Elmos Semiconductor SE (ELG) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Elmos Semiconductor SE analyst conference call regarding the preliminary results of 2021. [Operator Instructions] Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Dr. Arne Schneider, CEO. Please go ahead.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our fiscal year 2021 analyst conference and earnings call. I'm very happy to present to you the highlights and preliminary financial results of a truly special year. As usual, you have the opportunity to ask questions at the end of my presentation. Before we go into more details about our financial and strategic successes in the last year, I would like to present a very brief overview of the Elmos group, especially for those of you who are new to our company, shown on Page 2 of the presentation, which is available on our website. Elmos is one of the world's most experienced semiconductor companies in the automotive industry and we estimate that, on average, 7 Elmos ICs are installed in every new car worldwide. However, as you can imagine, the content of Elmos ICs in a fully equipped premium model or a modern EV is, of course, much higher. Our roots and headquarters are located in Dortmund, but we have continuously expanded our international presence. With 16 locations around the globe, we serve all regions, always close to our customers. Seven R&D centers and more than 350 experienced engineers turn our deep understanding of our customers' needs and future trends into innovative microelectronics, helping to make the mobility of people more comfortable, safer and more efficient. We have 6 main product segments, which are all supported by global megatrends that offer very attractive growth potential. Our sales are mainly attributed to Europe and Asia, where the majority of our customers' factories are located. So what we show here is shipping locations and that, of course, in a global economy may be very different from the place the car is sold or used in the end. Our automotive ICs are, of course, used in cars all around the world. Our main customers are the global leading automotive Tier 1s, but we have also close relationships to many car OEMs worldwide. Our deep understanding of the application needs of our customers and end customers is one of the biggest assets of Elmos. We understand what our customers need and offer them innovative and smart solutions. We have established a leading role in many of our application fields, in other words, #1 with our semiconductor solutions in this field. Let me give you some examples. Our new generation of ultrasonic sensor ICs detect the entire 360-degree near field around the vehicle safely and extremely fast, independent of weather and light conditions providing an additional gain in traffic safety, especially in an urban environment. Our ambient lighting products not only create an individual feel-good atmosphere in the interior of the car, they also visually warn the driver of potential hazards. And our new LED real light applications offer OEMs a large extent of design freedom as well as cost advantages and energy efficiency over conventional lighting solutions. Our motor control ICs ensure silent and energy-efficient heating and cooling of the interior. They also ensure a reliable cooling of critical power components, for instance, in electric vehicles. The monitoring of the condition of the battery in such vehicles as well as the entire battery management are key factors for the safety and efficiency of EVs and Elmos' new pressure and temperature sensor ICs are especially designed for the thermal management of electric cars. But not least, Elmos' gesture control sensor solutions enable intuitive, touch-free operation of a wide range of vehicle functions, enhancing user experience as well as driving safety. Our high level of R&D activities and our ability to acquire attractive new projects in all of our application fields, combined with our successful serial products, provide a strong basis for the further expansion of our market position and a solid foundation for our future growth. Let me now move to Page 4 of the presentation, highlighting our strategic milestones and successes of the last year, which was, as you know, characterized by severe supply chain constraints and the ongoing corona pandemic. Elmos has managed the COVID-19 pandemic very well so far. In addition to extensive hygiene and safety measures, we have started a vaccination campaign at Elmos already in April 2021, which has been a great success. Until the end of the year, more than 1,300 doses could be offered to Elmos employees and family members. Due to the highly infectious corona Omicron variant, we have experienced a rising number of infections among our employees at Elmos. So the trend visible for the whole German population, it also affects us. And we have once again tightened the corona-related restrictions and safety measures to protect our employees and also to secure the ongoing production in the wafer fab and in the testing area. The market environment has been heavily impacted by the supply constraints and