Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining ALSO's conference call on the full-year results 2023. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Webcast viewers may submit their questions in writing via the relative field. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Gustavo Möller-Hergt, CEO. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everybody. Thank you for being here and being present in the hall. Last press conference. I think the most happy people will be my people. No, they are not my people. They are great professionals, and we saw that last year. I will share some numbers with you and trying to go a little bit deeper, not as we are going every day, because otherwise we would stay two days here together. To get a little bit insight of what happened last year, I want to share what is the management summary of last year. Normally, we don't talk about turnover. It's like that because they are coming and going. But last year, we had an impact in H2 that we would see afterwards, which was tremendous. But the great issue here was the capacity of the organization to react to reduced costs and showing the resiliency of the business. We are going there afterward.
And we work on the group working two issues. On the one hand, to improve EBITDA with the conditions we have, and on the other hand, to improve ROCE at reduced risk. Because at the end of the day, you know, you are having customers which are big enough, but if you have a problem with the customer that he's not able to pay, you destroy the result of the year in a couple of days. And therefore, it was a trade-off constantly, constantly moving. And, at the end, I would say that was, for me personally, one of the best years of the company. This ability of reacting, this ability of switching, and not saying, "No, but, I cannot change that, the issue in Ukraine.
I cannot change the political issues in Germany and Poland." No, the organization was able to react and showing the resiliency, and we will go inside of that. Next page, please. I think for the first time in my press conferences, I will go to one issue here, which is turnover. You see the decline of the turnover? We are talking about roughly EUR 1.44 billion decline of turnover in the year. Okay? The nice issue, if you see the three business models, you see an improvement in service that is coming especially through the cloud, especially through the cloud. And the amount of unique users we put on that, and that is an excellent base for the future.
Because without a functioning cloud platform that is—and only for your information—is utilized by different people around the world, because we are selling that as a service, this amount of seats around the world are not included here. They are on top. But we say that we are not managing these seats, and therefore, we are not reporting these seats. Okay? And one time more, that is the base for future growth, but not only the only base. And we will go deeper afterwards. But let us look at the turnover and the developing of the turnover in the second half year. Please, next one. Look at the numbers. If you see there is—I—I want that you understand this chart. It's important to understand it. The top is the developing of the sales in the first half year and the second half year.
Then in the middle is the developing of the sales in consumer area, in the consumer area for first year and second half year. And in the bottom is the developing of commercial business in the second half year. Okay, if we see the numbers, you realize that in consumer in the first half year, we were missing already EUR 500 million. It's like that. Why we didn't say, "Hey, that will be repeated in the second half year," because maybe I can remember to everybody what was said outside. Consumer is coming back. We will have a good performance in the second half year, and you can read the reports of every vendor in the second half year and in every every organization.
Okay, nobody was expecting here that we have a small issue in Israel at the 7th of October of last year, which is sad and pity, but it's creating, how would you say, a reluctance to buy new stuff. Nobody was thinking that we would have a disorder into big economies like the German economy and the Polish economy. That is a reality. I cannot change it. What the organization was able to do is, knowing what is coming and happening, immediately to reduce costs. You see that afterwards. I think Ralf will show that. I want to say thank you to Ralf. He is no more our CFO, but he is responsible for the numbers in the first nine months of the year, of last year, and therefore, I asked him to come.
Because there were people saying, "No, there was something wrong there." I said, "No, no, nothing is wrong. We are friends, and he's supporting us." And I like that, and he will make part of the presentation afterwards. Okay? You will see that we increased the restructuring and volume from EUR 4 million at the beginning to EUR 10 million.
That is like that. The nice issue, the organization was able to react very fast. What happens in the commercial business? In the commercial business, we had a very good first half year. Flat, if you want to say, a little bit higher. But the second half year was a loss of more than EUR 300 million. And that is profitable business. That is a reality. We can't discuss it to the right, to the left. It's a reality. And especially coming through Poland and Germany.
You can see that in the annual report page, it's at the end. You have four countries and development of the four countries, turnover. And the Netherlands is either there. And that is what we said; it's a pity. Important is that you have a structure which is able to react to some changes like that.
The issues in Poland and Germany, honestly, we see that positive for the future. Because Germany showed end of the year that we have a right system, a separation of powers, which is functioning. Because the government, the executive said, "I am taking the money from this part." It's not that we didn't have money or the country didn't have money. We take the money from here, and the right system said, "No, you cannot do that." As I say, chapeau, because that means the democracy is functioning. It's functioning.
