Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Full Year 2024 Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I'm Sandra, the Chorus 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&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions only. 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 Stefan Paul, CEO of Kuehne + Nagel. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much, Sandra, and good afternoon, and welcome to the Presentation of Kuehne+Nagel's Full Year 2024 Financial Results. I'm Group CEO Stefan Paul, and once again, I'm joined today by our Group CFO, Markus Blanka-Graff. Let's go into page number two, full year results. We delivered a solid financial result in 2024 as volumes improved in the second half of the year.
Thanks to this upward trend and our ongoing effective cost management, we returned to a year-on-year EBIT growth in the second half. We also returned to a more typical high-end free cash conversion by the end of the year. In 2024, we fulfilled several strategic ambitions that have prepared us for continued improvement in 2025. We expanded our customs offering, streamlined our organizational structure, further pruned our Sea Logistics portfolio, and seamlessly migrated our in-house operating system to the cloud.
These achievements have put us in the position we envisioned at this time last year. To remind you, we shared our view that we could expand our share of recovering market by reviewing our customer portfolio, managing yields, and adjusting our cost base in the post-pandemic period. Page number three, Sea Logistics. Stage set for market share gains.
Volume on the left side, GP per container unit in the middle, and EBIT per container unit on the right side. Sea Logistics produced EBIT of CHF 198 million in Q4, which is an underlying improvement of 23% year- over- year, excluding one-off costs booked in the prior year. Overall volumes were down 1% for the year, but up 1%, excluding the effects of our choice to begin deselecting unattractive volumes in Q4 2023.
Looking at Q4 alone, organic headline volumes also declined by 1% year- over- year, but expanded by 4%, excluding deselected volumes. This compares to estimated market growth of 3%-4% in Q4 and marks an acceleration from 2% underlying growth in Q3. Average yields across the year were down by 10%. The yield in Q4 of CHF 464 per TEU was down 6% sequentially, but still up plus 8% year- over- year.
Looking ahead, we remind you that the full year consolidation of our acquisition IMC will contribute positively to the average yield in 2025. Turning to OPEX, we reduced unit costs by 5% in 2024, with a bulk of the savings in the first nine months of the year. This followed the 10% reduction in 2023. In the most recent quarter, costs increased slightly, which sets the stage for faster growth in the quarters to come.
Next is Air Logistics on page number four. Better yields and better volumes. Volumes on the left, GP per 100 kilo in Swiss francs in the middle, and EBIT per 100 kilo in Swiss francs on the right. Air Logistics achieved Q4 EBIT of CHF 148 million, or underlying growth of 6%, excluding one-off costs booked in the prior year.
Total Kuehne+Nagel volumes grew by 6% in 2024, with 5% growth in Q4 alone. This compares to estimated market growth of 6%-7% in Q4, or closer to 9%, including all of e-commerce. Q4 volumes certainly exceeded the expectations we had back in the autumn. The additional volume boost came from Apex and perishables. From a sequential growth perspective, the 6% uplift from Q3 to Q4 was also supported by hard cargo volume.
Yields declined by 5% overall year-over-year, but surged in the second half. The yield in Q4 rose to CHF 89 per 100 kilo, a gain of 8% sequentially and an 11% improvement on prior year levels. These increases reflect both positive mix and yield development in the quarter. Unit costs were broadly flat in 2024 after the 12% reduction in 2023. A modest reduction of current legacy was offset by an increase at Apex, weighted to the seasonality stronger second half of the year. Let's move to page number five, Road Logistics. Persistent headwinds in key markets. Road Logistics EBIT for Q4 was CHF 10 million, or nearly half the underlying result from the prior year, excluding one-off costs.
Order volumes increased by 5% in 2024 and 8% in Q4 alone, fueled by the consolidation of customs broker Farrow and road operator City Zone Express, which we acquired in 2024. Excluding acquisitions, volume declined by 3% year- over- year in 2024. In Q4, the decline was also 3% versus an estimated 5% drop for the broader market. The 5% decline of organic growth profit in Q4 reflects negative yield developments and capacity cost pressure.
While organic costs also declined year- over- year, the net result was negative at EBIT, with a corresponding contraction of the conversion rate. Page number six, Contract Logistics, adding another year of record high EBIT. Contract Logistics delivered a new all-time high EBIT result of CHF 65 million in Q4, for an underlying gain of 18% year- over- year. Full year EBIT reached a record high of CHF 227 million, or CHF 229 million excluding one-off costs.
