bpost NV/SA

Ladies and gentlemen, hello and welcome to the Bnode second quarter 2026 analyst conference call. On today's call, we have Mr. Chris Peters, CEO, and Mr. Philippe Dartienne, CFO. Please note, this call is being recorded, and for the duration of the call, your line will be on listen only. However, you will have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of the call. This can be done by pressing pound key 5 on your telephone keypad to register your question. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key 6 on your telephone keypad. I will now hand over to your host Mr. Chris Peters, CEO, to begin today's conference. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you. Good morning ladies and gentlemen and thank you for joining us today. As CEO of Binode, I'm pleased to welcome you to our second quarter results presentation. Joining me today are Philippe, our CFO, as well as Alexandra and Antoine from Investor Relations. The presentation materials were published on our website earlier this morning. We will first take you through the presentation and will then be happy to answer your questions. As always, we kindly ask you to limit yourself to two questions each to ensure everyone has the opportunity to participate during the call. Philippe will first take you through our Q2 financial performance. I will then come back to provide an update on the progress of our key strategic and transformation initiatives during the first half of the year and conclude with our outlook for the remainder of 2026. Philippe, over to you.

Thank you Chris and good evening everyone. As you can see from the highlights on page 3, Group Operating Income for the second quarter amounted to 1 billion 46 million. representing a year-on-year decrease of 46 million or 4%. Most of the decline was driven by people. In addition to the accelerating structural decline in mail volumes, which reached almost 17% during the quarter, parcel volume also contracted by around 9%, reflecting the impact of the five-week strike that took place through April, and which we first discussed with you in early May during our Q1 presentation. At the same time, Paxon delivered solid top-line growth of plus 6.5% in Europe, helping to offset both the impact of the previously-announced customer chain at Royal Eurus and temporary revenue pressure at Stasi Americas. At Landmark Global, revenue was slightly lower year on year, mainly reflecting the impact of the domestic strike on inbound flows from Asia to Belgium. turning to our adjusted EBIT of 29.4 million. With respect to the EBIT strike impact, you can see that our estimate now stands at 25.5 million compared with approximately 15 million when we first communicated on the matter early May, shortly after the end of the strike. Since then, contractual penalties, compensation and other short-term effects have continued to increase the overall impact. Excluding this strike impact, the year-on-year decline was limited to around 3 million euros, which is better than we had anticipated. Indeed, despite the termination of the 679 activities and the accelerated decline in mail volumes, Weighing on BIPO's profitability, Group's underlying performance remained relatively resilient. This resilience was supported by continued EBIT growth at Paxson, despite ongoing top-line pressure in the US, as well as by the positive contribution from the reorganization and operational measures implemented in Belgium. While these factors were not sufficient to offset the exceptional risk impact, they demonstrate the continued effectiveness of our transformation initiatives and the underlying strengths of the business. The strike impact nevertheless has a material effect on our full year outlook and take us below our initial guidance range. Chris will come back to this point in details in a few minutes. Before turning to the performance of our business unit, let me highlight, as shown on slide 4, that beyond the evolution of EBIT, our adjusted net profit benefited from a €19 million improvement in financial results. This improvement was mainly driven by unfavorable non-cash FX effect last year, as well as high net income from our treasury investment this year. These positive effects were partially offset by higher interest expense relating to the bond issued in June 25. With that, let me turn to the performance of our business unit. And now on slide 5, covering B post segment. Revenue declined by 43 million year-on-year to 493 million euros. Domestic mail revenues decreased by 29 million or minus 10.4%. Mail and press volume contracted by 16.8% during the quarter compared to only minus 11.3% last year and 14.3% in Q1. And in line with the mid-teens volume decline guidance we provided earlier this year. The accelerated decline mainly reflects lower transactional main volumes following the introduction of the mandatory B2B invoicing as well as the termination of several advertising contracts. Overall, mail volume decline had a negative revenue impact of around 45 million euros, partially offset by the positive price and mix effect of 16 million euros or 6.4%. Parcel revenues decreased by 10 million euros or minus 7.9% year on year, reflecting a volume decline of minus 9.2% compared to a growth of plus 9.3 in Q1, alongside with a positive price mix effect of 1.3%. As discussed during our analyst call in May, parcel volume declined by around 27% in April as a direct result of the strike. These figures do not include cross-border volume with destination Belgium, which are reported within the LandMax Global that I will comment in a few minutes. Following the end of the strike, we observe a gradual recovery in customer volume, with activity improving week after week. By the end of the quarter, volumes were broadly back in line with last year. However, this means that we have not returned yet to the underlying growth trajectory we were experiencing before the strike and particularly in the first quarter. Turning to price mix, the positive effect during the quarter was driven by a favorable product and customer mix effect during the strike period as large customers did not inject their usual volume. as well as a temporary fuel surcharge. These positive effects were partially offset by contractual penalties and commercial claims related to the service quality issue during the strike. Finally, revenues from other activities, including retail, value-added services and personalized logistics, declined by 4 million euros year-on-year. This mainly reflects lower revenue following the termination of the 679 activities at the beginning of the year, as well as lower revenue from fine solutions, partially offset by higher