Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the full year results 2019 conference call. I am Moira, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q and A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Hans Brändle, CEO of Meyer Burger Technology. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, operator. Welcome. Good morning and good afternoon to everybody. I would also like to welcome Manfred Häner, our CFO, and our Chairman, Remo Lütolf, because of the special day today, he's participating, and also Gunter Erfurt, who is my successor. I trust that you have the presentation in front of you. During my contribution, I will refer to the corresponding page I'm talking about. Let me just start with a few remarks. Three years are a long time, and especially in the solar industry, three years seem like an eternity. There are a few businesses that are moving at a comparable speed and are, at the same time, in the spotlight of public attention. This is quite exhausting, trust me.
It's true, the solar industry has been rushing from one record to the next during the last three years. That pace of growth will continue. You don't need to be a prophet to make this prediction. The reason is very simple. Solar energy is the most cost-effective, the most environmentally friendly, simply the best response to climate change. The development of solar technology is only just beginning. Solar panels will continue to become more efficient and cheaper in the coming years. Solar panels will be omnipresent on roofs and in solar parks. However, the situation is different for companies operating in the solar market. These last three years were like a rollercoaster ride. China's political interest in the solar market was too strong. China intervened too strongly in the solar market. China's competitive pressure was just too strong. Today, Chinese companies dominate the industry.
The majority of European companies have disappeared. Meyer Burger is one of the very few companies still operating from Europe. Under the given circumstances, it is by no means self-evident that Meyer Burger still exists as an independent Swiss company. We owe this to our committed employees and our leading technology. In this respect, we are in a better position today than ever before. Yet on this rollercoaster ride, we had to constantly adapt our structure, and many employees have left our company. These kinds of measures are hurting. Today, it's my turn. I have given my maximum commitment to Meyer Burger. My work is done, and Meyer Burger is on the eve of new successes. I will show you what I mean in a moment. I look forward to passing on the operational responsibility into reliable hands. I've been working with Gunter Erfurt since I started at Meyer Burger.
Gunter knows the company inside out and was involved in all technology development and strategic decisions. He brings with him both the essential professional as well as the interpersonal skills to fill the new role. After the transformation and repositioning, Gunter will lead Meyer Burger into the future. I wish him all the best. In the next about half an hour or so, I will give you an update on the current status of the company's development. Manfred Häner will present the financial results, followed by Remo Lütolf, who will address the new strategy and also introduce my successor. Having said that, allow me to directly flip to page six. On this slide, I would like to have, as usual, a look into the development of the end market.
After a pause in 2018 on a level of 100 GW, 2019 has seen a growth to over 120 GW. This despite the fact that China dropped to about 30 GW from 44 GW in 2018. However, Europe and the U.S. were the growth engines for the last year's development. For the years to come, an average growth of about 10% is predicted. On the next slide, page eight. 2019 was, for Meyer Burger, the focus year to fully focus on scaling up the heterojunction/ SmartWire technology and to demonstrate its full potential. The goal was to achieve the proof of concept both for technical and economical performance. This became possible because REC, who is Meyer Burger's first customer, who decided for both Meyer Burger's heterojunction and SmartWire cell connection technology, and this on the basis of 600 MW.
The project of this scale and complexity was new territory for Meyer Burger. Not only a tough schedule of less than one and a half years, but also very ambitious performance targets required Meyer Burger to outgrow itself. It looks good. We are on track to achieve ambitious targets. An especially important milestone was the start of production of the first one on the megawatt line, which was achieved ahead of schedule by middle of October. In the meantime, equipment is installed and currently extensive long-term and acceptance tests are running. For me, with quite some experience, I have to say this was one of the best run projects I've ever seen in my career, and REC as well is very satisfied. Actually, they catapulted themselves end of 2019 overnight, so to speak, into the top league of premium module manufacturers, thanks to the Meyer Burger heterojunction/ SmartWire Connection Technology.
Once in a while we are asked about the commercials of this 600 MW deal. Let me make just two comments here. Pricing was fair. Cost could always be better. However, it allowed us product margins which are slightly below the target value. However, we had to agree to rather unfavorable payment terms, which were substantially back-loaded towards the end of the project. We only had about 40% of cash in by end of last year, and currently, by end of last week, I think we are at 55% out of the CHF 74 million contracted value of the project. Last topic I would like to address here is what we announced last August, the signing of a memorandum of understanding for multi-gigawatt expansion profit sharing in exchange of granting some exclusivity. I have to say here, negotiations are still ongoing, but quite far progressed.