the semiconductor shortage since the end of 2020. The allocation of foundry capacity, supply bottlenecks for key components, material price increases and logistical challenges are having a noticeable impact on the business performance. So far, we have been able to supply all our customers to such an extent that Elmos was not responsible for any line shutdowns at car OEMs. But this was only possible thanks to the very close coordination with foundries and customers and the great efforts of the entire Elmos team. The global semiconductor shortage will continue in 2022. Every day, we are fighting for a higher allocation of wafers from our foundry partners and to ensure our delivery capability as best as we can. We have successfully executed important strategic projects in the past year, preparing us for a promising future and strengthening our leading position. We have further optimized the capital structure and returned cash to our shareholders with a share buyback of around 6% of the share capital. We are once again very successful with our new business acquisition and set an all-time record for new project wins in 2021. We won a large number of attractive design wins with existing and new customers in all of our product segments. To support the rapidly advancing powertrain electrification, we won new projects for a safe and efficient power supply of key components in the electric drive system. For the increasingly growing market of sensor technology in driver assistance systems and autonomous vehicles, we were able to acquire new projects in passenger cars, but also in commercial vehicles, logistics applications and delivery robots. Another important element of our future growth strategy is the expansion of test capacities in Dortmund and at our partner sites in East Asia. In order to have sufficient testing capacities available in preparation for our growth, we have intensified our back-end CapEx program in 2021 and we'll continue to expand our testing capabilities this year. By acquiring Online Engineering in early 2021, we have strengthened our software activities and are continuing to expand the Elmos software organization. This allows us to further enrich our innovative semiconductors with additional software functionality to increasingly push our own software development for our customers, which will open up new growth areas for Elmos in the future. A very positive project and one that some of you on the call really pushed for was the realignment of our ESG reporting to make us more transparent and accountable to all of our stakeholders. I hope you have had the chance to look at the comprehensive set of ESG KPIs and policies published on the Sustainability section of our website. The most significant project in the company's recent history has been announced shortly before the end of the year: the transformation of Elmos into a fabless company. We signed a sale and purchase agreement between Elmos and Silex Microsystems AB to transfer the Elmos' wafer fab in Dortmund for a net purchase price of around EUR 85 million, including around EUR 7 million for the work-in-progress inventory. We also entered into a separate long-term supply agreement with Silex until at least 2027 for wafers produced at the Dortmund fab, securing wafer capacities for a long time. As a fabless company, we will be able to count on our actual strength even more than before. With our clear focus on trendsetting innovation, our excellent understanding of applications and our high problem-solving competence, our great know-how and many years of experience in chip design as well as our close customer relationships and reliable delivery performance on top of all that, we will be able to act even faster, more efficiently and more innovatively than before. And we are very happy that we have found a very good solution for Elmos, our customers and our shareholders with the sale of the wafer fab. Let me now comment on the financial highlights of last year, shown in the presentation on Pages 6 to 9. Thanks to the high demand for our semiconductors, Elmos group sales increased to more than EUR 322 million in 2021, a record level. This is an increase of EUR 90 million or 38.5% compared to the previous year, which was, of course, affected by the pandemic. But also compared to the year 2019, in which we had generated sales of EUR 273.4 million in the Semiconductor segment, it's an increase of almost 18%. While the same -- in the same period, the number of new vehicles produced dropped by 14%. Full year gross margin was 44.9%, and even though allocation-related effects and higher prices from foundries and for assembly somewhat impacted the performance, the higher volumes and capacity utilization as well as typical onetime impact at the year-end and our e-reimbursements, grants received for eligible projects, release of provisions and cost pass-on supported the strong increase in the gross profit. Earnings before interest and taxes, EBIT, were also very encouraging. In the past fiscal year, the Elmos group generated an EBIT of EUR 60 million compared to EUR 8.7 million in 2020. The full year EBIT margin