DKSH Holding AG (DKSH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
July 15, 2021
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
operatorLadies and gentlemen, welcome to DKSH's 2021 Half Year Results Conference Call and Webcast. I am Alice, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Till Leisner, Head of Investor and Media Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Till Leisner
executiveThank you, Alice, and good morning, everybody. It's a pleasure to welcome you on behalf of DKSH. Before we start, the usual statement about the disclaimer on the presentation and regarding forward-looking statements. For those who don't have the presentation right in front of them, you will find them on the web page under [email protected]. With that very short introduction, I'd like to hand over to Stefan, who will walk you through the results. Thank you very much.
Stefan Butz
executiveGood morning, everyone, and welcome to our half year results 2021. Thank you very much for taking part in this virtual presentation. Joining me today from Singapore is Bernhard Schmitt, who joins us for our financial reporting the last time. Already now, I would like to take the opportunity to thank Bernhard for his good financial leadership, strong contributions and excellent collaboration over the last years. He played a key role in our IPO and since then has been instrumental in further developing the company. Bernhard will stay with us until the end of the year to ensure a smooth handover. I'm very pleased to be joined also today by Ido Wallach, who delivered already significant contributions as our Head of Controlling over the last 1.5 years and who is our new CFO as of July 1. Ido will present our financials and join today's Q&A round at the end of this session. To begin, I would like to acknowledge that in line with this internal succession, we will hold our conferences exclusively in English going forward. Moving on to today's agenda. I will begin with an overview of the highlights and then talk about the progress in our 4 business units. After that, Ido will provide you with the financial details of our results. To conclude, I will comment on the outlook before opening the Q&A session. Let's start by taking a closer look at our market environment. The first 6 months of 2021 have still been impacted from pandemic-related uncertainties and restrictions resulting in subdued GDP growth. The chart on the left proves the common assumption wrong that Asia was the first in and also first out with regards to COVID. There are, in fact, still varying degrees of governmental restrictions, measures in place across Asia-Pacific. And even so, vaccination initiatives have started, the share of people with at least 1 dose of a COVID vaccine in Asia is still at a low level, with Vietnam and Thailand, for example, still in the single-digit range and Malaysia in the lower double-digit range. When compared with Europe or the United States, where at least half of the population has already been vaccinated once, the discrepancy becomes even more evident. Despite this backdrop, our results today reflect the strong performance with all key figures at constant exchange rates above last year's level and higher profitability and cash flows compared with the pre-COVID levels of 2019. This includes increased net sales by 5.3%, a substantial EBIT growth by 20.7%. Compared with the pre-pandemic levels in the first half of 2019, we have an increase of 19% here. At 47.7% higher profit after tax as well as 46% higher earnings per share at CHF 1.28 per share and a double free cash flow due to better working capital management. In sum, we delivered good profitable growth in the first half of 2021. This solid achievement is not only a testament to the agility and resilience of our diversified business but also to the commitment and dedication of our teams and the achievements made during this challenging operating environment to build a better company for the long term. Let us now look at the highlights of the first half of 2021. We continued to make operational and strategic progress over the last 6 months in many areas. This is visible with a couple of numbers. Proving the diligent execution of our strategy, we considerably increased the EBIT and achieved the cash flow above pre-COVID levels of 2019. The EBIT contribution of the business unit Performance Materials has increased to 40%. We accelerated our M&A execution and successfully closed 4 deals year-to-date that fit our strategy of going into higher value-added segments and services and increasing our geographical reach. As part of our cultural transformation, we launched our DKSH Identity and values last year. This was an important moment for our organization as it redefines what we stand and aim for as a company in today's world, a simpler and more relevant DKSH with a clear purpose at heart enriching people's lives and a clear commitment to deliver growth reflected in our tagline. As you can see throughout our presentation, we took this opportunity for our brands to shift into a more contemporary bold and bright design and make our transformation more visible. We are further setting DKSH up for the future and increased e-commerce sales double digit in the first half. Also, as of February this year, we have a new very experienced Chief Information Officer, who will drive the expansion of our digital capabilities even further. We also made significant progress in sustainability. Having established a sustainability framework with clear defined targets such as our commitment to reduce our carbon footprint by 35% until 2021, we will continue to challenge ourselves further in this integral part of our business to make a positive impact for the future. All these key developments, including