What I'm allowed to say is we are talking about gigawatt scale expansion in Europe and in Singapore. Needless to say that I would have loved to announce the success in this topic during my tenure. Now let's continue to next page with the quote of Steve O'Neil, CEO of the REC Group. I'm referring to slide nine. In a nutshell, the project for the first 600 MW is on track despite the very ambitious targets. The proof of concept and the full potential of our heterojunction/ SmartWire technology is already achieved. Remarkable is the statement of Steve O'Neil. With this technology and the resulting Alpha product, REC is now years ahead of competition. It even comes better this week, as Steve told me the following, that the entire PV industry is noticing now that heterojunction is the technology direction for the future.
On my question, what this change in mindset, especially among Chinese PV manufacturers, triggered? He answered, it was not when we announced the sales, but it was the start of the sales of the Alpha module, where everybody could see that the high-performance level of this Alpha module could be achieved as promised. Let me now go to slide number 10. In the following slides, I would like to dive with you into the secrets why Meyer Burger heterojunction/ SmartWire technology will become, or maybe already is, a very attractive business case. The market for solar panels can be divided into two main segments, which are very different in terms of value drivers. The first segment is the residential, where high efficiency due to limited space is the main value driver. The other one are power plants, utilities, where levelized cost of electricity, LCOE, is the main value driver.
On slide 11. Let's first have a look into module efficiency of modules which are available in the market. Taking the highest power bin according to the product specs of the listed companies. Just to make it clear to everybody, module efficiency refers to the percentage of sunlight converted into electrical power, or a little more precise, how many watts of power can be achieved on a square meter of a solar panel. For example, 20% module efficiency means 200 watts per sq m. On the very right-hand side of the chart, you see the well-known First Solar, which is just slightly above 18% in module efficiency. The mainstream players, Mono- PERC, mainly Chinese suppliers, are just a little shy of 20%.
Going to TOPCon and heterojunction competition, including Panasonic, module efficiencies are around or slightly above 20%, and the top performers are SunPower and LG, both using IBC technology, which is a very expensive one in terms of manufacturing cost. Now REC at par with LG. The next diagram below shows the distribution of the expected average sales prices in cents per watt-peak for the expected 120 GW in 2020. Just to give reverence to the guys who made this chart, I took this chart from SunPower. It was presented in November last year. Quite a nice compilation of the distribution of the average expected sales prices, and it shows that the bulk of the sold panels trade around CHF 0.25 per watt-peak. However, the average sales price can climb up to CHF 0.70 on the very left side of the diagram.
The first about 5 GW of an ASP of CHF 0.50 per watt-peak or even higher, which gives a premium of CHF 0.25-0.30 per watt-peak over the bulk of the modules sold. A high premium can be achieved. However, the driver here is module efficiency, as you can nicely see with the red box. With SunPower, LG, Panasonic, and now the new member in this premium in the top club is REC. I would like to skip page 13, which gives you the rationale why it makes a win-win situation for customers, installers, and module producers going to higher efficient modules, despite the fact that for higher efficient modules, a premium, in this case of CHF 0.20 per watt-peak is asked. If you have time, you can dive into the details here.
More surprising, or let's say an eye-opener, you can find on page 15, with the analysis of possible LCOE, which is the main value driver for power plants. What we did here is, we calculated which ASP premium is possible for heterojunction technology, so modules made with heterojunction or modules made with mono- PERC, under the assumption to achieve the same LCOE, same levelized cost of electricity. The basis for this calculation were spec sheets from Panasonic, in the case of heterojunction competition, and the spec sheet for the REC Alpha module using our heterojunction/ SmartWire technology. The key drivers for this premium are higher module efficiency, but also, this is very important, significantly lower degradation of the module performance over lifetime.
