Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Huhtamäki's investor call for second quarter of 2023. My name is Kristian Tammela, Vice President of Investor Relations . Following our normal procedure, we will start off with presentations by our President and CEO, Charles Héaulmé, followed by our CFO, Thomas Geust. After that, we'll have time for some questions. With that, let's get started and hand over to Charles.
Thank you, Kristian. Good morning to all of you, welcome to our results presentation for the second quarter, thanks for joining us this morning. I will start our presentation by giving you a quick snapshot on the markets, the market conditions during the second quarter, where we consider having delivered a stable performance in overall a challenging market. The market environment remained low, remained muted, impacted by continued inflation pressure on consumers and consumption.
The important aspect to highlight is that market studies, and including one that I was reading this morning, about the first semester, is showing that retail, for instance, in Western Europe, have published an analysis of a volume reduction of consumption of 4%-5% in consumer goods during the first semester in Western Europe. Second aspect in this study published is a very clear downtrading by consumers towards low-cost solutions. In across all the categories, we see the inflation has been the highest in food products, and that has been across all markets with an inflation on food products that has been even over 20%.
The consumption decline that we see is particularly visible, I mean, across all categories, but particularly visible in the home and personal care products. In this context, our financial performance is for the second quarter, if we compare it to the first quarter, is stable, suffering the volume tensions or challenges. We are delivering a comparable sales growth of -2%, which is impacted, of course, by the volume, but as well by a slowing down of the positive pricing impact from the price increases that we did in 2022. With this, our adjusted EBIT profit decreased compared to a strong quarter two 2022. That's important to always remember the comparability in terms of 2022.
We started with a strong quarter one, another very solid quarter two. The market conditions deteriorated in the second semester, as of July, basically last year. From a comparability point of view, this is important to remember. In this context, we are obviously not standing still. Since the beginning of the year, since the end of last year, when there was a confirmation of the market condition and the pressure on volume, we started addressing our competitiveness, productivity, as well focusing on our initiatives for profitable growth as we continue to see a good projection of our underlying market for the next couple of years.
In the second slide, so slide number 3, actually, we want to highlight a little bit what we are doing in terms of addressing the competitiveness, improving our productivity, and at the same time, in line with our strategy, scaling up our profitable core business. On the competitiveness, we are actively addressing productivity in all matters, so the what we call the three M's: Man, Machine, and Material. That's through very systematic methodologies. It is important to say that we do that in all our factories across the world, on each factory efficiency. Second, we are working, of course, on structural efficiency, on our overall structure and as well our manufacturing footprint.
To give an illustration of our situation at the end of the second quarter, 2023, we have decreased when we compare year-over-year to 12 months ago, we have decreased our headcount by 1,700 positions. Where of it's important to remind that Russia divestments accounts for 724 in this 1,700. As a matter of giving a comparability, our headcount at the end of June 2023 was 18,320 people. Second aspect, in the structural efficiency, that's the consolidation of our footprint. We have announced earlier in the 2Q, the decision to close our manufacturing operations for the Flexibles segment in Prague, Czech Republic. This is not a downsizing of our capacity.
We are utilizing the capacity that we have in Europe, in Ronsberg, in particular, in Germany, but as well in Turkey, with the Elif capacity that we have acquired back in 2021. This decision will affect, which is not accounted for in the head count I was mentioning before. This will result in a reduction of our workforce by 198 employees, and the completion will be by the end of this year, towards the first quarter of 2024. We will see the benefits in 2024. Another point, we have initiated the consolidation of our small labels manufacturing sites in India, and of course, we're continuing to look at our entire manufacturing footprint.
Now, on the core business, growth and all the projects that we have invested for back in 2022, there are basically five projects that are coming online for commercial productions during 2023. Some have already started, some are coming, most of them are coming in the second semester to production. Five projects, it has to do with the retail tableware capacity in North America, both on the pressed plates but as well on the smooth molded fiber. We have the fiber lids expansion in Europe, in the factory Alf in Germany, where we are almost at full utilization by now, end of June, and we will be at full utilization by the end of the year. E gg packaging in North America and South Africa, two new factories.
