Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the analyst and press call, nine-month Q3 2021/22 results presentation. Throughout today's recorded conference, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be in English and not be translated. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session, which will also be in English. If you would like to ask a question, please press star followed by one on your touch tone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. Now I'd like to turn the conference over to Dr. Steffen Greubel, CEO, METRO AG. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah, welcome. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our METRO Q3 2021/2022 results call. We are happy to present our most recent business developments today. Today's agenda is like always almost, I'm gonna introduce our progress on our sCore strategy execution. Christian Baier is gonna run us through the financials, and then we have proper time for Q&A. Let's directly dig into the content. What do we wanna do today? I will explain you how we have made commercial and financial progress, how we have advanced with our sCore execution, and how this is visible on channel and on country level. How our recent acquisitions and exits also contribute to that strategy. How we are affected by and manage externalities such as the war in Ukraine and the rising inflation. In summary, I can already say we stay on track.
We had a strong Q3 that led to increased outlook for the year. We have good momentum in all important KPIs and the traction towards our long-term goals. This traction comes from all channels and pretty much all the countries. It does not depend on a few individual ones. It's quite balanced. Despite the fact that we are having very sort of uncertain environments in the moment, we are confident and sure that with a simple focus on strategy execution, we still can outperform the market. As a result, we also have a solid volume development in the group so far. Businesses in Ukraine and Russia are stable. Inflation obviously is visible in our cost of goods sold, but they can be passed on so far.
The cost pressure might, of course, increase in the next month and in the next year, depending on the further macroeconomic development. We reconfirm the recently raised outlook for financial year 2021/2022, based on a strong overall positive business development and stick to our mid and long-term targets. Let's look a little bit into details and in underlying data points, starting with sales and adjusted EBITDA first. In Q3, we achieved 27% sales growth and EUR 128 million adjusted EBITDA growth at constant currency. Over the nine-month period, that adds up to 24% in sales growth and EUR 321 million adjusted EBITDA growth. We see consistent growth dynamics across the quarters. Some support, obviously from inflation, but also low double-digit volume growth in all quarters.
To be specific here, we are looking roughly in the first quarter on 5% inflation, on the second one on 10, and on the third one in 15% inflation on our sales prices. The next couple of slides explain you a bit what drives that momentum. First, let's look at our strategy visual of the sCore strategy. Let's look at the channels. Our store-based sales channel, so the cash and carry mainly, grew by 19%. Our FSD focus continues to pay off, so we are growing here with 64% in Q3, which is an all-time high sales share record of more than 22%. METRO Markets P&L sales increased 50% versus previous year, and we are also doing significant progress in connecting the circles through digitization.
Hospitality Digital number of subscribers increased by 24,000 compared to Q3 of this year, and it adds up to 58,000 subscribers totally. We didn't include so far the 8,000 subscribers from the recently acquired company, Eijsink. The increase is strongly driven by joint sales activities with the country and sales focus. Let's look a little bit more into METRO Markets, our digital sales channel. METRO Markets is our B2B marketplace for non-food with pan-European approach that allows a fast scaling of both the vendor and the seller business. The geographic reach so far, we started in Germany and then Spain. Now Italy entry took place in July as planned. Business scale is we cooperate with roughly 1,400 partners, 4,000 brands, and we have 650,000 professional products listed on the platform.
It's indeed a true marketplace. The P&L sales are more than doubled in the first nine months from EUR 24 million last year to EUR 49 million this year, and we have a very good progress towards our 2030 targets. We are continuing the rollout within Europe. Portugal will come October, November 2022. We will hook up two-three countries per year. The next one you can expect is France and then the Netherlands. We are on track to deliver our marketplace sales of around EUR 3 billion by 2030. Let's dive even more into details and let's see how our underlying strategic KPIs are progressing in Q3. Let's go through sales force first. We added more than 650 FTE in nine months on top.
