Ladies and gentlemen, welcome and thank you for joining Austrian Post H1 2021 Results. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. Please press the star key followed by zero for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Harald Hagenauer, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this conference call for Austrian Post. Here with me in the room is Walter Oblin, our CFO. He would like to discuss the second quarter and the half year figures of Austrian Post. Please, Walter, go on and do the presentation to present our results. I guess you all got our information sheet online or live.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is a pleasure to have the opportunity to present to you our results for the first six months. I think as a summary upfront, strong growth in our parcel business, combined with a recovery after a difficult first six months last year, have generated strong results. We already confirmed and upgraded a positive outlook for the full year. Let me go right away into the presentation, starting on page three. Page three reminds you of the three segments we operate and report. Our predominantly Austrian mail segment, our national parcel and logistics segment, and our retail and bank segment. The chart also shows you the revenue distribution for the first six months of this year, where I think the message is we have a balanced portfolio with our revenue coming from different segments, different geographies.
This is the result of a strategic transformation, where on page four, you see that the pandemic has accelerated the strategic transformation from a mail-dependent, mail-dominant Austrian Post Group 10 years ago, and still pretty much in that position three years ago, to a much more balanced business portfolio that we operate today, with parcel in the first six months of 2021 being the biggest revenue contributor in our group, a little bit bigger than mail. Where, as a result, we are much less dependent on a structurally shrinking mail segment and have a strong exposure towards the high-growth e-commerce and parcel business. Page five highlights the key aspects of the first six months of the year. In summary, the pandemic still influenced substantially our business.
The first six months were still characterized by lockdowns and restrictions across the business portfolio, where as a result, mail still faced significant headwinds, but a recovery over the last months of the first half year. Parcel and logistics, with a lot of tailwind across all regions, resulting in good volume development, and also substantial one-off revenue and earnings contributions from logistics services projects. In the retail and bank segment, of course, the key event of the last months was the signing of the transaction to take over the retail business of ING in Austria, a transaction which in our view brings a highly complementary business to our bank99, and thus will accelerate the strategic development of our bank.
As a result of this predominantly positive business environment, we saw a very strong revenue growth of the full consolidation of Aras Kargo that started over last year, has contributed substantially to this development. Group revenue is up 28.4%. Details I will provide later on. Earnings more than doubled, EBIT more than doubled compared to last year. For the full year, we upgraded our outlook and guide now a group EBIT which should be up at least 20% compared to last year. Page six gives more details on our revenue development. As already mentioned, group revenue up 28.4%, EUR 160 million of revenue increase came from the first-time consolidation of Aras Kargo . Excluding that, there was still organic growth of 12%, which I think is probably a record growth in the younger history of the company.
This growth, of course, predominantly coming from our parcel and logistics segment, which was up 17.7%, so 7.0, not 0.7. Also our mail segment up 3%, which is a combination of recovery effects, headwinds from lockdown, and still a positive price impact compared to previous year in the first quarter. Positive development also in our retail and bank segment where
Regulates in our bank increase compared to the start-up. This strong growth and a recovery in overall much more orderly business operational development, translated into an EBIT development where EBIT compared to the substantially depressed last year's figure of EUR 48.2 million, more than doubled to EUR 103.4 million. Positive that all business segments contributed to this recovery and increase. Mail, +EUR 19 million, Parcel and Logistics almost tripling to almost EUR 60 million, with Parcel EUR 49.5 million. Also, Retail and Bank and Corporate segment showing a positive EBIT development. Let me now update you on important strategic and operational development using our strategy framework with the well-known strategic pillars. The one being sustainability. The four Austrian Mail and Parcel business. Priority number two being profitable growth in new markets. We are talking both geographically near markets as well as markets that are adjacent to the value chain to our mail and parcel business.
Priority three, the further development of retail, digital offerings and product cooperation between our retail network, our online marketplace, and other initiatives. The green arrow in the middle, a real upgraded strategic commitment to sustainability, diversity, and customer orientation. Strategy pillar number one, our core Austrian business. Let me provide you with a few more details on letter and direct mail in the Austrian parcel business. Letter mail, of course, continues to be a structurally declining business. Q2 proves, I think, a resilience of the mail business. I'm just reading that there is a lot of noise on the line and that the difficulty hearing us, which I can't understand because it's completely quiet here in our room. Obviously, we have some technical problems.