The same issue in Poland. Because nobody was thinking that the government would be replaced. What these guys are doing is incredible. Therefore, we see these changes very positive. Not only we, because if you imagine that Intel is investing EUR 2 billion in Poland, and they invest already EUR 2 billion in Germany, that small companies like Tesla are already running in Germany, and small companies like Microsoft - small, it's ironical. They announced a EUR 3 billion investment in Germany. Why? Because they don't believe in the economy? No, because they believe about the resiliency of the economy. The people are there, and that is what is giving us a good mood for the future. Okay, let us go one back, please. One back.
If you see the EBITDA of EUR 280 million and EUR 247 million, you said, "Okay, for this turnover, at the same margins, it don't look too sexy." If we go to the details, and Andreas will share with you the details, there are a lot of investments there in the EUR 247 million for the future. But let us remember when was the year we had EUR 11 billion turnover, roughly? Was 2019. And write it and go back and look. 2019 was EUR 10.8 billion. And the EBITDA was EUR 198 million. We have now roughly the same revenue, but with EUR 50 million more EBITDA, or 25%. And I am not reporting—I am not making changes about reported and clean, and that is the reported, like it was in 2011. 50% improvement, it's chapeau to the organization. No discussion.
I don't know too much companies what in these last four years, with Corona and not Corona, and without acquisitions or big acquisitions, made a 50% improvement in the EBITDA. Okay, if we go a little bit deeper, we know that in this EUR 280 million EBITDA, there was EUR 20 million one-shot. And we were very transparent, or transparent because very transparent is like a little bit pregnant. It's impossible.
You are transparent or not. You are pregnant or not. Okay. We were transparent saying, "Hey, this EUR 20 million is coming from one-shot that we sold, Augsburg, warehouse." Okay. The operative EBITDA is EUR 260 million, and we must compare this EUR 260 million, but with a turnover of EUR 12,563 million. That means that we were able to improve the margins and to improve the result of the company with a chunk of less turnover, EUR 1.44 billion. And that's great. It's a very good base.
To make the same result of 247 with the margins of 1.8% of 2019, the turnover should be EUR 13.6 billion. I'm making only some reminders that everybody's in context about what we are talking. Okay? I'm talking about reported. Now, going deeper, Andreas will show us what the real improvements were. Andreas, please.
Thank you very much, Gustavo. Also, welcome from my side. It's great to have you here. As Gustavo said, I would like to give you and share with you some insight about the EBITDA, what kind of effects impacted our EBITDA. So for that, again, let's go back 2 slides. As Gustavo also already said, we had EBITDA of EUR 280 million in 2022, EBITDA of EUR 247 million in 2023. The same numbers you will find here on the very left-hand side. That's the really big bar. And on the right-hand side, the 247.
So what are now the elements that really impacted our EBITDA to make it a little bit more comparable? Well, the first thing to mention is on the left-hand side, we have a big bar of EUR 20 million. Gustavo just touched it a little bit a minute before. That was an opportunity we had in 2022. We had a warehouse there in Germany, which was not operationally used. And we took the chance to sell this warehouse, with a profit of EUR 20 billion.
So this is what Gustavo was just referring to. It's a warehouse sale. It's a really one-time opportunity, we had in 2022, which improved back then our EBITDA. So without that impact, the EBITDA would have been EUR 260 million. So in the middle here, you see a lot of other impacts I would like to quickly touch. First of all, there are two elements.
It's currency and acquisition effects. I mean, you know it as good as I do. Currency, it comes and goes, really depending on macroeconomic impacts and scenarios. So that's sometimes you win some, sometimes you lose some. On the acquisition effect, it's quite the same. So it really depends on the timing when we get approval from the authorities, from governments, when we can acquire companies.
So this is something we rarely can influence. So sometimes, as we said, you win on the acquisition side, you lose a little bit depending on the timing. So what is really the second key impact which we can influence is the restructuring effects. Here, we have plus EUR 4 million in 2022, which means plus in this case means we constantly launch initiatives, small initiatives in various countries where we try to optimize our cost structure to become better in our processes.
We call that operational excellence. So in 2022, we had invested in our operational excellence, which means it comes always while the investment is with a future view where it gives us a better cost structure, it has an impact when we do the program, causing some costs of EUR 4 million.
