Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The conference is now being recorded. Welcome to the NORMA Group SE full year 2022 results. At the moment, all participants have been placed on a listen-only mode. The floor will be open for questions following the presentation. It's my pleasure. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Miguel López, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Welcome to everyone. This is Miguel López speaking from Maintal. Very happy to have you here. Let's start the results presentation. The company generated group sales of EUR 1.243 million in 2022, corresponding to a 13.8% increase over the previous year. Organic sales growth amounted to 7.1% and here with pricing policy implemented by NORMA Group very strongly in the year 2022. We will come later to more details in order to cushion the impact of inflation. Positive currency effects from the strong U.S. dollar also made a significant contribution to growth. All the three business regions, also this we will see later in more detail, made a contribution, a positive contribution to growth.
,Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes, what we call the adjusted EBIT, achieved a level of EUR 99 million. The adjusted EBIT margin was 8%. As we have been indicating before, the earnings and the margins were impacted by higher costs for energy-intensive raw materials, including steel and plastics resins, higher logistics costs and special costs incurred in connection with the introduction of a globalized, standardized ERP system. We did need also temporary, additional temporary workers to support production relocations and to eliminate backlog of customer orders. The net operating cash flow amounted to EUR 65.3 million. The proposed dividend per share will be EUR 0.55 per share.
Management board and supervisory board of NORMA Group will propose to the AGM on May 11th the distribution of the dividend exactly of EUR 0.55 per share to the shareholders for the financial year 2022. This corresponds to a distribution volume of about EUR 17.5 million. The planned payout ratio is thus almost 31.3% of the adjusted net profit in financial year 2022 or EUR 56 million. Additionally, I would like to mention and highlight that we achieved the 2022 environmental targets, and we could reduce CO₂ emissions by 88%. As you know, we are committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions at our production sites as part of the environmental strategy that we developed back in 2018.
We focus on emissions resulting from gas consumption and the purchase of electricity and district heating at our production sites. Since January 2022, we have been purchasing electricity from renewable sources at all of the 27 production sites. Moving on to the segment reporting and P&L statement. Top line increased in total, as I mentioned before, by 13.8%, compared to the EUR 1,091.9 million in 2021, achieving the EUR 1.243 billion, resulting in 7.1% organic growth, thereof, +9.3% price and -2.1% in volume. This organic growth of 7.1% was specifically achieved due to a good development in the Americas region and good recovery in Q4 in EMEA.
AGP sales showed an organic growth of 7.5%, strong in the Americas and EMEA. SJT sales showed a good organic growth of 6.4%, mainly due to the Americas region. The currency effect was about a positive translation of 73.1, meaning that this represents and reflects 6.7% of group sales growth. The currency effect mostly was related to the U.S. dollar.
Specifically because of this last effect, we have seen now a move or shift in the regional split, Americas jumping to 46% compared to the 42% in the previous year, APAC with 14% and EMEA with 14%. In regard to the segment reporting by regions, I would like to highlight first, in the American region, sales growth was very strong with 25.7%, and we reached EUR 574.2 million. That makes it the fastest growing business region with a total contribution, as I mentioned before, of 46% to group sales. In addition to the substantial organic growth of 11.9%, the positive currency effects I mentioned before made a major contribution.
Business with standard joining products developed very positively overall, posting an increase of 25.8%, of which organically, 12% compared to the prior year period. Important to understand that this includes the U.S. business with irrigation and drainage products, an area that, as you know, has been growing for years. This water management business increased significantly once again with 12.4% organic growth in 2022. Here, a number of price increases helped offset the inflation-related increase in the cost base. Coming to the EMEA region, sales increased here by 5.8% to EUR 489.2 million. Organic growth at 6.1% was diminished by 0.3% due to the negative currency effects.
Automotive recovered in the second half of the year, following what at times were really considerable disruptions to the European automotive industry as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. NORMA Group grew by 9.5% in the full year, and also here it was higher selling prices, where we managed to compensate for inflation-related price hikes for raw materials and intermediate products. In the area of Standardized Joining Technology for distributors and wholesalers, sales were overall down in financial year 2022, falling slightly -4.3%. That was in part due to capacity bottlenecks at some production sites. We will counter these bottlenecks going forward with efficiency measures and an increased level of cooperation. In APAC, we have been growing by 3.9% to EUR 179.6 million.
