DKSH Holding AG (DKSH) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary
July 16, 2024
Earnings Call Speaker Segments
Operator
operatorLadies and gentlemen, welcome to the DKSH Half Year Results 2024 Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] and the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Till Leisner, Head of Media Relations. Please go ahead, sir.
Till Leisner
executiveThank you, Sandra, and good morning, everybody. It's a pleasure to welcome you all on behalf of DKSH. As Sandra said, my name is Till. I'm Head of Investor Relations, and I'm very happy to have with me today Ido Wallach, our CFO; and Stefan Butz, our CEO. Before we start, please have a look at the disclaimer of the presentation regarding forward-looking statements. And for those who do not have the presentation in front of them, you will find them on the web under the Investor Relations section at dksh.com. With that short intro, I'd like to hand over to Stefan. Thank you very much.
Stefan Butz
executiveThanks, Bill. Good morning, and welcome, everyone, to the presentation of our half year results 2024. Thank you for joining us today as we review the highlights and progress our company has achieved during the first half of this year. Today's agenda foresees a recap of the highlights of the first half of 2024. Following that, I will go into detail about the progress we have seen in our 4 business units. After that, Ido will follow up with a financial update. To conclude, I will provide an outlook before we open the Q&A session. We are very pleased to report that the successful and diligent execution of our strategy delivered a track record of growth, margin expansion and strong cash conversion in the first half of 2024. The results reaffirm our consistent track record of creating value in Asia and beyond on the back of our resilient as well as scalable business model. Now let's please look at the results of the first half in '24 in more detail. In a challenging external environment with ongoing headwinds from different currencies, net sales grew by 3.3% at constant exchange rate to CHF 5.4 billion. In terms of profitability, we can report the highest ever core EBIT in the first half of 2024. Core EBIT increased by 8.2% to CHF 163.6 million. This corresponds to a margin of 3% and thus an increase of 10 basis points. These results go hand-in-hand with our consistent track record as core EBIT increased at constant exchange rate by 14% on average since 2019, which corresponds to 100 basis points. Core profit after tax was CHF 118.2 million, 16.7% higher than in 2023 at constant exchange rates. With a free cash flow of CHF 160.8 million corresponding to a cash conversion of 136%, we continue to drive our cash conversion. This high cash efficiency gives us the opportunity to continue pursuing our progressive dividend policy and a targeted M&A approach. Let me now focus on the highlights of the first half of '24, which underlines DKSH's purpose of helping business to deliver growth in Asia and beyond. Our consistent effort led to various highlights in the first half of the year across different areas. We have continued to enlarge our portfolio in several markets. This includes existing and new clients such as Alcon, dsm-firmenich, Kardex, Glenmark and Kimberly Clark. These new partnerships demonstrate that we are the preferred partner for our clients across many markets and create a stronger pipeline for DKSH. We're also very pleased to welcome Medipharm and Elite Organic, who joined the DKSH family. Medipharm in Brunei, in our Business Unit Healthcare and Elite Organic in Malaysia and our Business Unit Performance Materials are 2 bolt-on acquisitions, which we closed in the first half of '24. We have taken further steps to continuously improve our high-performance culture within DKSH. We have been awarded with a Great Place to Work certification in 9 markets, improved our employee engagement survey, employed 34% of women in senior leadership and achieved a higher rate of promotions from our internal talent pool to almost 60%. We also remain dedicated to operational excellence in the area of digital and sustainability. We further productivity. We continue to digitize our distribution centers and expect that we will have upgraded 12 distribution centers by the end of the year. We also improved the agility and efficiency of our supply chain by enhancing cost per case and case fill rates. Furthermore, we remain committed to sustainability. For example, we installed solar panels and implemented electric vehicles in Thailand. That we are on the right track with such sustainability efforts is reflected in the most recent updated MSCI ESG rating, where we received Grade A. All in all, in the first half of '24, we continued fulfilling our purpose of enriching people's lives in the markets we operate. In the past years, DKSH continued to focus on higher profitable business. We have expanded our overall profitability through active portfolio management. We have closed 26 acquisitions since 2019. If we look at them in detail, we can clearly see that the allocated capital has flowed into higher-margin business units and business lines. To be more precise, we allocated around 80% of our invested capital into business with above-average margins. Through these transactions, we extended our presence across regions, broadened our supplier as well as customer base and enhanced our value-added services. Accordingly, we entered the second half of the year with a solid M&A track record as well as