Huber+Suhner AG (HUBN) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

In times like these, we consider ourselves lucky to report strong half year results and give a cautiously optimistic outlook for the full year. [Foreign Language], ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Huber+Suhner's Half Year Conference 2022. I will start the presentation with an overview of the first half year's figure of Huber+Suhner. I will be followed here on stage by our CFO, Ivo Wechsler, who will dive together with you into the details of our mid-year result. And then towards the end, I'll share an outlook and the most important trends in our key markets with you, followed by Q&A session. As mentioned, we can report very strong half year results. We have seen on the volumes, particularly orders that came in above a very strong last year with just 0.8% above close to CHF 500 million. We were able to show significant growth on our net sales by 12.5%, the details on how much is organic and all the details in the different segments will be provided by Ivo Wechsler in the second part of the presentation. We have been able to fight also back the margin pressure, which was significant in the first 6 months of 2022, which helped also to safeguard the profitability in the range of the double-digit margins. So our operating profit came in just above the excellent last year's figures, and we were able to have an increase of 4.5% on EBIT in absolute terms, which marks 11.3% on return on sales. Also on net income, we managed to outperform the excellent last year's result by just 4.6% and at a margin of 9.2% on net income. I'm going to give you a few more insights into our 6 months results following the 3 dimensions of our business, starting with the main dimensions since 1.5 years, which are the market segments that's the dimension, which we consolidate the global figures. And then I'll also share with you some details on the technologies as well as on the regions. Starting with the main contributor to our profitability. The Industry segment was able to show continuous growth, while maintaining a very high profitability. The Test and Measurement business and also General Industrial, which includes the energy market, performed on a very high level and recorded double-digit growth. The main drivers within those market verticals were fast charging as well as Test and Measurement application related to the 5G rollouts. Aerospace and Defense, which is our growth initiative in this segment was not able to reach last year's level and fell short compared to the 6 months result 2021. In general, we can say that we were able to grow by 6% and maintain profitability in the range of the 20% EBIT margin range, which we consider to be a good level. In this segment, which is applicable to all our business, we were able to fight the limited availability of raw materials, components and also logistics capacities and also the associated pressure on our margins, which helped to safeguard and protect the high profitability in this segment. Also in the Communications segment, we have seen a strong development, particularly in the net sales with growth of 19%, but also profitability increased again strongly and reached now 12.6% in the Communications segment versus previous year where we were able to achieve 11.9%. The strong growth was driven by 5G rollouts in the North American market, but also the data center growth initiative contributed significantly to the strong growth in the Communications segment. A bit less happy are we with our development in Asia overall, where we have seen shrinking volumes with OEM customers, particularly in China, but also to some extent in Korea. Also here, profitability was increased in this case, thanks to the very strong countermeasures fighting our price increases on raw materials and also inflation in general on cost and also the operational leverage on the volume has helped to increase profitability versus previous year. Coming last to the Transportation segment, which managed to grow also double digit at 11.2%, but which fell short on the profitability and reach the level of 3.4% of EBIT, which we consider overall as insufficient and which represents a decrease of 3% versus previous year. In general, we can say that we see a modest uptick of volumes in transportation, railway in Europe, but this was offset by the decline of our Russian business, which we have abandoned after the innovation of Russian groups in Ukraine end of February completely. Still, this appointment represents the development of the Asian market in railway as, in particular, the Chinese railway market has not found its way back to the original strength in previous year, and we don't foresee a major change in that pattern also for next year. The strong growth is attributable to a strong development of our automotive business, in particular, high-voltage applications in commercial vehicles. There was also a significant investment in our growth initiatives related to distance radars and the key trend, autonomous driving, which has burdened the result to a certain extent. On the other side has not yet contributed significantly to net sales in 2022. We will see these volumes increasing going forward and reaching single -- high-single million figures in 2023 on ADAS. ADAS stands for advanced driver assistance systems, which is the term for this driver assistant systems where our radars are going into. Just to close the overview of the 3 segments here is not new information, but you can see the 3 segments on 1 slide and the growth in net sales on the 3 segments ranging from 6% in the Industry segment and going up to a strong 19% in the Communications segment. Even though our largest segment, Communication, has grown 19%, we have still a very good balance when it comes to the distribution of net sales in our portfolio with 41% attributable to the Communication Applications, 31% to Industry and 21% to Transportation. Look at the technologies, which used to be our main reporting dimension shows that fiber optic followed the growth in Communications segment and reached a plus of 18%, while LF also recorded very strong growth by 16.5%, and RF, just with a very moderate growth of 0.9% fell behind the other 2 technologies. In RF, we can say that applications in Industry grew nicely while applications related to Communication decreased, so which netted with a plus of about 1%. The last dimension we are sharing with you is our net sales by region. You can see that EMEA had a strong first 6 months of this year with plus 11%, outperformed by the Americas with a very strong plus of 26%. While in Asia Pacific, we were just able to grow modestly with 3%. And in these first 6 months, we have seen the Americas passing the volume of Huber+Suhner in Asia Pacific, which marks quite a significant moment. Of course, also in Asia Pacific, there were some countries where we have been able to develop the business significantly, while in others, we struggled more, in particular, the largest economy in Asia, China represented a difficult market territory over the last 2 years, but I will come to that a bit later in my outlook. With that, I close the first part of our presentation, and I would like to hand over for the details of our half year financial results to our CFO, Ivo Wechsler.