a highly engaged and connected team, underline our progress of building a better company with a culture of trust and empowerment for longer. Let me now please move to the business unit update. Starting with Healthcare, where we still faced with ongoing COVID-19 impacts on the pharma industry, we see that the demand for medical services has not quite returned, and the volatile situation in Myanmar also left its mark. Despite all of that, we delivered solid results at last year's level. At the same time, we are proud of being the trusted partner for communities and governments to supply COVID vaccines and test kits in Thailand, Taiwan and Cambodia, thereby fulfilling our purpose of enriching people's lives. In our business development, we partnered with new clients. Just to name a few, we are allowed to disclose, I can mention Pfizer in Thailand or Creative Biosciences where we made cancer detection solutions more accessible to Thai patients. We announced 2 value-accretive acquisition with MedWorkz in Singapore and Hahn Healthcare in Australia. Moving on to the business unit, Consumer Goods. Despite COVID, we slightly increased sales and substantially improved EBIT. In our fast-moving consumer goods segment, we continuously enlarged our business development pipeline, which helped us to increase sales despite some rationalization in our client and product portfolio. We further capitalized our regional leadership position by expanding agreements with key clients such as Ovaltine in Vietnam and Indonesia, Nando's in Malaysia or King's Fisher across Indonesia. Overall, the transformation of the business is well on track, and we have delivered very strong EBIT improvement. In the luxury and lifestyle segment, sales are recovering and profitability is better, but travel is and will be limited. In Thailand, for instance, the forecast for 2021 foreign tourist arrivals has been again revised downwards from previously 3 million to 700,000, which might still be optimistic. This is compared to around 40 million tourists pre-COVID. As various Asian markets are still dealing with the third COVID wave and lockdowns are in place, we don't expect tourism to come back immediately nor completely anytime soon. The watch brand, Maurice Lacroix, continued to perform well. Let us continue with the business unit, Performance Materials. In this division, we once again recorded outstanding results and reached double-digit EBIT and sales growth. I want to point out that this achievement was almost entirely organic. This broad-based growth applies across all 4 business lines and across most markets. We substantially expanded our key client portfolio and onboarded a lot of new customers, which we continue to provide with our service excellence, notwithstanding external factors such as supply chain disruption. We complemented the performance with M&A contributions from Axieo, which is running above expectations, and are also very committed to integrating and expanding the SACOA business. Looking ahead, we see more growth and M&A opportunities for our Specialty Chemicals business. Favorable factors such as our scalable business model, strong business development and focus on digital and value-added capabilities make me very confident that those opportunities will become realities over time. Last but not least, let us have a look at Technology, please. In this business unit, sales have recovered, thanks to a combination of organic as well as M&A-driven growth through the acquisition of the life science distributor, Bosung, in Korea. However, we are still not back to pre-COVID levels here. The service business continued to grow, and we are well on track implementing our strategy of focus and digitization. The EBIT also increased slightly and was 9.5% above last year. Based on our robust business pipeline and our transformation, we are confident to deliver a stronger half in 2021. With that, I hand over to our CFO, Ido, who will walk you through the financial numbers. Ido, please.
Ido Wallach
executiveThank you, Stefan. And dear ladies and gentlemen, welcome also from my side here out of Singapore. Together with Bernhard, my partner in our CFO transition. Thank you very much for joining us today. I'm very pleased to speak to you today for the first time as CFO. Let me provide you with further details of our results in the first half year 2021. I'm delighted to say that in challenging market conditions, all key figures are stronger than they were last year. At constant exchange rates, net sales grew 5.3%, EBIT 20.7% and free cash flow more than doubled. Return on net operating capital, or RONOC, is also up substantially. Let us, therefore, dive deeper into these numbers. As mentioned, we achieved 5.3% net sales growth at constant exchange rates. This property is consistent with our objectives that we call GDP plus. It illustrates our mission to grow faster than the economic growth in the geographies where we operate. Organically, that is before M&A and FX, our net sales increased 4.6%, with all 4 business units growing. Healthcare and Consumer Goods were up 4.1% to 2.4%. Technology was up 7.5%. Performance Materials had a particularly strong semester, growing 14%. The Global Performance Materials was broad-based across all its main geographies, Europe and in Asia, and across its main business lines: Life Sciences and Industrial Specialty Chemicals. In the first half of this year, we continued to successfully execute our strategy for growing our platform not only organically but also through M&A. Crossmark and Axieo, which we acquired in 2020, are now fully integrated. We continue to be very active in M&A front also in 2021, joining already as many as 4 new companies to our DKSH platform. Bosung, MedWorkz and SACOA have already contributed