Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the PolyPeptide Group Audit Webcast and Conference Call. I am Alice, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be listening only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The brief presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star one on your telephone. Webcast viewers may submit their questions in writing by the relative field. For operator assistance, please press star zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Michael Stähli, Head of Investor Relations and Corporate Communications at PolyPeptide Group. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes, good morning, everybody. Thank you for joining our call on such short notice. We appreciate your interest in PolyPeptide. I'm joined by Juan José González, our new CEO, and Lalit Ahluwalia, our interim CFO. Lalit supports us with his deep experience in pharmaceutics and generics, in finance, until our new permanent CFO is in place. Juan José will give you a short overview, and then both are available to answer your questions. We planned this call to run for around 30 to 40 minutes, so please limit the number of your questions so that everybody has a chance to ask.
Also note, please, that we are still in the process of closing the books and that we will come back to you with the detailed H1 numbers and analysis, as well as the updated guidance for 2023 on 15th August, when we present the half- year results. You will be able to ask your questions over the phone or in writing. With this, Juan José, please.
Thank you very much, Michael, and hello, everyone, and thank you for joining us this morning. My name is Juan José González. I have been CEO of PolyPeptide for nearly three months. I thought I could share with you why I joined the company, my initial impressions in terms of PolyPeptide, and then I will give you additional context in terms of the market update today. I joined PolyPeptide because of the significant growth opportunity of the company, because of the chance to transform PolyPeptide into a global, large-scale CDMO company. After three months working here, I'm convinced that that is a clear possibility for us. The company has a very unique value proposition in the market.
We are not just a pure peptide player. We have a multi-site infrastructure. That allow us to have a much higher customer proximity than other players and also provide different solutions where they want their products to be manufactured in Europe or where they want to have development sites across the U.S., and Europe and in Asia. We have significant flexibility. We also have deep development expertise. As the development products are becoming more and more complex, we are becoming the partner of choice for these development products. Finally, I have worked for 30 years already. I see a lot of companies that talks about customer focus and customer proximity. At the end of the day, very few are.
My experience working in PolyPeptide is that this organization have a very strong cultural values around customer focus, responsiveness, and flexibility. These value propositions around multi-site network with deep development expertise and a very strong customer focus is why Peptide is in a very strong position to win in the marketplace. The company is experiencing growing pains. It's not dissimilar to the challenges any small company face when they embark in a very aggressive expansion. It's just a good reminder that the scaling up is not easy, but all the challenges are 100% under our control. We don't depend on the market. The market is growing very rapidly. We don't need more customer agreements. We already have them in place. This is all about making sure that we have everything in place to execute on our strategy.
Now, in terms of the announcement, 2023 is going to be a transition year for the company. There are three key messages. Number one, in terms of revenues. In the first half of 2023, we have been able to fully offset the COVID-19 pandemic revenues from last year. That basically means that our core peptide business is growing very rapidly. It's not just about our growth during this first half of the year. We have been able to advance our partnerships in key segments in the market, especially metabolic. Today, we are working with all the major players engaged in GLP-1, and that positions the company very well in the future. We also have been able to advance our customer pipeline. At the end of last year, we had 220 projects.
At the end of June, we already have 226 in a very difficult economic environment. Of these 226, 31 are in phase III, moving into commercialization. This is a very important indicator that will ensure the midterm growth of the company. Now, it is on the back of this increased customer demand, it's on the back of these new partnerships that we are setting up, that we are going to increase our CapEx expenditure this year. More importantly, we are in advanced negotiations to secure additional financing, and this financing is going to cover all of our working capital and future CapEx needs. It's very important to make sure that we position the company to maximize this growth opportunity. Now, the second key message is around our operations improvement plan.
This is something that our chairman shared in the last call. We have a very clear plan with some very clear KPIs and milestones. This is around making sure that we recruit the right profiles, that we train them in the right way, that they are deployed in an effective way, that we have an optimal manufacturing planning process, that we are meeting all of the operations and quality needs from our customers, and we continue to progress in this plan. These plans take time to come into effect, we know exactly what we need to do, and I already start to see progress against this plan.
