Good morning to everybody. I would like to welcome you to the Andritz conference call on our Q3 2022 results. I hope you all are well and safe. Before we start the presentation, conducted by our CEO, Mr. Schönbeck, and our CFO, Mr. Nettesheim, I would like to give you some brief rules and procedures for this call to make the best out of it. Please switch off your microphone and turn off your camera. I think this would be very good. After the presentation, we will have a Q&A session. If you want to ask a question, please use the raise hand function of Webex Teams, or just send me an email. I will then call up the individual person and then please don't forget to unmute your microphone.
You can also send me questions, as said before, by email. Finally, this meeting will be recorded. The recording will be available afterwards on our website, and also the presentation material is available on our website. Much about the basics, I would like to hand over now to our CEO, Joachim Schönbeck, who will guide you through the presentation. Joachim, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Michael, for the kind introduction. Good morning to everybody in the call. I think few comments before we start going into all the numbers. I think we had another quarter full of events. Unfortunately, the war in Russia did not stop a further disruption in the supply chain globally. Also, our supply chain, we have seen inflation rates apparently are not well under control, so surging further and I would say energy commodity prices have rather declined than further increased. The uncertainty on the outlook definitely is a bit of a question to us, of course, but I think much more to our customers who are going to invest.
I would say these challenges have definitely hit us in our business and is reflected.
Is reflected in the numbers that we present to you. Overall, despite these challenges, I think we can.
Georg is also in. That's good. Despite these challenges, we can look to a very good quarter. Intake, backlog, sales and even increased favorably for Andritz and basically across all business areas, which is really good. The euro weakness definitely gave us a bit of a tailwind and that's around 3%-5%. Depends a bit on the currency basket of each of these businesses. Furthermore, we were successful in three important acquisitions for Andritz in the third quarter to strengthen our portfolio with respect to the green product, to provide more sustainable products and solutions which help our customers to meet their challenges ahead.
We acquired a small service company in Finland who is doing services for the flue gas cleaning systems. We acquired Italian company called Sovema, that is definitely was very important for us, which together with Schuler now at least we have the target to become a leading supplier for battery cell manufacturing lines for the automotive industry and for other sectors. There is a huge demand and we believe that in this combination we'll have a very good value proposition to these customers. Just a few days ago we could close the acquisition of a pressure part manufacturer in Croatia.
It's one of the leading European manufacturer of customized pressure parts and for the development of our sector for renewable energies. We can expect more growth in the time to come than in other areas. To summarize, we were quite pleased with the development in Q3. We expect for the remaining months also further on solid project activity. If we go to the detail, Michael, you have control on this, on the screen?
Yep. Yes.
Very good. We had a very, very high order intake of EUR 2.7 billion. That's the fourth quarter in a row with an order intake above EUR 2 billion, which is really good. On a quarter-to-quarter view, the Pulp & Paper doubled the order intake. Metals was strongly up, mainly driven by Schuler and Hydro as well as Separation have also solid increase quarter-on-quarter. That all cumulated to a record high order backlog of almost EUR 11 billion, which is 30% up compared to end of last year. Also, the revenue grew by 24% to EUR 1.9 billion euros. Also here all four business areas did participate. The EBITDA rose strongly. The margin was constant at 8.1%.
Here we had all four business areas contributed to that. Profitability in Pulp & Paper was a bit dropping because of the product mix which came to sales. In Hydro, we could solidly increase the margin level and Metals here mainly driven by Schuler continues the positive margin trend and also Separation developed. When we go to the next slide, please. Here you can see a more closer view on the order intake. Pulp & Paper up from EUR 600 to EUR 1.5 billion in quarter three. If we compare to 123, we have an increase of about a bit more than 50%. Metals is nicely up.
Hydro is growing and we believe that this is a trend reversal. As you know that the Hydro market was pretty much going down over the last couple of years rebounded end of last year. We see with a strong position of hydro power in the renewable sector that this will continue because hydro power is a necessary part of this energy changes that need to be done. In Separation, we were solidly up more than 20% in the quarter and also Q1 to Q3. Overall, it's a good development quite well balanced between Europe, North America and the emerging markets both around 50%.