Thanks. First of all, we tried this restart. I think we did have some technical problems here. We restarted at page nine when we discussed the trends in all of our operational divisions. Please go on, Walter.
Yeah. I hope you can hear me now better. Apologies for the technical difficulties we've been experiencing here. I don't want to talk too much about page nine. Page nine summarizes our strategic framework, the three business pillars, and our strategic commitment to sustainability, diversity, and customer orientation. I will use this framework now to comment on a few important operational and strategic developments. Moving to page 10, to our letter mail business in Austria. Of course, this is the business which is and continues to be in structural decline. At the same time, I think we look at it as a quite resilient business. We have seen in Q2 that volumes have recovered, even a slight improvement compared to last year. If you look at the first half year numbers, we had -9% last year, -3% this year.
If you take the average, over the last two years, with all the impact of the pandemic, have seen a decline of around -6% this year, which in my view, given that the pandemic has been the biggest accelerator of digitization, shows that our mail business is quite resilient. Page 11, direct mail, same picture, even more pronounced here. Of course, this was the business which was hit most severely and immediately last year by the pandemic. Also, the recovery is more pronounced, +14% in Q2. Still, we have not regained the volume we have lost in the pandemic and probably to some extent, some of the business will not come back. Still, also here or in particular, our unaddressed volume is quite stable, whereas in the addressed volume, we are more under structural pressure given the trend towards digital marketing.
Moving to page 12 to the growing part of our business, the Austrian parcel business. Here, I think the big message is that, even compared to last year's record volumes and record growth figures, in Q2, substantial growth continued, +9%. For the first six months, we are up 20% compared to a strong previous year. We do expect further single-digit growth also for the full year, for the six months still ahead of us. To cope with that strong growth and to be able to offer capacity to our customers and continue to gain market share.
We are substantially upgrading and expanding our capacity. You are aware that already since 2018, we are in a very comprehensive capacity expansion program for our Austrian parcel business, where this year we will spend in the group in total close to EUR 200 million. Important big priorities right now include a new logistics center in the west of Austria in the region of Tyrol, and a doubling of capacity in our then biggest sorting center in Upper Austria, the main injection point from Germany. The Tyrol center should be operational still this year, whereas the logistics center in Upper Austria will go into operation next year. The latest big project we started is an expansion of the historically biggest sorting center in Vienna, in the south of Vienna. This project will go into construction next year and go into operations in 2023.
With those projects, moving to page 15, we also continue to invest in strategically important logistics real estate. We think that the development over the last 24 months, where logistics real estate proved to be a very rare asset class, and an asset class which strongly increased in value. We think that this development confirms our strategy to own strategically important logistics centers and other real estate, in particular in our core market, Austria. This chart shows that group-wide, we are owning and operating 1.1 million M2 of usable space. Of course, this also includes our branches and our headquarter and other real estate. We want to highlight with that chart that there is a substantial value embedded in this real estate portfolio. Not only value, but also substantial hidden reserves.
We also continue to develop real estate, which is not used by operations anymore. Two of our biggest development projects include a project in Linz, capital of Upper Austria, and a big project in Vienna, where we are in the midst of permit procedures with the authorities to grant a substantially upgraded construction on those pieces of land. Moving to page 16. Page 16 gives you an update of the development of our staff in our core Austrian business. For the first time in the recent history, a substantial increase in headcount. This is the result of the strong growth in our parcel business. At the same time, the chart shows you that our transformation from expensive civil servant and old collective wage agreement contracts to new collective wage agreements is continuing at high speed. Will continue also over the next years and provide cost relief.
Moving now to page 17 and to our strategy pillar number two, growth in new markets. This chart summarizes the two major thrusts in this strategy pillar. Thrust number one is to grow in adjacent steps of the value chain and digital enhancement of our business model. This includes business services around mail in Austria, but it also includes e-commerce fulfillment, cash logistics, and digital business models such as digital advertising solutions or e-commerce software solutions such as the operation and the development of online shops. Second big thrust is regional growth, in particular southeast of Austria. I think the business portfolio, which is predominantly a portfolio of parcel networks, proved over the last 18 months that we are strategically well-positioned to capture future growth in e-commerce, not only in Austria, but also internationally. Page 18 highlights this exposure towards growth markets.
