Hello, and welcome to the CRH April trading update. For the duration of the call, your lines will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity I will now hand you over to your host Albert Manifel to begin today's conference. Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. Albert Manifold, CRH Group Chief Executive Year, and you're all very welcome to our conference call this morning, which accompanies the release of our trading update in advance of tomorrow's annual and general meeting. Joining me on the call is Senate Murphy, our Group Finance Director Frank Heistikanth, Director of Capital Markets And ESG, and Tom Holmes, Head of Investor Relations. Given the current circumstances, we're all in different locations and dialing in remotely. So please bear with us over the course of this morning's call.
Following some short opening remarks, we will be available to take any questions you may have on our announcement. We have approximately 30 minutes scheduled for our call on we aim to finish up at about 9 o'clock or so. Now before I take you through the key points of our announcement, I'd like you, I'd like to take this opportunity to acknowledge that this has been a very challenging and unprecedented time for all of us. Our thoughts are first and foremost with all of those affected by the COVID-nineteen and the people who are on the front lines dealing with this Global Health Emergency. As ever, the safety of our employees, contractors and customers is our number one priority.
And every effort is being made to ensure that we provide a safe working environment for them to carry out their activities in accordance with the various public health and safety protocols currently in place across our markets. Our businesses across the group are deeply embedded in our local communities. And in an effort to tap in WIBOLA, we can several of our businesses are donation personal protective equipment and further essential supplies to help local hospital communities deal with this crisis. The global spread of COVID-nineteen has significant implications for the economies and construction markets in which we operate We're following the advice and direction of the World Health Organization as well as government and public health authorities across our markets and an extensive range of business continuity measures are in place across our operations globally. This includes enhanced safety and sanitation protocols as well as adjustments to work practices to ensure social distancing is observed.
In an effort to slow the spread of the virus, governments around the world have implemented various restrictions on public gatherings, is moving to people and certain business activities, including construction. The impact of these measures on our operations has been visible since the middle of March, However, the severity and the operational impact of these restrictions vary significantly from country to country. In North America, while emergency restrictions have been implemented in all U. S. States, construction has been deemed an essential activity in most of our markets and is permitted to continue provided appropriate safety measures are implemented.
At this point in time, our operations in the Southeast Central And Western United States have been less affected, but our businesses in Pennsylvania, New York City, Washington States, as well as Ontario and Quebec in Canada have been impacted by government restrictions and construction activities in those markets. Nevertheless, healthy backlogs and a favorable bidding environment continue to provide support for our business. And although the situation remains fluid, we are starting to see early indications of restrictions being lifted across a number of markets. Our operations in Europe have been more impacted today's with nationwide shutdowns implemented across a number of Western European markets, including the United Kingdom, France, and Ireland. As a result, operations in these markets have been significantly impacted in recent weeks.
In contrast In the absence of nationwide restrictions on construction activity in our Central And Eastern European markets, our businesses there have been less impacted to date. In the Philippines, government restrictions implemented in March have resulted in significantly lower cement volumes and activity levels. Turning now to our trading performance for the 1st 3 months of the year. And notwithstanding the evolving situation with regard to COVID-nineteen, the group had a positive start 2020. Group sales for the first quarter were 3% ahead on a like for like basis, reflecting a positive underlying demand environment in our core markets and continued progress on pricing across our businesses.
I'm now going to take you through each of these businesses in turn. Docking with the Americas Materials division. 1st quarter like for like sales were 8% ahead compared to 2019. With good underlying demand and milder weather conditions in our North And Western regions, providing sporting higher volumes and prices across all product areas. Turning to Europe Materials.
Our like for like sales were broadly in line with the prior year as a solid start was offset by the impact of COVID-nineteen related government restrictions be implemented across a number of our major markets such as the United Kingdom and France towards the end of the quarter. And finally to our Building Products division, where like to like sales for the first quarter were 3% ahead of 2019. Favorable volumes together with pricing progress across most platforms was partly offset by the impact of government's intermittent COVID 19 restrictions on a number of our operationally Europe and North America during the last 2 weeks of March. So overall, and as I said, a positive start to the year, but of course, quarter 1 has landed the same status in the rearview mirror. In these unprecedented times, we are firmly focused on protecting our business, mitigating any potential adverse financial effect and ensuring the group is well positioned for future recovery in our markets.