Yes. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, [Foreign Language]. Also a warm welcome from my side. So let's dive into more financial details right now, and I start with the order intake. We have heard that now 3 times in a row, we had, from a semester point of view, a very high level in order intake. With regard to the first half year 2022, we grew by CHF 4 million or 0.8%. When it comes to organic growth, there was a small decline of 0.2% minus. Currency and copper contributed positively with 1%. However, copper contributed CHF 9 million plus, whereas currency is minus CHF 4 million. From a segment point of view, you can see that 2 segments had a positive organic growth and 1 segment, Transportation had a negative one. On our sales, we recorded 12.5% growth, which is equivalent to CHF 53 million, and all 3 market segments contributed with an organic growth in total of 11.4%, with the record of Communication with 19.5% and Transportation & Industry with single-digit organic growth. A similar picture here on the currency and copper side, copper about CHF 9 million plus currency, CHF 4 million negative. We also mentioned already in March, and we can confirm that our Russian exit concerns about 2.5% of our total net sales, so -- which is about just over CHF 20 million. With regard to the first half year, we were short with regards to the exit of the Russian business with CHF 6 million because in the first 2 months, we have still some sales, and we stopped just after the invasion. On the gross margin level, I think we can be very proud. It's a good level that we could stabilize our gross margin level on the second half of last year is now in the first half year with 36.5%. Furthermore, it can be said that despite, let's say, quite demanding supply chain circumstances where we were able to produce in all sites almost all the time. So I think there were really no site went down when it comes to production. With respect to the comparison to the very high first half year 2021 with 39.7%, I already said a year ago that this is not a sustainable gross margin level. So the major reason year-over-year first half year is that, first of all, we have a more normalized business mix in the Communication 5G rollouts. And secondly, I think in certain areas, we have heard that we can pass on a lot of our material price increases. But in certain areas, there is also a timing effect. And in the cable production in Switzerland, there was also, let's say, some excess capacity. That's the major reason on a year-over-year comparison. On the operational expenses, we increased by CHF 5 million from CHF 117 million to CHF 122 million. However, in relation to the sales, our ratio declined by almost 2 percentage points from 27.4% to 25.5%. On the sales and marketing costs, we have now a normalized cost base because our sales people but also the management started to travel again this year. We have also a high -- very high level of R&D expenses with CHF 30 million, which corresponds to 6.3% with regards to our sales. In this CHF 122 million, there is also CHF 2 million exit costs with regards to the Russian business included. And on the EBIT side, yes, a new record level with CHF 54 million in absolute terms with a slightly lower margin, but still clearly double digit with 11.3%. Industry absolute EBIT on the exact the same level with a high margin of almost 20%. Communication could improve actually because of an operational leverage and reached a higher EBIT margin, but also an absolute level. And we have heard it already also before Transportation fell short of our expectation. But again, I think they were hardest hit by the material price increases and also hardest hit by the Russian exit because about 3/4 of our Russian business was related to transportation, mainly railway business. On the currency situation, we have a mixed picture with the European currencies down like the euro, the Poland zloty or the English pound, but stronger currencies, the U.S. dollar but then followed also by the renminbi. Overall, unfortunately, in the last few weeks, we have seen a further strengthening of the Swiss francs. And to give you a certain indication with regards to our euro sensitivity, I can tell you that if in the first 6 months of this year, the euro would always have been, on average, 0.97% instead of the 1.03%. Our EBIT margin would be approximately 50 basis points down compared to what we have reported now. On the financial result, small improvement due to a better FX result. On the other side, it's just slightly higher financial cost due to more repatriation from our excess cash in China and also the first time now from India. On the group tax rate, we achieved, again, a very good tax rate with 17.9% despite the fact that the country mix was somehow less favorable there that you can see on the expected tax rate is 21%. So we continue to benefit from special tax reliefs with regards to R&D, high tax rates or export business in Switzerland, U.S. or also in China. Also comment on the OCD initiatives with a minimum taxation of 15%. We're all aware that this most likely will be relevant for us in the year 2024, and there will be a higher taxation for us to come in Switzerland. We expect that. However, I can't quantify it yet because the details are not all clear. But I will keep you posted on this topic going forward. On the balance sheet, you see all positions, which are, let's say, linked to the operational business are increasing. And then on the other side, cash but also equity decreased due to our significant returns to our shareholders. And even better, you can see that on our cash flow, I mean the cash flow from operating activities declined somewhat to CHF 31 million. There are 2 main reasons. First of all, more capital is employed with regards to our customers in trade receivables and also we increased our inventory base for 2 reasons. First of all, there is a material price increase leads to higher inventories, but also we were able to add some buffer stock in order to be able to produce hopefully also going forward on a continued basis. We have also seen higher investments, cash outflow, but this was also, let's say, preannounced last year that we will see a higher level with now CHF 25.6 million. So the major investment is this 1 cable plant project in Traficon here in Switzerland, but also more ADAS equipment in Poland for the distance radar but also more investments into the digitalization. And then we see the high cash returns to our shareholders with a high dividend of CHF 38.2 million per share, but also we were -- as part of our share buyback program, we were able to buy back shares in the magnitude of CHF 40.6 million. And the details, you can see on this slide, we almost bought back in the first half year, almost 500,000 shares with an average share price of CHF 81.5 and this corresponds to 2.5% of our shares, which is equivalent to half of our program we actually want to do. At the end of June, we had bought back on the program we have launched and announced at the end of October last year, 63%. Right now, we have achieved more than 75% of the program as of today. So by that, I'm already at the overall conclusion of the first half year, I think we achieved double-digit growth of 11.4% and all 3 segments positively contributed to it. Due to that and also our ability to pass on price increases and, let's say, managed costs, we were able to keep a double-digit profitability at 11.3%. And also thanks to the low tax rate, we could even further increase the earnings per share by 6.7%. But we should also not neglect that, yes, there is a continuous challenging environment. Right now, we have supply chain issues. We have also inflationary pressure. On top of it, there is a question of energy shortage, also of energy, let's say, price increases as well and also the FX, as I mentioned before. But to give you now some more meat on the bone with regards to our outlook, I hand over to Urs again.