In 2023, we announced a bigger restructuring process program in Germany, which on top to this, let's say, baseline of EUR 4 million we had in 2022, added up EUR 4 million cost in Germany in the first half that we announced. And there was in the second half year because we improved even this operational excellence. So it costed us, again, additional EUR 2 million, then leading to restructuring effects of EUR 10 million in 2023.
What is really the key message on this is, when you come to the really middle of the slide, you can see a comparable operational EBITDA, which was 256 in 2022, 257 in 2023. That's an absolute 1 million increase, but I think it's more important to notice that the operational margin, and this was already mentioned by Gustavo, it increased from 2.0%-2.3%, which is really a tremendous success of the organization, I would say. And just Gustavo started with some numbers game. As a CFO, I would like to continue. Just imagine last year's revenue of approximately EUR 2.5 billion. If you multiply that with our operational margin of 2.3%, we would have ended up with EUR 290 million EBITDA approximately. And I think that is really something to look for. So now I would like to hand over to Ralf, who is giving you some insight on our cash position. And ROCE.
Thank you, Andreas. Welcome also from my side. Good morning. And thank you to Gustavo and Andreas for inviting me here. It's a pleasure to be here. And I will explain this chart where we are showing the development of the cash of the ALSO Group last year. At first, let me see here, to the free cash flow, which is roughly EUR 350 million, which is a new record for ALSO. So it's the biggest free cash flow ALSO had in history. The next biggest was EUR 250 million some years ago.
You may say, "Okay, it could be a little bit easy in a time where the turnover is reducing to meet a better cash flow because the net working capital, of course, may be reduced also with reduced turnover." But also, as Gustavo explained in terms of operating results, the same comes true for net working capital because now it's easy to look back and say, "Okay, that was a reduction of turnover." But during the half year two, of course, it was uncertain where we will end up. And therefore, the disposition and the stock was quite hard to manage. And therefore, the team made an excellent job. And only in situations like that is really showing if the instruments are working. And the monitoring and the detailed controlling of net working capital, especially stock, was really working perfect.
Let's say the reduction of the turnover may have an impact of EUR 80 million-100 million as estimation. You see the rest, at least, is coming from the optimization. Also the EUR 80 million-100 million, you have to earn that based on good management. Based on this positive free cash flow, we were able to increase the cash position to EUR 660 million, which is also a new record in ALSO time. You have to remember what you see here in financing cash flow that in that year, we also spent EUR 50 million in the buyback of shares. We spent EUR 50 million to pay back some financial debt. We paid out EUR 60 million dividends. So that is a financing cash flow.
At the end, based on all that, we were able to increase the ROCE to a level of 25.7%, so significantly above the target of minimum 20%. That's about the cash. Thank you very much. I hand over back to Andreas. Thank you very much, Ralph. Yeah, as we heard, we have a very strong cash position. And I think a strong cash position gives us a lot of opportunities. This strong cash position is not something new. We already had that in the past, but we even increased it. In the past, what option did we have? For example, we did a very good decision to start a share buyback program of EUR 100 million, which we launched in August 2022 and finalized in July 2023. On that purchase of own shares, we already increased the value of 44% or almost 50% in what we invested.
So why not consider that also for the future? Again, could be a possibility because of strong cash position. Even if you do that, we still have enough strong cash to further increase the dividend. So the proposal from the board of directors to the shareholder meeting in March will be a dividend of CHF 4.80. It is the 12th increase in dividend, subsequent dividend, and proving our great track record. So Gustavo, please.
Okay, one issue to the turnover. Can you go back to the second slide, I think? Thank you. Third, third, third. Next one. Do you know at the end of the year, we had discussions with some credit insurance companies? Do you know that we are insuring everything when we are managing there? And some of these guys reduce the credit limits for some bigger customers.
We took the decision to optimize the business with these customers because we don't want you shareholders to take risks which are not too managed. Okay? I want that you are aware about that because it's not the business went down only because of the geopolitical situation and that. It was part of that was done on purpose. It was the management taking these decisions.
Because we can tell stories about turnover increase and time, but afterwards, when somebody is not paying the bill, we have at the beginning the problem, at the end, you are having the problem. We said, "No way. No way we are not doing that." I want to reinforce that because that was showing the great management ability of the group.
The second one, the geopolitical situation, is unmanageable because if somebody will say here to me that he was aware that Hamas will go at the 7th of October into Israel, he must be shot because nobody was knowing that. There was a Jericho report, yes, which was very obvious that something is happening, but because of political reasons, nobody was hearing to this report. But I don't believe that somebody knew that. And that had a tremendous impact in everything what we are doing. If somebody was saying to me that he knew that the Judges in Germany will say to the government, "No," he said, "You were knowing issues that I was not knowing." Because it's impossible. It's like Harry Potter looking in a black hole.