These improvements mark a continuation of the strong and consistent earnings growth trend. Constant currency gross profit growth of 7% for the full year and 5% in Q4 alone point to consistent market share gains. These remain centered in healthcare and e-commerce, with a meaningful contribution from a ramp-up of the Adidas facility in Northern Italy, which fulfills all of the company's omnichannel demand for Southern Europe.
The conversion rate increased by nearly 100 basis points in Q4, supported by our continuous focus on process re-engineering and automation. This concludes my comments on the performance of the business units. Typically, I would now turn to a strategy progress update before handing over to Markus, but today we ask for your patience until March 25th, when we will provide a progress update as well as insights regarding our future path at our Capital Markets Day.
With that, Markus, I hand over to you.
Thank you, Stefan, and good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for your interest in Kuehne+Nagel and taking also the time today for the full year 2024 results. As Stefan outlined, we managed an upward trend of results in the second half through our ongoing effective cost management and returned to year-on-year EBIT growth. We also returned to a more typical high-e nd free cash conversion by the end of the year. For both, I will give more details later on.
The current business environment remains volatile with respect to consumer demand and geopolitical risk, but we have successfully managed through countless economic cycles and periods of unforeseen volatility. Coming to the income statement, and as mentioned before and clearly visible on the chart, we began 2024 with lower profitability than the year before and improved the performance continuously.
This resulted in a Q4 2024 performance that is nearly CHF 100 million better than the year before. Despite this improvement, the overall results for 2024 remained roughly 10% below last year, excluding a currency headwind in excess of 2%. Looking at the four quarters individually, we can see a solid operational conversion rate of 18%, 19%, and 20%, excluding restructuring costs, supported by active FTE resource management.
The combined sea and air freight conversion rate was 35% in Q4. As mentioned, currency headwinds in excess of 2% were evident not only on the EBIT line, but also at the level of gross profit and earnings before tax in the amount of CHF 211 million and CHF 43 million, respectively. Working capital on the top of our agenda, as always, and it has increased compared to last year.
This is due to the significant rise of sea freight rates triggered by the sustained higher rate levels on the Far East-Westbound trade lane and a recent surge in charter activities within Apex TransPac operations. The CHF 94 million increase that you can see on the schedule on the slide is solely related to the Apex charter activities that all flows in again rather quickly as it is linked to the charter activities.
DSO contracted slightly since the end of Q3 and are stable relative to year-end 2023. DPO, on the other hand, have decreased both quarterly and year-on-year, mainly due, as mentioned before, to the increase in charter activities, which has now reduced the spread between DSO and DPOs to a mere 3.7%. Cash and free cash flow, looking more closely at the cash generation, the Q4 result reflected free cash flow conversion of 94%.
Excluding the seasonal impact of Apex that I just mentioned, this would have been 124% and therewith much closer to the comparables pre-Apex acquisition. As I mentioned on this last slide, the only driver of sequential increase of net working capital from Q3 to Q4 is the seasonal and charter effect at Apex. While much improved, the Q4 cash conversion rate sits below the decade-long average preceding the pandemic, but still within the range of a more normal outcome.
Looking forward, in the absence of very large freight rate spikes or increases of demand, we expect this trend of improved free cash flow generation to continue. Dividend proposal. The supervisory board has decided to propose a dividend distribution of CHF 8.25 per share to the annual general meeting on May 7, 2025.
This reflects our healthy profitability, well-managed cash conversion, and our success in balancing current and future cash needs for adapting the workforce to the markets. This dividend also represents a stable payout ratio compared to previous years and a stable ordinary dividend in absolute value versus 2023. Sea Logistics and eTouch. It is with regret nearly that I have to say that this is going to be the final update on eTouch. eTouch, our digitalization and automation program, which has been running now for several years with the aim of increasing operational efficiency.
The eTouch methodology addresses all aspects of operational processes, and we have selected only a few workflow areas for Sea Logistics and Air Logistics to demonstrate its relevance. Man-hour savings continue to accelerate as we expand the efficiency gains through the operational processes.
This has resulted in a positive conversion rate impact of 130 basis points, which represents more than six Swiss Franc operating costs per TEU. Most of you, of course, are familiar with this topic, so let's have a look at the customer portfolio management in sea freight, an important effort where we have only recently started sharing related information. You may recall these, let's call them donut charts, from last year's presentation of full year result.