We are not hedged against regional crisis, but we are at least balanced. That's in that respect. We go to the next. Basically the same applies for the revenue. We had an increase in each quarter against the previous year. We see an increase in the revenue by business area, and that's definitely the result of the strong order backlog. The revenue split between capital and service turned a bit towards the capital side. It's now 60/40. That's of course because the large orders, that's capital business and is now starting to be reflected in the revenue as well.
Now to the next slide. Here you see the split of the service business by business area. You see an upward trend over the average over the last four quarters for Pulp & Paper, which shows that not only capital but service is nicely growing. You see in Metals we are still at a rather low level of 25%-26%. Increasing that is one of the key initiatives we have to consolidate the Metals business area and also sustainably reach better margin levels. On Hydro we remain stable while in Separation. This business is continuously improving, and that is a very nice trend contributing to the good overall economic development of this business area.
We go to the next slide. You see the huge increase in order backlog. That's very natural. The orders come in one time, and now we have to work it down. Are the EUR 10.8 billion too much for Andritz? I can tell you they are not. We can handle it. All projects are well-staffed with good execution teams. We are quite happy that, looking to the uncertainties of the year 2023, that we at least have a backlog that gives us a solid work to overcome any kind of light recession that might be ahead of us.
Of course, the majority of the backlog is from pulp and paper and hydro. You see the EBITA increased from EUR 365 million to EUR 426 million from 2021 to 2022. In the first three quarters, it's an increase of 17%. The margin increased slightly to 8.2%. You see that, for completeness, we showed you the adjusted figures, which are only slightly different, so no major one-offs are in these numbers. When we look to each of the business areas, you could see that we have a slight drop in margin in pulp and paper, though the absolute EBITA increased.
That is because of the product mix of more large orders which definitely have become under pressure from the cost explosion we saw coming with the war. In Metals, we have a nice development, that's mainly driven by Schuler, where the turnaround is really now done and we can see a very good development, and we might expect further. Hydro is nicely growing with the volume and its Separation. We remain stable at a very high EBITA margin level. Go to the next one, and I'll ask Norbert to introduce the income bridge to us.
Yeah. Good morning also from my side. Good practice already from the last meetings, I take now this group financial part, the next four slides. When you compare it with the last meeting we had, the picture is the same. The numbers are slightly different, no surprises. Very stable development. Depreciation with EUR 131 million, a little bit up, including an extraordinary depreciation of an asset which we are not use anymore in this range of EUR 6 million. That's the only special thing to mention here in this picture. Amortization comes from Xerium and Schuler, as you are aware of, former acquisitions from the past years. It will decline in the next years, because most of the things are written off already.
Financial results with EUR 20.6 million. Two effects included. One is a favorable development on the real interest side. With the rising interest rates in Brazil and in other countries, we could improve our interest income. On the other hand, we had to devalue some fixed interest financial assets, but this is only a temporary effect, as you understand. Currently, we show a minus 20, including EUR 8 million-EUR 10 million one-time effects, from the revaluation, which come back when the investments will be paid back. Overall, also here, a good development on the interest side. Taxes, you know, quarterly, we calculate with our expected average tax rate, 26.5%, which we also see this year for the total year.
Overall now, at 5% net income, which is exactly on the level which we communicated last year in the capital market day as our target to achieve in short to mid-term. All right. That's about the net income bridge. Going now to the cash flow. Starting with EUR 262 million net income, adjusting all the non-cash effects, coming to a gross cash flow of EUR 486 million. Also pretty stable development as you saw in the last quarters, last years. Then, from net working capital, in the first nine months, a tailwind of EUR 93 million cash from working capital.
For those of you who have the numbers from the last meeting on the table, you see that we have here a slight decline in first half year. We report here a better number, but this is the usual fluctuation which you know from our business with huge down payments shortly after orders received. Then we enter into the execution phase. Then over the next, let's say, two or three quarters, this, let's say, positive effect in the order execution cash-wise will be then used for execution. We are now in these big capital projects which we received early this year, especially in Hydro and in Pulp. We are now starting the execution, the ordering of material, et cetera, also these down payments to suppliers.
