Good day, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Zurchex QC Entry Management Statement. At this time, all participants are in listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session through the phone lines and instructions will follow at that time.
I would like to remind all participants that this call is being recorded. I will now hand over to the chair of Vetrex plc, Vivian Cox, to open the presentation. Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Viterex q three trading update call. So I'm Vivian Cox, the chair of Viterex, and I have with me Jakob Sigurdsson, chief executive, Ian Mellin, our CFO, and Andrew Hanson, our director of investor relations. Before we turn to the business of the q three trading update, we announced today the retirement of Jakob as chief executive and the appointment of James Ralph as his replacement.
I would like to briefly cover that before handing over to Jakob and Ian for the main part of this call. So James will succeed Jakob as CEO in due course. I've not yet agreed a definitive start date with his current chairman, and we will let you know through a separate announcement once that is finalized. Jakob will step down as chief executive once James joins the board, ensuring an orderly transition. Jakob remains fully committed to the business, and we're grateful to him and thank him for his contribution to Victrex over the past eight years.
We are now a more differentiated business with a culture of innovation, stronger foundations, and with well invested assets in our UK manufacturing plants, in our lead medical center, and in China after a period of investment. With this platform in place, we are well served to improve profitability and outcomes in the short and medium term. We wish Jacob well in his eventual retirement, and I personally want to thank him for the support he has shown me as I have taken on the role of chair. Turning to our new CEO, we are delighted to announce the appointment of James Raft. James is currently the chief executive of the FTSE listed company, AB Dynamics, which provides automated testing, simulation, and verification systems for the transportation sector.
He has more than thirty years experience in international companies serving end markets, which are closely aligned to Victrex's market, including transportation, aerospace, and defense. In his time at AD Dynamics, he saw significant increases in revenue and operating profit through both organic and inorganic growth growth initiatives. And that led to a significant increase in market capitalization. In summary, he has helped to deliver attractive top and bottom line growth. And consequently, our board believes this appointment is a strong fit with VICTREX and will serve us well, and we look forward to welcoming James in due course.
I will now hand back to Jakob to cover the main part of our presentation for q three trading update. Jakob?
Good morning, everybody. And thanks, Vivian, for these kind words. And turning now back to the q three trading summary. So our key message today is one of continued volume momentum, but that has been offset at the revenue level by weaker medical spine in the mix. Group sales were up 8% in the third quarter.
Our volume momentum has continued, as I said, from the first half, but medical remains challenging, primarily in spine. Let's see. We'll come back to a later stage in the presentation this morning. Volume growth is driven by sustainable solutions, but with revenues down 3% and offset by mix and softer than expected medical as I mentioned before. Whilst I will come back to the outlook later on, if we do see a continuation of these trends in q four, that would lead to a broadly similar underlying PPT in the second half compared to the first.
Though we're targeting a slight improvement in second half PPT compared to half one. I want to reiterate that our cost discipline remains strong. Our teams are focused on controlling the controllable, impacting the things that we can influence and impact, as well as our improvement actions around Protivista and sales excellence in in particular. This continues to support us as we navigate uncertainty and focus on how and what's in our power to do to improve profitability. I will now hand it over to Ian for the financial summary.
Thank you, Jacob, and good morning, everyone. Overall volume momentum in the quarter was in line with our expectations and guidance. We saw good growth in sales volume, which was up 8% from 979 tons to a 57 tons and underpins underpins our full year volume guidance of at least high single digits. At revenue level, q three was down 3% at £71,500,000 versus £74,000,000 last year, which reflected an adverse sales mix, weaker medical, and a declining ASP year on year. As a result, volume growth of 8% in q three translated to revenue decline of 3% as Jacob has noted.
Year to date, sales volume is up 13% at 3,075 tons with revenue up 2% at £217,300,000. Remember that q four in the prior year was strong with over 1,000 tons of volume. A quick word on average selling price. ASP of the eight pounds per kilogram was down 11% year over year, reflecting q three being impacted by broadly similar factors as h one, including lower medical revenues, adverse mix within both medical and sustainable solutions, and competitive pricing, particularly in bars. Currency increased in impact during q three to account for nearly one third of the year on year ASP impact in the quarter with the remainder a combination of mix and price, as I've mentioned, the price impact more marks in bars.
