E.ON SE (EOAN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Dear analysts and investors, welcome to our half year financial results presentation. I hope everyone is doing well. Thank you for taking the time to join us. I'm here with Leo and Marc. Leo will give you an update on the business, followed by Marc walking you through the financials. As always, we will leave enough room for your questions after the presentation. With that, over to you, Leo.

Yes. Thank you, Iris. Good morning to all of you also from my side. Thanks for joining us in this August summer/vacation period. We are happy today to talk to you about -- to talk to you about another successful quarter of E.ON, and I would just kick it off with 3 key messages: first, following our Q1 delivery, we see continuous positive underlying earnings momentum in both our segments. And this is additionally supported by a normalization in the energy market environment in all our regions in which we are active. Second, we have upgraded our 2023 targets based on our strong year-to-date performance and the fact that the crisis scenario, which we were prepared for, will not materialize until the very end of the summer. Nevertheless, we remain cautious for the upcoming winter months. And third, our strategy is intact. We are the pacemaker for the energy transition and we are ready to increase our investment efforts even further and also meaningfully if the political and regulatory agenda provides the right framework with the right incentives, I'll get to that later. And now I will go through all of these topics in more detail. Let me just start with my first message on the H1 performance. Underlying growth accelerated and is fully in line with the targeted plan. As you can expect, key growth drivers are our increased investments in Power Networks and our successful execution in our solutions business. Growth was further supported by temporary and one-off effects driven by normalization in the energy market environment. So coming to Energy Networks first, considering our CapEx deployment, we are happy to say that our spending here is fully in plan. We are able to deliver the higher CapEx numbers. And this progress is supported, for example, by German PV connection requests for both households and large-scale operators, which both have doubled since last year as well as the very strong demand for new connections in our other European markets. It's worth mentioning that the growth momentum is not pausing but meaningfully accelerating even further. Considering our investment execution, I would like to mention our progress regarding standardization. Since last year, we have increased the share of standardized material specifications in our German networks to more than 80%, and this contributes to our ability to deploy the CapEx, as I just mentioned. Let me move on to the Customer Solutions segment. Our strong execution capability is based on our dynamic pricing, churn and portfolio management approach in our retail business. And these are the focus areas when it comes to delivering on our customers' promise to provide secure and affordable energy. In the past 12 months, we have been able to adjust prices with a high level of agility, and this not only refers to necessary price increases, but also to appropriate price decreases that we have currently planned for a large part of our customer base. We have started first in the U.K. and Netherlands, where we also increased faster than in other markets, and we are now following up also in Germany, where we have announced an electricity price reduction with an average of around 20% coming in September. So that brings me to my second message, the increased 2023 targets based on the strong H1 performance. Three main reasons lead to the upgrade: one, the strong operational performance in the first 6 months. Second, certain positive timing and one-off effects. And third, improved visibility on the energy crisis until the end of the summer, which clearly is less likely to materialize, if not at all. All these positive effects lead us to lift our 2023 group EBITDA target by EUR 800 million to a new range of EUR 8.6 billion to EUR 8.8 billion, as you have already seen, obviously. And we have also upgraded our outlook on adjusted net income to EUR 2.7 billion to EUR 2.9 billion, and Marc will elaborate on those numbers in more detail later. So this brings me to my third messages for today. We, as E.ON, aim to lead the green energy transformation in Germany and Europe, together with policymakers and regulators and customers, I might say. So let me start with the recent achievements. However, first, on the ESG journey, which is 1 of the 3 key topics of our strategy. For the first time, E.ON was awarded Prime status by ISS driven by our continuous effort to further improve the performance across our sustainability criteria. We now fulfill the demanding requirements of ISS regarding sustainability performance in the utility sector. And we take this again as a proof point of the successful implementation of our strategy despite all the challenging dynamics that we have faced in the last month. When reflecting on the crisis of last year, we have learned that we must combine security of supply, affordability and sustainability of energy. We need to achieve a balanced trade-off between those 3 targets at all points in time. and not only unilateral focus on 1 of the aspects. Therefore, the key success factor for future European electricity market design are to handle price volatility, provide affordable prices to customers as well as to create predictable conditions for clean energy investments. In March, the European Commission presented a sensible proposal for such a design, and we called it at that point like the glass is half full. We see good chances now that the important topics of consumer protect being investor confidence high and maintaining liquidity in the markets will be adequately considered. And this is also the result of the considerations and consultations in the European volume, which has come -- which have not meaningfully deteriorated the European Commission proposals in Brussels that sometimes happens, then that you see surprising changes over time, not this time. The green energy transition is not only urgently needed response to climate change. It's also a huge opportunity to drive competitiveness and resilience in Europe and Germany. It constitutes a sustainable way out of the crisis which the United States have understood very quickly and Europe should not miss the opportunity to follow and prioritize faster execution in all aspects. I might say it's also an opportunity, obviously, for E.ON, which we deem the energy transition to be a great growth opportunity for us. A fit-for-purpose green industrial policy with a strong European single market as a precondition is crucial in this regard. It should be designed to create the right framework to support investments to reduce bureaucracy and to simplify permitting procedures. It should also embrace the role of digitization for the transformation. Digitized electricity distribution grids are the backbone of a cross-sectoral decarbonization. And again, this all offers huge opportunities for E.ON. For our Energy Networks business, investment in further grid reinforcements are crucial for enabling the expected long-term growth path for power consumption. In our largest market, Germany, power demand will grow with a mid-single-digit CAGR between 2024 and 2030. And this will result in a much higher load that our distribution network will have to manage. Remember, what matters for networks dimensioning is not the energy, but the capacity that you actually build it for. Here, we look at 3 main trends: additional 200 gigawatts renewable capacity, targeted 50 million electric vehicles by 2030 and accelerated electrification of the heating sector. And this will all impact us positively by providing more growth opportunities. In the long term, e-mobility and heat pumps alone will create a need to reinforce 1/3 of our existing low and medium voltage lines. Additionally, 2/3 of our secondary substations would need to be upgraded to manage the additional capacity. Capacity, as I just said, not the energy. This increased complexity requires smarter and more agile networks. In our grids, we are already rolling out a new E.ON-wide standard for real-time network monitoring, and this is just the beginning. This real-time transparency will significantly help to optimize our network operations and flexibility management. And again, it's an opportunity to invest for us. Let me now move on to another crucial topic, appropriate regulated returns in our networks, the preconditions to make all the investments that I just talked about. We see the latest proposals from the German regulator to increase the return on equity and the cost of debt for future investments as a step into the right direction as a signal that they are thinking in the right direction. However, we perceive them as still half-hearted, they apply only to new investments. It's unclear what new investments will be after the end of the regulatory period and it's absolutely not sufficient because they exclude the existing investments with the reasoning that those are financed for the next 40 years, which is obviously not true. Therefore, a step in the right direction, indication that the regulators are thinking about the right things, but not yet a solution which we deem to be appropriate. Beyond networks, also with the ongoing electrification the demand for sustainable energy solution, will continue to grow. Our Energy Infrastructure Solutions business continued to win new contracts to deliver solutions and enable customers to decarbonize. And I'll give you just 2 examples: we are building an energy power plant fully powered by industrial waste gases in Belgium. Whilst in Poland, we have signed a contract to develop a waste-to-heat energy project. And these 2 projects together will save around 80,000 tons of CO2 emissions per year. Actually quite remarkable, even though in the big scheme, 80,000 tonnes seem to be small, but this is what it takes. It takes many individual small steps to really achieve decarbonization. I would also additionally like to emphasize that we are currently planning to invest EUR 33 billion in the green energy transition until 2027. What we can already say is that there are even more investment opportunities on the horizon. We will update our investment plans in March next year as part of our full year presentation. By then, we expect also to have the full visibility on all parameters of the regulatory framework in Germany. And we always said we can't update the investment side without actually updating at the same time, let me call it, the income, the cash side, which is driven mainly by regulation in networks. So let me conclude. We are ready to drive the energy transformation. We are ready, as you can see from the strong operational performance and the good numbers that we are showing. We are ready to contribute to Europe's target to become carbon neutral. And I'm convinced we will deliver, while at the same time, growing both our earnings and our dividends. We are, in any case, fully committed to that. And with that, over to you, Marc.