That's a normal effect that we then also use a part of this cash. Still overall it's a benefit of EUR 93 million for the first nine months in the cash flow. Leads then with the other pretty normal effects on the interest side, dividends, et cetera, to EUR 442 million cash flow from operating activities. We used under EUR 20 million of that for CapEx, leads to a free cash flow of EUR 322 million. Pretty normal picture overall, I would say. Coming then to the next slide, which shows net liquidity constantly growing. We are at end of quarter three at EUR 882 million net liquidity, sitting on nearly EUR 2 billion available gross liquidity.
We are still the same picture as the last periods, which is, I'd say gives us a good basis for all kind of flexibility which we need on the financial side. Shortly, quickly to mention, nearly EUR 80 million paybacks of loans included in this number. We also are working on shortening the balance sheet by constantly bringing back our external debt by using funds for this position. That's it more or less on the financials. Then you see the summary slide, which is more or less. Okay, you see here now the summary of all the numbers. Most of them were mentioned by Joachim. What I would find out is simply all big positive numbers.
We brought the business really to a higher level now in 2022 compared to 2023. Maybe the only negative thing I pointed out here, this cash flow from operating activities in the third quarter. I have explained already, execution of orders. The CapEx which is a little bit higher than in last year. This is simply because we are now back to the normal investing level. Have started after Corona is over now, some growth investments in several areas. This and then you can see here in the increase in CapEx. On the other hand, it's also a good thing that we can come back now to the core CapEx initiatives. That's it from my side. Quickly through the numbers. Turn back to Joachim.
Thank you, Norbert, for the explanation. Let's have a quick look on the business areas. Pulp & Paper, nicely up in order intake. We could secure another large pulp mill from a customer who is relying completely on Andritz technology. I think that's confirmed our good and reliable position in the pulp industry to provide high-performing plants. The backlog is very solid and the revenue is going to be growing and it will be on a high level also in the year to come. As mentioned before, we have strengthened this business area with two acquisitions, with J. Parpala Oy and with Đuro Đaković Termoenergetska postrojenja.
We believe that we can even more participate on the trend on renewable energy than we did before. Of course, without neglecting our main activity, which is in Pulp & Paper. It might be worth mentioning that not only the pulp, but also the paper business contributed significantly to the very nice development in order intake. If we go to the next one, to Metals. Also here, order intake, sales, backlog, and EBITDA are increasing compared to last year. You see we have a bit different split on the regional side. We have about two-thirds in Europe and North America.
That's definitely driven strongly by the automotive industry. The positive development is mainly driven by Schuler. However, we believe that in the Metals processing area, we have reached the bottom and have now all our challenging orders under control, that we do not see any further downturn from these business activities in the future. The order intake we had and the increase is definitely coming from a strong investment activity in the automotive industry towards electromobility. That is true for the automotive itself, but as well as for the supplier industry like battery lines. If we go to the next one, the Hydro.
As I said before, we see the very good development we see in the financials. We see this as a result of a change in the market trend also here. Order intake, sales, EBITDA, backlog are nicely up. We have a good and solid order backlog to enter into next year, and we have a continuing solid project work ahead of us. We believe that the importance of Hydro to make the change into renewable energies is understood, and we can see a favorable development in the future. You see here, we have a balanced regional split by revenue.
We have a bit higher percentage from Europe, North America in the order intake. That is due to a large order we received from Mexico beginning of this year. If we move to Separation. You see also here all key figures are nicely up. It's true for order intake, backlog revenue, and EBITDA. I think this is triggered both equally by the solid/liquid separation division, where environmental sludge handling is becoming more and more important as legislation forces these sludges to be treated instead of being dumped or deposited. We are very well prepared for that.
also feed and biofuel sector, especially biofuel, is a very hot commodity at the moment, and many investments is going on as the change from gas to more sustainable fuels. Basically, at least in Europe or in other areas hit now by the high gas prices, is definitely on the table. if we have a short outlook. we can report that we have still a very solid project activity in our industries. We, of course, are a bit cautious as we don't know what the inflation, high interest rates really do to our customers when it comes to investment decisions. apparently the demand is there and project activity is high.