revenue at Dyna Group. Let's move to the P&L of BPOS on page 6. Including inter-segment revenue from inbound cross-border volume processed through the domestic network, total operating income declined by €44 million or minus 7.1% year on year. On the cost side, OPEX, including DNA, decreased by €21 million or minus 3.9%, mainly driven by two opposing effects. First, we reduced our workforce by approximately 1500 FTEs and interim staff, representing a decrease of around 6.5%. This reflects the benefits of the ongoing reorganization of our distribution rounds and retail operations. Second, these savings were partially offset by higher salary costs per FTE, which increased by 2% year on year following the March 26 salary indexation. This impact was slightly mitigated by unpaid absences during strikes. As a result, the adjusted EBIT declined by 23 million year on year. This includes around 24 million of strike impact, which together with the termination of the 679 contract, more than offset the continued productivity gains delivered throughout our ongoing reorganization initiative. Turning to Paxson on slide 7. As in previous quarters, the performance reflects two contrasting trends. At Paxson Europe, revenue slightly increased by 3% year on year. Across our European businesses and geographies, we delivered a growth of around 6.5% compared with 4% in Q126, with several activities continuing to grow at high single-digit rates. This positive momentum was partially offset by the performance of Stasi Americas, which is reported on the Paxon Europe. Following a contract termination announced in the fourth quarter, year-on-year revenues continued to decline significantly during the first quarter, further impacted by adverse FX effects of around 1.5 million euros. At Paxon North America, revenues declined by 9 million euros. At constant exchange rate, this corresponds to a minus 3% decrease, driven by three factors. First, the expected revenue churn from customers from customer contract termination announced last year. Second, low single digit negative same store sale, although this is a slight improvement compared to the first quarter of 26. And third, these effects were partially offset by the contribution from recently signed customers, which generated around 23 million euro of revenue during the quarter. Let's move to the P&L of Paxson on slide eight. Again, this backdrop, total operating income, remained nearly stable year on year, while operating expense, including DNA, slightly decreased. The development of our cost base reflects the contrasting trends across Paxon geographies, with continued growth in Europe on one end and lower activity level in the US on the other end. Importantly, despite continued revenue pressure in the US, we have maintained a resilient cost structure. Variable contribution margin remained solid, while additional fixed costs and headcount actions continued to support the profitability. As a result, adjusted EBIT increased by €2 million to €23 million in the quarter, driven by top-line growth and productivity gains in Europe and Cost Measures and Relay State Optimization in North America helping to mitigate the impact of the continued top-line pressure. Turning now to Landmark Global on slide 9. At Landmark Global, underlying market trends remain unchanged. However, top-line performance was flat year-on-year as domestic strike at B post negatively impacted parcel volume from Asia into Belgium. Volumes were lost to competition during April and remained under pressure in May while operation progressively returned to normal. On a more positive note, June delivered a strong recovery and growth resume towards end of the quarter. Other European destinations were not impacted by the strike and continued to develop broadly in line with previous quarter. At landmark North America, revenue was slightly up year on year, a constant exchange rate. This reflects on one end modest volume growth in the context of a macroeconomical slowdown, and on the other end, an unfavorable mixed FX driven by a higher proportion of U.S. domestic volumes and lower Canada to U.S. volumes. Overall, landmark global operating income decreased by 2% or 1.6% year on year. As shown on slide 10, OPEX and DNA increased by 3%, primarily reflecting higher transportation costs linked to volume growth as well as higher corporate and ICT charges. As a result, despite underlying growth across most of our commercial activities, adjusted EBIT decreased by 6 million to just under 17 million, reflecting a striking pact of around 1.5 million euros, an unfavorable mixed effect both in Europe with higher share of commercial product versus postal volumes and in North America with higher proportion of US domestic volume and lower US-Canada cross-border flows and higher intersegment charges. Moving on to corporate segment on slide 11. Adjusted EBIT was slightly lower at minus €10 million, primarily reflecting higher marketing and communication and rebranding investment during the quarter. At the same time, we continue to exercise cost discipline, reducing our workforce by around 2% while absorbing the annual salary indexation of approximately 2%. Let me now turn to the cash flow slide on Cash flow on slide 12, sorry about that. Net cash outflow for the quarter amounted to 90 million euros compared with an inflow of approximately 480 million in the prior year period, which benefited from the bond issuance completed in June 25. Excluding this financing effect, free cash flow remained broadly stable year on year. The main drivers were the following. First, cash flow from operating activities before change in working capital amounting to €107 million, representing a decrease of €27 million year on year, mainly reflecting lower EBITDA. Second, changes in working capital and provision, resulted in an outflow of 95 million. Compared with last year, this represents a positive year-on-year variance of 29 million, primarily driven by the timing of terminal due settlement and movement in suppliers' balances. Third, net cash outflow from investing activities amounted to 30 million and remained broadly stable year-on-year. Investment continues to focus on parcel lockers and capacity expansion, the renewal of our domestic fleet and further development of our international e-commerce logistic activities. Together, these elements largely explain the evolution of the free cash flow during the quarter. Finally, net cash outflow from financing activities totalled 73 million euros Excluding the proceeds from last year's bond issuance, the higher outflow mainly reflects the annual coupon payment of 26 million associated with the bond issued in June 2025.

