Kemira Oyj (KEMIRA) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Kemira's Q2 Results Webcast. My name is Kiira Fröberg, and I'm the new Head of Investor Relations at Kemira. We issued our half year financial report today and maintained a solid profitability in a challenging market environment. We have made some changes to our presentation content and flow. Next, our President and CEO, Antti Salminen, will present you the group figures and will also discuss our strategic developments and the outlook. After that, our CFO, Petri Castren, will continue with business unit performance and will also discuss the financials in a bit more detail. We also today announced that we will start share buybacks. So Petri will cover the share buyback program in his presentation. But now Antti, the stage is yours.

Thank you, Kiira, and a warm welcome to Kemira. It's really good to have you with us. Yes, it's my great pleasure to present Kemira's quarter 2 results in '25. Really solid 19% profitability amongst challenging market conditions, which I think, demonstrates the resilience of our business model and the changes that we have made structurally to the company, as I've been talking about previously, we can perform good times, bad times in the guided 18% to 21% profitability range, which this quarter 2 is a really good demonstration of. As mentioned, the market environment was challenging, real headwinds, especially in the Packaging & Hygiene Solutions market, which gets the most impact from the overall global economic weakness, which resulted in a disappointing negative organic growth of 3% for the quarter, which is really -- and I will talk more about it later, but which is really coming mostly from the Packaging & Hygiene part of the business, but also impacted by the exchange rates, especially the U.S. dollar. On July 10, we updated our outlook. I will talk more about it later. But as mentioned, I think the highlight of the quarter was the strong profitability overall and especially in the Water Solutions and Fiber Essentials business, which actually increased their profitability in quarter 2. And as a result, of course, the balance sheet continues to be strong, which enables us to continue executing on our growth strategy, of which I will talk a little bit more later as well. On the execution of the growth strategy, as we have been several times explaining, it is both organic and inorganic growth. Some examples of that now in the quarter 2 are the expansion -- capacity expansion here in Finland at our Äetsä site for the sodium borohydrate powder technology. This continues the kind of track record of small capacity expansions that we've announced in quarter 1 for the Water business. So now this is mostly serving the Fiber Essentials business, but also the powder capacity is helping us to support the growing pharma industry. And as Kiira mentioned in the beginning, the Board of Directors decided yesterday to launch a share buyback program to optimize our capital structure and serve the interest of our diverse investor base and shareholders. Petri, as mentioned, will talk more about the details of the buyback program. But I will now next turn into the -- some of the leading indicators that give me the confidence to say that the performance will be solid in the future as well. So we measure this -- bring, again, as we constantly do the engagement of our customers, customer satisfaction measured by the Net Promoter Score, which was actually all-time high. And our customers in the reports keep telling that the strongholds of Kemira are the reliability of delivery, good quality of the products and the professionalism of our service people and sales force. And these are really good baselines to build the future on. Similarly, we, of course, constantly follow our employee satisfaction, employee engagement, and it remained on a high 80-point level despite the fact that we went through a major reorganization last year, which always causes some stress in the organization. So despite that, we remain on a good solid high level, which is actually well above the industry norm in this case. So these are kind of leading indicators that give me the confidence that, yes, we are in a good position to invest for the growth strategy execution. But then if we look at a bit the group level financials for the quarter. So as mentioned, revenue declined being EUR 693 million for the quarter. And this really came mostly from the Packaging & Hygiene Solutions side. Then some decline in the Water Solutions as well, but mostly coming from one single tolling customer that we have there, which impacted -- which had a major impact there. But as mentioned also, the exchange rates play a big role here. So major impact on the decline from there as well. Year-on-year, both the volumes and the prices declined. But sequentially, quarter-on-quarter, we saw some increase already in the sales volumes, which I think is a positive sign. Then as a result of the weak top line that basically puts pressure on the profitability performance as well as the fixed costs are not scaling down with the same speed as the revenues in this kind of situation. But we managed to manage the cost base in such a manner that basically the EBITDA performance was steady. If you look at the previous quarters, we are steadily performing roughly on this 19% level now in these weak market conditions. And I just have to express a big thank you for everybody at Kemira because the whole organization has taken this challenge really seriously that as the markets are weak, we need to do even more in order to manage the profitability of the business, which this exemplifies. As mentioned, the main driver for the bit small decline in the profitability is the low top line, but also the currency exchange rates impact here. And as I mentioned already in the beginning, actually, the profitability of the Water Solutions business and Fiber Essentials business both increased. So we really have the profitability challenge in the Fiber Essentials business -- sorry, in the Packaging & Hygiene Solutions business as the packaging chemistry is the one that gets the most direct impact from the weak global economy. As we, as consumers, don't buy stuff, as companies don't invest, packaging material is not consumed. And as a consequence, our chemistry that goes into packaging companies is not consumed. And that hit we get very directly, and we see the weakness there in the profitability. Petri will talk more about the profitability, which was really unsatisfactory in the Packaging & Hygiene Solutions. And as a consequence, we have launched a self-help program, a profitability improvement program, specifically for the Packaging & Hygiene Solutions, which we expect to yield results in roughly about a year's time and improve significantly the profitability of that business. The earnings per share for the quarter were EUR 0.35. Now then about the growth strategy. So yes, the markets are not supporting, but we continue to perform and execute on our growth strategy and growth programs. Organic expansions to support the growth in especially Water business. Inorganic expansions, we have a strong pipeline, which we are working on. Example of that is the Thatcher Group's iron sulfate business in the U.S. East Coast, the acquisition of which we completed in the beginning of the quarter as mentioned already, capacity expansions, the Äetsä expansion here in Finland. But we also continue to execute on the longer-term growth, the innovation, invest more into innovation to fuel the longer-term growth of the company. And there, of course, it is internal innovation investments, but also a lot of external partnership type of work that we do to expand our capability technology-wise, geographically. So examples of that now in quarter 2 were the already mentioned Bluepha partnership in China to commercialize fully bio-based materials for the packaging industry for barrier coatings there but also customer collaboration. So we announced the collaboration program with one of our most important biggest customers, Metsä Group, to help them develop together with them their Kuura textile Fiber solutions. But then again -- and this is one that I'm really excited about, partnership program with the Cambridge U.K.-based CuspAI company to work on artificial intelligence-based innovation programs to develop new-to-the-world type of materials, especially to the growing needs of the Water business. So this is something which I think can revolutionize the old-fashioned R&D work in the chemical industry and really exciting work. Early days, just starting but I think really important for our longer-term growth strategy. So strong balance sheet, steady profitability. We continue to execute on our growth plans exactly as we have talked about previously. And then finally, as mentioned on July 10, we updated our outlook for the year, the new one being EUR 2.7 billion to EUR 2.95 billion of revenue and operative EBITDA between EUR 510 million and EUR 580 million. The assumptions behind the outlook are pretty much stable and as they have been, we really don't see this year any further support coming from the market. So as we all see and read from the news, the global economy is in a very uncertain state, and that is the kind of a major kind of underlying factor for the situation. But really, company is healthy, performing well, steady profitability in quarter 2. And Petri will continue and talk more about the business unit-specific results as well as about the share buyback program. Thank you.