The geoeconomic challenges, which we know, first and foremost, the Russian war and the imposed sanctions, supply chain disruptions and inflation, we monitor closely and we prepare ourselves for new challenges to come up. As we understood over the past three years that there is always something new, even if we believe there is nothing more to come. We can confirm happily the guidance for this year. Group revenue will be up compared to last year. EBITDA will be up from last year, and also the net income will increase. That's about what I have to say. If there is anything you'd like to ask, I'm happy to answer.
Thank you very much for the presentation. I will now move over to the Q&A session, and I would like to start then with Sven Weier from UBS. Sven, unmute your microphone and go ahead with your question.
Yes. Good morning from my side, and thanks, Michael, for taking my questions. The first one is actually on the Pulp & Paper business. Was just wondering the EUR 1 billion year-on-year increase, if that was driven by a single project, because I think, you know, you said the Paracel one is only booked in 2023. That's the first one.
Yeah. As I said, there was a new pulp which was on Paracel, but of course there are also other smaller projects, not of that size, but another large pulp mill business. Yes.
Okay. Regionally, where was that? Was that South America or?
This was Asia.
If I may on Paracel. I mean, you announced the order, but you haven't booked it yet, obviously. Is it really only the debt financing of the mill that is missing? Because I saw the equity is there, so that's completed. Is it really only the debt financing that is missing for you to get the firm order then, or any other restrictions still?
That's what we are told. Yeah. We are active in supporting the customer in the talks with the banks and ECAs that is going on. Yeah. We do not have a full view, but from everything we hear from different sources, everybody is very positive about that. I would say your colleagues in the banks know probably much more than I do.
Yeah. That's probably right. Timing-wise, you would see that to come in the first half or is this at the base case at the moment?
I would say realistic would be mid of next year. As I said, I think you really the banks know much more than we do.
Okay. I mean, have you seen that this pulp mill going ahead has also triggered more activity also on the other green fields in the region to go ahead?
What we see is that there are several players active in South America, and South America is extremely attractive for the pulp producers with Russia basically being kicked out of the market. Russia was a major, maybe the major supplier of fibers or at least of wood to Europe. We see a lot of activity and we also see a lot of planting activities by our customers preparing for probably more capacity to add. What we hear from the commodity market, but also from our customers, is that also volume market is becoming tighter and tighter. We believe that these activities are also focusing on that.
Okay. Thank you. The other question I had on the other divisions and in particular in Hydro, right? I mean, if you print another order intake like that in Q4, you will be almost back to the record highs you had quite some number of years ago. You sounded like, you know, on the back of climate change, the general structural activity is starting to pick up. To me, it doesn't sound like this year is a bit of an exception, and then we go all the way back, but it sounds like we could continue on a high level also in the coming years. Is that the right perception from my side?
I think we can see a much better market than we saw the last three-five years. That's for sure. We don't believe that we will now climb from record to record from quarter to quarter. As you know, that we also have other strong competitors in that market. We see and we understand that there is a need and it is by the decision makers, it's understood that Hydro needs to be increased in order to meet the challenges that we have.
Do you also see more activity now in the U.S. because Hydro is also subsidized by the Inflation Reduction Act? Is that a helpful hint also for activity in the U.S. or does that not really make a difference?
North America is very active, yeah.
Okay. Thank you. The last question from my side, if I may, is on the financials. I think the next time I mentioned the EUR 6 million extra write down. I was just wondering, was that in Q3 or was that in the first nine months?
You have to unmute.
You're muted, Norbert.
I'm sorry. It was in Q3 and it's a normal housekeeping activity.
Okay. Thank you all. That's it from my side.
Many thanks, Sven Weier. Thank you. Let's move on then to Ingo from BNP. Ingo, go ahead with the question.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. The first one would be on your market outlook, and I think you've done a very small change to your wording. In Q2 you spoke about a solid activity and order pipeline. Now it's solid in the next months. Just wondering why you've decided to add to this caveat that it's a few months. You talked about uncertainty, but I think uncertainty was even higher at the time of Q2 results. Curious to hear why you saw the need to add that wording now. Is it that it's because of, for example, on the pulp side you've already converted more of the pipeline with the big Asia contract and Paracel, and now you're less confident in the second half for next year or any other reason?