In addition to our operations improvement plan, we also have some key initiatives to improve the profitability of the company, especially around continuing to review our pricing with our key customers, instilling more cost discipline in the company, and also having a more focus on our working capital, especially around our inventory. The third key message is around the profitability of the company. We knew that the first half of the year was going to be the most difficult year in this transition, as we are offsetting the revenue from COVID with our new customers. You are seeing a sharp decline this first half of the year compared with the first half of the year last year.
Around half of the decline, a bit more than half of the decline, is driven by the inventory write-offs and by the negative cost absorption. This negative cost absorption is driven by our inventory optimization plan. We actually have been able to reduce our inventory working capital and by our inventory finished goods, and that is actually what is driving this negative cost absorption. Now, this half is really driven by the scale-up of a company. We're scaling up new businesses to replace COVID. You have a negative mix effect, as the COVID business was highly profitable, and we are still scaling up some of these new businesses. You have the investment in our infrastructure and cost base ahead of the acceleration in the second half, and 2024, and you have the effect of depreciation.
These effects account for a large part of the other half in terms of the drivers of the profitability. Then we have a lower operational productivity, which is more or less what we experienced in the second half of the year. This lower productivity, we will start to see the improvements in the second half of this year and then into 2024. Those are the three key messages. Very strong underlying revenue growth, a much richer pipeline, and the company well-positioned to fulfill all the opportunities as the market continues to grow very rapidly. Progress in terms of operations, and still some work to do going forward.
In terms of profitability, some of the key drivers of this profitability decline are one-off, and as we move forward, as we scale up the company, then we're going to see our profitability starting to recover. Our priorities for the second half are very clear. Our number one priority is to fulfill our customer demand, and on the back of that, continue to grow the company. We expect our revenues in the second half to be higher than the revenues in the first half. Our second priority is to make sure we continue with our operation and profitability improvement program. The combination of the higher scale and this program is going to help to restore the profitability. We also expect our EBITDA to be higher in the second half than in the first half of the year.
Finally, to secure our financing and work on a comprehensive plan to continue to expand our multi-, and making sure that we continue to position PolyPeptide as one of the most attractive partners as this market develops. This is what I wanted to share with all of you. Michael, why don't we move into the Q&A?
We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question or make a comment may press star and one on the touch- tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered 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 for asking a question. Webcast viewers may submit their questions or comments in writing by the relevant field. Anyone who has a question or a comment may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Daniel Buchta with ZKB. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Maybe starting, I would have three questions. The first one, on the operating issues, I mean, you mentioned the plan you have. If you assume or if you say full plan completion is 100%, in terms of percentage, where would you say you are in that sense? Are you at a quarter, at half, or almost through already? Also related to that, what makes you sure that the large Braine reactor related to your large customer order is really ready to work fully by the end of next year, latest then? Maybe you can share a little bit of insights how the talks with key customers and regulators are going. I mean, are they nervous about the operating issues you had and the plan execution?
Are they looking in more details at you? Then last but not least, maybe on the external financing, I mean, yes, given how profitability is developing, this is not a surprise you're talking about that with banks, I guess. I mean, at what conditions are we talking about? I would assume, given the interest environment we have, the funding cost would be pretty meaningful. Also, in terms of governance, given the low profitability, I mean, how closely would banks look at you? Could there be, at some point, an equity need even for PolyPeptide? Thank you very much in advance.
Thank you very much, Daniel, and I'm looking forward to meet you in person soon. Several questions, and let me just go through each of them. In, in terms of our operations plan, I mean, we started the program a few months ago, so I would say we are halfway through our operational improvement plan. It's very important to put this into context. This is an operational improvement plan, which is related to expanding our infrastructure in a company which is growing very rapidly. If you adjust by the COVID-19 pandemic, our underlying business is growing very rapidly, it's growing double digits. You know, most of these things we always discuss are actually related to the fundamentals of running a complex peptide manufacturing site, and pretty much under our control.
We are confident in terms of going through that process, but it will take time, and we have some clear milestones in terms of where do we want to be by the end of the year. Where do we want to be by the end of the first half of 2024. Now, in terms of the 600 L, this is a key project for the company. One of the reasons why we are accelerating our CapEx in 2023, is to ensure that we have the 600 L ready and it becomes operational in 2024. At this point, with few months away from completion, we are confident in terms of our ability to do that.