Chris, over to you. Thank you, Philippe. I'm on slide 13 with the strategy and transformation highlights. At BPOST, overall, the April strikes created significant operational disruption during the first half of the year. At the same time, execution of our transformation agenda continued with strong progress across the majority of our transformation initiatives, translating into concrete results. Importantly, these results further validate the strategic direction we have set for the Group. Despite the April strikes, the transformation towards a parcel-led operating model remains firmly on track. Following successful pilots, we are now moving into the scaling phase. September marks an important milestone as we roll out later distribution start times and expand the new dynamic distribution model from 4 to 23 distribution offices. We are further strengthening our leadership position in out-of-home through Belgium's densest locker network. We are well on track to reach our accelerated year-end target of 3,500 lockers, with only around 100 locations remaining. At the same time, locker utilization continues to increase strongly, further reinforcing our multi-channel proposition for both consumers and businesses. Our retail network transformation progresses further through the introduction of new products, services and partnerships. Over the past months, we successfully launched nationwide partnerships with DIGI, a telecom operator, and the home security provider Verisure, strengthening the relevance and value proposition of our retail network. Nevertheless, progress has been somewhat slower than initially planned due to the ongoing discussions on the aid management contract. And finally, our transport activities continue to gain momentum as a new growth platform. We are steadily expanding the pilot now serving more than 20 internal and external customers with over 150 volunteer drivers. This allows us to further validate and refine the operating model under real operating conditions while preparing for future scaling. Turning now to Paxon and Landmar Global on page 14. Across our international business, we continue to make progress against our strategic priorities while each business faces a different set of challenges impacting the pace of progress. At Paxon, commercial development has progressed more slowly than initially anticipated and accelerating top-line growth remains a key priority. At the same time, Our commercial pipeline continues to strengthen, particularly at Paxon Europe, and disciplined cost management has helped protect profitability at Paxon North America. At Landmark Global, our business demonstrates strong resilience, maintaining volumes and defending our key trade lanes, despite increasing trade barriers and the temporary disruption caused by the new €3 EU import fee. We are not yet delivering the top-line growth ambition embedded in our plans. Hence, protecting profitability remains our immediate priority. To do so, we continue to implement structural cost measures including workforce reduction and real estate optimization. In parallel, we further execute our mid-market penetration strategy, diversifying our customer portfolio and reducing our dependence on a limited number of large customers. At Paxon Europe, the commercial transformation is progressing more slowly than initially anticipated. Nevertheless, the commercial action plan introduced by the new BU CEO earlier this year is beginning to generate encouraging momentum, with increased commercial collaboration and cross-selling across the organization, yielding a sustained strengthening of the commercial pipeline. In parallel, we are leveraging proven Stasi capabilities to accelerate the turnaround of selected legacy sites and customer contracts. And finally, at Landmark Global, we demonstrate a strong resilience despite increasing trade barriers and the temporary market disruption following the introduction of the new €3 EU import fee. Through targeted commercial actions, we successfully restored China-Belgium volumes following the April strike and largely mitigated the impact of the new €3 EU import fee. We did so by increasing our volume share with leading Asian platforms and marketplaces, further strengthening our position in one of our most important cross-border trade lanes. So, as you can see, our Reshape 2029 strategy continues to advance across all pillars. Let me now translate this operational progress into financial performance. Philippe has just walked you through our Q2 results. Taking a step back and looking