Thank you, Leo, and a warm welcome from my side to everyone in the call. Let me go straight to the point first. Second quarter was as strong as the first quarter, both financially and operationally, as Leo already sketched out, and it was also equally strong when it comes to our -- both business segments, Energy Networks and Customer Solutions. In Energy Networks, drivers were investment-driven organic growth and strong business execution in Customer Solutions, positive timing effects, benefits from procurement optimization and the recovery of the tariff deficit in the U.K. drove the positive H1 earnings outturn. In both segments, we also benefited from year-over-year normalization of energy markets. Second message. We upgraded our group EBITDA guidance for 2023 by EUR 800 million based on the strong H1 outturn and improved visibility on the energy market environment over the summer. With that, we also upgraded our adjusted net income guidance. And third, we continue to keep a cautious stance by including a reasonable crisis buffer for the winter. This means we will deliver our upgraded targets even with a potential and severe resurgence of the energy crisis in the fourth quarter. Let's look at the details of our EBITDA development in H1. Our adjusted EBITDA came in at EUR 5.7 billion, EUR 2.1 billion above the prior year's first half core EBITDA. Growth in our Energy Networks business came from CapEx-driven RAB expansion in all countries as well as the recovery of network losses in our European business. Growth was further accelerated by temporary effects from lower-than-expected redispatch cost in our German Networks business. We also saw a continuation of the recovery of network losses. As discussed in our Q1 results, specifically redispatch costs are ultimately a pass-through item according to the regulatory mechanism for our P&L with an automatic reversal in future years. In our Customer Solutions business, we achieved an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 2.2 billion. This EUR 1.2 billion uplift year-over-year is mainly driven by the normalization of our retail margins in all markets after a weak first half in 2022. It is worth highlighting that Romania is now positively contributing to the earnings again after regulatory conditions have normalized. We also see improved margins in our U.K. B2B business. This positive development was enhanced by the recovery of the U.K. B2C tariff deficit from Q4 last year which lifted EBITDA overall by a low to mid -- low mid-triple-digit million euro amount. Successful procurement optimization in Germany and actually across all our Customer Solutions markets, raised EBITDA by a mid-triple-digit million euro amount year-over-year. Both effects are nonrecurring. A quick update on our bad debt development. The payment behavior remains unchanged in all our markets, with end customer prices likely to have reached their peak already. We nevertheless continue to manage bad debt development tightly and will share with you any necessary updates in that respect. Our Energy Infrastructure Solutions business was broadly stable on a year-over-year basis. While we remain excited about the underlying growth opportunities for this business segment, our first half financial outturn was held back this year by unfavorable foreign exchange developments and the non-reoccurrence of prior year asset optimization margins in an exceptional market environment that you all know from last year. Finally, the Corporate Functions and Other segment slightly improved year-over-year largely because the segment now includes the Turkish generation business, which formerly was reported in the noncore segment. Let me turn to our adjusted net income, which broadly follows the strong EBITDA development, shows a significant year-over-year growth of more than 60%. As expected, economic interest result came in close to EUR 500 million. By year-end, we expect the expense to be slightly above EUR 1 billion. Minority interest slightly increased. This is based on the strong first half earnings profile from our network subsidiaries with minority participations. Let me now turn to the development of our economic net debt. First, in line with our expectations, net debt increased by roughly EUR 2 billion in the second quarter, mainly driven by the Q2 dividend payment and higher investment activity. We also saw the anticipated reversal of the extraordinarily low working capital level at the end of last year. Just to remind you, the reversal came mainly from the reduction of PV feed-in liabilities in our German networks business and the expiry of governmental customer support programs. Second, in line with what we expected, we accelerated the speed of our investment spending for the energy transition in the first half this year, delivering a 36% increase year-over-year. It is worth mentioning that specifically on the energy network side, we are fully on track with our internal CapEx projections. Third, and just to be clear, our expectation for full year cash conversion is unchanged, and we expect to come in around 75% to 80% for this year, leading to a full year net debt level, which we expect to be in the range of EUR 36 billion to EUR 37 billion. Keep in mind, we had an exceptionally high cash conversion rate of 151% for the full year 2022. So the 80% this year is partly a reversal of last year's very beneficial cash flow and not a sign of an underlying deterioration in our cash collection performance. Let me now turn to the drivers of our full year 2023 guidance upgrade that we already communicated with our tax statement almost 2 weeks ago. As a reminder, a key underlying assumption for our initial full year 2023 guidance was that the crisis would not be over yet with a potential for commodity price levels and volatility to increase again. This scenario has not materialized in the first half of this year, and this has led to a much stronger outturn than we expected. Additionally, good visibility on energy markets development over the summer give us sufficient confidence to also release our Q3 crisis buffers as well. This confidence is based on dynamic price setting, development of actual payment behavior, high gas storage levels as well as gas consumption remaining below prior year levels. However, we want to remain cautious for the winter month and maintain a reasonable crisis buffer for Q4. On that basis, we increased our full year guidance for group EBITDA to EUR 8.6 billion to EUR 8.8 billion for 2023. For Energy Networks, we lifted our EBITDA guidance for 2023 by EUR 300 million to EUR 6.3 billion to EUR 6.5 billion due to the mentioned lower cost for redispatch in Germany, fully temporary in nature and with a reversal in [ later years ]. In addition, we increased our Customer Solutions EBITDA guidance by EUR 500 million to now EUR 2.3 billion to EUR 2.5 billion because of the better actual outturn as of Q2, this year, driven by procurement optimization and the release of risk contingencies. In line with the higher EBITDA, we now expect adjusted net income to come in at EUR 2.7 billion to EUR 2.9 billion, translating into earnings per share of EUR 1.03 to EUR 1.11 per share. I close today's presentation by looking at our midterm financial framework. Based on the strong operational delivery year-to-date and the pace on the investment side, we stay fully on track for our communicated underlying growth trajectory until 2027 and beyond. No changes on that front. We expect full visibility for the regulatory remuneration of Energy Networks Germany by end of this year and will only then further assess growth acceleration opportunities, particularly from the German Easter Package. It won't come as a surprise by now as Leo made that point very clear that you can expect a full review of our midterm financial guidance but only at the point in time of the release of our full year 2023 results next March. Thank you very much. And with that, back to you, Iris.