By the way, even without this, bringing our site is one of the fastest- growing sites that we have within the network. We are already seeing that our bet behind Braine is starting to play out. In terms of our customer base, I mean, number one, we are expanding our partnerships. You know, this is not a customer base which is concerned, but a customer base that is actually engaging with us in deeper partnerships. That's what I mentioned, that we have strengthened our position in metabolic and rare diseases. If you look at our pipeline in terms of custom projects, we're actually increasing the number of projects that we have. That basically means that we are working with even more, either large pharma or early-stage companies, engaged on looking for complex peptide partners.
Of course, we have to meet the operational and quality standards for our customers, and that is a key priority for us. I would say that we are not in a situation where our customers are concerned. On the other hand, we are working with most of our key ones around expanding, around expanding our relationship. In terms of financing, the company has a very attractive business case on the back of a significant growth, and our growth is driven by the market and our ability to fulfill the market. If you look at just the first half of the year and all the growth potential we have in front of us, you can have some good assumptions in terms of profitability and so forth.
On the back of that is that we have been able to secure, to be in advanced negotiations to secure this financing. The actual financing cost, I mean, it's very small relative to the key levels of the company. It's not really material for us it's pretty standard for a company of our size with the growth opportunities that we have. It's not really something that we are concerned. Should we go to the next question?
Thank you very much. Very helpful.
Thank you very much, Daniel.
The next question comes from the line of Vineet Agrawal with Citi. Please go ahead.
Hi, Vineet here from Citi.
Hi.
Thanks for taking the question. One, on profitability, you are expecting loss in full year. Now, with the first half EBITDA loss of about CHF 20 million and expected strong revenue growth in the second half. If I'm just trying to work out, it comes to EBITDA margin of only like mid to high single-digit in the second half. Now, can you talk to why such a sharp increase in revenues is not probably translating into profits? I believe, majority of the old contracts where you had little flexibility in terms of inflation pass-through, came to an end at first half. I'm just trying to understand if, you know, the pricing has been an issue, so.
I mean, if you could provide, you know, some more color on the EBITDA margin ramp in the second half, then how should we think about it in 2024? Just on CapEx. I'm just wondering if you could clarify if the increase in your CapEx requirements is it more towards making sure that your large Belgium facility comes online in 2024? Or is it more of an incremental CapEx in view of the new orders? Maybe you can just update us on the progress of that facility. Thank you.
Yes. Thank you very much, Vinit. I mean, today, we are not providing guidance for 2023 or for 2024. The only thing that you should expect is that we have a net loss in the first half of the year, and we expect to have a net loss in the full year. What you can expect is that our second- half EBITDA is going to be higher than our first- half EBITDA. In terms of the drivers of profitability decline in the first half, I think as I mentioned before, you have a bit more than half driven by the inventory write-off and driven by this negative cost absorption. Then you have the rest driven by two things.
One is we are operating with a higher cost base and infrastructure, replacing a very profitable COVID-19 business with new business, with higher depreciation, and then all the investment necessary to make sure that we have higher revenues in the second half this year and in 2024. The other one is because of the lower operational productivity we have. That is actually a smaller part in terms of the drivers of profitability. Our confidence in terms of increasing our profitability in the second half is because we don't expect this one-off to materialize. It's because we are going to have higher revenues and scale that will allow us to have that will fall into higher profitability. That's actually the main driver in terms of our recovery in the second half.
In terms of pricing, we have actually been able to have progress in terms of our pricing. The pricing for our custom projects, but also the negotiations around our key agreements. We have a customer base which is very understanding because the labor inflation is very visible, raw material inflation is also very visible, and that has allowed us to have good productive discussions. Most of the benefit of this price increase is going to be felt in the first half of 2024, rather than in 2023.
The next question comes from the line of James Quigley with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Morning. Great, thank you for taking my questions. Just on sort of visibility, can you give us a sense of your visibility on the cost base and the internal reporting structure? I'm just trying to get an idea of, you know, obviously, the first guidance was given without management in place. Part of the delta seems to be due to higher underlying costs. Like, half of it is due to one-off, half of it due to underlying costs. Some investors will be getting concerned about your own internal visibility and your ability to guide the market. Can you comment on what needs to change there, and how that can be improved?