Here as well, currency effects accounted for a positive impact of 6.5%. Organically, the region developed negatively at 2.6%, of course, primarily due to weak automotive business in China as a consequence of the prolonged COVID lockdowns in that country. At page nine, I would like to highlight the balanced sales mix. You see here the distribution between EJT and SJT and the different areas, three of them, within mobility and new energy and water management and industry applications. This, for us, is extremely important that it is balanced in a way, as you can see it here in this chart. At page 10, I would like to highlight that the year 2022 has been a very challenging year.
We have been closing the quarter four with 6.4% margin, EBIT margin. This is the starting point for our business development now in the fiscal year 2023. With this, I would like to hand over to you, Annette.
Perfect. Thank you very much. Let's have a look together to the profit and loss development. I start at page 11 as you see. Our material cost ratio increased while our gross profit ratio decreased in 2022. This is due to higher material costs in steel, plastic, resin, energy, and it is for sure also caused by shortages, inflation, and this is all around the Ukraine war as an impact. Our personal expenses, there we see a strong improvement in personal cost ratios due to we could stable the number of employees while our sales increased, but always having in mind that the volume also decreased.
Therefore, that it's a plus, but it's something what is supported by this as well. If I look to our OpEx ratio, that increased majorly due to freight costs, higher freight costs, outgoing freights, higher numbers of temp workers, but they are after this is affected on the one hand by our plant relocations, but we always have to keep in mind that the more we move via Mexico and India, our temps are anyhow, our footstep is temp there due to a specific structure in contracts. Adjusted EBIT, our margin decreased from 12.6% in the prior year to 8.0% in 2022. Let's come to our operational adjustments.
The message is like always in the recent years, on EBITDA level, we don't adjust anything. Our adjustments are only referring to PPAs, so out of past acquisitions. When I look then to the earnings per share, we have a reported an earning per share of EUR 1.23. Our adjustments are 52%, EUR 0.52. The adjusted share EPS is then EUR 1.75. The outlook for 2023 and 2024 is then always EUR 0.01 less. Referring to earnings per share we already spoke about, Miguel already spoke about the dividend. You can see that our payout ratio is approximately. Normally, our policy is that we have a dividend payout between 30% and 35%.
We propose this year, 31.3% to the AGM, which amounts to EUR 0.55 in this case. Profit and loss statement on page 14, I think that's the detail of the detail that you can read. We had that before, I would skip over that. Let's come together to the balance sheet and the maturity profile of our loans and of our cash. Page 16, our working capital development, where we see that our working capital ratio increased due to higher inventories related majorly to safety stocks because of our plant relocations in 2022, higher certain material shortages and inflation. We are impacted by our factoring program. We increased our factoring programs to EUR 77 million in order to optimize our financial flexibility there.
We see on page 17 that our net debt increased by 9.8%. This is majorly due to the higher working capital needs, and our leverage amounts increased to 2.2. Our equity ratio increased from 44.6% to, from 45.2% to 44.6%. Coming to our financing structure. Our maturity profile, page 18, you can see that we are looking on a very solid maturity profile, which is based on long-term financing on that strategy, what we still follow up. We have in 2023 EUR 130 million to refinance. This is very well underway, and our next larger rebuy financing is due in 2026.
When I look to our cash flow on page 21, we see there that our working capital outflow increased. We have a working capital outflow of EUR 38.8 million due to higher inventory, safety stocks, or due to plant relocation, material shortages and inflation. Our CapEx is majorly increased, but in line with the higher sales. Our net operating cash flow is by this EUR 65.3 million, always emphasizing it's the operational cash flow and not the total cash flow.
When I look then to page 22 and the normal value added, we see there that our normal value added, so our long-term strategic target dropped down from 16 to - 27.1, which is on the one hand, due to the loss in EBIT. On the other hand, we had to consider an increase in WACC, which is now for us 9.25%. By this, I give again over to Miguel, in order to guide us through the guidance.
Thank you, Annette. What do we see for the year 2023? would like to highlight four areas. The first one being organic sales growth. Here we do see a medium single digit organic sales growth. We of course differentiate between regions and also the two product segments, as you can read. We see an adjusted EBIT margin around 8%. A net operating cash flow around EUR 70 million. Of course, we will stay with the dividend policy around the 30%-35% of adjusted good earnings. We have been communicating already in summer last year that we started a performance improvement program.