Important is in an organization, at least my management view, the ability of the organizations to adapt and to react to issues which are happening and they are not able to manage. But not for making a sweetie for the stock exchange, for making a sweetie in the sustainable long term for the company. And that is what these guys are doing. It was a privilege till now to work with them because it's not obvious. Why we are so positive for the business having these numbers? At the end of the day, let me say that in my words, the foil is nice. PowerPoint, no power, no point. You know my view on that. First of all, this business which went out is coming back. It's not that it's not coming back. You know I was working before in the beverage industry, in the beer industry.
In the beer industry, you had the problem if they didn't drink today or yesterday, they will not drink double today. In the IT industry, it's different because the IT industry has innovation. If you want to use the new AI tool, I assume you have an AI tool to look for the share price sometimes. If not, I can give you some recommendations because I am using that. But if you want to use all these opportunities, you must buy new stuff. That means great opportunity for the future. Okay, the problem I have, I cannot say to you if it will be this quarter or next quarter. But in the next couple of years, it will happen in any case. Therefore, I am jealous with these guys because I am too old to stay with them. It's coming back.
You have a very resilient company for the future. The second one, why it which is confirming that it's coming back, is the innovation around this magic world called artificial intelligence. It's not very intelligent, not very artificial. It's a big data analyzing program, but it's helping a lot. For example, Tom Brunner, our manager director from Germany and Switzerland, was making last week in our management conference. We have a management conference, and we put 250 managers of the company around the 30 countries. And afterwards, we went to hear from the managers what was good, what was bad. And Tom Brunner was having a conversation with his guy over Teams with a Copilot program. And I got a report 1 second later. Incredible. Incredible.
Okay, sometimes you have a problem that if the pronunciation is not so good, like if I speak, maybe the content is not so good. No, but I was surprised. What I am saying is the possibilities with this new technology not new. With this technology which is democratized now because it's available for everybody now. In former times, that means two months ago in the IT industry, two months ago, it's former times. The technology was a privilege of big companies. Now imagine what is happening behind that. Everybody has access to this technology. What means that? Business. Okay. You want to know exactly when? I don't know. You know I was talking in the management conference no, in the management investor day a couple of months ago. The sexy issue in this industry, every 15 years, a big paradigmatic change is coming.
The first one was 1978 or something like that was the democratization of utilization of PCs. Because at this time, you had the first PCs. You remember? No, you are too young for that. But I remember that. I was using what is the name of Rechenschieber? You know Rechenschieber? I was using Rechenschieber. It's my generation. The second big paradigmatic change in this industry was 15 years later, roughly 15 years later, was Internet. You remember? Maybe now you remember. I remember when I sent my first PowerPoint page over CompuServe was the name of the company. It took 6 minutes, 1 page. And it was peep, peep, peep. Maybe you heard about that. You are too young for that. You don't know. You are a how do we say? IT or Internet aborigine. I am aborigine with the abacus. Okay.
15 years later, it was the democratization of mobile phones. Maybe you remember it. It was the iPhone. And imagine what happens in the industry. What has it pushed? I have a strong feeling that we have the same situation now. And that is great. And therefore, Andreas, Tom, I am jealous because I am too old to get that. But okay. Maybe as an old guy, I will use that in my pension. Okay. There is a third issue which made me positive of the development of the company is the ability of the management to react, to adapt. They have the tools. They have IT. They have SAP. They are constantly investing in that, in different platforms sometimes. In these numbers, you have a lot of investments in different platforms because you must invest constantly. It's not that I bought something and nothing happens.
Constantly, because the technology is constantly changing. And if you don't invest, you lose importance for the customer. But last but not least, the pipeline we have with acquisitions, which is great. I cannot be specific on those countries. And I know, Andreas, you want to know that, but it's impossible. I cannot share with you. But the pipeline is full. And the company and the team, not the company, shows the ability for integration. A lot of these numbers you got is because of the ability of integration. Therefore, I foresee a very, very bright future for the company. Andreas, please share with us. You are the new gen.
