Ontex Group Nv Ord

Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. This is Geoff Raskin from IARC. I'm pleased to have today with us Gustavo, our CEO, and Geir Peters, our CFO, to present the third quarter results. Before that, let me remind you of the safe harbor regarding forward-looking statements. I will not read them out loud, but I will assume you will have duly noted it. You're well aware that since 2022, our P&L is based on continuing operations, which consists of our core market activities only. while the emerging markets are reported as discontinued operations. We have already divested or are in the process of divesting most of these. But meanwhile, these activities continue to contribute to our results. Please note that since the start of the year, we have changed the definition of free cash flow. To reflect free cash flow after financing and the operating savings in our EBITDA bridge, we have adjusted to a net figure after subtraction of implementation costs. We have now also adapted the presentation of the year-on-year bridges for adjusted EBITDA, isolating only the translation impact of foreign exchange fluctuations, both for Q3 and for year-to-date figures.

With that cleared up, Gustavo, over to you. Thanks, Geoff. I'm proud of the on-text teams with a solid delivery in Q3 as summarized on slide three. First, we continue to grow volumes by 4% with double-digit growth in adult care and double-digit volume growth in North America baby care, two of our focus areas supported by a strong sustainable innovation pipeline. Sales prices were lower, reflecting past raw material price decreases, leading to a revenue growth of 2% like for like versus quarter three last year, and 3% more sequentially compared to quarter two this year. slowing, showing continued growth in the year and making quarter three the highest revenue generated in core markets since 2021. Second, the adjusted EBITDA margin rose to 12%, 2.4 percentage points higher year ago, and adjusted EBITDA rose 29%, driven by volume growth and continued strong delivery on the constant formation program. Third, With lower debt and increased EBITDA, we brought our leverage down further to 2.4 times, strengthening our balance sheet. These solid results are the outcome of the laser-focused execution of our strategy through the defined three value creation drivers. On next slide now, and before digging into this, let me highlight the agreement we reached to sell our Brazilian business to Softis. We expect the deal to be closed during the first half of 2025, by which we will receive net proceeds of about 82 million. This transaction will thereby not only allow us to focus even more on retail brands and healthcare in Europe and North America, but also give us additional means to transform the company further, building on the three value creation drivers that you see described on this slide. Starting first with competitive and sustainable innovation. This quarter, we launched our next generation of baby vans, DreamShield 360, with our unique and patented pee and poo barriers and a 360 fit for all around protection and comfort. We anticipate a strong uptake from this product, as we already see with our latest baby diaper innovation launched in quarter two with integrated and patented stop and lock anti-leak technology. In feminine care, we introduced satin-sense tampons, improving comfort with its silky coating, ensuring smoother insertion and removal. And in adult care, we are deploying our channel X-Core technology, a new core design that meets the top three needs of adult consumers. protection, comfort, and discretion. These innovations also are environmental benefits, reducing plastic consumption. On that topic, I would like to congratulate the ONTEX collaborators and the sustainability team in particular for the Ecovalleys gold rating for ESG transparency awarded recently. They are doing a terrific work in that field. This innovation pipeline is the fuel for our business expansion ambitions shown in the next slide. We recorded double-digit volume growth again in adult care category with our strong position in Europe supported by consumer trends. We also continue to grow baby care volumes by high double-digit with retailers in North America, with new contracts having started in the last quarters and continue onboarding of new customers. two in the first half of the year, and now two more in quarter three. The combined effect of a strong innovation pipeline and our commercial initiatives are helping us to build solid long-term partnership with our customers. And third driver is best-in-class operations, where we reduce our operating costs again by 4%, gaining competitiveness by a relentless implementation of our cost transformation program. A key milestone to pursue this effort is the conclusion last week of the social plan regarding our Belgian footprint transformation. We will close ECLO plant by year end, and we will transform Bougainville over the next year and a half into a center of excellence for research, development, and production of medium and heavy incontinence products. While these are very difficult decisions to take, to make, They aim to strengthen our operational cost efficiency across Europe, enabling us to improve our competitiveness further. That being said, I leave you over here for the details of the financials.

