Wienerberger Baustoff Ag

Good morning everyone and warm welcome to Vinneberg's Q123 results update. Thank you for taking the time to join us today. My name is Therese Jandér and I'm pleased to be hosting this call from the headquarters in Vienna. I'm joined by our CFO Dagmar Steinet and a special welcome also to our CEO Heimo Schoch who is calling in today from Hungary. We will begin with a brief presentation of the key developments and the financials for the period. And afterwards, we will open the line for questions. With that, I will hand over to Mr. Schoch.

Thank you, Therese, and a warm welcome also from my side. You will wonder why I speak from Hungary. As you recall, we explained to you that roofing is a very major attention point for our future development, and as you are well aware, we have been working on two new factories for concrete roof tiles, and one is in Hungary, one is in the south-east of London. Both of them are now operational. The one in England is already fully on the market and the one here in Hungary is about to go on stream. And so we are glad to say that in a record time of more or less one year, we have put two new factories up in this market and we grow our exposure to this very important segment of ours, the roofing segment in Europe. So that's why I'm here today with our Hungarian management. But let's go now to our set of results for quarter three. Ladies and gentlemen, if you look at our results and operating EBITDA with 202 million EBITDA in the third quarter comes in more or less or roughly on the level of 2021. Also in line with last year's performance, a slight margin expansion when you compare it to last year and the revenue is pretty much on the same level of last year as well. All of this is a very strong performance if you look at the underlying market. Why? Because we have seen, as we have told you, in the new residential housing segment, no major developments as far as uptick is concerned. On the contrary, if we move first of all to North America, The North American market has suffered considerably in the segment of new residential housing, one and two family houses especially. Let's start for a change with Canada. Ontario, the Toronto market, down compared to the previous year, 2024, this year was more than 30%. So we had to digest quite a significant decline. in activity in this very important market. That's the major market of Canada anyway, Ontario. So you've seen here a strong decline in the new residential housing market. The US, as such, has also suffered due to a lot of reasons. The mortgage rates are still pretty high. You have here also the instability, volatility, politically speaking. I don't have to expand on that. Everybody follows it very clearly. and in detail. So this is obviously also an impact on the new residential housing market in the US and therefore we have a decline of about 10% in this market as well to digest when it comes to our activities. Keep in mind that this North American operation is the most exposed one to new residential housing market as it comes to Wienerberger, because this is where we still have a majority of our business that is exposed to new residential housing. If we move now more to Europe, we have here, I would say, A situation where we see in the UK and in Ireland different market development. We have seen that especially now after the summer that the UK is also dropping in activity rate. That's due to mortgage rates have not come down as everybody has expected. There's also some instability in the marketplace. And here is about when we compare running rates about 9% down in your residential housing market when we talk about September, October in this period of the year. So we've seen no pickup, on the contrary, a decline in activity. and also in Ireland a slight decline in this new residential housing market. However, and this is now important because this is a major difference, if you look at the UK-Irish operations of Wiener Burger, they have a majority of its exposure already in the roofing and in the piping business, so renovation and infrastructure plays an important role and therefore this business has performed overall better because here stability in turnover and in profitability so we have not suffered so much when it comes to the profitability of the business in this region due to this new business that we have a business that is far more oriented to renovation and to infrastructure So a very important point to mention here to the respect of UK and Ireland. On the continent, as such, we've seen a mixed picture. All of us have expected a better running rate when it comes to new residential housing in all of the European markets. This has not happened. The only market actually that performed according to our expectations is the Netherlands. So the rest of Europe, Western Europe especially, There's no sort of uptick in the market as we speak. There are, however, some encouraging signs, if I may say so, in Germany and France, because the permits are up in these two countries. So we can expect, hopefully, into the next year, a little better development in new residential housing. Renovation has supported the strong roofing performance in the region. So there's a lot of activity, as I may say, on the roof maintenance. So this has helped our business there. And infrastructures have been more or less stable, the