We share these slides just to illustrate the steps taken to improve our customer portfolio and to highlight that we retain a very diverse mix. We've expanded our share of higher yielding SME business by investing in field sales, improving proximity to customers, and taking other measures to expand service quality and boost retention. Another step was to stop serving certain volumes, which didn't produce an adequate return.
These so-called deselected volumes accounted for 6% of our total volume in 2023 and 2% in 2024 as we exited these volumes. We're now pleased with the current footprint and only call out a couple of remaining categories within our portfolio with significantly lower than average yields. These segments include intra-Asia trade and waste products.
Lastly, it's important to remember the effect of a weaker U.S. dollar on our reported gross profits and yields in sea logistics, a sector where U.S. dollar is the dominant functional currency. On the face of it, our average yield is about 50% greater than it was in 2019. On a constant currency basis, the gap would be even wider.
Air logistics. We now turn to the e-touch efforts in air logistics, which was our initial testbed for automation and proud that we can report further man-hour savings resulting in a positive conversion rate of 370 basis points, representing a value of CHF 3 operating costs per 100 kilo. This was the 2026 target we set for ourselves at the 2023 Capital Markets Day. We have clearly progressed faster than anticipated, and this bodes well for our ongoing efforts in sea logistics, where the initiation of e-touch began more recently. With this report, we close our specific reporting on e-touch to the public, and of course, we will continue the process optimization and harvest the positive effects on an ongoing basis.
Looking at the donut charts for Air Logistics, the intent is slightly different here in that we are primarily focused on highlighting the diversity of the portfolio with a central focus on perishables. As you know, the unit economics vary significantly from the rest of the Air Logistics portfolio, and providing this split allows one to better assess our progress versus the broader market and our peers.
One change that you may have noticed, we will no longer break out the contribution of Apex to Air Logistics gross profit or tonnage due to some competitive considerations and the amalgamation within the KN network routing. Let me summarize. Let's close with our prepared remarks with the key takeaways. The lead headline is that we returned to strong year-over-year earnings growth in Q4.
Second, we are pleased to propose a dividend that implies a high-end payout ratio and that is in line with last year's distribution from retained earnings. Next, our intensive homework in recent quarters has now positioned the group to grow faster than the market. Two important changes will support this growth. Firstly, we streamlined the organization to achieve closer proximity to customers and enable faster decision-making.
Secondly, we completed some bolt-on acquisitions, which expanded our service offering and geographic coverage. We look forward to elaborating on these points and more at our Capital Markets Day in three weeks. Please note that an invitation and registration link was sent out early this morning, and of course, feel free to contact Chris or Andrea if you have any questions to the Capital Markets Day. Thank you for your attention, and I would now ask the operator to open the Q&A session.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered a queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Questioners on the phone are requested to disable the loudspeaker mode and eventually turn off the volume of the webcast while asking a question. In the interest of time, please limit yourself to two questions only. Anyone who has a question may press star and one at this time. Our first question comes from Muneeba Kayani from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. So first question just on IMC and how should we be thinking about the contribution from IMC to your gross profit and EBIT this year? Secondly, if you can just, you know, with all the trade tariffs, potential changes in the de minimis exemption in the U.S., how do you see that impacting market volumes as well as your volumes and yields this year? Thank you.
Hi, Muneeba, Stefan speaking. Thank you for the questions. So let me tackle the IMC question on GP level first. And if I remember correctly, in our last call, we mentioned it already. To be a little bit more precise now, the contribution per container unit will be between $50 and $60 on GP level. The second question was on the de minimis and the volume impact on Kuehne+Nagel and the overall market. So the impact on the Kuehne+Nagel volume is, I would call it rather minimal because the entire share of e-commerce in our air freight network is single-digit.
We were alluding to that a couple of times already in the past. So we have single-digit volume in e-commerce in the Kuehne+Nagel network. So anticipating that the volumes will come down in air freight, it will have another huge impact from a Kuehne+Nagel perspective.
Overall, the market, we know we had roughly 2 million tons from the e-commerce providers mainly with the two into the US marketplace. So huge volumes, and I believe that is my personal opinion, carriers need to reroute their capacities into other markets, and that would put a little bit more pressure in terms of the pricing is concerned. But to be seen what's going to happen because at the end of the day, the consumer will decide where and how to buy.
And if you buy a T-shirt of 250 and later you buy it for 280, I think that is something which we need to look at and will be shown in the next couple of weeks and months to come.