We have a growing dynamic here, and we need that sales force to push our FSD and digital sales share, which is very much a push sales approach. We are on good progress towards our 2030 aim to at minimum double the sales force. Looking at the infrastructure, we have three additional locations in Q3. We have opened a total of 10 new out of store delivery points and two dedicated depots in nine months. We are also on track with the implementation of the corresponding network plan. This results among others in a growing sales share with strategic customers, which is HoReCa and Trader customers, and we reached a 70% sales share, which is a seven percentage point increase to previous year. We also see a continuous growth momentum intra-year.
Three months, six months, nine months, there is growth dynamic also in the strategic customer share. NPS grow, so our net promoter score, the customer satisfaction, so to say, by 0.4 percentage points. You could say this is not a lot, but we feel very proud on that figure because as you can imagine in an environment of price increases and challenges in supply chain and availability, the better feedback, so to say, of the customers is quite something, and we are very proud that we are achieving those kind of values. Last but not least, own brand sales share, which is one of our key strategic KPIs. It reached 19% in nine months. This is all-time high, record of own brand, and there's also a very good intra-year dynamic.
Every month we are improving the own brand share so far. That means consequently, every month we celebrate all-time high records within that year. Let's look in countries. How are countries or the regions driving the growth? The simple answer is, and I mentioned that in the very beginning, we have a balanced contribution over countries to our growth numbers and to our EBITDA growth as well. We stand on solid balance feet. When you look at records, you see that also the records we are doing, they are getting more substantial. We're looking, for instance, for France, Croatia, Poland and Romania, to best quarter ever. That was the best quarter ever since these companies have existed. Germany, highest HoReCa and highest FSD sales share ever. Serbia, best FSD quarter ever.
Hungary, highest FSD sales in a single month ever. Slovakia, Austria, best month ever in May. Spain, highest FSD sales and number of FSD stable customers ever. There is plenty of other records we are doing in the moment. We think that our customers are very resilient, that there is still a lot of momentum in gastronomy, also in tourism, and that we are also able with our multi-channel business model to actually tackle that opportunity. Besides, let's check the next page. Besides our Q3 results, we were also affected by some strategic portfolio decisions. Let's first look at the acquisition. Our sCore prioritize organic growth, but we obviously scan the market for strategically relevant targets. Therefore, we acquired AGM and Eijsink.
On fourth of August, we also completed the acquisition of Günther Group in Germany, a provider of commercial kitchen technology. Together, they would contribute more than EUR 150 million in profitable delivery and digital sales on a fully annualized basis. The plan is, of course, to grow and to integrate into our existing strategy, and in the case of Eijsink, to internationalize the great technology that we are having with their core product DISH. We also completed three exits in recent months. This is Myanmar, Japan and recently Belgium. The businesses were either B2C-focused and/or financially unattractive. Belgium in particular was signed and closed on June fifteenth and impacts the quarter result with a one-off charge. Together, the exits contribute roughly EUR 15 million EBITDA in the current year pro rata, and thanks to the real estate monetization from Japan, additional cash proceeds in Q4.
Let's sum it up. We see Metro well on track towards reaching the defined 2030 sCore goals. We are thrilled to see the common effort and the progress in the execution in the channel view, in the country view, and as well with the strategic KPIs. Let me now hand over to Christian, who's gonna lead us to our financial performance a bit more in detail.
Thank you, Steffen, and good morning, everybody. Let me continue with the financial performance and how also financially we stayed on track in Q3. We've achieved 27% sales growth at constant currency versus PY, and again, exceeding the 2018-2019 levels. Inflation has clearly increased also during the course of this quarter, and in Turkey, inflation has now reached a level which IAS 29, the hyperinflation accounting, is being applied. Nonetheless, sales growth also continues to be driven by volume increases. In Q3, we once again achieved low double-digit volume growth compared to the previous year. The top line also translates into EBITDA growth, which is now standing at EUR 441 million EBITDA in that quarter, also clearly exceeding pre-COVID levels.
