising costs for certain parts and components that we use will have a negative impact on the result. This will be our focus for the remainder of the year to fight those price increases on the purchasing side. Let's also speak about the bottom line, because I believe this is also very important for you as our investors and also the analysts.
The net income for the year amounts to EUR 22 million. You have the usual development from net income to EBIT to adjusted EBIT of EUR 34 million, and then down to the adjusted net income. What I would like to point out, that I think also gives you a very good indication that the number of adjustment is quite limited. EUR 22 million of reported net income compares to EUR 23 million of adjusted net income. You see the main adjustments are non-cash adjustments. It's the positive adjustments is the appropriate purchase price amortizations. The other one is the much higher than actual pro forma tax rate of 30%, which is negative.
Comparing that to EUR 4 million of actual taxes paid, you see that the 30% is something that we need to report on, but it's nothing that we are paying, and therefore, this is also a quite positive development. Adjusted earnings per share went up by almost EUR 0.20 up to 1.54 EUR per share. The reported earnings per share went up by also here up to 1.44 EUR per share. Also a quite positive development. With that, I would like to go quickly through some balance sheet related items. Return on capital employed, slightly down to one year ago to year-end, 16.6%. It was at year-end, 16.3%.
Compared to prior year Q1, where we recorded 14.2% return on capital employed, we're up 2.1 percentage points. The equity ratio increased further from the 31.2 at year-end. We're now at 32.7, so that's a 1.5 percentage point gain. I like to make the comparison to Q1 2021. Where we had an equity ratio of 29.7, so we are three percentage points better in equity ratio. This is just entirely driven by the positive result of the last year, the last four quarters, where we had continuously positive earnings.
Net debt increased compared to the year-end number of 1.45 times, now at 1.51 times, so slightly worse. Still significantly better than the 1.76 times at Q1, 2021. Still not very happy about this development. I mean, with this growth in business, we do see also an increase of working capital, and working capital increase means lower cash flows, and therefore, a burden on our net debt. That brings me straight to cash flow. If we look at the cash flow development, here you see probably the only negative point of our results.
We did have a negative free cash flow, and this negative development is basically entirely driven by the development of working capital, which increased, compared to a year ago, compared to last quarter, and therefore, it's negative. The good thing about investments in working capital is that they are typically not lost money. It's just stored money, cash stored in a different place. At this time, I would say it's stored in our inventory, where we have a significant increase compared to a year ago, now at EUR 196, EUR 208 million, which is EUR 60 million higher than one year ago. This is just. Basically, there are two reasons. One, of course, is more mathematical.
With all the price increases we're seeing on the supply side, obviously, the value of our working capital increases too. The other one is the uncertainty in the supply chain. You know, the ports of Shanghai are now closed for about three weeks in a row. All these supply chain disruptions do have a negative impact on our working capital, and we're trying the best we can to combat that. On the other hand, it is important for us to be able to deliver. Being able to deliver to our valued customers is just key and crucial for a good future of the company, and therefore, we are balancing cash flow and being able to deliver.
In this case, you see we invested EUR 60 million in inventories. We'll turn those inventories sooner or later, rather sooner than later, into cash again. Overall, net working capital as percent of sales up to 21.4%. Quick word also on our capital expenditures, which are at EUR 5.6 million, or 1.8% of sales. This is actually, even though we have the 2.5% of sales goal, the 1.8% for Q1 is quite high.
Typically, the investment starts somewhat later this year. We are trying to speed up the investments a little bit so that we can make use of those newer machines, better equipment, earlier. Therefore, you see already 1.8%, which is much more than the 1.5% we had last year. With this, I would like to hand it over to Joachim Dürr for his outlook and some closing remarks.
Thank you, Christian. Yes, let's come to the market outlooks. What we're seeing here is the expectations from external market experts. If you compare that slide to the one that we showed a few months ago, you will recognize that they have softened their expectations, especially for Europe and a little bit for trucks in general. In Europe, they saw a rising market in the last projections. Now they expect more or less a stable market, maybe a slight contraction due to the uncertainties of the war in Ukraine and the related supply issues. On trailers, a bit weaker even though it's still on a very high level. Only for agricultural tractors, a continued slight growth.