Thank you, Leo and Marc. With that, we are turning to our Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] And let's start. The first question comes from Harry Wyburd from Exane.

And so first one on the debt. I think you're very clear in the presentation just now that everything is in line with your expectations. But I just wanted to check, you said the CapEx is sort of fully in line with budget. Does that -- but you also sort of alluded during the presentation, PV connections and stuff running much higher. Would you say that CapEx is sort of top end of what you're expecting? What I'm sort of fishing for here is the net debt sort of guidance you just gave partially a function of maybe slightly higher CapEx than you're expecting, obviously, sort of good CapEx, but slightly higher. And then second dimension is the debt question is just on the working capital is the guidance you gave for full year this year for net debt, a proper base for '22, '24. So is there any working capital impact you'd expect to change next year? That's the first question. Then on Customer Solutions, I think you sort of suggested you've been speaking to us so far, that most of the drivers this year are one-off. But I'm just wondering, are you sure there's not a structural element here? So you sort of alluded to some things like better B2B margins in the U.K., better performance in Romania, which sort of sounds structural to me. And on procurement, obviously, lower commodity prices have been good in the short term, but there's sort of longer-term impacts of being able to buy cheaper renewables. So I just wondered is there any sign that this is structural? And I noticed you set up a power trading desk as well that -- there was article in Bloomberg in May. So just could you give us any sort of color on whether there might be some structural element to this better profitability in retail?

Harry, I generously interpret this as very comprehensive 2 questions -- to address all the points. And as they are largely financial, I give it a kickoff and Leo then chips in. So first of all, on the economic side, it's straightforward, very simple fully on track. CapEx deployment, as anticipated, I just want to stress, ramping up by 36%. And is predominantly an increase in the volumes, i.e., the physical activity that we carry out. We also communicated about increasing our workforce by 2,000 FTE, which is largely then in the Networks business. And all that tells you, as you can imagine, these 2,000 folks will not be all operational this year already. We are getting ready, not only for delivering this year on target, but also to further ramp up. Our CapEx is lined out, and Leo also alluded to that there are opportunities, which we'll be looking at once we know how the conditions for investments really are. On the net working capital side, same story, simple answer, fully on track. We guided for the 80% beginning of this year after 150% cash conversion last year. And with that, I can only tell you for '24, '25, no change visible with regard to our sustainable cash conversion target, which sits at 100% and that should make your job easy. And then finally, on the one-off drivers, Harry, you should by now know 2 things. We are rigorously focusing on operational excellence. And at the same point in time, we are cautious folks. In that sense, we see a lot of improvements in our margin setup. The bulk part of that we would label at this stage, one-off. Nevertheless, we also highlighted with our midterm targets that we would be able to increase our energy retail margins over time by EUR 200 million to EUR 300 million. And of course, there is some evidence in the marketplace that conditions are actually improving. Not all competitors are able to keep up the pace in terms of digitalizing their processes than as dynamically managing procurement position, and that applies to B2C as well as to B2B. And so there is evidence that things may be changing faster and maybe even more materially than we expected, but it's too early to give you a guide on that. This will have to wait for our full year 2023 results in March as well.