spending. So here, a trend that we have basically built on at the beginning of the year. if you look now to eastern europe eastern europe has been also a market where we have not seen any expansion of new residential housing so i would say a rather stable subdued market in a lot of these eastern europe economies the only country where we have seen a little uptick is the one i'm currently in in hungary this is to political reasons next year we have Hungarian elections. So the Hungarian government has launched a special initiative to give sort of better mortgage rates to be first-time home builders and buyers. So all in all, when you look at Wienerberger's performance in these geographies, and we've added some charts in the presentation, I don't need to go into the details, but you see actually three things. First of all, that the mortgage rates have not come down as we originally expected them to do so in order to stimulate new residential housing. So that's the first very important point. The second one is that the new residential housing markets, nearly in all of the markets, except, as I mentioned, the Dutch market and the Hungarian market, So there's no uptick in these markets. So we were confronted with markets that are below the 24 levels. And thirdly, which is also very positive, that Wiener Burger in ceramics and pipes outperformed the underlying market due to our focus on innovation, very strong focus on our customers, and therefore we were able to outperform the underlying market. So I think this is the nutshell of the current environment that we are in. I don't see any major changes, by the way, for the rest of the year. So after the third quarter into October, November, December, we'll see the same trend. So this declining environment will continue for the rest of the year. So this is, I think, from my perspective, the major sort of underlying developments. If we now move a little bit on from the macro and the sort of performance-oriented one to some of the numbers that Dagmar will elaborate a little later. So from a revenue perspective, you see here that we are more or less a little bit up by 4%. compared to last year to about 3.5 billion. The ABTR is slightly down from last year. This is obviously due to the fact that we have a lesser contribution from the new residential housing segment and also some cost pressure when it comes to labor costs and energy costs. But here, Dagmar will elaborate a little bit more in detail. On the profit after tax side and the earnings per share side, we have a strong increase here. due to the fact that obviously there's no impact on some of the balance sheet issues that we had due to the sale of the Russian business last year. This year, obviously, is a normalized year. So, we have a strong uptick in these two aspects. If we now move on a little bit more to the migration, as I call it, from Wienerberger's perspective, you see here that over the years, and I explained this already a few times, but you see it especially in these tough market environments that Wienerberger is operating in. how important it is and it was to migrate the business from a purely new residential housing business to now a much stronger resilient business based on new built infrastructure and especially renovation. So I think this has shown clearly that from a strategic path, we are on the right way forward. We will continue to do so. And I think the current environment offers us opportunities. Let's move a little bit on in this external growth field. We have done several acquisitions. I mean, when we look at Wienerberg over the last 10 years, it's by far more than 41 acquisitions that we did. So all of them are very strongly value enhancing. We have been very disciplined, first of all, with the purchase price, with the integration and the synergies. When we take the biggest one that we did, Terreal, last year, we are fully on track with respect to synergies. So all the synergies that we have originally planned for are coming in actually a little bit better already. The market as such, the underlying, is obviously weaker. I don't have to explain that. I did it already at the introduction. So here in this difficult market environment, from a pricing perspective and synergy perspective, we are doing better as we originally planned. So here we see the strong operational leverage that we have when we do such acquisitions. So they are from the first day onwards value enhancing. When you look at the real, I would say what the difference or what the changes in prediction is that we see that the full contribution in EBITDA due to the fact that the markets are not yet picking up will be probably a year more that we gain this 150 million EBITDA contribution. So we have put here the chart clearly in line for you that we expect this contribution a year later. However, as I said, from a synergy and cost perspective, we have already achieved all of it. Let's look a little bit what we have done so far in this year 2025. Again here an interesting set of development because we have focused on water management clearly when it comes to all sorts of innovative features like creating a scalable platform for capturing growth when it comes to water quality, to measure the the volume of water and to help water companies in managing their water systems. So that's Vionic, a strongly growing business when it