That's the expectation from the external market experts on Europe. North America, continued growth, even versus a very strong calendar year 2021. They've reduced a little bit the truck picture that used to be 15%-20%. That's also due to supply chain uncertainties. For the rest, they still expect a strong growth or the same strong growth as before. On APAC, they've adjusted a little bit the Chinese truck markets. We all expect the Chinese truck market to come back in the second half of this year. With all the uncertainties in China right now with the lockdowns, that expectation is not as strong as it was before.
That's why they've adjusted that downwards, more on trucks than on trailers, where they see for the overall region still a slight growth. The JOST outlook is more optimistic than what you see here from the market experts, and let's come to that. We confirm, despite the somewhat weaker picture from the external experts, our outlook for 2022. That outlook is that our sales will grow mid-single digit over last year, where we had EUR 1.049 billion of sales. Our adjusted EBIT will grow in line with the sales growth at a mid-single digit level, so that our EBIT margin should remain about stable at the 10% that we've seen last year. Our CapEx in percent of sales as usual, 2.5%.
We confirm the guidance that we've given you previously. Let me come to the summary of the presentation. JOST had a very successful start in the 2022 financial year. We posted new records for sales and also, very importantly, an all-time high for our adjusted EBIT in one quarter, despite the existing market uncertainties. Both business lines, transport and agriculture, contributed to this good result. Our operational flexibility and our active cost and price management allowed us to limit negative impacts of the rising costs that we're seeing, and it demonstrates the resilience of our business model. North America was our strongest growth region. We benefited from further market share gains and the growing demand for JOST products in agriculture and transport.
We confirm our guidance, as I've just explained, for the fiscal year 2022, and we're confident that with our abilities, we will be able to flexibly manage the regional shifts that we expect in the markets. With that, thank you very much for your attention, and we're looking forward to your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may click the Q&A button on the left side of your screen and then raise your hand. If you are connected by a phone, please press star followed by one on your telephone keypad. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two, or please lower your hand. For written questions, please click the Q&A button and then the Write a Question button. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from Jorge Gonzalez Sadornil from Hauck & Aufhäuser. Please go ahead. Mr. Gonzalez, you can speak now.
Hello, can you hear me?
Yes.
Perfect. I cannot see you. I don't know what I did with my mobile phone. Well, Joachim and Christian, thank you very much for the presentation, and congratulations on a very strong start in 2022. I have a couple of questions, please. My first question is about the agricultural business. The business looks still booming, and I was wondering if you can remind us how the seasonality works for this business and what we should expect for the following quarters as the growth in Q1 was super strong, and I think that makes even more difficult for us to estimate the rest of the year? Regarding the trailer market, Joachim has just answered my question.
One of your competitors have recently estimated the growth for EMEA trailers in about 8%. That is quite different to this estimate that the market experts have for the year. I was wondering, what is your view, your specific view on the trailer market for the rest of the year? Also if you can, if you have any opinion on what we can see next year in 2023. Thank you very much.
Yeah, yeah. Thank you, Jorge, for your questions. I will start with an answer and then I will give it to Christian, then he can give you a bit more information on the seasonality. Yes, we did have some seasonal effects in the North America numbers in agriculture. That is certainly an effect. As I said, Christian will elaborate on that a little bit. On the trailer outlook for Europe, the external market consultants, as I said, they previously said it will be around 5% growth. They've now reduced that number, and that is mainly due to the conflict that we see in Ukraine that is limiting supply of goods.
There are some OEMs that have issues already with the supply chain, and I think it's their expectation that that will carry through the year and will limit the capacity that is already at a very high operational level. Almost all of them are close to their maximum capacity. If there is a supply issue now, there's nobody else that can compensate that. That's the expectation from the analysts. My personal expectation is that it will not hit it as much as the analysts, the external analysts expect today. Certainly there are some clouds and some question marks that are raised. As I pointed out, it's a quite volatile situation. The effects on our company from the conflicts, the direct effects are very limited.
The indirect effects that happen because customers don't have wood or don't have wiring harnesses, these are the effects that are really hard to predict. That's why it's so important for us to be flexible and to be actively managing the situation. Where we'll end up and problems there are that we haven't seen, it's hard to predict. What is right now for the trailer industry one of the biggest problems, semiconductors and wiring harness, is the biggest issue for the truck industry. They are also coping very well with the situation, and their order book is still very strong. I've just been with a large customer this week, and they claim that they still have a very solid order book.