Last year, strong volume increase, basically from 35 million parcels distributed in Eastern Europe to around 250, including, of course, the inorganic addition of the Turkish parcel network, Aras Kargo, but also the organic growth that is happening both in Turkey as well as in Eastern Europe. Up from this very high levels, further growth this year, + 21% in Eastern Europe, + 24% in Turkey. This was also the basis for a very good profit development in those markets. Page nine gives you more details on Aras Kargo. Aras Kargo, according to our numbers, is at least head-on-head with the main competitor, competing for place number one in the Turkish parcel market. We believe we have gained substantial market share over the last 24 months.
Revenue in the first six months has grown 54%, is a combination of volume growth, also strong price execution in a market which was supply constrained. This has been the basis for a very good margin development also in Turkey. Let me now move to our bank99 and the probably most important strategic event of the last weeks, which was the signing of a transaction where bank99 acquires the retail business of ING in Austria. ING has decided to exit the Austrian retail banking market. We are proud that we came out being selected to take over the retail business. We believe this is a highly complementary strategic addition to bank99. In numbers, we're taking over a balance sheet roughly of about EUR 1.7 billion, with an asset portfolio of mortgage loans of about EUR 1 billion and consumer loans of about EUR 0.4 billion, also an asset management business.
In terms of timing, closing is expected still this year, and the integration plans for a technical integration by mid-2022 and a more stable operational environment than in the second half of next year. Why is this highly complementary? Page 21. First, it adds more than 100,000 customers without almost any customer overlap, whereas bank99 was rather strong in the countryside, in the more senior age-wise population. ING is strong in a young, urban, digitally savvy customer segment, and there is high complementarity. The acquisition is also highly complementary on the product side, where bank99 has good well-performing payment services products, whereas ING has a strong sales engine in consumer and mortgage loans, as well as investment products.
Also strategically, this transaction combines the branch office strengths of bank99, where with very little additional costs, we can offer physical services out of our post office network with the digital competence of ING and a strong talent that we are welcoming in the Austrian Post Group these days or formally then after closing. Very important strategic step in our view. Let me move on finishing the strategic update with an update on our self-service facilities. We continue to invest in these. This is an important factor of strategic differentiation in the competitive Austrian parcel market. We have by far the most dense landscape of self-service facilities in the market. More than 50,000 pickup boxes, more than 90,000 compartments in pickup stations and more than 460 drop-off boxes. You see here that the usage rates are going up every month and every quarter.
Continuing with our strategic focus on sustainability, diversity, and customer focus. As already communicated last time, we committed to ambitious strategic targets in the area of sustainability as a result of a strategy update last year. From an economic perspective, we aspire to achieve a revenue of EUR 3 billion by 2030, maybe also earlier. In the area of sustainability, in the sense of on the environment and climate dimension. Moving, by the way, page 24, please. We committed to a further reduction in CO2 emissions by 40% until 2030, which means a 70% decrease in specific CO2 emissions. We committed to 100% carbon-free delivery in Austria, specifically meaning that we will operate our delivery network without any combustion engines, which means that over the next two years, we have basically to order the last combustion engine trucks as we are operating those for six to eight years.
Diversity, an important priority. Our target is to have 40% of leadership positions filled by women by 2030. Page 25. Two aspects in terms of environmental sustainability and climate protection. First, we believe that e-commerce and our contribution with our logistics network, in principle, is favorable from a climate protection perspective. There are various studies which confirm that online shopping has an advantage compared to stationary shopping with regard to the CO2 footprint. We, of course, remain committed to reducing our CO2 footprint even further, and the main element there is upgrading our electric fleet. We already today operate by far the largest electric fleet in Austria, 2,500 vehicles by the end of this year, and as mentioned, 100% by 2030. We invest in sustainability outside Austria. Electric mobility and other initiatives are currently being rolled out to Eastern Europe and to Turkey.
Our Turkish management also signed up on an initiative to plant 68,000 trees in Turkey. Page 26. We have similar initiatives ongoing and planned across the group portfolio. Let me now close with the group results and the outlook. Moving to page 28, which summarizes the key financials. I've already commented on the revenue, EBITDA and EBIT margins up substantially from last year with 14.6% and 8% for the group. I think quite good margin levels. Earnings per share EUR 1.18 and cash flow of EUR 139 million, quite strong for the first six months. The group P&L statement on page 29, of course, in all lines is influenced by the first-time full consolidation of Aras Kargo, which adds revenues and costs to every line pretty much.
