Good morning and welcome to the Q4 2023 Earnings Presentation for Elopak. My name is Mirza Koristovic and I'm Head of Investor Relations. Today's presentation will be held by the CEO Thomas Körmendi and the CFO Bent Axelsen. The presentation will last for approximately 30 minutes and is available on live webcast on our web page under the IR section. We will have a Q&A session after the presentation. So with that, I leave the word to the CEO Thomas Körmendi.
Thank you, Mirza, and good morning to all of you here in Oslo, who joined us today, and everywhere elsewhere you may be watching right now. So we have a Q4 and a full year 2023 presentation, and to be honest, we are quite excited to present this right now. But before I do that, just a few words of who we are. And for those of you who see us for the first time, what is it actually we are doing? So we are the world's largest fresh liquid carton packaging company. That means we primarily sell packages which are sold in the chilled cabinets, but not entirely, because you will also see that roughly 20%-25% of our volume is sold in what we call aseptic, meaning ambient distribution. As a company, we sell around 14 billion packs.
We sell packaging material, we sell filling machines, and technical services around this. We manufacture in 11 plants around the world, spread around what we call EMEA, which is a very big definition ranging from India, Middle East, and Europe, or Americas, which contains Canada, North America, U.S., and Central America, Caribbean, Mexico. So we have in this suite a very significant product suite with around 400 SKUs and have been doing this for more than 60 years in this space. So what is it actually we're doing? Well, we are the ones supplying, and this is very, very central in everything we do in all our strategy, sustainable packaging. We strongly believe in protecting essential commodities, be it primarily milk, juices, but not only, different foods, soups, sauces, and also now non-food products.
The reason we are doing that is, of course, we are enabling the world with nutrition, being available in more than 70 markets around the world. It has a very, very big impact on nutrition, food safety, and of course, protecting food to avoid the loss of food. But we are also in the business of replacing plastics. This I have mentioned for those of you who have followed us a number of times, it's becoming more and more significant. We strongly believe in the megatrend of replacing plastics in the world, reducing the littering that we all see everywhere where we move. During the other presentations, I have used examples of this megatrend, and this presentation is no exception because we have some quite prominent cases to show how the plastics-to-carton conversion is moving into more and more categories.
Before we do that, let's look at our performance. Before I do the quarter, I'd like just this time to start with the year because it has been quite an incredible year for us, to be honest. We have seen, of course, quite some market fluctuations, headwind as well, not the least, the economic climate, inflationary pressures we've all seen. To some extent, we've seen supply chain disruptions. Previously, I've mentioned that a number of our filling machines have been delayed for that reason as well during the year. For our own sake as well, we've looked at extending our organization. We find scarcity in finding people, etc., etc. Amidst all of this, we have seen a very good growth in our strategic priorities.
We have seen that our offer that we've been presenting, be that in Europe on some of our new sustainable innovations, be that in Americas, that we constantly have an increased interest and also an increased demand from our customers. We also announced during this year, which is something very, very big for us and something we see a fantastic potential in, we announced the building of a new plant in the U.S. And finally, and this is for those of us who work with this, something that is of great, great, great pride, is that we have now met all of the IPO targets that were set for a three-five year period, we've met after two years.
Let's turn to the quarter then and saying what happened in the quarter. Well, firstly, we saw the revenue growth. As you can see here, we saw 7%, actually organic 8%, because we had the translation effect against us this time a little bit. We also saw an EBITDA level of around EUR 40 million, which is +EUR 4 million versus similar quarter last year. We saw the siting of the factory, meaning the position of the factory in Americas, which is now going to be announced. It is Little Rock, Arkansas. Very good location from a supply point of view and also from a customer point of view, really complementing the North American Montreal factory as well as the Mexican plant in a very good way. And we've done that. Actually, we are now installing a lot, the first line.
But what we have done is we have scaled this factory to the same size as what we have in Montreal, which is a large size factory, the largest modern Gable top factory, actually. So just a testament to we believe in a longer perspective there will be more demand and hence we build a plant with potential to extend it as we go along. EMEA, we have seen good revenue growth, very solid revenue growth. And we have also seen that while we had a somewhat slow start on the filling machines, we actually saw the end of the year good commissioning of filling machines, which you know in our business is the best indicator of interest and the best indicator of where the business is moving. Very importantly for our investors and all of us is that the cash generation was good.