They're also saying that the new orders are not at the same strong level that they have been because, you know, the final customers are taking a bit of a cautious stand because of the price increases that is affecting their business case also. They don't have a lot of cancellations, but the new orders are not flowing in at the same high level. They still have very solid order books. That's why I believe it will be somewhere in the middle, where we will probably see numbers that are around the level of what we've seen last year.
Okay. Let me take the question on the ag seasonality. The ag seasonality is slightly different from the transport seasonality. In agriculture, we typically expect the strongest quarter to be Q1, followed by Q4, and then you have Q2, and last but not least, it's Q3. That obviously has to do with the natural seasonality, where you would see farmers invest into new equipment before the season starts. That's why Q1 is typically very strong. At the very latest, before the summer, when they need to harvest the fields, they will have invested most of their into most of their equipment. That's why Q3 is usually a very weak quarter for the agricultural business.
Now, we do have certain changes this year, not really in seasonality, but in terms of sales. Joachim and I both already mentioned that in North America last year, during the pandemic, we saw very high numbers of compact tractor sales. Compact tractor sales are, as we would call them, toys for boys. So it's very small rather, more a lawnmower than a tractor. They obviously carry small margins. While now we're going back to a normal trend where farmers, and I mean, real farmers are investing into real higher horsepower tractors. They not necessarily come overall with higher sales, but higher margins. So much for the ag seasonality.
Okay. One follow-up about this. The growth in Q1 was driven more by the volume or the price increases in the agricultural business are above the ones of the transport business, for instance?
I would say that it's certainly volume growth contributed most. There were already certain price increases, but not all of them were effective in Q1 . I would expect to see more price effects going into the numbers going forward and the high volume to continue. The volume is certainly something, and you saw the market outlook that is very volatile.
Yes. I think you
And-
Sorry.
Yeah. For North America, I think, you know, you had some FX effect in there. So you cannot project the growth rate that we had in Q1 for the remainder of the year. You have to deduct-
Mm-hmm.
The FX impact and there's seasonal impact. I mentioned it briefly through the presentation. There's some product mix impact where, and Christian mentioned it too, where more expensive tractors and more expensive loaders are sold rather than compact loaders. That also contributed to that. These are the adjustments that you need to do when you think of those numbers.
Okay. Regarding the market share, I think you commented that you have gained market share. This was a specific comment for the agricultural business or for all the businesses in North America?
No, it's more on agricultural business, typically with the loader business, we have customers, and we are typically the only supplier. They usually have 100% share. We more or less breathe with their market share. If our customer gains market share, we gain market share with them in the OE. Of course, there's also an aftermarket business, and that is then depending on the existing fleets that we have in the market.
I would say the market share gains mainly refer to the transport business, where we're now offering more services, our products, including logistics services, for example, and where we've continued market share gains in fifth wheel and landing legs. It's also that we're selling higher value content to our customers by adding additional services just like logistics services and other services.
Okay, I understand. Thank you very much for the answers. I'll go back to the line.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, if you would like to ask a question, please click the Q&A button and raise your hand or press star followed by one at this time. The next question is from Nicolai Kempf from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning. It's Nicolai Kempf speaking from Deutsche Bank. My question would also be on APAC, and it's very impressive how you managed the slowdown in China. Given that, I think the lockdowns ended mid of April, do you see any sign of recovery as of now or still an issue to produce in the region? My second question would basically be on the European market. The main pushback we get when talking about German industrial names is the potential recession next year. Do you see, so far, any slowdowns in your order intake, or that the customers are getting more cautious in taking orders or increasing prices?
Yeah, let me start. Well, thanks Nicolai for your questions, first of all. I'll start with the Europe question. Do we see any weakness? I mentioned that, of course, the order books are very, very high. There's a lot of people waiting, a lot of final customers waiting for their trailers or for their trucks or for their agricultural tractors. While they're waiting, they're not putting new orders in, so we don't see the order books growing. Now, is that a sign that it's going down? Not necessarily. The fundamentals of our business are still very strong. In the ag business, we will have to provide more own agriculture to the European population.