Very good. Thanks, Antti. So as Kiira already introduced, so we have changed the presentation flow, so I'll cover the core financial slides, but I also offer some of the directional comments on the business units. I will also give some examples of the resilience that Antti was talking about, how this resilience is actually demonstrated by the solid -- continued solid profitability, one can say even good profitability considering the market conditions. I'll also address some of the reasons for the PHS weakness and finally, cover the buyback program. I think those are the key points of today's report. All right. So looking at the revenue and profitability bridges. So of course, the revenue declined EUR 40 million a year, which is a big number, but half of it was currency. And of course, the U.S. dollar weakness has an impact and obviously was one of the key drivers behind our decision to change the outlook for the year. Organic growth was a negative 3%. So there was a small volume decline, and there was also a small negative pricing impact. However, when I -- when we get to the BU slides, I'll give directional comments. And so this is -- this was not uniform and Antti was already talking about the resilience of our Water business, particularly the core water business, excluding the tolling revenue and then, of course, the resilience and the good performance of our Fiber Essentials business. Of course, these same drivers, price, volume and currency were the drivers that were impacting and were the key drivers behind the EUR 9 million profit decline in EBITDA line. We were able to get small positive on the variable cost benefit. And as Antti said, fixed costs were below last year's rate. And of course, that helped the Q2 outcome. Net impact, about EUR 6 million between the -- on year-on-year comparison between the change of price of selling prices and the variable costs. So we are getting to a stage where this curve is flattening and indicating that we are in a very, very stable or quite stable pricing environment so that overall through the raw material basket, we don't see much of volatility. There are some individual items that impact. We have some product lines. But through the basket, we are seeing relatively stable or have seen relatively stable in the last couple of quarters, and it actually looks that way in the foreseeable future, which, of course, in the raw material environment is not hugely long. Then the directional comments on the business units. And I'll start with Water Solutions. So Antti was already talking about that the decline in Water Solutions was really the lower tolling revenue, tolling activity that we have with one of our tolling customers. We don't have many, but this is the biggest tolling customer that we have. There were also some weakness in the industrial demand. But however, if we look at the really core water treatment, the urban, the municipal water treatment business, very steady. And the growth was essentially flat with a small growth in EMEA, offset by a small decline in Americas. So again, this core part of our water business is very resilient and also quite predictable, which helps. Sequentially, from Q1 to Q2, revenues and volumes increased. This is perhaps a seasonal pattern, which I think I was sort of alluding to already in Q1 report. Profitability at a very good level. Margin also somewhat positively impacted by the product mix, meaning, again, less tolling revenue. I would call that sort of lower quality revenue, this tolling revenue. And so therefore, the mix was favorable from the margin point of view. Packaging & Hygiene Solutions. Of course, this business unit was clearly impacted by the challenging market conditions. We've already seen and heard some comments from customers about the continued soft environment in EMEA. On the other hand, there are some early signs that the market may be picking up in Americas, particularly North America. However, the weak spot for us, particularly in this quarter was APAC. This quarter was perhaps the financial outcome was even more impacted because we did have some maintenance breaks in 2 of our key sites in China, in APAC. And of course, when we had longer maintenance breaks in those sites, we don't get the associated production. We get so-called fixed variances, and they were impacting the results quite negatively. We also had one good-sized customer cease operations, and we have not been able to yet replace that lost revenue. So there is a little bit of that situation as well. So the biggest profitability challenge, therefore, is in APAC. In fact, if you exclude APAC and look at the rest of the world, meaning EMEA and Americas, we are already operating at even in this quarter in mid-teens EBITDA profitability, which again shows that even in this difficult time, this business is quite resilient. It's just that the APAC business is not able to scale down costs with the decline in market as quickly as it should. And this is, of course, something that