We came in at a 1.9 leverage ratio, frankly slightly below what we had as a target for the three- to five-year period. All of that actually means that we're starting off the year here with a strong belief and a strong confidence that we are on the right track and that the fundamentals of this industry are in a very good place. So let's just look briefly on the financials. Of course, this year is more than anything else characterized by both a solid revenue development as well as a very solid EBITDA development of 43% in the period.
On the revenue side, we can see that we grew around EUR 100 million from an organic point of view in the period, which, given, remember, given that we are in markets where consumption is not increasing on the country and we did have somewhat of a headwind when it comes to the inflationary pressures in the market, we are very happy with that kind of development. This is based on both good development in Europe and Americas. Equally so on the EBITDA side, we saw a very good development in Q4, but also for the rest of the year where our initiatives delivered both growth and the profitability that we had planned.
Now, looking at EMEA, what we saw in EMEA is that consumption, I did mention that in Q3, consumption throughout the year was somewhat slow, soft, probably, although we can't say for sure, but the assumption is impacted by the inflationary pressures, the economic climate in EMEA. We saw that actually in some countries more and in other countries in our part of the world less so when it comes to milk consumption. But what we also saw is that the last quarter actually started to stabilize and our Pure-Pak business stabilized in this quarter. Meanwhile, our roll-fed business, where you remember we are supplying roll-fed to customers in some cases who also have Pure-Pak and in some cases such as India, we are building the business based on roll-fed right now.
Here we saw that the roll-fed business throughout the year did very well and had a solid growth. MENA, where we saw in the beginning of the year somewhat softer sales, primarily due to lack of raw milk. The lack of raw milk meant that there was a distribution difference from drinking milk to eating milk in a sense, because you don't have enough milk. During the last quarter, we saw that MENA is picking up and the volumes are now getting back to the pace that we had seen before. Pretty much due to the improved fundamentals in the dairy segment in MENA as well. Organically for the quarter, 11%, and organically for the year, we looked at a EUR 65 million growth or 8% growth.
Now, Americas has been our story for quite a long time, and we have had a fantastic development in Americas. And we have had it for now. I know I saw that yesterday, 11 quarters in a row except one, which was the odd one, but otherwise 11 consecutive growth quarters in Americas, profitability and growth. Hence, as you can imagine, this is why, of course, we are building the factory based on very solid demand in the market. The key thing, and some of you may have seen that in the news, it's certainly been in the news a lot in the U.S., it's even been to Congress, is the concern around school milk, shortage of school milk. And that in turn has led to quite some turmoil in the market.
We have actually taken as much school milk as we can ever fill in any of our factories. What we also see in the American market is that we continue to drive and build our business. We are gaining market share in an environment which is not growing from a consumption point of view. But we are gaining market share in our milk business. We are gaining market share in our juice business. And the strategy that we've been presented in this session a few times, filling machines, gaining market share, driving the business through more juice sales as well, is exactly what is paying off now. We did during this period decide to purchase the land around the Arkansas plant and that for reasons of financial reasons, it's a better solution for us to do it like that in a little bit longer term.
15% organic revenue growth in the year and equaling around EUR 40 million euro growth. Americas is becoming more and more central in our strategy and we are gaining market share in the environment and we are extremely excited and I can say so is the so are our customers that we get the new plant up and running during first quarter of 2025. Let's turn to this one. Those of you who have seen our quarterly presentation will have seen this. This is the picture we use to illustrate our strategy. Clearly on this one, we have the Americas, which I just described, is doing very well.
We have the Aseptic platform where we have launched the PureFill platform and the new two-liter Aseptic low-acid solution that is also with an eSense, i.e., non-aluminum foil, but using another barrier material, creating a more sustainable, a lower CO2 footprint than any other Aseptic packaging system in the market. We've also talked about our footprint many times. We talked about MENA, the plant in India, and of course the Plastics to Carton, which is what is something that we are very, very interested in. Finally, the commercial excellence for us has been about securing the operational improvements in the plants and also clearly ensure that we price in the right way, that we ensure that our pricing is value-based, but also reflecting the ever-increasing cost that we have seen throughout the last few years.
Let's look at the Plastics to Carton because this is a topic that is very close at heart and we continuously see more and more examples on how this actually is materializing into very concrete examples. A very interesting point and a very, very interesting market is of course the yogurt market. Many of you, I'm sure all of you have travelled to countries where you look in the supermarket and you look at the yogurt, you'll see a huge amount of small yogurt plastic cups, all kinds of colors and shapes, but one very, very strongly dominated by plastic cups. Now, when we look at this market and we look at Americas and Europe, this is around the EUR 3.6 billion euro market. It's a huge, huge, huge market.
