Ariston Holding N.V. (ARIS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Ariston Group Full Year 2023 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Albert Pozzi. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to Ariston Group Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2023 Results Call. I'm Albert Pozzi, Strategy and Investor Relations Senior Director. With me here today are Maurizio Brusadelli, Chief Executive Officer; and Riccardo Gini, Chief Financial Officer. The presentation will last about 20 minutes, then we will open up the session for questions. As a reminder, for those on the phone, the slide deck is available from our Investor Relations website. I will now turn the call over to Maurizio.

Thank you, Albert, and good afternoon, everyone. So let me start, and I am on Slide 3. 2023 was a record setting year for Ariston Group, both in revenues and EBIT adjusted results. In fact, since the IPO in the last 3 years, Ariston Group has almost doubled, both its revenue from EUR 1.66 billion in 2020 to EUR 3.1 billion in 2023. And its EBIT, too. EBIT adjusted from EUR 164 million to EUR 314 million. The growth over the last 3 years came from a combination of organic and inorganic levers. In Q4, we have registered strong cash generation above previous year, and we continue to grow more than 20% our top line. In 2023, a significant contribution to the growth came from Wolf-Brink acquisition. I'd like to highlight that despite a strong headwind in the Italian market, the Group, in full year 2023, has continued to grow at 2.5% year-on-year on a pro forma basis and excluding ForEx. Let's move now on to Slide 4. I want to reiterate some of the elements I already shared during the quarter 3 call because they are central to Ariston Group strategy and DNA. First, we are offering the entire range of technologies that are required to reduce the global warming. From the most advanced heat pump with natural refrigerant to high-efficiency hydrocarbon boilers. Whatever technology is needed by our clients and users, we can supply it. There might be demand volatility in technology or in a market in the short term, but we can mitigate it, thanks to our multi-technology offer. Second, we provide heating, water heating and air treatment solutions. Heating market is and will continue to experience in the coming years a shift toward more sophisticated technologies to achieve government decarbonization targets. Water heating is a steadily increasing global market with large untapped potential in many emerging economies, where penetration is still low but growing. With the acquisition of Wolf-Brink in 2023, we entered in the air treatment business for both commercial and residential application. This is an interesting segment, given the increasing awareness of the importance of the air quality and the heat recovery system for near zero emission buildings. Third, to serve at best our markets, we have developed a global network of plants and competent centers that has proven to work efficiently, and it is resilient to supply chain disruption. The recent acquisition of our assets in Egypt aims to strengthen our position in the North Africa and Middle East water heating markets, and this is another step of the strategy. Fourth, inorganic expansion and our capability to deliver synergies has given an important contribution in the past years and to 2023 figures. Last, we have a midterm view. We deliberately continue to invest for our future in technology, digitalization, new products, production flexibility and efficiency. Even after the financing of Wolf-Brink acquisition, we continue to have a strong balance sheet with ample flexibility. Now let me move to Page 5, when we illustrate some examples of the latest solution and products that we launched in the market. We invest in digital solutions to continuously improve our end user experience of our more than 1.2 million connectable devices worldwide. We finally developed our B2C Ariston app that today covers, in one app, heating and water heating solution, and this is powered by artificial intelligence, providing tips to the users to reduce running costs and environmental impact. We have continued to innovate and release heating heat pump products with the most advanced technologies and even with an icon design -- iconic design, sorry. Like the Aerotop SX that you see here, this won the prestigious Red Dot Award in 2023. At the same time, we offer the state-of-the-art high-efficiency boiler technology for our clients that prefer this equipment. On the bottom left of the page, you can find the new range of NTI boilers that we released for the U.S. and Canada markets with highest efficiency standard and reduced maintenance needed. Lastly, on water heating, we are at the forefront of the innovation of demand response services. We have introduced our first demand response product in France. Products with DR functionalities are able to dialogue with the power grid and to provide balancing services when needed. This is an important feature to enable the growth of renewables power generation sources. And you can see that in U.S., we extended the range of heat pump water heaters, leveraging on the distinctive technology and know-how we have developed in the past years to serve the European markets. For sustainability, on Page 6, we walk the talk. Last year, we presented our ESG plan with ambitious targets on all 3 dimensions of environmental, sustainability and governance. Today, I'm happy to share our significant progress in the last year, 26 million tons CO2 avoided since 2020, well on track to our 2030 target of 100 million tons CO2 avoided. Almost equal revenues in Europe from renewable versus fossil fuel products. A big step-up in the share of sold boilers that can operate with hydrogen blending from 40% to 75% of revenues in 2023. If you are interested, you can find more details on the sustainability and governance objectives in the 2023 Annual Report to be published today on our corporate website. Now let me pass on to Riccardo, who will provide more details on our fourth quarter and full year performance. Thank you.