Yeah. Thank you very much. I'm taking up the ball from Gustavo about the good outlook in the future. So we are convinced to change our guidance. So again, in 2023, we had a 247 million EBITDA and the brilliant ROCE of 25% and 7%. So now for next year or for the running year, 2024, we aim for an EBITDA which is in the range of EUR 265 million-EUR 305 million. That's the same guidance we gave last year. But we increased the guidance for ROCE from 20% or above 20% to above 25% due to our strong capital management and in the belief in the EBITDA of 2024. For the midterm, which means three to five years, we see an EBITDA in the range of EUR 350 million-EUR 450 million and the ROCE even higher than 30%. Of course, if there are major acquisitions, Gustavo just told a bit about the pipeline, that will then be considered again. But this is, as on a standalone plan, the ROCE target we have for the future, three to five years.
So thank you very much. One comment to that because I know how complicated it is to interpret the middle-term targets and that. It's three to five years. I'm privileged to work in the industry and be operative. That is my last one. Believe me that the next generation is already prepared, is there. We were discussing. I want to see already the next EUR 15 billion, EUR 20 billion on the table. Thank you for your questions, please.
Thank you very much. I would say as you all made the effort of coming here, and I hope it wasn't just for the Gipfeli. So if you have any questions, just raise your hand and I'll give you the microphone. If you don't, there are a lot of questions online, then we can start there and you just raise your hand if there is any question that comes along.
Anything to start off from the room? No, maybe they are in for the Gipfeli. So first question, which is regarding the past. When were the restructuring costs of EUR 4 million in 2022 recognized in the first or the second half of 2022?
In the first one. I saw that as your question. Indeed, it was. In the first one.
But there are a lot of questions also from Knut. And a pity you're not here today, Knut. So the first one, looking at the operating momentum in 2024, should we expect already to see EBITDA growth in H1 2024? And should we expect a return of growth for supply and solutions in 2024?
Let me say that. It's a tricky question because I don't believe that somebody can answer that in a professional way. And I tell you why. Nobody was expecting a February 2022. Nobody was expecting an October 2023. Therefore, what we said in 2022, and maybe you remember, is we are opening the bandwidth because we don't know what will happen. If somebody is able to say that, I will congratulate him, but I will not believe him because it's impossible. Do we know if it's a third war coming in the next couple of weeks? It's a pity to say. What I can say to you, if something happens, we have the organization to manage it from the EBITDA and ROCE perspective in the negative or in the positive way because we have the capital to invest. That's important. But if you want to have a, I say every time, Harry Potter here to see in the future, we are not Harry Potter. Definitely. If you want to hear something else, it's okay. But I will not recommend you to believe it.
Invest in organizations and that is what I am doing privately, which have the ability to adapt soon. We said that a couple of years ago. Maybe you remember. The amplitude and frequency of changes is getting bigger and bigger. You remember that? That was in Corona times. If you don't remember, I can tell you which page of the yearly report. It was in my letter to the shareholders. The amplitude that means the intensity and the frequency, the speed of changes is getting bigger and bigger. At this time, we were talking about Corona. We were not talking about war. Now, after two years, we have two new wars in the world. Do we know what the Chinese government will do in Taiwan? Or let me ask different. When? Do we know what is the impact here? We know which buttons we must press.
That do we know. Okay? Sorry. I don't want to promise you a Oscar if it's not there. Maybe exactly the opposite will come. I told that last year. I made a nice picture. Imagine Mr. Biden kissing Mr. Putin. That we will have an incredible developing of the market because everything, all the tensions we have and all the discussions in relatively small countries like Germany and Poland will become not very important. We will have trust of companies, of consumers to invest. Therefore, I'm saying, let us be able to react but not to say, "Hey, I know exactly what will happen." Sorry, Knut. I cannot say you something I don't know and I assume you don't know.
There is one question in this context coming from Andreas.
She's the boss.
What will be ALSO's direction of geographical expansion given the uncertainty in Eastern Europe?
Andreas, let me say that in my words. I don't think we have an uncertainty in Eastern Europe. We have an uncertainty in the whole world. Don't reduce that to a region because we have a global conflict. That is number 1. Number 2, the geographical expansion is clear. We are not moving from the approach we had a couple of years ago. First of all, we are having some, we'll say, black spots in. I am not able to use the word black because I am black. Sorry. Spots where we are not working in Europe. And yes, we are working to do acquisitions there. No discussion.