Moving on to the divisional picture, if we look at sustainable solutions, firstly, energy and industrial and bars were the main drivers of volume growth in q three, albeit with some continuing competitive pressure in both bars and energy and industrial as we won new or incremental business. Energy is benefiting from activity levels in this end markets, and we have also seen PMI pick up slightly. For example, US PMI was up to 52.9 in June from 52 in May. China PMI was above 50 and saw its biggest monthly jump since November 2024. And Eurozone PMI also had edged slightly ahead in June as well.
Across other other end markets in sustainable solutions, aerospace and automotive were stable. Aerospace comparisons are tougher this year. Automotive remains subdued overall even if we saw some stabilization in the quarter. Electronics volume was down in the quarter but remains in growth year to date, and the long term trends remain positive in this end market, particularly with the long term outlook for AI, data centers, and semicon. Turning to medical.
Medical was weaker than our expectations in q three, and revenues were down double digits overall in the quarter. Whilst we continue to see good growth year to date in non spine, this was not sufficient to deliver overall divisional improvement during the period. The pipeline for non spine applications in medical remains strong and reflects how we have addressed the challenges in spine by developing a more diverse and differentiated medical business through non spine applications. Spine remains the most impacted application area within medical, including impacts from industry destocking, the effects of volume based pricing in China, which has impacted both volume and price, and continued softness in our US spine business. Brief word on China.
In our new manufacturing facility in China, we are making progress in resolving the initial scale up challenges, which we applied to investors at the half year. Production rates have slightly improved during q three and product is being delivered to customers. Finally, turning to our financial position, we are on track for continued strong cash conversion with with capital expenditure lower and at the lower end of our eight to 10% of revenue guidance for the full year with inventory also reducing as planned. I do want to flag the impact of currency. At the half year, we signaled currency was made to £9,000,000 headwind for f y twenty five.
This is now close to £9,000,000 given the strength of sterling against the dollar, yen, and renminbi. For next year, f y twenty six, at current rates, currency tracking is approximately 3 to £4,000,000 adverse year over year with around 50% of cover in place, which will increase to around 75% cover for euro and dollar by the September. Thank you. And with that, I'll hand back to Jakob.
Thank you, Ian.
So turning now to the outlook. Overall, we're well positioned to deliver at least high single digit volume growth for the full year, which is in line with our previous guidance. Keep in mind though that the fourth quarter does need tougher comparison, and we are mindful of ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty in in our outlook predictions. If we look at PGT, a range of outcomes reflect the impact of an adverse sales mix in both divisions. A weaker medical performance and the headwinds from a new China manufacturing facility, as well approximately £9,000,000 of currency headwinds in FY '25.
Overall, performance in medicals by any worse than our expectations, and the currency headwind is at the higher end of the guidance we gave back in May. So these are probably the primary reasons for the adjustment in guidance between now and then. So in summary, while we're targeting h two underlying PPT to be slightly improved on h one, Underlying PPT of 22,200,000.0 in the first half. A continuation of two three sales mix and ASP trends for the remainder of the year, particularly in medical spine, would result in half two underlying PPT to being broadly similar to the level that it was at in the first half. That's, again, assuming as I said that q three sales mix and ASP trends continue along the same trajectory that they have been on.
So thank you for listening to the short update, and we're now opening up the call for q and a.
You are dialed into the call and would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star and the number one on your telephone keypad. We will pause for a moment to assemble the queue. We will take our first question from Vanessa Jeffries of Jeffries.
Morning, guys. I was just wondering if you could give us more clarity on what you're expecting now from the China facility.
So on on China, pretty much what we said in May. So, yeah, had some problems teasing problems with the back end of our production. Polymerization went well, but we had issues with the refining a couple of refining processes towards the end of the process. We are now coming to a point, so we've come to a point where we're shipping material on a regular basis to our customers. So our guidance that we gave in May is basically holding up.
Thanks. And maybe if
there's And and remember, we are we are using a different process in China than we are using here in The UK, and that's a part of the strategy.
Thank you. And then maybe if there's any changes to your medium term expectations there, or if anything changed around your expectations for peak two?
Not nothing changed from what we said last time around. So we would expect that to to start to scale in the coming year of reducing the headwinds that we've seen this year. This is a really important strategic investment for us. And remember, that it is done to serve many of the customers that we've served around the world, particularly in the value added reseller sites, and also a very important asset for us in us to further penetrate the electric vehicles market for buyer installation in particular.
Thank you. I'm just wondering if we could please have an update on mega program expectations for revenue for this year.
Mega program revenues this year will probably be lower than guidance. I think there have been a few delays, particularly on launches on e mobility side. It's primarily impacting our our predictions there and it's showing up in volumes on the automotive side as well. It's actually actually a flattish on on previous year. So that's gonna be the main reason.