needs to be addressed. The BU, the business unit profit improvement that Antti was also talking about is a broad program. It addresses our fixed cost base. It also addresses some of the variable costs that we do, but it also has to address some of the top line. And with this program, we are also looking how to get some additional volume to the system. And like Antti said, we clearly expect significant improvement on that by next year. Then Fiber. Fiber market, it was stable during the quarter. In fact, we had 3% organic growth for the quarter. When we address the market conditions and market gave the assumptions for the rest of the year last week, we noted that along with the weak packaging market, we are seeing some signs of weakness in the pulp market. And this was, of course, referring to some of the customer announcements of downtime -- market-related downtime. However, this business is quite resilient, and I'm not hugely worried about, but of course, the potential reduction in top line impacts. Profitability, very good. We did see some formula-related price increases, particularly in North America as the electricity cost in Q1 was quite high in North America. And a reminder, we -- there's a pass-through mechanism or formula mechanism in our caustic prices in North America, but it lags a little bit. It lags about 1/4 of the cost. So the previous quarter's cost base impacts the next quarter's revenue. So we did get some benefit of that now. On the balance sheet, really, really no change. We continue to have a very strong balance sheet, arguably, suboptimal amount of leverage as we are now starting to address with the buyback program that was announced, particularly if we consider the overall capital structure and the cost of capital. Operative ROCE, now below 20%, clearly because of the operating profit EBIT has reduced the last trailing 12 months. There's really no change in the capital base. Cash flow from operations, EUR 64 million during the quarter, not quite at the level that we have seen it in the last few years. We have had some net working capital buildup. We haven't been quite able to scale down the level of inventory or one could say, inventory effectiveness with declining revenues. So this is obviously something that will need to be addressed during the second half of the year. There is a seasonal pattern in our cash flow generation as those who have followed us longer time have noticed. We have clearly over 50% of the cash flow is generated on the second half of the year and many -- in a typical year and oftentimes concentration under Q4. Some of the seasonal patterns that drive this are that we tend to have a higher share of capital expenditures that get final acceptances that trigger payments in the fourth quarter and then those -- actually, those payments are then made in the Q1, but those payables are created in Q4. Also, the incentive cycle is such that you accrue payments and then you pay annual incentives in the beginning of the year. About the CapEx, no change in our forecast. So we expect that the CapEx will be slightly higher this year or somewhat higher than last year. And so that's there. Then about buyback. Our Board has discussed the merits of share buyback program in many of its meetings in the recent past as the company's balance sheet has increased and the question has become more relevant. We then now -- we recognize that the capital structure is not the most optimal now and that we actually could benefit of some additional leverage from the current half turn of leverage that we have. During these considerations and discussion, it has been always very important to stress that any buyback program will not impact our dividend policy, also that it cannot impact our ability to execute our growth strategy, whether it's organic investments or whether it's inorganic program and opportunities that we want to take advantage of first. I think we can safely and very comfortably conclude that this program, which has now been announced with a maximum amount of EUR 100 million will not impede with either one of these objectives. So this will not impact dividend policy. This will not prevent us from executing any of the M&A opportunities that we see otherwise fit. And so therefore, of course, this buyback program is also a recognition that we have different shareholders and different interests between different shareholders, particularly regarding the taxation of dividends. Many of our foreign shareholders get much more heavily taxed for dividends. And this is sort of addresses their needs as well. The program can earliest begin next Tuesday, will likely take some time to execute. So based on the recent trading volume, it will be 9 to 12 months or something in that range. So this will be a lengthy execution that we will be executing. As Antti already covered the outlook, we are now ready to move to the Q&A session. So operator, please.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Anssi Raussi from SEB.