The performance improvement program was differentiated between stabilization measures in short term, what we have seen in the last two quarters of the year 2022, and still ongoing in the first two quarters of 2023. Additionally to add efficiency and structural measures in the midterm, which we are currently working on. Specifically for this phase II, we will announce details with the Q1 2023 results presentation on May 9th, 2023. Here, we will take care specifically about growth, but also efficiency and structural cost improvement in operations. With this, we can start the Q&A session.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question-and-answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. We have the first question from Ingo Schachel from BNP. Your question please.
Yes. Thanks for taking my question. The first one would be on the margin outlook for 2023. I think on a group level, it's understood that you're only expecting flat margins. Can you maybe give us a bit more color on the margin development you expect on the, let's say, automotive side or mobility side of the business, especially in EMEA? The 2.6% margin was, of course, pretty low in 2022. I think with all the issues that you flagged, the plant closure, ERP rollout, is it fair to assume that mobility margins in EMEA should be substantially higher than in 2022, and that might be offset by margin weakness, for example, in water, or what is your thinking by end market on the margin outlook?
Thank you very much, Ingo. As I mentioned before, we do see still the actions of stabilization around EMEA in quarter one and quarter two of this year. We will see the output and specifically the productivity kicking in or being output at the level that we expect and productivity kicking in in early Q3. That's what we expect now for for EMEA specifically. If we take a look on the water, you have seen as well the development overall in housing construction and housing sales in the Americas. That's the reason why we were slightly cautious on this field.
That's how we come to the overall, 8%, around 8%, which certainly can be classified as an conservative guidance.
Okay. Understood. Maybe one question around, I think one point which came up in the media coverage a month ago, where there was, I think, a media article suggesting that I'm not sure who exactly the supervisory board or someone has sort of tried to explore the possibility of a sale of NORMA Group, and some private equity investors being interested. Of course, you would probably not be privy to every detail of eventual attempts to solicit a purchase of the company. But just from your perspective, is there anything you can comment on this?
I think now that you're still searching for a new CEO and so on, would it be fair to say that whatever happened at the end of last year, you need to sort of come to a final conclusion and it's something people have looked at, but it's now over or it needs to be over quite soon so that you have a clear path forward. Could it be an ongoing strategic consideration to explore whether there's interest in the company?
Well, thank you. Thank you for this question, Ingo. Of course we cannot comment on this. You know, in case, in the theoretical case that this would occur in the future, what we certainly would do is to take a look to all the valuation methods that are existing in the market and come to a conclusion as a Managing Board and also Supervisory Board, that if the offer in the future, in this theoretical case, would be in the fair range, then of course, we would need to inform the shareholders. If not, we would not.
Yeah, understood. Of course, I think we can also have a view on the right valuation item for the business. What's for us always the interesting question, how you would look at this in terms of the long-term margins. Your predecessors have made certain comments on those long-term margins, I guess it would be the key swing factor which kind of offer you might regard as fair or not. Is this your view on the long-term margins for the business? I mean, do you have a strong final view on that one already? Is it the same as the previous teams, or is it something that you also are still forming an opinion on?
Of course, we do see our task now to come from the current margin level to margins levels where our shareholders would be more satisfied. In the long-term development, we have seen where we have been in the past. The work that we are about to do in the company program, in the midterm program, is how to increase the margins back to double digit. From today's perspective, we need to first stabilize and get to the 8%, and this is what we are working on.
Okay, thank you.
The next question comes from Nicolai Kempf from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good afternoon. It's Nicolai Kempf from Deutsche Bank. Thank you for taking my question. The first would be on your regional outlook, especially on China. Your guidance for low double-digit growth. Just wondering because January and February have been rather weak, do you expect a sharp ramp up in second half of the year?
Nicolai, thank you very much for that. I have been in China last week, and I could make myself aware of the current development in the country. I can really confirm that after the opening up early this calendar year, we will see there growth that is absolutely in this in this range that we described, in this low double-digit range. Of course, the visibility overall might not be complete. There might be some thoughts around a more optimistic view. This we will see in the next months.
The, at least the opening up was a very good sign for the whole industry and, yes, we need to see now, in three or four months from now, whether we can take this more optimistic view or we stay with this rather more cautious view.
Okay, understood. Thanks. My second one would be also on the margin guidance of the around 8%. Is there any seasonality in this? Is Q1 trading within this guidance or it's more like back-end loaded?
Given the fact, Nicolai, that the EMEA output, but also productivity, will be about to kick in in quarter three, we look right now the complete year 2023 as more back-end loaded. We will see a kind of a bit different seasonality as in normal years. We will start a little bit below, and then we will be a little bit above in the second half of the year so that we achieve this around 8% over the complete fiscal year 2023.