Then we announce U.S., we are moving to the U.S. It's no discussion. It's not only an issue of business opportunity. It's maybe an issue of survival. Because if tomorrow MAGA will come back, we will be not surprised that American companies will make only business with American companies. And for that, we need a solution. And we worked already on that last year. And we believe and therefore, we have already people working there that in North Africa, we have a great opportunity under consideration of compliance rules because that is one of the issues there. I was living in Cameroon two years. Therefore, I know a little bit how complicated it can be. I learned there what is the word joint venture. And I learned the principle of reciprocity.
At the beginning, the European partner had the money and the African partner the know-how. After three years, it was exactly the opposite. The European partner had the know-how and the African partner the money. It's complicated countries where we must take care. But we have the experience and we have people already working. They were working in Africa there. And we have either a small operation there. We are moving without stress, but without pause.
Stefan Gächter, Stifel. Predictions about the future are difficult, yes. But a simple question from my side. Can you just share the basic assumptions, how you arrive at your mid-term targets? I'm not aware if you in the past shared some assumptions on this side. I mean, basically, we just upgraded a bit the mid-term.
Yes, I can do that. I cannot give you I cannot. I can give you the numbers. But I want to avoid tomorrow discussions if there is EUR 5 million more coming from there or from the other.
So roughly. It's quite simple. We just want to know what's going back to the as a service, cloud-based business. And the elephant in the room is what's coming from the incremental AI opportunity.
Okay. Let us begin with the traditional business, solutions and supply. Only if we recover the turnover which is there, we will recover and we will overpass. It's for me not a discussion. The discussion is when, okay? It's 3-5 years. With the margin we have today, you can calculate how much is coming out from there. It takes seconds. Seconds. We have an operative margin which is 0.3% better. Recover the business, then you are already at the bottom of the targets we are putting there. Second. We have a program.
Sorry that I sat down, but I was not feeling very well. The second one is margin optimization. The margin optimization is not complete. There's something to do there and the teams are working on that. Okay. What I was not expecting before, and I am telling you very clearly, that artificial intelligence will bring an acceleration to our margin optimization. It's an acceleration. You want to know how much? I cannot give you exactly the details because artificial intelligence is at a very, very early stage. But for example, what I told about Tom and the report, Copilot making seconds, is changing the whole world because that means additional improvement of margin but accelerated. I want that we hear that. That means there is room there. Then we have a couple of digital platforms that are not mature. Let me say that.
And not mature means for me opportunity of business. I am telling that negative, but it's very positive. For example, Internet of Things. The adoption of Internet of Things is not there where it should be. And our activities there were a little bit, how do you say, from the share of mind point of view, at the end of the prioritization because of EBITDA and ROCE improvement because of the sales last half year. Share with you. But it's a big opportunity. And here, one time more, we are talking about incremental business. It's not like in the cloud, right pocket, left pocket because you change in-situ licenses for cloud licenses. Here, we are talking about incremental business. Talking about that, let us talk about artificial intelligence. That is either incremental business because nobody was thinking that this monetization is coming on top. On top.
And therefore, we are very, very motivated, bullish, call it whatever you want, to develop this business forward. Andreas, what was the calculation of what is the additional monetization per seat for artificial intelligence? Give the number. The number. Not with amount of seats. What was the additional monetization? Was it EUR 1,000?
At the lower range, it was EUR 800 per unique user per year. On the upper range, EUR 3,400. But in our annual report, I'm a conservative guy, so I said, "Stop it with the upper range. Let's use the lower range of EUR 800."
That's a chunk of business. And this additional, it was not existing. It's not that, "No, we were using artificial intelligence. Now I am using per cloud." It's on top. And then acquisitions. And acquisitions, it's clear that acquisitions we are doing is more traditional business or technology-oriented business.
And then if it's traditional business, we put all the platforms, all the margins improvement on top. But that is and then acquisitions. And if we calculate together, you will be maybe a little bit higher than the over range. You know why? Because Andreas is a very conservative guy. And I like that. That is the reality.
There is one interesting question from Peter.
Every question is interesting, Beate. Please.
He says, "Well, the share price is down today. Would that change your consideration for potentially announcing another share buyback given our positive outlook for the future?"
Let me say that in my words. Share price is a function of different variables, dimensions that I cannot manage. The one is these reports which are coming before we announce the results, which behind me, I respect your industry, but for me, it's making a little bit noise.