Overall, of course, you see here the impact of a strong growth in the parcel business, not only on the revenue side, but also on the cost side. Resulting difference with a strong EBITDA was EUR 184.5 million for the first six months, EBIT EUR 103.4 million, and a profit for the period of EUR 84.2 million. Let me now briefly comment on the core business segments. Mail division, page 30. Our letter mail and business solutions business up 2.8% in revenues. Here we have positive effects first from a postal rate adjustment effective April 1st, 2020, and also special mailing, some of them pandemic-related in the first six months, which have compensated, together with recovery effects, the structural mail decline. Similar picture on the direct mail side with a revenue increase of 3.3%. Mail division P&L, segment P&L revenue of EUR 600 million with an EBIT margin of EUR 82 million.
Our mail division continues to be the most important earnings pillar for the group, and also our EBIT margin is on a quite solid level. Moving to our parcel and logistics segment on page 32. Revenue up 17.70, again, seven, zero, 0.7%. This includes EUR 160 million addition from the first full consolidation of Aras Kargo as of August 25th last year. Also organically, the business across the geographies has showed strong growth. Austria + 28.6% and Eastern Europe + 20.6%. Group segment P&L for the parcel and logistics division on page 33, was an EBIT of EUR 59.7 million, almost EUR 60 million, more than tripling, and a strong first six months EBIT margin of 9.5%. I would ask you not to overemphasize the quarterly profit margins, as we have had both positive one-off EBIT contributors in the first three months as well as negative ones in Q2.
I think the 9.5% is overall reflecting the profitability, the operative profitability of the segment quite well. Retail and bank division revenue up around EUR 5 million. Of course, here you see the impact from our bank99 now fully in operation, still with headwinds from the pandemic, and Page 35 shows that the startup losses are still substantial, but the trajectory is positive. Again, here in Q1 we had negative one-offs from provision requirements in our retail network outside the bank99, and excluding that, the operative development was better compared to last year. Page 36. Moving to our balance sheet. I think the summary is we continue to operate a conservative balance sheet with a strong equity position of EUR 620 million shortly after paying out our dividend. A surplus of cash of around EUR 175 million. Although, of course, reducing surplus given our strong investment program.
Of course, the bank has expanded substantially the size of our balance sheet. We try to be transparent here. I would say overall a rather conservative balance sheet with low level of intangible assets, no pension obligations, and a substantial provisioning level. Page 37. Strong cash flow. Still maintenance and growth CapEx below the level that we expect for the full year. There is a strong second half of the year to come in terms of CapEx. Please don't multiply this operating free cash flow or the total free cash flow by two. We believe we are in a good way, also cash flow-wise, to providing the base for another attractive dividend proposal for the full year. Let me now close on Page 39, with the outlook. We have communicated a slight upgrade to our guidance already three weeks ago.
This is unchanged from three weeks ago. We think that the core business environment remains volatile and there is a lot of uncertainty coming from the uncertainty about the further development of the pandemic. We are optimistic that parcel growth will continue, although on a lower level. Over the next months, we are optimistic that the recovery of mail and direct mail to some extent continues. Will the structural decline, of course. On the CapEx side, I already summarized our guidance, coming to the order of magnitude of around EUR 180, maybe a little bit more, million. Earnings-wise, we target an increasing operating group EBIT of at least 20%. We think that 20% has a strong fundament. There are also upsides possible, depending on how the next months develop, both on the parcel side as well as on the mail side.
With that said, thank you for attention. Again, apologies for the technical difficulties that we have had in the first part of my presentation. I hope you could still hear at least the main points, and I'm now looking forward to your questions.
Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wish to ask a question may press star followed by one on the touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you're using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making a selection. Anyone who wish to ask a question may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Ivar Billfalk-Kelly from UBS. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. If I start with the banking operations, what does the acquisition of ING's banking division mean in terms of future revenues and profit contribution? How does it change your expectations of run rate towards breakeven and eventually profits? Linked to that, you mentioned a equity increasing by about EUR 100 million by the end of the year. Is that a cash capital injection that you need to make? If not, is that something that will impact your net debt position by the end of the year? Secondly, if I touch on CapEx, you discussed the CapEx for this year. If I look at a comparison between this quarter slide and last quarter's, it looks like the CapEx expectations for outer years have increased as well. Can you please quantify what your expectations are over the coming years and what's driving that increase?
Thank you very much.