to the first half results in 2021. They added 0.7% to our growth. Hahn Healthcare, which effectively joined us 2 weeks ago on July 1, will start to contribute in the second half. Hahn Healthcare is the latest in total of 4 acquisitions that we made in Australia and New Zealand in the last 24 months. Our strategy to go disproportionately in ANZ is already bearing fruit. Our DKSH platform extends more profoundly into the wider Pacific region. We can, therefore, progressively achieve our mission of delivering growth in Asia and beyond. Finally, our net sales growth was adversely impacted by the strengthening of the Swiss franc. The net impact against the currencies in the markets where we operate was a negative 2.5%. We also achieved a strong EBIT result, growing overall by 20.7% at constant exchange rates. Organic growth contributed 18.7%. M&A added 1.8% and, consistent with our strategy, was margin accretive. Finally, and quite similar to net sales, FX has a negative impact of 2.5% on our EBIT. Let us please move on to review cash generation in the period. In conjunction with our accelerated M&A strategy, we continue our focus to optimize our working capital. Free cash flow generation in the first half of 2021 was CHF 107.2 million compared to CHF 51.1 million in the same time last year. Cash conversion, measured as free cash flow over profit after tax, was 123.6%. This disproportionate cash generation follows 127.5% of cash generation achieved in 2020 overall. Consistently faster collection and just-in-time inventory levels are providing us with more liquidity, liquidity we could very quickly deploy to capture emerging opportunities for expansion, either organic or M&A. This flexibility to deploy capital is also supported by the low CapEx intensity of our business model. We constantly expand our digital offering and upgrade our distribution capabilities. However, CapEx in the first half of 2021 remained as low as 0.4% of net sales, a level that is very consistent with our long-term average. Our balance sheet continues to show its strength as well. The net cash position at the end of the first half was CHF 268.5 million. It is up CHF 72.7 million compared to the same period a year ago. This is after paying CHF 126.8 million of dividends and investing CHF 45.5 million in acquisitions. Working capital measured as trade receivable plus inventory and less trade payables is at CHF 1 billion. We are now running our business, which is 28% larger with working capital that is 2.7% [ lower ]. Our equity ratio is 33.2%. It is a ratio that provides an ample headroom for leverage, leverage that we can engage as the right opportunity to continue to grow our platform through industry consolidation. Before we return to Stefan to elaborate on our future prospects, let me provide you with our outlook for several financial indicators. In terms of M&A, we estimate that our recent acquisition will contribute 0.8% to the net sales of 2021. Our strategic ambition for additional M&A clearly remains. On FX side, assuming that current rates prevail for the remainder of the year, we expect a full year FX impact of negative minus 1% to negative minus 2%. Tax rate, we estimate it would remain within the midterm range of 27% to 29%. Capital expenditure will be in the range of CHF 45 million to CHF 50 million for the full year. Final word regarding cash generation. We have witnessed together the strong results of our drive for working capital optimization. At current level, our working capital is within reach of the effective long-term range required for our business. We therefore expect it to grow at the rate which is slightly lower than net sales growth going forward. With that, I would like to thank you for your attention, and I hand over back to Stefan in Zurich.
Stefan Butz
executiveThank you very much for this financial review, Ido. Before wrapping up, I want to comment on the outlook. We expect that COVID and global economic uncertainties will continue in 2021. However, based on our strong results in the first half which reflects the resilience of our diversified business, we expect a solid performance in the second half and EBIT growth in 2021. This outlook is based on the following assumptions: a slight GDP growth in Asia Pacific in 2021, stable exchange rates for the remainder of the year and obviously, excluding any unforeseen special events or items. Bearing these factors in mind, we remain very confident about Asia's long-term potential and are very well positioned to benefit from favorable market industry and consolidation trends. We will continue to navigate strongly through a challenging market environment, and the long-term growth drivers for our business remain more than intact. Thank you very much for listening. And let's please move on to the Q&A session now.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Gian Marco Werro from ZKB.
Gian Werro
analystIdo, welcome; and Bernhard, congratulations to the great job during the last years. My first question is in relation to the whole Performance Material segment. How do you see the current momentum in relation to the outsourcing potential for specialty chemical distribution in this segment? As you already highlighted at your Capital Markets Day, the potential should be great, but I'm more interested also in the whole momentum. Then second question is in relation to the whole transformation of your consumer segment, which really seems to pay out at the moment. You also mentioned in the Capital Markets Day that you are now currently in the second phase of the whole transformation. And in the second phase, you really want to further advance your strategy in target markets and also increase your capabilities. Can you maybe elaborate more on increasing also these capabilities?