And there's been a little bit of a shift out on Magma also because of conversion of manufacturing down in Smith where they're converting the facility to be able to make there for the initial stages and have therefore not been producing pipes for a last portion of this year.
Okay. So you would expect it to be lower year on year? Just confirming.
Not lower. We would not see the growth as we expected.
Okay. Thank you so much.
Next question comes from the line of your next question comes from the line of Matthew Yates of Bank of America. Your line is now open.
Hey. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking the the time.
Morning, Matthew.
Can can I can I ask you about the the spine business?
And and forgive me because I'm I wouldn't claim to be particularly knowledgeable about it. But can you just remind me the size of that business? And when I listen to the issues that you've talked about, it it sounds rather structural to me when when I hear price pressure and and material substitution. So if we look forward into 2026, am I right in thinking that the spine business will continue to contract? And can you talk a little bit about the extent to which your growth in the non spine applications may be able to offset this? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Matthew. Let me have a go with that one. So our spine business is currently around 25% of our medical business. That is lower than it has been historically, and that and and the the fall, if you like, to 25% despite the rest of the medical business growing has been the source of the headwind in medical this year primarily.
And so there clearly are some some pieces in the you know, we've known about for a while. So the the substitution in in The US of peak by primarily porous and expandable titanium cages. There's been a a steady a steady process over a number of years. There have been some ups and downs in that potentially associated with the the availability of titanium with some of the market fluctuations that have happened in the past years. But I would say that, you know, that remains a strong market share for peak in The US, but it has been sort of steadily declining and that may well continue.
Although, you know, porous peak is, you know, has been on the on the horizon as a a potential kind of response to that for some time, and we have made some progress in that area. In terms of in terms of this year and the sort of more dramatic effect this year, think there are all the factors at play which which are not as structural. They're more sort of one time effects. Certainly, the effects in China around BBB have led to increased competition locally in China. They've also led to price reductions in response to, you know, the end price for implants in the market into government hospitals being cut by as much as 80%.
So we have seen some some pressure on our Chinese business, which I would expect to, you know, not continue at the same rate going forward necessarily. So I do think there is the opportunity for spine to stabilize somewhat from the current situation going forward. And then for the growth in the non spine applications, which are, you know, more varied and growing strongly, both implantable and non implantable, the opportunity for those indications, the growth in those indications to start to offset the declines in spine and and turn medical around to be heading in the right direction.
Yeah. And if I if I may add to that a little bit, I think, as Ian said, you know, there has been a shift in markets here in The US from peak to titanium, and we've talked about a number of times in the past.
Remember that, you know, if you go back twenty years, it's probably all of titanium market and peak gain significant share. And on the back of expandable cases and three d printed cases, titanium has taken share back. So in response to this, you know, we have also been seeking opportunities to grow our non spine business. And as Ian said before, spine is roughly 25% of our business in the first nine months this year versus non spine at around three quarters of our revenues in in medical. That diversification, if you wish, is actually on a good trajectory, and that's point number one.
And then when we point to a couple of other growth drivers, namely the the mega programs, number two, both knee and and trauma plates, which will have quite a transformational impact on the end market that they're targeted for. And and thirdly, you know, a rapidly growing pipeline of opportunity that's associated with the pharmaceuticals, both in terms of packaging and delivery of pharmaceuticals, as well as the manufacturing processes of of making some of these. So these are important growth drivers for the medical business going forward and sort of will change the shape of the mix as we proceed into the into the midterm or so.
Okay. If if I can ask a a second question maybe to Ian. In in introductory remarks, you talked about the improvement recently in PMIs around the world. And we can obviously see you've got positive volume growth. Can you can you just elaborate a little bit more about ordering patterns from customers?
I asked because you're probably one of the first companies we've heard from this reporting season. So just are you seeing that higher confidence, higher activity level translate into the order book? Because, obviously, you know, other companies would talk about tariff uncertainty maybe leading to to some impact on on customer behavior and ordering. Thank you.
So so I'm happy to take this one actually on on PMI. So I mean, by by no means, I think, would anybody say that the outlook is is certainly based. And everybody is clearly waiting for, you know, the outcome of the pending tariff negotiations between The US and a number of countries. Now that being said, PMI in The US have been remarkably resilient to your point before. In China, which actually dropped down below 50 in May, it had the biggest jump since November, jumping up to close to 51, if I recall.