Our belief, our very strong belief, is that this market has a significant potential to reduce plastic and move it into carton. We are basing that, of course, based on our customers, our projects that we have with customers, and also what is actually happening in the market right now. Now, many of these plastic cups mostly are small single serve, right? So in our part of the world, you go into a supermarket here, you will find yogurt also in cartons, but that's not the case in many other places in Europe. So we have now with the company called Yoplait, and this is one of the world's largest brands in yogurt. It's a company which is a dairy cooperative from France and partly owned by the American General Mills FMCG company, huge FMCG company.
They are selling Yoplait as their strongest brand in more than 70 markets of the world. What they have done now is saying we are committed to reducing plastics. We must reduce plastics. And so they have then switched to a 750 milliliter carton, which replaces six of their small single-use plastic containers. And by that, they actually reduce 50% of their packaging just by doing this move. The consumers in turn will, of course, pour from the carton. It's a spoonable yogurt, but they will pour it out like we do in our world, frankly, but not so common in France. And then they will be reusing, if you like, their home pots and pans, pots, spoons, instead of throwing away one-way plastic cups.
Very, very interestingly, and this is quite unique, 85% of the consumers asked think it's a great idea to get out of plastics and replace that by carton. So this is in the market now in France. It is, of course, something that we, you can imagine, are following with great interest. We think this is another example of the world moving away from plastics and into a more sustainable solution such as carton. The other point I'd like to mention is we have in the strategy document many, many times talked about our unique and proprietary aseptic solutions. We have the PureFill platform. We've developed it. We are placing the machines. And we are now also highlighting this time, saying we also have a very significant, actually bigger business for us, which is the chilled business, the fresh business.
And also here we are, of course, driving innovations and placing new equipment. And we can now present, if I can put it like this, we are launching a brand new high hygiene, the—I can say—the world's most modern high hygiene, high capacity filling machine, which we developed with our partner Shikoku in Japan. We have worked with them, as you know, for many, many years. We have this exclusive agreement with them in all the markets where we are operating. And this machine, this filling machine now allows our customers to produce any of their fresh products, freshly pasteurized fresh products with shelf life to 60 days. Why is this important from a sustainability point of view?
Because it will reduce food waste and it will allow our customers to bring out more products to the market, which have more varieties, which will need longer shelf life to actually be sold. So it drives more products in the market, less food waste, and a higher degree of flexibility from our customers. These machines are now being placed in the market in Europe and will be rolled out as we move along into more and more markets. Extended shelf life is a very, very critical way of reducing food waste, of course. So with this, I think I will hand over to the financials. Bent, please.
Thank you, Thomas. So we are pleased with delivering north of EUR 170 million for the quarter, which was in line with our guiding last time we presented our results in Q4 for Q3.
I think the greatest thing for the financial section this time is the cash flow where we were able to reduce a lot of working capital. I will take you through the EBITDA performance for our operating segments, starting with EMEA. So here we see the benefits of the price increases that we executed in the beginning of the year. That has been combined with a rather stable raw material development. If we look at the number, for EMEA, EUR 12.9 is actually underlying quite good results. I'll explain you why. Throughout this quarter, we took the initiative to reduce the working capital in the company. And by doing so, we reduced coated raw material boards, we reduced finished goods. The accounting effect of that is a reduction of EUR 3 million just by doing the right thing on the working capital.
That accounting effect is called IFRS 15, and you can read about it in our note number three where we explain the mechanics of that. There's another element. In fourth quarter, we were successful in commissioning more machines than usual. And when you commission more machines, these machines do not have the same margins as our blanks. So the machine transactions are diluting the margins. So if we adjust for these two effects, the underlying EBITDA margin for EMEA for the quarter is 15.1%. So that is important when you think about what is the clean EBITDA margin for the quarter for EMEA. If we look at Americas, I think the great thing here is, Thomas, you already talked about it, we have continued volume growth from existing and new customers.
We talked about the shortage of school milks in the U.S., and that has also contributed positively to the financial results with our joint ventures because they are producing cartons for school milk into the U.S. So we have an improvement of close to EUR 2 million. This is the share of net profit from those two joint ventures that go into the EBITDA the way we have defined it. In America, we also have good profitability for filling machines. It's a slightly different commercial model there than what we see in Europe. And we also have some positive one-offs related to that business. In America, despite the growth, we are keeping the good control of the costs and we continue to improve the waste performance. Now to the bridge from EUR 36 million euro to EUR 40 million, starting with a net revenue mix. Just to remind what how we define that.
