AB Akola Group (AKO1L) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Akola Group Investor Webinar. I am Olga from Nasdaq Vilnius, and I will be moderating today's event. We will start with the company's presentation followed by a live Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] Please be informed that this webinar is being recorded, and replay will be available shortly after the call. That being said, I am pleased to hand over to our host, Mazvydas Sileika, the Deputy CEO for Finance and Investments of Akola Group. Please, Mazvydas, the floor is yours.

Good morning, and thank you very much, Olga, for the introduction. It's good to meet everyone this morning, and we will go forward, and I will introduce you to our results and performance for the 6 months of the financial year '25, '26. So please be informed and take into account that this presentation might have some directly or indirectly expressed forward-looking statements, and those are merely assumptions of the management of the group. My name is Mazvydas. I am Deputy CEO of the group, and I will take you through this presentation this morning. We will start with our group structure, which hasn't changed that much since last quarter. However, we are continuing and decreasing the amount of companies we are managing, basically making our group structure leaner. We have within the 6 months, deregistered 2 companies out of our structure. After the reporting period, another one was deregistered. However, during the last 3 months or during the quarter, we have acquired one small company, which was added to the group structure. That company was holding land, which we purchased through the transaction of acquiring the company. So currently, we manage 58 subsidiaries and 2 associated companies. Our snapshot for the 6 months of this financial year. Our EBITDA performance looks good. For the 6 months, we have produced EUR 47 million of EBITDA compared to last year, EUR 43 million. So we have improved and increased it year-on-year. Our 5-year average stands now at around EUR 42 million, which indicates you that we are above our 5-year average as well, which shows that we have overall improved and increased group's EBITDA potential. If you look at our EBIT margin, we have almost 4%, and we are well above our strategic target of 3%, and we are performing better than last year, which was actually 3.78%. Price to earnings, our price to earnings still remains quite conservative. We stand at 5x earnings. Previously, last year, we were around 6.5 and our average -- 5-year average is, of course, much smaller. So overall, the group evaluation is deemed to be said is conservative. We're quite happy with our return on capital performance. We have inked almost 12% or 11.6%, and it's more than last year, which was trailing around 7%, 7.43%, and we are very close to our strategic goal to have 12%. So you see how -- what the conjunction of our results of EBITDA and sales and capital employed is needed to deliver the strategic target of 12%. Earnings per share EUR 0.37 versus EUR 0.18. This is as well on 12 months rolling basis. So we are doing really good on 12 months rolling basis. The main difference between last year is that our last year performance was better in the second half of the year than on the first, then we reached our second best result in the history. In this occasion, you will see that we already started strong in the first half of the year. I would like to move forward to our balance sheet, which is more or less around EUR 1 billion. It hasn't changed that much. Maybe what I would like to highlight, we have further increasing property, plant and equipment. That represents our investments into new factories and other projects. Our short debt portfolio hasn't changed that much, but we have higher inventories on our books. So we have EUR 272 million of inventories in our books compared to EUR 117 million last year. And that's why we have a bit more increased borrowing base ratio. It means how much our own equity we use in our system, but still, it's a very, very healthy number. So our liquidity position remains solid. We have more than EUR 0.5 billion credit lines available. During the 6 months, we have performed EUR 22 million of CapEx. And we are still relatively conservatively pegged on the long-term loans. It's only 34% of our total debt portfolio, which at 6 months was standing at EUR 423 million. Saying that, our capital ratio position remains solid. It's 35% and our 12-month rolling basis EBITDA stands at around EUR 114 million, which brings us to a very conservative debt profile. Net RMI adjusted debt to EBITDA stands at 2.4, which in our view is a very good result and an achievement, but our target is 4. So looking at our sales and the performance of our revenues in sales and tonnes, how much we have traded. So we have grown in terms of amount how many volumes of tonnes we have traded so by almost 7% or 102,000 tonnes. So this is a good result for us because we are growing in volumes we have traded. Most substantial additions came, of course, from partners to farmers segment where the heavy wheat contribution was the biggest, followed by maize, soya, compound feed and fertilizers. That even offset our decrease in traded volumes in feedstuffs and some specific oil rapeseeds and sunflower meal. However, revenue has decreased by close to 1% or EUR 8 million. That means more or less we are working in a deflationary environment. So even though Food segment revenue increased by almost 12% or EUR 25 million, the result was offset by deflationary prices in our Partners for Farmers segment. The biggest contribution in our revenue growth was poultry by EUR 18.5 million and instant foods and ready-to-eat foods, which contributed another EUR 7.1 million. However, that was not enough to offset a negative revenue decrease in Partners for Farmers in EUR 37.6 million. And as I mentioned in the beginning, we are working in a deflationary environment when we talk about commodity prices. Commodity prices year-on-year are lower compared. Let's analyze our gross profit, which is really strong for this year. We delivered EUR 92 million in gross profit, and that's 12% more than last year or almost EUR 10 million, where we had EUR 82 million. And of course, our key contributor to this performance is our food segment and mainly poultry, which delivered a fantastic result. And as you see now, our gross profit share coming from food this year is 54%, which is a very good result, and it has increased from 48% last