Good morning, everyone, thanks for taking the time this morning to come and listen to our half-year results to December, 2025. Firstly, I would just like to also welcome Dries Ferreira, sitting on my left here. He's the newly appointed CFO of KAP, and we're looking forward to his contributions.
Thank you.
If we look at our results for the period, and we go to the operating environment, first of all, we released it this morning, and earnings were up. We also decreased our debt. In the six months, we still faced difficult trading conditions. It was influenced by domestic and global factors. We're also seeing some subdued consumer demand, specifically in some of our divisions. Some of the highlights for us was the improvement in our performance in PG Bison, both in panel sales and in panel production. We'll discuss that and unpack that a little bit in more detail later on in the presentation. We also benefited from Feltex that increased their performance. That's on the back of an increase in vehicle assembly volumes.
Net finance costs was lower. That was partly due to lower debt and also lower interest costs. The improved results was underpinned by great operational focus. I think all the divisions was really disciplined in the execution of our plans and our strategy. We made good progress in addressing underperformance of certain operations. We also made good traction in the execution of our strategic objectives. All of these we'll discuss in more detail in the specific divisions. Like everything, not all divisions or not everything is always going right. We had some challenges in our Safripol business, where the results was materially lower, impacted by cyclical low in the polymer sector. Lastly, Optix performance was below expectations. I'll explain that in more detail.
If you look at the divisional contribution, on the left there, we've got revenue, and on the right, operating profit, where the three big divisions, PG Bison, Safripol, and Unitrans, contributes 84% to our turnover. On the right-hand side, you can see there that those three divisions make up 72% of operating profit, of which PG Bison is the largest, with 43%. From a trading perspective in PG Bison, the trading environment was generally good through the period, where the division managed to increase our panel products by 20% that resulted in 18% higher revenue. Both or all our plants and operating presses operated at full capacity, including our new MDF line in Makhanda, and sales volumes increased in primary markets by 14%.
If we refer to primary markets, that's the South African market and also all the neighboring countries where we export via a truck, or we can transport this stock to. The deep-sea markets increased 43%, and that is largely because of the additional volume that we had in the MDF line, and the team did a good job in finding new export markets. Deep-sea exports represented 16% of the total volume, and that's mostly raw board that we export in the deep-sea markets. In line with our strategy, we managed to increase value-add sales volumes by 10%. All the good work that the team has done is a combination of demand creation, customer enablement activities, as well as developing of new export markets.
That resulted in a 32% increase in our operating profit, with the increased sales volumes and operational efficiencies that we got through the plants. Just for context, in the prior period, we compare H1 now to H1 in the prior period. In the prior period, we just commissioned that new MDF line, and we were still in a ramp-up phase, where we had all the additional costs and all the testing of the line, and that obviously we don't have in this period. The division is still focused on growing our market share and improved our margins over time.
Although the plants are operating at full capacity, there's still opportunity for increasing our margin, and that is through increased value-add sales, and for that, we are going to install another MFB press in H2 2027. Also, there's opportunity for us to increase our sales mix towards, like I said, more value add and also selling from the deep-sea export markets into our primary market. If I step back and look at PG Bison, we're satisfied with the strategy. We satisfied with the execution of the strategy and the momentum. We can feel the momentum is accelerating following the investment that we've made in the new MDF line. Safripol, we experienced, and we're not unique, we operate in a global market, but global polymer industry is continuing to experience a cyclical low.
that also impacted us with subdued demand and pricing that we've experienced, and that is largely due to global overcapacity, and a lot of that global overcapacity sits in China. What does that mean for us? Our sales volumes declined by 7%, that resulted in revenue down 18%. The main reason for the decline in volumes was in PET, where we've seen increased competition from low-value imports, mainly from China, and that ultimately resulted in us having to take a five week commercial shut in H1 to manage the elevated inventory. Domestic and export sales volumes are both lower. I think I've explained the PET. On the other two polymers, domestic sales were slightly up, but in combined, we were actually lower. Exports that we managed...
due to manage inventory levels, that remained at 13%. The net effect of this decline in revenue and margins was operating profit reduced by 40%, and that's volume, price, and raw material margins. To note is polypropylene margins were particularly weak during this period, and all three polymers is well below the historic levels. For this industry, the expectation from industry experts and people that forecast is that it will remain in a cyclical low until 2030. What do, what do we do about it? We continue to focus as management on operational efficiencies. We continuously look at raw material procurement, cost-saving initiatives, and also to increase our proportion of higher-margin polymers that we sell away from commodity polymers.