This is the effect of volumes and pricing in EMEA. It also is the contribution effect in Americas. This is a positive EUR 6 million. The improved performance in America, the profitable growth, and the pricing initiatives in Europe gave us EUR 10 million euro in positive effect. But this was mitigated, or can I say, going the other way, due to the IFRS 15 impact that this quarter we reduced the finished goods. Last year we increased it a bit, and that gave us a net effect of EUR 4 million, giving that, taking it from 10 to six. Raw materials, as you can see, is slightly up compared to last year. What's this? That is increased board costs that are higher than the softening of all other raw materials. It also shows that actually the raw material level is still at a historical high level in Europe.
Our operations are up EUR 4.6 million. This is mainly inflation. But the fact that we actually are producing less in fourth quarter to reduce inventory has some, what we call, less absorption effect. So there is a cost impact of producing less that is actually, in this period, affecting the operational costs in our bridge. In other, we have the results from the filling machines business and also the results from the joint ventures bringing up then, bring us back to the EUR 40 million. Now to the fun part, which is the cash flow. So we have delivered a cash flow from operations of EUR 157 million. One year ago, that number was EUR 25 million. It's driven by the improved profit before tax and interest paid. But it's interesting to also note the working capital.
So last time we met, we showed an increase of EUR 5 million of working capital year to date. In for the full year is EUR 17 million reduction, which means that in this quarter we have reduced the working capital by EUR 22 million. And that is the positive side of the picture of reducing working capital, albeit we have some negative P&L effects due to accounting standards. So this is really good achievements from the whole team in our efforts to work on our capital turnover. We have some other operations that are basically taxes paid and realized currency gains and other non-cash items. If we look at the investments, we have a net cash flow for investment of EUR 32 million. We have a normal maintenance program. We were a little bit behind on our maintenance program year to date Q3, but we are catching up.
So this is a normal level. Compared to our guiding, we are below the long-term guiding. And that is because we are still delayed with some of our filling machine placements, the machines that we are leasing out. On other investments, we have EUR 5 million proceeds from sales of Russia this summer, and we also had the EUR 2 million euro in dividends from the joint ventures. If we go to the cash flow financing activities, we have the dividends, we have the lease payments, the interest, and net, we have paid down around EUR 70 million euro on our loans and bringing the cash to EUR 13 million euro in the end of the year. So, great achievement in quarter Q4 on cash flow. If we go to the financial position, as Thomas mentioned, we are now below our mid-term target of EUR 1.9 million.
I think the interesting thing is if you're comparing to Q4 2021, we are actually below that level. Q4 2021 was before we acquired Naturepak. It was before we established GLS Elopak, and it was also before the exit of Russia. We are back where we started, which is very, very comfortable. This is driven by the improved EBITDA of EUR 51 million. It's also driven by the reduction of net debt, which decreased EUR 70 million euro. When you have that financial position, we also have the ability to pay dividends. Our proposal, or the board's proposal, is to declare a dividend of EUR 1.46 per share. This is in line with our dividend policy of 50%-60% of adjusted net profit. It's important for us to stay consistent with this policy. So, hence, this increase reflecting the improved results of the company.
The ex-dividend date will be 14th of May. Now to the Outlook. This early in the year, we typically don't share numbers in our Outlook statements. What we can say is that we are observing the geopolitical conditions. This, obviously, can influence our raw material prices. It could also lead to logistical challenges depending on how things develop. The macroeconomic conditions will continue to influence consumer behavior and consumption patterns. But despite this, we remain very confident in the long-term fundamentals for our business, and we expect to deliver on our targets. So, with this, I hand it to you, Thomas. Thank you.
Thank you, Bent. Just summing up the day, or rather the presentation.
So, as you can see, we strongly, strongly believe that this has been an amazing year for Elopak and, frankly, driven by a lot of very, very good efforts from our teams around the world. From EMEA, India, Americas, MENA, everywhere. And for us as a company, the fact that we are delivering on our promises again and again, of course, is a very important fact. And now delivering on the IPO targets has been, stands out significant for all of us. We also believe that based on that and the fact that Q4 continued delivering strong growth and delivering on our strategy, delivering on the priorities in the strategy, whether it was Americas or also in both EMEA and MENA and in India, brings us into a position where we are in a very good starting point for the new year. We are a better and stronger company.