year. However, our gross profit coming from Partners for Farmers is relatively stable and has delivered 37%. So it means that we have grown in food and more than we have lost in Partners for Farmers. Our gross profit margin stands at 12.2%. It is more than last year, which was around 10.8%. So basically, this is a good trend. However, as we usually have in between the quarters, first quarter in terms of gross profitability is better than the second one, and we have a slight decrease here, which is more or less in the track record of the group. Our operating profit is continuously strong. We delivered EUR 30 million, EUR 1 million more than last year. And this year, 94% of that came from food production. Last year, the number was 67%. So we have increased here overall. We went from 19% to 28%. Of course, our Partners for Farmers in the second quarter was not that successful, and we have a seasonal decrease to EUR 3 million. Overall, EBIT has increased by 3%, which is really a good performance and driver for us. If we look at our EBIT margin, which stands at 3.9%, we are a bit better than last year, which was 3.8% and we are above our 5-year average, which is 3.3%. And again, and as in gross profit, we have decreased from 6.8% in the first quarter to the second quarter of 3.9%, which you would consider and if you look at our historical numbers, it is more or less in line and in the same trend. Let's move to our segments, and I will start with Partners to Farmers. We have briefly discussed that we have lower sales in terms of millions of euros, and we -- but we have increased in terms of our volumes. And the volume contribution more or less came from all the segments which we have in our portfolio. When we look to profitability, we have a slight EUR 1 million decrease from EUR 38 million to EUR 37 million. And if we look to different segments of this group, we see that grain storage and logistics increased -- has increased share of drying service income because the grade which were delivered to our elevators were more wet on average than last year. We also have collected more grain through our system and especially we have grown in Latvia. So when we acquired SIA Elagro Trade and the grain, which has now been collected through our Latvia elevators are roughly 10% to 15% of our total grain collection overall. Our gross profit margin has decreased a bit due to better -- more wet grain. We also had more associated costs with energy as well as we have a higher volume. So we have more manpower, our employees, which were accepting the grain. So we have a bit of a downward pressure on our gross profit margin. If we look at our grain and oilseed trade, which has performed well, and we have EUR 1 million increase in gross profit year-on-year. This was driven mainly by abundant harvest results. We have a higher quantities of harvest in the Baltics by around 10%. However, the trade is quite challenging because the harvest quality issues are visible and it's sometimes hard to meet our export requirements, but we are, of course, working towards that. And the price environment, which is also not helping, is more or less downwards looking. So throughout the half of the year, the price of main grains, especially wheat, was decreasing. So we should move then to feed. Feed has decreased more substantially. So last year, we had a very nice result of EUR 10 million of gross profit. Now we have around EUR 5 million, and I will try to walk you through this performance. Overall, compound feed demand and production stayed solid. We have good results there. Sales volumes and revenues have increased and the profitability of the segment remains good because we have a bit of a lower cost base with lower main grain prices. However, our feedstuff trade, which also is accounted in this segment, is more challenging. We have issues and challenges with all the global tariffs and antidumping rules. So we have a quite an unprofitable position of amino acids in our portfolio, which more or less we have now realized and accounted for. That was basically what happened and why the profitability in this segment has decreased so dramatically from EUR 10 million to EUR 5 million. When we look at our input part, we are more or less flat or we have a EUR 1 million difference. However, we deem to see this segment as quite successful because you can see the weather conditions were not that much encouraging for farmers to buy inputs or make decisions about inputs for the spring and still the conditions are continuously cold, as you can say. So we will see how that evolves in the next quarters. But overall, our seeds sales sustained the strong sales quantities, our gross profit profitability high comparable to previous period. So we remain and we sustain a very leading -- good leading market position in the market, having more than 30% of the market. Fertilizers, we have increased in quantities. However, we have a bit more pressure on our margins. So gross profit margin on fertilizers is a bit lower. One thing which is actually a challenge for us and is stopping market to invest into fertilizers is the new European Union Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, which will make all the fertilizers imported from freight countries more expensive. And we have those lessons learned with all the antidumping rules in terms of amino acids and trade with China. And now all the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism also makes us very cautious in trade as well because we don't know how it will play out in the end of the day, and we don't want to make long positions here. The farmers are thinking in the same way. So they are now a bit cautious buying the fertilizers. But of course, they will need to do that when the spring will come because we will need to start to do works in the fields. Machinery. We have a bit of a mixed sentiment in the Machinery segment. We have EUR 1 million decrease in gross profit. However, situation is very different in between both the countries since Lithuania is well performing and showing good results. The Latvian and Estonian market is much more difficult. And we see that the sentiment, the financial position of the farmers is much weaker in those markets. So let's move to our Food Production segment. So we have increased, as mentioned before, sales in this segment. So we went from EUR 216 million to EUR 241 million in sales. However, in total group portfolio, that wasn't enough to offset the decrease in Partners for Farmers. But overall, poultry business