Stefan Butz
executiveYes. Thank you very much, Gian Marco. So let's start with Performance Materials. So overall, the trend towards outsourcing is absolutely unbroken, and we rather see some further acceleration in this regard because more and more of our clients, they want to work with less contributors, which is a key opportunity for us. And let's please not forget it's still a very, very fragmented market with a lot of M&A consolidation potential on top of that. I mean the market overall, you were referring to clearly currently has some tailwinds rather than headwinds. And there are a few supply chain disruption and shortage of products in the market, which have an impact on the pricing of the products as well. But if we peel the onion, we clearly see that 75% of our success is clearly volume-driven, and only 25% is price-driven. Regarding the supply chain disruption and there, with also the pricing issue, we don't foresee that this is going to change in the second half of this year. I think it will move on most likely into Q1 next year, but then we should probably get back to more normal levels. But normal levels in Performance Materials or in Specialty Chemicals ingredients business means it's still a very high-growing markets. So we really see some very good outlook here for the years to come and that in Asia Pacific but also in Europe, where we also do 30% of our revenues. The second question regarding Consumer Goods segment and the Phase 2. Yes, the transformation in Consumer Goods is going very well. I think our leadership team there, including the guys on the ground, are doing a tremendous job despite the current tailwinds they clearly have, thanks to COVID in improving those results significantly. Next to the homework we have done already in Phase 1, I mean now it's really about executing local strategies. Every market and our competitive position in those markets is slightly different. And the team is very closer to client and customer needs. In terms of the additional services, they are currently improving. A lot has to do with field marketing, in-store execution, but also our digital services are picking up and then helping the clients to make sure that all marketing and A&P activities are aligned, first of all, but also that the money is spent very wisely, making sure we get a good return on the money spent. Did that answer your questions? Or is there any follow-up?
Gian Werro
analystThat is very helpful and congratulation to the strong results.
Operator
operatorThe next question comes from the line of Cameron Robson with Northcape Capital.
Cameron Robson;Northcape Capital;Analyst
analystCongratulations on the results. And I can say that being based in one of your core geographies during the same time period, it's certainly good growth given the reality on the ground here with persistent COVID cases, significant movement restrictions and the associated uncertainty. Just a couple of questions from me. Firstly, you mentioned you see solid growth in the second half. Could you perhaps provide a bit more color on what you can expect from the second half as far as you can? And secondly, on Consumer Goods, your slide pack mentioned that you're still undergoing client and product rationalization. The transformation seems to be still ongoing. Are these factors still weighing on your divisional margins to some extent? And can we expect that these -- if there is a drag that this will lessen in the coming semesters? And finally, I'd just like to wish Bernhard all the very best. We've appreciated the job he's done over the years and his communication with shareholders and also warm welcome to Ido to the world.
Stefan Butz
executiveOkay. Yes, thank you very much, first of all, for the nice words. Appreciate it, and I will share that with the wider team. So -- and you pointed out already nicely that the headwind from COVID, especially over the last couple of weeks, are rather increasing than decreasing. So the fourth wave is hitting Asia -- Southeast Asia right now quite hard. And in many countries, we have severe lockdowns. And actually, the amount of cases currently is 4 to 5x the amount we have seen last year in April. And that obviously creates an uncertainty for all of us who are active in the region. And this is something we obviously don't control. I think we have shown in H1 that despite those headwinds, our activities from building a better company and doing our homework and diligence strategy execution is having a positive benefit, and that's also why we believe we will have a solid second half in 2021 as we did in 2020, which is a good benchmark. And we have to take it from there. I believe in the long run, we will build a better company, and we will see the results then even stronger. In terms of Consumer Goods, there is an impact of the activities we have. We have, in the first half of this year, approximately lost close to 2% of sales, thanks to client consolidation, but this is now coming in the second half of '21 to an end. So that next year, there should be no financial impact from this part of our restructuring or transformation program. I hope this did answer your question.
Operator
operatorThe next question comes from the line of Jon Cox with Kepler Cheuvreux.