Second of all, again, you mentioned half of the impact was one-off for the first half. Revenue is in line with expectations and guidance. If you strip out the one-offs, where would first half have landed in terms of an EBITDA margin? How would that impact the original full- year guidance, if there were no one-offs? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, James, and actually great to hear your voice. I heard a lot about you, so I'm looking forward to get to meet you. First of all, I would say in terms of guiding the market, clearly, you know, if you look back, the company has been trying to guide the market in what has been a very volatile environment. I do think there are some clear lessons in terms of how to guide the market going forward. Basically, around being, I will say, a bit more prudent, and have a much better understanding regarding the volatility and complexity of what the company is trying to do. That's actually the, probably the only thing I can really say regarding that.
In terms of our guidance in March. In March, we basically said that our revenues will be comparable to last year and that our EBITDA will be significantly lower. If you strip the impact of the write-off and the impact of a negative cost absorption, basically, more or less, we will be close to our guidance. Our revenues will be comparable to last year, and you will have EBITDA significantly lower, but still positive.
That's great. Thank you very much.
Thank you, James.
The next question comes from the line of Konstantin Wiechert with Baader Helvea. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi, Juan José, Lalit, and Michael. Thank you also very much for your short introduction, and I'm also looking very much forward to meet you in person. Couple of questions already answered, but maybe a bit more detail would be nice on the revenue. I have to say, in the first half now, the underlying growth of something more than CHF 30 million is actually quite impressive given your operational issues. I was just wondering if you could give a bit more color on this, maybe also on which sites you were able to record this revenue. Like, was it in Sweden and California, since I think these were the sites where the Novavax capacity became idling, or was it also in Belgium already?
Then also, this was also a bit touched already, but again, on the EBITDA, if I look into it and I add back the impairment and write-off, I still have a difference of around CHF 30 million, CHF 40 million to the underlying profitability that I have in my model. I'm kind of thinking about where this is coming from. I think the staff base in the first half is still relatively flat, so they are mainly from inflation, but not so much from increase in staff base, maybe. How much of this is probably then related to additional training or also severance payments made? Yeah, some color in this regard would also be nice. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Konstantin . This is something that was actually one of my main insights when I joined the company. We're talking about... We're not talking about operational challenges in a stable company. We're talking about a company that embarked in a multi-site expansion, growing very rapidly, and then experiencing some operational challenges in the context of that expansion. I would say that's a very important distinction because the company is growing very rapidly. Excluding COVID-19, we are growing double digits, and I would say it just shows the potential and attractiveness of the markets we participate.
In terms of which sites are driving the growth, I mean, Braine is one of our fastest growing sites, as it should be, because it has been a key investment, a key investment for the company. Torrance and Malmö are also doing very well. Actually, we like the fact that we are growing rapidly as a company, but then this growth is coming from our sites around the world. In terms of the EBITDA, you have basically around CHF 46 million of difference between the EBITDA in the first half of the year and the EBITDA in the first half of this year. A bit more than half is driven by the inventory write-off and by the cost absorption. That is one piece.
A bit less than half is driven by the other drivers, which we classify, one, which is the higher infrastructure and cost base ahead of our second half growth and 2024. Within that, you have the negative mix, because what we are doing is replacing the profitable COVID business by new business that we are scaling up. The high investment in terms of our cost to make sure that we can support the higher revenues in the second half, you have a higher depreciation. You have the lower productivity, the lower operational productivity, which is more or less in line with what we experienced in the second half of the year.
That's basically the bridge, I think in our earnings call, you're going to be able to see that, you're going to be able to see that more clearly. When you look at that bridge and you look at which ones are one-off and which ones are investments ahead of growth, and which one are really, more related to our operational performance, you can see what will be the impact as the company continues to accelerate. That's why we are confident that as long as we focus on our execution and fulfilling our customer demand, the company will be able to continue to grow and restore its profitability.
Sorry, if I may just follow up on this one. Thank you very much. I think when I hear that, it's kind of that, you said now in the first half, the productivity has not so much improved yet, right? That, you're still having lower unit profitability on your project than you should have on a normal basis. Is this correct? Is this expected then to already change in the second half of the year?
The most important thing is that when you look the financial results in what in one period, it really reflects to what's happening in the previous period. If you have a production time of four to five months, from the time you start to the time quality release the product, that basically means that whatever you experience in revenues in the second half is for things that you produce in the first half. When you look at our operational productivity, really the financial cost this year is for things that happened in the second half of last year. That is, that's a very important consideration.