performed modest production quantity increase. That did not translate into a proportional sales volume increase because we have a softer seasonal demand in second quarter. Prices, they are still strong. However, we see some indications in the market that, that might be cooling. However, no quick or fast changes yet expected here, but the sentiment is changing in the market. But that is maybe still offset by global feed price outlook, which is very positive and stays positive for our poultry production. So our focus still remains highly on biosecurity and operational excellence because all the disease environment and disease background hasn't gone anywhere, and that's still a very huge challenge for the industry in Europe. If we look at our instant food and ready-to-eat category, last year, we had EUR 7 million of gross profit from this segment. This year, we have actually decreased to EUR 3 million, but we have some positive signs there as instant food category has performed better in terms of volumes and revenues. So we are selling more now and the profitability is more or less connected with our expansion in Alytus, which we need to load a new factory. And unfortunately, we have some downward pressure on the profitability and prices. Ready-to-eat category delivered lower volumes, unfortunately, and revenues, and that mainly due to reduced United States orders. And here, we see the effect of the change in global trade and the effect of tariffs coming into U.S. So we were not able to pass on all the new duties and our main customers have ordered less of our production in this segment to U.S. So overall, category joint profitability deteriorated, and that mainly is influenced and will be influenced in the future by our ability to employ our production capacity in the best possible and profitable way. When we look our Flour and Coating Systems segment, which is quite small in this proportion as poultry has the majority of this segment performance, which is EUR 43 million. But overall, flour, similar production volumes, but decreased third-party sales. That's a trend since last year. So we have employed more flour into our own productions for instant foods and coating systems mainly. Coating systems, we have also increased production volumes. If you remember, we have a new plant here as well. So our volumes have grown. However, the same kind of issue, we need to employ our new capacity, extra capacity more profitably and favorably for us. Let's move to our Agricultural Production. So our sales volumes are more or less stable. However, our sales revenues in terms of euros have decreased by EUR 1 million. That reflects basically lower sales prices. But in our crop production, we have approximately sold 95% of our 2025 harvest. So that's more or less done or at least precontracted. We have a negative price effect. The prices of the main grades we harvested are 10% to 15% lower year-on-year. So this is how in our farming business, lower prices or deflationary environment has resulted. Even though we had higher volumes, last year, we had 93,000 tonnes of harvest. This year, we have 94,000. However, the higher volume with lower prices did not result in overall better gross profit. So you have seen that probably it's a good indication of how overall agriculture or farmers live and are performing in the Baltic countries or at least in Lithuania. So prospects of sowings for 2026, it's really hard to say. Harvesting conditions were a bit challenging as we had a very wet autumn and now we have a proper winter, which we haven't had for at least the last 3 to 5 years. So it is not really -- we're not in a position to indicate how it looks. We need to see how it looks after the snow and the minus temperatures have gone. In terms of milk production, same result in terms of quantities, very similar result in gross profit. So it's -- our herd was very comparable, while our production, maybe quality was a bit better. Raw milk purchase prices still for the first half of the year was 10% higher. Our cost base was comparably stable, which I cannot say about our crop production. We also have a higher cost base in our crop production. However, in milk production, the prospects are more or less negative for the coming quarter or maybe coming half year because we have a trend of decreasing raw milk prices, which will be a change year-on-year for this segment. I would like to walk you through our investments to give you a bit more perspective how we are doing here. So for this year, we have budgeted EUR 43 million of investments. So it's more than EUR 20 million less than last year. So we are coming to the next phase of group development for this year that we have less investments as major projects which we have planned are being implemented or are in the final stage of implementation. Out of the EUR 43 million, the main investments will go to poultry this year. It's around EUR 30 million, and that's a bunch of different investments. Part of their investments are towards efficiency, biosecurity and overall maintenance. We have quite an extensive program of investments into our farming companies, EUR 5 million are going to dairy farm modernization and EUR 9 million are biomethane production, which will start producing this financial year, most likely towards the end of this financial year. Other investments around through the group is EUR 16 million, and that's mainly towards improving daily operations, maintenance, efficiencies, automatization. So that's how the investment profile looks for this year. What else we have announced, which we are considering, which are not yet improved. These are big numbers for the group, but we would like to be transparent and also in terms of planning for us and for understanding to the investor community, we have announced 3 investments, which we are considering. And when we approve them in the Board level, they will be communicated separately. But that, of course, is expansion of feed production. That's basically new feed production plant in Lithuania, which would change our existing plant in Kaunas. Pet food production, we also are considering to expand our current operations in pet food and new plant in Kaisiadorys, which would further increase our value chain in [indiscernible] business. So that was more or less for me. I hope you have questions, and I'm ready more or less to answer them. And please use the opportunity and order or subscribe to our news and investors alerts. Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to your questions.

