Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the conference call of Andritz AG. At our customer's request, this conference will be recorded. As a reminder, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. If any participant has difficulties during the conference, please press * key followed by zero on your telephone for operator assistance. May now hand you over to Dr. Leitner, who will lead you through this conference. Please go ahead, sir.
Good morning, everybody. Welcome to our third quarter conference call. Before going into the detail, as always, a general introduction. I think we agree that the global economy could be stronger, and in light of this rather weak situation of the global economy, we are quite satisfied with the results we have achieved in the third quarter and also in the first nine months of 2019. Order intake in Q3 is up again and reached nearly EUR 2.1 billion, predominantly driven by Pulp & Paper. Order backlog has continued to rise. Now, for two years, we have exceeded the first time EUR 8 billion as a backlog. In regard to the earnings development, we've booked in the third quarter the restructuring charges, predominantly Schuler. There was for some smaller capacity adjustments in the other business areas, adjusting to the overall economy.
We have seen very positive developments in net working capital and in operating cash flow. Overall, in our view, the third quarter developed solidly and in line with our expectation, and therefore, we are maintaining and continue to confirm our guidance for the full year 2019. We now go into the details. On page three. Group order intake, EUR 2.1 billion in the quarter, third quarter, with an increase. Pulp & Paper, extremely active. Second highest quarterly figure in our history. Order backlog already covered, exceeding EUR 8 billion first time. Sales increased to nearly EUR 1.7 billion, predominantly due to the growth in Pulp & Paper. EBITA obviously impacted by the restructuring charges, where we booked overall of EUR 95 million. There, Metals has EUR 84 million. Profitability adjusted for these extraordinary items at 6.0%, at the same level as in the third quarter of last year.
On page five, order intake on the left side, third quarter; on the right side, first nine months. Substantial increase from not quite EUR 1.5 billion to nearly EUR 2.1 billion, plus 43%. Of that, 33 percentage points organic. Newly acquired companies contributed EUR 139 million, predominantly Xerium and some other smaller companies. Similar picture on the right side, first nine months. Order intake up 22%, and of that, 13 percentage points organic. Newly acquired companies contributing EUR 460 million, and of that, EUR 347 million, Xerium. If you look in the middle, the changes by business area for the first nine months. Pulp & Paper up 79%, Metals down by 12%, Hydro down by 11%, and Separation down by 5%. You see quite these different developments in our four business areas. Slide six. Quarterly development, continuing increase.
What was driving the order intake in Q3, a large order for pulp project in South America, but also Hydro booked pumped storage power order from Dubai, believe it or not, EUR 125 million. They're going to build a pumped storage water power plant. Slide seven, sales. Again, good growth. Predominantly, in this case, driven by first-time consolidation. Obviously takes some time to convert order intake sales. Slide eight, service. Continuing growth. Last four months, we saw a growth of +31%. Longer-term compound annual growth rate of 7%. Last four quarters amounting now to EUR 2.6 billion and corresponding to 40% of our sales, which is a very positive development and should create substantial stability in the years to come. Slide nine. Share of service business in the respective business areas. Pulp & Paper leading.
More than half of the sales in Pulp & Paper are repeat service sales, more or less repeat sales in the aftermarket. Separation traditionally has had a high share of service sales of 47%, Hydro 30%, and Metals 27%. Especially Metals, not Hydro, we see good potential to increase the share of service sales. On the Hydro side, we are promoting this O&M contract, operate and maintain, where we are running a growing number of hydropower plants globally. The operations are managed centrally from our control center in Italy. On the Metals side, especially Schuler should have very good opportunities to expand the service sales there. Slide 10, order backlog, as we said, highest ever, EUR 8.1 billion. It's a good basis for next two to three years of revenues to come. Hydro and Pulp & Paper traditionally account for the vast majority of this order backlog.
Moving on to profitability on Slide 11. EBITDA in Q3, EUR 85.9 million, 6.0% in 2018. From there up to EUR 101.7 million before non-operating items, also 6%. After charging other charges, down to EUR 6.4 million or 0.4%. What did we charge on the right side in restructuring? EUR 84 million is Metals, Hydro EUR 7 million, Pulp & Paper EUR 3 million, Separation EUR 1 million. Some minor capacity adjustments. Since we are rather cautious on our view on the economy for next year, you will see continuing minor adjustments in our capacities to make sure that we are fit and strong as we go into the next quarters. On Slide 12, the first nine months, similar picture, obviously a lesser impact from the restructuring charges, down from EUR 287 million to EUR 184 million. By business area on Slide 13. The red numbers are before the adjusted numbers, so before restructuring charges.