I have a few questions and I go one by one. First, one clarifying question regarding the Water treatment business. So I think the revenue decreased by 4%. But did you mention the volume impact year-over-year?

I did not mention the volume impact, and I was talking about the organic growth, which I believe was 3%, but I stand to be corrected if you -- because I don't have the notes in front of me right now. But I was directionally commenting that the volume decline was really from the industrial, and it was the tolling revenue within that. And if you combine the urban EMEA and the urban Americas, those were essentially flat with EMEA small growth offsetting the small decline in Americas.

Okay. And then maybe about this weakness in the Packaging and Hygiene segment. So you mentioned that the weakness is clear, especially in APAC. So do you think that this is actually just some temporary weakness or maybe something more structural? And also, you mentioned some early positive signs in the U.S. So what kind of signs you're seeing there?

Yes. Good question. And as I tried to explain when I talked about generally about the markets, it's a good question what is temporary. But we all see how turbulent the markets overall economy in the world currently is. And the packaging market is one that actually tracks very closely the overall economy. Everything that consumes packaging board is everything that is packed somehow, either consumer products or investment goods or whatever. So basically or construction industry. So as long as the economy is weak and uncertain as we see today, I think the same uncertainty will continue on our Packaging & Hygiene Solutions market. And as Petri mentioned, there are kind of some positive signs. So we've seen some kind of -- from the packaging market in Americas, some weak positive signs. Too early to draw final conclusions, but it seems that the bottom has been reached and there might be some light in the end of the tunnel, so to say.

Okay. And finally, about the Fiber segment. So you mentioned that there were -- maybe some signs of increasing softness in the pulp industry. So was this something which got worse towards the end of the quarter? Or how should we think about the starting point heading into Q3?

I mean, as Petri mentioned, you just need to look at our key customers and their announcement. That's what you can read. I mean some of them have announced market-related downtime, and that downtime will have an impact on us.

And now we can take the next question from the line, please.

The next question comes from Martin Roediger from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Just a follow-up question or -- a few questions from my side. First, a follow-up question on Packaging & Hygiene as well as on Fiber Essentials. Is there any, let's say, important item regarding the momentum within the second quarter and also your order book in July, which, let's say, gives you the confidence that, for example, in Packaging hygiene, is this just a temporary item or in the Fiber business that there is some softness ahead. So any, let's say, color on the volume momentum during the quarter and also of your order book, which, let's say, gives some additional color? Secondly, on the share buyback program, you mentioned that it will not affect the dividend and it will not affect your strategic target for internal and external growth. But when I look at the relatively soft cash flow in the first half, is there, let's say, a reason to believe that at least in the short term, your appetite for acquisitions is somewhat reduced? And thirdly, you were already quite successful in your reduction of fixed costs. Where do you stand in your -- in these cost savings activity? What is still to come in the second half? And do you have additional ammunition to implement additional cost savings going forward? These are my 3 questions.

We will try to remember all of the questions, but please, Martin, you can then comment if they are not addressed.