South Africa is already in commercial production, ramping up in the second quarter, so we'll be further growing in the second semester. The egg packaging in North America, in Hammond, near Chicago, will start in the later part of this year, early Q4, end of Q3. Finally, we have, as you may remember, started the commercial production of our Nespresso home compostable coffee capsules, and these products were launched in the market in the pilot market in France by Nespresso in the middle of June. Early days, but now this is live commercially. Final point, which will not have an impact on our P&L in 2023, but which is as well extremely positive, is about scaling up further our profitable core business in North America.
We will see that North America continues to deliver very solid performance and profitability. We are very pleased to continue investing in North America in a market that is growing, particularly the foodservice market, and more specifically, in this case, in the factory in Paris, Texas. This is a folding carton factory where we are in a market that is expanding a good 4% per year on average, we want to take opportunity of this growth and further scale our profitable core business.
This will mean an investment in CapEx of $30 million, the facilities will be on the same site, so there won't be additional structures and teams for this, from a fixed cost perspective for this facility, because it's an extension of the existing factory, with leasing of the facilities. We expect the ramp-up of commercial production to start in Q1 2025. From a variable point of view, we estimate to increase our head count, our resources, our variable resources on the shop floor by up to 80 people. That's for a bit of a snapshot on the strategic aspect. Now, let's go into the business performance for the second quarter on slide 5.
On the second quarter sales, where we see that our reported net sales decreased by 8% in the quarter. Very important to slice it in the right items. First of all, identifying that we have 3% decline, which is purely linked to the divestment of Russia back in September of 2022, and then -3%, which is linked to a negative currency impact, particularly coming from the USD evolution. This leaves a comparable net sales growth of 2%. We're coming back to, of course, more details on this. - 2% comparable net sales growth.
When we look at the first semester overall, without repeating myself, same aspects with the divestment of Russia and the currency, then we are flat in terms of comparable net sales growth, which means that Q1 was slightly higher than Q2 in terms of growth. I'll come back to now this in a bit more detail. So that's on the slide 7, breaking down by business segments, where we see that the Foodservice global business is up 5% in comparable growth for the second quarter. North America, up 1%. Flexible Packaging, -11%, and Fiber Packaging, +7%. I will come to this in much more granularity by segment to explain the viability between the different segments.
You may wonder about the -2% in Q2 versus the 0%, so the flat comparable net sales growth of the first semester, which means Q1 looks like better with a +2%. It is not linked to suggesting lower volumes in Q2 versus Q1. The point here in the comparability between Q1 and Q2 is actually the lower pricing impact that is, of course, slowing down as we go through in 2023 compared to 2022. That's I'm going to now spend a bit more time on the, of course, by segments. Before that, go, of course, through the P&L itself to say that our EBIT margin...
Sorry, our EBIT in EUR terms, first of all, decreased by 10%. However, is maintained compared to Q1 at 8.8% in terms of adjusted EBIT margin. It's important to remember that there is a dilutive effect when you compare to 2022, linked to the divestment of our Russian operations, which we have said it many times, but I think it's always worth reminding that this divestment was obviously dilutive from an EBIT margin point of view. The lower EPS, Thomas may come back, of course, on this a bit later. The slightly lower EPS evolution is linked to the higher financing cost in between EBIT and EPS.
We see a CapEx increase that in % in Q2 may look relatively high. This is all linked to fiber products capacity and particularly the factory that I was mentioning in Hammond, in the U.S. It's, if I may say, it's good to see this CapEx increasing for Q2 because it's the finalization of that project, which will come to commercial productions pretty soon in the second semester. I'm moving to the slide nine, the non-financial. Now focusing on the sustainability results. We are giving you a transparent and comprehensive view of our sustainability performance every semester. That's for the results for the first semester, and you may see that basically all our sustainability indicators are in green progressing.
Progressing versus last year, but progressing as well in line with our 2030 targets that we have established back in 2020. This is a very conscious, very systematic work that is being done. You know, I won't go through the eight indicators, but maybe highlight a couple of them that are, I think, quite remarkable in terms of improvement. Renewable electricity, if we remind ourselves that when we started with this strategy, 2019, we were at 0% renewable electricity, 25% last year, end of last year, and we are at 36% end of June. Really a steady, an important progression. As well, waste recycling, industrial waste recycling, we are progressing 75% last year, now three points more in six months.