Pulp & Paper continuing good profitability, 9.1%. Metals slightly profitable at 0.3%. Profitability negatively impacted by under-absorption, under-utilization on the Schuler side. Probably we come back to that in more detail. Hydro 6.5% pre-restructuring, or 5.6%. Separation, quite positive continuing good development of profitability compared to the first nine months of last year, up from 4.6% to 5.8%. On Slide 14, net working capital. We started the year or the end of last year at EUR 160 million. In the first quarter, it went up to EUR 183 million, came down to EUR 84 million in Q2, and is now down to EUR 30 million in Q3. Pulp & Paper, due to the booking of new orders in down payments, down. Metals up somewhat. Hydro down. Overall, good development down to EUR 30 million. Obviously, that contributes also to the operating cash flow. On Slide 15.
You see the bridge from EBT to the cash flow from operating activities. The numbers in parentheses show you the comparable numbers from the first three quarters of 2018. Depreciation, obviously up substantially to EUR 236 million. Of that is EUR 146 depreciation, EUR 61 is amortization. Of that, EUR 39 million from new acquisitions, predominantly Xerium, and EUR 29 million impairment of goodwill in Metals is predominantly, actually all this Schuler. That adds about nearly EUR 150 million on the way to the operating cash flow. Provisions also contributed positively. Net working capital improved compared to last year by EUR 400 million, from minus EUR 165 million to plus EUR 154 million. Some minor adjustments. Overall, we show a cash flow from operating activities of EUR 439 million after minus EUR 85 million a year ago.
Obviously, a lot of that is driven by project-specific circumstances, obviously, we are not unhappy about this development. On slide 16, we also provide you with the EBITDA to net income bridge, starting with EUR 329.9 million EBITDA, 6.9% depreciation. Of that, IFRS 16, EUR 34 million, and new first-time consolidation is EUR 26 million down to the EBITA, EUR 284 million. We have IFRS 3 amortization, EUR 60 million. Two-thirds of that for new acquisitions. Impairment, EUR 29 million. I always mention that. Metals, EBIT EUR 94 million. Financial results, minus EUR 35 million, to a large extent, foreign exchange valuation of basically the figures, balance sheets, cash accounts, et cetera, to an EBIT of EUR 58 million on a net income of EUR 40.7 million. To summarize, on slide 17, you have the full set of numbers. I think we have covered probably everything that is of interest here. Maybe to summarize IFRS 16.
Total asset number went up by EUR 218 million. Property, plant, and equipment. Sales are the same, obviously unaffected. EBITDA is up EUR 38 million. Depreciation is up EUR 34 million. EBITA, up EUR 4 million. Interest, also up by EUR 4 million, interest expense. EBIT, obviously, effect is zero. Now moving on to the business areas. Pulp & Paper, very good situation, very active market. In spite of, as I said, difficult overall economic environment and in spite of a lot of turmoil on pulp prices, on the pulp market, we see continuous good project activity. As always, we cannot speak for our potential customers when they will go ahead with the projects. I think many of you are following the announcements or the silence that has followed some of the announcements with regard to projects. From our standpoint, all these projects are real. All these projects are tangible.
Nearly all of these projects are in the hands of large companies committed to continuing to expand the pulp capacity. There is not a question whether they will go ahead with these projects. Question is always when they will go ahead, and it is maybe impacted by permitting issues. It may be impacted by political issues in the countries where they consider to invest. That may be short-term impacted by inventory issues in the global pulp market, price issues. Long term, we are very confident for the future of this market. Short term, we need to continue with our wait-and-see activity or position. Power generating boilers are continuing with project activities, especially in Japan. We continue to be very successful in Japan. Overall, very good situation. On slide 20, you see the numbers. Order intake up, sales up, earnings at a very good level.
Obviously, with this higher backlog, our employee numbers have started to go up, predominantly in Brazil, in Finland, and some other countries. By region, you see the difference between order intake and sales. Sales, Europe, North America, still dominating it. On the intake, the emerging markets are dominating. Different picture on Metals, 21. Metals Forming, obviously heavily affected by the automotive industry. Very weak activities. All the executions are also delayed. Uncertainty of the side of some large customers, where they should build, if at all, should build a new plant. You have followed in the press the discussion in Volkswagen, in Turkey and Bulgaria. There are some other second thoughts in with some other car companies where to build new capacity. As always, when the market is low, then pricing becomes very aggressive.