No, the main reason is that we saw the challenges three months ago, but we do not see that solutions are adequately provided. The uncertainty did not decrease and a lot of that is out of our hands. It's in the environment. It's the way the central bank's handling interest. It's the way how energy prices are counter measured by the governments. We don't see a very easy corridor of relief. Having that for an extended period now for more than half a year, we're getting a bit more cautious. As we know, we are depending on future investments by our customers, and we know that if uncertainty comes into play, these investments will be held back.
That's the reason, yeah, but we don't believe in doomsday next quarter. Yeah.
Okay, very clear. Maybe one question on an aspect that is more under your control, the Metals processing-related challenges. Can you clarify whether your Metals processing margin was negative in the third quarter? Also, whether, let's say, the incremental deterioration of margins in Q3 compared to Q2 is more a function of energy and quality price inflation, or whether the execution of those projects has also been more challenging than you had expected?
No, we had a few challenging projects still in our backlog, which hit last quarter. That was the impact. We believe with the measures we have taken over the past nine months, basically, of this year, that we have the situation under control that we see that we can see a much more stable future for the Metals area.
Is there any relative indication you can give us for margins in the quarter for Metal Forming versus Metal Processing?
I would not do that, no.
Okay. Thanks. Maybe just a quick one on the very strong nine-month cash flow and the M&A pipeline. You've obviously done a few small, medium-sized deals for the next quarters. Do you also see an improving pipeline of M&A targets in light of yeah, the changed capital market conditions?
Yeah. You will be among the first to hear about that if we have anything to report. As I said, we are constantly looking. We believe that we have a good portfolio on the sustainable products and solutions. We definitely wanna strengthen that further, because we see more growth opportunities there than in some other areas. We will continuously look. The market on that side is okay.
Okay. Thanks very much.
Thank you, Ingo. Thank you for your questions. Let's move on to Akash Gupta from JP Morgan. Akash, please go ahead with the questions.
Yes. Hi, good morning, everybody. My first question is on your capacity situation. Q3 was pretty strong, more than EUR 2 billion in orders, and it was fourth successive quarter with more than EUR 2 billion order intake. Obviously, there are various businesses here, and the question I have is that, are there areas where you might be maxing out in terms of your capacity, and therefore either you are not able to take further orders, which may have some impact on, coming period, order intake? And also, are there any need for increase in CapEx in light of these strong orders that we have seen? Probably, I think, your message earlier was also that some of these trends will likely continue with Paracel order going in the P&L next year.
As I said, we have all projects we could staff with excellent teams. These teams are working well as they have to fight the challenges we see on the market. We do not see a CapEx increase due to that. At the moment, we also are not in the position that we have to decline orders. We need to stagger definitely the time schedule. We are discussing that with the customer because we are not. It's not our policy to provide unrealistic time schedule. If there is a constraint on our side, we will be very clear and transparent there.
We don't see that this will be a major part. We have increased our manufacturing capacities in China in the last year for several key products, key components for the Pulp & Paper. In hindsight, I can tell you this was an excellent decision because a few months after startup, these lines were already fully loaded, yeah, from the orders we received.
Thank you. My second question is on pulp order. I think Paracel is a big turnkey order and probably the largest order you have got in the pulp business. We have seen some of the previous orders were split between you and Valmet, while this time around you have gone for the entire full turnkey order. The question was that the customer decision to give the entire turnkey to single supplier? Like, was it customer's choice or was it your decision to go for the whole rather than going for part of it? Like, how shall we see this? Maybe if you can talk about risk in getting the whole turnkey project. How do you see risk in the project?
At the end it's always a customer decision, but we definitely have to be ready to take that. I think the market, especially on the pulp side, the market has seen that if the technology comes from one hand, that usually execution and startup and also optimization of the production goes much smoother. We have with our Metris technology an overall automation and performance improvement system which is tied into our technology. I think this really pays off. If you look at the startup curves, we could realize in recent projects. I think that's a strong argument.