Waste to landfill, which is something extremely important from a planet protection point of view. We are as well reducing this waste to landfill. I remember, I think two years ago or three years ago, was at 17%, 12% last year, 9% now. We continue to drive tangible and quite substantial progress on our sustainability targets. Now, quickly breaking down the financial performance. I'm on slide 11 for the ones following offline. Slide 11, starting with Foodservice Europe-Asia-Oceania , where our comparable net sales growth for the quarter is +5%, that's of course, excluding the impact of Russia.
That's why you see the reported net sales growth being -6%. Excluding it's +5%. What I would say about the market itself is that the demand for foodservice packaging has softened slightly, it's not the category where we see the biggest concern in terms of a pressure from inflation and from a consumption reduction. What is important to mention is that the evolution of the sales growth is relatively different depending on the regions. It's pretty positive in Europe and Middle East Africa, while the whole of Asia is still very challenging region from a consumption point of view and from competitive arbitrations.
Last point is probably important to remind that, and I'm going to repeat myself, but, you know, with the dilutive divestment effect of not having Russia anymore, and with the impact of having slightly lower volumes than last year, then our EBIT margin performance is really solid at 9.2%, which is a 0.5 points increase versus last year. That's pretty solid in the second quarter of this year. Moving on to North America, where from a sales point of view, we are suffering like in the rest of the business, the pressure of inflation on consumption, but we're not suffering across all categories.
There are some categories like foodservice , for instance, or retail tableware , where the market is still relatively positive in the context. However, consumer goods products, the products that, you know, consumers tend to downtrade, like ice cream, have suffered a lot across the first semester, and that's the relatively negative part we see in our volumes, as well as the lower pricing impact as we advance in the year, meaning that our comparable net sales growth is only 1%, which for U.S. is very modest. We are, we're not, you know, we're concerned about when the consumption will restart.
However, we have all in place to grow further the business according to what I said at the beginning, with the project. What is remarkable is that we continue to deliver a consistent and even increasing profitability level despite these market conditions, with an EBIT margin that is maintained at 12% overall on the first semester and even 12.2% in the second quarter, on the back of operational efficiencies and still some pricing impact. Flexible Packaging, slide 13. The overall demand for Flexible Packaging has declined, and that's mainly due to the inflationary pressure on consumption, but as well of further destocking in the value chain.
There was some uncertainty at the end of Q1, how long the destocking would take place. Actually, we have now the very clear understanding that in Q2, the destocking or the overstocking in 2022, when in some markets, particularly in emerging market, to give an example, Latin America, completely overstocked in some cases for one year. We have very clear proof of that we have suffered this until the end of the second quarter. However, we see the orders restarting in those categories from those markets, indicating that likely the destocking is coming to a phase out.
Which is good news because in this destocking, we have evaluated with pretty detailed analysis that this destocking accounts for about 3% of a volume decline in the second quarter. It's quite sizable. Second point to say is the consumption of prepacked food and everyday necessities is going down in Europe, in emerging markets. I mentioned at the beginning, you know, what retail is seeing and explaining in for the first semester. In addition, there has been some downtrading very clearly. It is pronounced in developed markets, from consumers going very clearly from main brands, national brands, or global brands to retail brands. In emerging markets, it's from going from global account brands to local product.
Of course, as you know, based on our the positioning of our portfolio, where a major part of our business is done with our customers, global accounts, customers, and brands, that makes us, of course, affected by this what we believe temporary evolution, but of course, impacting us in the first semester. In this context, the adjusted EBIT profit decreased, obviously impacted by the lower sales volume and as well the negative sales mix, because there is a sizable decrease of the volume in Europe. We are, of course, taking decisive actions, as I mentioned at the beginning in the introduction across the group, but particularly in Flexibles, in order to improve our competitiveness going forward. Lastly, Fiber Packaging.