The operational EBITDA growth is, however, eaten up by the one-off costs to exit the Belgian operating business and a sizable non-cash deterioration of the non-financial, not net financial result. As a result of these effects, reported EPS in the quarter has declined. We further generated a solid EUR 399 million free cash flow. The decline against previous year is purely driven by an extraordinary development in net working capital in 2021. Let's now look at the regional split of our performance. The three regions, West, Germany, and East, contributed with a double-digit sales increase and drove EBITDA growth. More specifically, when we look into the individual regional segments, in Germany, we've reported sales increase of 17% versus PY, which is supported by a continuing positive trend of Rungis Express, our FSD business in Germany, inflation, and also strong performance during the Easter business.
Strong HoReCa sales growth overcompensated in Germany the slight decrease in tobacco and FCO sales. This translates into a strong increase also of adjusted EBITDA to EUR 64 million, and thereby, the tight cost management initiated in the previous year and the optimization of costs in connection with the increased FSD business also had a positive impact on the profitability development. In the segment West, reported sales significantly increased by 32% and reached EUR 3.3 billion. Almost all countries in that segment contributed to this with double-digit growth. The largest sales growth was recorded in France, Italy, Spain, and Pro à Pro. The lower Belgian sales following the exit were partly compensated by the AGM acquisition and its related sales. The adjusted EBITDA increased to EUR 203 million due to good sales development.
When we look at Russia, sales in local currency increased by 3% to EUR 0.7 billion. The sales growth was driven by HoReCa and especially by the FSD business. However, the invasion into Ukraine and the related sanctions affected customer sentiment and also our business, which led to a decline in volume in Russia in that quarter. Due to a positive currency development, reported sales, though, increased by 23%. Adjusted EBITDA at constant currency stayed stable compared to the previous year. Looking into the segment East, their sales in local currency increased by 33% and almost all countries contributed to the sales growth, mostly through the strong HoReCa development. Turkey achieved the highest sales growth, strongly supported by inflation.
The Ukrainian business continues to show high resilience with a stable number of stores open and sales at only -37% in Q3, which is a strong improvement from the -45% that we have still seen in March 2022. The adjusted EBITDA in the segment increased to EUR 108 million and thereby by EUR 31 million at constant currency, following and resulting also from the overall sales growth. In the segment Others, reported sales almost doubled from EUR 16 million to EUR 31 million, and this sales growth is mainly due to METRO Markets and furthermore, the Eijsink sales that we have added in Q3 by the acquisition. Adjusted EBITDA decreased to EUR 10 million due to those expansion efforts and other investments into further driving digitalization.
Let's briefly look at how this performance really does translate into our market share development, a chart that you have known from previous quarters. Also in Q3, METRO has continuously developed above the market in the HoReCa sector in the key markets Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. This positive Q3 trend is driven by METRO's strong performance on both store and the delivery channels, while the market stays mostly below pre-pandemic levels. Let's now zoom back into the overall group P&L and summing up the segments where we have now achieved 27% FX-adjusted sales growth and reached EUR 7.9 billion and hence again exceed the pre-pandemic levels. This was driven by HoReCa momentum and inflation, including roughly 2% support from the previously mentioned hyperinflation accounting for Germany. Not only all segments, but also all channels have contributed.
Store sales increased to EUR 6.1 billion, up by 19% versus previous year. FSD sales increased to EUR 1.8 billion, up by 64%. METRO Markets sales are now at EUR 18 million and increased by roughly 50% versus PY. The growth in the marketplace is due to strong development in Germany and in Spain, and the dynamic is well in line with our plan and 2030 goals. The sales momentum is also reflected in the earnings development overall in the group as adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 441 million, compared to EUR 310 million in the previous year. Also, when we look at the EBITDA margin, this is a very solid development. Reported EBITDA amounts to EUR 305 million and included transformation costs of roughly EUR 136 million, mainly from the disposal of the operations in Belgium.
If we now move further down the P&L, looking at depreciation, this is above the PY level and mainly driven by exchange rate effects in Russia and hyperinflation in Turkey. As a result, the EBIT decreased by -EUR 38 million versus the prior year. The interest and investment result improved due to a positive court ruling in tax litigation in the segment East and also lower interest. The other financial result decreased significantly due to reversible non-cash FX effects on METRO's intercompany positions, which is also partly offset by hyperinflation effects in Turkey. The income tax is calculated on the expected full year group tax expense. As a result, net income is at -EUR 290 million and included in about EUR 400 million negative impact from the sale of Belgium and the FX-related negative effects in the net financial results.