Marc, if I may, just seize the opportunity to add 1 point on the CapEx side. We have increased our CapEx deployment significantly. And we are prepared to increase it even further. I said that. But to be very clear, we have done this in the expectation that it's understood and accepted that regulatory environment needs to change in a way that it reflects the new interest rate environment, et cetera, et cetera. So to a certain extent, we are acting before we see the regulatory action in good faith that since the energy transition is really supposed to happen, we are really going to see the results which we need. Otherwise, it's clear we need to reassess where we stand and how much we can do on that side. So in that sense, I want to make it very explicit. We will not increase, and we cannot increase investments just because they are needed if we don't get better regulatory returns and you can expect that whatever we give out as an update in March next year, we'll be very clear on that point.

Thank you, Leo. So -- thank you, Harry. We move on to the next question from Deepa from Bernstein.

So my 2 questions sort of -- Leo, just reflecting on the point you just made. You said the German proposal is halfhearted. What would you like to see more? And is it now, I guess, done with the efficiency factors or anything else on the benchmarking that they may change to your liking? And second question, Marc, you mentioned this winter buffer. So in case conditions continue as they are, lower commodity prices. What is the upside to your guidance from this winter buffer?

So on regulation, maybe comment number one. I'll answer on the equity levels 1 and 2 in a second. But remember, we always said, especially German regulation is kind of like the outcome of a bunch of different parameters, including Xgen, efficiency factors, et cetera. And we always look at the total picture, we don't look at the individual parameters. And we look is the total regulatory return that we get out of it for CapEx, OpEx quality is that a sufficient one to actually justify further investments. Now, however, if we now focus, we have seen 2 announcements, we have seen a delay on the announcement for Xgen, which we have taken note of. But obviously, that just means that our ability to assess whether we are seeing sufficient returns is now just on -- we'll just wait until we have seen that outcome, it's number one. On what would I like to see on the equity levels? Well, we have a proposal right now on the table, which says we have all the new investments. You know that. Actually, we -- as an indication that something needs to happen on the equity level, it's fine. But as a solution, it's not fine because it has a number of problems for us. Problem number 1 is it assumes that old investments are financed for 40 years. Therefore, they don't need to see an increase. This is obviously not true. You know that we can't finance for 40 years, our old investments. So there cannot be a differentiation between old and new investments. The second problem is the new investments of this regulatory period will be old investments in the next regulatory period. So what good does it do to me, if I get for 2 years a higher interest rate on average of 2.5 years in a 5-year period, and then I'm back on the lower level, which I couldn't lock in for 40 years, by the way, anyway. So that is the second problem that we see. The third one is we have no visibility what this proposal really means after this regulatory period. Therefore, it just introduces additionally by not being only sufficient, it introduces uncertainty. And therefore, the current proposal, let me say, it's a good indication of a reasonable discussion. It's not a solution, and this is what we have very clearly stated. And you hear from my criticism, what we would obviously like to see. We would like to see an acknowledgment of the RAB and total investments, no matter when they have been done, reflecting the current environment.

Deepa, with regard to your question on contingencies for any remaining extraordinary volatility, we keep that more or less at the same level as with last year running into the winter. And so that means that we talk about a low to mid-double-digit million euro amount for our Customer Solutions business. That's about the magnitude. And keep in mind that last year, a big part of that risk materialized at the very beginning of the fourth quarter, running into the October with full storages. So you can rest assure that we did our -- lessons learned from the development anyhow, but it's a risk which also is particularly related to the start of the winter season. So it's going to be very visible and transparent for you all, so when that will kick in or not.

Thank you, Marc. Next question comes from Meike Becker from HSBC.

The first question is on your new Customer Solutions guidance. In the new guidance of EUR 2.3 billion to EUR 2.5 billion, how many one-offs are included [indiscernible]? The second question is a broader picture on flexibility in the system and demand response in Germany. If you could maybe elaborate on your views on the positive effects of that for the German system in the long term?

Yes. Meike, I'll start with the one-off effects. So we need to separate or distinguish between our Energy Networks and -- our Customer Solutions business and Energy Networks. We talked about around EUR 300 million related to redispatch, which came basically on top of our guidance for this year. And when we gave guidance for this year, we also already made transparent that we were expecting within our initial guidance ranges, about EUR 100 million to EUR 200 million related to recovery of network losses from past periods. So overall, that makes a ticket for our Energy Networks business of EUR 400 million to EUR 500 million of effects, which will not reoccur or when it comes to redispatch will be passed back to customers in future years. On the Customer Solutions side, I would see that the one-off effects related more or less to the degree to which we have now increased the guidance for the segment. So we are talking about a magnitude of EUR 500 million. You will also see if you look at our full year results and the dynamic relative to our H1 result with the price adjustments, which we are now implementing and if announced implement, that margins were also already normalized in the second half. And if you then look at our procurement book for '24, '25, we are principally back in normal course of business. The only comment which I would repeat in this context is keep in mind what I said before on Harry's question, we do have points of evidence that some dynamics in the markets are changing as we see competitors moving out of the market, competitors not being able to keep the pace. And to what degree that may accelerate or change our outlook on our midterm margin potential? That will come with the full year '23 results in March.