The overall demand for fiber egg packaging and food-on-the-go products remain relatively stable in most markets if we compare to the first quarter. The prices of recycled fiber were lower than in Q2 a year ago. This is important to understand between Q2 and Q1 this year, is that there is no difference of volume, but that the pricing impact is much lower in Q2 as we advance in the year and there is much more competitive pressure. When raw material prices are decreasing, there is much more pressure on a competitive pricing.
Lastly, on the adjusted EBIT, which decreased due to lower sales volume, as well as the divestment of Russia, which is particularly dilutive in the Fiber Packaging, where we were highly profitable in Russia, in Fiber Packaging. This, handing over to Thomas for further details on the financials.
Thank you, Charles. On the further details on this part, I will focus on things not yet touched by Charles. Maybe starting off, though, on the effect of the volumes, volume decline, and so on. As you can see, we have a drop of roughly 10% in the EBIT in the quarter. Here again, if I would adjust for this Russia that we are highlighting, we have said it many times now in this call, and I want to bring some further clarity to it. Roughly half of that 10% drop comes from the Russia divestment. Same goes for the year-to-date numbers.
Other items to highlight here is that we are still increasing on the finance cost. You can see that we are 24% above previous year level while year to date numbers are significantly higher. Obviously, this is coming from two things. First of all, we started to have a higher finance cost already in the second quarter last year, following the higher debt levels and then the higher finance costs. In the quarter alone, the increase has actually moderated, so we are now on the roughly EUR 5 million per month rate that I have been highlighting earlier. That's on the back of slightly lower debt level, and then not having impacts from currency revaluations.
Tax rate, adjusted tax rate is 23.5%, you will find that the reported tax rate is higher. The reason for that one is that the IAC of the Prague closure is a non-deductible item, from that perspective, it affects the ETR accordingly. Going to the currency rates, here on the right side, you see that the impact for the quarter is strongly negative, while we in the first quarter had a slightly negative on sales and a EUR 1 million positive on EBIT. From the table on the left side, you see that the trend is trending negative to us, we expect the translation part of currency to continue negative towards the back end of the year as well.
We are not getting support currently out of how the currencies are trading. Turning to the net debt level, net debt is slightly up from previous quarter. That's the normal pattern. If you look on the left side, Q1, Q2 2022, it's the effect of paying the dividend in the quarter, while we, as I will be highlighting later on, have been generating quite nice cash flow in the quarter. Cash and cash equivalents are on a good level, EUR 334 million. In that sense, indicating that we have funds available, and then the net debt level is at EUR 1.453 billion.
From that perspective, it gives a gearing of 79 and a net debt EBITDA level of 2.5. Nothing very dramatic on the net debt level, very much in line with how we have been expected to be trending. If you look on a maturity point of view, what I have been highlighting earlier is that we do have items also coming up for maturity. We did, for that reason, a sustainability-linked EUR 125 million term loan. We preferred to do that route rather than going for long-term bond financing, as we believe that cash flow generation will help us easing our net debt levels going forward.
Only after that, we want to secure the long-term funding. Looking at the free cash flow level, obviously, in the reported EBITDA, you will have the burden of the IAC, so that's booked in there. Otherwise, the positive trend in working capital helping us now to generate the strong EUR 71 million year-to-date cash flow, despite being slightly higher from a timing point of view on the capital side, capital expenditure side, and the net financial costs and taxes, both of them burdening. As predicted and as also communicated, the burden we had on cash from net working or operating working capital is now easing. Here on the right side, we are claiming that operating working capital decreased, thanks to higher inventories.
That's obviously a typo, so from lower inventories, it should say. You can see here that we are roughly EUR 60 million below previous year's level on that item. Other items trending basically, mainly from currency revaluations. If we turn to the long-term ambition, on the long-term ambition, we are, as evident, trending below currently on both growth as well as the margin ambition. Also the return on investment as the invested capital hasn't yet materialized, is lagging behind. Remember that the return parameters are quite lagging indicators, as they have several quarters in them.
... the dividend ratio, so the dividend decision taken in the AGM of 40% payout ratio is now materializing with the having had the first installment paid in May this year, and the second one coming up in October. On the outlook and short-term risks, we remain with the statement from previous quarters, so no changes on this one. That's all from my part, and with that, I would be handing over for questions and answers.