comes to IT-based and artificial intelligence-based solutions for water management. Then we have done a very important step in Ireland in order to consolidate further the market when it comes to infrastructure, drainage, roofline and cable induction systems as a consolidation in this market so fully effective there as well and then we have bought 100 of our gsci business that's a framing business for solar panels that's not solar panels as such it's a framing uh operation where we have now 100 which is growing fast because here we have this integrated solution for roofs. And we grow not only in France, but especially also outside of France very quickly. So when we look strategically speaking, infrastructure and renovation are the key drivers also this year in this market. circumstances where new residential housing is under pressure. So we will focus on this more when we talk about infrastructure. It's the expansion of our piping operations, water management especially. Here we see a high degree of growth potential in all of our markets that we are active in. Keep in mind that Wiener Burger is now with its operations in the north of Europe, now clear number one. We grow our business strongly in UK and Ireland. And we are also very strongly growing in the Benelux, especially in the Netherlands. And the next focus areas will be the eastern part of Europe where we want to grow this business and obviously also in Western Europe where we see still potential for further growth. So here organic and inorganic growth is on the list for Wiener Burger in the years to come. Let's move then a little bit to the renovation market. The renovation market is for Wienerberger, especially the roof market. Here with the acquisition of Terrial and now the framing business for solar panels, we see here a strong potential for further growth. We will focus on accessories. and parts that the roof needs on the roof and under the roof. We have here the necessary platform to do so. And we have seen that especially in situations where the markets get a little tougher, we have now strong market shares in order to have pricing power on one side, but also to push innovation and solutions through. So these are two especially very important markets for growth for Wiener Burger. And if I may, before I hand over to Dagmar, say a general word with respect to acquisitions as such. When we look at the current market environment in North America and in Europe, it offers unique opportunities for Wiener Berger for attractive growth. Why? Because a lot of small and mid-sized companies, family-owned businesses, in such difficult moments, they are not only driven by the macroeconomic development, but also the regulatory development, especially in Europe with all the new regulations coming its way. So here we have a strong potential for further growth in order to expand our operations and to deepen the value creation when we talk about solution development. businesses on the roof and in the infrastructure field, but also in new residential housing. So I think here we are ideally positioned as Wiener Burger to grow. We have shown that we are world-class operator when we integrate all these sort of operations very quickly, very efficiently on the platform side when it comes to systems like the whole back office, but on the front office as well due to our strong sales approach. in the different geographies that we are active in. So a good base for further growth at Wiener Berge. So Dagmar, I may hand over to you to elaborate a little bit more on the financials. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Heimo, and a warm welcome from my side here from Vienna as well. I will go now a little bit more into details about our financials and just to sum it up a little bit, our first nine months result shows a really solid performance in this weak new build market as Heimo explained. And our group revenues increased to 3.5 billion and operating EBITDA came in at 584 million. Our margin amounts to 16.6%. So let's now look a little bit more into detail and let's have a deeper look at the revenue and operating EBITDA bridge. Our revenue development. We increased our sales by 4% and that is driven, as you can see, by scope. And that's mainly due to our territorial acquisition where we have a strong roofing performance and which pays off in the renovation volume increase. Organically, we grew by 1%. what we lost as well on the currency side via translation. If you look at the operating ABTA it is slightly below a previous year and organically we missed our previous year's performance and show there minus four percent and that's due to still ongoing cost inflation and that our pricing overall for the whole group is more or less in par with previous year and therefore we didn't manage so far to cover our cost inflation. On the currency side it's minus one percent or minus five million euro and our M&A activities gave us 13 million additional EBITDA. Overall, our profitability remains robust and it's overall demonstrating the flexibility of our operations. If we now have a look at our segments, starting with Western Europe. There, as you can see, our revenues increased by 8% and that's a result of strong renovation activities. Roofing is there the main driver and Belgium, Netherlands, as well as France remain there the top performers. The new residential housing