Meike, I take the question on flexibility. It's actually quite an interesting one. You asked it in the context of the German market. I would first like to say it's not a question for the German market. It is a question for all markets which have or will have a heavily renewable penetration. And I've just been at the pre-summer seminar in Washington where I can tell you, it's exactly the same all over the States. So the duck curve, which we have seen is becoming a Grand Canyon. So with PV actually really, really changing the profiles over the day. So flexibility is what is absolutely needed to keep the system stable everywhere. So I would just argue in the past, we had energy and capacity, which we needed to manage. In the future, we have energy capacity and flexibility. So obviously, this provides opportunities going forward. It will depend on the full digitization of our systems. If we don't fully digitize our systems, we will not be able to provide the flexibility at real time, and locally because we need flexibility locally, we just don't need it on a system level, like European power grid. We need it locally wherever we have a current load peak or supply peak. And that is actually exciting because I think this is something that not all players on the market can provide. So it should be an opportunity for E.ON. But it's not kind of like the next year topic.

Thank you, Leo, Meike. So next question comes from Peter Bisztyga from Bank of America.

So first of all, could you help us a little bit to reconcile the bridge for net debt for the full year? Certainly, when I try and get to a year-end net debt number, I'm coming up with something sort of EUR 1 billion, EUR 1.5 billion less than what you're talking about. So I was hoping you could help us with all the moving parts. And then on CapEx, it looks like you're trading sort of plus EUR 800 million year-on-year in your networks business. And my question is, should we expect a similar step-up next year and indeed the year after? Or is there something special about this year why it's jumping so much? And then perhaps sort of to the point that Leo made earlier, why are you ramping up CapEx actually so much in Germany rather than waiting for next year when you really do have that regulatory clarity?

In that sequence, I'll take the second one.

Great. Okay. So net debt bridge. Peter, I will not give you now kind of the waterfall chart for net debt bridge, but let me give you some flavor around. So first of all, what you can take is our EBITDA projection. Our cash conversion, 80% target, our CapEx targets that bring -- will bring you a long way. And that's probably also where you then do your math and come up with that position, which looks a bit lower. There are some things, which when it comes kind of looking at the full year guidance, which we take into account, things like margining exposure for our procurement book, which basically always anticipate in our forecast at the maximum limit. So we do assume that our business is just good business practice. If you set a limit, you must assume it's going to be used. Right now, limit usage is a fraction. And if that continues, that would provide upside. Second remark is that we do see some -- expect some movements on the pension side. We do see that high inflation rates feed into service cost assumptions and that will increase provisions or -- has a potential to increase pension provision slightly, that's something which we may not have on the radar screen either. And where I also can't give you good guidance, what it will be, what actuarians at the end will set. But those are things which we cautiously already kind of assuming that guidance. And hence, my confidence on delivering on that end is very high. That said, keep in mind that our cash position is the most volatile element in our financial targets set as working capital movements are very sensitive to actually closing prices in the market. And hence, just there can be over a weekend, there can be considerable shifts. So on a sustainable basis, highly confident that we will stay in our guidance ranges there.

Peter. And on the CapEx side, to be very clear, our current investments do not factor in the Easter Package aspirations of the German government. And even if we would kind of like assume a slightly slower ramp-up of the energy transition, then assume politically in the Easter Package, we would need to see a significant further jump of investments from this year to next year again. So that is what is, let me call it, physically needed if you really want to deliver against the political target. What we, however, will do is we have to look what we can financially deliver, not only physically. So what is desired is one thing. But what we can do is another thing. And that will depend on what we get in terms of regulation and the degrees of freedom that it gives us in our balance sheet, which is why we said, well, "Can you expect a further increase in investments?" I said, depends. It depends whether we see a regulation which gives us the financial freedom to do so. But it would be, in any case, required, if you seriously assume the current political targets to be reflected in regulation and further execution going forward. So -- but again, we come with that in March next year. Now your question, "Why don't you wait?" It is very hard to ramp up and down and say to people now hire, don't hire, train, don't train. So what we have said is we give them the benefit of the doubt that they mean what they say because really the energy transition is the solution to the severe crisis. If we would have waited, we would have really need to wait this year. And then next year, we will tell our guys, now you can plan for growth. And then in 2 years, we would start to grow. In the meantime, we get overrun by request, we can't deliver, and we are losing then your goodwill. So we have consciously taken a position, which sounds a bit kind of like risky. We invest despite not having what we need, but we have been crystal clear to the regulatory authorities, to politics, what we need going forward and that we cannot maintain that pace if we don't get rewarded for our [ faith ], let me call it, in the statements. So that is a bit -- it was a trade-off decision which we decided as we did, as you can see.

Okay. Very clear. Just maybe Marc, a very quick follow-up. The margining buffer in your net debt that you mentioned. Can you give us a sense of the size of that, please?

Well, what you can expect that our margining is a -- margining limit is a high 3-digit million euro ticket.

Thank you, Marc. So we move on to the next question from Alberto from Goldman.

Thank you, Iris, and good morning, afternoon, everyone, and thanks for taking my 2 questions. The first one is, I was mentally going over your full year '22 results where you gave us 3 very specific drivers for growth in power distribution networks, which were renewable connections, grid reinforcement and new connections in general. Now you said clearly that you're not accounting for the Easter Package or REPowerEU, as I understand. Is there a way you can help us quantify the blocks? I'm not asking you to give us clearly the new CapEx number, but you were talking about 100 gigawatt of renewable connections. If we account for Easter Package or REPowerEU, is the 100 becoming 150, is it becoming 200? And should we proportionately increase also reinforcements, investments broadly proportionally with implementation of these plans because I guess your plan is not really including a Deutschland 2030 plan on electric mobility or heat pumps. Just trying to understand if I'm right because if I am right, your EUR 3 billion RAB CapEx in power distribution could be multiples -- multiple mean, high double-digit percentage increase, let's say, to use an E.ON terminology, high double-digit percent. Trying to check where is my logic wrong? The second question I think that you've been great, Marc. Thank you for that detailing, what's recurring, what's not recurring. I still don't quite understand a couple of remarks both you and Leo made were about operational improvements. And the way I understand operational improvements, it is something that is repeatable in -- at the very least 2024 and 2025. So I was trying to understand the following. Like you have delivered more than 80% of your net income guidance in the first half, and you've delivered 2/3 nearly of your EBITDA. So how much really of these '23 upgrades considering a reasonable scenario and a gradual normalization in the energy crisis, how much is really going to be brought into the next, at the very least, couple of years and why?