As I mentioned again, our ability to grow reflects our ability to produce at a faster pace than in previous periods, and we are doing that. We have a very clear plan with very clear milestones, and we are executing that, and it is within our control. It just takes time for us to do it, and we know that the improvement we're seeing this year, we're seeing in this first half of the year, we will see it reflected in the second half of next year and so forth. That's basically how you should look at that.
Okay. Yeah, thanks again.
Thank you very much, Konstantin .
The next question comes from the line of Laura Preiser with Octavian. Please go ahead.
Yes, hello, good morning. Also a couple of questions there from my side. Maybe first, I think this was already answered in the first section, but on this financing, can you give us a bit more details about the size of the funding you would look for? Also, please, could you confirm that you would, at this stage, exclude a capital increase? I'm not sure if this was answered. Maybe I didn't hear it. Secondly, I also thought that you previously said you were working on new contracts. Here, I'm just wondering if this is still expected, maybe in the next couple of months, that we could hear additional announcement. Also, would this be contracts that involve some kind of customer participation, be it on networking, capital, or CapEx? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you very much, Laura, and great to hear your voice. In terms of the financing, first of all, the financing is focused on meeting our working capital needs and our CapEx needs, our cap need for next year, and so forth. You're talking about it's not a small financing, let me put it this way. As soon as we have the financing in place, we are going to announce it, and you will be able to see the details. We are in a very advanced stage in the process. We are not going to raise capital through equity.
If you look at our valuation right now, I mean, we believe it doesn't reflect the growth of the company and ability to create value. I think the best thing right now is for us to focus on our execution, show how our rapid growth translates into profitability, and focus on securing the funding through bank financing, basically. That's really our strategy. Now, in terms of customers, as you know, these customers are confidential. The only thing I can say is that we are negotiating new contracts. We are in basically in the final stages of these contracts. They are in metabolic and rare diseases. That basically positions the company very well as this GLP-1 market develops.
We are basically working with every major player engaged in this new market. That's as much as, that's as much as we'll be able to share. Now, in terms of funding, we have a clear funding approach for some of these large projects, where we work in partnership with our customers and come up with an approach where they participate also in terms of the funding. That's basically the approach we are taking for new contracts and future contracts. We believe that the more dedicated, for example, the manufacturing equipment, the more we need the customer to participate so we can share the risk on these projects.
The next question comes from the line of Dominic Hertius with NZZ. Please go ahead.
Yes, good morning. You've not really talked, I think, the question was just asked whether you had to face any severance costs, but could you give us a bit of an overview?
H ow much your staff figure has changed during the first half, and what additional needs you have for staff? I mean, I recently visited Bachem, and it's incredible, you know, I mean, they reached out to us, to the media, that they since they have to find now so many people, they were talking of 700 people alone just for their in Bubendorf, where their headquarter obviously is. Yes, please, if you could give us there a bit of flavor as well. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Dominic. In terms of severance, first of all, of course, we are going through a CEO, CFO transition, there will be a higher cost this year as we go through that process. Outside of that, I will say our cost of severance is very similar to the cost of severance we have had in previous years. There are not really major changes. Unlike other players that are basically relocating their infrastructure towards specific geographies, we are actually growing within our existing sites. That's why there is no trigger of major severance. We are not closing one plant to move to another, basically. That's, that's not within our strategy.
Clear, as the company grows, as we sign more contracts and advance partnerships, we will continue to hire highly specialized talent, and that's basically expected and within our plans, no? I think if you look at the time of the IPO, in terms of where we are today at the end of the third half of the year, you already see a significant expansion in terms of.
The next question comes from the line of Ruben Boyajian with Finanz und Wirtschaft. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking my question. Can you give us some more color about on these write-offs? Is it basically all corona related or also others? If it's corona related, what is it exactly? Is it finished, mostly finished product that you were unable to sell, or what is it? You said you're taking measures to strengthen the organization, operational performance and also capabilities. Can you give us some more details or two, three examples what that means?