a strong balance sheet and trust that we can further accelerate the most recent acquisition speed, especially since multiples are more realistic again. Let me now please continue with an update on our business units starting with Healthcare. Our biggest business unit has again delivered very strong results. Driven by attractive market fundamentals and the expansion with existing as well as new clients in Thailand, Malaysia, Taiwan and others, net sales reached CHF 2.8 billion, an increase of 5.8% at constant exchange rates. So we achieved above GDP growth and market share gains in key markets. By successfully integrating M&A and expanding our full agency services as well as own brands business, we successfully focused on higher added value segments and services. For example, we just launched a project in Thailand, where we deliver quality health care services such as blood collection or other basic treatments to patients' homes. Consequently, our core EBIT margin further increased after an already strong first half in 2023 from 2.8% to 3%. Moving on to Consumer Goods. When we started optimizing our Consumer Goods business, our core EBIT margin was 1.6% in the first half of 2019. We are pleased to report that in the first half of '24, we achieved our midterm core EBIT margin target of 2.5%. Net sales reached CHF 1.7 billion, an increase of 2% at constant exchange rates. Core EBIT grew by 17% at constant exchange rate to CHF 42.1 million. By improving our sales force effectiveness, accelerating business development, optimizing outlet as well as product mix and by increasing data and KPI-based performance management, we positioned our Consumer Goods business for further profitable growth. At our Capital Markets Day in November, we will continue -- we will outline our strategy for profitable in our Business Unit Consumer Goods in more detail. Stay tuned. Moving on to Business Unit Performance Materials. We aim to strengthen our leading position in specialty chemicals and ingredients distribution. Net sales here must be viewed against the declining and, therefore, challenging macroeconomic environment in the first half of the year. Under these circumstances, net sales held up and will also benchmark well. The performance in the first half of '24 was sequentially stronger compared to the second half '23. The quarter-by-quarter progress, the better momentum across all regions and the proved M&A pipeline make us cautiously optimistic for the second half of the year. We will continue to optimize our cost structure very cautiously and increase gross margin. With disciplined pricing and inventory management, we have already managed to reduce our inventory by around 7% comparing to 2023. With the core EBITA of CHF 63.3 million, that means before amortization, we managed to deliver an increased margin of 8.9%, already very close to our short-term objective of 9%. Ending with our business unit review, yes, with Technology. We achieved 3.3% net sales growth at constant exchange rates, which is supported by our recent acquisition in Australia. We continued investments in scientific solutions, precision machinery and semiconductor industries in Asia. Furthermore, it is pleasing to see that we have a very good integration of the acquired company Bio-Strategy. Core EBIT was CHF 8.6 million, which compares to an exceptionally strong first half of '23 and an unusual strong service business. Looking ahead, we will see further consolidation potential and expect a stronger second half backed by some projects, which have been moved into the second half of 2024. So now I will hand over to our CFO, Ido, who will guide you through our financial results of the first half 2024 in more detail. Thank you.
Ido Wallach
executiveThank you, Stefan, and welcome also from my side. I'm happy to provide you with further details of our 2024 first half results. As always, to ensure the best possible comparability of our operating performance, I will also focus on our results at constant exchange rates. We are very pleased with the achievements made in the first half as they are reflected in our key financial metrics. Net sales grew by 3.3% at constant exchange rates. Core EBIT increased by more than twice the rate of net sales at 8.2% in constant exchange rates. Core EBIT margin increased by more than 10 basis points. This marks the fifth consecutive year in which we delivered core EBIT and core EBIT margin growth in the first half. Core profit after tax stood 16.7%, higher than in 2023. We generated CHF 160.8 million in free cash flow, representing a cash conversion rate of 136%. This conversion rate exceeds our long-term target of 90%. These results reaffirm once again our track record of top and bottom line growth, coupled with margin expansion and strong cash generation. Let us now take a closer look at our net sales and core EBIT development. We grew our net sales organically by 2.3%. M&A contributed 1% to our growth in the first half. Combining organic and M&A, our net sales growth at cost and exchange rates was 3.3%. This is in line with GDP growth in Asia. Similar to many other Swiss companies with significant business in Asia, our net sales have been affected by a 6.5% FX impact following the strengthening of the Swiss franc. The strengthening has eased slightly since the peak of -- in late 2023, but has not yet fully anniversarized into our first half results. As we explained in past, the FX impact on our results is mainly transitional where we convert our results from local market currencies