Yes. [Foreign Language] Alberto. I just came back from Italy from vacation, it's great. It just gets me in a good to hear an Italian. Now on the CapEx numbers. First, the 3 drivers for growth that you mentioned are fully intact and we've seen an acceleration. Now if we look at the Easter Package, what really matters is not the '23, '24 numbers, but the ramp-up to the new normal level, which is -- even assuming the Easter Package take 2 years to ramp up. Personally, I believe it will actually take longer because the stickiness of the ramp-up is, I think it's hard to match. But even if we would just assume a slower ramp-up than in the Easter Package, we would see a significant, let me call it, several billion euro upgrade in our 5-year rolling planning. But, but I don't want to give a specific number now because exactly the reason that I said before, it's conditional. And now if I say a number on the CapEx side, and the next thing you'll ask me about how much increase do you need to see on the regulation? I don't want to go down that path. So let's say, I need the ability to increase the strength of my balance sheet to an extent by the recurring EBITDA so that I can actually then manage the higher CapEx. But the trend is absolutely unbroken. And it's actually in all 3 dimensions. So we have communicated a doubling of connection requests on the B2C levels for PV, plus battery, et cetera. But actually, it's just for us an indication that is really happening and not just a political target. The need to reinforce in the grid, we have said already in early years, is nearly independent of the increase. Even if we would stop right now connecting, we would still need to increase the strength of the grid backbone for an additional 5 years. You might remember that we told that story already in the past. Now with an acceleration, obviously happening, it means the reinforcement needs in the grid will be even stronger. And the new connection requests continuing. You might have seen now we have another chip factory coming in, TSMC. The chip factory in Magdeburg, which would be in our grid area, is grid-wise, once it's fully operational in all stages. It's the equivalent of a city of Hamburg, so -- from a connection capacity. So it's actually substantial what we are talking about. Therefore, again, unbroken, but I don't give you a number. It's additionally on top of the EUR 33 billion, but I don't give you a number because the number doesn't matter if we don't get the regulation.

Yes. And Alberto on your question, sustainable margin. That's -- I spent my vacation in Germany. So that's what I'm equally emotional about Italy. It's just not small kids, I still don't make the distance to Italy yet. So sustainable margins. Look, we touched up on it already, and take it with a grain of optimism that as of now, we label that one-off. We showed you and told you with our midterm targets that we released in '23 that we do expect also an improvement in our margins for our energy retail business. We talked back then about EUR 300 million. A lot of your question marks around that. And I think what you should take now is confidence that we are managing and delivering on that. And as I said, we will tell you in March how then the balance looks like. But there is evidence that makes me very optimistic that we are on a track to least achieve that faster and whether there's opportunity for more. And over what time frame that actually is? We will be looking at. Clearly, when we talk about operational excellence and the stuff we do. What we can see is that a lot of competition around us is not able to keep up the pace and we will see how that will turn into churn rates, into cost to acquire, and so on and so forth on a sustainable basis.

Thank you, Marc. Moving on, the next question comes from Vincent Ayral from JPMorgan. Your connected via phone, Vincent, I understand?

Yes. So I'll do -- some of our follow-up on the questions have been asked and drill down a bit more. The first one would be trying to get some color on time line with a bit more detail. So we're talking here about regulatory developments. So the [indiscernible], the regulator looking at bringing premium there. So I understand that the deliberation -- the consultation was finished by the end of the month. When will we potentially hear from them? What are the different steps and what are the days or the months for these different steps there? And this is going together with a court case on a fairly similar topic. So how can you give us some visibility on that as well? So if we look at premium to returns, what are other time lines there? And on the Easter Package, obviously, we'll get more visibility at the start of next year. You've been quite clear about that. But I suspect there is a lot of details to be [ R&M ] regarding -- the plans for renewable development, et cetera. So will you have all the visibility you need on your plan? Or should we expect actually several ways of potential CapEx upgrade over the years as the plan is fully detailed year-by-year as the years go by? So visibility on time line, first one. And then the second is supply. You say that we should have a normalization in H2. Yes, absolutely understand that. Some tariffs are coming down on the lower commodity prices, but they have not all come down on June 30. So how much of one-offs how would you expect in the process of this normalization for H2 here in the Customer Solution?

Now Vincent, let me just take the time line question for the regulation and for the investment side for the CapEx side. So I can actually simplify it on the Easter Package. We have already translated in a time line, which we deem to be wondered is appropriate, yes. Because sincerely, the targets are not going to change substantially anymore. They're already on a level that they will be hard to achieve anyway. And therefore, the question is what can we deliver? And what does it mean for grid reinforcement, for our switchyard, for our transformer stations, et cetera? That we -- there, we have done our homework, as you might assume because the numbers are out now for half a year. And we have analyzed it, and we have done the studies. So we know what we would need to do and how -- and we have an assumption how that would ramp up for E.ON. So we have translated the Easter Package into E.ON numbers that we know. But as I said already to Alberto, let me come out with that number and what it physically means only when we know also what we can deliver from a financial standpoint. That brings me now to the time line for regulation. The original time line for regulation was that we get some clarity in Q2 on the equity numbers and in Q3 on the efficiency and the Xgen. And therefore, in Q4, it all comes together, we can do our math. And then in Q1 next year, we are ready to come up with the updated financial planning and CapEx planning. Now Sincerely, this is still the best answer that I can give you. Now we have seen a delay on the Xgen side, with the announcement that this comes at a later stage. Unclear when these later stages. So it might really not be end of Q3, but maybe end of Q4 that it all comes together. And we would certainly hope that we don't get into kind of like a dragged-out process where the clarity then is pushed to the back side. So still our best time line that we can give you is this will all be sorted out in this year, but it will not be done before the end of the year, which was one of the reasons why we always said it's March next year, not only because that's the normal point in time in which we come up with updates, but also because it's a reasonable one that like provides for some buffer in the processes that we can expect, best guess right now at this point in time. Marc?