If you wish to ask a question, please dial star five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial star five again on your telephone keypad. The next question comes from Calle Loikkanen from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning, and thank you for taking my question. I have a few questions. Maybe we'll take them one by one. To start off, can you elaborate on the price versus volume growth in Q2? I guess volume was probably down some mid single digits, but is that the fair assumption?
Good morning, Calle. Your assumption is perfectly correct. Basically, in the second quarter, we have said -2% comparable net sales growth. Volume at group level, with some differences between segments is overall mid-single digit down, the pricing is a little bit more than mid-single digit up.
Okay.
That's the one variation. The pricing is the one variation versus Q1, where it was still higher than this.
Okay. Good, thank you. On the competitiveness actions you mentioned in the beginning, first of all, are these kind of new actions that you've kind of looked at in the past few months, or are they the same that you kind of hinted or talked about at the Capital Markets Day? Secondly, what size of savings are you expecting from these actions?
The first question, which is, you know, is this new? Your question was versus CMD. At the CMD, we knew already, we were already into the planning of a number of things. Now, is it new versus what we were doing in the previous years? Yes and no. A part is no, because we continue a systematic approach of manufacturing efficiency through our world-class operational performance based on the TPM Japanese methodology, proven methodology, going factory through factory, shop floor. Basically making the factories much more efficient at shop floor, at every single machine and operator basis on the waste and on OE, to just name the main two indicators. That's the systematic approach. We have years working on this, and we have accelerated over the last three years.
That's the. Where I'm saying no, it's not new. Where it is new is we have decided since January a number of specific productivity initiatives, not across the group, you know, as an average, but where we believe we have possibilities without affecting our capacity for the future, for the future growth. Where we have possibilities to drive the structure to be more efficient, and that results into the head count reduction I was mentioning, is basically linked to these new initiatives. Some have to do with structure, so indirect employment. Some of it has to do with manufacturing footprint, which is not yet accounted for, as I said before, in the head count, because decisions made obviously will take a couple of months to implement completely.
The size of the savings, I don't think we are guiding on this. However, what we can say is, of course, each action, every single project is decided based on a business case, and basically the payback is a year or less.
Okay. Okay, thank you. Then my final question before handing over to the others. Could you elaborate a bit on what's going on in India? Sales was down some 10% in Q1 and then 20% in Q2. I guess some of it's, is coming from kind of trading down. Can you know, elaborate a bit more on what's going on there, and when do you think... Or when do you expect things to change?
Well, things are changing, I mean, in the sense of things are improving, okay? When you look at India on its own. However, we're still in a market that is depressed. India, we have to put things in perspective. India has been. What was a growth engine as a market, has been incredibly disrupted since the COVID started and didn't recover that yet. However, when we think about the perspective, even the macroeconomic perspective of India, they are looking relatively positive, actually. There is. Not, now, this is not Huhtamäki's voice, but there is clear view from analysts around the world that India is going to repump some growth going forward.
Now, for us, why am I saying we're suffering the market conditions, meaning lower consumption, very clearly down trading, which is a negative impact to us? That's very clear, because the down trading means is favorable to local small producers. However, we are recovering in the sense that our profitability is actually higher in this quarter versus a year ago.
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, and that's of course positive. On the demand side and the sales side, do you think that the second half will be as challenging as the first half, or could things improve already in terms of sales already in the second half?
I would make on this, I would make the same answer, not just on India, but like on Flexible Packaging overall. We have three elements. One is the destocking I was talking about. There is a solid hope that the destocking, there is no substantial stocks anymore in the value chain, that so therefore, we would not be suffering in the second semester from destocking. Second, the consumption aspect that it would be highly presumptuous to make any projection, because the question to me, it's not if the consumption will come back, it's when is it going to restart, and, it's not very clear that it will restart early in Q3, for instance.
Then the third element, which has to do with the down trading in India particularly, which is negative to us, that means sometimes accepting some volume losses to not accept, you know, categories and customers that would drive you to non-profitable business. That part is going to be recovered with the market. It will take a bit more time than just the second half of 2023.