Unfortunately, with the increase in PET imports that we've seen, in this six months, we planned, and we're actually, at the moment, in the process of another commercial shutdown at the PET plant in Durban, to manage the elevated inventory. To sum up, although it's a tough space, global industry is still at a decade low, cyclical low, we're happy with the strategy of Safripol, of the business. We're happy with management execution of the items in our control, and from all operational aspects of running the plants, efficiencies, we're doing a great job to the best of our ability. Unitrans improvement. However, it's ongoing difficult trading conditions that we operated in.
I think it's well, communicated in the market, the state of the logistics industry, and we operate in the same market. What does that mean for us? We our inventory was 8% lower, but there's specific reasons for that. That is mainly due to our passenger business, where we've lost the material contract in the prior period in Mozambique and subsequently closed our passenger operations in Mozambique, so that weighed on our revenue this year. Also, we've disposed in the prior period, and we've announced it with our year-end results, a commuter contract in passenger. The operating profit increased by 3%, and we've seen stronger performance in basically all other divisions, with the exception of passenger and mining, where there was a strong growth in agriculture, food, and petrochemicals.
All three of those were higher, either due to volume or cost, good cost control by management, good cost savings initiatives by management, and improved operational efficiencies in running those businesses. We've seen good momentum in the turnaround of the petrochemicals operations. We've communicated the last time that we had a very challenging period, specifically H2 last year in our petrochemical operations. We've got stuck in a restructure of the business and a deep dive into that operations. That's starting to bear fruits, and we've seen some good momentum in that turnaround. That also included, or we concluded in December, the disposal of the petrochemical operations in Eswatini that we've disinvested from.
Mining operations results were weaker, slightly weaker, but that is due to one specific underperformance of a contract, and management is busy addressing that. Our focus for Unitrans, if you step back, is good performance, up on prior year, below our expectation. If you, if we didn't have the down on passenger, it's below our expectation, and we're still looking, targeting that ZAR 700 million operating profit in the medium term. There's a couple of items that we continue to focus on, and that's exit of low-return activities, and contract reviews is ongoing. We started with a process of fleet modernization, where required, conservatively, but we started with that process, and we'll continue with that.
We driving operational success, excellence, and cost savings initiatives throughout the whole business, and there's organic growth that we looking, seeking for at the required returns in all of our divisions. We made meaningful progress on the turnaround. We're satisfied with the progress that we've made. Management is committed and motivated, and we're not there yet, but the management is on it, and we continue with our actions to improve the performance of Unitrans. Feltex, what we've seen in this six months is a recovery of the new vehicle assembly volumes.
Why I say recovery is, 'cause there were specific items that impacted the prior period that we compare to, where there was a new model introduction and also another OEM that had some production issues. That normalized in this six months. We've seen turnover increasing 23%, and that's on the back of new vehicle, domestic build volumes, that's up 12%. LCV and SUV sales up 18% and 25% respectively, and that was positive for our aftermarket operation. Operating profit on the back of the increased volumes increased meaningfully, and there was also some non-recurring costs in the prior period with the model changeover that we didn't experience in this period. Operating profit up more than 100%.
There's some headwinds in the industry, but it's encouraging to see the investment, continued investment by OEMs, with two new models planned for 2026 and 2027. Management continue to focus on, in existing models and also new model launches, to focus on new localization opportunities, and also, in cost savings opportunities, that we can get. We also actively engaging with government, in terms of, policy and to influence through industry bodies and to stimulate growth and sustainability of this important manufacturing industry for the South African economy. Although the division is constrained, if you just step back on the...
Although the division is constrained by industry, vehicle build, management focus, and disciplined execution, I think they've done a really good job in the six months in making sure that we operate our machines effectively and we maintain our costs as best as we can. Sleep Group still encountered a difficult trading condition. It feels like we say this every time we have a results presentation, but the furniture industry was difficult and challenging for us during the six months. What we think is that in the prior period, you had the Two-Pot Retirement withdrawals that definitely impacted consumer spending or availability of money to spend. Also, we've seen the increase in online gambling affecting consumer demand. What did that mean for us as a Sleep Group? Our revenue increased 5%.