Our investments in the U.S. are a testament to our belief in the future and in the belief in the period to come. Thank you.
Thank you for your presentation, Thomas and Bent. We will now go into the Q&A session. We will begin with the audience here in Oslo before we take on the questions received online. For the journalists that are present here today, we will set aside time immediately after the Q&A session. So, let's begin. I would kindly ask you to please state your name and the company you're representing. And also, please use the microphone. Anyone in Oslo? All right. For now, I will just go through some of the questions from the audience online. One question, a few questions from Fredrik Windrup in Boldhaven.
How much lower do you aim to reduce inventory, and do you expect further IFRS 15 adjustments in EBITDA in 2024? That's number one. And number two, you grew total reported revenue EUR 20 million year-over-year in Q4. Of that, close to EUR 20 million came from higher equipment sales. Carton and closure sales grew 3%. Why was carton closure growth low in Q4?
Should I take the first question?
Yeah.
So, we typically will not give forecasts on working capital, but I can share the drivers. So, we have a plan to continue to grow the business, and when you grow the top line, the working capital will continue. So, the more successful we are with the top line growth, then we will also have positive IFRS 15 impacts. On the other hand, we are doing the utmost to increase the working capital turnover of the company.
So, there will be a counterbalance between the growth driver and our ability to improve the capital efficiency. It's very difficult to give precise IFRS 15 forecasts per quarter because it's really going up and down, and there's a lot of volatility in our stocks. And we have. This is the finished goods that we are talking about. And with customers, we have contracts with maximum and minimum stock levels, and that will always vary throughout the season, whether we are building up for the peak season or then, building down or up or replenishing after the peak season. So, very difficult to be specific on that.
Yeah. And on the second part of the question, I guess I disagree with the question and the statement in the question. I don't think we were low on blanks and caps.
Actually, on the contrary, we saw that the softening of sales we had early in the year stabilized to the extent that we had stable volumes on Pure-Pak in Europe. We had growth in Pure-Pak in the Middle East. We had growth in our roll-fed sales across the board. And we also had growth in Americas, albeit at a somewhat slower level, which has really to do with onboarding of customers and a set of practicalities. So, I disagree with the question, but that is the case.
Good. Thank you. And from Martin Melby in ABG, how much did roll-fed contribute to the EBITDA increase in 2023 versus 2022? And number two, how much have you raised selling prices for Q1 versus Q4? And further, please elaborate about cost increases for liquid packaging board in 2024.
Sir, do you want to start?
So, I will take the first and the last question. So, I think contribution and EBITDA impacts on roll-fed, that is at a granular level that we typically do not disclose. What we are saying is that roll-fed in general has a lower contribution compared to our Pure-Pak line because the Pure-Pak line is more differentiated and more unique.
I take the second one, the pricing. We implemented during last year one price increase to offset the higher raw material increases that we saw. You remember we mentioned here as well, Bent mentioned we had board increases, significant board increases in the industry, not specifically for Elopak, but in the industry. We also saw some softening of other raw materials, input materials. But we had only one increase, and that was in the beginning of the year.
Yes. Okay. Thank you. And from Lewis Merrick in BNP Paribas Exane.
Equipment sales notably higher during the quarter. Was this just timing of certain placements? And how should we think about this in terms of volume performance moving forward? Are these machines just replacing old ones or adding to capacity base of your customers?
Very good question. So, this was actually mainly, whether they end up in Q4, Q3 really has to do with timing. In some cases, we had delays in the earlier quarters driven partly by customers who were not ready to install the machines, lacked the construction of the buildings, processing equipment, etc. And in some cases, we had delays on our side as well. But there is no, the fact that it was in Q4 was mainly catching up on some of the delays that we had from earlier. And we did not actually catch up completely. So, we're still somewhat lower than what we had thought.
But that catch-up is then happening as we speak. Now, what does it mean? Is it replacement on new? It's a mix, actually. Depending on where it is, we have a number of additional capacity machines, probably, if I think of it, more extra capacity versus replacements. But we also have replacements, not the least in Europe, and less so in other parts of the world.
All right.
What does it mean? The last one, what does it mean for volume? In this business, installed base is, of course, very, very critical to drive the volume. And as we are increasing the number of filling machines in the market, we will see that the base and our volume will continue to increase.
Good. And remember to please raise your hand if you have a question here in the audience.