rose to 18.6% of sales. Operating EBIT, excluding expenses in connection with the agreement on the sale of the wafer fab, totaled EUR 64.9 million in 2021 with an operating EBIT margin of 20.2%. In fiscal year 2021, CapEx amounted to EUR 60 million or 18.6% of sales and was mainly spent for the expansion of testing operations in Dortmund and East Asia, as already explained. At 15.1% of sales, the R&D expenses remained on a high level to support the numerous serial launches and new projects in all of our application fields. The cash flow from operations increased significantly to EUR 79.6 million, mainly due to the higher earnings. And despite the high level of investment, the adjusted free cash flow was still significantly positive at EUR 11.1 million. Working capital slightly decreased compared to the end of last year, mainly due to lower inventories and higher trade payables. As you may remember, we went into 2021 with a healthy level of inventory, helping us through the tight situation, buffering some of the supply shortages. As our stock levels now, especially in units, the euro values partly rise due to the higher costs are very low by now, we will not be able to get the support in the current year making the allocation situation even more challenging. Due to the high-growth investments, the dividend payment and the public share buyback program, our net cash position decreased to a net debt position of EUR 10 million at the year-end. The global supply constraints has impacted the automotive market in 2021 and prevented a faster and stronger recovery while the first half of the year still saw significant growth and the second half of the year presented a clearly negative picture. Shortages of raw materials and components put a strain on global supply chains, resulting in OEM line shutdowns in a range that 10 million to 11 million cars could not be built even though the demand for new cars was there. Therefore, global production volumes increased only by 2% year-over-year. For 2021, IHS forecasts a bigger increase of 9% to 83 million new vehicles. Still, I would like to point out, this number is almost 13% below the record level achieved in 2017. So we think global car demand will further recover, providing a solid basis for future growth. The underlying demand for new cars, accelerating electrification of the powertrain with the introduction of more and more EVs as well as the overall trend for more electric content support the sustainable growth trend of the semiconductor market. After a record growth in 2021 with a plus -- of more than 25% year-over-year, the global semiconductor market is set for another strong year with a high single-digit growth to more than USD 600 billion. Our innovative semiconductor solutions ensure that we can benefit significantly from the long-term positive trends of the semiconductor market. At the end of my presentation on Page 11, I would like to give you our outlook for 2022 and our new midterm EBIT margin target. The start into the business year 2022 is again characterized by a high demand for semiconductors and the ongoing allocation situation. Our focus, therefore, is once again, on securing our ability to supply real customer requirements, which depend significantly on the availability of wafers from our key suppliers. In addition to the ongoing allocation situation, we also expect effects from the corona pandemic along the value chain this year. However, based on the current order book, the available wafer capacities or firm wafer commitments from the foundry partners, Elmos expects sales growth of at least 15% to more than EUR 370 million and an operating EBIT margin of 20%, plus or minus 2 percentage points. The operating EBIT does not include any effect from the closing of the sale of the Elmos wafer fab to Silex. The expansion of test capacities will be continued in the current year with Elmos forecasting capital expenditures of around 16%, plus or minus 2 percentage points of sales. Despite the high level of CapEx and R&D expenses for future growth, Elmos expects to generate a positive operating -- adjusted free cash flow above the previous year, which was EUR 11.1 million in the fiscal year 2022. In view of the positive business performance, the new business acquired as well as the long-term growth prospects in the semiconductor market, we have decided to raise the midterm EBIT margin target from 17% to 20%. So ladies and gentlemen, our ambitious expectations for the current fiscal year, and even more, our new midterm EBIT margin target reflect the successful business development we expect for our future. Elmos' innovative semiconductor solutions will play a key role in shaping the mobility of tomorrow and we can benefit significantly from the long-term positive trend of the semiconductor market. The sale of the wafer fab, the consequent strengthening of our product portfolio and the expansion of testing capacities build a strong foundation for long-term success and shareholder value generation. Thank you very much. I'm now opening the floor for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from Malte Schaumann.