Adjusted for these impacts, net income would have been positive and would have exceeded the prior year. Correspondingly, earnings per share amounted to -EUR 0.80, with the previously mentioned impact amounting to -EUR 1.20. Let's move on now to the cash flow perspective, where the operating cash flow reached EUR 553 million, which is roughly EUR 300 million below the prior year. The change can almost fully be attributed to the net working capital development that we have seen in this quarter, and the decrease in delta net working capital is mainly driven by the extraordinary catch-up in the prior year that we talked about in last year's Q3 call. This year's Q3 development is very well in line with a pre-pandemic seasonal pattern in our net working capital. The other operating cash flow elements remained roughly stable.
The remaining free cash flow positions also stayed roughly on the prior year level, leading to a free cash flow of EUR 399 million in Q3 and corresponding to a decrease in net debt compared to both Q2 this year and Q3 last year. To summarize the strong Q3, this brings us to a nine-month performance in the guidance view of 25% sales growth and a year-to-date EBITDA growth of EUR 314 million. We therefore are well positioned to reach our full year guidance of 17%-22% sales growth and EUR 150 million-EUR 230 million EBITDA growth. You might ask yourself how the expected lower nominal performance is driven, and this is mostly by two effects. First of all, Q4 last year was specifically strong due to the post-COVID recovery.
This recovery is much more spread out evenly this year across various quarters. Secondly, we continue to invest into speeding up our transformation, and this also entails our digitalization efforts, such as our rollout of the marketplace and our digital POS solutions. Below EBITDA, we confirm our D&A expectation of roughly EUR 950 million, and we update a couple of the other expectations to reflect the Q3 events. On the real estate gain side, we have increased this to EUR 140 million following the successful sale of the remaining real estate portfolio in Japan in early Q4. That has been shown in our report as subsequent events and has been closed already during the quarter that we're in right now.
The transformation costs have been increased to roughly EUR 130 million due to the exit of our operational business in Belgium, which has already been booked in Q3. The net financial result increased to roughly EUR -550 million due to the non-cash FX effects on METRO's intercompany positions booked in Q3. Tax expense has slightly increased to roughly EUR 200 million due to the higher EBITDA expectations in our upgraded guidance. The cash investments are now expected to be slightly below EUR 500 million. This leads to a roughly stable net debt expectation for the full year and upgrade of our previous expectations. Let's now conclude and briefly sum up the development for this quarter. Q3 clearly marks another quarter of significant sales and EBITDA growth despite the continuously volatile market development.
On the back of this performance, we continue the execution of the sCore strategy and reconfirm our midterm ambition of 3%-5% sales and EBITDA CAGR in the period 2022-2025. Now Steffen and I are very happy to take your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. The question and answer session will not be translated, so all questions need to be asked in English. If you would like to ask a question, 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. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selections. Anyone who has a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. First question is from the line of Fabienne Caron from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, and thank you, Christian, for the detailed guidance. Three questions from my side. The first one to come back on the guidance. I'm a bit confused if Belgium is in or out because when you released first in July, you said the full year will not be adjusted for Belgium. Now I see on page 13 that Belgium is in until May. If you could clarify would be good. The second question, exactly to the point you made on Q4. If we do the quick math looking at the numbers ex-currency, if I'm not wrong, I'm getting a margin for Q4 between 3% and 3.5% EBITDA margin, which appears low to me, given the investment you're making because it's summer and hotel, restaurant, catering are working very well this summer.
If you can give me some view or maybe my math is wrong, I don't know. The last point would be on the acquisitions that you've made. It would be useful if you could give us the impact that you expect for the year, not on an annualized basis, but since there will be, or have been consolidated. Thank you.