Thank you, Ivo. Yes. Before we come to the questions, I would like to share with you the outlook for the full year and to start that part of our presentation, I would like to dive together with you a little bit into our markets, the general market environment and into the trends that we see in these different markets. In general, we can say the first 6 months result was possible because we have seen a fundamentally positive momentum in our important target markets. On the other side and to a certain extent, offset where these positive trends by a very challenging economic environment, which we see to prevail also in the next few months. And there were several factors, which actually made this mix quite toxic for companies. Ivo Wechsler mentioned the strong Swiss franc towards the end of the reporting period, but there was also a clear, very strong inflation in most western economies and in many of our key territories, which has provoked central banks in many economies to raise interest rates for their currencies, and we will have to see what that does to the overall economy globally. I have already mentioned at several occasions, the Russian war on Ukraine, which has increased geopolitical tensions overall and also the uncertainties in the global trade. Towards -- or as a result of the last point, we have also seen energy pricing sharply rising, and we are now drawing scenarios to counteract on energy shortage in the coming winter as this seems to be in our key European sites, one of the key risks going forward. In general, and that's not just the problem which has occurred in 2022, but which also last throughout the whole of 2021 was a certain scarcity on raw materials and chip in general, which has slowed down certain industry into which we have significant supplies. And we see these problems to persist and forecast project that scarcity on chip in particular, but also on certain raw materials will go well into 2023. And last but not least, I mentioned the largest economy in Asia, which has struggled the first 6 months due to sporadic COVID outbreaks, China. And of course, also the zero-COVID policy of the Chinese government, which has slowed down economy in China, one of the motors of global economy over the past year, significantly in the first 6 months. But in general, we can say the market trends remain very favorable for Huber+Suhner. We can see in the industry that connectivity solutions are key and are the basis for reliable industrial services and utilities, so 24/7 uninterrupted service of these applications is key. And particularly going forward, if you imagine now the electricity crisis that we may face in the coming winter, even more important is that reliability of infrastructure is given so that the problem is not further accentuated. There is also an increased need for high precision test and measurement leads. I mentioned the major driver, the 5G rollout in the communication market, although we reported on the industry. These markets are closely linked and the need for these high-precision RF leads has been high and will continue to be on good levels going forward. Then a market which hasn't performed above previous year was our aerospace and defense applications. And here, I'm not fundamentally concerned about the business going forward. We see clearly that the budgets are increased. However, of course, this has not yet an impact on our business as we are relatively far behind in the food chain. And these programs, they have usually very long cycles. Then we can also see a business which has performed on a very high level, the first 6 months going strong also in the next few months. That's the fast charging business, where we are the market leader with our high-power charging leads that connect the power station with the cars. These are the liquid cooled high-power cable with voltages up to 1 kilovolt and power ranges up to 500 amps. And we see there a trend towards even higher power and higher voltages, which favors our technology edge and which should give us with our leading technology, also a very strong position going forward. Then last but not least, for industry, I think this reorganization which took place 18 months ago is particularly favorable for the industrial market as we have customers there that have truly need for all 3 technologies, and we are in a much better position to bundle all 3 technologies into complete offerings and complete solutions to industrial customers. And I think we only see the first impact of this reorganization, and I'm quite convinced that going forward, there will be further benefits of our market-oriented approach to our customers in the Industry segment in particular, but not exclusively here. Looking quickly at the Communication market. We all know how important a reliable communication infrastructure is. We were all extremely happy that we could rely on fast internet connections, working from all places, and in particular from home during the pandemic. And as we can see now in the market and in companies, by far, not all people have gone back to the office. We have a hybrid model in many companies and home office is not the standard, but it's an alternative to working from the office, and that's just one part why reliable communication infrastructure is so important. It's also important because we have more and more devices which are connected, which are intelligent and all these devices, of course, have to rely on internet connections and web connections, which is at one of the major trends in the communication market. Of course, connectivity on the last mile is quite often mobile. The shift to 5G takes place and is in full swing right now in many countries, but by