market, of course, is, as already explained, really weak, but we see a meaningful growth in Netherlands there. The UK market is difficult for us, especially in new build, but as we are strong in renovation and piping activities there, we outperform that market as well. Looking at the operating EBITDA, it's up 15%. Of course, part of that is a result of our acquisitions of scope. But we continued to show a solid performance. We have a solid cost management. And therefore, due to higher utilization, we managed... to increase our margin. With that, I would like to come to our development in Eastern Europe. In Eastern Europe, our revenue grew by 2% and that was mainly supported by slightly higher clay block volumes. On the earning side, operating EBITDA, it's down by minus 7%, but we are still showing a margin of 18.1%. In Eastern Europe, we have very high burdens on cost inflation, especially on the energy side. And there, it's mainly gas. There, we had to face a very deep increase of prices. Markets are difficult in Eastern Europe as well and in the new residential housing market only Hungary shows significant growth and that's due to government support because there they support fixed interest rates for first-time house buyers. Let's now turn to the development in North America. North America at the moment is quite a difficult market and of course what you see in these pictures as well is a negative impact from currency translation. Our external revenues came down by minus 8% and that is due to weaker BRIC demand and the difficult markets. Our piping volumes improved, but we faced there due to lower raw material prices as well lower prices on our side. Operating ABTA came in at 106 million and we still show a very healthy margin of 19%. North America remains for us a really profitable and strategically important region, and we are well positioned for recovery once new residential housing market returns. In this challenging environment, we have set up a new program, Fit for Growth. And that program, Fit for Growth, that will deliver structural savings across all regions. And what are we doing with that? We are focusing on processes. We want to simplify processes. We want to reduce overhead. We want to become a much more agile organization. And we want to be as fast as possible towards our customers. Part of that program as well is the topic of optimizing production. We target 15 to 20 million annual savings. That definitely is a run rate. And with that, of course, we want to ensure that we are best in class, serving our customers and have a really lean organization. I already mentioned in our half-year call, and of course it still remains as it is, we face very high cost inflation, especially on the gas prices. And therefore, I would like to give you a little bit deeper insight how it works. As you know, we are fixing prices for our future volumes of gas, which we need. And in the past, we benefited from that quite a lot. So in the years 2024 and 2025, for instance, we are buying gas for prices below market price. Anyhow, the prices we are paying today in 2025 are far above the levels we used to pay in the last year. Giving you a little bit of an outlook for the year 2026, due to the development of the market prices for gas, prices compared with the year 2025 came down. We still, of course, fixed a certain amount, but there in the next year, 2026, as far as we are able to see it as of today, we will not benefit as much as we did in this year and the last years. I hope that will give you a better understanding how energy costs work within our group. With that, let me turn to our free cash flow. Our free cash flow came in at 155 million and that's reflecting a solid cash generation for the first nine months. As you might see, we are a little bit more investing in our working capital compared to this previous year, but that's just a seasonal thing because, as you know, we are always building up inventory during the year, especially during the first nine months. Maintenance capex is on the level of previous year and there is no bigger change in lease payments as well. Having said that, I would like to move over to our net debt development. Our net debt at the end of September amounts to 1.9 billion euro. And the leverage of that is 2.5. By the year end 2024, we showed a number of 2.3. As you can see within the development we have our free cash flow of 155 million, our gross capex and M&A amounts to 105 million and of course we paid dividend and we did some share buybacks which amount to 135 million euro. and i can assure you we have an ongoing disciplined capex and cash management and we will keep the leverage stable and of course i'm sure that we won't increase last year's number so With that, before we come to the outlook, I would just like to sum up the, for me, most important topics of our performance for the first nine months. Looking at our macroeconomic environment, we are still facing high mortar trades. On the other hand, new residential housing market is developing not as stable or positive as we originally expected, except the Netherlands and Hungarian market. And I would like to point out with our performance with these nine months, we as Wiener Burger outperformed the ceramic market and the pipe market regarding the market environment. And with that, I would like to hand over again to Heimo.