Everybody tries to fill up its backlog, and therefore, the situation there is certainly not very good. Similar situation in Metals Processing. Steel industry is in not very good position. The low number of orders placed for new projects are heavily contested between the main suppliers with a negative effect on the prices. On slide 22, the numbers, if you look at Q3, EBITDA before extraordinary items, EUR 9.9 million. A slight improvement compared to the first two quarters. The majority of the EUR 10 million goes to Schuler, or is earned by Schuler. As I said, Schuler is still impacted by under-absorption, under-utilization. We look on the next page, on Schuler. You see the development on sales. Organic sales development -14% between 2013 and 2018.
You see also that together with the actions that we have announced, and we have now provided for in the third quarter, we take down the employment of Schuler in Germany by one third from 4,000 employees to 2,600, fully achieved by 2022. The large part will take place next year. Where do we stand with regard to the social plan? We are aware that Germany is a very difficult area for that, time-consuming, we are making, I would say, reasonable progress in the negotiations. We have passed some of the gates that have to be passed on the way to an agreement on the social plan and interest, how do I say, finding an agreement on which criteria should be followed in the restructuring.
We hope to have results by year-end, but as always, we cannot agree to agree by a certain time, so we need to see how things go. Currently, it's on a good way, taking into account the very complicated procedure that has to be followed in Germany. Much about Schuler. As we have said, we expect total savings of EUR 60 million and fully in place from 2022 onwards, but sizable improvements already starting from the middle of next year. Slide 24. Hydro are still quite low market activity. We booked some storage order. We see some interesting larger projects for next year, where we think that we should be in a good position. Let's see. I think this year will still be a relatively subdued order intake.
If one or two of these larger projects would go ahead in the first half of next year, I think next year could see a certain pickup of order intake. 25, the numbers. Maintaining in spite of gradually shrinking sales, maintaining profitability. I think that's also what we would expect. We will continue our gradual capacity adjustments following the sales. With that, we should be able to maintain profitability also in the next few years. Slide 26. Small sticks business area Separation. Doing quite well. Continue to improve profitability. I think we are making good progress in some of the segments that we try to expand. If you look at slide 27.
Order intake for the first nine months is down by 4.6%. We booked a large order for Separation of nearly EUR 50 million last year for the sludge drying for the wastewater treatment plant of Shanghai, which obviously, a similar size order has not been booked this year. Compared to that, taking that into account, we show quite good continuous growth. As I said, improving profitability. There we are increasingly optimistic that we are now back to a good profitability and showing organic growth, which together would also enable us to look into some M&A activity in this field, where we have always said there should be plenty of opportunities there due to the quite fragmented structure on the supplier side. To conclude on page 29.
Obviously, we see a slowdown of the global economy, and we expect a further moderate slowdown of the global economy with some country-specific issues. Turkey continues to have a negative impact on us. Brazil is uncertain. Chile, we can add to the difficult countries, unfortunately. We are executing a large project for a local there. There's not been any impact on that. Clearly, the investment climate, I think, in Chile has deteriorated and may have an impact on activities on the Pulp & Paper industry there. Nevertheless, Pulp & Paper continues to show very good project activity, and we expect that also to continue into next year. Steel and aluminum industry particularly are very much down, and we do not see any light at the end of the tunnel in these two industries. Where do we stand? We stand with a very good order backlog of EUR 8.1 billion.
Good visibility of sales going into 2020. Progress of Schuler restructuring is, I think, reasonable and should see first visible effects on the numbers in Q3 2020. We'll continue to do our homework in the other business areas, which will mean certain minor capacity adjustments also, and expect a continuing good profitability in Pulp & Paper. Continuing step-by-step improvements in Separation, stable profitability in Hydro, and Metals, looking at next year, probably closer to break even and showing some sizable positive results due to the fact that we have to observe notice periods, et cetera, so that we will only start to see effects from the middle of next year onwards. Much for my report, and I look forward to your questions.
We will now begin our question and answer session. If you have a question for our speaker, please dial 01 on your telephone keypad now to enter the queue. Once your name has been announced, you can ask the question. If you find your question is answered before it is your turn to speak, you can dial 02 to cancel your question. If you're using speaker equipment today, please test the handset before making your selection. One moment please for the first question. The first question is from Andreas Willi of J.P. Morgan. The line is now open.