Right? And if you talk to customers these days, then almost a verbatim quote from one of them was actually, the headlines are worse than the actual results, so the order intake seems to be better than what we indicated by the headlines. And we can definitely see a slowly growing confidence in Europe and not showing up in our numbers for particularly manufacturing and engineering uptick. So the past months in manufacturing and engineering have actually shown a good improvement on on on what has been quite a subdued market for the last two years, really. So, I mean, there are some, I would say, positive sprouts, but to say that that's guaranteed for the future would be a bit of a two bowls of a statement.
But I think the sentiment in the industry is is probably a little bit better than the headline would imply.
Yeah. And I I think just just to add, Matthew, specifically on order intake, I think it's steady at the moment. I wouldn't say it's stellar, and there are clearly softer spots around some industries and some geographies. You know, I'm thinking automotive in particular, but but generally, order intake remains remains steady and, you know, you see that in our volume guidance. Thank you. Next
question comes from the line of Christian Bell of UBS. Your line is now open.
Good morning. Thanks for the opportunity to ask ask some questions. So my first one is so so the current average sales price of 68, you're saying that it's likely to continue into the fourth quarter on current trends. So that's a state decline from when you finished last year, which was which was an ASP of around £78. So you you mentioned, obviously, the channels a big driver of this.
They tracked around 40% of volumes in recent times. But I as pay of what we're looking at now must imply the current mix is closer to 50%. Is that kind of what we're looking at?
So, Christian, let me let me try to answer that. So I think in terms of mix, there's no there's no increase in bars from where we were at the half year. So if you go back to the half year numbers, you could see where bars was then. If anything, bars is marginally less as a proportion of the total in q three compared to the the first half when there was a big pickup. What you're seeing in that ASP decline year over year, clearly, there's a currency impact, which is not insignificant, a little higher this quarter, but it's been around a a quarter to a third of that of that of that ASP move year over year.
And then beyond currency, you've got like for like price with customers, which is most most pronounced in bars where we have given some price reductions this year in response to competitive activity. But the bigger factor actually is mix, where lower medical sales, but also higher bars and higher energy sales have driven that overall ASP down. And that's not that we are cutting price year over year. Although there has been some competitive pricing in the energy sector, for example, where we've managed to, you know, gain some new customers and regain some volumes that we'd previously lost. Well, have been some some competitive pricing there.
What the the bigger factor is actually just the mix of the different ASPs across the different sectors driving the driving the group ASP down.
So if I could just follow-up on it. So when you say like for like pricing is most pronounced in bars, can you just tell us, like, give us a rough sense of, you know, what the percentage was was down on the second quarter?
Yeah. So so quarter over quarter is not it's not significantly moved, Christian, customer by customer. Most of these, we go most of these customers, we have annual pricing discussions with. So you've been looking at potentially a year over year movement in the sort of, I would say, single digits range, percentage terms, but it's a a year over year move prices and not shifting quarter to quarter.
Okay. And then so also just sort of following up on that. In terms of the medical sales, you obviously only provide revenue at a group level. So I guess, we are we sort of looking for the second half of this year? Could we expect a flat revenue result result on the first half for for medical?
Or is it gonna be slightly below where you were in the first half?
Yeah. We're we're not we're not guiding on specific lines and, you know, in terms of in terms of revenue, Christian. I'm sure you'll appreciate that. It's also worth saying that quarterly sales, particularly in medical, you know, not every customer buys every month. So one quarter one quarter's trend can be can be overanalyzed, I think it's fair to say.
But I would say, you know, the the main source of the change from the half years to now is softness in medical. So I would expect to see that kind of soft trend in terms of overall medical revenue being, you know, continue through through the remainder of this year, you know, primarily off the back of of weakness in spine that we've talked about.
Okay. Thank you.
Thanks, Christian. Thank you, Joe.
Your next question comes from the line of Kevin Fogarty of Deutsche Numis. Your line is now open.
Great.
Morning, Kevin.
Morning, everyone. Thanks for the opportunity. If I could just ask for a little bit more color in terms of the competitive pricing in bars, effectively, kind of where is that coming from kind of regionally? That'd be quite useful to to pick through and, you know, talk to people, I guess, also, the base of competition there, where that's coming from. And just secondly, in terms of medical, you know, I guess, kind of softer outlook here. It seems like just in terms of unpicking where the biggest impact here, you pointed that being in spine. I guess, we're going back to the more structural issue, you know, does that sort of make you more concerned about kind of structural issues there or just sort of unpack the the impacts, you know, that's a bit of medical fees that could be the fees kind of destocking, volume based pricing, etcetera.