Sure. Thank you very much, Ruben. In terms of the write-off of the inventory, I would say it is all of the above. We had a detailed technical and commercial assessment of our inventory, and we concluded that the best thing was to do this write-off, and it's about 5%-7% of the total inventory. One of the benefits of doing this is that it allow us to focus on the fulfillment of our customer orders for the second half of the year, which we think is also a benefit in terms of doing this inventory write-off. Now, in terms of strengthening, the organization and capabilities. On the capability side, two key priorities are around green chemistry and digitization. This is very important.
As we engage working with, as most of our growth is going to come from large pharmaceutical companies, it's very important for us to continue to evolve in those capability areas, that help us to increase our level of automation, ability to transfer data and information, and of course, to make sure that we improve our environmental credentials. There are some more capabilities around running the company better. We have, we're bringing new leadership in some of our sites. We are strengthening our corporate headquarters with more analytic capabilities, going back to the point around making sure we have a much better understanding in terms of the business and our forecasting.
Of course, I'm very excited to soon share the name of the new CFO for the company. Because I think that he's going to play a very important role in terms of not just the running of the company, but also the future expansion. The future expansion that is going to be key in our growth journey, you know?
Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you, Ruben.
There is the last question on the telephone, which is a follow-up and comes from the line of Mr. Buchta with ZKB. Please go ahead.
Yes, thank you very much. I'm sorry. Thanks for taking my question again. Maybe asking on the CapEx needs again, which you said are going to be higher. Just to clarify, is that higher because you underestimated your CapEx needs initially, or is that related to really higher demands compared to where, what you were expecting in the close future to come?
I still don't understand what you mean with this one of negative cost absorption reflecting in inventory optimization. What does that mean exactly? Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Daniel. Just to be very clear, this year, we are accelerating our CapEx spending. That's primarily driven by our desire to secure the completion of our 1,600 L project. That's really the main driver. This is very important because it's supporting a key contract that we have for next year, also will enable us to better support what is an increasing customer demand. That's one thing. In terms of cost absorption, I'm actually going to invite Lalit to explain the, you know, the definition of cost absorption and why when you optimize your inventory, you see a negative cost absorption hitting the P&L.
Thank you, Juan José. PolyPeptide, like many companies, follows a process of absorption costing. What this means is that the direct labor and overheads are allocated onto work in progress and obviously onto finished goods. When you have a situation where the work in progress and the inventory is growing, you have a favorable cost absorption. When you have the reverse, where the inventory is being optimized, which is actually the good thing, you have a negative cost absorption. In this comparable period between H1 of 2022 and H1 of 2023, we have managed to reduce our work in progress and finished goods, and therefore, you have this swing in cost absorption, which is impacting us to the extent that you see, that Juan José referred to in his initial comments.
I'm happy to speak more about it if it's not clear.
I think it's fine now. Thank you very much. Just never heard that topic.
Thank you. Thank you, Daniel.
There are no more questions on the phone at this time. I'd now like to hand over to Michael Stäheli, who will read out questions from the webcast. Michael?
Yes, thank you. We have a few questions on the chat functions, but most of them have been answered. They relate to inventory, CapEx. I think that has been covered by the questions previously. Also, questions related to CapEx guidance. I think here we said that we come back with guidance with half year results. That leaves me with one remaining question from the chat, which is for Juan José, which relates to the second half of the year. What makes you confident to be able to resolve the operational issues or to improve?
I mean, thank you, Michael. In terms of the second half of 2023, our expectations is that both our revenues and EBITDA will be better than in the first half of the year. Basically, we have, I would say, a lot of visibility in terms of the orders and what will be possible to achieve. Many of these batches are already in production, so I think we are confident in terms of being able to meet those expectations. In terms of the operational improvement, again, we have, I think, discussed this call in terms of what is the operational improvement program.
It's around making sure that as we expand the company, we do it in the right way, there are some very concrete KPIs in terms of things that we need to make sure that we are meeting, in terms of the way we onboard the talent, the way we train them, making sure they are only deployed once they are fully trained. As we go through our manufacturing process and quality, there are some clear benchmarks we are going to meet. We expect to improve in the second half over the first half, we expect to continue to improve in 2024.
Actually, these operational improvements, I think in general, you never finish as long as you continue to expand the company and invest in new projects and new sites. We should be able to be in a better position by the end of 2023.
That concludes today's conference. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.