Thank you, Maurizio. We closed out the year with another solid quarter. So let's start with Slide 8, where as a first thing, we want to show you the quarterly and then full year net revenues increase, disaggregated by the main drivers, such as organic M&A and FX. On a quarterly basis, top line was up by 23.2% year-over-year, reaching EUR 805 million, and we managed to limit organic decrease to minus 2.8%, which we consider a positive result, given the very challenging context in heating in Europe. [indiscernible] perimeter grew at plus 28.2%. The group level FX was negative, mainly in Asia Pacific and Middle East geographies. Pro forma full year revenues, excluding FX, the business generated a plus 2.5%, also thanks to a robust performance in Germany or a plus 1.1%, including FX. We reached our all-time high revenues at EUR 3.1 billion. Organic full year is minus 2.2% and will be positive, excluding Italy. Turning to Slide #9. We provide you with a recap of our net revenues, quarterly growth performance since the IPO, highlighting also the organic growth performance. Let me give you a few thoughts about this chart. First, since IPO, our group registered positive organic growth in all quarters till the Italy's 110% Superbonus discontinuity, which makes the Italian market challenging for the entire industry and for us. Second, our ability to grow inorganically, delivering consistent growth about 10% in all of the 8 last quarters. Further, though we didn't show it explicitly, as you look at the bars on this chart, our group passed from EUR 1.7 billion to EUR 3.1 billion annual revenues in just 3 years. This confirms, once again, our historic desire and ambition to grow, as testified by the 18 acquisitions closed since 2014. Coming back to our results. Let's go to Slide 10 for the sales breakdown by geography. Europe, our largest area, increased its weight up to 74% compared to 65% in 2022, thanks to the Wolf-Brink acquisition. Annual net revenues in the [ year ] exceeded EUR 2.2 billion, which is a 48.5% up year-over-year with nearly EUR 800 million from Wolf-Brink, while Q4 figure was EUR 580 million or plus 38.5% year-over-year, including EUR 182 million from Wolf-Brink. In the last quarter, we had mixed results with a sound growth in Germany, both Wolf and Elco, and the headwinds from weak demand in Italy and other markets. Asia Pacific and Middle East Africa net revenues in 2023 were down by 1.1% to EUR 536 million. While in the quarter, the figure was down by 4.4% to EUR 140 million, mainly due to FX headwinds in Australia, China and some other countries in the Middle East. Organically, the growth was actually positive. Finally, Americas' annual revenues were at EUR 275 million, which is a negative 8.6% year-over-year and quarterly figure at EUR 85 million with Hot Water business increasing while Heating affected by weak market demand. Besides, the exit from Argentina had a small but negative impact on the top line. And you might recall, we decided to exit from this nonprofitable market. Moving down along the P&L, Slide #11 focuses on adjusted EBIT performance. Full year '23 figure was up by 41.2% year-over-year to EUR 314 million, with a margin expansion of 80 basis points versus 2022, thanks to pricing, mix, sourcing productivity and acquisition synergies, which more than offset cost inflation and lower volumes. In the quarter, adjusted EBIT was at EUR 87 million with a higher margin percentage compared to full year, mainly due to seasonality. With regards to the adjustments on EBIT out of EUR 28.5 million total figures, we mentioned here the most relevant ones like the impact of PPA amortization from M&A for EUR 26.4 million, and the EUR 7.9 million upside of the insurance reimbursement for the flash flood occurred back in September 2022, net of cost. Anyway, you can find a full list of adjustments in the appendix. Moving on to the operating cash flow generation on Slide #12. The full year '23 free cash flow was at EUR 112 million versus EUR 32 million of prior year. Please consider that the prior year figure was restated according to our new definition of free cash flow, which excludes the mark-to-market derivatives effect. You can find the detailed reconciliation in the appendix. As anticipated, the whole annual free cash flow generation was in the last quarter of the year, with Q4 bringing EUR 136 million, which is up 19% versus Q4 '22, a quite impressive performance considering that we started from a negative EUR 24.5 million at the end of September, which is a restated figure. We registered a sound EBITDA figure with EUR 417 million or 13.5% margin, significantly higher than 2022 with EUR 284 million or 11.9% as a result of our business performance. The working capital improvement in Q4, driven by inventory reduction and positive contribution of Wolf-Brink helped us to deliver a robust free cash flow while continuing to invest in the business for the long term. Our EUR 159 million CapEx was dedicated to technologies, operations, flexibility and efficiency improvements, process digitalization and production footprint. To provide you more color on the other moving parts of our performance, we have a detailed cash flow statement slide in the appendix, and let me underline the following. Taxes paid increased by EUR 38.6 million, in line with the business year-over-year growth, 2022 also included a one-off timing benefit for about EUR 5 million, positive contribution of EUR 24.3 million from provisions and other changes from operating activities, mainly driven by the Wolf-Brink funds adequacy, the positive impact of customers advances and deferred income. Finally, on the right, you can also find a snapshot of our net working capital figure for 2023 compared to 2022, which we managed to reduce quite significantly since the end of Q3. You might recall that the percentage was 18.7%. Now it is 14.9%. We are committed to keep this figure at the most efficient level to maximize cash flow generation during the year. Finally, in Slide #13, you can see the movement of our adjusted net cash position during the year. On top of our EUR 99 million adjusted net cash position at the beginning of the year, we managed to generate EUR 112 million of free cash flow despite investments made on CapEx, as explained in the previous slide. Then the full cash outflow for Wolf-Brink acquisition amounting to EUR 651 million composed by the price paid in cash plus the long-term net financial position of Wolf-Brink and the acquisition date. Going on, you can find the EUR 48 million dividend payment to remunerate our shareholders, the cash outflow for financial charges and FX, 1.5 million treasury shares buyback corresponding to about EUR 9 million to serve our corporate long-term incentive plan, and finally, EUR 57 million of noncash items, which include mark-to-market derivatives impact, IFRS 16 liabilities variation and the exchange rate variation effect on the net financial investments. In a nutshell, despite a sudden volume drop experience, the free cash flow was sufficient to fund all the financing activities and remunerate our capital structure, both equity and debt. Closing the slide, all these items made our adjusted net cash position negative by EUR 575 million, increasing our leverage to 1.4x from negative 0.3x at the end of 2022, a higher but still solid and safe level. Slide #14 shows a picture of our net financial indebtedness composition. Compared to a year before, we can see the liquidity figure decreased to EUR 461 million, driven by Wolf-Brink acquisition, though increased compared to the 9 months level. A closer look to the other indicators revealed a successful effort to renew and extend the duration of our debt. The average maturity now is over 4.5 years and to increase by nearly EUR 500 million, the available pool of committed new credit lines. This was accomplished between July and August, and included a new club deal plus EUR 100 million Schuldschein financing, net of the termination of some preexisting credit lines. At December 31, more than 80% of maturities are spread between 2027 and 2031, and about 2/3 of our long-term debt at fixed rate or hedged. As you can see, despite the big cash outflow for Wolf-Brink acquisition, our capital structure is safe and sound, allowing us flexibility to pursuing further organic and inorganic growth opportunities. Finally, in Slide 15, we are glad to announce that the Board's proposal to the general shareholders meeting will include the distribution of a dividend of EUR 0.17 per share to be paid in the month of May. This corresponds to about 33% payout on 2023 net income in line with our policy, and a 31% increase compared to the prior year, which was $0.13 per share. Now I will pass it back to Maurizio for his closing remarks, including the full year outlook and guidance.