To give you an example, REC guarantees after 25 years, still module performance of 92%, whereas Mono- PERC modules are much lower, around 85% or so, which sounds like a little difference, but if you take into account that we talk about the time frame of 25 years, you can imagine that adds up to substantial amounts. Quite surprising in our analysis, however, was the finding that heterojunction competition has only an advantage of CHF 0.02 per watt-peak versus Mono- PERC. This has to do with the major progress industry has made due to the huge installed scale in the past. Meyer Burger's heterojunction/ SmartWire technology is good for an additional CHF 0.10 per watt-peak premium. In total, up to CHF 0.12 premium can be achieved with Meyer Burger's heterojunction/ SmartWire technology compared to Mono- PERC, under the assumption to achieve the same LCOE.
Of course, it goes without saying, with the lower premium, advantages on heterojunction/ SmartWire side, leading to lower levelized cost of electricity. Let me now go to page 17. We have, I think, understood the heterojunction/ SmartWire enables substantial ASP premium. How does it look like on the cost side? Here on this slide, page 17, you see on the left side of the diagram, the cost split for Chinese heterojunction competitors. These data were published from Corrine Lin from PV InfoLink last December. Thank you, Corrine, for this nice compilation. The overall cost per watt-peak are at, as you can see, at about CHF 0.33 per watt-peak. The cost driver here are the cell conversion costs with as much as CHF 0.13, which is compared to about CHF 0.04 for PERC, quite high.
The cell conversion cost for Meyer Burger's heterojunction, not a surprise, is substantially lower at roughly CHF 0.08 per watt. Out of these CHF 0.08, it's worthwhile to note, about 20% is allocated to depreciation of the cell equipment. Depreciation period, which is standard in the industry, was assumed to be seven years. We even believe that going to gigawatt scale, these conversion costs will drop to below CHF 0.06, declining or reducing the distance to PERC, again, substantially. Please note that we see the overall module cost at below CHF 0.30 / watt already this year for our heterojunction/ SmartWire technology. This leads me now to the key slide on page 18. What you see here on the very left-hand side of the chart is the cost for Mono- PERC. The upper part of the diagram, 2020. The lower part for 2023, what we see then.
The cost for PERC, manufacturing cost for PERC are around CHF 0.23 / watt. We assume that they drop to 21% in 2023. The achievable ASP this year, as we have heard a minute ago, is around CHF 0.25, up to CHF 0.30, leading to a gross profit of CHF 0.02-CHF 0.07 for Mono- PERC. This will be reduced in about three years, as you can see in the lower part. Going to Meyer Burger's heterojunction/ SmartWire, the story looks quite different. We've seen the cost, just the slide before. Cost level is around CHF 0.29. However, ASP, as we also have seen, is rather above CHF 0.35, between CHF 0.35-CHF 0.50 or even higher, leaving a gross profit of CHF 0.06-CHF 0.21 per watt-peak. This, by the way, stays roughly constant in a few years from now.
The cost will drop to below CHF 0.25, followed of course also ASP, which will also come under pressure, but we believe that gross profit could be maintained at the level of CHF 0.05 - CHF 0.20 per watt-peak. There are two messages in here. The ASP premium, there is CHF 0.10 - CHF 0.20 per watt-peak over Mono- PERC. Even more interesting and make it more transparent, what is the gross profit for, let's say the core gross profit for a module producer who would operate 1 GW heterojunction/ SmartWire or a Mono- PERC line. In the case of Mono- PERC, we are talking about $20 million-$70 million in gross profit. In the case of Meyer Burger's heterojunction/ SmartWire technology, we're talking about $60 million-$210 million.
Ladies and gentlemen, we firmly believe that Meyer Burger's heterojunction/ SmartWire technology has the potential to change the dynamics of the PV industry, as it enables much higher profitability for the module manufacturers. The question which we asked ourselves at Meyer Burger since two years, how can we, as Meyer Burger, we can get a fair portion of this compelling business case. What is very clear. The positioning as a simple equipment manufacturer is not sustainable, as you can see from our financials over the past years. For sure, not in an industry which is focusing so much on CapEx. You will hear more about our thoughts, how to change these dynamics also for Meyer Burger from our Chairman, from Remo Lütolf, at the end of the presentation. Let me now flip to page 20.
I reported in the past quite often on our strong technology roadmap, which will help us to defend our leading position or even increase our leading position in the future. For the sake of saving time, let me just come back to a quote from the General Director from the French CEA-INES institute, Anis Jouini, who stated the following: "Heterojunction/ SmartWire technology from Meyer Burger has emerged as the world's leading concept for highly efficient solar cells and modules." Let me now change topic, flip to slide 23, and briefly talk about what we also did over the last three years, which was transforming the company and massively focusing the company on products and technologies which are leading and defendable. I don't want to go into the details.