There's a couple of reasons for that. One is that we've included a new bolt-on acquisition that we've done in Botswana, to manufacture beds in Botswana. That revenue came in. We also had a more or a better or an improved sales mix in terms of what we sold. With that, we managed to maintain our bedding units, which is very positive for us in this difficult market, and we believe that we've either maintained or gained market share with our key customers. Operating profit increased 4%, and the business, you can look at in the two business units that we've got. The improved performance was due to the raw material operations. To note, there is the turnaround in our foam business. That was partly offset by the bedding operation.
Although volumes was flat, we have invested more in marketing costs, and we've also seen an increase in distribution costs. During this period, we also successfully launched a new entry and premium products. That's part of our strategy to sell a lower-end product, a middle-range product that we're already selling, and also a premium product. That we've launched during this period, and we believe that will support our market share growth and also earnings growth in the future. I did mention the acquisition of Botswana, the new bedding manufacturer, our bedding manufacturer plant in Botswana, and that's also to grow our revenue outside of South Africa, and that will service Botswana and the Zambian regions.
If you look at the Sleep Group or the way we look at Sleep Group, the furniture market remains subdued, although there is some positive news all over, interest through, in the sales from furniture through the retailers. We're satisfied with our strategy. We have initiatives in place, we have marketing initiatives in place, and we believe that will support our growth in the future. Optix in the last period, and maybe slightly just before that, we invested in the executive team in this business. We invested in sales, operational, and finance capacity, and that was all done to expand our international footprint and our international sales pipeline. However, it takes time for new executive teams to settle and to turn things around.
We've seen in the six months that our revenue declined 11%. Hardware sales was down 27%. That was for specific reasons, where there was 3G upgrades. Pleasing for us is our subscriptions grew by 25%, and that's the important number that we're looking at, and that is because of the annuity nature of subscriptions. The operating loss, however, increased from the prior year, and that is largely due to the investment that we've made in the executive capacity. The sales pipeline at the moment is not sufficient to set off those costs, we believe we're making good progress and momentum in that regard. The results remain below our expectation. What are we doing about it? We're intensifying our sales efforts.
We expanding our international sales pipeline, both directly and through our partnerships that we've got. We're also restructuring the business to right-size, following the investment in technology. We've invested in CRM systems, in ERP systems, that gives us opportunity to just right-size the business from a people perspective. This is all focused on improved performance. If you step back, look at Optix, we remain optimistic about the global industry of video telematics. We're satisfied with our strategy. We have invested in an executive team that's got the capability and the capacity to execute. That's what we focus on. It's about execution and turning the sales pipeline into revenue.
That takes us through the operational review, and I now ask Dries to take us through the financials. Thank you.
Thank you, Frans. Good morning to everyone. I'm gonna start with a helicopter view over the results. In the top line, we've got the group revenue consolidated at ZAR 14.9 billion, which consolidates all the different divisions that Frans has taken us through. That is a downward movement of 3% for the various reasons Frans has unpacked. Our EBITDA, our cash profits, has increased by 5% to ZAR 2 billion, and our operating profit by 10% increased to ZAR 1.3 billion. That's before capital items. Pleasingly, our operating margin on the second line has improved by 100 basis points to 8.5%, resulting in headline earnings per share increasing by 32% to ZAR 0.227, and earnings per share by 28% to ZAR 0.208 per share.
Our net working capital, a major focus for us, is at a level of ZAR 4.4 billion, which increased by 6%, and I'll unpack that in more detail later in the presentation. Our cash flow from operations has improved by a nice 39% to ZAR 899 million. Free cash outflow before dividends, which I will also unpack the movement between the ZAR 899 and the ZAR 219 million in a later slide in the presentation. Expansion capital expenditure came in at ZAR 202 million, down 36%, and interest-bearing debt pleasingly down to ZAR 8.5 billion, down 8% on the comparative period. Our return on inve
our return on capital employed on a rolling 12 month basis is down 40 basis points at 8.5%, reflecting the movement and the ratio between our profits and our invested capital. Moving on to the revenue line, which decreased by 3%, there's two divisions that clearly added to the growth of the overall group. That's PG Bison and Feltex. In PG Bison, really the increase driven by the increased sales volumes after the commissioning of the plant at Mkhondo site. At Feltex, as Frans outlined, the improved domestic vehicle assembly volumes supported revenue growth in Feltex.