We have a wealth of experience across the group. And our management teams have been through periods of uncertainty in business disruption several times before. At times like this, it's crucial that you take immediate and comprehensive early action And in our announcement this morning, you can see just some of the measures being implemented across the group. We suspended all non essential and discretionary expenditure. We're restricting capital expenditure only to essential maintenance levels.
Strict working capital management measures have been implemented across all of our businesses. Significant cost and restructuring actions are being taken to right size our businesses in line with the evolving demand levels. As before, we're consolidating our operating locations as we adapt to lower levels of production activity, a group wide recruitment phase at the important place. We've implemented temporary layoffs and further arrangements in areas experiencing significant demand weakness and we've implemented 25% salary reductions for all leadership teams and board members. This should give you a flavor of the types of initiatives that are underway across our group, but this is a very fluid situation and further actions will be taken as required.
Deferred and I talk about the financial strength and discipline of CRH in many countries for But it's times like this, in periods of crisis and uncertainty when balance sheet strength and liquidity make a real difference and are absolutely crucial. In this regard, we're in a very healthy position. With the year end net debt to EBITDA ratio of 1.7x, we entered 2020 with significant cash and liquidity available to us and having taken the proportional decision to draw down our 1,000,000,000 credit facility we now have current cash, cash equivalents of over $6,000,000,000. This is sufficient to meet all maturity debt obligations for the next four and a half years, and our remaining debt has a weighted average maturity of over 10 years, so we're well covered from liquidity perspective. And before I turn to outlook, let me briefly touch on some important updates from this morning's announcement.
In March, we announced completion of our most recent phase of our share buyback program. Returning a further EUR 200,000,000 to shareholders and bringing the total cash returned under our share buyback program to EUR 1,800,000,000 since its commencement in May 2018. In light of the recent market volatility or however has decided to postpone our share buyback program until further notice. With regard to the dividends and as announced in February, or has proposed a final cash dividend of $0.63 per share for consideration of shareholders at tomorrow's annual general meeting. Finally, turning to outlook.
The Global COVID-nineteen pandemic is expected to have a material impact on economic and construction activity across our markets in 2020. Due to the unprecedented level of uncertainty regarding the extent and duration of the government actions being implemented across the different countries we operate in, the impact on our profitability for the year ahead cannot be used to be estimated at this time. We continue to monitor the situation closely, and we'll provide further updates when visibility improves. And we have greater clarity regarding our financial and expected financial performance in 2020. Looking beyond the crisis, I convinced that the longer term prospects of CRH remain positive.
Our financial strength a significant financial strength and resilience, combined with our portfolio of high quality assets in attractive markets, Steve is well positioned for the future recovery in our markets. And of course, as we've seen in private economic downturns, construction tends to be or the key beneficiaries of the manufacture of Simris Midters. So with that, I'm now going to hand you back to Q And A I believe there's some questions on the line. May I ask you as before to please state your name and the name of your institution that you represent for composing your questions? And now I'm going to hand you back to the moderator coordinate the Q And A session of our call.
Comes in from the line of Robert Gardiner calling from Davy. Please go ahead.
Good morning all, Robert Gardiner from Davy here. Hope everyone's safe and well. And two questions for me. One, when I was in my mind commenting on, trading in April kind of where where you're seeing activity levels. And if it gives a a kind of sense of what's happening on the ground across your markets, you know, how how does operating, any color there would be would be helpful.
And, 2, maybe on pricing, just just if you could touch on you know, your pricing levels, certainly the like for like sales levels, you know, through Q1 stress pricing tells up very well. I'm just wondering how that's kind of trended. As you've gone into Q2. Thank you. Thanks, Bob.
Nice to talk to you. I hope you too and your family are well as well. Let me take the second part of that question first with regard to pricing. It's an easy one to answer. It's a little bit shorter.