Okay, thank you. That's very helpful. Very helpful. Thank you. Maybe just one last, you mentioned destocking, and has destocking been an issue mainly in Flexible Packaging, or has it been an issue also in foodservice and the other segments?
Let's put it like this, we think that there has been some destocking everywhere, some overstocking in 2022 everywhere. However, we don't speak about it in other segments than flexibles, because in flexibles it is very sizable. It is very substantial, and we see it because of the structure. I think there we are suffering the structure of selling a lot to emerging markets, which from a growth point of view in normal days is very good, but in this context, has meant in what I would call erratic behavior in the order process of customers.
I take the example of, you know, Latin America, Africa, for instance, we have very clearly markets which have, in 2022, in the second quarter, first and second quarter of 2022, purchased for one year of stock and didn't order since then. Didn't order since the second semester, didn't order in the first semester this year. Now we are seeing the orders in our system. Meaning these businesses are not lost, they are suffering an overstocking in 2022. We speak about it in flexibles because it's sizable. I talked about a potentially good 3% impact on volume.
Maybe to continue on that one. As you understand, Kalle, in foodservice , the type of products we have there, the customer can, cannot. Their stock warehouses are not as big so that they could store a full year of stocks in flexibles where you store flat products, and especially then in emerging markets, where you can play with the same type of packaging for a longer period, you can actually afford going for excessive stock for a time. It's not the same pattern in more mature markets, because there you will also be shifting the packaging type and the print more frequently than in the mature emerging markets.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. That's very helpful. That's all for me, let's get the others on to ask questions as well. Thank you.
The next question comes from Jutta Rahikainen from SEB. Please go ahead.
Hello, hello. Good morning. I have a few questions in addition to those Kalle already covered. If we look at the second half of this year, twofold question. First of all, the price mix, is it fair to assume that the price mix will turn negative in Q3 or Q4, a negative year-on-year now? The second part of the question is the volume development. You had a mid-single-digit decline in Q1 and Q2. Do you expect the same decline pace to continue in the latter half of this year, or is it less of a decline year-on-year, or perhaps more of a decline year-on-year? That's the first one. Thank you.
Good morning, Jutta. On your first question about the price mix, what we would expect is that we come to Q3 into a flat situation. So far, there is a competitive pressure in the market, but we've been relatively good at resisting so far. However, there has not been much price increase either in Q4 last year or in Q1 this year, therefore, that would still impact in Q3. Basically, an assumption of a flat pricing impact would be reasonable.
The volume development, as I, you know, suggested when answering Calle, some elements are very difficult to predict, like, you know, consumption is impossible to predict the, when consumption is going to restart to recover to normal level. Because of the explanation of the destocking impact in the first semester, that we expect to go back to normal order pattern. That doesn't mean that the 3% I was mentioning is, you know, immediately up back in the, in July and in Q3, because it, you know, I think in the context, all companies will be, all the value chain is going to be prudent in rebuilding stocks. That the, at least the negative effect of the destocking should not be visible anymore.
ing us today. My name is Thomas Geust, and I am the Chief Financial Officer of Huhtamäki. I'm joined by our President and CEO, Charles Héaulmé, and Kristian Tammela, our Vice President of Investor Relations. We are here today to discuss Huhtamäki's financial results for the first quarter of 2024. We will begin with a presentation of the results, followed by a question-and-answer session. Before we dive into the details, I would like to draw your attention to the disclaimer on page 2 of the presentation.
This presentation contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those expressed or implied in these statements. Now, let's move on to the agenda for today's call. Charles will start with a brief overview of the first quarter, highlighting the key achievements and challenges. I will then provide a more detailed financial review, covering our sales performance, profitability, and cash flow. Finally, Charles will conclude with an outlook for the remainder of the year and our strategic priorities. We will then open the floor for your questions. Please note that this call is being recorded and a replay will be available on our website. With that, I will hand over to Charles to begin the presentation. Charles, please
Well, not that there is a ban, but there is a need of this capacity. Fiber lids. It's only since May in our factory in Alf that we started to benefit to a substantial capacity utilization from the deployment across Europe by McDonald's of the fiber lids. All this is going to come to the coffee capsules I mentioned, even though it should not be such a material difference in the second semester. Still, I mean, it will be much more than in the first semester, let's say. You know, lots of positives, will we promise now today a completely changed trend? This is not what we're saying. We're saying that there are signs for uncertainty, very clearly, signs of uncertainty.