Thank you, Fabienne, for your questions. Happy to comment on, with respect to Belgium. Belgium is in until the very day it generated sales and was consolidated. We did not adjust this from a guidance perspective, so we did not basically reduce that guidance for that. Therefore, Belgium is in and is not adjusted. With respect to the bridge, we look at a Q4 basically where we have stated that the last year ramp up, especially in July and August, has been tremendous because this has mostly been focused, the stock-up purchases basically during those periods of time, and that's where we reported on last year during the same period. Very strong comparison base.
We still see strong performance, but it is at this stage more evenly spread out across the quarters and therefore we expect a little bit softening from the performance from that perspective. Secondly, the other piece that we mentioned on the call, our speeding up of the transformation, that's not only related to the digitalization efforts, but also to, for example, the hiring of sales force that Steffen Greubel mentioned before, where we are really now gearing up heavily to further speed up the transformation. I think those are a couple of the key elements. Then one more point, in the segment others, you will remember then when we sold our business in Real, we continue running our logistics in Germany, which is mostly catering for METRO Germany, where we are now ramping up at this stage third-party businesses.
Given that the old volumes from Real have fallen away there is also a little bit of special situations that we are ramping up through. That adds up to a quarter where we are still confident in a strong performance but expected it to be slightly softer than what we have seen in the last year. When we look at
Sorry, Christian, is my math 3%-3.5% EBITDA margin correct then for Q4?
It's broadly correct.
Okay.
Obviously if you go to the upper end of the guidance, there is also numbers that work out reasonably well with that overall perspective of the two key elements that we see. If the lower part of the guidance you would take, we would need to see some softer macro developments, which at this stage we do not expect, but we cannot rule out.
Okay.
From the perspective of the two acquisitions, basically, on AGM, we would basically see, we have included now in Q3 roughly EUR 25 million, and for the next quarter there's again roughly EUR 25 million. Annualized you can call it EUR 100 million from that perspective. The logic for Eijsink works also roughly EUR 5 million this quarter, EUR 5 million next quarter. Again, when you gross it up, roughly EUR 20 million can be the number that we see for the full year. This obviously will drive very heavily forward given that we are now rolling it out in the existing jurisdictions of the Netherlands, but also into other countries, which is exactly the strategic rationale for the acquisition.
Sorry, Christian, is that EBITDA or sales you just quoted, the 24-25?
We are talking sales here from that perspective and the EBITDA data we do not disclose. You can count on both businesses being accretive from an absolute EBITDA.
Okay. Thank you.
Next question is from the line of Frederick Wild from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Good morning, Steffen and Christian. Thanks for that and congratulations on such a strong Q3 EBITDA performance. Just a few questions from me, if you don't mind. First, could you please talk us through how your trading developed in the non-Russian Ukrainian businesses throughout the quarter and maybe into July and August as well, just to give us some steer on that sort of underlying consumer health? Secondly, Russian performance seems to have exited that stockpiling phase we maybe saw in the earlier part of the year. Do you expect the Russian consumer health to deteriorate further from here?
Going back to the Q4 guidance, I sort of get the point that year-on-year, you know, Q4 was really strong last year, but the guidance implies this really strong deceleration even versus 2018, 2019 pre-pandemic, in Q3 from around 20% to a significant negative in Q4. Could you maybe quantify a bit more, just how much the transformation costs, such as the extra sales force will impact so we can think how that carries through to the next year? Finally, just a sort of broader one, perhaps a few details on your ability to extract cash from Russian ops. Is there any way to repatriate this or how are you thinking about it? Thank you.
Yeah. Thanks, Frederick, for your questions. Actually, just, It was tough to hear you just, from that perspective. Let me just briefly summarize what we have understood, and then we, Steffen and I, take the questions, step by step. I think there was a question with respect to overall Russia and Ukrainian business development. We will be happy to comment on that. There was a question on July consumer sentiment, where also Steffen will comment on. I'll take the one on, the year-on-year perspective and the Russia dividend flow. When. Is that broadly correct?
Yeah. The first one was more about non-Russian Ukrainian business to the quarter. Hopefully you can hear me a bit better now.