I have to say I'm very pleased with the pricing performance in the first quarter of the year and indeed up to date, both in North America and Europe, and solid pricing across our main market in North America and in line with what we would have expected despite any slowdown we have seen in some of the markets in North American and all markets and price book, the pricing has held up across all markets in all products. And I'm quite pleased with that. And particularly, please, given the turmoil we've seen in Europe, that pricing has also held up very well. And that's good to see that discipline again for, I mean, in 3rd or 4th year of the recovery, but it seems to be deeply embedded. Of course, we have a number of years of pricing to go to get back to what I would consider to be proper pricing levels for our main products in Europe, but pricing discipline holding up well across our 2 major markets.
With regards to the current trading activity and how this pandemic is impacting upon our business, if I start in North America first, probably the regions of the North America and the United States in particular, I should say, that are being impacted are the coastal markets. So specifically in around the northeast, in around New Jersey and New York up into New England, Connecticut, Vermont, places like that are impacted. And in the Pacific Northwest, particularly in Washington States, Oregon and down into California. And there are some other clusters in around Miami and Florida, New Orleans, Detroit, Chicago. But largely, our businesses tend to be outside of those areas.
We're fortunate in that's where our businesses are, but with the exception of the Northeast and Northwest, they're largely essential in interior American business. So broadly speaking, even though there have been shutter and place orders put in place in all 50 states. Construction has been deemed to be an essential service, and therefore, and effectively in 4950 states, is carrying on, particularly horizontal construction. Residential and non residential construction is carrying on as normal in 3839 at the 50 states as well. I would say at the current run rate, of course, the United States, we're probably operating at about 85% of normalized levels because of the the closure in the markets in the United States.
Canada, which is a smaller market for us, is more impacted to come back to shut down early in the March, and that's effectively being shut mid margins, being shut down since then. Ontario left. So an entirely is twothree of our business, by the way, in Canada, and that's effectively all horizontal construction is pretty much being open and going well. So we're probably operating across the United, across North America in total, probably about 85%, eighty-eighty five percent of normalized levels currently at the current time. If I go to Europe and really it fits two stories.
It's Western Europe and then Central And Eastern Europe. As I said, as we said in our statement this morning, there's been a progressive slowdown in shutdown of business from about the middle of March. Obviously, as you would know, we would have no business initially, so we weren't impacted by the terrible events there. But Spain, went next, then France, then UK and Ireland. And then Belgium.
And they're the ones that have been progressively slowing down. And currently, they are operating UKS operating probably about 40% of normalized levels. France and Spain probably at about 30 percent, 20 percent of normalized levels in Ireland is about 20 percent of normalized levels. But I should say those 4 companies operates in total, they generated total probably about 12% or 13% of group EBITDA, because they're not that significant in terms of the impact on our business. If I move further east, Switzerland, Netherlands, Germany, Finland to the whole suede, the business we have in Central And Eastern Europe Components all the way down to the bulk ones.
Continued good levels of activity. There hasn't been a huge impact there, even though there has been some impact operations there are probably operating at summer event. 80%, 85% operating levels across those markets. So it's very variable and it depends where you are. What we have seen over the course of the last, I would say there's been a change in tempo over the last 7 to 10 days.
The conversations that we're having with the various construction, national construction industry federations are very much about how we go back to work I think that's in the industry that we're in construction, we're fortunate in that it is an industry, which is largely done in the open air and whilst some parts of the particular vertical construction is quite labor intensive and, you work inside in in quite tight combined environments, most of the products we sell off are horizontal protect construction. It's in the open air and actual physical distancing, social distancing is quite easy and safe working practices are easier to embrace. And certainly, we're working with the authorities now towards moving back towards work back to work protocols We can see that both in North America and in Europe. And the conversation is moving back towards that, and we can see the progress of those conversations are taking place. And I would expect during the course of the coming weeks, I would expect by mid to end of May that most of those markets will be back to work at some level of activity what that would be.