Thank you, Gustavo. So we are now on slide seven with the revenue bridge for Q3 versus last year, showing like for like the growth of 1.7%. As Gustavo already mentioned, out of this 1.7%, volume and mix grew 4.4%. The main contribution came again from adult care with volumes growing double digit, as it did in the first two quarters. Adult care is now the largest category in our portfolio. We have a very strong position in Europe, especially in the institutional channel where we gained this year new contracts. Also in the retail channel, we noticed further growth supported by societal trends with a growing and more active aging population. Volumes were up in baby care as well. In Europe, they were stable, thus we outperformed the market. Overall market demand continues to reduce slightly in line with the lower birth rates, and at the same time, this quarter, retail brands are not gaining share due to continued intensified promotion activity by branded players. Then in North America, however, baby care volumes were up double digits with a steep drop ramp up in production. This is supported by several new contract gains this year, with two large new retail contracts that started up in Q3. While retail is growing fast, we are more selective in contract manufacturing, where we mainly focus on a limited number of lifestyle customers. I've also been more selective keeping focus in feminine care, which explains the lower sales volumes in that category in the quarter. Sales prices were 2.6% lower year on year, reflecting the drop of raw material prices in the past periods. The sales prices thereby normalized after the huge increase in 22 and 23. Compared to Q2 this year, our sales prices have stabilized, as did raw material prices. Sales prices remain, of course, an instrument to strengthen our competitive positions, combined with innovation, reliability, quality, and of course, excellent added value services. So, we will further engage in limited price investments, but this will be more than compensated by higher efficiency. This brings me to slide eight with the adjusted ABDA bridge. The adjusted EBITDA grew 29% to reach €56 million in Q3. Let me go through the different building blocks. The strong volume mix, as explained on the previous slide, contributed €8 million. Our cost transformation program continues delivering significant savings, this quarter amounting to €40 million net of implementation costs. And as before, this comes from multiple improvement initiatives in purchasing, manufacturing, logistics, and product innovation. These reduce our operating cost base year on year by 4%. Next, you see the 12 million Euro impact from lower sales prices. But as I explained before, this is more than covered by decreased raw material prices. The industries driving these prices have been normalizing gradually after the peak in 22. And currently, raw material prices are stabilizing. If you look at the impact year on year, this is still a significantly positive. Other operating costs were up 10 million euro. This is explained by continued inflation of wages, energy, and logistic costs, but also, and this quarter more than before, by inefficiencies in our supply chain due to production ramp-up and asset transformation. These are of a temporary nature, and we expect these to bring important savings in the future. Finally, SG&A costs were also slightly up with inflation and Forex translation effects at a limited negative impact. All in all, the adjusted WDA margin further strengthens, growing from 9.5% in Q3 last year to 12% this year. And finally, we can see further strengthening of the balance sheet on slide nine. Net debt, which is presented in green here, landed at 579 million euro at the end of September, which is 9 million euro better than in June, and even 86 million Euro improvement compared to the start of the year, thanks to strong adjusted EBDA generation and the disposal of Algeria and Pakistan. This lower debt drives down our financing costs thanks to a minimum use of the revolving credit line and a lower margin which is based on the leverage grid. The adjusted EBDA for the total group generated in the last 12 months and adjusted for scope changes further rose to €241 million, which is shown in blue. And then in orange, the leverage ratio dropped further to 2.4 times, improving compared to 2.5 times in June and 3.3 times at the start of the year. This brings us in an even stronger position to realize a successful refinancing, which we are actively preparing. I hand you back over to Gustavo for the outlook.

Thank you, Geert. I'm pleased about the further progress we're making on our transformation journey. We confirmed our 2024 outlook, which we revised upward in July, for our adjusted EBITDA margin at about 12%, for free cash flow with more than 20 million euro, including payout of about half of the Belgian social cost, and for leverage ratio to remind below 2.5 times. On revenue growth, we were probably a bit overenthusiastic raising the outlook in July. The onboarding of new customers in North America, combined with the ramp-up of additional capacities, resulted in the facing of our orders and deliveries. This led us to review our revenue growth guidance, now expecting it between 2% to 3%. We are in the middle of our transformation journey, and I feel more comfortable now to say that ONTEX is back, and maybe stronger than ever before. We compete in a very attractive market. We have a best-in-class experience team. We have successfully executed two major milestones this quarter, all while consistently delivering improved financial performance. And with this, Hird and I are ready to answer your questions.