Thank you, Dagmar, and I think you made it very clear, and I can only sort of add to that, that in this complex, volatile, and really fast-changing environment, Wiener Berger has proven that our not only strategy mid- and long-term, but our sort of proactive management style focusing on costs and being very quickly when it comes to adjustments and efficiency improvements have proven right. Some of you will say, why didn't you start earlier to talk about a change in the outlook? Because at Half Year we said, listen, from a perspective that we see, summer months, July, August, are always weak months and don't give a lot of indications. When we look at the performance of quarter three and the September especially, we were hopeful that actually the markets as such were picking slightly up or developing in a better way. However, we have unfortunately seen that especially in North America, And the UK were driving in the other direction. So again, we had here obviously to experience not only further declines, but a much weaker environment in residential housing that we originally anticipated. Obviously, when we gave the full year guidance, we said at the beginning of the year under two assumptions, that interest rates would come down and that the new residential housing market will slightly improve, especially in the second half of 2025 and show positive trends. Both didn't materialize. On the contrary. And this is, I think, the strong message that we can send to you. We had to suffer a completely different environment that we originally planned for. And under these circumstances, I think this performance that we show, that we are actually better performing than last year in an even lower market environment, shows that we really work hard on our things that we can influence. As Dagmar has shown, we have already implemented the fit for growth project again in order to make us even more efficient in more of the businesses. We have proven that from a pricing point of view, we are very disciplined when it comes to pricing and obviously also in digesting a very significant cost increase. when it comes to wages, especially labor costs and on the energy side. So all of this coming our way, we had to digest this year. And so I think it has to be seen under these circumstances that we have a very solid, strong performance. The renovation markets are the only markets that remain stable as we have foreseen it. The infrastructure markets took a slight hit also due to the budgeting constraints that especially European countries impose due to the shift more into defense budgets and to defense spending away from infrastructure. So these are things that we have to look at also from a perspective of current development. Let's then summarize everything as the performance goes for the rest of the year. Some of you will ask Dagmar and myself already in a couple of minutes, are you really sure you will achieve the 750? Yes, we will. The impact of FX, as Dagmar has explained in detail, is also an important one which we need to But like for like basis, I think the 750 is the number that we will achieve. We are working hard. It means also for us a good and very strong quarter four, where we work on right now. And as I said, all the measures that we implement ourselves and with which we can influence are playing out in our favor. The rest we have to take as they come along. So this is, I think, a very important and clear message that Wienerberger does everything in order to improve its business in this, I would call it, significant slowdown in new residential housing around our markets. However, and very important also, I think that what Dagmar says, she's keeping really a strict discipline in a company on the net debt position here. You have seen how disciplined we are on the CapEx and the spending side. So at the year end, we will be in the range of 2.2 to 2.3 EBITDA to net debt. So here again, strong performance when it comes to the financials of the company and the balance sheet discipline. Let's not keep out of mind also the mid-term and our development. Some of you will say, do you still have the 1.2 billion as a mid-term target in mind? Yes, of course. Why? Because obviously the company has this potential to grow to this number, provided that some criteria play out. And we've put here, I think, four that are very clear to determine on this slide. First of all, further interest rates cuts have to happen. You have seen how high actually the mortgage rates are. So we need to keep more an eye not on the interest rates in general, but especially mortgage rates and the mortgage policies in the different geographies that we are operating in, because it gives a signal of affordability for people to buy into the new residential housing market or not. Then, something which is very interesting to monitor for us is this European social housing plan that might kick in. There's a lot of discussions. We have meetings at the month's end again in Brussels with the Commission and the Commission about this. So, this could also be of a very important role. part for the new residential housing market for us in the not-too-distant future. Obviously, potential peace in the Ukraine will boost the whole region of Eastern Europe, and therefore we hope for that, and for the people, especially in the Ukraine. And then also the US market recovery, because the potential and the demand level is substantial also in this geography is in Canada and the US. However, as I said earlier, the mortgage rates need to come down and a little bit more political stability should be also in the US in order to stimulate the new residential housing market. Under these conditions, I think we are very well positioned in order to achieve this number and Wienerberger from an efficiency perspective, cost-based perspective and also the very important industrial base that we have now is a very strong one that we can work on and continue. I think what you should take away from this call that is more than a quarter call, because we gave you some update on strategy also, the importance of the migration of this business Wienerberger from new residential to a much broader business and the resilient business proves right, gives the group a very strong direction when it comes to stability in cash flows and in margins, but also a growth base for the future. And I think the UK and Ireland is a very, very good example if you compare the two, the UK and Ireland, to North America. In North America, we are still very exposed to new residential housing. That's why we'll take a hit there as far as profitability is concerned. And when we look at our performance compared to the competitors that are more into new residential housing, in the UK especially, it's a much stronger one. It's a much more resilient one and margin-wise a much better one because the business is already very balanced when it comes to infrastructure and renovation. So I would like to close on these statements strategically and thank you very much for your attention. And Dagmar and myself, as always, will take your questions.