Okay, understood. Thank you.
The next question comes from Johannes Ries from Apus Capital. Your question, please.
Yes, hello. Maybe also some follow-on questions to the colleagues before. Maybe first, to the year 2022. You don't give a breakdown of the profitability of the different regions. Can you give us an indication? To my knowledge or what I saw or heard from you is EMEA was by far the lowest profitability, neh? Maybe you can give us some more insight on this topic.
Yeah. Just let me have a look. At the end, in terms of when I look to EMEA, we achieved there in 2022, EBIT margin of 2.6%.
We in Americas, we achieved an EBIT margin of 12.7%. In Asia Pacific of 10.6%. This is what we already said before. I would say the business or in the other quarters, the business in Americas and Asia Pacific developed quite reasonably fine. Always considering all these headwinds we had to face, these long COVID breakages and so on. At the end, our pain point and our pain of improvement or point is EMEA, the EMEA region.
Yeah. Percentage-wise, maybe of the margin or maybe absolute, or absolute, how high have been the extraordinary costs you had in EMEA through problems with the step transformation, all this additional costs you had because extraordinary transport costs, consultant costs and so on. Can you give us a feeling how high this amount has been?
This is, at the end what we assumed. You cannot take from that really on the last digit.
Yeah, yeah.
At the end, we assumed something around EUR 10 million, what came by inefficiency, also by this longer cost of relocation of plants, and also then the increased consultancy costs for our ERP system. Which was due to the case that we were forced to implement ERP systems to one location where the transformation has been postponed. Roughly EUR 10 million, I would say, I would amount to that.
That's not including the lower sales you had, compared normally, what you normally have done if you make, you have delivered normally, you know?
So that.
The industrial business, which was cut because you had to deliver to the other mobile customers.
For sure, for sure. This is not included there. As we faced trouble in the relocation, what we already discussed, we were not able to fully fulfill the demand of our industrial customers. This is not included what I just told you.
Super. Therefore, for your outlook, for this mid-digit, digital growth, what are your assumption on volume and price? To my feelings, there's nearly no growth at the volume. Is that right? Nearly very low. Do you expect only a low digit price increase in this inflationary environment?
Sure. What we expect in the market is that the price, so this inflation covering of pricing is. Most of that has been done last year. We achieved more than 9% out of pricing, which is a remarkable amount. This year we can see that standardized metal anyhow came already down. Special steel is still something different, in particular in Europe. However, we see. Well, let's see what comes up in APAC and so on in terms of shortages. There we are bit cautious. This big inflation, what we need to countermeasure, we don't see for the time being.
We look to LMC or IHS figures, which are, for us, a little bit too optimistic, because normally they come down with this expectation from time to time. We are cautious there because the market environment is very volatile for the time being.
Clear. It's clear. There is some price increase because you have this overrun effect because you don't increase the prices at the first January last year, it was during the year, so of course there is some impact. You have this counter effect through the metal prices. That's clear.
Yeah. What we are still doing is that we are cashing in this huge increase of alloy surcharges, what started last year in March after the Ukraine invasion. This is still coming to the P&L, that's clear. Things like this are still coming in. It's like this. For sure, what you mentioned with industrial, as we said, our whole work was to stabilize in 2022 our production facilities. As this job is on a very good way, we see an increase in industrial products, in the sales of industrial products this year, what should help us in the margin.
Any negative impacts today at the end of March from this transformation, or is it nearly now done or behind you?
Well, end of March, I cannot comment too much now, but.
No market. Yeah.
For sure. Our restructuring, our, this is. We consider these high extraordinary cost of last year more or less as one-time cost. It was a high amount, but the story is over. We shut down our plant in Gerbershausen. That's done, that's already sold, so there is nothing out of that time anymore. These were high costs, but one-time costs.
Okay. Thanks a lot. Last question too. You always mentioned in the past you want even to build up the water business in Europe. Will we also hear a little bit more about it at the 9th of May with your midterm program? Is it a part of this or is it maybe driven by opportunities?
I mean, the water is a very, of course, very relevant question. The water business overall has been, as you know, extremely successful in the U.S., but we were lacking implementation in Europe so far. The company program overall is about growth programs specifically on water and on industry, and of course, improvement of profitability in the automotive arena. Yes, we will certainly give some light on what we intend to do in water specifically.
Okay, super. Thanks a lot.