Thank you, Riccardo. So let me talk a little bit of 2024 and that in our later conversation, I already said that 2024 is expected to be a transition year for us. We are confident on the critical role and growth prospect of the HVAC industry to achieve government's decarbonization target in the midterm, and we believe that our fundamentals and our business model with a good balance of heating and water heating and a complete set of technologies position us well to serve at best, our markets in the different stages of energy transition. We expect water heating market to steadily grow in 2024. Also in 2023, water heating has proven to be strongly resilient as it is less linked to incentives. Only thing we know that the market is expected to be more challenging in Europe, especially for heating heat pumps. The German heating market was exceptionally high in the first half of 2023. The new regulation, that is now clear and supportive, generated some uncertainty in the market in the last few months. This will impact our top line in the first month of 2024 against tough comparables. Also Italian heating market grew in the first month of 2023, thanks to the favorable 110% incentive schemes. Therefore, we expect a tough or negative growth year-on-year, especially in Q1 and the recovery of the market in H2. In this environment, we can leverage our multi-technology heating portfolio. We can offer boilers and hybrid technologies in markets, where the heating is on demand, will be soft. We can leverage on the steadily growing water heating business and capitalize on our geographical diversification to mitigate the impact of Germany and Italy, our 2 largest markets. Towards 2024, we expect a negative organic growth between minus 1% and minus 5%. The lower boundary reflects a scenario where the German market continues to be strongly negative in H2. That, however, is not our base case. We expect our EBIT adjusted margin to be between 9.4% and 10% as a consequence of operating leverage. Our cash generation will be much better in 2024 compared to 2023, with a positive contribution coming from net working capital optimization. Cash generation will be concentrated in Q4 as per previous years. We continue to invest for the midterm, focusing our resources on digitalization, technology, new products, production flexibility and efficiency. We have many important programs ongoing that we don't want to stop. Therefore, CapEx is expected to exceed 4% of revenues in 2024. And obviously, M&A continues to be a priority. We continue to look for and assess inorganic options with strong strategic rationale. Thank you, everyone, for the attention, and I think, Albert, now we can open the Q&A.