You see the status on the left-hand side, how it was back in 2016 and how the situation looks like in 2020. Company completely focused around heterojunction/ SmartWire. Physically, mostly located, the bulk of the people, located in Hohenstein-Ernstthal. Thun, who was back in 2016 the largest site of Meyer Burger, is reduced to a small but very important product group, which is the product group for our SmartWire technology. On the next slide, we see that the sum of personnel and operating expenses dropped by more than half to below CHF 90 million compared to the situation we had back in 2016, and this level is even below the cost level of 2008. The same holds for the number of employees, which you can see in the lower part of this slide. Please also note that the innovation power was protected despite this massive scale-down of the organization.
Of the CHF 90 million expenses, CHF 25 million are still allocated to R&D. Meyer Burger can now, with a slim, focused organization, go for the full potential of the heterojunction/ SmartWire technology. With this, finally we think that we will be able to return to sustainable profitability. My job is done. I'm glad that I can hand over my job now to my successor. To summarize, let's go to page 26. Key takeaways are very disappointing financial figures 2019. We will hear in a minute from Manfred why this is the case. However, we can report that the transformation is almost completed. The proof of concept is established with our heterojunction/ SmartWire technology enabling highest average sales price at competitive manufacturing costs compared to mainstream mono- PERC. We heard a quote from experts about how to see, how to judge our technology.
I hope I convinced you that heterojunction/ SmartWire is a really strong business case which offers superior value drivers for all market segments compared to mono- PERC, both on module efficiency for the residential market and superior LCOE for power plant utility market. The last takeaway, we will hear that in a minute also from our Chairman, the Board of Directors is considering all strategic options. That's something which we already reported. What I can say from my side, the prerequisites for the strategic repositioning of the company towards a more captive business model is done. The CEO succession planning is completed, and my successor is ready to take over. Having said that, I would like now to hand over to Manfred and then come back with slides on page, I think, 29 for Remo Lütolf. Please, Manfred, go ahead with your part.
Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm on page 31 for a few minutes. The year under review is influenced by many different happenings, such as divestments, restructuring, and last but not least, by the decision of the Swiss arbitration court, which decided that certain transactions we have shown on the extraordinary results in the past need to be presented as results of normal course of business. In my presentation, I adjust such impacts for better comparability with the previous year. We also have to report based on low order backlog, delayed order entry, and not abundant liquid means, a material uncertainty remarked in our annual financial statement. Slide 32. Order entry amounted to CHF 188 million. This is mainly due to the fact of very low margin with standard PERC business, which led to situations that we had to deny certain projects.
On the other hand, our new strategy to move to high-efficiency product did not yet grab full traction. The unsatisfactory order entry also led to a low order backlog of CHF 105 million. Slide 33. The P&L is heavily influenced by the following factors: low net sales volume, very low margins of standard products, gains from divestments, proportional loss consolidation of Oxford PV, and an important saving on personal and operating expenses. Slide 34. Net sales amounted to CHF 262 million, adjusted for divestments and currency translation. The decrease to the previous year amounts to CHF 68 million or 22%. Sales by region on a relative basis did not change much. Slide 35. 56% of sales were generated by PV equipment, 25% by service and parts, and 19% by non-PV equipment. As in the previous years, the dominating currency was the euro, followed by the US dollar. Slide 36.
As mentioned before, the different influences have led to a strongly reduced operating income after cost of products and services of CHF 130 million. On a comparable basis, the decline is 50%. Slide 37. Personnel expenses declined by 17% to CHF 104 million. Most part of the cost reduction referred to make the organization more flexible. Slide 38. Operating expenses were reduced to CHF 39 million, a change of -1 3%. This is mainly the result of rigid cost management. Slide 39. EBITDA declined to a low level of CHF -13 million. The reasons I explained during my previous statement. Slide 40. After a slightly positive EBIT in the previous year, for the year under review, we unfortunately have to report an EBIT loss of CHF 29 million. Slide 41. Net result came in at CHF -40 million.