We will we'll find out, but I think there's a keenness to get back to work in a market you talked about. And I think the protocols are being observed and looked at. And I think that the type of business we do will just largely capital intensive a range point of view producing building materials. It's done it's largely providing materials for horizontal type construction. It's done in the open air.
There probably are some of the easier errors get back to work. But that's currently what we're seeing in our major markets at this moment in time.
The next question comes in from the line of Gregor Kulich calling from UBS. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good morning. Can you give me well?
Oh, hey, Roderick. I hope you're good to know. Yes.
I'm saying to you. Two questions, please. So firstly, if you could elaborate a little bit on the cost trend, particularly variable cost. So energy obviously being the topic, oil price, bitumen, if you
could just give us a bit
of a sense where kind of unit costs are, are trending perhaps in the U. S. And Europe, just sort of a picture that would be helpful. And then secondly, if you could just slash out a little bit more on the cash generation and liquidity side. If you could help us understand, obviously in a scenario where earnings come down, how you can protect free cash flow generation.
Obviously, you talked about some of the levers, CapEx, and so on, but if you could just perhaps wherever you can put some numbers around, you know, where where you can mitigate some of the earnings impact. Cause I think if I look back in time, you know, that in 08 or 9, you know, the group generated quite a lot of quite a lot of cash flow, which I think is is important.
So if you could just give us a little bit more
detail, it would be helpful. Thank you.
Greg, or I might start then with us in terms of cash generation first, then I'll come back to the energy trend second. In terms of the cash generation, a couple of things to say. I mean, 1st of all, we come into this crisis with a very strong balance, which, as you know, at the end of last year, we had net debt to EBITDA at one point seven times. And as where And also, as you saw at the beginning of the year, we obviously started into a year with 1,000,000,000 of cash on the balance sheet on deposits at that point in time. Since then, obviously, as you'll see in the announcement this morning, we drew down on our revolving credit facility, which is a further EUR 3,500,000,000.
And as of today, even taking into account the seasonal investments that you would make in the beginning half of the year in terms of working capital and CapEx, and also the first 200,000,000 buybacks that Albert mentioned in the 1st part of the year. We still find ourselves today in a position where we've got over $6,000,000,000 of cash on deposits at this point in time. So we're starting in with a healthy cash position. Obviously, then the real focus is on is making sure that we mind and we serve and look after that cash as we as we look through the, the 1st number of months, but also looking out to the second half of the year. And there's a number of actions that we've taken.
As we've highlighted today, we're very focused on making sure that all discretionary expenditure has been paused. And anything that's not essential is not being incurred. To take one example of that, you know, CapEx is a good one that people have seen the way we behave in the last crisis and the way we intend to behave in this crisis. From a CapEx perspective, you know that about 50% to 60% of our spend in any year is on maintenance and the rest is on usually expansionary type activity. So it won't surprise you that we've been active on the CapEx already and that we will be looking to pull our CapEx numbers this year back to, again, somewhere in the region, about 60 percent of depreciation.
So somewhere close to, the maintenance CapEx as required. Likewise, on the working capital side, we get very focused, on working capital, and obviously paying a lot of attention to our inventory levels, paying a lot of attention to our receivables and current environment. And again, you know, we are, I would say, are in, you know, full on modes to make sure that we're, watching those two measures making sure that we're not building up any excess inventory and we're taking account of some of the shutdown activities that are going on in our business and also making sure that we're paying close attention to our customers and working with them to make sure that we're managing our signals. So those are areas that are, that are a big, a big focus area. We've talked about as well about, obviously, reducing our cost base in terms of the opportunity to restructure businesses, but also to have temporary layoffs where we have seen production activities shut down.
So all of these are all about preserving cash. What I would say, if you look at our balance sheet, one other comment I'd make is if I look at the health of the balance sheet this year versus last year, we're comfortable that when we get to the half year this year, that our net debt levels will be well below what they were, at the half year last year. We obviously traded very strong in 'nineteen and we had a very strong ends to the year in terms of cash generation, which obviously is reflected in the balance sheet position at the end of the year. So I think that's really how we feel about the the strength, the balance sheet, the strength of our liquidity position. And obviously, while we're on that topic, we have engaged with our rating agencies as well over the last number of weeks.