into Swiss francs for reporting and consolidation purposes. From a transactional perspective, our sales and cost structure are primarily executed in the same currency. When they are not, the rate exposure is hedged. Moving now to the development of our core EBIT. We are very pleased with our continued core EBIT growth. Our core EBIT grew organically by 5.1%, ahead of our organic net sales growth. M&A at a 3.1% to core EBIT growth, also ahead of its contribution to top line growth. Net sales growth, combined with continued strong focus on operational excellence and resource optimization, delivered an overall core EBIT margin improvement of more than 10 basis points. Similarly to net sales, the translational FX effect had a meaningful negative impact on our core EBIT, measuring minus 7.6%. The investor materials that we publish on our website today include details on the items that we consider nonoperationals, of a one-off nature or, in short, noncore. There are 2 items that fall into this category in H1 2024 EBIT. The first includes a fair value adjustment of CHF 1.2 million, which relates to employee share-based options in one of our associate companies. The second non-core item amounts to CHF 1.8 million and result from a settlement of a custom matter that is more than a decade old. All in all, core EBIT amounted to CHF 163.6 million which, in effect, is the highest ever achieved by DKSH in the first half. Core EBIT margin increased by more than 10 basis points and reached a threshold of 3.0% of net sales. As we have already done with you on a few occasions, let us take a moment to review our first half results in the longer-term context, an exercise that allows us to ensure that our strategy execution measures up in consistently strong long-term performance. Over the past 5 years, we have achieved continuous growth in our key financial metrics. Since 2019, the year before COVID and the subsequent inflationary and geopolitical turmoils, at constant exchange rates, our net sales grew at a compounded annual growth rate of 3.7%. At the same time, our core conversion margin, defined as core EBIT as a percent of gross profit increased sequentially. In 2024, it exceeded the 20% mark, the highest value since 2019. Our core EBIT followed a similar upwards journey, growing at a 14% CAGR. A similar sequential increase is evident in our core EBIT margin, increasing overall by 100 basis points over 5 years and reaching 3.0% in first half 2024. As you're all aware, a key component of our resilience and agility is our low-risk, asset-light business model. We typically lease our offices, our distribution centers and our transportation fleets. This is evident in our long-term capital expenditure, which has ranged between 0.2% to 0.5% of net sales over the past 5 years. In the first half of 2024, it maintained a low level of 0.3% of net sales. We also made significant and consistent improvements to our working capital over the past few years. In the first half of 2014 -- I'm sorry, 2024, the ratio of working capital as a percent of our annualized H1 net sales reached a new all-time low of 7.8%. Subsequently, over the same period, we delivered increasingly solid free cash flow, exceeding 100% conversion in this half year and in total in 3 of the past 4 -- 3-year periods. Let us now move on to our balance sheet. It remains very solid and, in many respects, even stronger than a year ago as evidenced by our higher return metrics and improved balance sheet ratios. Timely collection and just-in-time inventory management are the foundations of the distribution and market expansion business. At the close of H1 2024, our trade receivables remained very lean compared to multiple years average. Inventory at 11.6% of annualized sales or 50 days is particularly low. Similarly, our trade payables are also at the comparable multiyear low, leading to an overall case cycle of 23 days, the fastest we have achieved in the past 5 years. With that, we further improve our return metrics. Core RONOC reached 19.1% and core ROE 13.4%. We operate a low-risk, asset-light business model that enables a high and consistent free cash flow. In the first half, we used our cash flow primarily to fund 2 acquisitions and to distribute a higher ordinary dividend. Accordingly, our net debt position by the end of the first half of 2024 stood at mere CHF 10.2 million. This compares to a slightly larger net debt position of CHF 20.7 million at the same time in 2023. With a strong equity ratio of 32%, we have significant leverage headroom to further grow our platform for industry consolidation. We continue to carefully assess deals and only acquire if we find them value accretive, scalable and available for a reasonable price. Let me also provide you with some additional financial indications before we return to Stefan to elaborate on our future prospects. In terms of M&A, we estimate that our recent acquisitions will contribute around 1% to net sales in 2024 based on acquisitions we have closed until now. New deals will naturally provide further growth upside. We expect the FX headwinds to ease. Assuming that current rates prevail for the remainder of the year, we expect a full year FX impact of minus 4% to 5%, notably less than in the first half of 2024. Tax rate, we estimate it to remain within the midterm range of 27% to 29%. Capital expenditure is expected to remain between 04% to -- 0.3% to 0.4% of net sales for the full year. With that, I would like to thank you again for your attention and hand over back to Stefan.