Jon Cox
analystCongratulations on the figures, and I welcome my side to Ido and a happy retirement to Bernhard. A couple of questions for you. Just on the free cash flow, and obviously, it's a fantastic figure. Can we just sort of double that figure for the full year? Or how should we look at that conversion rate maybe for the full year? Will it go backwards in the second half of the year? And what should we think about that conversion rate going forward, particularly given your comments that working capital will grow at a slower pace than sales growth going forward? So sort of like a free cash flow question there. Added into that slightly, it looks like your CapEx guidance is up a little bit. Just wondering what your thoughts are on that. Is it because you've sort of done the turnaround in your consumer and now it's time to start looking at growth -- internal growth opportunities? Second question, more on the nuts and bolts on the financials. Your financial expenses were well down H1 on H1. Just wondering if you have a best guess for the year as a whole or just kind of explain why the financial expenses were a lot lower than they were a year ago and then, therefore, maybe on track to be lower than we expect. And then the last question really on -- I don't expect too much granularity whilst asking about margins and the rest of it. But just on consumer, you had that original target of 2.5% margin in the second half of the year. Is that really a really long shot at the moment given the impact of COVID on the lifestyle and luxury part of the business?
Stefan Butz
executiveOkay. Thanks for your questions, Jon. And Ido, will you please take 1 and 2? And I take then the CG question at the end.
Ido Wallach
executiveYes, with pleasure. Thank you, Stefan, and thank you, Jon, for the kind words and welcoming and for the questions. With regard to cash flow, our guidance, look, in the past 18 months, we have delivered a conversion, which is above 100%. That is 123.6% in this half year. And over the course of last year, it was 127.5%. We cannot continue forever to deliver more cash than our profit. And therefore, we expect that over the midterm and perhaps also in the short term, this will be closer to 100%, but probably from the other side of 100%. Whether it's going to be like that in half 2, I think we usually don't give immediate guidance for the next few months. We may want to capture a very unique opportunity, which is the working capital -- which requires working capital. But generally speaking, we'll be targeting something close to 100 from the double-digit side [ in this ]. I think there was a question also on the level of CapEx. It is slightly up, about CHF 5 million to CHF 10 million versus the 2 ranges that were given before. We are doing some upgrades to our DCs. There is one which is already visible in Taiwan, a fully automated one, which we're working on. But it's also where we're doing the digital investment. So some of the digital intangible assets that were being there are also registered as capital expenditure, of course. The final question was on financial expenses. The main difference versus last year is the warranty payment that we paid last year of CHF 5.5 million reported in the first half of last year, which relates to the divestiture of the Healthcare business in China a couple of years back. And then there is a difference -- the rest of the difference comes from the impact on the hedging contracts, which were slightly stronger because of the PM deals that we are sourcing from Europe into Asia. Whether this is going to continue to the second half, it's difficult to say because it really depends on the exact amount when we do the deal and the hedging versus the eventual rate.
Stefan Butz
executiveOkay. Thank you, Ido. And Jon, regarding the FMC or CG question, yes, pre-COVID, we said that we are optimistic that we can achieve a 2.5% margin in H2 of 2021. But unfortunately, I mean COVID is there more than ever. And you are right. I mean it's not only impacting the core business to some degree but also, in particular, our luxury retail and also, to some degree, the food business, if all the restaurants are closed across many countries in Asia. So once COVID disappears, I mean we are very optimistic, especially based on the good transformational results we had that we can stick with this commitment. But the question is when will COVID be gone? And yes, we do need some tourists coming back into Southeast Asia as well.
Jon Cox
analystCould I just have a follow-up on the free cash flow. ?So for the free cash flow conversion in H2 will be slightly lower than 100%. You're not talking about slightly lower than 100% for the whole of the year. So there's a massive decline in H2. You're just saying profit after tax free cash flow conversion will be slightly below 100% in H2.
Ido Wallach
executiveI think I was hinting towards this direction.
Operator
operatorThe next question comes from the line of Andy Grobler with Credit Suisse.
Andrew Grobler
analystAnd I'll add to say thank you to Bernhard and welcome to Ido. Just 3 questions, if I may. Firstly, on Performance Materials, you talked earlier about the benefits of pricing and kind of 3% to 4% pricing boost through the period. How does that differ between Asia and Europe? Or does it not differ just out of interest? And presumably, that pricing is pretty much flowing straight through to EBIT. Would that be correct? And just as a follow-on from the last question, you mentioned some of the hedging impact from Performance Materials and the interest charges. Could you just quantify what that is, and therefore, what the underlying margin was in H1 for Performance Materials? Secondly, on Healthcare, margins were down slightly. To what extent is that due to Myanmar? Or are there other reasons that are negatively impacting the margin? And would you expect that to continue through the second half of the year? I'll leave at that.