Just if you could unpack that a little bit more, that'd be useful.
Yeah. So on on the bars, you know, it is it is probably more in the West, Kevin. And when when when things are kind of rough in markets, you know, some people tend to or companies tend to go for the biggest pieces of homogeneous opportunity that they can see out there, and they will be had in the vast area. That's where you have in our case as an example. They will be the single largest consumers of of peak and sometimes other high performance polymers as well.
So that's by frequency then the the most popular point of attack. And it comes mainly from, you would say, western based companies, I would say.
Mhmm. Okay.
So not an Asian phenomenon, actually.
It's primarily, you know, in in the West. I mean, there there are there are good competitors in in in Asia as well. But the balance market is not as established there as it is here, even if we are positioning ourselves with our asset in China to actually serve, you know, many of our Western kind of customers directly from there. So that we can meet the China for China requirements, you know, both of the polymer supplier and they themselves are the supplier of compounds and or soft chips.
Mhmm. Okay.
And then on medical, I think there's a lot of things at play here. And I think, you know, we pointed to the journey of diversification that has been arguing for the past ten years almost, where our non spine mix has been growing and the spine portion of our sales has been declining. I think GDP is obviously something that has had an impact in the short term. Clearly, you know, titanium has been taking share in The US, particularly in spine also, although that erosion seems to have stabilized.
And then, you know, they did compounded by by destocking effect, you know, as well. And it is clear. I mean, if you read through these announcements of of many of the the medical device companies, you can see that all of them are are talking about sales and everything correct. And even if it has run its course in many of the indications, it's likely that it has not done so in spine. So you look at, you know, Cyprus, similar to SNM, and then as you go over Boston, you know, all continue to show lower number of days, inventory being held in q one twenty five versus the prior quarter as an example.
And some of them have sort of centralized global operations as help as well to help reduce inventory growth and and in source distribution centers as well. So there's a lot of activity in that area still to pare down inventories. And and spine is probably the one that has the longest supply chain as well, which then, as a consequence of what happens after COVID, was the one that was still to the brim in many different places and is therefore taking a longer period to drain out if you wish.
Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. Okay. Understood. Understood. Thanks for the color.
That helps you at all?
Yeah. That's very good. Yeah. Thanks very much. Cheers. Thank you.
Thanks, Kevin. Your next question comes from the line of James Linksys of Investec. Your line is now open.
Yeah.
Thank you. You you you referred to the pressure in spine being mainly a US issue for now. Now would you expect that renewed preference of titanium to spread out outside The US? And could you just give us an update on where you are in terms of launching a porous PEEK spinal product, please? That that's the first question.
Secondly, just on Magma, if there's anything new you can share on the technological order with Petrobras. I believe the final validation of the Solan pipe is expected in q four this year. I don't know if you'll be able to turn out any of your findings from that. That's all. Thank you.
Yeah. Good. Thank you, Jens. Good morning. Just in terms of spine, so we have seen The US move towards the newer porous and expandable technologies in titanium steadily over the past few years.
We don't see the same trend elsewhere in the world. I don't think we necessarily expect to. The US is a much more dynamic market in in spine and and has responded historically much quicker to to different technologies. Peak is still clinically, I think, very well accepted and very popular in other in other locations. We there are other practice in China that I've talked about, you know, associated with the VBP and also associated with local competition on the back of the VBP in terms of Chinese peak players competing quite aggressively, you know, following the the price cuts from the VBP.
So just to be clear, we don't see that that competition outside of China, and I don't think we see the the shift in terms of indications to be nearly as nearly as dramatic outside of The US. So that would be that would be my summary on spine. And, yeah, I'll let you I'll let Mike I'll let Jakob answer your my my question.
Yeah. On on my my end, yes, the notification came out from Technip and Fetchoverap on the Etech contract, you know, just a couple of months ago.
We keep in mind though that the news flow is techniques from from this initiative, but what we can say is that the Etech contract was a massive milestone for, I think, all of us that have been involved in this and sort of paves the way into the final qualification period, if you wish, and then subsequently, most likely into procurement contracts as well. There are a couple of milestones coming up on qualifications that we have talked about, you know, on on floor lines in October year and on on rises in in the early part of next year. We actually post the ESAT contract extruded, you know, around well, more than a kilometer of of continuous pipes in Portsmouth to meet further field trials that Petrobras will be doing from here onwards. So the program is progressing nicely. And just to put it into context in terms of what it can mean for us, that it's it's not unreasonable to assume, you know, annual demand for this specific type of around, let's say, a 100 kilometers a year.