Stefan Butz
executiveThank you, Ido, for the commentary on our financials. To conclude, let us move to the outlook, please. Regarding the current macroeconomic landscape in Asia, we determined that most economies will sustain their growth momentum. This is driven by robust domestic demand, a recovery in exports and stronger tourism numbers. Additionally, inflation is expected to stay at a moderate level in Asia. Furthermore, the stimulus plans in Thailand and China, which are currently under discussion, could provide additional upside to the economic growth. Coming to our prospects for the rest of this year, let me emphasize that we remain committed to delivering GDP plus sales growth. Furthermore, we reiterate our guidance of core EBIT growth in 2024 at constant exchange rate and see good potential for further M&A consolidation, as we broaden our reach and reinforce our market position with a few opportunities for strategic partnerships and acquisitions, which will reinforce our capabilities and create a new path for growth. I'm also happy to announce that our Capital Market Day and dinner will take place on November 18 in London. During this day, all our business unit heads as well as Ido and I will be on site and showcase DKSH's expertise across all 4 business units and functions. The Capital Market Day will start at 12:30 in London, and the dinner with our management team will start at 6 p.m. The invitation will be sent out in the next couple of weeks, and we really look forward to welcoming many of you in London in November. To sum it up, DKSH is well positioned to benefit from favorable long-term market industry and consolidation trends in Asia Pacific, and we do will continue to deliver our consistent track record of value creation. With that, I thank you all for your attention and invite you now to address your questions in the Q&A session. Thank you very much.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from Gian-Marco Werro from ZKB.
Gian Werro
analystSo first question on Performance Materials. Can you give us an update there on the development? Also with Terra Firma, any key changes also to the housing market and the demand? And how much of the volume and price split of the revenue development has been for the first half year? Second question on your own health care brands. Have they grown stronger than what we saw for the whole segment? And are you still seeing an EBIT margin of around -- or over 20% in this subsegment? And then last is a question also on net working capital. You could show us there a significant improvement. But has there also been some FX tailwind wins? And can you quantify them roughly?
Stefan Butz
executiveThank you very much, Gian-Marco, for your questions. And let me start with the first. And then the net working capital one, I will hand over to Ido. So first of all, let me start with the Performance Materials, overall across the globe, we have seen an improvement in growth rates quarter-by-quarter. I think at the full year results, we shared with you that Q4 in 2023 was better than Q3, Q2 -- Q1 was better than Q4 '23 and Q2 was now slightly better and for the first time, very slightly positive versus Q1 2024. So that is overall making us cautiously optimistic that things are moving in the right direction. Despite a few headlines, I guess, we were all picking up about the chemical industry most recently. If we break it down, technically, we have seen more or less all the same across all 3 regions, Asia, Europe and in the U.S. While in the U.S., probably the progress is slow. So the housing market in the U.S., very slightly, it's getting better. I think you can see that also in some Home Depot numbers, but it's far from being good. Coming back to your question regarding volume versus the price, we have seen a small uptick in volume. But working against this in a few areas, slight decreases in terms of pricing. For the Healthcare own brands, yes, we will continue to see growth, and we will also continue to see a margin above 20%. Actually, that business is growing very nicely as also you can see Healthcare overall. And then I would hand over to Ido for the last question.
Ido Wallach
executiveSure. Thank you, Stefan. And thank you, Gian-Marco, for your kind words earlier. Yes, we're pleased that we continue to operate the business with a very lean working capital, which helps also our results in terms of storage costs and receivable management. We actually see the effect of FX easing versus last year. Our cash statement is reported in constant exchange rates, and you can see that last year, we had a negative impact of CHF 50 million. But this year, year-to-date, it is going on a positive side of 3.5. We don't know what half 2 will look like. There's the U.S. elections. There are central banks that still consider increasing or decreasing the rates. But overall, I think that, short term, the worst is behind us in terms of FX headwinds.
Operator
operatorThe next question comes from Nicole Manion from UBS.
Nicole Manion
analystJust one on consumer for me. It's obviously a strong margin performance there in H1 with the 2.5% target being met. But obviously, the top line is still under a bit of pressure. Could you maybe walk us through the drivers there a little bit? I know you've had some impact in the past, for instance, from the SKU rationalization. So if you could just walk us through what you see as those top line drivers and sort of the setup therefore and the exit rate into H2.