The next question comes from Jürgen Pieper from Metzler. Your question please.
Yes. Hi, can you hear me?
Yes.
Okay. I have two quick questions. The first one is for the full understanding Of Q4. I mean, you have at the same time the, I think the highest organic growth in the year, you mentioned that EMEA the auto business recovered, you had the inclusion of some surcharges, raw material costs went, prices began to come down. Why was then the fourth quarter the weakest quarter in terms of profitability in the year? What is the one key factor here which I miss? The second one, if you look at 2023, would you say, I mean labor is certainly a certain threat this year?
Would you say that your labor costs per revenues are more or less the same, or at least very similar in your regions? Is Europe still, clearly, the region with the highest labor cost here? Thank you.
At the end, at the end OF 4Q That's 2022. For Q4, when I look there for sure we were negative in terms of margin in EMEA. We had a -1.5% Q4 margin in EMEA, while Americas was at 10% and Asia-Pacific even at 12%. That's the pain point out of that. All in all, in terms of volume, I would say there we could see that we grew over proportional.
It was Europe. This was.
Yeah, that's Europe. Clearly.
The reason here. Is it to a certain extent extraordinary because of plant closure, or is it just because it was so? A t the end?
No. On the one hand, we had to absorb last year a plant closure. By the end of the year we closed Gerbershausen, what was part of our restructuring program in the recent years. That story went over about two years, the relocation of these products was done on the one hand to Czech and on the other hand to Maintal. That was one of the reasons where we suffered in particular in mid last year, that we saw that we had a certain delay there.
Okay.
On the personal cost ratio, for 2023, we see a stable ratio compared to the previous year, compared to 2022.
Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Christian Glowa from Hauck & Aufhäuser Investment Banking. Your question please.
Hi. Thanks for taking my question. Just coming back to what you just have said, quantifying the extraordinary costs in EMEA. As I understood on the right, I think you said EUR 10 million extraordinary costs, which you don't expect to reoccur next year. At the same time, you are guiding basically for stable input cost ratios. That makes difficult to understand why you're not guiding basically for a margin improvement if these costs will not reoccur. Can you please quantify a bit specifically, a bit more specifically on these cost items and on the stabilization measures which you're planning to install this year and the associated costs, please?
At the end, as Miguel already said, we are on a good track, but there is still a way to go in this year also in particular in EMEA. We cannot be satisfied with the margins we are seeing in EMEA. There we are on a clear improvement track, we really need to do our homework, and we need to increase our productivity. Our margin guidance is also a dedicated price, that we expect somehow stronger headwinds in the macro environment in 2023. At the end, we are still cautious in terms of APAC. That's clear, because we don't know how this will develop. I think we see that for the time being positive, more positive even maybe than expected.
However, any kind of shortages, whatever might come out of it, nobody knows for the time being. That's fully clear. In terms of Americas, we are cautious in water business. We see for the time being that for sure there is still a long rainy season. There is still a lot of snow in Americas. It was clear due to inflation and due to the high interest that these consumer-oriented, end consumer-oriented business, we stood cautious there. These are majorly the impacts which are baked also in our guidance.
Okay, that's clear. Maybe 2 follow up, if I may. First of all, can you please provide a bit of color on the stock levels of your wholesalers? I assume they have quite substantially destocked at the year-end, and now you should basically have some tailwind in water management this year from restocking effects. Secondly, on working capital, you said you had EUR 38 million cash outflow in working capital, and that was largely because of safety stock inventories. As we see basically supply chains normalizing, I would assume basically that you have some positive cash inflows from working capital improvements this year, but still you are guiding basically for a flattish operating cash flow. Is that related to the factoring program, or how should I look at your working capital assumption for this year?
Christian, I start with the first question of wholesalers, retailers in the, especially in the U.S. Yes, we have seen in Q4 destocking. We expected in the first months of 2023 this effect to be slightly continued. What we have seen has been very close to that, but a bit better than expected. Our expectation is that destocking is done and that we will have a cautious development in the next months to come. Exactly because of what Annette just explained before. Around the working capital question, I hand over to Annette.
Well, at the end, you answered your question already a bit by yourself. That's indeed what we see. We increased our factoring program from normally our intention is to have that around EUR 50, EUR 53, something like that. We increased it to EUR 77 million. This we want to change. That's clearly the target that we say, "Okay, we want to have a healthy proportion to that, but not in this extent." That is one of the major points. For sure, I think everybody is captivated by inflation. This is big, not only currently in pieces, what we have in working capital, it's also prices. Therefore, we are working on dedicated inventory improvement programs.