The consumption may go down further and more. That we really don't know. It's what I read this morning was -5% in volume in the first semester. It's quite a high level. Yeah, who knows what it's going to give in the second semester?
Maybe to continue on that one, we also addressed, as you remember, in Q1, that the first half of the year from a comparison point of view, was more challenging as we were then benefiting quite a lot of that upstocking due to the fear of the supply chain. That just as a further reminder to how what the second half as a comparison base.
Okay, good. Thanks. That's helpful. The second question I have is on the investment you have and the payback schedule, so to say. I mean, you've been investing now for a few years, and my question really is that, and you continue to invest, of course. My question is that, should we kind of get very excited about 2024 already? Will we see kind of some sort of hockey stick of all these investments at some point generating also EBIT? Or is it more a sort of steady thing that happens over the past, say, three years? If you see what I mean, kind of just to get the big picture on the pace of the return on investment plans you have.
I think overall, you should consider that we will see, a clear benefit from the recent investments because we are focusing as before, but I would say even more, relatively speaking, into scaling up our profitable core business. We are You said, should we be happy or what did you say, as a word? Excited about the investments. For instance, we are very excited about the investments we are doing today and planning now with this new investment in the US, because this is going to be both value accretive and you're talking about payback. The payback of an investment like and the return on investment, of an investment like the one in Paris, Texas, announced a couple of days ago, is value accretive for the company and is relatively rapid payback.
You probably remember that in our business, when we invest in fiber, the payback tends to be a bit longer, between five and 10 years. When it's in foodservice , in paperboard conversion, it's much faster. We are focusing on basically, scaling up our core, our profitable core business, and therefore, we're so happy to do it in the U.S. because U.S., as you know, is, relatively speaking, at a very good performance level.
I would add to this one that it's not like the investments we haven't, we have put in, like the fiber lids and these wouldn't be contributing. They are, in fact, contributing already to the numbers. That positive thing is being masked now by the overall low market sentiment, which is impacting what I would call the legacy part of the business in, for instance, Flexibles.
Okay, good. Then, my last question, I think, links to North America, at least versus my estimates. It's been surprising positively now for a very long time, and you commented already on that it has prevailed at a high and good level in terms of margins. The future then, I mean, now you invest a bit there, what else kind of should we think that this is a sustainable profit level to have also in the coming few years? Or is it fair to say that we go back to that sort of, should I say, 10%-12% EBIT margin that's historically been there?
It's very clearly our target to remain at 12%. The reason for that is we are investing particularly in categories where we are very well positioned with our brand, for instance, our Chinet brand, or with a category like egg packaging, that is going to be value accretive, or in foodservice , where we see growth in a profitable market. That's the first answer. The second one is, I guess in the back of your question, there is the experience of a good year of Batavia when those factories were built up, and that there was a pretty sizable impact of the startup cost, at least during one year.
Here, let's remember that where we are building capacity is basically in existing sites, and that's the beauty of the legacy North America strategy has been to establish a network across the territory. Now, with this network, this manufacturing footprint, we have the possibility to expand capacity, not in the walls that we have, but at least on the site. What it means is that even though we may have sometimes to expand the building, like in Paris, Texas, on a leasing base, we can still leverage the local structure of the factory because it's not a new factory. That makes those investments profitable much faster profitable than maybe the examples you had in mind.
Okay, that's clear. Thanks. Actually, one more question came into my mind on the working capital for the latter half of this year, because, I mean, last year you did tie up a lot of it, and now you are releasing some of it. Will the working capital development be positive for the Q3 and Q4 as well? When we end the year, the situation is better.
I expect the working capital to continue trending positively, especially towards the end of the year. A bit of a question mark is the inventory build prior to the seasonal events in North America. Of course, with a disclaimer that should the markets heavily pick up, then obviously, it has a trending negative impact from a receivables point of view and so on. My best estimate is that we will have a positive impact from the working capital also going forward.