At the end, you have to ask the customer what was driving the decision. We believe that we have quite a good value proposition there.
Thank you, sir. Just to double-check, there is no change in the risk profile from ENGIE side. It was more of the technology that played a role rather than risk.
Sorry, can you repeat?
Yeah. I mean, I was like, just confirming that there was no change in the risk profile from your side, that you are willing to take more risk than before, and it is more driven by the technology which you just mentioned.
No, we are not. I think in general the business model we have contains a certain degree of risk, and we are not hungry to increase that, for sure not. If you, for example, as you ask about Paracel, one of the dominant parameters they had in there for the decision-making was that they would not accept any new technology. So everything we offered is something we have basically in the same size, for the same application, for the same boat, already in operation somewhere in order to exclude all the technological risk, which would then add to the project risk there is anyway.
Thank you.
Thank you, Akash, for your question. Now I would like to ask Daniel Lion from Erste Bank to go ahead with the question you have. Daniel, are you there?
Yeah. Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking me on. I would have a few ones. Could you help me understand what size this large greenfield order that you mentioned roughly has in the order intake in the third quarter? This was nothing that you communicated, right? Or did you?
No. I, we just told you.
Uh.
Really?
It's a good three-digit million number.
Okay. Having a look at, yeah, you were actually really good in passing on the input cost pressure, input price pressure to your clients, obviously. Now we are slowly seeing prices to decrease. This might continue, of course, in maybe even next year, also due to the economic slowdown, maybe. Do you see chances that you could even increase your profitability as the prices are now passed on to the customers and your input prices could start to decrease?
Frankly speaking, we do not see that. As for the large orders, you know, for the one we just talked about and for the large order from Suzano, which we booked beginning of the year, they were basically we had to move into supplier commitments exactly in the phase when the war started and the material prices hiked. That is. Once the commitments are made, the project is going. Yeah. There is little you can do. It's, I would say it was a bad timing, but it would be even worse for our customers and also for us if we would delay the project speculating on material prices to drop.
We are working hard to bring it in with the margins we have. Yeah, we do not expect an improvement there. Of course, the new projects coming will be based on the outlook. Yeah. That is then if we can keep it and don't pass it on to the customers, that could help. Yeah.
Yeah. Actually, I was of course not really reflecting on the capital business because obviously you're partially also hedging your input costs when signing these orders. What about the after-sales business, components that should become cheaper? Business that's more or less your everyday business and services business, for this part, this is also true.
Yeah. This is, you know, I think we had for some areas price increases two and three times in the course of this year. Now we see that also we have to move down from that a bit, yeah, as there is a request from the customer side. I think that is, there is, of course, I would say there are more chances on the aftermarket side, yeah. As the duration periods are not that long. Looking at that, yes.
One final question relating to Metals business. How crucial will it be to increase the services share of the division in order to bring your profitability to the desired levels?
That's very crucial. That is one of the main. There are two main initiatives. The one is to avoid project crises. And the other is to increase the service. And then, of course, to adapt the portfolio to growing markets like we have done now with these battery manufacturing lines. That's basically the three things you need to do.
Will you need further acquisitions in order to bring up the services business, or can you do it with the current portfolio as well?
I think we are looking for both, yeah.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Daniel. Final question we have from Richard Schramm from HSBC. Richard, are you there?
Yes, good morning. Hope you can hear me.
Yes.
I have a follow-up on Pulp & Paper first. Due to these big projects you now have booked, is this a sign that there is a risk of some overcapacity building up in this market? Or would you say that these projects are more kind of catch up still from the previous crisis and were already in the long-term plan of customers, so there's not the risk that there will be in the foreseeable future a kind of, yeah, let's say, demand collapse in the market? That would be my first question.
Yeah. It's, I think, a very good question. On short term, there can be a demand collapse. On the medium term, definitely not. Demand on fibers is high. If we see all the product changes that are done in packaging and other industries where there is a move from plastics to more natural products. That's in hygiene, that's in packaging. We see a trend there. All these new projects that we are now talking, they come into the market in 2024, yeah, or later. We don't know what the situation is there.