Yes. We have completed our presentation. To make sure that everyone gets a chance to speak, try to limit the number of questions at each turn. Operator, please open the lines.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from Siya, Brijesh with HSBC.

I have 2 questions. The first one is on the heat pump. Maurizio, you talked about heat pump kind of...

Sorry. Excuse me.

Can you please repeat the question?

Sure. No, I was asking about the heat pump market. You talked about the last couple of months being slight difficult. Could you just give us how the market is looking like in Q1 or as we speak compared to what it was in Q4 and what has really changed? Anything you're looking especially in Germany, Italy, which is different from what we saw in Q4? That's the first one. And then I'll come to the second one after you answer that.

Thank you for the question. So when we speak about heating heat pump market, obviously, every geography is different. So maybe your question is more related to Germany, where we highlighted the difference between quarter 4 and what is happening now. So we know that in 2023, we enjoy a very good backlog of orders coming from the previous year and during 2023. As you know, the Germany incentives came a little bit later than expected. The market was expecting the new regulation in terms of incentive in September, October. Actually, they came in December. And then the government also announced a change in system. So the new system is now up and running since last week in Germany. The incentives are favorable, as we said, in line with what we saw previously. But this delay on both publishing the incentives and also on the mechanics on how to ask incentives from consumer create a little bit of delay in the market. So that's impacting the first half of 2024. Then remember, Germany last year, as I said, was exceptionally high. The market grew a lot, closing 2023 in terms of more volume at more than 1.25 million pieces. And this was a high peak versus the historical 800,000, 850,000 volume with anticipation of the heating heat pump and also oil and gas demand, given the fear of gas ban in 2024 eventually postponed. So that is what we see. And based on your question, between Q4 and Q1, as I said, we expect Q1 to be more negative than what we saw in quarter 4. And then I don't know if you want me to go country by country, but I think that was your question, if I'm not wrong. Would you want to ask me the second part of the question?

Well, just a supplementary on the first one itself. So when you look at the year-on-year basis, obviously, the base is quite high, as you say. So are we looking kind of on a year-on-year basis, the demand to be down towards double digit in heat pump?

Are you referring to 2023 or '24?

2024 H1 versus 2024 -- 2023 H1.

Yes. I mean, obviously, given the peak high of Germany in 2023, this year, the market will be down. So we'll be down on both total and heating heat pump, and this is what we expect in Q1 for sure, Q2 and then we expect the market to rebalance and rebound in Q3, and especially in Q4 because as we said before, Q4 '23 was weak.

Understood. Okay. The second one is on the pricing. We have been hearing that the heat pump price hasn't really kind of moved despite the weak demand out turn. I mean, a few of your competitors are suggesting that prices are stable. Can you give us a little sense about how the pricing is evolving as we speak, especially, I heard that a couple of the Asian producers have started reducing prices, so any thoughts around that would be helpful.