I will continue from the online because we have received quite a few questions. Lewis Merrick again from BNP. Can you please just give an update on the pricing of liquid packaging board? How have early negotiations gone, and what can we expect from that element? An update on the prices of LDPE and aluminum would also be appreciated.
Okay. I start with board. So, how has the discussion been ongoing? This industry has seen price increases on board. We have, and I believe most companies who are working in this industry will have seen, the price increases were significant compared to a historical level, very, very significant. And hence, we also increased our price beginning of the year. As for this year, we are not really commenting on board increases for this year.
You remember we've previously stated as well, these are multi-year contracts. These are contracts which are regulated with a mechanism based on how, for instance, CPI develops. And that's the structure that we continue this year as well.
I can take the rest. So, when it comes to raw materials in quarter four, if you just reflect on this versus quarter three, it's a rather stable development. So, whatever, say, realized price increases we had on board that Thomas talked about has been mitigated by plastic, aluminum, and other input factors. What we have seen is that there had been an increase in LDPE prices in Q4. Expectations to LDPE, in your guess, are as good as ours. What we have done is that we have hedged our positions. So, we have around 70% of the LDPE prices fixed either through commercial contracts or through financial instruments.
So, that is the lock-in for plastic. And for aluminum, we have hedged around 80%. So, that will reduce the margin exposure quite significantly.
Thank you. And we have a few questions from Robin Santavirta in Carnegie. Can you provide some guidelines for the margin outlook for the first half of 2024? And number two, what is the CapEx outlook for 2024? And number three, given your strong balance sheet now, do you look at M&A to boost growth?
You take the beginning.
I take the two first? Yeah. So, as we mentioned in the outlook, we don't give specific numbers that early in the year. We have a set of mid-term targets of 14%-15%, and it's always our ambition to deliver on those mid-term targets.
When it comes to the CapEx, we expect a rather stable CapEx development going forward, with the exception of U.S. plant because we are going to build that plant. That is $70 million, as we mentioned, during the fourth quarter. So, that will, we will start to build, have realized CapEx throughout the year. So, the way to think about it is that the normal CapEx is pretty predictable as normal, but we are adding U.S. plant on top. But we have the balance sheet to support it.
On the M&A. So, as you all know, or I think know, we bought Naturepak, we invested in Naturepak in Morocco and Dammam, and we're very happy about adding that capacity and that business down there. We think that's a fantastic addition. I think we think there's a super strategic logic in building that part of the business.
So, with that, we also opened the M&A. For us, we are constantly evaluating what is the right next step to take. As you know, we are following the strategic slide I keep showing. But we are also highlighting here, as I did today, that there are areas of very strong interest that we are looking at and in one or the other way would like to enter. So, I keep it open for now. I think for Elopak, we have shown with the Naturepak acquisition that it's absolutely something we see as a path forward to growing the company.
Good. Håkon Fugly from SEB. Can you please give us an update on your backlog of filling machines for Americas?
On the backlog, meaning how many we're installing, I guess.
What we have said, we talked about the Americas strategy is that we will, our ambition is to become a supplier of filling machines, PureFill, and services in the Americas. We said at the time we are running at a pace of around 5 machines a year. In fact, we then had a much higher pace than what we thought post-COVID. But that strategy still remains. We are building the business through placing our filling machines as well as increasing our volume in juices and general market share development.
What I can say around the filling machines is, and this has to do with what I showed before when we looked at the filling machine, our technology in filling machines on the ESL, on the chilled cabinet filling machines, which are the ones we are currently selling in the U.S., is of a significant, frankly speaking, is a much, much higher technological level than our competitors. And hence, the interest and demand on filling machines continues at a very strong level in the U.S. That's as exact as I want to be. But there is, we are signing filling machines, we are placing filling machines, we are commissioning filling machines at a place, at a pace that is somewhat higher than originally anticipated.
Thank you. And another one from Lewis Merrick from BNP.
We've seen in some U.S. companies that they have suffered in January due to the freezing temperatures in some states. Is there any impact for you that we should be expecting in your USA business in Q1?
Well, I can only say that we have not seen the impact in our sales in January of cold weather. But it has been very cold. I was there. It was very cold.
Yeah, it's been cold here in the...
Yeah, it was cold here as well.
All right. Any questions from the audience here in Oslo? Okay. There are no more questions online either. So, that concludes our session for today. Thank you very much for your attention.
Thank you.
Have a nice day.
Thank you very much.