On the decline side for revenue, we've got the Safripol, which, a business that was impacted by the lower sales prices and volumes, and in Unitrans, for the two main reasons outlined by Frans, the passenger operations affected by the loss of a material contract, as well as the disposal of the commuter contract, both in the prior year. Operating profit increased by 10% compared to the prior period. Year two, we see PG Bison adding ZAR 132 million of operating profit growth and Feltex, ZAR 104 million, for the reasons outlined on the previous slide. On the downside, we've got Safripol, which declined by ZAR 113 million, and we've got Optix, which reduced the group operating profit by ZAR 25 million. Unitrans and Sleep Group delivered improved performances.
Looking at the more traditional view of the income statement, I'm gonna start with the operating profit number of ZAR 1.264 billion, which improved by 10% year-on-year. Mostly, again, PG Bison and Feltex that supported that number. We've got net finance cost pleasingly down 16% at ZAR 433 million, compared to ZAR 517 million in the prior year, comparative period. That reduction is driven almost half-half by interest rate reductions, as well as lower net debt numbers in the comparative period. Tax rate at 28%, amounting to ZAR 226 million expense, compares to a 26% tax rate in the comparable period. Our profit, therefore, came in attributable to owners of the parent, ZAR 521 million, up 29%, compared to ZAR 405 million.
Wrapping up at the bottom, we've got our headline earnings per share at ZAR 0.227 per share, compared to ZAR 0.171, which is an increase of 32%. We move on to the balance sheet, a couple of items I'd like to highlight. Firstly, the net working capital number, as I've explained earlier, again, just touching on that, ZAR 4.4 billion, compared to the comparable period, December 2024, of ZAR 4.159 billion. That's a reduction, increase, sorry, of ZAR 251 million.
We look at the next line on the balance sheet, the assets held for sale, it's important to jump two lines higher to the biological assets of ZAR 1.239 billion, which showed a significant drop. That's mainly due to a ZAR 342 million of biological assets that's been reallocated into the assets held for sale, together with other assets, which relates to the disposal of PG Bison southern Cape operations, which is now classified as held for sale. Net interest bearing debt, if I move down slightly to the two lines below the assets sum, we are pointing out here that the total net interest bearing liabilities has reduced to ZAR 8.515 billion. That's a decrease of ZAR 752 million compared to the same period in the comparable period.
It's ZAR 409 million higher than the June number that we reported, and it's important to also note this, the seasonality or the cyclicality in our net working capital cycle, which drives directly into our net interest-bearing debt. We are still targeting a ZAR 500 million reduction for the full year number, which will compare to the June 2025 number of ZAR 8.1 billion. The net working capital in a bit more detail. Inventory increased by ZAR 146 million. Mainly, PG Bison increased as a result of the new MDF plant, which was, in the comparative period, still in ramp-up process. It's offset somewhat by Safripol due to the lower HDPE and PP finished goods levels, but also then driving up the number, the elevated PET finished good, which was offset by the lower PTA inventory.
The net receivables decreased by ZAR 429 million, which is in line with the decrease in revenue, mainly Safripol and Unitrans. Also there, offset by the increased sales in PG Bison due to the increased revenue. ZAR 534 million decrease in payables resulted then in a net inventory, net working capital position of ZAR 4.4 billion. Here, too, we are profiling the position in Safripol, which has planned the lower quarter two PTA imports for PET production, and also the preparation for the commercial shut in February 2026. Cash flow. The EBITDA amounted to ZAR 1.986 billion. That we compare to the cash generated from operations of ZAR 899 million.
The main movements between here is, firstly, the cash generated from trading, just over ZAR 2 billion at ZAR 2,053 million, which is ZAR 250 million up on the comparative period. The main drivers here is the ZAR 89 million increase in EBITDA and the ZAR 118 million less absorbed in our working capital. Net finance costs paid decreased by ZAR 80 million, so 15%. When comparing EBITDA to our cash generated from operations of ZAR 899 million, we are achieving a 45% cash conversion ratio and emphasizing here that we are targeting a 90% cash conversion ratio for year-end. Following through from the ZAR 299 million from the previous slide, at the top line on this current slide, our cash flow from operations is positive on ZAR 299 million.
Operating activities, that is, are ZAR 299 million positive, compared to an outflow in the comparative period of ZAR 48 million. Here, we want to quickly pause on the investing activities, which is showing a decrease on the comparative period from ZAR 747 million to ZAR 518. The main change here is on the expansion CapEx, here it was mainly driven by a more prudent capital allocation program that resulted in the reduction in the speed of spend at the expansion CapEx. We are very circumspect in targeting asset programs or CapEx programs that will meet our hurdle rates.