On margin normalization, it's not going to be the answer you probably wish for. Look, we strictly manage our customer portfolio by value, and that's how we develop products and price our products. And we're not pricing our products for a quarterly outcome. So you should assume that we are pricing our products so that over a reasonable point in time, which is strictly in line in with the payback periods, underlying our value creation expectations from an individual customer, all that synchronized not to meet a specific quarter but to generate the highest value. And therefore, I just cannot give you an insight now what's going to be the exact amount of one-off or not. What you can take away from this call and all our presentation as of H1 is our high confidence when it comes to the delivery of '23, and our high confidence when it comes to delivering on our midterm outlook, also when it comes to Energy Retail. And more than that, I cannot give you -- otherwise, we will also get into commercially sensitive territory if I would be talking about how does our procurement book for next year look like. You all know that answer from me commercially we will not go down that route to be transparent [indiscernible]. But we will be very transparent [indiscernible].

Thank you, Marc. Do we have another question? Sorry, yes. Do we have another question?

Yes. Rob Pulleyn, I guess, I see it here.

Yes.

Okay. So is it you Rob? So then the next question...

Leo said so. So I'm going to take the...

Okay. No, that's fine.

I see a raised hand. So I assume that was a question.

Definitely. Well, you've been very kind to answer so many so far, but a couple left. The first one is, we see electricity demand running around about 6% below for 2023 versus last year, and that brings cumulative demand reduction in Germany to around about 9% since 2021. And so I was wondering, where do you see the demand pathway from here, when will we regain the pre-energy crisis levels of electricity demand? I'd be very interested in that. And secondly, as a different approach on the Easter Package and German policy, as the premier German electricity network play and with electrification likely to drive unprecedented investment as you've outlined. May we ask why E.ON thus far has not been more interested in participating in the transmission side of the investment?

First, on TSO, and no speculation on M&A in any call. But I would say, so far, when it comes -- we have so much investment opportunities, and this was what we several times discussed right now in this call on the DSO level, that for us, it's not kind of like a priority it's now to publicly speculate about additional investment opportunities in other areas. So in that sense, right now, we look obviously at the process. It's a relevant process. But to be clear, in most markets, we have a state-owned TSO, and we are operating as a DSO on the voltage levels below and we actually can perfectly live with that position. So it's not an urgent need to act because the structure of the industry changes. It changes towards a picture that we know from other markets. That's number one. And so therefore, this is where we are. And I have to say that I feel also comfortable being on the DSO side because where are the renewables connecting [indiscernible]. With the exception of offshore, they are happening in the distribution grid. Where is e-mobility happening? It's happening in the distribution grid. Where is the electrification of heat happening? It's happening in the distribution grid. So really, we feel we are in the right spot. So that on the TSO level, now -- sorry, now, I missed the...

The demand.

The demand side and demand is I think it's an intriguing question. Fundamentally, we see the need to increase. If we take the hydrogen discussion, the green gas discussion. If we are serious, if we take e-mobility change. If we are serious, then demand -- need or electrification of heat, demand needs to increase, but it's true. We haven't seen that increase across Europe yet. And this is something to watch out for. But fundamentally, I cannot see how we can actually be successful in the energy transition without really coming back to a clear growth path. I can, however, not really give you a number when we hit precrisis levels in the short term. That might depend on the economics, development, industrial production, et cetera. But the fundamental long-term outlook for me is unbroken positive.

I just complement to Leo is that when it comes then to E.ON's performance in that environment is that, as you know, our portfolio on the Customer Solutions side is heavily skewed to B2C and small and medium-sized enterprises. And what we can see already in those markets where we have been starting to see much lower prices that demand for those parts of the energy system seems to be very price sensitive. That said, with lower prices, we do see that B2C demand comes back. And so a lot of the reduced demand, which you're referring to on the system level is actually lower industrial demand on which Leo commented. For us, we actually see price driven already now a much better picture than last year.

Thank you, Marc. So now I think Ahmed from Jefferies. You also had a question.

Congratulations to a very strong set of results. Two from my side. Firstly, I think in the previous -- in the Q1 call, we had a little bit of a discussion with you about a proposal in Sweden on the regulation and potentially moving the regulatory regime from a real sort of setup to a nominal. I just was wanted to ask if there was any update if that's going to happen? And if there's any implication of that? And then the second question is on Customer Solutions. So you talked fairly confidently about sort of the margins and some of the sort of the developments around it. And I assume you're sort of talking about percentage margins of profitability. Could you talk a little bit about the sort of maybe your expectations qualitatively, at least about the sort of the EBIT per customer because you also referenced that the headline tariff is coming down. In the previous question, Rob mentioned the demand is a little bit weaker. And there's a little bit of customer churn as well, I suppose, in the second quarter, customer numbers. So I wanted to see how you sort of bring these sort of various factors together for Customer Solutions?

Ahmed, I'll take the Sweden one. Very short. The proposal is off the table. Regulation stays as it is. I would say, in Sweden for us, it's a favorable regulation which allows us to make the investments which you need to make. So on that side, complete derisking of the discussion that we had last time.