Yeah. Good morning, Dr. Leitner. I have two questions, please. The first one on the end market commentary. Relative to what you said at the Capital Markets Day in mid-September, is there a conscious change to the commentary, or is it maybe just the language in the release that's a little bit different if we compare like Separation now described as solid versus good and maybe some of the comments in Hydro as well on aftermarket. Is there a change or is it just the words that were chosen? The second one on the dividend proposal for the full year in terms of payout. How should we look like at the payout ratio and how you think about it in terms of the charges and write-downs this year that affect net income?
With regard to the first question, do you feel I am more cautious than at the Capital Markets Day or more optimistic?
Maybe slightly more cautious.
No, I don't think so. At least, certainly not intentional. I don't see any dramatic change or any real change in the overall economy. I think, personally, really this is now in a very slight difference in shadows of gray here. I think China may look a little bit more optimistic. Looking at the stock markets, apparently, people in China become a little bit more optimistic. Obviously, if there would be a trade agreement in place or could come into place with the U.S., I think there is substantial upside on China. On the other side, Turkey, Brazil, Chile, obviously rather slightly negative developments. Overall, I think the negative thing is that I don't see a real big change to the positive. I don't see a deterioration. I think it's unchanged. Does that answer the question?
Yes. Yeah. On the dividend?
Yeah. Dividend, I think, let's wait and see until time comes to form an opinion. I think it will depend on our view on next year. Obviously, these restructuring charges have an effect on the income, so we cannot neglect it completely. As I said, I think we would prefer to wait and see how the general situation is and then decide what to propose.
Thank you very much.
The next question is from Sven Weier of UBS. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Good morning. Thanks for taking my two questions. The first one is on the project pipeline. Obviously, you already mentioned still quite a busy pipeline on the greenfields and pulp. I was just wondering if you could share a number with us for the next 12 months of projects that would be worth, say, more than EUR 200 million, EUR 300 million for you, if there's a total number that you see. Also on Metals, I think your order intake in absolute terms was actually not so bad, I would say, in Q3 and Q2. You mentioned, obviously, pricing is tough. Does that mean these orders have a certain lower margin tailwind? What should we keep in mind in terms of the margin quality of these orders? Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you for the questions. Starting with the second one, clearly yes. We have to offer aggressive prices to have a chance to get the order, because our competitors are doing the same. Clearly, the margin content of the backlog in Metals Pro has declined. Obviously, we do our best to contain this reduction. We try to pass it on to our suppliers. As I said, I think once we can adjust our capacity in Schuler, that certainly will make us more competitive and will help to improve also the quality of the backlog. With regard to projects going into next year, I would hesitate to really mention a specific number, but I would say there's certainly a handful of large projects for pulp, where I would not be surprised if they are realized next year.
Okay. Understood. The second question is a bit more personal question, because I think your contract is running out in the next two years, and I was just wondering how you plan on succession, what we should be expecting there in terms of maybe internal solutions and what all of that means in terms of strategy. Obviously, you've been obviously very, very impactful on the company in the last 20 or so years. I think I would be quite interested in your thoughts on that very issue. Thank you.
Yeah, I need to check my contract. I don't think it's 2002. I think it's in three years, or probably three years. No, there will not be a new contract for sure after that. I'm obviously aware of my age. Obviously, I reserve the right to make any decision, but currently I would not expect to sell my shares. Therefore, my interest is to have a very good succession. My interest is not to prove that it has been difficult to replace me. Obviously, that's something that I have an eye on, that the supervisory board has an eye on, and where we all think that we are in a good position with regard to succession.
Okay, thank you.
Was that enough, yeah?
Well, it was an appetizer, yeah. We'll have enough time to continue talking about that, I think.
I will prepare for the next conference call with maybe a slightly more tangible answer, yeah?
Yeah, that's fine. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from Aurelio Calderon of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I would just like to ask on your employee footprint at Schuler. If you think in three, five years' time, do you see that employee footprint moving more towards China, given that it's now around 35% of orders and only represents something like 20% of the employees? How do you see that developing in Europe and especially in Germany after 2022 and with all these announced cuts?
Obviously, it depends on the market. If we would know now, or if we would think now that we have to go down further, obviously, we would communicate now that long-term we will continue with these reductions. Currently, that's not the case, currently I cannot exclude that neither, because it's driven by the demand for the Schuler products. I think Schuler has seen six very successful years, which certainly resulted in being busy enough not to think about long-term, longer-term necessary adjustments of the footprints and the balance between high-cost country and low-cost country, and where the markets are for the product. Having said that, Schuler products are very appreciated worldwide. If we succeed in bringing down the costs, maybe to a certain extent also the products being more specific to the customer needs, I think Schuler has a very good chance.