Yes. I mean in terms of pricing, what we do is we continue to monitor the evolution of prices in the market. And as of now, we don't see any factor of price reduction trend in the market. I mean, as you said, demand is weak and pushing on pricing will not support demand in this moment. Then maybe to remind you all, the cost of heating heat pump instrument is on the attraction of the total cost of the installation. Installation is much richer, it is complex. So the total cost of an installation in a house will be maybe 3x, 4x than the cost of the heating heat pump. So even if there will be a reduction on pricing, the total cost might not change. And then I would like to remember that we mainly play in the mainstream to high end product category, not in the entry level of the products. And we have service, after service in every market. So this is a big point of difference in asset if you compare us versus other competitors, and I think this is serving us well in holding the situation. I always say that I respect competitors, and I hope they will behave rationally, I can only say this, but so far so good, I would say.

And just one, if I may, the last one, is on the service revenue. Can you give us a little flavor of how the service revenue is kind of evolving? What it was in '22 and what you see in '24? Because given what is happening around heat pumps, obviously, the focus is on the boilers. And even if people don't upgrade then the service revenue is kind of a bigger component for you. So if you can give us a little flavor about what it was last year and what's your expectation for this year?

Yes, I mean, obviously, service is steadily growing. We said that it is around 10% of our revenue. It is a very good revenue stream and profitable for us. And as you said, the service level is related not only to heat pump, but to all the installations that we have in the different markets. So we continue to see and expect a growing revenue stream from both services and parts.

The next question is from Christian Hinderaker with Goldman Sachs.

I just want to ask firstly on margins and the 9.4% to 10% margin outlook. You commented on it actually in the call earlier, but what cost assumptions are you making in that guidance range? And are there cost savings that could be enacted to support profitability if your sales decline moves closer to the low end of the growth guidance?

Yes. Thank you, Christian. I think, I mean we gave this guidance because obviously, if you have a top line impact, there is an impact on our margins as well. In terms of cost assumption, we continue to see favorable cost in what we buy, and this is obviously helping us in 2024 as it helped us in 2023. So there is an upside. Obviously, it's more limited than what we saw in 2023. We have labor costs that is going up, as probably every company, and this is factored in our estimates, and we already as well factored in our estimate, the incremental logistics costs that we are seeing now due to the Red Sea crisis. And obviously, this one, we don't know how long it lasts, but we factor in the full year impact. So in terms of cost savings, I think we were already disciplined in 2023, as you can see from a 10.2% margin level, we will continue to be disciplined and controlling the cost in 2024. But as I said before, we don't want an year to jeopardize what is correct to do for the long term. We need to continue to digitalize this company. We need to continue to launch new products with the best technologies, and we continue to work on what is needed to make the company stronger.

Can I then ask on inventories in the market and then whether you can perhaps comment on your views on that sort of stock build that we've seen in Germany? If we think about the 328,000-odd increase in heating units in the market last year, about 168,000 from gas and 120,000 or so from heat pumps. Just interested in your view on how long that excess stock might take to wash through? And then also whether that's more concentrated in terms of the gas product relative to heat pumps now that we've had this certainty on policy?

Yes. So maybe let me start saying that we see good demand on gas and oil in Germany. So the last year was a very good performance, 2024 is starting well as well. Where we hear from our wholesalers that there are stock levels that are a bit high, more on our competitors than us is on heating heat pump because of the sudden deceleration that we saw in November and December and obviously in January and February. So that, I think, is an important point for you to register. Oil and gas demand continues to be good in Germany. And maybe the expectation will be the gas and oil will continue to grow, maybe Half 1, and then in Half 2, there will be a change with heating heat pumps growing fast and oil and gas going a little bit down, but no stock issues on gas and oil.

The next question is from Alessandro Cecchini with Equita.