Okay. Thank you for your question. Let me start on the CapEx side. Yes, you're right. Enhanced CapEx level starting pretty much 2018, given our very comprehensive capacity expansion program across Austria, where we are either building new or substantially expanding almost every core sorting site across Austria. With the Vienna project, I think we're pretty much not 100% through, but probably 80% through. We do expect that after 2022, these CapEx figures will come down. Of course, with the enhanced footprint of our partner network, including Turkey and including eight geographies in Eastern Europe, we will have a sustainable CapEx level, which is higher than we had three, four years ago. On the bank, yes, you're right. The equity contribution of around EUR 100 million that we talked about is a cash capital injection into the bank.
This stays in the group and will not change our group balance sheet, but will change both the balance sheet as well as the Austrian Post kind of legal entity, local GAAP balance sheet. In terms of contribution to earnings, we believe that a breakeven somewhere second half 2023, 2024 is now a lot better founded than in the past. We have seen a number of headwinds through the pandemic, which also worked against our business plans. With this transaction, we think these targets are now a lot better founded.
That's great. Thank you. Sorry, can I follow up on the CapEx? Forgive me, my question wasn't very clear. If I compare the chart for this quarter to the one from 1Q, it looks like the bars for outer years have been shifted upwards, implying higher CapEx expectations now compared to what you had at this time three months ago. Is that correct, or am I misreading the chart?
Yes. I think I don't have the charts for Q1 in front of me, so I'm not 100% aware of the size of the bars without the numbers. It's probably correct that for next year, also for this year and for next year, we have upgraded our CapEx guidance a little bit. We are currently in the planning process for next year, and I think in November, we'll be in a better position to give a more precise guidance for 2022 and a better outlook for the midterm period. The reason for that increase was, of course, that also the growth in the parcel network was a lot stronger, not only in Austria, but also in Eastern Europe and in Turkey.
Understood. Thank you very much.
The next question is from the line of Muneeba Kayani from BofA. Please go ahead.
Hi. I wanted to ask about margins outlook in the parcels business. What are margins in Aras Kargo in Turkey, and how should we think about margins for the parcel segment going forward? Do you see any scope of price increases there? Secondly, given your CapEx plans and adding capacity of 50% to the sorting centers by 2022, what is your expectation for parcel volume growth going forward? Just on your slide that showed pickup points and all, what portion of your parcels are delivered to lockers or pickup points, and do you expect this to increase going forward? Thank you.
Thank you very much for your questions. Let me start with the margin questions. We do not provide details about the specific profit margins for individual geographies, so please bear with us. For the moment, I think we can share that we have double-digit parcel margins or double-digit margins in Turkey, which is a pure parcel network. Of course, the other result from an industry dynamic where a lot of demand has met constraint supply and Aras Kargo was one of the few suppliers who were able to offer capacity and also, therefore, put demand in some areas, a little bit premiums. Parcel margins going forward, I think we are convinced that parcel remains a quite competitive business with core customers across geographies also building up their own delivery networks.
As a result, I would say, two years ago, we had a target margin of around 7%-8%. I think for the midterm future, maybe there is a little bit of upside to that, maybe one, maybe two percentage points. I think upper end of single-digit margins is probably already a very ambitious target. Short term, next six months, we might have some upsides to that, given that the supply-demand imbalance still exists in certain geographies. On the volume growth, I think we would expect volume growth rates coming down to single-digit numbers as we have already seen for Q2, depending on geography, sometimes higher, sometimes lower. This will, to a large extent, depend on what very big customers do in terms of own delivery network. It will depend on the speed by which they expand their delivery network.
The last question was on the share of parcels going into our self-service solutions. I think we are currently talking about 6%-7% with an objective that this should go to around 10%. We still believe that at least in the Austrian market, consumers prefer delivery to their home, and locker stations are the solutions for customers who are not at home. We do not have specific plans to make lockers the primary destination for all parcels, as it is happening in some markets.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Marco Limite from Barclays. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thanks for the presentation. My first question is actually on mail volumes. I think you mentioned that in the first half you had some special mailing. If I look at Q2 in 2020 and Q2 2021, it seems that on a two-year basis, volumes are still down something like 12% or 13%. Probably the CAGR is still above what used to be your midterm guidance. Yeah, I'm just wondering what's your latest view on mail volumes going forward, and if you think that mail volumes are still affected, I don't know, for example, from low level of economic activity, from GDP weakness. My second question is on your acquisition of ING Austria. I just want to understand a little bit better your strategy there. I think that bank99 was set up as a fee-based business. The strategy was really to sell third-party products.