Thank you, Mazvydas, for the presentation. Yes. And now we are opening the floor for questions. [Operator Instructions] And we haven't received any written questions in advance of the call. So we are moving straight to the questions that we have received during the webinar. So far, I see that we have received 17 questions. So let's start from the first one. So the first question is, are you expecting any price pressure in the instant food segment?

Yes. We are not even expecting we are more or less experiencing it now, and that comes from 2 sides or 2 ways. One is that we have extra capacity we need to employ because we have built a new factory, and we want to reach a healthy breakeven capacity utilization ratio as soon as possible. And the other pressure, which we see is also more or less connected to the global trade and all the new tariff stuff is that imports to Europe from Asian producers have increased, meaning that we feel that Asian producers have redirected part of their volumes from possibly U.S. to Europe as they have more challenges and issues to sell their production in U.S. So we see this trend, and that's a pressure for us. That might be an opportunity for us as well because part of the Asian producers are thinking to produce in Europe. So we are in a position to offer capacity for their production as well, but we feel the pressure on prices here.

Yes. The next question. Volumes of grains and oilseeds traded during second quarter of fiscal year were just higher versus the same period a year ago despite stronger crop in the region. Could you please clarify what kept a lead on trading and what kind of volumes one can reasonably expect in the second half of fiscal year?

Yes, it's a great question. This is the peculiarities of our trading strategy. And the question is completely right. We have quite a lot of volumes, which we still have on our books, which were unsold. For the second quarter, we did not have a favorable trading environment, mainly due to the deflationary price which unfortunately for us translated into decrease in premiums, meaning that we trade on premium and we are looking to get the best premium or margin for our grain. And second quarter was not great for that. So we remain conservative, and we did not trade the volumes, basically believing that in the third and fourth quarter, we will have better opportunities or better premiums to sell the crop. That's why our volumes were lower, even though we have sourced and bought more grain from the farmers in the Baltics. So my message is simple that we have quite a lot of grain to trade in the third and fourth quarter going forward.