I'm quite convinced that now the center of excellence will remain in Germany and we have excellent people here. Manufacturing can easily be the case, but we see a continuation of the trend to other countries, whether that's China or other European countries, I think remains to be seen. I think currently the distinction between China and, for example, Eastern Europe would be a close decision. China is not the only low-cost location in the world.
Okay, thank you.
As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question, please press zero and one. The next question is from Daniel Lion of Erste Group. Your line is now open.
Yeah. Good morning. I would like to get a little bit more flavor on how the order situation or the delays in the Pulp & Paper business could turn out. Would you see already received orders being delayed, or have you just reflected on potential new orders that are being delayed now or the process has been delayed? Maybe a little bit more color on this one.
Yeah, I was referring to some press announcements that are estimated by companies that are a little bit overdue now in terms of following actions. I do not see that there's any indication of a general question mark on this project. Following the market situation for pulp, obviously, there's been a big build-up of inventory in beginning of this year, which is now softening again. It's reduced. That's coming down, which certainly will help. The market is not unstable, but it has been obviously a cloud over the market. There are 2 million or 3 million tons of inventory in ports in China. That is now being resolved, being absorbed, and that could have had an impact on some delays.
I would rather think it's more project-specific reasons, being political situation in one or two countries, being permitting delays or overly optimistic schedules for permitting that have not been achieved. Therefore it may actually take a month or two or three longer until one or the other project goes ahead. It's clearly, in our opinion, to a large extent, project specific, maybe to a small extent, impacted by the overall situation in the pulp market.
Maybe a follow-up on this one. When we look at the price developments, paper prices seem to be on the somehow bottling out, maybe even. Maybe also indicating that we see the break-even points of the producers might have been reached when we look at the historical development comparison of the current price levels. In pulp paper, we are certainly not that far yet. Would you expect that just basically the inventory situation would help to stabilize prices going further? Maybe in the first half year of 2020? Is there a risk that we see some longer-term impact on demand, maybe, from the price developments?
Demand continues to grow. Fiber consumption is growing 2% plus per year. We still have some high-cost, old capacities that ultimately will go out of the market, as you said, once when the prices are meeting or hitting the level of the cash costs. We have very positive trends with regard to plastic bags, with regard to plastic in general. We have very interesting technology trends with regard to fully organic liquid packaging. We have high-tech developments, nanocellulose, going into food, into pharmaceuticals, et cetera, microcrystalline cellulose. I think there are plenty of activities. Not to forget that a year ago, I think the majority has expected that one would see more stable pulp prices when Suzano acquired Fibria, creating a clearly dominating market pulp producer with, if I remember correctly, 12 million tons capacity. That has turned out not to be true.
I'm not going into speculation about what has happened there. This quite high level of consolidation is still in place, and I think everybody has learned, and I would expect, let's say, stabilizing prices on a reasonably high level, which for the low-cost producers in South America should provide EBITDA margins of 40-plus % of sales.
Okay. Thank you. Two questions related to the Metals segments. One is the EV subsidy that has just been announced for Germany starting in 2020. Have you heard any positive comments related to maybe a demand pickup for your business into 2020? Would you expect this to take longer to take into effect? The second would be related to the layoffs. Would you see any change in timing to the official expectation that we should see first impacts from the layoffs on your financials in the second half year?
The answer is two times no. We have not seen any impact from the EVs. I think the longer the slump in demand for new cars is lasting, the higher the probability becomes that we suddenly find a recovery. Because people are postponing the purchase of a new car by half a year, by a year, by two years, maybe, but at some point they go ahead. I think what drives now the reluctance of buying cars is the uncertainty, whether it's going to be gas or diesel or electric. What we see the price we would get if we would sell it after a few years. Again, I don't think this will last five years. The longer it lasts, the higher the probability we will see a pickup. Same for China. With regard to the restructuring, there's no change in any schedule.
Okay. No, thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from Sebastian Growe of Commerzbank. Your line is now open.
Yes, good morning. Pulp & Paper. A bit of a nitty-gritty question, to be honest. The margin in the quarter was comparatively low at around 8%, and I was just interested in hearing your thoughts around the drivers for that. I'm assuming it's more function of the greater paper content. Maybe you can just confirm that and also then give us a sense of what we should expect for the fourth quarter, and also generally speak about what is in the book that's Pulp & Paper and how that splits simply between the two, pulp versus paper. That's the first one. Maybe we take them one by one.