Okay, good. We will comment on that.
Um, uh-
We now got it better.
Yeah.
Thank you, Frederick.
Great
Just from a year-on-year perspective, with respect to 2018, 2019, yes, this would be a slightly softer development, but really slightly is the emphasis here, because also 2018, 2019, the summer season has been very strong. Again, this year we are still in hospitality from a market perspective, below those levels. METRO overall has been stronger than those 2018, 2019 levels in the recent quarters. We expect to still have a strong performance, but slight softening that we would expect to see in the Q4. With respect to the Russian development from a fund flow perspective, yes, definitely, this has become more complicated in recent months for obvious reasons.
However, from an accessibility of that situation, first of all, our Russian business is self-funded and well-funded overall, and we are in a fully sanctions compliant manner, actually able to distribute dividends in reasonably sizable amounts. Therefore, we feel quite confident with our control also in full compliance with all applicable rules there.
Let me maybe echo on the customer sentiment and also, you know, talking a little bit about current trading. As Christian mentioned, it's also July, it's softening a bit, but that's mainly driven by the previous year extra effects of the ramp up of the gastronomy. We are still growing, but obviously this is not more at the same growth rate than in the quarters before. Maybe I can also generalize a little bit and talk about customer sentiment as such of our industry, the HoReCa, because obviously it's quite hard actually to predict how this is gonna turn out in the next month or even longer term. I would say, still we are looking at a very resilient industry. Consumers are still going out, they are traveling.
It's not a big drop in like indicators like booking numbers or things like that. Of course, when you look at polls, when you look at surveys, and when the going gets tougher a bit on the cost side, people are always saying they will cut on also spending in the gastronomy. It's a little bit, we don't see it so far in the figures. We are still progressing. I think there's also the effect that a lot of customers, they want to go out, they want to go to restaurants because they couldn't go, so to say, for the last two years. There is still this effect that is compensating a bit the budget cutting plans that might actually occur. Overall, we look, I would say, slightly positive towards the upcoming month.
We don't know exactly what the energy situation will then be to gastronomy. Could be beneficial, could be not beneficial. It's a little bit unclear for us. So far what we know is that we can focus on the execution with our, in most of the markets, low market share. We still have room to grow and we focus on the strategy, and we are confident to get market share anyway.
Perfect. Thank you. If you can hear me just on that, Q4 matter, you addressed it a bit. Just so that if you can in any way quantify, those Q4 transformation costs and, sales forces, et cetera, just so we can figure out how that's gonna impact, you know, through the course of next year as well.
Yes, happy to do. I think when you look at the expected slight softening of the Q4 versus the prior year, you can basically attribute half of that effect to basically Q4 ramp up and the much stronger last year from that HoReCa perspective and the other half would basically be related to our increasing speed on the transformation, digitalization, sales force, and also the logistics part. Probably you can evenly split this other half into those three buckets.
Thank you very much. That was really helpful. Sorry if I was a bit unclear at the start.
Thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask any questions, please press star followed by one on your touch tone telephone. Next question comes from the line of Xavier Le Mené from BofA. Please go ahead.
Mr. Le Mené, can you please unmute your telephone?
Sorry, I was on mute. Two questions, if I may. The first one, can you potentially give us a bit more granularity on the sCore strategy and how much of the benefit you're already seeing or what you've seen, you know, in Q3. You had significant improvements. You said inflation was higher, volumes were actually a bit better. But how much also is linked to the changes you made in the last 18 months, and what are you expecting, you know, going forward in terms of improvement with the sCore strategy? The second one, a bit more technical, is just on the working capital. You had a negative impact relatively in Q3. What should we expect in Q4 and potentially for next year?
Yeah. Thank you very much, Xavier, for the question. Let me take the first one, then hand over to Christian for the second part of the question or the second question. Of course, you know, we are benefiting in the top line from inflation effects. I'm always saying inflation, this is not something that is coming from somewhere. We also need to increase prices and pass price increases from our suppliers through. That's also operational work. You could say maybe roughly half of it, 10% roughly of the overall growth is exactly coming from those effects. 5% first quarter, 10% second, 15% third. The rest I would attribute to the execution of the company. Of course, we have some catch-up effects from the previous year.