And again, we're, I think, in a very positive place with the rating agencies, and they continue to affirm our BBB plus rating at this stage. Now coming back to energy and cost trends, I think if you look at it, in terms of the main items that you probably are referring to is really what's happening in terms of energy costs. In the first quarter of the year, across the group on average, you see our energy costs are down about 9 percent across the group. So in first quarter of our performance. And the big feature we watch obviously is looking at what's happening in terms of oil price.
And in turn, what that means for us in terms of our our bitumen activities or asphalt activities. So you can see oil prices down a lot at this point in time. At this stage today, bitumen prices are not yet tracking that decrease in oil. But were they to track that? Then obviously, that's something that we've talked some previous calls where we will look to pass it on to customer.
But as we pass it on to customer, in a declining price environment, obviously, there's a benefit to us in our margins as we will look to hold on to some of that cost reduction into the second half of the year. And I think probably more longer term, if you look at, you know, if we do live in a lower oil price environment and we do live in a lower bitumen cost environment, then that means that for some of our customers who are spending 6 quantities of dollars every year, it means that they can get more volume done for the same price. So I think they're the main trends we're seeing in the business at this point in time.
The next question comes in from the line of O'Hornard Langman calling from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Thank you very much. Good morning, gentlemen. A couple of questions for me, please. Firstly, maybe a general question. When you look at this crisis, How do you think it compares with 2008 2009?
And, generally, how you think you are positioned for it relative to 10 years ago. That's my first question. Secondly, back on capital allocation, is M and A activity completely frozen at this stage? Or could you see in the coming months maybe some small midsize acquisition opportunities maybe from some of the smaller players in the industry? Thank you.
And I think it's quite different to 2008, what we're seeing here, the on preset and the speed of the collapse of markets by the shutdown of those markets is very different. And to what we saw in 2018, hence our response is going to have to be different. However, there are certain things that are the same. We operate in a secondary industry. I am, I don't know what this might be if they're sick to recession.
However, whatever it is, it is. But I think CRH and the industry is starting from a very different place. If you go back to 2008, there were there were models all over the place in terms of construction. We had overbuilt, and, we had clearly had, we would have hangover from that. No bubbles here.
This has been caused by an external event, so it's very different in terms of its nature. And also CRH, by the way, is also a very different business than we than we were back in 2008. We're a much, much narrow business, much more focused business, much leaner business. And I also think that I think it really matters at this stage is, you know, the gray hair that that is on my head, and the head of my colleague, technicolor colleagues experience matters, knowing what to do in these times, and knowing how to manage significant downturns. And having been here before, I did notice very interesting how myself and my executive colleagues within 24 hours moved into a a action mode on this one.
It became clear what the issue was. And I think also our financial strength of Series is very different to awards in 2008. Selling is very well set out for you, the strength of our balance sheet and the cash generation capability of our business. And I think that stands to us as well. And I think another thing to say for me is, the fact that our chief footprints.
We're a much more focused business in, across Europe, Europe and the United States. And if I look at some of the deals that we've done in the portfolio work that we've done over the last few years, that helps us the addition of the Ash Grove business to our Materials business in North America means we're much more focused on the central part of the United States, which of course is the area protected most from this terrible crisis, the terrible virus. The addition of the business we bought as part of the harsh holds in 2014 2015 Central New Eastern Europe on the heavy side businesses. Again, the parts that are being sustained and held up more those strong materials businesses there which will continue to benefit from the stingers packages that they currently benefit from the European Union. It continues to be strong.
And of course, a simpler business because we don't have the big distribution arms that we have in the past would have been, I think, impacted by this. I think also quite importantly is that, you know, our work is very much focused on all the positive things that we're doing We had a lot of clear up to do, at the end of the last financial crisis and we spent maybe 2, two and a half years doing very significant portfolio work besides what we wanted to keep and reshape the business. Doing so, we've ended up, as I said to you, with a leaner business, a more focused business focused on 2 parts of the world, North America and Europe, which we think will benefit stateless packages because quite frankly, the governments of those parts of the world can do so. They have the financial capability to do that. And I think also with the focus end markets that we're in, we have very heavy exposure to government funded projects, particularly in North America, but also in central and Eastern Europe.