And every kilometer of pipe contains around eight tons of peak, and that's then peak in the liner itself. And then in the UV tape that is laser welded onto the pipe. So significant opportunity for us, and the Etech contract was a was a big, big milestone that sort of changes the dynamic in terms of adoption, you know, quite a bit, I would say.
Yep. Awesome. Thank you.
Thank you, Anne.
If you would like to ask a question, please signal by pressing star and number one on your telephone keypad. Your next question comes from the line of Melvin Mehta of Sterling Investments. Your line is now open.
Thank you very much. Good morning. Can you hear me?
Yeah. I hear you.
Thank you very much. In terms of the revenue contribution, could you roughly say between the two quarters, 71.5 and 74, what was the share of medical?
So the share of medical would be similar to what you see in our half year numbers. In terms of as a proportion of the business, medical is, you know, is pretty it it it's pretty stable. You can you can see that. If you look back historically, you'll see that the percentage of medical sales.
Sure. Thank you for that.
And in terms of has the price differential between peak and titanium worked against us at the moment?
I think there are a number. In terms of if you're if you're referring specifically to the spine business then Yes.
Yes. That's I
think I think the, you know, the relative price of of technologies is always a factor for medical device companies. But also for the, you know, for for medical device companies, they tend to be making, you know, good margins on all their products. So, you know, the main driver for medical device companies in my experience is to drive their share. So, you know, new technology is being able to drive share to them from a competitor would be a big fact would probably be a bigger factor in my mind than the relative cost of titanium and peak given the margins that medical device companies are making.
But in terms of technology, could you elaborate a bit more? I mean, in terms of why?
Oh, so so the the attractiveness of of porous and expandable titanium so expandable titanium cages, you can perform the procedure with a smaller incision. So more of a more of a, if you like, a keyhole approach.
Yeah.
And porous titanium porous technology is pretty well accepted now in the in the orthopedic field. The advantage of Porous technology is that it allows growth of the bone into the implant.
So bone ingrowth, which, you know, strengthens the implants over time as opposed to having a cement interface, which can potentially weaken over time. We have worked on and I think I didn't fully answer Jens' question earlier, maybe on on four Peak, so I'll take the opportunity now. In terms of in terms of Forest Peak, we as people well know, we we pulled out of our investments in bonds three d last year. However, that technology continues to make progress and we continue to work with its current owners in terms of working towards the adoption of of porous peak in the market. And we do think the porous peak in the future has the has the potential to be, you know, the next new technology if you like, which can then take share back from porous titanium because you have all the previous advantages that allow PEEK to take share from titanium combined with the with the porosity.
But, you know, three d printing PEEK into a poorer structure is a as we've learned, it's it's not a trivial task. And so, you know, work continues on that and we'll we will certainly update the market as as progress continues.
Sure. Thank you very much. And a quick one for Ian. In terms of our hedging currency working against us, are we planning to go more aggressive in terms of protecting that or still keep it open?
So the hedging is working against us, to be clear. Hedging is doing what it's intended to do, which is delaying the impact of of currency fluctuations. We have a pretty well adopted policy that we use consistently around hedging up to 80% of our cash flow twelve months forward in US dollars and Euros. Euros. We we will we do keep on the review whether we have the other currencies.
That would be the most likely change. The Chinese currency is the is the one that has grown fastest in terms of exposure most recently. But given our costs in China as well, it hasn't raised to a level where we see the need to hedge it. But that would be the most likely change if we did change our hedging policy would be to would be to hedge hedge forward in other currencies. We're we're not in the business of kind of speculating on currencies.
The the idea of the hedging is to give us certainty.
Great. Thank you so much. All the best, Yakum, for a wonderful job at Express. And James is a fantastic choice. And it's maybe dynamics lost and Vicress' game.
Thank you, Melvin. So I think we may have time for one more question.
There are no further questions on the conference line. I will now hand over to you, Kob, to Richen for closing remarks.
So thanks for joining us today. So this clearly remains a challenging period for the group despite good volume momentum. But as I said before, you know, we are relentlessly focused on controlling what is in our power to control. We remain sort of f y twenty five as we look to return the business back to a profitable growth. We look forward to updating you all on our f y twenty five results call and meetings in December. Thank you all.
This concludes the