Why should somebody write 2 days or 2 weeks before a company is announcing results what he is foreseeing from the results? My opinion, complicated. But it's okay. It's your industry, not mine. And I respect you. But there are a lot of issues like what happens with the country, what happens with the interest rate. If the interest rate is going up, the share price of the whole industry is going down, not only mine. And therefore, I am very clear. If the ECB or I don't know who is announcing 0.5 more, I can present EUR 500 million EBITDA and nobody is reacting because they are not interested. And then you have all the discussions, "Okay, but the models of the gurus," here, Danny is a guru. Knut is a guru. Yeah, they have different betas, different cost of capital, different approach of cash. And it's okay.
I respect that. It's no discussion. But share price is something which I cannot manage because there are a lot of different variables which I am not able to manage. It's impossible because I don't have friends in the ECB. And if I will have friends, either they will not react because they are talking about macro political decisions. And that is your decision, not mine. Okay. Second, we announced already that we want to make a buyback of shares. You know why? Very easy because we believe in the business and we show that the business is going. I put the 280 out. Forget it. I don't take care about that. And it's a very nice due diligence for us to buy the own shares because the best company we know is ours. Very easy. I am not saying no. I am not saying when.
I am not nervous because share price is going down. It's okay. Please. I cannot manage it. That is not arrogance. I think it's important that we know there are a lot of variables. We must be aware about that. Please.
Gaudenz Ender from Vontobel. Can you explain to us how you will organize the responsibilities when you are doing other things with your time?
No. Very, very short answer. No, because the company is paying me till May. I don't want to be not till April. Till April. I don't want to be a tiger without teeth. You understand that? We have still a lot of negotiations with small companies like Microsoft. We are getting some contracts and HP. I don't want that the feeling is, "Hey, there is a guy coming for representation to bring
the Gipfeli was the name?
No, I will not do that. Okay. What I can say you is we have already very strong organization who will take care about this company. And I am very clear. I am not gone. I will stay as what is the name? Verwaltungsrat. It sounds crazy, the name. Verwaltungsrat President. Okay. And I will help the team to maintain and to develop this success. But we have already we know exactly who will be the team, how will be the organized, who will be the CEO. And we made already everything. And we will announce that at the 21st of March for the general assembly. And I will invite maybe part of the team or the whole team because I want that they present themselves to the shareholders. They are not bad, I can say. Otherwise, they will be not bad.
And I will be not because there was a discussion last week. You will be an active Verwaltungsrat president? No. I will be a normal Verwaltungsrat president. The team will push the developing of this company in the future. And I am sure they are by far better than both of us, by far. Otherwise, I will not choose it. Do you think I want to have interruptions when I am playing my violin? No. Questions, please.
Thank you. Johannes Braun from Stifel. I have three questions, please. Maybe the first one is an easy one. Can you explain to us what happened to pricing last year and whether that had an impact on the top line? You're talking about the top line. That's the first one. Second one is you did a good job on the cost side, protecting your margin.
What's going to happen if the business picks up again? Is there a huge operating leverage then around, or will you be forced to also increase the cost again, so on the upside? And the third one, please, if you could be more specific on the operational excellence, what you plan to do on the logistics footprint and maybe whether there are costs related to these actions in 2024, please.
Okay. The most difficult one is your first question because pricing is a more dimensional mathematical model, extremely complicated. Extremely complicated. And having over 120,000 SKUs, imagine what that means. And having over 65,000 buying customers, imagine what that means. And we not. I am not we. The team was able to develop a matrix where they are constantly taking the opportunities about pricing. They made some projects with gurus about pricing and ton.
The interesting issue is I am coming from a very simple industry. There it was very clear. You increase the price, done. Here, it's not like that because you have these different typologies. You have different programs of the vendor. You have the currency issue. You are constantly having systems which are taking care about that. It's clear. If there is an interest rate increase, we must increase the prices. But it's not a bottom. It's not from one day to other. It's not, "we increased price." It's not well understood the complication of an industry like that with prices. It's not a digital process. Let me say that. It's not all on one. And the team is constantly taking care about that. You have this price sensitivity analysis where if you increase the price till one point, then you begin to reduce sales.
And then how you know that you are losing the sales and they are going to other because that is happening today, but you get the report in a couple of months or a couple of weeks. It's a very, very sensitive issue. Therefore, for me, the most difficult question. You did. Your second question.
AI overall, was there because of high inflation in the past and the reduction of inflation, on average, was that the negative impact on the top line or?
No. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. The issue I am talking here is the issue the turnover you see there is a matrix about 100,000 of products. They are sold over 65,000 customers. And there is changing constantly in different countries. And you cannot say, "I press the button and it's going up or it's going down." It's not realistic.