The first one, actually, it's on Germany or in Europe, more in general. So talking about Viessmann or Viessmann public statements during Carrier conference call, they stated about this year, a revamp in orders in heat pumps or they see some improvement, they expect some improvement starting from second quarter. And Viessmann actually, it's largely heating. Just to maybe -- your view is more common with the general comments from competitors and so on. So just if you could elaborate a little bit better if you see some pickup in terms of demand in heat pumps still negative, but if you see some better trends in Germany in heat pumps? This is my first question. My second question is you said about the U.S. market. Could you, I mean, provide some more strategic actions that you are taking so that the area is not as good as probably we expected today. IPO, one time, you see good demand in Hot Water, one time not. So it's very volatile, not probably the best area for you. So if you could explain what you thinking about on this to turn around the area? And finally, if I may, on the net working capital, seems much higher than last year in terms of sales. Do you have a target to reduce this kind of net working capital sales and then to support the free cash flow?

Thank you, Alessandro, for the question. Obviously, I wouldn't comment on what Viessmann is saying because obviously, I don't know their business. I assume they know much better than me their business. So then we go back to heating heat pump and your question, if we see something happening in the market or not yet. So as we speak, and we are at the end of February, we didn't see a pickup of number of orders, leveraging incentives. To be fair, there is no visibility yet on the number of incentives. So I would be blind to say up or down. So let's wait when the association will publish the number. The system is up, but it came up only last week, end of last week. So we need now the installer to get used to the new system. As I said before, the German government decided to change the system per se and the provider of the system. So when there is something new, obviously, people will have to get used. I can talk about expectation, and this is where between now, Q2, Q3 and Q4, we expect an acceleration of the heating heat pump demand in Germany. On U.S., obviously, it is, I think, a pertinent question from your side. If I start with water heating. You know that water heating there is the biggest in the world, and we are small with many opportunities to grow. The transition to greener technologies, especially in the heat pump, water heater represents an opportunity for us. And we own the heat pump water heating technology, including, as I said before, demand response capabilities. So we fully develop and produce heat pump water heater now, and we launched this. And I think leveraging on our experience in Europe, where we are one of the leaders, we can bring to U.S., the most advanced technologies for both U.S. and Canada. It will take time. We are small, but we patient and we invest in our organization and capabilities, both in R&D, in services and technical support to make sure that we reinforce our position there. If I go to heating, even there, we continue to invest in our organization and products to reinforce the position that we have in the gas boilers segment. And at the same time, we want to be ready to the decarbonization of North American heating sector, and we will bring to U.S. and Canada, the best of Ariston Group heating heat pump technology that has been presented through the HVAC affairs in the U.S. So be patient. We know it is an opportunity. We need to balance the speed of investment with the opportunities we have there. We hope this year will surprise us in a positive way in North America, and we will continue to work to be a winner as well in that important part of the world. I think on net working capital target, obviously, we said we want to improve this in '24, and maybe I'll pass to you, Riccardo to comment on it.

Yes. Thank you, Alessandro. So I think, Maurizio, first of all, it is worth to remind everyone that you might recall, we have been one of the best performers in the industry when it comes to the ratio of net working capital on revenues. If you split down in this balance into the 3 main categories, so inventories, receivables, payables, we can tell you that we have done a very good job on receivables and payables. If you look at the number of days, DSO and DPO, actually, we improved in some instances. So our main focus, in addition to this, will be the inventories optimization throughout 2024. So in a nutshell, we can tell you that, yes, we are committed to lower the number to make it more efficient. Unfortunately, we are not yet in the position to pass you a given number, but that's definitely an area we are committed to work on and to improve it.

The next question is from Alessandro Tortora with Mediobanca.

Yes, I have, let's say, 2 questions to Mr. Riccardo, okay? The first one is on the [indiscernible], you mentioned about the product category with Hot Water steadily growing. Can you comment also a little bit on, let's say, the other subsegments? You mentioned in the presentation also air treatment, both for commercial, residential. So just to have an idea of the trend, okay, you see also in this category? That's the first question. The second question is on Italy. Clearly, we understood, let's say, the tough market condition of Italy last year. Can you give us a sense of what is the customer behavior here considering that clearly, the incentive program is now under deep normalization? And in the end, it's basically Italy -- basically, Italy had the percentage of sales compared to, let's say, the group sales? And the last question, sorry, is on the M&A strategy. Clearly, I see in the presentation of the company, you're still monitoring some M&A option. Can you give us a sense of the range of the option that you are monitoring, like much more selective opportunities as you did recently in Egypt? So it is a matter of purchasing a plant. It is a matter of maybe doing some bolt-on addition today or maybe you are still also monitoring, let's say, some larger opportunities as you did with CENTROTEC?