We always have to consider anyhow that our inventory, the more we go into water, the more we gain sales in water and in industry business, the more stock we need because we need to be in the shelves of our wholesalers and so on in order to be able to deliver. That needs a certain variety. In system business as well, there we need a certain stock.
Okay, thanks. That's clear. Thank you.
The next question comes from Peter Rothenaicher from Baader Bank. Please go ahead.
I have a question on your automotive business and the margin. If I look on EMEA automotive, the margin has obviously been negative in 2022. We came from also the automotive business from margins, I would say, definitely 13%- 16%. Not too much different from the non-automotive business. Now you're loss making. We know that the market in automotive has become more difficult. You have some restructuring. Nevertheless, this does not explain, in my point of view, a loss in the margin if I compare former margins to the current level of 15 percentage points. What has happened?
I have still the impression and the feeling NORMA is the clear market leader for these connective components in the automotive business. Therefore, the market and negotiation position should still be quite good. How can this be then that NORMA has such a negative margin performance in here?
Maybe, maybe I'll start and Miguel can then at the end supplement me. At the end, just to get the things clear, we did not make a loss in EMEA or in EJT in our automotive business in 2022. We are around 2%-3% margin in EMEA. That's the point. The last quarter was loss-making, but so the quarter four, but not that one. You are fully right. Normally, and this is the intention of our performance improvement plan, what we will deeply announce in a few weeks, you are right, we need to go in EMEA again back to double-digit automotive margins. We need to be picky there, and that's clear, and all our planning is going towards that.
Yeah, to understand it right, in my point of view, EJT in EMEA was much more profitable than automotive. Isn't this true?
EJT is not the automotive business. You are right, it was in the past also a good reasonable double-digit margin, and now we are at a low single-digit margin, and this is clearly to be improved. Therefore, we did all these restructurings, transformed our, transferred our plans to best cost countries, working on productivity, and. That's clearly the target, what we need to focus. You can see that in Americas and in Asia, we do much reasonable better margins. This margin, there is no reason why this should be larger in Europe. Because these are often the same customers. Not always, but often.
It's for me still difficult to understand because I cannot imagine that your competitors in this area have a much better cost position and I think they cannot afford being here at zero margin or even negative or something like that.
No, this is something what we also cannot afford. We are on a smaller single-digit margin, and this is something what is clearly not what we want to have and what we can accept. Therefore, the clear message is to improve this margin. We are in our programs, we structure that for the time being. We put this on the street, but at the end, it has to be deployed until we see then the full range out of it.
What can we expect for a time horizon to see here double-digit automotive margins again?
Well, let me jump in here. I think this question is as well extremely valid. That's the content of our program. The midterm expectations, of course, overall, as I mentioned before, is to come back to the double digit arena. We will certainly give more light on this one during the May 9th presentation, also around what we expect for some for the three product areas overall. We need to ask for a bit of patience until May the 9th.
With regard to the forecast for 2023, I don't know if you have in your annual report already any guidance for the financial result. Is there a significant deterioration to expect due to the higher interest rates and what is here your guidance then?
No, that's not significant. We are lucky there at the end. First of all, we are lucky that with our syn loan we are financed until 2026. For sure, as interest increased, we are slightly impacted there, but we have a very good interest swap on our exposure on U.S. dollars. When we had last year to absorb a financing cost of roughly a 2%, 2-point something, we account now with maybe a 3-something. We are lucky enough that in terms of all of our U.S. financing, we are pretty well hedged, so therefore the impact is really not big.
Okay. Thanks. Your water business, you mentioned there are some uncertainties in terms of demand, but overall in terms of margin, there is a similar situation to be expected as in 2022, or do you see here also some risks?
No, no, we don't see a margin dilution in water business at all, and we would never accept that. We would not sell it for the price because we see that really as a kind of. That's the kind of people want to be a bit more cautious, but at the end, these products are top of the pop and the people demand these products, so there's no gift to make and no discount to make on that.
Okay. Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the interest of time, we have to end the Q&A session now. I hand back to Mr. López for closing comments.
Yeah, thank you very much for your attendance, for the interest in NORMA. We are very glad to speak to you and to see you and to discuss with you again on May 9th during earnings result presentations of Q1, including as already announced a couple of times today, including some more details on the performance improvement program. To all of you again, thank you and have a wonderful rest of the day. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you very much for joining.