And that combined with the financial strength of our business, I think will lead us to whether this storm particularly well and come out into dealer side of the recovery and continuing on how to grow organically, but also inorganically, which makes me to your second point. And, you know, during the course of the last crisis, I remember sitting at the at Milesley's, the chief executive at the time with his right hand guidance us very skillfully and carefully to the 20,082,013 crisis. And during that time, we invested over €6,000,000,000 in M and A and capital expenditure during those 5 years, about EUR 3,000,000,000 in each area. And I know our industry very well. And during that time, I we saw that people looked ahead and saw 4 or 5 tough years ahead and we have conversations with many people in our industry about our opportunities to buy their businesses, like go on for decades.
And when we find that's what will happen is an issue like this will crystallize in their mind the decision that they want to align themselves more. And we find we find more and more people, particularly the bolt ons, particularly the mom and pops, which are the bread and butter of spear age. They will come to us. And the value opportunities there are really will be too good for us to turn down, particularly if we have got the financial strength that we have, which we have going forward. Look, I expect series to be careful and prudent as we always are.
I don't think this is the time for any large scale M and A, but when you see some strong value accretive additions to your portfolio of businesses, I would expect us to capitalize on those. And I would expect it to continue on in the same vein as we did during the course of the NASH Crisis So selective M and A in a prudent way, discipline is always within CRH, positioning ourselves, not just to deal with this, the dates they question we have now, but our mind's very focus on the recovery, the shape, and speed of that recovery and making sure that we can benefit, from that recovery when it comes to matches with organic growth in our market positions, but also would be beneficial in our current growth as well. Thank you, Anna.
The next question comes in from the line of Paul Rogers calling from Exane. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone. Hope you're well in Dublin. However, you're calling from today. Just a couple of questions for me. Answered.
But first of all, you referenced the U. S. Backlog situation, and I think you said they continue to be quite good. Is it possible to put any numbers on that? Just to sort of help us understand the sort of pent up potential and what sort of demand we could see when the restrictions are lifted.
And then secondly also on the US, you've made some comments by region, but I wonder if you can say a bit more by end market, and specifically, whether you're seeing any concerning signs in the nonresidential sir. Thank you.
Okay. Paul, two questions there. I'll take both of them just to get the related to some extent. With regard to U. S.
Backlogs at this stage, probably ahead by about 2% to 3% actually, and actually even before even before backlogs that this bidding season, so bidding turns in the backlog when we win bids and the bidding season is also a good indication of what the backlogs turn into business and the bids turn into backlog, if I put it that way too, the bidding season is very strong. In fact, what we're getting from a lot of the states is, is is codification that they have surety of supply. I think at this time, the states realize it's important to keep their economies moving. Construction is one of those areas that can go, and they want to make sure that we can continue to supply their markets. By the way, that's not just in the United States.
That's in all markets, in the United Kingdom as well, anyway. So I think the backlogs ahead by about 3% broadly speaking, but even stronger indication on the bidding side as we go forward. So that would give us a look forward to probably about 12, 16 weeks ahead. So we would be bidding work now for sort of July, August kind of work. So that looks particularly strong.
And with regards to the individual NGS markets, well, look, I've just answered the question there for public infrastructure there by telling you that in terms of what the answer to that market look it looks good in terms of going forward. With regards to res and non res, and some trends out there, some contrary out there with regards to non res, which look very black. I saw the API overnight there. And broadly speaking, actually, I think the nonwares construction, it's hard to look through it because you find in areas where there is a shutdown in vertical construction, it's obviously very impacted in areas where there's no shutdown on vertical construction it's not as much impacted. Some good strong growth in particular areas in data centers, warehousing, in particular, particularly out in the western part of the United States, it's a little unclear to draw any long term trends on BGS.