at the first half as a whole, three key observations that stand out in terms of revenue development. First, a significant portion of the group's revenue decline of around €100 million is attributable to our US-based 3PL activity at Paxon. Combined, Radial US and Stasi Americans saw revenue decline by around €62 million year-on-year, or minus 14%, including a negative foreign exchange impact of approximately minus 6%. This decline was only partly offset by the strong performance of our European 3PL businesses, which delivered growth of more than €20 million or slightly above 5%. Second, at Landmark Global, we continued to grow volumes despite a demanding market environment. Revenue growth was more modest due to product mix effects, but overall activity levels showed resilience. Third, at BPost, the anticipated acceleration in mail volume decline to approximately minus 15% resulted in a revenue reduction of around 50 million euro. Under normal circumstances, part of this impact would have been offset by continued parcel growth. However, the five-week April strike disrupted that trajectory. Despite the strong first quarter and the gradual recovery in volumes following the strike, during which partial volume fell by 27% in April, first-half partial revenue ended slightly below last year, resulting in an overall partial revenue decline of around 3 million. Turning now to EBIT, At B post and adjusting for the February 2025 and April 2026 strike impacts EBIT declined by 15 million euro year on year, while profitability continued to be affected by the structural decline in mail volumes and determination of the high margin 679 contract. A meaningful part of these headwinds was offset by the benefits delivered through our ongoing reorganization initiatives and efficiency measures. At Landmark Global EBIT declined by around 10 million euro excluding strike effects. This was despite resilient top-line performance and was mainly driven by an unfavorable business mix evolution both in Europe and in the US. Positive highlight comes from Paxson. Despite a revenue decline of approximately €40 million or minus 5%, largely attributable to the US activity, Paxson delivered EBIT growth of around €6 million, together with a margin improvement. While commercial momentum remains below our ambition and there is still work to do, this performance demonstrates that the actions implemented over recent quarters are moving the business in the right direction. This overview of our first half performance brings me to the outlook update for 2026. I am on slide 15. Based on our first half results and our current view of the business, we are today revising our full year 26 adjusted EBIT outlook to approximately 140 million euro. You will recall that earlier this year we communicated an initial EBIT guidance range of €165 to €195 million with a midpoint of €180 million. So what has changed since then? The first element is the April strike impact, which we could not anticipate and is now estimated at approximately €25 million. Mechanically, this brings the midpoint over guidance range from 180 million euro to 155 million euro and implies a strike adjusted range of 140 to 170 million euro. The second element mainly relates to Paxon. As I have just discussed, commercial development at Paxon is progressing more slowly than initially anticipated. While our first half performance at group level was broadly in line with our expectation, excluding the strike effects, a meaningful portion of our EBIT plan for the second half relied on new business ramp-ups and commercial initiatives that are now expected to materialize later than initially planned. We estimate the resulting EBIT shortfall at approximately 20 million euro to be mitigated by around 5 million euro of additional corporate cost saving initiatives resulting in a net EBIT impact of around 15 million. So if you think about the guidance revision, there is really two distinct steps. First, the mechanical adjustment reflecting the update strike impact and second, the lower than expected contribution from commercial development at Paxon consistent with the trends we have observed during the first half of the year. Put differently, our current expectation of around 140 million euro corresponds broadly to the lower end of our initial guidance range adjusted for the 25 million euro strike impact. With this, we are now ready to take your questions. Again, two questions each, please, so that everyone gets the chance to be addressed during the session. Operator, please open the lines.