Before handing over to the operator, could I ask you to state your name and firm and limit your questions to two? If time allows, we'll do a second round for additional questions. And if not, then feel free to contact IR afterwards. Operator, over to you for the practical details.

Thank you, Mr. Raskin. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad, and also just make sure that your line is not muted until I single-reach your equipment. Our very first question today will be coming from Wim Hoster of KBCS. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thank you and good morning all. I have a couple of questions around the US business. Can you maybe elaborate a little bit more about a couple of things first? How many contracts are there still to ramp up and what kind of ambition do you have for Q4 and beyond? Yeah, strong double-digit growth also for Q4 and then continuing in 25, if you can elaborate a little bit around that. And then also, yeah, in light of the ramp-up efforts and the capacity expansions, how is the profit evolving in the U.S. business? So those were the questions. Thank you.

All right. Thank you, Wim, for the question. In US, the onboarding of the new customers is as we were expecting since the beginning of the year. At the beginning of this year, I mentioned that we, at the end of 23, we were doing very good meetings with new customers, and we were expecting these onboarding customers sequentially throughout the quarters of this year. So, there are two effects here. One is the onboarding of new customers is happening exactly in the way that we were expecting. And also the orders in the way that we were expecting and our ramp up in terms of capacities and deliveries is what we are spreading throughout the quarters. So what we can expect towards the fourth quarter is us definitely continue growing because we are, ramping up all those sales quarter by quarter, and will continue to be a strong growth in baby care in North America. And as you can imagine, that is also continue now in 2025 and also 2026, because our relationship with the customers, long-term relationship there. onboarding of new customers, the existing ones, which were exactly aligned as we were expecting for this year, has happened, and we are wrapping up on that deliveries to them. And once we are in 2025, we will compare with, you know, 2024, and we are going to have much more increased top line sales in 2025 versus 2024, because we are increasing deliveries to customers quarter by quarter. That is in terms of the revenue, in terms of the top line. In the profit side, yeah, here.

Yeah, on the profit whim, I can briefly comment. First of all, we always said that U.S. was still very dilutive for the overall profit, which is, of course, still the case, because we're The driver is, of course, the important economies of scale that we will realize in the coming months, step by step. And on top, currently, with the ramp up, it comes, of course, with a lot of inefficiency costs at this moment. So, we will have a double impact next year. Those, of course, very profitable contracts, they will bring us economies of scale. And there will be less inefficiencies, and we also will go more and more in that cost transformation program we have in Europe. We always also will have in U.S. So the purpose is that that dilution will not be dilutive anymore in the future.

Okay. And is that the case in 25 already, that you should reach similar margins, or is that a general statement more towards the medium term that you just made? Yeah.

Yeah, I think the steps will go very fast by quarter by quarter, but reaching the levels in Europe, there we will definitely need more time. It's not a question of quarters. That's a question of a longer period.

And if I can add to that here, it also, one of the points that here mentioned was the inefficiencies is because we are increasing capacity in U.S., so meaning that we are starting up machines. And while we are growing, we will continue increasing capacity. We will continue startup machines. So it's not yet fully reaching, and it all depends on how much we are going to keep growing the business. But definitely the scale that the business in U.S. is already reaching, it will start being a big driver in our profitability in that business. So the growth is on in terms of not just top line, but in terms of profitability is going to be impactful.

Okay. And last question. Are you willing to share a kind of revenue target or ambition for 24 and 25 in the U.S. business?

No. Not yet. Okay. Not yet, unfortunately. Sorry. No, no, no. today for 25, but as I was mentioning, I'm trying to be very clear. So, imagine I'm going to be as much as transparent as possible. We have added in Q3 and Q4, Actually, in Q3 and Q4, we are adding new deliveries to new customers that they were not existing before. So, and those customers are starting, right? And imagine that they're going to be fully in during starting in Q1, Q2, Q3, and then you're going to compare versus the previous year where those customers were not there. And I can tell you that the size of the customers that I'm talking about are sizable customers in U.S.