Stefan Butz
executiveOkay. Thank you very much, Andy. Regarding the pricing, Europe and Asia Pacific, no, we don't see any material difference there. And yes, it almost goes through -- straight through EBIT. On the hedging, I would ask Bernhard or Ido to jump in.
Ido Wallach
executiveYes. So thank you. Just to provide further context to the way we do the hedging, so many of our -- a big part of our PM business, as I mentioned before, is sourcing from Europe to Asia. We hedge every deal at the moment of the purchase order. And I think the underlying profit -- profitability of PM, if you include those impacts, would be above 10% that we are reporting here today.
Stefan Butz
executiveOkay. Thank you, Ido. Regarding the margins in Healthcare, yes, Myanmar has an impact. So Myanmar for the group is not material. But for Healthcare, it's a very profitable market and the results are obviously down there looking at the circumstances out of our control. The other driver is over-the-counter products, which we sell to tourists, especially in Thailand. We had that already last year in for 4 months, but this year, we obviously had 6 months of COVID in the business. And the last point is actually also a mix issue because some of the highly valuable pharma product, they go into hospitals for surgeries, et cetera, [ PPE ]. And obviously, the hospital occupation is down, and these are probably the 3 major impacting factors here.
Andrew Grobler
analystExcellent. And can I -- just one quick follow-up. Going back to Performance Materials and margin. Given your expectation that pricing and market conditions are going to remain good through the second half, is there any reason why H2 margin should be notably different from the first half?
Ido Wallach
executiveAt current market environment, the current demand that we see, there is no reason to decrease.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Pascal Boll with Stifel.
Pascal Boll
analystCongrats to the stunning results. I have 2 questions. First, regarding the Healthcare business. In my understanding, this division suffers also from the lack of medical tourism that's also lacked already in 2020. However, what revenue did you lose back then in Swiss franc terms? And what amount do you expect coming back next year when things normalize? And the second question is regarding input costs. We see raw material costs across the globe rising. We do see a positive impact or saw a positive impact on Performance Materials. But do you also expect a positive effect on other divisions in H2 or also in 2022?
Stefan Butz
executiveOkay. Thank you very much, Pascal. In terms of the Healthcare, it's probably somewhere between 3% and 5% the impact of the medical tourism, and that obviously down to 0. That's the reason why I said before, I mean, we do have significantly headwinds there in Healthcare. And also if you look at the numbers, which are published by the Southeast Asian Pharma Association, you would see that the pharma market overall in that region is negative. But again, I think we have a very strong value proposition and a very good business development team and performance. And that is the reason why we can deliver those solid results here. In terms of the raw material costs, yes, I mean, at the end of the day, inflation is our friend, right? Because if you have higher raw material costs, it's just a matter of time in normal market conditions that also the pricing of the normal products in consumer goods, for example, are going to increase. And since we take a margin on the pricing, yes, inflation is our friend.
Pascal Boll
analystOkay. So you expect a positive effect on EBIT in H2 then?
Stefan Butz
executiveI didn't say that because I don't know when this is going to be reflected then in the prices in the market. But I mean everyone is talking about inflation. At some point, it will also come to our part of the region a little bit more. And then we should see a slight positive effect from that. That is correct.
Operator
operatorThere are no more questions at this time.
Till Leisner
executiveGood. If there are no more questions as it seems, we can close the call. Thank you very much. Yes?
Bernhard Schmitt
executiveYes. Quickly, I have one sentence, sorry. Of course, there were many thank you coming in. I want to thank everybody on the call for the good cooperation over the years. I have to say I have typically enjoyed the interactions. What I really like most were the challenging questions, which trigger new thought processes for improvements in DKSH, which were the most helpful ones. Again, thank you, everybody. And I'm sure Ido will make sure to keep you up to date for the development of DKSH, and goodbye.
Till Leisner
executiveThank you very much for those closing words, Bernhard, and thanks, everybody, for joining today. And if there are any more questions, we are available. Thank you very much, and have a lovely day.
Stefan Butz
executiveThank you very much, and see you soon on the road show. Bye-bye.
Ido Wallach
executiveThank you.
Operator
operatorLadies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.
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