Ido Wallach
executiveNicole, maybe I'll take this question. First of all, we do want to pause and appreciate the achievement. It's been a few years that we were targeting the 2.5%, and we don't take this achievement for granted. And as you pointed out that those several strategic moves that we have done over the years from SKU rationalizations to overall client portfolio rationalizations and clearing nonoperating assets in the CG portfolio, we have done this despite some headwinds for the growth, which we see in the overall market. The latest Nielsen data that we have for Q1 2024 indicates that the market is growing 1.5% overall. That's very close to our organic growth of 1.1%. Of course, the Nielsen data provided includes markets where we don't operate significantly like India. So we know we are not losing market share. But of course, we want more than that. We still see a volume effect impacting the pricing effect. Overall, we increased price -- net pricing by 1%, but we saw volume taking us down by about 0.5% back. And new business development took us 0.5% upward again. So we operate in some difficult conditions for consumers, and we believe that as soon as those clear out, we will show you a higher growth.
Stefan Butz
executiveAnd then Nicole, maybe I can add that organically, we have seen a better Q2 than Q1 this year.
Operator
operatorThe next question comes from Jon Cox from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Jon Cox
analystYes. Congrats. The market has obviously taken the figures very well indeed. I had some troubles listening in. Just if you can just comment on the free cash flow figure, double what it was a year ago, what are your thoughts for the full year? You keep saying you can't continue to generate as much free cash flow as you do. What are your thoughts going forward? Are we pretty much getting to the end of this great free cash flow? Then just some questions below the line. And again, my apologies if you've already mentioned this on the call. Interest charges looked a lot lower than expected and as did the taxes. Just wondering what your thoughts on there. It's a substantial EPS beat, of course. It looks like consensus estimates have come up pretty substantially if we see that lower finance charge continue into the second half of the year. And then just the last one just on that Performance Materials. Do you think it will go positive this year? Is that what you're seeing with orders? I'm not talking about maybe for the whole of H1, but do you assume that maybe towards the end of the year in terms of Q4, that unit should go positive?
Ido Wallach
executiveThank you, Jon. Maybe I'll start with the questions that are more financial nature. Indeed, we continue to operate with strong cash conversion and efficiency. Effectively, our conversion growth versus last year, last year this time, we're at 168%. This year, 136%. It's still above our target, which we maintained for the full year. And yes, that sometimes also relates to phasing of our business and the inventory pickups quarter-by-quarter. Overall, we don't expect the cash flow and the working capital efficiency to significantly improve going forward. We are currently at 7.8% of annual net sales. It would be very, very difficult to operate with lower than that. On the financial charges, the interest charges thing that you mentioned, we have a few effects there. First of all, we do now receive a higher return on our cash deposits, which was not there in the past. We've -- also you can see at the report that we have decreased our debt versus last year by about CHF 160 million. So we pay less interest expenses as well. And we also have there, as I mentioned before, in Gian-Marco's question, some tailwinds from easing exchange rates that helped us to have some FX-related income. The tax rate is now at 28.1%, and we remain with the guidance of 27% to 29% for the full year.
Stefan Butz
executiveRegarding your Performance Materials question, Jon, as I was saying before, so we have seen, in terms of organic growth rates, some consistent improvement Q4 over Q3, Q2 over -- Q1 over Q4 and then Q2 over Q1 this year, as I mentioned before, with Nicole. And we do expect that the second half of the year in Performance Materials will be better than the second half last year. So despite a few headlines happening in the market, we are cautiously optimistic that things will continue to move in the right direction.
Jon Cox
analystAnd then when you mentioned better than last year, are you talking about profitability or the sales as well?
Stefan Butz
executiveProfitability, technically, yes. But as I mentioned before, for the first time in Q2, we have seen a very slight organic top line growth. So again, cautiously optimistic. But most likely, it will be both, top line and bottom line.
Jon Cox
analystOkay. I'm going to just ask just one more question, if I can. On Healthcare, the profitability improved there. That business continues to surprise us, I think. And I guess, a lot of that has to do with the own brands growing pretty strongly. What are your thoughts on that Healthcare? How do you manage to get to this 3%? And where do you think it can go? I think historically, you said you can't go much higher, but you seem to be delivering every reporting period.