far, not in all countries which have just installed 4 gears in their mobile network, they are hesitant to already invest again huge amounts of money in 5G infrastructure. They want to get a payback on their 4G equipment first, and we project that the 5G rollout, they will last for quite a while. And of course, we'll move from more developed countries, from western countries to more emerging countries, but also in countries where we have now seen a first wave of 5G infrastructure rollout, we see further upgrades going forward. So we have a particularly strong market in the U.S. that will not last forever, but we are confident that this 5G will keep us busy and will drive the communication business to a large extent going forward. Of course, a mobile infrastructure is worth nothing without the backbone, so with every investment in mobile infrastructure, they have to be related investments in the fixed net and access network structure, and that drives our fixed net business also to higher levels going forward according to our belief. In Transportation, I have already mentioned several factors. In general, we are convinced that railway will play a major role when it comes to public mass transportation going forward. There is no other way how we can reach as a society, our CO2 emission target without investing into electric railway systems. Electric railway systems trains have by far, the best balance when it comes to CO2 emissions per passenger kilometers. And there is no other way how we can not limit ourselves in mobility without not considering heavy investments in mass electric transportation system. That's why we are convinced that the railway is a strong market in the mid- to long run, and the market will have to come back. In the meantime, we focus strongly on a high-margin application in this business, which is the communication equipment on train. The reason is that it's not just the new trains, the new builds, which are equipped with modern communication systems for the passengers, but also there is a very strong refurbishment market emerging for 20, 30-year old trains, which are reflected with modern communication system to allow the passengers to communicate in the station, but also on the train. No worries for us at the moment we have in the electric vehicle area. There, it's very clear that electric drive is the concept of the future. We focus heavily on commercial vehicles. Some people may say, but for long distance, commercial vehicles, the hydrogen fuel trucks will be the option of choice. I say, yes, this is very likely, but also a hydrogen-fueled truck needs a battery and an electric drive and represents business potential for our products, which are primarily the high-voltage circuit in the cars and in the trucks. And last but not least, we are very positive, and we are making progress with our high-resolution radar businesses. We are about to win additional large Tier 1 suppliers into the automotive industry. We've been able to announce the first reference project with Continental about a year ago. And we are about to close a further contract here. It has to be said that this business is not an immediate contribution to our top and bottom line as the cycles are relatively long. And from nomination to start of production, there is usually about a year to 1.5 years. And then after that, we have a ramp-up and a lifetime of about 7 to 8 years for this platform. So this is a long-term opportunity for Huber+Suhner and it represents, I also have to say that again, significant investments and pre-investments into that business, but we are on track with that opportunity for Huber+Suhner. So that overall, despite the disappointing bottom line of the Transportation segment, we have the action initiated and we are on track in executing those plans to bring transportation midterm back to the average profitability range of Huber+Suhner. That brings me to the outlook. I have to say that even though we can report strong results after 6 months, there would have been even more possible without a difficult economic environment. I think we have mentioned the lockdowns in China. We have mentioned logistics and material bottlenecks and also rising inflation rates. And I think without all that, we would even report stronger figures at midyear now. But nevertheless, I think we are happy with what we can present here. And the target markets, as indicated and as outlined just before, they remain very attractive for us in general. We have 5G as a driver that remains. We have the data growth in the networks, which drives the data centers, the electro-mobility, the autonomous driving and also mid- to long term, again, aerospace and defense, which are unbroken potentials and which should also develop favorably even in times where the global economy may be close to recession or end up in a modest recession. This last point and also the still high order backlog, please bear in mind that we had a very strong order back -- order intake in 2021. And again, a positive book to bill in the first 6 months. So the fundamentally positive trends as well as the strong order backlog makes us cautiously optimistic for the year-end of 2022 and provided that mentioned and presented challenges and also the strength of the Swiss franc does not further accentuate from today's perspective. We project net sales growth in the range of 6% to 8% and an EBIT margin in the range of 10% to 12%, which represents a slight increase and is a bit more precise on the EBIT margin. With this positive outlook, we have come to the end of our official presentation, and we are now moving over to the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Christian Obst from Baader-Helvea.