I'd want it perfectly though. At residential, the way residential goes, you really won't know where residential is until about 3 to 6 months. But what will happen is, I mean, there's projects that are ongoing at the moment. All developers will finish out the work that I put in. There's no point in believing a housing scene happens.
They must be finished and completed because then they can convert them into cash. So no matter what happens, the banks, whoever, maybe they will continue to finance the the the developers doing that. I think we'll have to watch and see what the next phase is like to see get to get a longer term trend. I was about to say that we we didn't recover back to one of the long term housing, demand levels. We're still at sort of, at one point, even though it's and it starts off by end of the year quite well last year.
Interest rates continue to be very low, but it's a question of exactly how we start to get through this next phase and how the U. S. Economy start to recirc at some confidence in itself, I think we'll determine particularly the the residential sector. So I don't think you'll see clarity on the residential position until they finish out the current works that are underway, and that will be using online over the next 2, 3, 4, 5 months. And then with regard to non res, it's tough in the places that are shut down, but then it that's because they stopped all vertical construction, but in the places where it's not shut down, it's broadly coming on reasonably well, yes.
That's great. Just one very quick supplementary. I see U. S. Aggregates prices are up 1% year to date.
That's a little bit shy of maybe what the industry was talking about. Is there anything specific going on there?
No. No. That's just me it's early season mix. If we it it just if you look at early season, volumes are very low. And if you have a a a slightly higher percentage of low grade fill, it looks very low, but as the year on wise and you start to get a more normalized mix and balance through your businesses, that look better than I was expecting some of the duration of the 3% to 4% in the course of this year.
That's great. Stay safe. Thanks guys.
You too, Paul. Thank you so much. Thank you. I think this time may be for me. Just have one more question with us.
Okay. So the final question comes from the line of Lodi Wong from JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. I hope everyone is safe as well. So maybe if you could if I have a little bit on the impact that you've seen on EBITDA, Q1 sales up 3% like for like, we have an early cost tailwind is it fair to assume that the EBITDA went up over proportionally than yourself. And speaking about operating leverage in general, you've talked in the past about through around 20% between the last crisis.
Is this still a fair assumption to have in mind? Or should we think about something even lower given the cost actions that you have taken already? And lastly on CapEx, I mean, you're talking about reducing CapEx, obviously. Could we have a little bit of an idea of what the maintenance minimum would be? Like, if you could quantify a bit versus the $1,400,000,000 in 'nineteen?
Thanks very much.
Alright, Eddie. I'll have a go with those questions. In terms of the first one about EBITDA, in terms of Q1, yeah, as you say, as you pointed out, we pointed out some results this morning. Obviously, our first quarter sales are ahead on a like for like basis, 3% over last year. Basically, we don't just we don't disclose, Q1 EBITDA within that, but you can rest sure that the EBITDA performance was better than 3% like for like, so that there was positive, leverage in that performance in the first quarter.
Basically, 1st quarter, as you know, is a small quarter anyway. So it's it's not that significant, and we've obviously moved down and the world's moved down since then. In terms of leverage, I think your overall comment we guide, as you said, to a 20% leverage scenario in the, you know, long term when you look at it that way, I would still hold that type of number in terms performance. I think specifically on your CapEx then, yes, as I said, our ambition and the actions we've taken are about taking our CapEx numbers back down to somewhere in the range of about 60% of our depreciation. And as you point out, looking at our performance last year, pre the lease accounting activity, we would have been at about $1,300,000,000.
And then, obviously, we're talking about taking that number down to somewhere in the region about 60% of that in the current year. And there was obviously some of these costs as well, but they likewise come down from last year.
Great. Thanks very much.
Okay. Thanks, Melody. Look, I think that's all we have time for this morning. I just want to thank you all for your attention. And as always, if you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to get in touch with our Investor Relations team.
We look forward to talking to you again on the 20th August when we report our interim results for the 1st 6 months of 2020. All of you just might as well, and stay safe and we'll talk to you then. Thank you very much for your time today.
Thank you.