The main positive impact compared to the previous year is owed to lower value adjustments on deferred tax assets. Slide 42. Balance sheet. Total assets declined by CHF 74 million to CHF 275 million. Besides the operating changes, divestments had an important impact. Slide 43. Total equity accounted for CHF 176 million or 64% of total equity and liabilities. Slide 44. Cash flow.
In spite of the income from the divestment, we have to report a cash drain of CHF 53 million. In 2019, we repaid CHF 30 million of mortgage debt and had to deposit CHF 26 million for outstanding advanced payment guarantees issued by the bank consortium. Total cash, including restricted cash, stood at CHF 62 million by year-end. Thank you.
Okay. Thank you, Manfred. I would like now to hand over to Remo Lütolf, our Chairman. I would like you to flip back to page 28, please.
Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm happy to present you our thoughts on how we should shape our business in the future. I think the clear target is to get a fairer share of this significant profit pool, which was just highlighted by Hans a couple of minutes ago. There are two insights. We came to conclusion, first of all, our existing business model is not sustainable. This is why Meyer Burger's strategy is driving the technology roadmap of the PV industry, providing leading-edge equipment, does not allow to create sustainable shareholder value due to high R&D efforts needed, challenges in IP protection, as well as an observed industry focus slanted towards minimum CapEx. Second, we just heard impressively the proof of concept of the Meyer Burger heterojunction/ SmartWire solution is established.
Meyer Burger's technology is leading edge and enables a compelling business case for module manufacturers which strong value drivers enabling premium ASP and at the same time, competitive production cost. Based on this, we want to adjust the business model along two directions. A, to cooperate with a number of trusted strategic partners, i.e., mostly existing well-known customers such as REC, to expand to gigawatt scale in return of an attractive profit-sharing. B, to consider to start own large-scale cell and module manufacturing in Europe, in particular in Germany, in order to fully capture the unique advantages of our Meyer Burger heterojunction/ SmartWire technology. We are just exploring on that and excited about the significant opportunities we could catch there.
Let me move on to the next slide, our new CEO, and before I introduce Mr. Gunter Erfurt, let me shortly thank Hans Brändle for what he has been achieving for Meyer Burger. The Board of Directors expresses its gratitude and appreciation to Hans Brändle for his tireless commitment to the turnaround and the visionary repositioning of Meyer Burger. Thank you, Hans. Coming to the successor, Dr. Gunter Erfurt, visionary solar tech guy, I would like to name him. 47 years old, German citizen, PhD in physics, and he spent all his lifetime in the solar industry, photovoltaics. We were very happy to get him on board of Meyer Burger in 2015 as the managing director responsible for our Thüringen, Hohenstein and we appointed him in 2017 as the group CTO, a member of the executive management board of the group.
He is really the father who developed the heterojunction/ SmartWire Connection Technology to today's gigawatt scale maturity level. Before Gunter joined Meyer Burger, he was the Managing Director at SolarWorld for 12 years with a series of responsibility, mainly in product development, R&D, and capacity expansion of production in Germany, but also quite a while in the U.S. We are very pleased to appoint Gunter, and I'm very happy to shortly hand over to Gunter and to give him a word to express his view of the future of our company. Gunter, please.
Thank you. Thank you, Remo. Good afternoon, everyone. I first of all would like to thank the Board of Directors for the trust in my person. I would also like to express a big thank you to my esteemed management colleagues, Hans Brändle and Manfred Häner. Specifically also to Hans Brändle for handing over a company that is on very good track with regards to our resizing and our restructuring on the one hand, and on the other hand, also for Hans' vision and his understanding in the past two years that we cannot continue working as an equipment manufacturer only, that we have to do a change in our business model. Today we are at a point where we have many ingredients on hand that are needed to be successful in our business.
We already heard about the great status of the technology, which is now proven, together with a very important customer. On the other hand, I'm also very proud of our Meyer Burger workforce, our very skilled and experienced teams in Switzerland and in Germany, and also globally, that have brought this technical success. We have a strong market ahead of us, and I'm very much convinced that our technology can have a great future, and we will work very hard on it to get things in place in order to be profitable sustainably in the future. Thank you.
Thank you, Gunter. Thank you, Remo. Operator, I think we are ready now for Q and A.
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you're in the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only hands while asking a question. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. Once again, to ask a question, please press star and one on your telephone. The first question is from Martin Beck from Astaris. Please go ahead.