Thank you so much. We will now begin the Q&A session. If you would like to ask a question, you may click on the raise your hand button. If you're connected by a phone, please press star key 9 to enter the queue on your telephone keypad. With star key 6, you can unmute yourself. The first question comes from the line from Yaserine Tourari from On-Field Investment Research. Please ask your questions.

Thank you very much for taking my questions. I think I would have two questions. First, I think you had cost inflation of 4-5% in 2025. You're expecting, I understand, a bit more energy inflation in 2026. Should we expect more of a mid-single-digit cost inflation next year, or should we expect something similar to what we've seen in 2025? That would be my first question. Then my second question is that we've seen so far that prices have been very broadly stable. So I think you've not been able to offset this cost inflation and all the benefits from the savings that you've been implementing have been absorbed by this cost inflation. How do you think about next year? Have you already started to announce price increase? Do you see your competitor announcing price increase in an environment where the volume is a bit more muted that you were initially expecting? Do you believe that any price increase that have been announced could stick? It would be great to get a sense of the scenario that we've seen in 2025, where a lot of your efforts are absorbed by your cost inflation could be reproduced or not next year.

Thank you very much, by the way, for these very important questions. I will leave, if I may, Dagmar, to you on the cost inflation side and we'll focus on the price side to start with. I think we've shown a great discipline in pricing throughout the group this year. And you are absolutely right in such an environment, especially the new build, It's difficult to increase prices. However, we were able to do so in some geographies, so that cannot be sort of said with respect to the whole group right now. And 2.26, it's too early to give here a statement. However, as always, we start in November working on the markets, working with our customers to prepare them. So you will see a more detailed picture, I would say, in March of next year, if they stick or not. We will certainly do something in the pricing. It's not going to be huge steps, but I would say sufficient steps. And this is what we are going to work on for 26. But as I say, it's a difficult market environment when we talk about new residential housing. So I don't expect here big jumps, but we always work on this very hard in order to improve renovation and infrastructure will be a little different. I hand over to Dagmar.

Yeah, well, regarding cost inflation, yes, we face cost inflation between four and a half percent for the running year. And yes, we will see some cost inflation, of course, next year as well. But I don't expect it to be at the level of the cost inflation 2025. And regarding the energy, what I try to explain regarding our gas price, what we are paying in the year 2026, that will be not above market price, but as we benefited from energy fixing in the running year, we will face some kind of inflation regarding the energy prices in the year 2026.

So just to understand on inflation, the 4% to 4.5% that you're seeing in 2025, is it mostly, it's a mix of labor costs and energy costs. When you look at 2026, what would be the difference? You would see less labor cost inflation and energy inflation, something similar. So overall, you would expect something which is less than the 4% to 4.5% that we're seeing in 2025. Is that the right way to look at it?

That's the right way to look at it, yes.

But it's too early for you to give an idea if it's closer to 2% or 3% or 4%.

Yeah, that's too early because we are still in the phase of preparing everything. And of course, there are price movements on the cost side as well. It will be below the inflation of the running year, but it's too early, far too early to give you a decent number.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you for your questions. So and then we have the next question from the line from Seda Ekblom. So please go ahead and ask your questions.

Thanks. Good morning. I just had a question on that cost point again, just to confirm that four to four and a half percent is across all buckets of costs. So energy, labor, etc. Could you give us a little bit of color on what the actual portion was for your fixed cost buckets? So that's the first question, just a little bit of differentiation there. And then can you just remind us, there's a couple of cost-cutting programs that are now in the business, and we've got the new announcement today. Can you just remind us how to think about efficiency gains into next year? Is it just the 15 to 20 million, or is there anything also coming from other programs that have been in place in this business for some time? Thank you.

Thank you for the very spot on questions. Let me say something on the cost saving side and the program. The fit for growth is obviously, as Dagmar explained, a new program that will be added on to the existing ones. You remember that we said that the existing ones have come to an end and have proven to be very effective in the business. So they will obviously produce some additional input also next year because they are running these programs and they're not finished yet, as you correctly pointed out. So these will be to be added on and Dagmar will give by all due means and respect and a number at the beginning of next year. And I think if you bear with us a little bit, I think we are putting together budgets right now. And in this volatile times, it's not easy. We have also indicated to you that we would like to give you a much more detailed outlook and overview of the business early next year in a capital markets day. So I think if you can be patient with us on this subject to give you a clear update. But to answer the questions, the 15 to 20 will be the new program running rate as we speak from next year onwards and some inflow comes also from the existing program set up. For the cost structure and the fixed cost, I hand over to Dagmar, please.