Yes. And moving to next question. By our account, fiscal quarter -- second fiscal quarter saw gross profitability in grains and oilseeds evaporate to essentially 0 from around EUR 4 million a year ago. Similar trend in feedstuffs, drop in gross profit of around EUR 4 million year-to-year. Could you please explain what caused this drop? And what are your expectations for the second half of fiscal year?

So feedstuffs is easier to explain. As I mentioned a bit, we have this unprofitable position of amino acids, which we fully accounted for the loss in the second quarter. We decided not to wait and see how the prices will play out in the future, but we have accounted an existing loss as it is now, and that's accounted fully now. In terms of grains and oilseeds, correct, we have profitability decrease there as well. That is more seasonal and more attributed to our hedging and cost of goods attribution. So we had less profitable trades, which we made. Basically, we traded grains with higher cost accounted to them. These are a bit of the accounting measures. And looking forward, we expect that when we will trade the remaining quantities of our books, the result will increase or grow accordingly as the second quarter was quite heavily impacted by loss -- write-off of loss-making position in amino acids and not so profitable trade in terms of our positions in grains and oilseeds.

Poultry keeps delivering strong results due to robust prices and favorable cost situation. These tailwinds have been felt on quite some time. How much longer do you expect to enjoy them? Or maybe there is some structural shift?

So far, the story behind the poultry market is very similar. The prices are driven by the very weak supply of poultry meat from Poland and some other European geographies due to the diseases. And here, sooner or later, they have to make changes and they have to sort it out because they cannot operate like this forever. So there is no structural change as so. However, the situation has taken more time for them than everyone expected. The other thing is that we feel some changes in the price sentiment already. They are not drastic, but the sentiment is more towards normalization than growing in terms of meat prices. However, for this year, it is hard to evaluate if we will feel the effect because the timing is yet very vague and not sure. And other thing with this year more or less is fixed and helps us and won't change is our cost base. Basically, our feed cost for this year is more or less fixed. It's in a good position. It is comparably low because as you can see through our other segments, grade prices are low, which basically helps to keep our feed price stable and favorable for us. So we -- even though the sentiment changes, we have still quite a good position in terms of our cost base.

We have received a number of questions on EU-Mercosur trade deal. Could you please provide your take on the deal? And how it is likely to affect Akola Group?

Yes. So we are still more or less evaluating the effect. We don't see any immediate effects or very negative effects, which would change our business and our earnings drastically or dramatically. That's for sure. We don't see that imminent impact. Overall, we will have some impact in terms of poultry because there are new agreement how much poultry can be imported from these countries to European Union. And the amount overall is not huge if compared to overall poultry consumption in Europe. However, it will very depend where those volumes will end up. Will they end up in the geographies and markets we are selling or they will end up in other areas and what parts and what segments of our markets they will target because we believe that will be, of course, breast fillet or more the premium parts, which are quite important for us. And they will deliver, of course, frozen product, which is a bit of a different market then. So we are following that quite closely. But so far, immediate effect is not visible, and we will see where and how it will end up. However, saying that, it also is important to mention that there are some security mechanisms in the trade deal that if the prices would be very affected or the market is very affected in terms of poultry, there are some price adjustments mechanisms and kickbacks for the local producers. How that will work, it's still very hard to tell. And in reality, how they will apply it is still to be seen. So we don't see anything dramatical or imminent. We will follow that and, of course, inform our investors if we will see something. But we see that there are also some security mechanism implemented and how it will work will be seen in the future. Other areas are not that much affected. But overall, we will follow the situation because what are the farmers or local farmers mostly in different areas like beef production, poultry production, crop production, mostly afraid of is, of course, cheaper imports from those countries, which are cheaper because due to lower biosecurity, animal welfare requirements and all other stuff. So we will follow that closely, but the most significant part for our group is the poultry part.

Okay. Moving to the next question. The group is considering the possibility of investing EUR 34 million in the construction of a new plant in Kaisiadorys. Could you please elaborate on what kind of return on investment could you reasonably earn?