Ladies and gentlemen, as a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question or contribute on today's call, please dial pound key five on your telephone keypad to enter the queue. If you wish to withdraw your question, please dial pound key six on your telephone keypad. Please also ensure your line remains unmuted locally. You will be advised when to ask your question. The next question comes from McKeel de Klerk from KBC Securities. Please go ahead.

Yes, hi, and thanks for taking my questions. I have two on the Paxon business, please, one on Europe and one on the US. But first, on Europe, if we filter out, of course, the customer loss that you had in the US, your growth improved to 6.5%. But then if I look at the guidance, you mentioned that you expect some slower Development of business activities in France. What do you mean with this exactly? Is it new customer onboardings or new pillars? If you can elaborate a bit on that, because it's a bit different than what we've seen in the second quarter. And then the second question is on Radio US. So during the Capital Markets Day, you were quite positive on these new customer onboardings, these smaller customers. Now that seems to be trending a bit below your expectations. Can you tell me a bit what the pushback or what the reasons are for this? Why is it more difficult than you originally expected? Or is it just a bit of a delay of a phasing that you just see that some contracts are being postponed into 2027? So you just can comment a bit on those topics, please.

So on Europe indeed, so thank you for the question first. Indeed, your analysis is perfectly right. Despite the growth of 6.5% in Europe, we are seeing that in France particularly, the development is not at the level that we're expecting. You know that we have a point of sale activity which is not growing the sector in general, it's not growing Very fast, but we are experiencing some delays in onboarding new customers for new services. So it's not that it will not happen. I would say it's a delay in onboarding those customers.

On the US, so indeed, when we launched the fast track product, we had a very good traction in the initial part of that. If we now take back the analysis, a part of that was actually due to the fact that the tariffs inclined a number of Retailers from outside of the US that were importing directly towards consumers and a couple of fashion brands that started to do local fulfillment and we could benefit from that momentum that was there at that moment. and we estimated based on that to some extent let's say over exaggerated the growth curve that we could expect going forward that rebalanced in terms of tariff later on which means actually that the pipeline was less filled with these kind of opportunities and therefore it's developing a bit slower than or or expectation that we had at the moment that we made the capital markets day announcement

If I can quickly follow up again on Europe. So you mentioned some delays on new customer onboarding. If you look at the growth of existing customers, the 6.5%, can you break this down a bit? I mean, what part is maybe Radio Europe fulfillment and which part is Stasi? And based on your comment, I would expect this growth rate to come down again in the second half of the year. Is that correct?