Thank you, Alessandro. So let me start with the other segment of our business. I mean we spoke about Hot Water, I mean, heating in -- water heating and this is growing. We know that the penetration of water heating is still very low in many emerging markets and the acquisition of the plant in Egypt is positioning us well to leverage what will happen in the next decade or two in Africa, for example, where we know that the population will continue to grow. They will become affluent. And the penetration of water heating is still very, very low. On air treatment, this is where with the acquisition of Wolf, we added an interesting part in our portfolio, I think also this one, an opportunity that we continue to leverage. Now we have a very good position in Germany and in other couple of European countries. And I would say that we have played as well in ventilation. So we are both present in residential and commercial opportunities. This is aligned with our ambition to be the leader in sustainable comfort in the future because you can really work end-to-end with the heating, water heating and air treatment, which is including, as I said, ventilation. And this new houses are sustainable. We believe that will continue to grow and we can leverage what Wolf-Brink did well in other countries, thanks to our route to market. Briefly on Italy. Yes, it is a tough market in Half 1. We know that the incentives are back to the level that they were before, so the same was Ecobonus, 65%, and the Bonus [indiscernible] 50% incentives. Now what we see in Italy, it is, I think, for 2024, heating heat pump market will be slightly negative. I mean putting a heating heat pump in house, it costs a lot of money. And for the people that are paying tax, this contain opportunity for the next decade and others will have to wait a bit. We see the water heating market very bullish in Italy as we speak. And we see as well the demand of boilers that is doing fine. So while we have tough comparable in Q1 because you remember the 110% incentive ended in February, then we had a little bit of backlog in Q1 and part of Q2. We are confident that the Italian market will go back on a positive trajectory enough to, again, not on heating heat pump. I think your last question was on M&A. This is where I will be politically correct. As my team mentioned, we don't disclaim what we are working on. But I think you summarized well the areas where we want to continue to work. There are areas where maybe we are not as strong as we'd like to be, both in technologies or in geographies, and this is what we will continue to work on. There are areas like when in Egypt, if we have an opportunity to have a plant which is already efficient, working well, I mean, to go and have it and prepare us for the future, as I said before. And I think the size of acquisition, it depends a bit on who would like to get with us. And we are looking to niche acquisition and also larger acquisition. And I think this is what [indiscernible] proved in the past with a relevant number of acquisitions in the last decade. And we continue to work on that. It's part of our strategy and gave us a good inorganic growth and a better profitability. We can be the aggregator of family-owned companies. We have now a company, which is a EUR 3 billion plus, which is sizable. And I think we can help the others that are a bit smaller or more -- or smaller than us to be better, keep in an environment that we will continue to consolidate in the future.

The next question is from Isacco Brambilla with Mediobanca.

A couple of questions also from my side. First one is on the integration of Wolf-Brink. You commented during the speech, integration is proceeding even ahead of plans. Could you give us a sense of cost savings achieved in 2023 compared to the initial target and what we should expect for 2024? Second question is, again, on the cost side, more driven by modeling purposes. If you can give us a sense of, directionally, where you expect to evolve financial charges and tax rate, which was slightly up in 2023? And if the PPA impact of EUR 26 million reported in 2023 should be taken as an annual basis, so on a 12-month?

Thank you for your question. Now let me say that I'm talking from Wolf-Brink. We are in Germany. And actually, we are here with the Board. It is a wonderful company that we acquired and we came here to celebrate the team on their strong results in 2023, and obviously, to think together ahead on the '25, '26, and see what we are doing in terms of new product technology. And it's always fascinating to be here. So a big shout out from Germany to all of you, which answering to your question, it is a positive quarter that the team has done in 2023. Actually, synergies were already well above what we communicated at closing. We are also well on track to deliver beyond the 2025 synergies that we communicated for 2025. And obviously, on top of the economic figures, I mean, we are stronger because of the joint know-how capabilities, better understanding of the DACH market and of the premium -- mid-premium high market that is obviously, a key point of difference on Wolf-Brink. The integration program is following a very structured approach. The company decided to have at the beginning of this acquisition with 11 work streams and involving more than 100 people. So very happy on what the team are doing and obviously, very confident on the power that we can have together. I think on the cost side, maybe it's a little bit more technical on the financial charges and tax. So Riccardo, if you can answer the question, please?