Thank you. If I may follow up on IMC, are you willing to share EBIT contribution from IMC this year?
Hi, Muneeba. At the current stage, we will not do that. Sorry about that.
The next question comes from Alexia Dogani from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. Just firstly, can you discuss a bit your comments on the statement that Kuehne+Nagel has started well into the new financial year and we are confident that the positive development will continue in 2025? What exactly do you mean there and what is your expectation for market growth in 2025 at the moment?
So that's my first question. And then my second question, can you remind us a little bit about the dividend policy and why last year you decided to give an extra capital reserve distribution, which obviously you chose not to do so this year? Thank you.
Yeah, Alexia, Stefan, I take the first one about the started well in 2025 message. So in our Q3 call, I mentioned that we have done our homework in 2024 with a new governance model, with a new sales approach, with the three sales channels. And the statement is well reflecting a good start in pockets into 2025 from a volume perspective. So we see that we are gaining market share now in certain areas in our business, and that was reflected in the statement.
We had a reasonably good start in certain areas when it comes to the volume development, and we believe we see now the evidence that we are taking market share in certain businesses. That was the relation to the statement.
And Alexia has Markus on the dividend policy or on the dividend level last year versus this year. You're right, ordinary dividend is CHF 8.25 last year and CHF 8.25 this year. Last year we decided for a capital contribution. The regulatory requirement and the equity requirement around capital contribution is quite strict here in Switzerland. We have done a repayment of capital contribution several years back already once. We usually do that whenever there is available capital for contribution to pay that back to the shareholders.
But again, it's a quite peculiar regulation, I think, in the Swiss environment so that you can do that, but you have to have it available. And this was last year the case, and this year it's not available.
Okay, thank you. And can I just ask a clarification on Stefan's answer? Obviously, you didn't want to talk about what is your expectation for market growth. Is this something we should expect that the Capital Markets Day with the financial outlook? And could you give a bit of color on whether the financial outlook will be a more formalized annual guidance that we should expect every year, or should we just see it as a CMD-related event?
No, it will not be a CMD-related event, and thank you very much for following up. We will give more transparency in the regular outlook when it comes to financial guidance as of the Capital Markets Day in March 2025. So again, this will be a regular update and more transparency from Kuehne+Nagel to the equity market.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Marco Limite from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi, good afternoon. Thanks for taking my question. I'm aware that it's a recurring question, but clearly there is a lot of focus on spot rate and Sea Freight , declining fast in Q1. So just wondering what you've seen in terms of GP per TEU at Kuehne+Nagel, given the fast correction of spot rate and Sea Freight . And second question still related to the Sea Freight unit. In Q4, you have shown a bit of deterioration in cost per TEU. Just wondering whether we should expect similar trend going to 2025, or that's just seasonality, or let's say special cost just for Q4, and therefore cost per TEU should improve going to 2025. Thank you.
Hi, Marco. Markus, let me start with the second question first because it's relating to Q4. Well spotted, yes. We have a slightly increase in cost per TEU on the Sea rate side. And I think that all really refers back to putting ourselves in a position, creating the base for an accelerated growth program going into 2025. So this is, I would call it investment into a faster growth path in 2025. On the Sea and air freight, if I understood your question correctly, the first one, you were asking where do we see Sea and air freight yields going into the first quarter 2025. Is that correct?
Correct. Yeah.
Exit rates in general, yes. Yeah. I think at the current stage, I would refrain from answering that because there's so much volatility right now in the market that it's really difficult for us to make any predictions that go beyond the current point. And I would ask you to excuse ourselves on that Q1 information.
The next question comes from Marc Zeck from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Excuse me, this is the operator. Mr. Zeck, we are receiving a bad audio quality from your end. We will remove your question. The next question comes from Cedar Ekblom from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thanks very much. I just wanted to follow up on that comment on costs in sea freight. So you've invested for growth. Should we assume therefore that that cost basis is now the new normal, or is there a potential that that costs come down from that? And then just on the details that you've given on your customer mix, it's quite helpful. Thanks for that. I wanted to ask on sea freight.
One of the messages that I think you gave at the last Capital Markets Day was this idea of trying to shift to the SME customer, the higher yielding customer. And in those donut charts that you provide, there is that big blue area, which is sort of other. I wonder if you could give us a little bit of detail on what SMEs look like in that percentage because it doesn't really look like it's shifted.
But I don't know if there's more granularity that you could provide so that we could get a little bit more visibility of if that strategy to go to those higher-yielding customers has actually come through. Thanks so much.