So, in fact, when we're speaking about operating in Europe, now we operate as one. All the activities we told you, we moved from an organization just post acquisition, where in every country we had former Stasi, former Radial, former Activance. Now, since the beginning of the year, we're really operating those castries as one and all the sales force, all the warehouses are operated as one. It's very difficult to make the speed, and frankly, for us, it does not make much sense to continue looking what was for the Stasi customers versus for the radial customers. We made the decision to reinforce our presence in Europe in all the geographies where we were present, and we added some, and it's exactly what is happening. Particularly to France, what is really, in fact, there are two elements that are penalizing us. As I said, you know, there were no formal activities from radial arc events. Despite the fact that we want to bring that knowledge on e-commerce into France, which is a competence that Stacey did not have, there it's a bit more difficult to penetrate that market of e-commerce in France so far. While at the same time, the POSM, which is the core of the business we're still having in France, which is really not a growing business. The business as a whole is at best stable, so there is limited growth coming from that kind of activity.

Okay, it's very clear.

Thank you. Welcome.

The next question comes from Frank Claassen from DeGroof Petercam. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. My first question is on the strike impact, the 25 million negative. Is this it or is there any risk of a sort of delayed impact from maybe penalties or loss of market share? So could you elaborate on that? And my second question is on the partial volume growth. We're back to flattish in May-June. What have you baked into your guidance? What do you assume for the second half? Do you expect to return to growth? And how much growth? Thank you.

Okay, so on the 25 million, more or less everything that we had to include is included by now. So if we look at the effects that we had was of course the direct strike impact during the period itself, then you had a Strong decline on the number of clients of which for most of them we could regain their trust and they are in a normal operating mode again. Some of them took a bit of time because we had two effects there. One effect was that some said first you have to fully clean up the backlog before we start to re-inject with you and that took some time. And some other ones had contracted with other players for a certain period of time. an agreement to do for them the last mile and so it took before that contract ended before they came back but at this point of time we have fully recovered of that second thing that you mentioned there in terms of penalties most of the negotiations are in a final state meaning that legal documents have to be finalized but I think that the agreements are more or less finalized for most of those of those penalties and we don't expect new penalties to come in

When it comes to parcels growth for the second half, we expect, in line with our initial guidance, a low single-digit growth.

A low single-digit for the second half? Yes. So not for the full year, but for the second half? No, no, for the second half.

Okay. For the second half.

Yes, okay. Yeah, exactly. All right.

Okay, thank you very much.

Welcome.

The next question comes from Mark Zak from Kepler Shoebrew. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. I'm afraid I just want to follow up on the question from my colleague on Paxon. To me, it's not yet quite clear if the slowdown or the delays in commercial development is kind of Thank you very much. A structural slowdown, so it's not really a delay, but that your initial expectations were just too optimistic. And thus, it's not really a delay, but really less revenues to be expected going forward. For Paxon Europe, you said that there's delays in onboarding new customers. Could you maybe elaborate a bit on what is causing these delays? It's just kind of Operational delays, is it maybe due to, I don't know, grant-specific issues, or is this also some kind of a structural delay that will lead to lower revenues going forward? My first question, I recognize, is kind of a couple of sub-questions in there. The second question would be on Landmark Global. Could you maybe give us a bit of feeling how H2 might develop for Landmark Global? For H1, we are significantly below last year, even excluding striving back. Will you catch up on this a bit on H2 or should be more or less factor in the same delta for H2 on profits we saw in H1? That's my two questions. Thank you.