Our cost structure is mainly dominated by personal expenses. They count for roughly above 30% of our overall costs. And our energy costs are 10% of our overall costs. And these two portions dominate, of course, our cost inflation. And all the rest, if it's like raw material, if it's rents, if it's consultants, IT costs, whatsoever, of course, then we face cost inflation as well. But on the other hand, if we have a very disciplined way to approach that we manage to keep it low and therefore I would like to reduce for you our main cost drivers regarding inflation just to energy and personal expenses.

That's really helpful. What I'm trying to understand is Can you give us a bit of color on what the sort of personnel expense inflation is? Because what I'm trying to break out is cost inflation on items that are within your control relative to cost inflation on the energy side of things, which, you know, obviously you can do your hedging, but to some extent that's much more a factor that you can't control. So could you give us a number for personnel cost inflation if the overall cost is four to four and a half?

Well, the cost inflation regarding personal expenses in the running year in 2025 is roughly for the group overall at 5%. And it will be below 5% 2026. Thank you. That's helpful. No more questions from me.

Keep in mind that we had higher cost inflation obviously in Eastern Europe also this running year. You remember when we told you that there is pressure in the labor market and especially in Eastern Europe, strong increases on labor and the collective bargaining agreements. So this is, I think, what Dagmar was referring to.

Yeah. Thank you. We now have a question from the line by now, the last question from Julian Ratlinger. So please ask your questions.

Yeah, thank you very much, Guy. A couple ones left for me. So first of all, the implied Q4 guidance means that EBITDA and Q4 could actually be up year on year, despite all the headwinds you've called out. And so if that's the outcome, I'm just wondering what would that be driven by? Is that volume? Is that cost management? what scenario would would um would ebw up in in the fourth quarter um and then secondly uh so your margins actually expanded in western europe in q3 on a year-on-year basis um is that a clean result is that just higher capacity utilization like like you wrote in the presentation or is there any any kind of one-off effects in there that be um that we should be aware of. And then just maybe a very quick last one. How much of your energy costs are now fixed for 2026? So how much visibility at this point do you have? I know it's usually quite a lot on a 12-month forward basis. Thank you.

Dagmar, may I hand over to you to do this? Or if you want me, then you say.

No, no, that's fine. I do it. I will start with the energy. There we fixed roughly overall for the whole group between 50 and 60 percent of the volume. And so there is still a lot of room for movement. Your question regarding our Q3 results, if there are any major one-offs. No, there are not any major one-offs included in our Q3 results. And it's a result of our strong performance in renovation and outperforming the market environment. And of course, regarding our cost discipline, things starting to pay off. And if you look at our adjusted full year outlook for the running year, if we deliver 750 million operating EBITDA, that, of course, it's mathematic. It's very easy. It means that we have to reach in the fourth quarter of the running year something between above 160 million EBITDA and that of course is above previous year and I mean we yes at the moment we are overall in our pricing more or less stable on the previous year's level but as we told you we see markets where we a little outperform even on the pricing side the markets we have our initiatives the running ones the fit for growth where we benefit from and therefore we are confident to deliver okay thank you very much

There are no more virtual hands at this time. I would like to turn the conference back over to Therese Chander for any closing remarks.

Thank you. I would like to state firstly that you should save the date for our next Capital Markets Day, which we have scheduled now for the 24th of February next year. So just wanted to add that to the conversation and we will get you more information when it's a little bit closer. And by this, I would like to thank you all for joining us today and for all your questions. And we truly appreciate your engagement. And therefore, we also hope to see you again for our next results call, which is on the 18th of February. Until then, take care and goodbye from all of us here at Dineberga.

May I just add something, Therese, in the name of Dagmar and myself? We all wish you a happy ending towards the year because with some of you we won't meet personally, so enjoy this season and all the best in these very volatile times and exciting times. I think we gave you a good outlook for Wiener Burger as far as our markets are concerned and be assured that Dagmar and myself will have our hands full for the rest of the year, as she said. So all the best and see you soon.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.