First questions is on Q4 profitability. Besides the negative transaction effects, have there any positive impacts you would consider as rather items with a one-off character?

Yes. We had some positive things. We had some provision releases. We had a little lawsuit that we actually won, and there, we had a provision release. We had some NRE payments, which are also of a onetime nature. For instance, we got some money for making a small number of parts in a very, very old technology. But these parts were really, really needed and it was an engineering challenge, but we made it and we also got money for it in the end. We also got some public grants. And we got some money from customers for additional costs that were a little bit throughout the year, but you need to negotiate and you need to push for it. And at some point, you also need to close negotiations. So there was some little non kind of synchronization in these things. I mean most are normal operational things. But I mean, for instance, if you ask for a little extra money to cover extra cost, you negotiate for a quarter and then it's done finally. Well, you get the money in that quarter.

Yes. Sure. Could you maybe provide an amount what is kind of untypical?

I think the really -- I mean just going aside from nonsynchronous effects, it's actually not that much. It may be a few million, but even that is -- this would be a high estimate. Because most things are -- I mean if we have a provision release for a little lawsuit, we built it over the past. We fought for what we thought is right. And then we release it once we win it. I mean, we, of course, cannot always win, but we, at least in that case, rightfully won.

Yes. Okay. Good. Then on the design wins, you mentioned some nonautomotive design wins such as delivery robots, commercial vehicles, et cetera. Do you see more opportunities arising outside of the automotive sector? And would that translate into the expectation of potentially rising the nonautomotive share in the years to come although typical volumes are obviously lower than per project than what you typically have in the automotive area.

We do see a lot of chances also outside automotive, especially in synergistic things. I mean detecting what's around and moving thing is what we do very well. And a lot of more things move now than only cars in a narrow sense. I mean, if you count e-bikes, delivery robots, logistical vehicles all into cars, I would say cars pretty much covers it. But there seems to be people who do not count them as cars. So yes, there are chances, but the car chances are also very strong and there's very strong growth in the opportunities we see in the car area. So to have a rising share of the noncar thing, it would mean that the dynamic there is even stronger than in the car area, and I'm not sure about that. It could be, but it doesn't necessarily need to be.

Yes, yes. I think that makes sense. And then on the current year, I mean, maybe -- I don't know if you want to elaborate, maybe you can shed some light on that. I mean what's the impact of pricing on your strong sales development you expect in 2022?

Yes. Generally, we have to ask our customers to take their share and to pass on higher cost that we actually incurred to enable us to have the delivery performance as best as we can. So of course, this has also a revenue impact. This is part, of course, of the revenue growth story. I mean we're not talking about price [ downs ] these days. But there will also be unit growth because there are ramps, there are new projects. And I mean especially in the car industry, you cannot just lay a ramp of a successor product because there's -- there are no chips. I mean we see that this is partly done, but this is bad. So in a way, it doesn't matter whether it's running business or ramping business, you have to deliver as best as you can with all your assets can. And this is what we try. So yes, there's a pricing part of it, but there's also a unit part of it.

Yes. Okay. And then our medium-term perspective, I mean, your long-term guidance or midterm guidance for profitability is 20% EBIT. You are return -- achieved -- tried to achieve 20% EBIT already this year. Maybe the prospect for the next few years doesn't look too bad. So what are your thoughts about margin levels that could potentially be reached or where the potential risks come from? Pricing is potentially one with a more normal situation. Is 20% the end of the world? Or do you think that there might be the opportunity to go even higher over time?

Well, we think that 20% is good because, yes, it's a reachable goal. We actually had our look from the longer distance at the 20% for some time. But we thought that we first need to kind of see whether we can grow into it. And now growth comes a little -- comes a little quicker than we actually thought and that OpEx efficiencies come a little quicker. So to have 20% as an over-the-cycle goal means that you will have years that may be a little bit below, but you will also have years that will be above. And whether over a kind of 10-year average you can reach 1 or 2 or 3 percentage points more, potentially, but we don't know yet. So we don't want to be too aggressive in such guidance as we -- I mean, most of the people on the call know we tend to have targets and guidances that we actually want to achieve, that we think are solid, that we think are good and conservative. And we will not stop if we achieve that target. I mean, in any year, we do want to be profitable. And we also want to invest in future growth. And this is, I believe, where we have to strike a balance between pushing for profitability only and keeping a very high share of R&D and having a lot of attractive new projects. And this is also something that's maybe a little bit baked into our thinking of the 20%. That 20% do not mean we have growth. 20% means we can invest a lot of money in growth, and this is what we want.

And the next question comes from Stephane Houri.

Yes. Could you speak a little bit maybe about your order pattern that you receive from your customer? Would you say that there is as much tension right now than a quarter ago? And could you please comment on the inventory level in the industry as you see it.

So maybe I first comment on our stocks. This really ran down over the last year and we are now at very little. We are basically living on a day-by-day basis. So for us, the situation has tightened in terms of stock level. You do not really see that too much. I mean a little bit you see it. But the full impact, you do not see in the financial figures because the euro values are actually not that bad because they rise on account of the higher cost. I mean all of these things are valued at the cost. So if you have higher cost, they get worth more. But actually, the numbers are a lot more down than you would only guess from the euro values. We do see no real change in the severeness of the allocation in the industry. I mean there are now and then talks that people think, oh, at the end of this year, maybe things get better. But honestly, nobody really knows what happens at the end of this year. I mean most of our competitors are completely booked, just as we are, for the current year. There is very limited ability to change anything. There can be some kind of urgent fire management efforts. But structurally, we are overbooked as we've been last year and we are in a pretty severe allocation. And we have a lot of calls with Tier 1s, with OEMs, to make the best out of what we have. And I don't think it's very different at our competitors. I mean we only have kind of anecdotal evidence, but we have a lot of calls from people where our competitors just cannot supply the volume or do not supply a customer at all on certain programs and then they ask us. And of course, we have only a limited availability to patch gaps. I mean, usually, this is really, really limited. I think the whole industry is pretty tight.