Okay, I understand. Thank you very much for all the explanations.

You're welcome. Thank you, sir. We'll now move to Ferdinand De Boer of the group Petercam. Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. It's Ferdinand De Boer from the group Petercam. I'd like to come back because, Gustavo, you said that the onboarding of these new customers is going according to what you were expecting. Where is then the delay? And if you then have to warn for the sales growth for the full year, is it then due to lower volumes or is it also a price component which is negative price component which is stronger than you expected? And also maybe it's all related to the same question, what about Europe? Is that still according to your expectations or do you I have the feeling that because of the efforts of the branded companies that you are having less growth than expected. So that's actually my first question. And then the second one is on the price outlook because it was now minus 2.6%. Any comments on that one for the coming quarters? And then maybe last question you mentioned in your presentation, the refocus of Femcare. which also had quite some negative growth in the quarter. Could you elaborate a little bit on what you exactly are doing there and what we could expect in the coming quarters for that one?

Yeah. Hi, Fernand. Thanks. So I'm going to go in the order of the questions, perhaps mixing a little bit. But so your first question is about if the onboarding customers are going as expected and why the delivery is a consequence of less volume or is a different type of consequence, why we are changing the guidance that we raised in July. And there is not because we have lost any type of customers or nothing about that. It's on the contrary, we did all the onboardings of the customers as expected. All the expected also contracts and long-term relationship with the customers are going very, very well. And when I'm saying very, very well, it's because we have a true partnership with them. We are working with them. And through that partnership also, we realized in a combined way that spraying the volume through the quarters, it was better. than, you know, facing all together. So, that is the, as it is so big, the volume growth in US is impacting on our total expected, you know, volume growth. And, but it's still significant volume growth. So, it's more about spreading this growth through the third quarter, fourth quarter, and first quarter next year, more than not no more. It's only that instead of that we we have, you know, we have any particular problem with not boring any of the expected customers in us. So all that front is going well. We are delivering the right quality, we're really delivering the right timing. So I'm saying that and I'm I'm very, very happy in the way that we are ramping up this growth, significant growth in U.S. But of course, that perhaps, you know, there is always some bumps in the road. In terms of the pricing, no, has no pricing impact in U.S. The pricing is not the impact. We are delivering the pricing that we, there is no pricing problem there. And then you asked the question about Europe. In Europe, we are delivering based on our outlook in terms of volume growth, in terms of even I know that in our presentation, it was said that baby care in Europe is steady, while the market trend perhaps is not. So we are regaining something there back in terms of share, but is steady positively, not negatively. So, I'm very happy as well how our innovation pipeline is helping us to keep growing this relationship with existing customers in Europe and also how this innovation pipeline in baby care and in adult and in family, we are having these meetings in Europe. The prospects there are very, very good. In terms of Pricing that you were asking also, I guess that you're referring by the lowering the pricing, the price 2.6% lower pricing. That is because it's carried over from the pricing because this is compared third quarter of 24 versus third quarter 23, which I would say that was, almost the peak of the highest price that we have had. Starting in fourth quarter 23, don't know if you remember or not, but we already started to saying that we were adjusting the prices based on the new material price decreases. So then when we compare this quarter, quarter three, versus the previous year quarter, then it shows the biggest gap. But when we compare quarter three this year versus quarter two this year, that pricing is stable. So we are not facing lowering prices anymore. Although that I just want to say that all of our cost information program is helping us to deal with the ups and downs potentially on the cost front or the ups and down on our competitiveness. That's why it is so important to continue with this transformation program. In terms of feminine care, we, I, several times I was talking about selective categories, that we focus on selective categories, like baby pants, like adult care pants, to push forward strong growth. And we are delivering those. not just because they are trending in the markets, consumer strengths indicate that, but also we have good competitive advantages in terms of those lines. So our focus is there. In feminine care, we do have also focus on tampons. We have focus on certain lines of feminine care. But the consequence of our decomplexification program that I have been also referring in the past which gave us the opportunities for big cost transformation savings. This decomplexification came, as you can imagine, in Feminine Care, there is huge amount of SKUs, huge amount of portfolio spread. And in this process, of course, that we all under our criteria and initiatives in this process, We know that we were going to lose and adjust some volumes in the feminine care, but we are prioritizing in those that we want to make a difference. So, it's a matter of stabilizing that business, but we are stronger now than before in how we compete there and the margins that we're getting in those business. I hope that I was answering and you always let me know.