I have three. First on your share buyback program. How do you expect to use your net cash going forward? Is there any plan maybe to extend the share buyback program, as you have said that you are approximately have bought back 75% of that? The second question is concerning the capacity situation, having in mind that you are investing in your new capacity, how much of spare capacity do you have in these 3 segments? Can you give us some kind of a rough idea, especially having in mind that you grew by approximately 20% in communication and 10% in transport? And last but not least, to the new radar antenna business, you mentioned the first contract with Conti and you were close to get another one in this area. Can you give us some kind of this idea about the amount of the orders? And are all these orders reaching for the next 6 to 8 years, as you mentioned?

So the first question concerns the share buyback program and Ivo Wechsler will answer this one.

Yes. I mean, as I've said and as you also repeated already, I think we have completed 75% of our program, and we hope that we can, let's say, close the program within the next few months. And then we have still, let's say, a good cash position, yes. But you have seen, I think we have, first of all, we are on to further grow. So it will employ further capital in for our growth, organic growth, then we invest quite heavily in our production equipment. And I think this will continue also into the next year. And then thirdly, we are still, let's say, open for inorganic growth for acquisitions. And I think that's the priority list, what we have with our cash.

So second question was related to our capacity and whether there are -- whether capacity represent a restriction for further growth? I mean, we can say that we are well loaded in our factories globally, but not to the same extent everywhere. So there is still room to grow further. I would say capacity is not a limiting factor to Huber+Suhner despite our growth record over the last 2 years. First of all, in manual operation, we have proven in the past that we can ramp up quite flexibly and fast. And we, as you may remember, those sites are mainly located in low labor cost countries when it comes to production processes that rely on production equipment. There is still a bit of room to further increase the output by introducing additional shifts, weekend shifts, over time and the like. And we have also significant CapEx program, where the capacity is not aligned going forward with our plans. And last but not least, there is always a third option for Huber+Suhner that we outsource certain capacity in production and process steps where this is possible as we have a relatively high value-add in-house, and we can always fly a bit with make-or-buy decisions on that end. And the last question concerned ADAS and the next contract with the additional customers. I can't give you right now more information on that, but I'm quite hopeful that we can announce in the next few weeks more details about additional business. I can only say that we have another very large Tier 1 supplier, as I already mentioned, that has given us a nomination. We are asking currently for approval to communicate to the public, the people are on vacation there. And we hope that after the holiday season, we will get the permission to publish more details. It's, I would say, a contract of similar nature, and it concerns also 3D modern RF distance radar antennas with a lifetime of, I would say, average nature, 6 to 8 years.