Yes. So that's a project which we are considering. No decisions yet made because it's a complex project. We have also applied for government support, which is under the scheme in that particular geographical region. When we are planning investments like these, we are looking at 5 to 6 years of payback. Our return on investment varies from 10% to 15%, depending on our business plan and some sort of assumptions. So that's a big investment, EUR 34 million, and it's not a crucial part of our production. That's a further value or value chain increase in our poultry, which is, of course, favorable. But we will see how it will end up because we have also other investments which could be made in our poultry business. And that, of course, will compete with this investment. And at the end of the day, we will see which of the investments brings the highest return on investment that will be implemented. So please follow us. We will communicate our decisions in this area, and you will see how we will go. Since last webinar, I think we are trying to give you a bit more perspective on our investments that you would have a better understanding where we are moving. So the investment of EUR 43 million in Kaisiadorys is still on consideration and the decision is pending and will probably made within the next half year.

And the next question, how are the severe winter conditions affecting crop over wintering? Please comment on the situation in your own fields as well as surrounding region.

So we don't know what's -- how the fields are looking now, but what can I tell you is that the layer of snow is very healthy. So the minus temperatures or even some -- in some areas, quite extreme minor temperatures did not affect the crop quality possibly because we yet still don't know. We will see the crop quality only after the snow melts. But a good layer of snow always saves and supports the crop quality from the high minus temperatures. So we are a bit afraid of floodings in spring because the amount of snow is really huge, and we will have a lot of water in the fields for sure. So that will be quite a big possible thing to consider. But according how it looks now, snow layer healthy, we should wait for spring and see how that goes on.

All right. Do you expect this year's planned CapEx to drive revenue growth?

Yes, for sure. Basically, our revenue drivers in terms of CapEx are mainly now in our farming companies. So both biogas production will bring extra revenue stream for us. Investment into our dairy farms will allow us to increase our herd, meaning that we will be able to increase our milk production, meaning drive revenues. Poultry investments are more efficiency investments. Those are not directly driving volumes, but those are investments into our efficiency, operational excellence as well as biosecurity. So that's a bit more a mixed picture. The other $16 million is more of a maintenance and operational investments. So those are more scattered around the group because we need to maintain our factories. We need to maintain our infrastructure, and that's more about maintenance, less about revenue drivers. But our investments into farming company are very nice investments directed completely to actually even new business because biogas production will be a new business for us and also improving -- increasing our milk production.

Are you experiencing the same margin pressures in poultry segment that we are currently seeing in the dairy industry?

As I mentioned, we see some change in perspective regarding poultry prices for sure. They have not yet materialized yet. And as I mentioned before, the timing and basically the essence or how large the price changes will be are still unknown, but the sentiment is a bit different in the market. Where we are able to maintain maybe our margins is from the cost base, which is quite stable. As I mentioned before, feed is favorable for us. Gas prices have not increased for winter, even though, of course, we used more gas this year to hit our infrastructure than last year. So that will be an impact, but not that large because prices of gas remained quite favorable. So input part helps us even though we see some changes in pricing.

All right. Can you please elaborate how second quarter looks if compared to the second quarter of financial year 2024, 2025? Market reaction was negative yesterday as investors treated results negatively when comparing first and second quarters of the current financial year.

Yes. That's a great question. There may be a few things out of this question. One is that we are quite a seasonal and cyclical business. So to compare every quarter-by-quarter is quite hard because different trading conditions, different pricing conditions, timing of trading and other stuff really impacts our earnings throughout the quarter. So if you compared to last quarter, of course, this quarter was weaker compared to last year. But the other thing which I also would like to highlight is that our diversification. So our diversified business model help us to withstand those changes. So basically, that is very well illustrated by our half year earnings, yes. So our half year earnings and performance is better than last year's earnings, even though we have a weaker second quarter. And if you would analyze the group and look at the group, we have that fluctuations in between quarters. Sometimes it needs a bit more explanation. But overall, we have this fluctuation, which we try to offset with a good business diversification. The other thing is that our best -- the best way to judge or evaluate group is with the full year results because then more or less, we have traded all the volumes. We have sold all the inputs we have planned to the farmers. And of course, our food production businesses have delivered the results for the full year. So that's the best way to evaluate our group. The thing which you also should search for is our EBITDA target announcement. So we have that EUR 70 million to EUR 90 million EBITDA target. Last spring, if you remember, we revised that upward for the year. So actually, currently, we haven't changed that yet. We are evaluating the situation. We will see how the winter ends, how the crops are looking in the fields, what is the farmer sentiment. And if we will see that if it goes one or the other way, we will, of course, make an announcement regarding the EBITDA target for the full year. So please follow us for that. But overall, I would say that 6 months this year compared to 6 months last year, we have delivered a better result, and we are more or less in the same pace, if you would say, to last year when we had the second best year in group's history. Of course, we have 2 quarters to work on, and we will see how those will go out as they are very important quarters, especially the fourth quarter is very important for us.