Yeah, no, very clear. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Thank you, sir. We'll now move to Patrick Folin, calling from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Hey, good morning or afternoon. How should we think about the baby care like-for-like development in 2025 when stripping out these phasing impacts, I guess. And what I'm kind of asking is the headwind we saw here in Q3, the uplift we should expect to reverse next year, and is that kind of the bridge basically between your new guide and the previous guide? Is that like a good way to view it? And just my second question, just on adult care, can you just give a little bit of color on the share gains and institutional channel and the supportive retail market you saw in Europe? Thank you.

Mm-hmm. Okay. So, in terms of the baby care, I guess that the question was referring to U.S. Is that right, Patrick?

Yes. Yes, correct.

Yes. Okay. So, in baby care, yes, we're going to, we will continue to see strong, high double-digit growth in U.S. retail market. And that is as a as a consequence of onboarding new customers, important customers, and those onboarding new customers are a long-term relationship. So, it's not a short-term thing. So, 25 will continue to see that significant growth. In terms of adult care that you asked as well, It's a good question. For us, it's very relevant. Adult care is a very growing segment, aging population, active aging population, which is very, very important that that point that is active, we are getting more and more active at longer ages. This type of product supports that activity of the aging population, and also the trend or the adults are less, you know, the what we call perhaps the shame factor, you know, they are more into the category accepting the help that this category give in terms of having a normalized life. So, our growth is in both in the institutional channel, as well as in the retail channel, because this, market trend, this consumer trends goes in both ways, and especially in the retail growth. And retailers also support this growth, and it's quite interesting to see how we are operating together with them, with our plans, working together in the strategic plans to develop more and more this category, which the categories is formed by three segments. You have the light incontinence, the medium incontinence, and the heavy incontinence. And one of the questions before from Fernan that was related to feminine care, also we have to understand that there are people transitioning from feminine care products into light incontinence product, because there are more, there are a lot of consumers a woman using feminine care for incontinence reasons or incontinence needs. And now they are more and more into light incontinence products. So that is another reason of the growth in incontinence products and less in the feminine care products. But then you have the medium incontinence, which is a product that gives you the opportunity to enjoy your everyday life in a much more comfortable way and you feel protected and assured that you're not going to have any type of accidents while you enjoy your life in the outdoors. So it's a very, very solid category, and we have a very strong pipeline that customers are appreciating, and we are developing good, you know, growth strategy enhanced with them. In institutional channels, sorry that I'm doing long, but I'm excited about this category. In the institutional channel, ONTEX holds a very strong capability, internal capability to compete and to be a very, very strong competitor in that institutional channel. So I'm very, very pleased with the work that our teams are doing in terms of that, giving solutions to consumers through that channel. So very important category for us.

Super. Thanks, Gustavo.

You're welcome, Patrick.

We will now move to Marcus Schmidt, colleague from Adobe HF. Please go ahead.

Yeah, thanks for taking the questions. I have actually one question on what was just said, and that was that you're actively, when I got that right, that you're actively looking at refinancing the bond. Maybe you could clarify what you mean by that if you would deem, obviously, the current window which is open in the market maybe as a point for you to refinance the bond. And apart from the second question would be unless nothing happens with refinancing, but you said you have net proceeds of 82 million next year when you sell the Brazilian business. The RCF was at 32. So assuming we will pay down the RCF, what would be the capital allocation for the other 50 million? These are my two questions. Thank you.