Okay. Can you remind me how big is the contract with Conti?

I don't know what we have announced there. You can go to our home page press release, but it's a mid-double-digit million contract over the lifetime.

The next question comes from Charlie Fehrenbach from AWP.

Could you give us a bit more light about your ideas about your different scenarios for possible energy shortages in coming winter? What could happen? What could be the consequences?

Yes, we look at this problem on different levels and from different angles. First and foremost, there is the issue of possible lack of gas supply into Europe, and we have several locations in Europe, which could be concerned. However, I have to say we have already managed to make our operations more or less independent of gas supply. We do not rely heavily on gas in our production processes, unlike, for instance, the compound and plastic manufacturer. So there, I'm actually more concerned about suppliers to Huber+Suhner in general. I would say that the gas problem we can cope with. Much more complex and also more severe could be an electricity shortage in key locations for Huber+Suhner, but there, we are definitely not alone. We are using electricity for our production processes, in some instances to a significant extent. And any electricity shortfall would have an impact on Huber+Suhner. The problem there is, of course, complex because it's related to the gas situation as there are a lot of gas-fired peak plants in Europe. We have the nuclear reactors in France which are under revision. We have our hydro dams, which are only half filled because of the dry weather. And overall, we are seriously concerned and we can only push the government and the official site in Switzerland, but also abroad to take that problem seriously. On our end, we are working with those scenarios, and we are trying to mitigate the problem with alternative measures.

The next question comes from Richard Frei from ZKB.

Three questions, if I may. The first one, may you give us some more flavor for the decline in communication business in China? And then secondly, I would also like to come back to the ADAS radar business. And I'm wondering regarding the timeline, when roughly is your plan to reach operating breakeven? You've given us some idea how sales might look like next year. So when do we see like a black zero operating wise? And the third one is regarding R&D spendings going forward. Will it be in the range of 6% to sales or should it even be more or less?

So related to the first question, communication in Asia and China, you remember, we had a significant business with Samsung for business going into India in the years '16 to '18, partly also '19. This rollout has come to a stop. We have still considerable business with Samsung, but that's more in the North American market. Another large customer of us was in the past, Huawei, we have always disclosed that and Huawei clearly suffers from the -- yes, from the ban in certain western territories, and we have seen the volumes with these customers going significantly down. That is the main answer to the first question. Then we have the question about ADAS. And there, I don't give you all the details, but maybe I can say this, that we expect sales next year in the range of mid-single-digit million, and we expect on that level to be more or less breakeven. And the last one concerned the R&D spending. You may have noticed, following the R&D figures over the past 3, 4, 5 years that we have significantly increased our R&D spending, and we have also hold on to that strategy during the difficult COVID times in 2020. I think it proved to be luxury but also the right long-term strategy to continue to invest in the future and into long-term R&D program. I think we have reached now a level with 6%, which is, if we benchmark ourselves with competition on a good level, and we do not plan to further expand R&D costs, but also we do not plan to reduce it. So we think we are plus/minus on the same level. There could be always deviation from this strategy if we found additional large opportunities, which are just so attractive that we consider to increase further the R&D spending. Overall, and in general and as a rule of thumb, I think with the 6%, we have reached the bandwidth that we consider to be healthy given our long-term approach.

The next question comes from Barbora Blaha from UBS.

I have one remaining question on the Chinese railway business. So you said that you don't expect any changes there next year. But do you think it will ever come back? Or do you think the Chinese government will collaborate more with local players, given the developing political situation?