Hey, good afternoon, everyone there. Just one question from my side. What is your current liquidity, and how are you planning to repay the convertible bond debt due to mature in September of this year? Thank you.
Hi, this is Manfred. Our current liquidity is CHF 36 million in cash and CHF 26 million we have a restriction on it, which is, as I mentioned, for the advance payment guarantees we had to give to our customers. In total, at the very moment, we have CHF 62 million. Of course, we are also already thinking ahead of this 24th of September when we have to repay the convertible bond. It's about CHF 27 million. We have several options there. It's a little bit too early to tell that already to the market what it will be exactly. Believe me, we are well-prepared for that situation.
Sorry, maybe just a follow-up. I was actually referring to the current liquidity, not the liquidity as of December. Because I assume, given your operating cash burn of around, I think it was CHF 80 million last year, that as of March, given that you haven't announced any new orders, your liquidity should be materially lower than it was at December.
It is not. It is exactly the same. We still have inflowing money from the REC project and other accounts receivable. There is no major change to end of the year.
Okay, perfect. Thank you. Just maybe, sorry one more follow-up, if I may. The strategic advisor said you have appointed, what exactly is their mandate?
Sorry, could you please repeat your question?
Yeah, sure. The question was, I think you announced that you have mandated some strategic advisors, financial advisors, my question is, what is their exact mandate?
There are several tasks we would like to check with them. Just for instance, the options we have to, for instance, raise money. For instance, if we would like to expand into cell and module manufacturing, how should we do that? That's one task. I think I would not like to go too deeply into that point now since it's an ongoing process, and we are just starting on that, and I will not become public with everything we plan to do right now. It's basically to strengthen our capital base to grow our business.
Talking about strengthening the capital base, actually, and apologies for another question, I presume you would need to strengthen your capital base for two principal reasons. One, in order to generate some much needed liquidity. Secondly, it would be nice to get a feeling from your side how much money you think you need just in order to survive as a growing concern. Secondly, the question is, with your announced change of strategy, or the latest change of strategy I should say, i.e., potentially going into cell and module manufacturing in Germany, what kind of capital do you think you would have to raise in order for you to become a meaningful manufacturer in Germany? Thank you.
Okay. Your first question about generating liquidity, as it was mentioned by Remo, we are looking into that. We have no immediate need for generating liquidity. As I mentioned, we still have available cash, free cash of CHF 35 million-36 million. We are still expecting about the same amount from the REC project and some money also from normal accounts receivables as they are stated in the annual accounts. There is no immediate need for generating cash. Of course, we expect orders which will generate advance payments, which will help us to increase our liquidity base. Regarding your question, how much money do we need? I can't give you an answer yet. That very much depends on the further development of the business. How fast do we get orders? How big are those orders? We are talking here, as Hans already mentioned in the call, about big orders.
We generate double-digit or high double-digit advance payments, which is not outflowing at once. It's outflowing over a certain time. Also here, I can't give an exact figure. Regarding the module or cell manufacturing plant, we are not yet that far that we can tell you a figure. We are still evaluating the business plan, how this could work out. It's too early to say. I think this morning what we said is, if you look at the REC project, which is a 600 MW project, the total investment for REC for the core equipment plus for the cell without the module was about $150 million.
The next question is from Julian Witschi from Berner Zeitung. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Do you hear me?
Yes.
A question for Gunter Erfurt. You are working mostly in Hohenstein. What about the site in Thun? What are your plans? Will you close it?
This is maybe your assumption that I'm only working out of Hohenstein. That's not true. I'm of course traveling between the sites and the Thun team sees me very often and I'm doing this since many years. We will not be closing the Thun site. The team in Thun has done an incredible job over the last years to bring the technology to the level of maturity where we are today. Moreover, we have a strong R&D base in Switzerland in general in our collaborations with the CSEM Research Centre in Neuchâtel. We will continue working strategically together also with this team in a close collaboration between the sites in Hohenstein, Germany, in Neuchâtel in Switzerland, and in Thun in Switzerland. There's no plan to close the Thun site.
Thank you.
For other further questions, please press star and zero. Star and one, sorry. There are no more questions at this time.
Thank you very much, operator. Thank you very much for all participants for joining this conference call. Goodbye to everybody. It is last time we talk to each other, at least in my current role. It is always a pleasure to have educated discussions, interesting questions. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Take care.
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