We cannot rely as much on imports because they are one, from the East, not happening, and two, from the West or from Brazil, getting more expensive. There is a strong fundamental demand in agricultural products, and therefore in agricultural machinery and equipment, which we are providing with our brands. On transport, it's more or less the same story. There is still a fundamental need for transport. Despite the fact that there may be less imports from other countries, there will be more traffic within Europe, because we will have to provide more products here in Europe and any activity that creates usually transport. We see the business fundamentals strong, and we still see unfulfilled demand in the market.
The only soft point that I see is that the order intake is not growing as it used to be. I think that is more effects that people are still waiting for their products and they're also getting a bit more hesitant with the higher material and energy prices reflected in their bills for their products. Then, of course, there's a macroeconomic question with raising interest rates and things like that, how that will happen. I think that that's really hard to judge.
The important message is that the business fundamentals in the businesses we are operating in, they're still very solid. I don't see that the demand, that base demand is going down. Quite the opposite. On agriculture, I actually see that there is more investments required in the future. On China, you wanna answer the question, Christian?
Yeah, sure. The lockdowns in China, right now, the lockdowns are not only occurring, what is being reported in the European press. Everyone knows about the lockdown in Shanghai, which, by the way, is not over yet. It's getting better, so certain parts of the city are being reopened. There's also lockdowns in part of Beijing. More importantly for us, there was a very significant lockdown in the area around Qingdao, where one of our key customers is, as well as in the area of Changchun in the north of China.
In the end, the positive thing is for JOST, our plants are not in one of those lockdown-infected regions. Our transport plant is in Wuhan, as you all know by now. Very affected last year, but not this year. Very affected in 2020, but not this year. Our agricultural plant is in Ningbo, also not affected by this. In the end, exports go typically through the ports, and the biggest port is Shanghai.
There could be or is an impact, but also our customers locally sit in Qingdao. They are in Changchun. There are effects of the lockdowns in China also on our business. In any case, we believe that most of those sales, if any, are postponed and not lost sales. Once the customers come back, they will continue to take our products and restart their production.
Okay. Understood. Thank you.
Okay.
We also have one question that was submitted via chat, and that's from Matthias Meerwald. Any updates on M&A targets? Have prices of attractive targets come down enough? How narrow or wide is your target list?
Okay. Well, thank you, Romy, for reading the question, and thank you, Matthias Meerwald, for posting that question. We've said at the annual general meeting that we are continuously looking at M&A targets, and that has not changed since last week. Let's put it like that. We are interested to grow. You've seen in this quarter how we have been growing out of our own business and out of our own products, but we also see M&A as an integral part of our growth strategy, and we just have this successful integration of Quicke completed. We are always interested in seeing if there are strategic fits that contribute to our business, and we are continuously analyzing that.
Referring to the prices of M&A, we don't necessarily see that the multiples are going down at this point in time. It's a bit like real estate, where people they are used to a certain level, and if they cannot sell at that level, then they will not sell. I think this will take a while until the M&A multiples will really go down based on a softer market or a less interesting environment for M&A. To summarize the answer, we are continuously looking at M&A targets.
We are investigating some interesting targets, and we believe that we do have the capabilities, one, financially, and second, the integration capabilities to do it. We look at both growth out of our own existing organization and products and M&A. On the prices, you know, not yet, I would say. We don't see the prices come down at this point in time.
Okay. That was the only question we have in the Q&A chat. I think there are no more questions on the line. Thus, I would say, Joachim Dürr, if you could please do your closing remarks.
Yes. I think, well, we've started very solid in the year, and I think the whole organization is quite proud that in this this volatile environment, we were able to put new records for sales and for EBIT. We are operating in markets that are fundamentally needed, and we don't see, or quite the opposite, we see that these fundamental demands will continue in the next years and actually even grow in the next years.
We are quite happy. It's a daily ongoing activity, and we need to continue to very actively operate and manage our business to make sure that we keep that success running, so that we will come to our guidance at the end of the year. With that, thank you very much for your interest in JOST. Thank you very much for your time and for your questions, and we're looking forward to see you at the next meeting. Thank you.
Thank you very much also from my side. Thank you.
Bye-bye.