Yes. Thanks for the question, Isacco. I think I can give you a few numbers here. So starting from the tax rate. You have seen, we closed 2023 with 24.8%, which we can assume will remain as such also in 2024. When it comes to the PPA amortization, I think you can also consider the same amount of amortization in 2024 as a result of both Wolf-Brink as well as the prior acquisition. And on the interest rate, pretty much the same answer. So the same 3.8% as a cost of the debt on a full year basis, not including commitment fees and FX, you can assume the same percentage for 2024.

I think we have time for the last call -- the last question.

The last question is from Axel Stasse with Morgan Stanley.

I hope you can hear me well. And apologies if I'm asking the same questions to my colleagues. I connected to the call slightly later than expected. I have 3, if I may. The first one is, could you maybe provide a split between each end market? You provide a split for each country, so for each region at least, but to have an idea in terms of organic growth or even EBIT for each end market? Because if I remember correctly, heat pumps represents across approximately 20%, 25% of your group sales. However, you still expect negative organic growth in 2024. So I'm trying to understand why it should be like this, given your solid performance according to your words in water heating and gas boilers?

Yes. So obviously, maybe let me -- you said rightly so that we always said that 20% of our revenue is on renewables. And this is a mix of heating heat pump and heat pump water heater and others. So the situation of the market and every market is different. We spoke about Italy just now, which is obviously a mix of heating heat pump, wall-hung boilers and water heating, with the 3 dynamics which are completely different. So we have a tough comparison in front of us. And Germany, as you know, now is around 20% -- more than 25% of our revenue. So it's our biggest market. And if you have the first market which is Germany, and the second market which is Italy that are negative due to market conditions, that were exceptionally high for Germany in 2023 and also high for Italy in -- at the beginning of 2023 is impacting all the growth of the group. We are confident on the second half, but we want to see what will happen. That's why we gave range in the guidance, which is large. And as I said before, the lower part of this range will imply that the German market will continue to be strongly negative in Half 2, which is not our best case. In terms of profitability, without entering in details, I think I said already in the past that in terms of percentage, the margins that we do in both water heating, heating and in the different technology within heating are more or less the same. So water heating is a very profitable business. So the more we grow, the better it is, The same for heating heat pump and the same for wall-hung boilers. So I think we are very well balanced on that.

Okay. That's clear. My second question is about -- and again, sorry, if someone else already asked this question, but about pricing pressure from your distributors and some installers. Can you confirm that as of today, you don't really see this on Ariston products now?

Yes. I mean we spoke before, and I will answer quickly to you to reassure that. I mean, while we continue to monitor what is happening in the market and understand if there are pricing pressure, I would say more than installers and wholesalers, the price pressure could come from our competitors, especially the one with high stock in the market, which is not our case. So far, so good. We don't see any structural price reduction trend in the market, also because the demand is weak. So if the demand is weak like in Germany or in Italy on heating heat pump, pushing pricing will not help to increase demand. I said before as well that the cost of the machine of the heating heat pump is only a fraction of the total cost of installation. And if you take the cost of the machine and the cost of installation in the end, this could go up to 3x, 4x, 5x, maybe even 6x in rich countries like Germany. So even if someone would discount the machine, this will not eventually go to consumers. So this is what we see and I hope our competitors will be rational.

Okay. Okay. And last one on my end. About M&A. I have my colleague asking questions on this front. Would you also consider maybe acquiring some businesses across the value chain, such as distributors to consolidate your positioning in some countries? Or do you prefer to perhaps focus on plants or even some other competitors, smaller competitors in the industry?

Yes. I mean, obviously, when we look about inorganic option, we look at everything, upstream, downstream, segments where we play, segments where we play but maybe our position in the market is not as big as we would like to have. And we are pretty open. I think we are evaluating the different options. And this will continue to give us the opportunity to find the right inorganic solution to make sure that we will be even better equipped for the future to win in the market, but also to create value as we did until now for our shareholders and continue to help us to fuel costs in the future.

Okay. Thank you all for the last question, and we thank you all for attending our full year 2023 call. If you have any follow-up question ,I'm Albert Pozzi, available to follow up in one-to-one. And that's all, have a great afternoon.

Thank you.

Thank you. Bye-bye.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining the conference is now over. You may disconnect your telephones.