Okay. Thanks for asking. I will, of course, take that one. On the refinancing, yeah, we said what we said. That means we started preparing. It doesn't mean that we're going to jump the coming month or two months on the high-yield bonds. We still have quite some time, and we believe it would be good to – realize the refinancing between now and mid of next year, well ahead of the expiration date, which is we will be more than 12 months before. But, of course, we started preparing all that. We noticed that there's also quite some appetite, so we feel in a good position. It's, of course, thanks to our importance successful transformation we're going through and the leveraging we did. So that's also we try to find the right balance at this moment between improving further the company, because what we explained, we took the two big steps now also on the social plan and on Brazil. So, we are looking for the right moment. So, you will see it coming up in the period between now and half year. On the capital allocation, yeah, I don't have an exact allocation. Of course, I can mention to you now, but we will take care, of course, going for the lowest costs for the company because we are, of course, very much cash flow driven. At the same time, to have sufficient headroom, but we are sure that with the current cash flow generation, of course, also the proceeds of Brazil, we can work with a much lower gross debt than we have now. So we will bring down the gross debt significantly and then allocate it in a smart way between the different products.

Okay. So just to clarify one question here. So when you see until mid-year, then it would obviously mean when you go by that, it's rather July than June because then the call price steps down to 100, right? But you will not clarify more, I guess, if it was a sooner call or a later call, right?

You will see it happen, and we will do it in a smart way, which is the best for the company, of course.

Okay, good. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for your question, Mr. Schmidt. We will now move to Mr. Reg Watson calling from ING. Please go ahead.

Good afternoon, all. Gustavo, I'd just like to come back to your answer to Fernand's question about this change in the guidance and the ramp-up of new customers and their orders in the U.S. If I've understood the answer correctly, it sounds to me like what changed between the first half and the guidance upgrade and now this third quarter and the guidance downgrade is that you are not able to deliver as quickly as you had originally expected. I'd like to understand the reasons for that, please. That's the first question. And then the second question is related to that. It sounds to me that as a result of this, you're going to lose sales. Can you quantify, please, how much sales you will have lost as a result of the slower than expected ramp up? Thank you.

Yeah. So, what in terms of the U.S., Greg, I mentioned that all the onboarding of new customers is as expected. Not exactly perhaps everything in the same timing, but all of them, they have happened already and they are secure with us, right? So that is a very important point. Then when I'm referring about the timing, sometimes it's not, you know, very quickly, and I'm not, it's very borderline what I'm saying. But imagine that this is a partnership that you do with a customer, and there are things that the customer needs to do, things, of course, that we need to do in order to start deliveries, right, or start production, actually. Start production, and then start deliveries. This type of, you know, fine-tune last time, last time, last moment is what it creates some delays and not lost. I would say, I will not call it lost of sales, but I would call it delay on the deliveries. So, I'm trying to express as much as possible and just, I would say blame to my over-enthusiastic moment in July when I raised the bar is because they were coming, everything, all the planets were aligned in that moment. And yeah, then based on our partnership of working with the customers, beginning the third quarter, we found a best way to deliver and to ramp up all this onboarding to spread the volume throughout third quarter, fourth quarter, and first quarter next year. So, it's more about that. I know that it's disappointing because the guidance was one thing, then we change it, and now we are going back to the initial guidance or two to 3%. So, yeah, I understand it, but believe me that is for the good of this company and not for the bad. Okay.

If I might jump in there, Gustavo. So, my understanding is that essentially the two quarters, your previous expectation of two quarters of volume delivery is now going to be spread over three quarters. Yes. Okay. And you say that's to optimize the ramp-up. Can you give us some color on why the ramp-up is more optimal over three quarters than two?

Well, it's, there are, first of all, there are some things that, there are many, many. It could be raw material. It could be packaging. It could be starting up machines. It could be also. you know, even spacing in the distribution centers of the customers. Believe me that there is a combination of many, many things. And as I said before, you know, I don't want to cross the line on the things that I share in this call. But I try to wrap it up, you know, in terms of the volume is good. It's huge. It's a super growth volume all together, and for us and for the customers.