Nevertheless, we are progressing, and you can measure that by the KPIs that are the input factors, like own branch share, like sales force ramp up, like strategic customer share, and plenty of others that you can really attribute to the execution of our sCore strategy. Exactly. Let me hand over now to Christian for the second one.
Yeah. Happy to take the net working capital question. First of all, the historic one on our Q3, what are the two key effects that we basically had? As mentioned before, last year, we had from mid of June, basically a tremendous race in catching up on hospitality. This led, at the end of June, to a situation where we had lower inventory that were bought during that period, and we still had all the payables there. Basically, the perfect combination from a working capital perspective, which we also commented on then last year in that perspective. We now have a much more normal development, which is really consistent with net working capital in that Q3.
Furthermore, as you might have seen from an inventory overall perspective, we increased by roughly EUR 600 million on the balance sheet, this end of June compared to last end of June. This is basically by half driven by inflation and FX to a certain extent, and the other half is driven by volume, where not only we have higher sales development, but also we prioritized the availability point of view from that perspective. In the perspective of net working capital for Q4 and going forward, we basically expect a stable development during Q4 of this very year. Also slightly softer compared to what we have seen in the last year, where we have had another improvement.
Also, that's related to our drive on the availability side and obviously needing to ensure for our businesses being able to cater for the higher, demand and the sales growth that we continue to see. Overall, in the longer term perspective, I think we continue to be a very working capital efficient business also by what we do in the sCore strategy, reducing assortment, having, faster stock turns and therefore continuously highly efficient on net working capital. Certain seasonal swings actually with these high sales developments do kick in.
Thank you.
We have a follow-up question from the line of Fabienne Caron from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question again. First on cash, the EUR 138 million, I think, for Belgium, has it been cashed out this quarter? When will it be cashed out? Just for the sake of curiosity, can you explain to us the accounting behind the EUR 300 million non-cash. I suspect it has to do with IFRS 16 assets and liabilities valuation, but I just want to be sure. A follow-up on inflation. Do you expect price inflation to remain at 50% in Q4? A follow-up again on sales force. How easy or how difficult it is to recruit sales force in the different market for the sCore strategy? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Fabienne. Steffen will go for sales force and for broadly discussing also inflation. With respect to the Belgian setup, basically we have EUR 140 million overall in the transformation cost right now. About half of it has been cashed out. Sorry, half of it has been cashed out in Q3. The remainder will come over the next couple of quarters from a provision point of view, in that perspective. That's the first one. I think the second with respect to the FX development on the non-cash side, it's not related to IFRS 16. It's related to basically intercompany liabilities and assets and basically therefore a complete internal development from an FX volatility perspective.
The interesting fact is when you look in the total development in the net equity position, so the other comprehensive income, there is the reciprocal amount in the positive direction, so this has no impact at all on the net equity position. It's just that the one thing flows through the P&L and the other one directly into the equity, because it's related to intercompany volatility that might still persist down the road. If the ruble basically depreciates, there will be a relevant gain in that position. If it appreciates, there could be additional negative numbers.
On inflation for Q4, we would expect roughly 15%. It's not increasing anymore compared to Q3, but we're still looking at the significant inflation in our selling prices. Roughly 15%, that's what we would estimate. Second, on sales force. It's possible to recruit. Of course, you have to be attractive in the market, and we are able to recruit also in all the core markets, sales force. What we are sure is with a good sort of growth strategy, good remuneration package, obviously, and multi-channel business, so that you also can rely on stores and so on. We are with a very attractive customer segment, the gastronomy, able to attract talents also on the sales side. That works.
Okay, thanks a lot.
There are no further questions at this time, and I would like to hand back to Dr. Steffen Greubel for closing comments. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you very much, and thank you very much for your participation and for your question. See and hear you soon on the next occasion. Stay safe, stay healthy, go out eating. See you.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.