Thank you for your question, Marc. Let me start with the second one on landmark. In fact, when we show the guidance, we show guidance of mid-single-digit growth with the impact of the strike and all the adverse impact that we have, as Chris mentioned, in the US with the tariffs. We are more targeting a low single-digit percentage growth for the for the top line development. This being said, I think it's important to highlight that in terms of profitability, we're still maintaining our guidance. We might be at the low end of the range, but still meeting the guidance, which is still a very healthy profitability at EBIT level. It should not be underestimated the resilience of the MGI business when we see all the adverse macroeconomic impact that we are facing. There is the one in the US that started, it did not start yesterday, it started a bit at the end of last year as well, but despite that they've been able to develop new lanes to come directly to Canada and also developing some other new lanes destination Europe. So indeed, it's a bit slower, but I would say intrinsically, I think we could qualify what Landmark Global is as very resilient, being able to adjust to macroeconomic circumstances and adjust to customer needs. So I'm a bit more positive than what I'm hearing from your question mark on Landmark Global. When it comes to Paxson, if I start with the US, it's a question of termination of word. When we speak about delay, yes, there is delay in onboarding new customers. But, or is it a permanent loss? No, it's the fact that it takes more time to attract those mid-sized customers. When we launched that fast-track product, it really rocketed in the first quarter, and now it's really plateauing. We have to recognize it, what also, what lead us also to revisit our service offering. Is it the right one? We believe yes. But it's more difficult to attract those customers. Also, not to be underestimated, the same-store sale impact. In the past, we had a development of our base customers that were in the positive territories. Of course, it's come because you are serving them well and they stay with you, but you also benefit from the inherent growth of their business. While since several quarters now, we see that the same-store sale is really in the negative territories. As I mentioned, it slightly leads to be very simple. We experienced a minus five in the first quarter, we experienced a minus four in the second one. Okay, it's a small improvement that is still in the negative territories and that affects us in terms of top line quite significantly. When it comes to France, I would say, I will repeat what I said to Frank, it's more like we are trying to bring new type of services on the French market, what takes more time than expected. Our presence there were mostly known for the POSM, we are bringing new customers, When you bring a new type of service offering based on new competencies, it takes some time, a bit more time. You need to convince some existing customers also to give us those e-commerce type of businesses, but it doesn't come overnight. We are still very confident that we prevail, but it's really a question of delay, I would say on that one.

Thank you very much.

The next question comes from Henk Slotboom from The Idea. Please go ahead.

Good morning all and thanks for taking my questions. I'm afraid it's on Paxon as well. Chris, it's more like a clarification question I have. In your final remarks on the outlook for the current year, for the second half here of Paxon, I got the impression that when you referred to Delays in new contracts and that sort of things, does that relate to contracts that have already been signed and have not kicked in yet? Or is it reflecting the fact that you hope to sign on, to onboard new clients somewhere in the course of the second half year? That was a little bit unclear, so perhaps you could clarify that. The second question I have is you also refer to the fact that you've made a lot of progress in getting back volumes, especially from the Chinese platforms. That is, of course, helping Landmark and have with a favorable position of Liège and Brussels as European hubs. I guess that should offer a little bit of help. But is there a crossover in the direction of Paxom as well? The Chinese, some of them have advocated local warehousing, local fulfillment. Is that something you expect to be able to benefit from? Those were my questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Henk. On the first one, in terms of delays, the way how we have brought it into our outlook is that we looked at the pipeline and the conversion rate, which is a fairly healthy conversion rate that we have seen over the last time. So it's not all signed contracts, but a A applied conversion rate that we have on a very healthy portfolio in terms of different stages that we see within that pipeline that's always the way how we've done it so there's a mix of some things might be signed some things might be in negotiation but on each of those different steps within our pipeline we apply a conversion rate towards the final contract and of course a Thank you very much. If you look at the volume that we see happening, so there, I think that indeed, of course, we benefit from the fact that Liege Airport is a very important hub for the Chinese volumes coming in. The 3 euro impact, as you have probably seen in the press, was written in the press that there was a serious decline in the volumes coming in. We could benefit from that situation and by commercial action capture a disproportionate share of the part that was still coming in. And meanwhile, indeed, we are in conversation with a couple of people, and it's too early to make any announcement on that, that are looking for opportunities for closer to delivery market fulfillment opportunities. As you know, many of them have announced warehouses, some are actually opening warehouses almost as we speak. And so in that discussion, of course, Paxton is in the discussion of multiple parties over there as well.