So let me first do the sea freight cost question. So I think that is a cost basis for the fourth quarter, agree. We would now expect that we can harvest on accelerated growth and higher TEU numbers. And then, of course, our operational efficiencies, namely for a moment each, but there's many other efficiency initiatives behind that as well. We would expect that these costs will then fall back in line where it was pre-Q4. So it's really kind of a ramp up, and then with the additional volume, we will expect that to reduce.
And Stefan, on the SME share, so overall in Q4, SME picked up again back to the prior year level between 48%-49%. So roughly 50% comes now from SME, and this focus will continue into 2025 and 2026. We will open additional CCLs, customer care locations. We were speaking about that during the last year as well. And this is something which is going to continue. So we will further focus on SME growth, and we will grow, as Markus said, within our cost base. So the unit cost should improve.
Can you just clarify what the SME number was in 2019? So that's helpful to have that 48%-49% now, but I don't know what that number was in 2019 off the top of my head. You could remind us would be helpful.
The SME number share. Oh, that was 79% of the TEUs. No, can't be 79 GP. We have now 48 and can't.
Let us check, right? We come back to you. On the GP.
Yeah, just to get some, basically just to try and understand that customer mix journey that you've been talking about. So some numbers around that would be really helpful.
Note it for the upcoming Capital Markets Day. We will prepare that.
Brilliant. Thank you so much.
The next question comes from Gian Marco Werro from ZKB. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. First question on the profitability in Air Logistics. I think it's an impressive step up there, considering also that you grew meaningfully in the low margin perishable volumes. You mentioned there are positive mix drivers and also yield developments being helpful. Can you tell us also is that mostly trend-related, or is that really sustainable development that you could observe now there in the fourth quarter?
And the second question is related to the put option that Partners Group has on the 25% stake in Apex. As I'm aware of, this put option became valid by the 1st of January. Can you at least tell us for how long this option is valid? Do we need to consider that this can really be executed every day, or are there several defined dates when this put option can be executed? Thank you.
Hi, Gian Marco. It's Markus. So I take the Partners Group put option question. So indeed, as of 1st of January, it is exercisable. At the current stage, there is no fixed date of, or there's no predefined exercise date. So as such, it is exercisable at any point in time.
Then I would say from a process point of view, between exercise date, if you like, to a closing at that point in time, we would still talk about a couple of months to verify then, obviously, what are the values and so on and so on from a process perspective. But in principle, and as it is written, it is as of 1st of January, no specific exercise date, so exercisable at any time.
Stefan, Gian Marco, the question was the profitability drivers, and that is purely vertical related. It was healthcare, aerospace, and the semiconductor industry, which helped us to grow the yield significantly.
Thank you. But is it only the growth in these industries, or is it that you increase meaningfully your exposure in these industries?
Meaningful exposure increase in these industries. And remember, we started Semicon only one, one and a half years ago, not hours, years ago. And it was a meaningful extension and expansion into these three verticals.
Great. Thank you, Stefan and Markus.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Andy Chu from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Stefan, Markus, how are you both well? Just one question from me, please. Maybe a bit strange, but just wondering if you could give us a flavor operationally in air and sea how your conversations are trending with your customers in terms of maybe sort of intensity of discussions. Because I guess maybe big picture, the more intensive the discussions are, the better it is for great orders for Kuehne+Nagel.
And kind of thinking around COVID, well, obviously, there was big profits, but obviously came with a lot of work and a lot of maybe a bit of internal disruption. So maybe a flavor, please, of the uncertainty, what's that doing between Kuehne+Nagel sales and your customers and clients, particularly new customers?
Hi, Andy. It's Markus. Let me just reflect quickly on the question. So the question is, after our restructuring internally, obviously, then what is our gains on the customer proximity? How intensified is the way how we communicate with customers? Did I understand it correctly?
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. That's correct, Markus. And also the level of intensity, given all the sort of turmoil or the uncertainty, obviously, the more that you're connecting with your clients typically would be maybe a good indicator of success of the business and therefore profitability.
Okay. I think now we understood. Thank you. So basically, let me start with the first question or with the first tip of the question is, what has changed, basically, right?
So what is new to us now is that a global account manager is really responsible globally for the account relationship, and every account has an executive sponsor. So that just is different from the past. And that has helped us to intensify the discussions with the customers big time on a global scale.