Could you please share your take on the pricing outlook for the next few quarters in the Partners for Farmers segment?

Well, if we look at the main grains, main grains do not have a lot of fundamental arguments why the prices should increase. This year, globally, there is oversupply of grains. A lot of regions like U.S., South America, Australia as well have very good harvest. So they supplied quite a lot of grain into the market. So basically, that puts a downward pressure on main grain prices. So we are not expecting them to change a lot until the end of the financial year. Input prices are more or less stable. The change which can happen or could affect the market is the EU carbon adjustment tax on the fertilizers. But that possibly is not going to be an effect for this next half a year because more or less traders have secured supply before this tax, majority of them at least, how we see the market. But going into autumn, that might play out quite importantly because the mechanism and the tax will be in effect. So input prices probably stable or slightly inflationary for the next half year.

In the second quarter of 2026, net profit came out at 0. What are the main drivers for this result?

Sorry, can you repeat? Okay, I see the question. Yes. I probably talked a bit. We had a weak quarter in the Partners for Farmers. That's the main reason. In terms of food, we have grown, as you have seen through our presentation, even though we did not grow in terms of profitability in instant foods or ready-to-eat foods, but we have substantially grown in poultry, but we have lost in Partners for Farmers, which were a main driver for the 0 results in the second quarter. And I probably more or less talked about the reasons behind the Partners for Farmers weaker segment just before.

And then we have received a number of questions on buyback program. Shareholders' meeting made a decision on own shares buyback program. But since then, there were no news on when and at what conditions the buyback program would be started. So could you please provide an update on this?

I could probably not speculate a lot during this webinar about this, but we will announce regarding the paybacks, more information soon. Yes, we were constructing and building up the program in terms of execution and the offerings for the investors. So we have already did that. More or less, the Board has made its decision or made up their mind how to approach the buyback. Please follow us, and you will see more, and you will be able to participate in the buyback. We have not changed our mind. We will move forward with that and information will follow.

And then the question on planned dividends. What are the planned dividends?

We have our dividend policy. So the best indication for you is our dividend policy, which we have followed for several years now. Last year, we have increased the dividend a bit from 20% to 25%, but the best target for you or indication for you is our dividend policy, which says that we are paying 20%, not less than 20% from our consolidated net profit. So that's the best indication for you, I can give.

Okay. And the final question that I see in our Q&A chat. The result of instant food segment was really poor, especially bearing in mind the start of operations of Alytus plant. What steps are you taking to change the situation?

Yes. Probably touched upon that a bit, but not maybe to add something new is that we are now basically looking how to employ our extra capacity in the best possible way. So meaning quantities versus pricing. So we are looking to have a healthy balance between those. But our plan is to increase capacity and to do that in the most profitable way because increased capacity and profitably is easier. And here, we talked about a bit of the reasons why maybe it takes longer than we expected. We have those additional or increasing imports from Asia to Europe in this category, which doesn't allow us to do that very quickly. But we are working on that because overall, the market more or less is there. The market of instant noodle consumption hasn't decreased or vanished or changed somehow. However, the part of the market now is being served through new imports or new players in the market.

Thank you, Mazvydas, yes, for your answers. It seems that we do not have any further questions. So on behalf of Akola Group and Nasdaq Vilnius, I would like to thank all the participants for being with us on this call. And as mentioned earlier, the recording of today's session will be available on the Nasdaq Baltic YouTube channel. So thank you once again, and goodbye.

Thank you very much. Goodbye.