Sorry, perhaps I can squeeze in a follow-up, Chris. When I look at earlier reports by, for example, PostNL and CTT, I sense an increased activity in the field of opening warehouses and fulfillment centers elsewhere as well. Do you see increased competition in that? You already referred to the Chinese that are coming. Is it something that is of any concern to you, or is the power of the active ends and radials and that sort of things, is it so strong that you say, okay, well, We'll manage that. It won't affect us.

I would say overall market growth is good for Paxson Europe, depending of course on the different markets. We don't have the same strength of position in each of the markets, but typically if a market grows, it's beneficial for us because it means that our conversion rates and our pipeline are better at that moment of time. So as long as you hear that there is more activity coming to the European market, it's typically a positive signal for, let's say, the quality and the healthiness of our pipeline.

Okay, thank you very much. Thank you.

The next question comes from Marco Limite from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got a couple. So the first one is on the de minimis. How do you assess the risk from new European regulation, especially in your landmark business? You were mentioning that June was actually quite good. Do we think that there was a sort of front-loading of volumes? And how do you think that the landmark business will adjust or react to the de minimis? Do we think the second half is going to be challenging? And then my second question is on the new management contract on retail activities. If you could please remind us When does it expire? What is the risk around this contract? What is the revenue that needs to be renegotiated? Thank you.

On the de minimis, so June was pre the 3 euro import fee, the European import fee and so it was a very strong month which showed that we could rebound from the strike. So for us this was more a sign that we could strongly rebound from the strike. What we see now, as I just already mentioned, and it was already in a number of publications, so there was a hefty reduction of the import volumes in the first weeks after the 3 euro import, so you see that the Chinese platforms not have yet fully adapted to that reality, meaning that neither local fulfillment has been completely Delivered to them neither they could compensate by commercial actions the impact of that 3 euro. That being said, the position of Landmark Global was very strong during the month of July as far as we can see. So that means that we actually are quite optimistic that relatively speaking to that market that we actually are fairly competitive going forward. but it's not yet played out fully what the what the end game is of this three euro so the three euro the rebounds after the 40 we've typically seen that volumes gradually will come back not fully and some of that will go to local fulfillment and so how that balances out is a little bit difficult to have a real view on that second thing of course that we should not forget is there's a handling fee coming in later this year and so that as well could have a second effect on that volume in that market and that's an element of course that we will watch carefully and whether of swell or commercial teams are preparing well to ensure that we don't have negative effects on the side of landmark. Can you go on the government contract?

So on the management contract, it will end at the end of this year. The management contract in the past, which is, when I say in the past, the current one, generates €150 million of revenue. The government has expressed its willingness to reduce that amount by €50 million. It's public information. They said to reach their budget, they want to reduce it. and we are in negotiation with the government to see how we could implement that because for us it's quite obvious that the reduction in the top line will not lead to a loss of 50 million of EBIT, will not absorb that reduction of top line by maintaining the same services so we are discussing with the government to see how under which modalities we want to reshape the portfolio of services to reflect the fact that the top line will move from 150 to 100 million thank you but on this there is no risk that the wall of the 150 million disappears so you can confirm that uh

You know, we should be quite relaxed that we only get a 50 million reduction, right? Yeah, there's no further risk on it. It's more a negotiation on the service and cost base.

It's a statement in the government agreement. So that was also made public at the moment that this government started to operate. It's seldom that you see big changes towards a delicate government agreement because then you would question all the elements in a very large government agreement. So it's indeed a very low risk that that would change going forward. But it's not something, as it is a political decision, it's not something that can be fully excluded. But it would be strange that something which is written in hard text in a government agreement, that would drastically change during the course of that government.

And during the discussion that we have, we are speaking about how to implement this 50 million reduction. It's not a question or it could go to zero.

Okay, thank you very much.

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions, so I will hand it back to Chris Peeters to conclude today's conference. Thank you.