All right. And are you still -- I guess you are, but do you have hope to negotiate more allocation from your foundry partners for this year? And I guess you are also, but are you already having a view on 2023 allocation because with all the investments that those people are doing, you must be expecting probably a much better allocation in H2 this year and in 2023 as well.

Yes. We do not have visibility on 2023 because the main foundries, we have -- have not made their decisions on allocation volumes. Also what we learned last year and into the first months now, this is not a decision that comes in one chunk. This is rather a decision where you have to kind of slowly get to. So it's not that we would say, okay, we have a gap of 50,000 wafers, so now we need them. And then 2 weeks later, you get 45,000 wafers, and then it's done. It's rather that you get 1,000 wafers for this specific customer and then 3,000 additional wafers because they managed to squeeze them in. And then you get 300 wafers. So it's a very tedious kind of small volume process. And you never know what comes next. So there will always be a little bit insecurity about what the final allocation will be.

Okay. And just a housekeeping question. Maybe you've said basically that you are going to invest in your future growth. I guess you're talking about R&D. Can you guide us through the R&D evolution for this year and also for the next year? And maybe more generally, the OpEx line.

Yes. We've been a little bit cautious in adding too much R&D over the first phase of the pandemic. We kept R&D stable. We did not want the crisis and the pandemic to hurt our R&D activities. Now we're more in the mood of adding R&D. I mean the 15 -- or around 15% we had last year isn't a bad guide. We've been above that in years where revenue went down for a reason or did not go up as much as we thought. When revenue jumps up, we've been below that, but then we kind of adjust it back. So the plus or minus 15% and a little bit percentage points around that is, I guess, where we will fluctuate around. That also means that with the growth that we see now, we are hiring.

Okay. So at the moment, we have no further questions. [Operator Instructions] Okay. We have another question. It comes from Johannes Ries.

Yes. This is Johannes Ries from Apus. Maybe a follow-on question a little bit to my colleagues because there's a huge debate out in the semi space about maybe since it's only a cycle and the cycle will come down and another camp, where Stephane is also in, believe we are in a structurally changed world for semiconductors, especially for automotive semiconductors. And therefore, first question, how are you going to see the world? And this is related, you mentioned your own inventories. The skeptical guys are out there saying the inventories at the OEMs are increasing at normal level. Can you confirm this? Or is it also what you mentioned before not the case given your contact to the other mobile and OEMs, Tier 1s, that is not the case. There are still inventories below the average. And there's only the price effect, which maybe makes the statistics -- analysts make the statistic reading wrong.

When I look into the faces of the allocation managers at the OEMs, I see dark rings around the eyes. I have no transparency on who has what chips in their back pocket. But it's not that we are -- I mean this, for me, is maybe not a widespread thing that we are back to normal. Also the 83 million cars that IHS expects for this year is not normal. I mean, just yesterday, I read in the [indiscernible] that Mercedes puts a stop on E-Class ordering. They had this SUV thing some weeks ago with an order stop and then now the E-Class. I mean the E-Class is the main model. So I do think that we are a little tight. And with the experience everyone had, I also think that once we return to a level where you can actually buy chips again and not get them allocated, there are quite some people out there who would love to have a 10% or 15% or 20% of their yearly demand buffer stock. And we actually plan to make offers to our customers to get into a more supply-safe situation once we can with kind of all efforts make that possible. Currently, we can't, of course, so it's a little theoretical, but once there are enough wafers, once we can deliver enough chips. This may also be a phase in this whole cycle that maybe we learned to go away from the just-in-time, maybe we learned that we do need buffer stocks in various parts of the supply chain, also at the chip level.

Okay. And this could lengthen the -- let it call the cycle, but there is also -- would you also confirm there is a clear structural component, which drives the growth in the automotive space?

I mean the cycle thing is kind of then a discussion, will it go down for some quarters, will it not? Will it smooth out in what way exactly? You can have many, many kind of ideas on how exactly that happens. But I think, fundamentally, it's, for us, not as important as the structural growth that we see. We see new vehicles that have a lot more electronics content, really a lot more. And this is structural and this will stay. If it's kind of there's a little up and down for some quarters, we will manage. And what is important for us is that the 3-year and 5-year and 10-year outlook is a very bright one. We do think we are in the right market.