We have to say that for the local rail project, they already work with local suppliers. That market has never been really open to foreign suppliers like Huber+Suhner. We play a major role in the high-speed programs and in the metro programs, which have very high safety requirements. And we believe that those 2 markets remain open to western suppliers and in particular, to also to Huber+Suhner. Huber+Suhner is one of the leading suppliers of railway cables and cable systems globally and has a technology that is also in demand in China. So we believe that the markets will remain open for us clearly. As far as the volumes are concerned, going forward, this is difficult to predict. Usually, China has a very long-term approach when it comes to infrastructure programs. We all know that they have now a bit of a slowdown in the economy, and that may force them also to reconsider some of their investment projects in infrastructure. On the other side, we also know that they have significant plans to further develop their high-speed train network and going to even higher speeds going up to 450, which is a platform that will be launched and which could trigger in the future a bit higher volumes. So that's something we watch carefully, and we are designed into this platform of the new 450 high-speed train.

And one additional comment from my side is also that we are in a good position because we produce the cables also locally. We have a large production site in Chongzuo, that also helps when it comes to this political view you mentioned.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Daniel Koenig from Mirabaud.

I have also a general question. You mentioned in your speech that the impact of a slowdown in general economic growth, but when I look at the Industry segment, I see a lot of niche applications. How big would you quantify the really general industry thing where you would say it's exposed to a slowdown because military and aerospace is not affected by a slowdown, high-precision components are not so much impacted. How much would you say is really exposed to the general economy? And then I may have a second question. You mentioned the energy shortage. I had -- I would phrase my question a little bit different than the Mr. Richard Frei. It's the question what would happen to you if electricity prices stay where they are, simple, because in France, the 1 year forward is at EUR 600 per megawatt hour. I'm just wondering. Now the shortage, but staying at that high price level.

Okay. So your first question relates actually to...

To the exposure to the economic environment.

For the industry, I can't give you the exact number what the impact of a global recession will have on our industrial business. But you rightly noted that we have a very diverse business in the industry. We serve quite a wide range of applications in the industry. And our strategy was always that we try to focus heavily on businesses, which have -- where there is a major trend behind and which, to a certain extent, is also decoupled from the global economy. If you take, for instance, the fast charging business, I mean, even if the global economy falls into a recession, there will be still fast-charging station still because it's simply needed. And we have quite a wide range of examples that fall into the same category. So I think we are resistant to a certain extent, but of course, not 100%. And we also have to be aware that in general, the industry business is peaking right now. There might also be supply chain effects that companies are, I would say, maybe not overstocking but definitely not holding back in place in order to make sure that they can safeguard their supplies. So in general, I think we have seen a very favorable situation in the past to which we will have to compare our future business. I'm quite positive as far as our strategy is concerned and our focus on really growth applications. And last but not least, for us, also quite often, it's sometimes more important to win or lose a contract than if the world economy grows or shrinks by 1% or 2%. And I think the energy question, I can hand over to Ivo.

Yes, Mr. Koenig, you are right, prices will increase. I mean we can't give you all the details. It also depends on the site-per-site basis. But for example, I can give you a flavor with regards to Switzerland, which is our largest production site, and we obviously don't buy all our energy on spot pricing. However, we expect from today's perspective, CHF 3 million more higher -- CHF 3 higher cost with regards to energy consumption for next year.

The next question comes from Mark Diethelm from Bank Vontobel.

Two questions, please. The first is on your front investment into the raws and connectivities. Kind of this burden, you said it burdened your operating margin. Can you quantify to what extent these investments impacted the transportation margins? And should we expect a similar effect in the second half as well? And the second question is on the aerospace and defense. You said in defense, you were at the end of the food chain. When you look at the activities in the sector, when do you think it would have an impact on Huber+Suhner industry business?

So about the first point, I cannot disclose more details on the level of our pre-investment in this business, but you can consider them to be significant. It's a highly automated mass process that produces our antennas, and there are investments in several areas. First of all, it's an investment in R&D, which already is in our operational result to a large extent. But then there is also investments in process engineering and of course, in CapEx. And that piles up to significant reinvestments with significant midterm potential for sales and profit for Huber+Suhner. Second question was the A&D question, yes here, I'm just not concerned about mid-long term. And also, I would say that it takes a year or 2 for this increased defense budgets to have an impact in the market so that we can also see that. But also here, our A&D business is largely dominated by programs and projects. And here, it's really also a question of timing and whether we can win or not large programs and be designed in there. But our pipeline looks healthy and good, and I'm convinced and quite sure that midterm, we can go back to the growth path also in A&D. We also have to say that we have seen significant growth and a very strong development in A&D over the last 3, 4 years at Huber+Suhner, and we have as that also a relatively tough comparison with last year.