The third quarter was slightly lower. It was on the capital side. Service side continues to be very good. Some lower margin quarters, maybe some cost overrun, or maybe, but certainly one of the other cost overrun, but nothing, let's say, traumatic or above the regular fluctuations. What was the second question?
The order split or in the book between Pulp & Paper, because I would assume that you should have a better margin at pulp.
Yes. It's dominated by pulp, then by power, and the smallest one is paper.
No real change compared to what it was in the prior years or so, yeah?
Well, because of this high order intake, obviously the share of pulp has gone up. Other than that, no permanent change. Everything is project specific, order specific.
Yeah. With regard to the large orders, there's also nothing which is striking in terms of the price quality of these very orders secured or anything that would be worth mentioning in terms of working capital terms related to these very large projects?
Obviously the development of the net working capital is impacted by the down payments and progress payments of the large orders. There's a positive effect, obviously, yeah.
Yeah. Okay, fine. Working on and walking on to operating cash flow and working capital, to take that a bit further. We're seeing now the second consecutive improvement in working capital. You have been highlighting, I think, contract liabilities, which goes without saying with the much increased load, but you also point to lower receivables as a key driver. Can you just comment around what is still sort of the headroom that you see in the receivables part? If you could also comment on what is explaining the weak working capital development at Metals in particular, which you're referring to on slide 14?
Nothing, no. No longer term specific trends. It's really driven by individual orders. Obviously, yes, there has been. Obviously, the increase in working capital for Metals is driven by a lower intake to a sizable extent. Maybe some delayed payments, but no one project where we have a problem where we are not able to collect the money. Whatever, that's not the case.
Yeah. Okay. On M&A, because I think you've been commenting on that in your introductory statements. If you could elaborate a bit more on, in the general boundaries of what you can say at this point. It seems really that you are more prepared eventually to become more active again on M&A.
If I remember correct, this was regards to Separation, where we see a continuing improvement. As we have said in previous calls, once we feel confident that this positive development is sustainable and solid, then we would also look into more focus on M&A in connection with Separation, and that's the case. We will start cautiously. It's nothing imminent. I cannot guarantee that we will make an acquisition in Separation next year. Clearly, M&A has a very strong position in Pulp & Paper. We are certainly more dependent on the market than on ourselves. Same as in Hydro. Metals has its own issues. The one where we see potential for M&A-related activities in Separation. Not only because the others are, let's say, in different situations, the other business areas, but also because the market is fragmented. There are many customer segments.
We have products that can be applied in many more applications. For example, we are in tests with other companies to produce, how should I say, plant-based meat protein from plant-based protein. We have several machines that can be used in these processes. There I see, and our market share is definitely not dominating, therefore it's natural that we will increasingly look into growth opportunities on the Separation side, where we were hesitant to do that in the last two, three years because of the weak performance of the existing activities.
Yeah. Okay. That's helpful. The very last one is on the extraordinary items, which have been breaking out by segments, which is much appreciated. I was wondering simply to see you booking sort of smaller restructuring measures, beyond Metals, which at least I did not really have on mind. Maybe can you just talk around what is behind that, and then if you would rather see that as really a 2019 specific item, or is there anything else we should have in mind when it comes to other years?
I think it depends on the development of the overall economy. In our budgeting process, we are rather cautious. I think it's a good time to look into our internal structures to see where we have added some fat, where we can increase, improve our competitiveness. I would not say that this is a one-time thing. I think, if the economy turns around and becomes very strong again, obviously we would have other focus areas. If it continues as it is now, we would continue to look into opportunities to improve our competitiveness, meaning that there may be continuing smaller extraordinary charges. As seen from today, nothing dramatic.
Just to get that right, it is all personnel-related, what you are doing there, and it is not really a complete closing down of a certain plant, et cetera, but rather just trimming it a bit to be less fat, to phrase it.
I think we are openly looking at everything. If we would come to the conclusion there's not a plan to do that now, but if we would find out that this would be advantageous for the future, we would also go ahead with that. As I said, as we see today, it might be continuing smaller charges, but nothing dramatic.
Okay. That's helpful. Thank you.
As there are no further questions, I hand back to the speaker.
Thank you very much. We look forward to discussing our full year results in about four months, I think. Probably March, yeah. Thank you, everybody.
Thank you. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for your attendance. This call has been concluded. You may disconnect now.