While with ING, I think you are taking a bit of risk on the balance sheet, clearly with exposure to customers' loans and mortgages. Yeah, just wanted to have a bit better view on the strategy there. Thirdly, just if you can give a bit of color on the July rates for both mail and parcels. Thanks.
Well, thanks for your questions. First, let me start answering the question on the mail volume. Yeah, you are right. As mentioned, in a two-year comparison, the volumes for the first six months are down around 12%, which if you divide that by two and say it has been 6%, which is one percentage point above the guidance of 5%. Still, there was the pandemic and the strong acceleration of digitization. In Austria, in the first three, four, five months, we still had certain sectors with high restrictions or were not operating at all, the whole tourism sector, or the whole event sector. It is very hard to now give a robust guidance going forward.
I would interpret the -6% on average over the last two years with all the impact of the pandemic, that we are optimistic that the future decline of mail is not substantially higher than what it has been before the pandemic, where we guided 5%. Yeah? It's too early to tell. On ING, yes, you are to some extent, right. With ING, in addition to the fee business that we have with bank99, we are taking over an asset portfolio, a loan portfolio. However, with, in our view, a very modest risk given that EUR 1 billion out of the EUR 1.4 billion is mortgage loans with a high collateral behind it. Also, the consumer loan is very, in our view, a rather low-risk portfolio. It has always been also part of bank99 strategy to build up an asset portfolio, however, with a risk-averse approach.
In July, please bear with us that we don't comment on monthly figures. I would say the development that we have seen in Q2, more or less, is what we have also seen in the beginning of Q3.
Just a quick follow-up on this. Given that in Q4, clearly, you had a lot of volumes, it's a very tough comp. Do you still expect volume growth in Q4 2021 against a very tough comp?
Yeah. To be honest, it's very difficult to project now Q4 volumes. The fourth virus wave is now building up in Austria, and nobody really knows what will happen in Q4. I think it's very hard to project. You're right, the comparison is high, but it has been high also in April, May and June and July. We saw single-digit growth compared to a very strong peak last year. We are optimistic, but you're right, the comparison is very high, and it will depend on the environment in Austria.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Christoph Schultes from Erste Group. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. I have actually two questions left. The first one is regarding your development projects. I think you mentioned in your last conference call some details about the Post City Linz project, and now you also present Post Sport in Vienna. Can you give us also here a little bit more information about that, about maybe zoning and permits for when do you expect also the construction here to start? The second question is maybe not so important, but we hear a lot of that in the media. Today, for example, was another article in "Der Standard," touching on this new import taxes and what can it mean for you. Is it related with more risks for you, with more efforts, with more costs? Do you also see here some opportunities on maybe also some profits from that new tax coming? Thanks.
Yeah. Let me maybe start with the second question. You're right. As of July 1st, there is a tax on low-value goods below EUR 22 invoice value that wasn't there before, and a customs process that we are obliged to perform. I think the main impact of this will be that volumes from countries outside EU, in particular from China, low-value volumes will decrease as those goods will become more expensive for customers and the delivery times will get longer as there is the longer and more cumbersome given the customs process. It's too early to tell after one month how this will develop, and those volumes have already been reduced by the pandemic. We are talking more about letter volumes than parcel volumes. I would say the fees that we generate on this should more or less cover our costs. We do not see a substantial opportunity there.
It's more a volume loss that will be the main impact. I think overall, it's probably of limited order of magnitude given total group numbers. On the development projects, a brief comment on the two. Post City Linz is the site of our former sorting center in Upper Austria, where we moved out four years ago, in a city location in the second-largest city of Austria, on the railway station, so prime real estate, where we are now in advanced stages of a development project together with the city, where the next step is to get the rezoning decisions by the authorities, which we expect still this year, early next year. Then we will decide on what to do with that piece of land. It's a bigger project.
There are various scenarios on the table, but I think the most important thing is to get the upgrade in value by the rezoning. This is now our biggest priority. The other project is a bigger piece of land in the city of Vienna in a nice location, which 50 years ago, was rented out to an NGO for sports use, and which will also in the future, to a large extent, be dedicated to sports activities, but there is also an opportunity for residential development there. There we are in the more early discussions, development discussions with the city of Vienna and the various authorities there on what is the best project that fits the needs of the city of Vienna as well as our needs, yeah. Again, there we see a substantial upside in developing this.