If somebody is telling you it's possible, maybe he's selling only one product in one country. They have only one variable like I was in my former job doing. They say, "I believe that." Here, impossible. Impossible. You are not able. It's the responsibility of the team to put that into the cost structure. Okay. Resiliency or scalability of the business. The reductions these guys did, the team did, are cost reductions which are sustainable for the future with a big flexibility for scalability. We understand? That means if you say, "The costs are going up," if they buy a company, I don't know, then you will see the increase of this company, but not for the normal business. No way. They're scalable. We are talking about IT systems which are behind and process mapping systems which are there. Operational Excellence.
Embedded in operational excellence are different impacts into the P&L. Okay? Let us begin with an easy one, pricing. What is pricing? Management of pricing is operational excellence. Second one, a little bit more complicated. Personal costs. To manage the personal costs is operational excellence. But it's not you are reducing people above. No, no. It's a little bit more complicated because you must get the attractivity for the young generation to get the right people.
Therefore, we are using since a couple of years an artificial intelligence-based program to get the best talents. It's not wishy-washy . If you want to write an article or something like that, I invite you to see how the team is working with that, which I am impressed. You say, "Wow. In my generation, it was impossible. In my generation, you sent the CV in a paper with a picture.
And you wrote that." Now, for this new generation, everything is different. I was surprised. Last week, I got the information. I was not aware that Microsoft is using the same program based on artificial intelligence to get access to talent. Very important. Hiring the right people with the right contract is part of operational excellence. Operational excellence is not only to reduce the cost.
Here, you must invest because sometimes people are hearing, operational excellence, Streichkonzert." No. Streichkonzert, people speaking German, they understand what I'm trying to say. That is not operational excellence. It's to hire the right people and to motivate them to get the job done. Then logistics. My favorite, Beate. ESG report logistics and CO2 emissions. Which we have reduced, by the way. Yes. I am more than happy because I am techie and I have two sisters which are ecological sisters.
They are every year reading the report. They say, "No. You did well with the CO2 emissions." I say, "No. The problem is the measurement. I don't know how good the measurement is." No. I am very honest. Sometimes I am shocked about how very complicated issues are told to people. And there are a lot of people making politics with that. But it's okay. I am a stupid engineer. I cannot change that. The interesting thing is you are able to improve logistical capabilities and infrastructure under consideration of CO2 emissions. That means you reduce the amount of warehouses, the space there. You know what I like? Small warehouses. You know why? Because they don't have space to put inventories on that. I love them.
Mr. Tom Brunner, every time Tom is here, he says, "Every time I say, 'Reduce the warehouse,' reduce because that means improvement of ROCE and inventories. Very easy." Sometimes people are observing a contradiction here and saying exactly the opposite. That is exactly what we are doing. We invest in Finland. We invest in Poland. I think Michael was visiting our warehouse in Poland. We are investing in Germany either, in Netherlands because we are optimizing the structure. If you are coming to a warehouse and you see, for example, that the picking area that is a definition of gurus in the logistical area is not the right one, then you must change the structure. But sometimes the building is not giving you the opportunity to change the structure.
And that is what we are working without stress and without pause, deciding where to do that, what is the nice one, what is the less one. Okay. Now you have the typical triangle in logistics. You know this triangle? It's operative cost, transport cost, and depreciation amortization for the building. And yes, we can build a logistical operation in Afghanistan, in Kabul. And I assume that the operative cost will be very low. But I assume that the transport cost will be very high. And then we have the CO2 emissions. Why I'm telling you that it's not a one-shot. "No. I reduce costs, and it's done." Honestly, we have a team which is constantly working on that. What is the operational excellence there? Not only the result, either that they are working on that.
That is operational excellence, to ask yourself, "What can you improve?" And my team till now knows me that I am a guy who is constantly improving, Beate. 30 versions of something, constantly. And that is willingness. That is operational excellence. It's an attitude with great results. Nothing more. Very good question. Very deep. It's getting in my philosophy of management.
Unfortunately, we are way over our time. So for you in the room, please ask the question then in the one-on-one. In a minute, we can do it. But for the transmission, I'm afraid that's all the time we have. You had 10 minutes of Gustavo bonus time. And there were quite a few people who said both to you but also to Ralph, "Thank you very much for the great job that you did in the last 13 years." So thank you so much.
And you, Beate.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. But we can go on internally, of course.
Thank you.