And we take decisions now in the center here on behalf of the customers or together with the customers when it comes to service issues, quality standards, or pricing from the very beginning when it comes to RFQ management or in sort of bidding decisions and collaborations with these customers. So that has increased significantly.
And based on the volatility in the marketplace and the uncertainty on the geopolitical, the tariff structures with certain customers, especially in the high-tech arena, of course, right, in the Semicon, but as well in the consumer, we try to help them a lot with our knowledge. Just to give you one glimpse of information, we have started four or five weeks ago with customer advisory calls in the U.S., leveraging our customs team, including Farrow.
And in the first call we offered to the marketplace, we had to close the call after 2,000 registrations of customers. So you see there is a lot of demand coming towards us when it comes to customs consultancy services. So I would say the relationship and the in-depth discussions with our larger ones have increased significantly with the new structure.
That's helpful. Thank you very much.
Thank you. [crosstalk]
The next question comes from Johannes Braun from Stifel. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for taking my questions. Also two for me. First one would be on free cash flow. You said that the working capital headwind that you still saw in Q4 was mainly driven by the Apex chartering activities. I'm just wondering, does that mean that without Apex, working capital was already a tailwind instead of a headwind in Q4 driven by the falling yields? And therefore, do you expect this to be the case in Q1 also? So working capital being a tailwind and therefore free cash flow to grow, potentially also with a normal conversion in Q1.
And the second one, just on Contract Logistics and the ramp up of the Adidas facility, can you give us an indication of how much of the full EBIT contribution was already in the 2024 results and what will remain for 2025? So was it 50/50 or rather 40/60 or any indication would help?
Thank you. Hi, Johannes. This is Markus. Free cash flow, absolutely. You're right. I mean, the moment when, let's say, the number of the charters is reducing in Q1 for whatever reasons, then obviously that will give a tailwind on the net working capital. So clearly, the cash will come back into the cash box, right? For the second question, Contract Logistics, ramp up cost, Adidas, and how well we started.
I think one of the large successes in the contract logistics development, and we have been extremely successful, I think, with such a complex operation to bring it up to speed. From a cost perspective, we can probably say in 2024, we have, and it's, I would say, a professional estimate with all the knowledge that I have. I have not calculated it right now, but it is somewhere between 15% and 20% in 2024 that we have already recognized.
And Stefan here, I have a number on the SME share. Yeah. So I can give you the number in 2019, the share of SMEs and sea freight was 45% of the total volume.
That is the answer to Cedar from Morgan Stanley, I think. Thank you.
The next question comes from Sebastian Vogel from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. The first question is maybe a tricky one, but nonetheless, I will try my luck here. With regard to the Red Sea, what is your working assumption for the rest of the year? Do you see sort of a full reopening taking place at some stage over the course of 2025? That would be my first question. The second question is with regard to your net cash position, more on a sort of overall view on it. What sort of level do you normally feel comfortable around in that sort of market backdrop in which we are currently in?
So I take the Red Sea, and I don't have the crystal ball. The question was, what is our planning? and we plan for the time being unchanged with the Red Sea channel closed. So we are not planning any different scenarios at present.
Net cash position. I think it's important to say that we prefer a net cash position, obviously, in absolute terms. When there might be a situation during the year that we will encounter a certain short-term debt situation for good reasons, like on an M&A basis. But in principle, we would always prefer a net cash position from a balance sheet perspective.
That is one of our main pillars, how we operate the conservative balance sheet, I would call it.
If I may follow up there, does it mean, for example, if you have the choice, something like CHF 500- CHF 600 million net cash position is something that you would feel comfortable with, or would it be higher or lower?
Well, I think it's probably somewhere in that area. That is probably the liquidity requirement that we need, but I would say somewhere there.
Thanks.
The next question comes from Ingo Schachel from BNP Paribas Exane. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Just a quick one from my side. You have a bond maturity in June this year. Can you give us any indication of what your plans are for this? Will you refinance to kind of keep easy access to the Swiss capital market?
Hi, Ingo with Marcus. We are currently under discussion with the supervisory board exactly what to do. The bond expires. The current bond expires on the 18th of June, and we will see what we are going to continue to do.
All right. Thank you very much.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call, and I hand back over to Stefan Paul for any closing remarks.
Thank you very much for listening in and your good questions. We see each other hopefully in three weeks during our Capital Markets Day in London, March 25th, and stay tuned and looking forward to a very open and fruitful discussion. Thank you.
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