Okay. Understood. Thank you. I appreciate your . Thank you. You're welcome.

Our next question will be coming from Karel Zut of . Please go ahead.

Yes, good morning. Thanks for taking the questions. I have two follow-up questions focused on the European stronghold. The first one, can you speak a bit about the benefits of mix you see in the business and going forward? You highlighted some of the innovations you're launching or have launched. What's it contributing currently and then how do you see that developing? The other point is somewhat related. because an interesting time comes up of course for the discussions with European retailers at the end of the year, early next year. How are you entering that discussion in a sense that you highlighted the cost environment looks okay, innovations look okay, but at the same time we see that many of the branded players are stepping up promotion and marketing projects. So will you be sharp on pricing continuously next year or what's the expectation on the negotiation season for the European retail side of things? Thank you.

Yeah. Yeah. So, in terms of the mix that you were asking first, so mix is positive. And so volume is positive and mix is positive. And the mix is positive is because, you know, the innovation pipeline, those selected categories that we have our competitive advantage and a strong, you know, product performance in those selected categories. So in terms of baby care, I imagine that we are switching consumers from baby diapers to baby pants. So that's another impact on the baby diapers business, right, that perhaps the baby diapers as a market is going down. but baby pants is growing. On the mix, perhaps, on the total baby care, we sustain our volumes, and we improving the mix. So total volume is sustained, and mix is improving. So that is very positive. Also, in the mix, you have to think that it's not just about the products, but also the mix in the geographic mix, channel mix. So, in the channel mix, and we have also positive news. In the geographic, even talking about Europe, in the geographic mix, Well, some quarters we have a good positive impact, some quarters not. So all of that is part of the mix. It's not just the product mix. As is today, our mix is positive. And we are keep, definitely we keep expecting to be positive because our focus that we have in the specific categories. So we are expecting positive mix in the next quarters to come. Then your other question was about how we see the market in Europe in terms of the branded business trying to, you know, regaining market share and the push there. If we are referring to Europe, yes, the activity continues. It's not about pricing. It is at the end, right, the net pricing, of course. but it's the promotional activities. What the branded business are doing is promotional activities. And today, I would say that they have not been able yet to regain the market share. There is a, that perhaps they are looking forward. And here we are talking, I don't want to mention it, but we are not talking about too many branded business. So, it could be very easy to do that. It's not getting because the retail brands are getting stronger. And that's the reason. Retail brands are not just a cheap product. The retail brands are high-quality product, performance very good. And they have their own promotions, and they have their own activities. They are sustainable. So consumers are highly attractive for those retail brands. And it's a geographic thing, right? So, it's per country. It's locally. So, it's not going to be easy for the branded business to try to regain very quickly as it perhaps it was in the past. Pricing, what we see, no, we don't see any major, huge fighting pricing because also branded business, they have their own targets on delivering their profits as well.

Yeah. Okay, then so the pricing should in theory remain positive then.

Yeah. And if they are, I'm going to say, Karel, something very that I'm convinced, and that's why we put so emphasis Our cost transformation program is a continued program. It's a continued improvement. And we have a lot to continue going on. And that should give us all the time the flexibility to be to stay competitive in the market and to the flexibility to manage times of, you know, ups and downs on cost without, you know, risking or big, big changes in our margins. So that's why it's so important that we continue to invest behind efficiencies in ONTEX.

Super. Thank you. You're welcome.

Thank you, sir. Ladies and gentlemen, as we have no further questions at this time, I'm going to turn the call back over to Mr. Gustavo Cabalpaz for the additional occlusive remarks. Thank you.

So thank you very much for your questions. I'm not going to make it long. I'm just going to say the questions were very good because gave me the opportunity to explain what's going on in the revenue. I feel super confident in the way that the teams in ONDEX are executing our plans. Very, very challenging and very high bar type of plans. And they are executing very, very well. So I appreciate also that this requires a lot of trust from many stakeholders. And yeah, I'm counting to keep building that trust by delivering on our expectations. So thank you very much. And we will talk soon again. Yeah. Bye bye.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's presentation. Thank you. You may now disconnect. Have a good day and goodbye.