I think, too. On the content or electronic content, there was also an argument here in the shortage, the OEMs has pushed the high-end cars with more content. And if the things normalize, the mix will be different and it will be negative for the semi guys because more cars sold with lower content. Is that the right argument? Or is it right to say there is a strong move to bring this new electronics in even the middle class, for example?

I mean we see that a lot of these things get -- or there's a democratization, I believe. This would be the [ first-time ]word. But I mean, this just spreads. Having a Polo that doesn't look nice is also not an option. There's LED light coming to the smaller cars. There's more features coming to the smaller cars. The safety features for sure. The EVs, well, maybe not having a key in the super small cars. But already in the Polos and up, this is a serious issue. So I think once we get back to a world where you actually have to promote cars a lot more, this somehow suggests that you will also, maybe even as a giveaway, maybe even as a standard, includes the sensor electronics.

Coming to the pricing again. So although the argument partly is out of maybe the shortage will go away, the prices will come strongly under pressure. On the other side, there is a general increase, of course, because some shortage at the wafer side lasts for a very long time. Energy maybe gets more expensive and so on. Isn't it the case that -- and maybe the production of semiconductors gets more complicated with systems-on-chips and things like this. Therefore, is there also a structural component in higher prices such that you should not expect like some analysts maybe there could be a collapse again on the pricing side.

Well, I mean, if we have kind of wafer prices that come down again, yes, we do have our customers participate in that because that is only fair. So this would hurt revenue, but it wouldn't hurt profitability. Because on the way up, we kind of didn't take extra money. On the way down, we wouldn't also take extra money. So it's kind of a little bit neutral on the profitability side. However, where the nominal prices really go down a lot, I'm not so sure about that. I mean if you look at inflation rates in the U.S., you get inflation rates in Europe, I think we have a nominal price problem more than anything else. So this will translate possibly into wages. This will translate into a cycle where nominal things are developing quicker than we think.

Very clear. Finally, you invest a lot in testing and even hold your CapEx high now and has increased it. Is that also a sign that you are very optimistic for the future because you more and more outsource in future, 100% outsource the production, but the testing is still in your hands. Therefore, is that a sign that you are really optimistic for the future?

Well, I mean, our first -- yes and no. I mean, yes, we're optimistic for the future. But one word of caution, we have to make decisions rather early now. We have very long lead times for testing or for certain test equipment -- for most test equipment actually. And we think in a growing company, it's -- the risk of not being able to deliver because we constrain investment too much is a real and serious risk because it's our long-term prospects while the risk of having a machine 2 months too early is kind of a manageable risk for us. So that's why we want to get more efficient over the midterm with certain CapEx things. But in the short term, we have to be able to deliver and we have to invest against that.

Maybe, two short final question. Maybe the first is maybe asked by other -- maybe by other colleagues earlier because I came a little bit later in. The design wins, are they still at a record level, it's right in my head.

For 2021, they are at a record level. We had quite some momentum now in the beginning of the year, but I mean, it's a very short amount of time. So this is not really good for a statistic, but it's still all good.

Okay. And on your product range, is there any star performer you would say that's really the hottest thing at the moment and here we are growing like crazy?

Gosh, it's in a lot of things that we are growing well. I mean the LED light proliferates very well. But also our kind of standard, known, big segments are doing really well. So we also see growing kind of nicely from a smaller basis, all the EV applications. So I can't really point to one and say this is -- this is going to make it. Also, I should mention the Sensors. The Sensors are doing very nicely this year and likely also next year. And I actually forgot what happens in [ 24 Sensors ]. So this is not too bad. All the segments contribute.

So if we are not based on 1 strong leg. All legs are moving there.

It's also true, yes. We have more than one chance.

[Operator Instructions] Okay. There seem to be no further questions, so let me hand back over to your host for some closing remarks.

At the end, I would like to remind you that we'll publish our final results and our annual report on March 17 this year. The conference call for the Q1 results is scheduled for May 5. Thank you very much for your participation, for your questions and for your interest in Elmos. Goodbye now from Dortmund. Take care, stay healthy and stay confident.