And when it comes to percentage margins even for customer, Ahmed -- yes, I guess it's a different angle to dive into what's a sustainable margin. And so at the end, you're going to get the same answer as the others. Look, just qualitatively, fundamentally, I think this EBIT, EBITDA per customer leaves a bit into the wrong direction. On the Customer Solutions side, predominantly, if you look forward, it's about the question how you translate wholesale market risks for your customers into their products and offerings and how much you are able to monetize flexibility, which increasingly will come from the customer side, in order then to strike the best offer and balance our portfolio. And this is something where the truth will be in between a relative margin on revenue and other factors. But I can see that kind of a simple EBITDA per customer is going to be a good [ classic ] going forward for what the true margin potential for an excellent operator in the retail scheme can be.

Thank you, Marc. Looking at the time, we already hit 1:00. So I'd say we take 1 last question.

We take these questions, which are still there. We'll do it fast. But then no additional...

We take all the questions. Okay, that's fine. Then the next one is from James Brand from Deutsche Bank.

Great. I made it in. So I have 2 questions, 1 for Leo, 1 for Marc. So firstly, for Leo, you defended slightly stronger than I expected, not unnecessarily the benchmark, the idea of having a higher return also for existing investments. I was just wondering what response you were getting from the regulators to those discussions because I certainly took it when you got the proposals just on new investment, that was the decision. But it sounds like the negotiations are very much still ongoing. That's the first question. And then for Marc, for Customer Solutions, clearly, it had a very good year this year, but with some factors that are one-off. What should we think about as a normalized number for this year as we look into 2024? How should we think about the trends that we may see in 2024? Is it possible to talk about those at this stage?

James. First, I take your question that I've been too German and not British enough, kind of like being undiplomatic. I just want to be very clear, but let me say, but I will not comment on the detailed discussions, which we're leading with the regulator. I would really say we have constructive talks. It's ongoing now, the consultation for the equity. One number is ongoing until the end of August, and it would not be now reasonable now to make any specific comments. So we are very clear. But again, I've been very clear on certain aspects, but I repeat what I already said, what matters in the end is the total package that we get out of it.

Yes. And James, on normalized margins, that's about kind of [indiscernible]. And I cut it short. High confidence on '23, high confidence on our midterm targets, good reasons to see why we will be accelerating our implementation of our midterm targets and whether there's [indiscernible] potential for more? That's going to be the discussion in March.

Thank you, Marc. Then we would take -- the next one is Piotr from Citi.

I will have 1 question on the German returns and the other on the Customer business. So on the German returns, it's fairly opaque how on the -- to get from the IFRS numbers to your realized returns on the German network. And you always talk about complete package. So I just wanted to understand what is the value creation kind of return on equity spread, realized return versus your cost of equity that you delivered in the last period. So we have a referenced benchmark?

There is some sound in background. So someone can mute. So Piotr, I get a go. So at the end, ultimately, of course, for regulatory -- our local German gap -- matters, but the difference is for IFRS actually over time, it's not that big, more like time shifts here and there, value-wise, therefore, no impact. And secondly, it very much depends on your potential to outperform. And this is something where we are now in the midst of the discussions with the regulator. And as Leo pointed out, for us, it's always the elements -- all the elements of the framework, i.e., the baseline return or the headline return, but equally then benchmarking and efficiency factors, which determine then the output potentially for the next period. This is what is at stake now, what we are looking at, and this is something where we have all clarity by the end of the year and come back to you in March as well.

Follow-up.

Sorry, Piotr, maybe we can pick that up from the IR side because we're already over 1:00. And sorry for moving in Rob, before there was a technical issue. So we have 1 very last question from Anna Webb from UBS, and then we will close the call.

I've got 2 ones. The first one is on the customer losses. I think you showed on the slides that you had a reduction of about 300,000 customers in Germany and about 100,000 in the U.K., which seems fairly significant, especially in the U.K. where switching has been very limited, given the U.K. price guarantee in place. So just interested if you can provide any more detail on what's happening there. And then secondly, a kind of wider question on gas demand. Do you have any view on how much permanent reduction there has been in German gas demand, both B2B and B2C after you adjust for weather and other factors?

So I take the last one first. We are not exactly clear. We can see the total demand reduction, which is flowing through the pipes. But we cannot really quantify how much of that is now permanent demand destruction and how much was, let me call it, temporary price-driven reduction in the last year, which might come back. So I would say we can give a better answer end of this year when we have seen a certain normalization of prices, and then we will see how much of that demand, which was really cut down last year comes back. Remember, for example, we had massive fuel switching to oil from gas, yes. Some of that might come back. Some of that might not come back at all. And some of might have been kind of like real demand destruction, not fuel switching. So reality is we don't really know yet on the gas side. And so for that reason, I'm sorry, I can't really help you.

On the customer numbers, Anna, all developments that you referred to are fully in line with our expectations. We were assuming that once the markets reopen, that churn will pick up again. Secondly, to put things into context, remember that we got more than 1 million customers flowing into our accounts just for other competitors going insolvent during the last 24 months. To Just also to put things into perspective when we now see 400,000 customers churning out. And thirdly, what we also see is that some of competitors in the markets like Germany or Netherlands, after kind of making a bold initial statement now on prices, they start to pull back. And so that tells me that competition in that sense is acting rational. So in line with expectations, and I think not ballpark-wise out of -- not anything which would create any worry for us.

Thank you very much, Marc. And with that, we come to the end of our call. Thank you very much all for your questions and time, and I'm happy to also answer any remaining questions, obviously, from the IR side with the IR team. So just reach out to us. And with that, I would close the call. Thanks, Marc and Leo. Thanks to everyone. Have a good day.

Thank you, Iris. Thank you all.

Thank you very much. Bye-bye.