Just coming back on the upfront investment. So in the second half, you expect that this will continue, particularly on the R&D side? Or is that more a first half event?

The R&D team is already working on the next-generation distance radars and that is also needed because of these long cycles. We don't want that to be a short-term business with just 1 or 2 projects that we can win. We want to be that really a long-term business and that this business becomes a strong pillar of Huber+Suhner, and for that we will have to work on the next generation, and we are doing that. So we have there in this area also our share of R&D that we expense and also which we invest.

The next question comes from Reto Huber from Research Partners.

Yes. Just one question remains regarding 5G rollout. It's in North America at full swing, and you are saying it remains on high levels. I was wondering what's going on in Europe? Where is Europe in this rollout process from your point of view?

Europe is earlier and later, and that's not a contradiction. I think in Europe, some operators have started earlier. They have already started to make their network 5G ready 3, 4, 5 years ago. And they don't have this spike as the North American operators. In North America, we know that there are 3 large operators. There used to be 4. Now it's 3 because T-Mobile and Sprint went together. And they are really battling for a quick upgrade of their network. On the other side, they also have a much larger territory to cover and that makes those programs extremely expensive. That's why they have hold back the investment to a certain degree. But they have now kicked that off. So if you take, for instance, a typical European operator, let's call this operator Swiss. Swiss has started to make his or their 5 or their mobile network 5G ready starting as early as 2016, 2017. And they do that over a longer period of time. So it's...

That gradual process that we see at Swisscom is representative for the rest of Europe as well?

Yes, I would say for the rest of -- for most of Europe, let's call it, Western, Northern and Southern Europe.

We have a follow-up question from Mr. Christian Obst from Baader-Helvea.

Yes, it's concerning personnel cost. So what are the -- your current plans? How much do you like to add on personnel going into the next year until the end of the next year? What kind of salary increase you are projecting? And might be a shortage of personnel be any kind of threat for your growth ambitions?

I mean we are still with regards to -- I mean, we have not finalized, let's say, our considerations and also the, let's say, the negotiations. But I think yes, we'll see an over proportional increase compared to previous years. It depends obviously on the inflation development also country by country, but we see from low single digit to probably high single digit. So however, still, I mean, we have half of the, let's say, of the staff costs are still in Switzerland. So we see, let's say, due to the lower inflation, they have a lower increase than some of the other countries. Yes. And I think, yes, it's a war for talent is on. I think so far, let's say, yes, we can still employ, let's say, all the talents and the experts we need. However, often it takes currently sometimes longer until we, let's say, get to the right people. So -- but so far, I think we were still on a good level. However, yes, going forward, I think that's always a concern. And when we need to be attractive as an employer, but it's not only a question of salary, it's also a question of ambition and also, let's say, potential and culture of what at the end there. That's a threat. But so far, I think we are still on an attractive employer.

And how much do you like to add going until the end of the next year?

People are cost. I mean, we don't -- we don't know yet. I mean it really depends on the development. I think we go really selectively. And I think -- and we have always distinguished between operational people there, it's really driven by the need and by the load. And there, let's say, they're also more flexible when it comes to office staff. I think we will add 1 or few positions, but we don't have a huge growth going forward, but I mean, it really depends on the further development in the next few months.

Gentlemen, so far there are no more questions.

Okay. Then I would like to thank you on behalf of Ivo Wechsler and myself to all the questions. And I'll come to the end of our presentation of the midyear results 2022. We have hosted this conference for the first time as a pure webcast. So no people here physically, but we truly hope to see you all in person as we have this year organized a Capital Market Day in Herisau. I hope you have all marked that date in your agendas. And we can all welcome you in Herisau on Friday, the 23rd of September this year. We will also give you there no more details on the figures, but definitely a real deep dive into our strategy, into our applications, our markets and our products. And I'm looking forward to share a bit more details and spend really more time on the more strategic and business-related topics together with you. Then we have a usual 9 months figures reported in October. We give top line '22 full year end of January. And then again, in this circle, we will have the annual report figures and the respective conference here on March 7, 2023. I would like to thank you for attending this conference for your interest in Huber+Suhner. I'm looking forward to keep in contact with all of you. Thank you very much.