Great. Can you also say, you said there would be a revaluation in Linz, and this can be expected for this year. What could that mean for your P&L?
This will not materialize in the P&L. We're talking rather about hidden reserves, given the way we account for these pieces of real estate.
Okay. Thanks.
The next question is from the line of Bernd Maurer from Raiffeisen Bank International. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. Talking about revaluation and coming back to the parcel margin. Adjusting the P&L for parcel logistics for EUR 17 million valuation effect, margin would be more than 13% in the second quarter. Previously or earlier, Mr. Oblin, you stated that positives and negatives effects leveled each other broadly out. Are there any other positive, call it extraordinary effects, in the parcel revenues in the second quarter, which are not COVID related? When I do not want to see the COVID logistics as really extraordinary. That's just a benefit from the current environment we're in. Would this be fair to add the full EUR 17 million to the parcel P&L back? Is there anything what should compensate at least a portion of it?
Well, as I said, there have been positive one-offs. The positive one-offs have predominantly come from one-off projects related with the pandemic that will not continue into the next year, but also will, to a much lower extent, continue into the second half of this year. On the other hand, there was one big accounting negative P&L impact of the revaluation of a liability in connection with a put option of our minority shareholder in Turkey. I would say in terms of order of magnitude, the two things pretty much net out. I would say order of magnitude-wise, the roughly 10%, I think we show for the first six months is a reflection of the- operative profitability or of the, at least in a short-term horizon, more sustainable operative profitability of our parcel business. Yeah. Much on your question.
Yeah. Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Andre Mulder from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon. A few questions. First on the ING activities. As you said and also relate to the question that bank99 was mostly determined by the fee business with a small negative for interest income. Can you fill us in on the composition of the EUR 30 million of revenues? How that is being composed, split between commissions and interest income?
I'm not sure which revenues you are talking about. Are you talking about the actual bank99 revenue?
Yeah. If you look in the first half report, you mentioned revenues of EUR 12.5 million. Further in the report, it splits around EUR 13.5 million coming from commissions on a net basis and a - EUR 1 million on interest income. I'm curious to hear how the composition of the ING activities is.
Of course, for ING, the picture-- So for bank99, given that we don't have a loan portfolio yet, the priority over the last 12 months was to build up the provision-based products. There is, as a result, no interest. There has been no interest income for bank99. I would say for ING, and please bear with us that before the closing happens, we are not able to give real financial details for ING. The picture in terms of distribution will be varied the other way. It's mostly interest income and a lot less fee income.
Related question to that. You mentioned distribution of both the mortgage and consumer loans as well as investment products. Has there been any agreement on the continuation of these investment products with ING?
You mean on the asset management side, whether ING will serve as a partner on those products?
Yep.
Is that the question? No. These are mostly actually non-ING asset management products, and there is some short-term agreement on a cooperation, but not a material long-term agreement. The cooperation will mostly happen for a migration period.
A question on retail and bank. Can you make any statement on what kind of negative we should expect for the full year?
I would expect something with a three and a number behind it.
Okay. Last question is on the volumes. You for the first time mentioned now the volumes, both in Eastern Europe as well as in Turkey. Can you also mention what kind of volumes you made in Austria? Possibly also what kind of volumes you made in the mail side?
Sorry, can you repeat the question? The question was on volumes?
Yeah. You mentioned the volumes for the first half, saying that in Eastern Europe, they amounted to EUR 25 million. For Aras, it was 115. You didn't mention the volumes that you made in Austria. Possibly you can also mention the volumes that you made in those sites, both in letter mail and direct mail.
Actually, we showed the volume development on the pages 10 to 12. Letter mail volumes in Austria, Q1 - 6, Q2 + 1, half year - 3, page 10. Direct mail, page 11, first half total + 2%, which is a combination of - 8 in Q1 and + 14 in Q2, and on parcel, + 20% in Austria with the distribution that you see on page 12.
I noticed the changes, but can you help us with the absolute numbers as well?
I suggest you give Harald a call, and he will help you with the absolute given we are a little bit running out of time here, yes?
Yep. That's fine. Thank you.
There are no more questions at this time. I hand back to Harald Hagenauer for closing comments. Please go ahead.
Thanks, ladies and gentlemen, for participating in this call. We hope to hear and see you soon, and hopefully to see you in the second half of the year if the circumstances allow, in one of the next roadshows. Thanks, and have a good day. Bye-bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.