Net cash inflow of ZAR 171 million on the disposal of Unitrans petrochemical operations in Eswatini in December 2025, of which ZAR 47 million is due and payable only at the end of March, is offset by ZAR 30 million on the acquisition from the bedding group in Botswana for the Sleep Group, which is the net number of ZAR 141 million on net investments in subsidiary or net acquisition or net disposal, sorry, of subsidiaries. Our free cash flow outflow before dividends paid has improved by ZAR 576 million period on period. Moving on to the investment activities.
Here, we've got the manufacturing capital expenditure outlined with the historical profile, which is what can be clearly identified here as the major investments that happened at the manufacturing sites, mainly PG Bison. How that has now concluded, we are now trading a ZAR 162 million investment for the period, for the six months, compared to a depreciation expense of ZAR 312 million, which really shows that we are really circumspect in where we invest. We also want to make sure that we bear down the investments that has been made in recent periods. On the non-manufacturing capital expenditure, we have got the historical profiles again outlined. Although it is down on prior years' investment profiles, we are still catching up on latent capital expenditure needed to renew new fleets specifically at Unitrans.
We outline on the rest of the slide just a bit more detail on the comparative period, what is clear here also is that we are very prudent in terms of our allocation of capital to make sure that we find the right solutions to our fleet renewal programs to meet our targeted return rates. On the treasury activity, our debt service ability ratios are outlined here. Our net interest-bearing debt at ZAR 8.515 billion, down nicely on the comparative period, although up on the June number, due to the cyclicality. We have achieved a gearing ratio of 66%, compared to the comparative period in December 2024 of 72%. Our covenant ratios are outlined on the last two lines of the table.
Our net debt to EBITDA needs to be less than three times. We achieved a 2.4 times, which is also in line with our internal limits that we've set of being less than 2.5 times. The EBITDA interest cover needs to be more than 3.5 times. Here we also achieved comfortably the required covenant ratio. We achieved 3.9, which is our ever still short, if you look at the right-hand side of the slide, of our internal limits that we set ourselves of 4.5 times. That will also clearly advise where the performance needs to move to.
We outline at the bottom, in the pie charts or the graphs, that we've got where the funding structures are located in the group. You can see that there's the bank funding and the listed notes have got an equal weighting in the funding structure. Unutilized facilities currently adding 10% to our total funding structure. Significant activity during the period. You will recall that there was a ZAR 3 billion revolving credit facility raised in the 2024 financial year, of which ZAR 2 billion had a three year tenor and ZAR 1 billion had a five year tenor. The ZAR 2 billion was due to be settled in December 2026, this coming December. That was successfully renegotiated and pushed out to December 2028, aligning up with the ZAR 1 billion that was initially also scheduled for that same time frame.
The covenant ratios was negotiated at the time to ratchet up to the 3.5 times. We now in the 2026 financial year, we are achieving the covenants. The corporate bonds, that activity, we settled two bonds during the period, KAP026 and KAP028, for ZAR 340 million and ZAR 600 million, respectively. Just to outline that our credit rating is at A+(za) rating, that is stable, have changed to a negative outlook during November 2025. Looking at our refinancing risk over the longer term, you can see that there was a good position established with the funders of the group. Sitting with unutilized facilities and cash resources ready to settle our obligations of ZAR 3.6 billion.
I've outlined on the right-hand side in the legend what the different buckets are. As you can see, during up to June 2026, there's a total of ZAR 1.387 due to settle, which will be comfortably met through our liquidity resources. Then, as we move forward, obviously, the profile is supported by our improving performance that we are targeting, mainly driven by the EBITDA, the cash profits that we will be generating. I hand over to Frans, who will take you through the group outlook.
Thank you, Dries. Yeah, if you look at the outlook, how we see the future going forward, our focus areas, what we want to do as management. We remain fully focused on the three strategic objectives that we've outlined for the group, that will, in time, increase our returns and also give us earnings growth, and that's the value realization out of our recent investments. The biggest one, PG Bison MDF plant. You may think that I've presented earlier that all the plants are now at full capacity. Where will we get future earnings out of PG Bison? I just remind you that it's exported into. That's an opportunity for us and a focus for us, to bring that into the primary markets. We also continue with our strategy of value add.