I would say the next important impact to the market will come from the startups in South America, which we will see in the first quarter next year, most probably. We can see also how stable and how solid the market is.
Okay. You can confirm that there are still projects in the pipeline you're negotiating so that we have a chance to see still a reasonable order inflow also next year in this segment here.
No, we can confirm there is project work. As I said, we don't know under these geoeconomic conditions when really a purchase order is placed. Whether it's six months early or six months later, this is definitely not in our hands.
Yeah. Of course. There are at least some projects going on and
Yeah.
So far, yep, there is the chance at least for some interesting bookings there. Okay.
Sure.
One question concerning Metals, and here the metal processing side. How do you see the business opportunities there in the coming quarters here? Isn't that an area where we should see especially a very reluctant investment mood due to the current problems, especially from the energy supply side in this industry?
Yeah. I think that the metals industry, especially steel industry, is definitely under high pressure. From the energy prices, they're under high pressure from the CO2 point of view, but they're also under high pressure from their customers. If you look into automotive development, the major driver to increase fuel efficiency still is the decrease of weight. The decrease of weight is basically driving the business also of our metals processing area. We see despite these challenges that there will be investment done, and we have seen some particular examples.
If you don't invest for a period of three-six years, it is difficult then to comply with the specifications of the customer. That is why we believe there is demand and there will be demand.
Okay. In respect of the margin side, do you feel the, let's say, margin pressure from customers? Do they pass this on to you as an equipment supplier, or can you push through your necessary prices for a decent margin level?
I can tell you that the capital business is a buyer's market. You will not be surprised about that.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Richard. Akash, you may have a follow-up question.
Yes. Hi. Thank you for taking my follow-up. That was on M&A. If I look at your announcement, I think you had announced four deals in the second half. Can you give maybe a rough ballpark number in terms of the cash outlay for M&A this year, in total?
Norbert.
We have a general budget for these things, for small acquisitions, which is somewhere in the area of EUR 50-100 million, and we are also in this year in this range.
Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Akash. Now move on to Peter Rothenaicher from Baader Helvea. Peter, go ahead with the question.
Yes, hello. Also on the acquisition. I think yesterday you announced this Croatian acquisition. Can you give us a little bit more on details? Is it a profitable company? I've seen sales are around EUR 60 million. What are your expectations? Do you see here some chances for cost savings and yeah, profitability and about this?
Yeah. It's a profitable company, suffering a bit under the war. Definitely profitable. High quality manufacturing and high quality engineering supplier in Europe, with a good capacity. We widen our portfolio for certain types of boilers that grate boilers which we do not have in our portfolio. We are opening the fields for the smaller boilers based on biomass, which are very much asked for now from the general industry in Europe, who are converting their gas power plants to, for example, biomass or structures.
It is also important for us, one of the lessons learned from the recent crisis, that we debottleneck our supply chain a bit in this on this pressure part side, where we very much heavily depend on China at the moment. In that case, that's also securing our ability to perform when we see some supply chain disruptions on that side. Its location, it's only three hours drive from our headquarters in Graz, so it really fits well also in with our engineering activities. We are extremely happy with this acquisition.
Okay. Thank you. Another question would be on the wage development. In Germany, we see the ongoing negotiations and the trade unions are demanding 8% increase. Can you give us what is the situation in Austria? Have you already agreed wage increases? How are you able to cope with this wage increase in 2023? Might this have a negative impact on your margins?
It's excellent timing. On the Metals side, they just, 2:00 P.M. tonight, reached agreement. I did not have time to study deeply, but I would say it's around 7% increase, if you want to have a ballpark. We have provisions for that, so we do not see margin deterioration from that source.
Thank you.
Okay. Many thanks, Peter. Any further question from the auditorium for the audience? This is not the case, then I will finish the Q&A session. I would like to thank all of you for participating in this call and maybe hand over to Joachim again for final words.
Yeah. Very, very good. Thank you. Thank you for your interest. Thank you for the questions. As I said, outlook is stable project activities. We are cautious on our outlook, but we are ready also to take more orders. We shouldn't be concerned about that.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Thank you.