Thank you. That's all for me.
The next question comes from Henri Parkkinen from OP Corporate Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. First of all, good day for everyone. I have two questions, and I'll start with the question which is more or less related to short-term issue, and it's about the raw material development. When taking into account what do you currently see on the raw material side and when taking into account your contract structures, what are your expectations for the second half of this year and also for 2024? My question is especially related to fiber costs, recycled fiber, and then also for carton board market, which seems to be very oversupplied at the moment in Europe.
Your question being on overall on raw materials, where are we first of all, and then what we expect, and in what we expect, it's relatively uncertain, of course. What we're seeing is, what you certainly know is, a cost reduction of all the film resins and polymers, and that has been now for about six months. We may not see it all in the cost of goods sold in our P&L, but relatively soon, we see part of it already. Aluminum, alufoil is as well going down.
The paperboard is still high in most of our markets. That's linked to the fact that paperboard is based more on a longer term, not multi years, but longer term, I mean, at least one year, contract. Your question was particularly on the recycled fiber. Recycled fiber went down pretty substantially over the last six, nine months. That's linked very much to demand. This is a market that is extremely sensitive to demand. We remember that during COVID, when the demand was very high for e-commerce, then recycled fiber became scarce in terms of sourcing. The pricing went through the roof. Now they are down, they should be stabilizing.
If the demand is restarting, they should certainly further increase a bit, but probably not to the extent of where it used to be. I would. On this, it's going to be, on the recycled fiber, it's going to be very much, demand related. Thomas, anything you want to?
Yeah, I would, I would add maybe because, of course, also the, board market and paper market is quite a wide concept as such. I would highlight here that, although also the consumer board side, which we are participating in, is down from a demand point of view for our suppliers, I believe, it's not impacted as much as the, containerboard side. Many of the, of the things you are referring to with the, with the softness in the market are related to, e-commerce containerboards and these kind of businesses.
Okay, many thanks. The second one question is, it's related to long term, and it's about the European Commission and the European Union. They came out with their initial action plans, how to decrease and prevent packaging waste. If I understood it correctly, there are some kind of obligations coming to consumers for retail sector and also for the whole packaging value chain. I understand that this is a very early stage, but what do you think about this, and then what's your view regarding these kind of plans and processes?
On this question of the PPWR, the Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation, the project was issued on the 30th of November 2022. Specifically on, if we just remind quickly what it is about, it's about a very broad scope about packaging, but there are some specific articles in this project of legislation which interest us directly, particularly Article 22 and Article 26. These two articles are basically introducing stringent targets for reusable containers to be used in the HoReCa sector and in the takeaway sector. That means it would impact relatively directly our foodservice business. That's Without going into more details, that's the letter of the project. What is the impact?
I come to what is the status today. You ask what we think, I may tell you a few words. The impact that we have measured on our business is that it would be by 2030, excluding the growth of our business with the market and with the growth with innovation and with other products, okay? Just from this would be a -2% by 2030. We're not talking about on our sales. We're not talking about a substantial impact, but still an impact that is adverse and negative. What do we think? I will say two words about this. What do we think? Something positive and something negative.
The positive is, we are totally in favor of legislation for sustainability because there is no way we drive sustainability for the planet altogether as a society, without legislation. The other part we think, negatively now, is we think this legislation is in many aspects wrong because it's not based on the right science and fact base, and therefore it will have unintended consequences. Now, that's our opinion, and we are advocating it very clearly. Now, where are we in the legislative process? I will end my answer there.
very important, and your question is timely, is yesterday, Commissions of Industry and Trade and Commission for Agriculture were voting about those two about this legislation, and have voted at 84% against these two articles, meaning that their recommendation is at 84%, both committees, to delete the two articles that are affecting our business. I'm not saying victory, I'm saying it could be, and you said we are early in the process, it could be that there are more positive news coming towards the end of this legislative process, early 2024.
All right.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you, everyone. Time is running up. Hope to hear from you again next time. Have a great day. Thank you.