That's why we invest more capital into value add, and we want to grow the value add portfolio. All of that will give us. We've got good momentum, and that will give us good potential for growth into the future in that business. We also, although we made good progress, and there's good momentum in addressing the underperforming businesses, of which Unitrans is the largest, there's still we're still not there yet. Like I've explained in the operational update, there's still more work to be done to get to our first total of ZAR 700 million for that business. Also Optix. There's we've got the team now, and we just need to execute and focus and increase that returns.
With that, increased earnings and a disciplined focus on CapEx, we plan to reduce our net debt in this financial year with the ZAR 500 million that we communicated previously, and also further reductions in net debt that we're planning for FY 2027. In the six months, we've managed to align our strategy with all the divisional executives. We're happy with the divisional executive teams, their capacity, their capability to execute on the strategy. We've also done a lot of work in terms of aligning incentives with those divisional teams directly with our strategy, and to make sure that we can execute short and longer term in terms of our objectives.
Revenue growth, cost savings, cost control, procurement, margin enhancement, operational efficiencies, disciplined execution, that is what we're focusing every single day, and that's what we're driving quite hard in all our teams and even our executives in within their own teams. Saying that, H2, if you just look a little bit forward, looking into the immediate future, H2, we do expect to be softer than H1. That is due to normal seasonality, expected normal seasonality within our business, where we normally have a stronger H1 compared to a H2. Also, particularly in this upcoming period now, PG Bison, a large part of the business, had no maintenance shuts in the first six months, being their busy season, where we will have all our maintenance shuts now in the second six months.
That will have an impact on our profitability from H1 to H2. Also, we've seen that the rand, and you've all seen that great positive for the country, from a perspective that the rand has increased. But for us as manufacturers, and specifically we, in our Safripol business, we are impacted by the strength of the rand, and we will see some near-term pressure from the strong rand, specifically on the performance of Safripol. In closing, before we go to questions, we are encouraged by the good work that's been done in the six months, and the good work that's been done by every single division, every single employee in this group. I know all of you are focused.
I know all of you has put in a lot of hard work, and we as executives on the board, thank you for that, and we're very grateful. There's still a lot of work ahead of us. This is only the beginning of post our large CapEx, the journey has only started now to increase our returns. I just ask you all to remain focused, please, and remain focused on our execution. Wherever you work, if you're in the operational side, on the sales side, demand creation, finance, let's execute with urgency and with discipline because it's necessary. In this market, it's still challenging. We still feel it, that it's a challenging environment, and there definitely is still uncertainty.
I would like to just thank everyone for joining us today on the call. That's all our employees, like I said, staff, executives, our board, and also to our shareholders and funders. Thank you, and now we open for Q&A. Christna.
Thank you, Frans. Here's a question on the guidance for the softer H2 versus H1. Frans, I think you've just answered that one, with the guidance you've just given.
Yeah, that's fine, we cannot provide a forward-looking statement.
Perfect. Another question here from Rowan Goeller, from Coronation. Can you get back to an 18%-20% margin for PG Bison? If so, how long do you expect this to take?
Yeah, we believe we can still get back to the 18%-20% margin for PG Bison. It will take some time. We need to sell, bring back the export sales into the primary market, and we also need to invest in that upgrading facility and to sell the capacity of that additional upgraded board. How long will it take? It might take a little bit longer than we would like to take it, but we believe it's possible.
Thank you, Frans. A question from Charl de Villiers, from Ashburton. Given that Optix lost more than ZAR 100 million of EBIT over the last couple of years, at what point does it no longer fit in the core portfolio?
Like I said on the operational update, We believe in that industry. It's still a growing industry. We've seen it through competitors, that it's a scale game, once you get the scale and you get the subscriptions to a certain number, that it turns into operating profit and EBITDA quite nicely. Obviously, our portfolio, we've been open on Optix as well, we look at our portfolio and review if things doesn't fit or don't fit. Where we are at the moment with Optix, there's still a lot of opportunity and there's I think that the returns will improve from here.
Thank you, Frans. We have no further questions.
Okay.
Thank you both. Would you maybe like to close the call for us, Frans, please?
Yes, I can. Yeah, like I said in my closing remarks, that we're encouraged about the good performance. We can feel. We had our board meeting yesterday. We can feel that the momentum has shifted, the momentum is positive, and we're well positioned to improve our returns and also to grow our earnings. We're positive about the future. Thank you very much.