Stefan Butz
executiveYes. We are not as much surprised as you are because it's a lot of work, and we work on this day by day together with the team. And you are right, the success in own brands, which we continue to penetrate different markets, roll the own brands into new markets, it's definitely one driver of the enhanced profitability, but also the expansion of our full service business because that is the second, it's around 20% in the overall portfolio. And continuously, we expanded. We are signing some very nice contracts there and expanding our market share. So yes, the 3% is not the end of it, and stay tuned. Some good news will come out soon.
Operator
operator[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Michael Foeth from Vontobel.
Michael Foeth
analystThree questions from my side. The first one is tying back on what you just talked about in terms of margin improvement. You have also mentioned that you increased the digitalization in your distribution centers, 12 by the end of the year, I think. Where -- how many distribution centers do you have there? And what impact on productivity and profitability does that have? That would be my first question. The second one is on M&A. You mentioned that the market conditions are improving. I think we've seen quite a lot of M&A activity at -- in the space in total. So -- but not so much from you yet. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the pipeline? And what has held your activity back so far? And then the third question would be if you can elaborate more on the opportunities by region. I think you mentioned Thailand and China with some uplift opportunities, if you can go into a little bit more detail on where you see the best opportunities in different markets.
Ido Wallach
executiveThank you, Michael. This is Ido here. I'll -- maybe I'll start with supply chain and the DC questions that you had. Stefan will continue with the M&A. Yes, I think it's something we mentioned in the past. We have some good opportunity to digitalize the end-to-end of our distribution centers. Some of them are still operating with the labor -- manual management of inbound and outbound. And we have taken a very aggressive intentional, at least, approach to ensure that every box that comes in all the way throughout the DC until it leaves the DC is fully digitalized by scanning and no manual intervention. At the moment, we are with 11 DCs, major ones that are fully digitalized. Some of them are fully automated as well. The machines do the sorting. We're targeting close to 20 by the end of this year, which will bring us to almost 50% of all the cases that ship in the company to be fully digitalized. That's, of course, the low-hanging fruits. The remainder will be -- we have several other dozens of DCs that start to be smaller, but our intention is to digitalize them as well over the next 2 to 3 years. And in terms of P&L impact, I believe it will overall give us something between 50 to 60 basis points improvement of our margin.
Stefan Butz
executiveOkay. Let me then move on to your M&A question. Look, while, overall, I think we are very happy with our long-term M&A track record since 2019, indeed, the first half of the year with only 2 close transaction was a little bit short of expectations. But be rest assured, the team is working very hard to identify all opportunities out there in the market. We have a strong pipeline. We are moving into the second half of the year. Unfortunately, M&A is hard to plan, right? Sometimes, you have deals, they fall apart. Sometimes, you enter a deal and then due diligence results are not holding up. But be rest assured that we are pushing hard to put the balance sheet to work. But we will always only make deals, which make strategically and operationally a sense for us and also stay relatively conservative in terms of evaluation. So we are optimistic that the second half of the year will be better than the first half of the year, and then also the outlook going into 2025. In terms of the opportunities in the market, good guidance is, first of all, always how the markets are developing. And I think if you look at the GDP growth rates across Asia, clearly, Vietnam expected this year with a 6% growth. And also Malaysia is standing out. And these are clearly some markets where the economic environment is quite supportive, and we have a strong market position to capture further market share. But also in our largest market, even the GDP forecast for this year is only around 2.5%. We are making some very good progress. Our business model is very scalable. And right now, we deliver more growth than the 2.6% there. These are probably the 3 core markets where, currently, we have the biggest opportunity. As we disclosed before, we are also entering the Philippines with our Healthcare Business Unit. And also there, I think we will see some good progress over the next coming months. And overall, the region in general, maybe let me close with that, where as we see in Europe 1% GDP growth rate in the U.S., probably 2.5% across Asia, I think we can expect around 3.5% for this year. We are quite optimistic that, overall, the economic environment is lightening up further and then accelerating our top line growth also driven by the measures Ido disclosed before, especially on the Consumer Goods side.
Operator
operatorLadies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to the management for any closing remarks.
Till Leisner
executiveThank you very much, everybody, for dialing in today. It was a pleasure talking to you and providing you answers to your questions. We very much wish you a good summer season and look forward to seeing you in London on the 18th of November. Thank you very much, and have a good rest of the summer.
Stefan Butz
executiveYes. Thank you very much also from my side. And I think we will see many of you also during this week on the road show. I look forward to it. Thank you.
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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