Yes. I'll take the first and then pass on to Petri to comment on the share buyback program and the fixed cost savings programs. But to your first question about our order book and development within the quarter. So please remember, we don't comment within the quarter developments. We only comment on the quarter as a whole. And we don't really release order book numbers as well in our case. We just comment about the revenues and profits. So this is a question that I'm not in a position to really answer -- but then, Petri, about the share buyback program.

Yes. So relatively soft cash flow, like I indicated, it actually mostly is from the net working capital development. And first of all, we have no net working capital problem. Our receivables done really well. We don't have bad credits or anything like that. Inventory, slow moving and goods really relatively small. So this working -- net working capital can actually change from quarter-to-quarter quite dramatically. So I'm not hugely worried about that. I know that we can improve the cash generation from the net working capital in the second half of the year. Secondly, we've always said that this capital structure of half -- now we're perhaps more openly admitting that this half a turn of leverage is not an optimal capital structure. And we can -- we could take over EUR 1 billion of debt, and we still maintain an investment-grade credit profile, which has been sort of saying that how we are -- how we want to manage that. So even when we are seeing opportunities to invest organically or inorganically, and of course, it would be mostly the M&A activity that would potentially increase the debt in a more dramatic fashion or more faster pace. It's the overall capacity to take on debt that is the limiting. It's not the quarterly. We don't buy companies based from a quarterly cash flow. So in that sense, that is also the way of how I would address the last question is that does this impact the desire to do M&A? No. No, of course -- we see our business very resilient and our continued cash flow generation capability as unchanged. So that's why we are comfortably starting this type of a buyback program and still maintaining the ability to execute the 2 other strategic priorities or 2 other capital allocation priorities, meaning dividend policy and ability to invest enough on organic and inorganic activities.

And the question about the cost savings?

When we started the cost saving program, we announced that I forget exactly when it was some -- maybe a quarter ago or so. Of course, fixed costs by nature are not immediate to come. So most of what activity that you will be probably visible in the second quarter -- I'm sorry, second half of the year and perhaps even accelerating towards it when you are really looking at fixed cost improvements, those are not -- we're not laying off people. So we have -- at this time, we have done no layoffs of people because of that. So this is more structural improvements. And I would also say that at 19% profitability, which is even in this market condition is quite okay within the guidance range. And we -- when we induced the EBITDA range, we call them guardrails. And within these guardrails, we are investing into growth. And now you are sort of within those guardrails and still being able to invest into these -- even in some of those longer-term investments like the CuspAI, which is clearly investment into something that will not bear results in the next couple of years. So in that sense, yes, I'll stop my answer there because I forget the question.

Was that all, Martin?

Yes. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Let's now take the next question please.

The next question comes from Joni Sandvall from Nordea.

It's Joni from Nordea. Maybe still a small clarification on the outlook comments. As you mentioned, you are expecting some softness in the pulp market. Is there geographical differences? I mean, is this mainly driven now by the Nordics?

Well, if I comment the overall markets, of course, the examples that you see from the customers, we have heard some of the kind of big Nordic customers now. But then again, if you look at the overall market development, the main pulp markets in Latin America are still performing very strong. The new assets that many companies and customers have there are performing well. We have, of course, seen it in the APAC market where we are not that big in the Fiber Essentials business, but as the whole pulp and paper industry in APAC has been soft, so that's visible there. But overall, I mean, this is the -- it's a global market, really the pulp market. So if it's soft somewhere, typically, it's soft elsewhere as well. But Latin America seems to be still holding very strong.

Latin America has clearly the lowest cost base, so they can operate through almost any cycle at full speed. And then, of course, it's the higher cost players that will need to do. And therefore, we structurally -- we've seen that actually North American pulp producers generally are the ones who have been impacted most by the weakness.

Yes. That's clear. Maybe then a quick question on this Water Solutions tolling customer. I understand that it's low profitable -- lower profitability on this. But I think you were speaking in Q1 or expecting in Q1 that this would fade out in Q2. So should we expect now these revenues to come back in H2?

Not commenting to the future here. But yes, I mean, we commented in Q1 that we were having a significant hole in the revenue base in Q1. Now we still had some of that, but some of those revenues came back in Q2. So that is happening that you see in the numbers as well.

Okay. Okay. Then a couple of questions left on the Packaging & Hygiene Solutions and the profit improvement self-help measures that you are taking. Should we expect this to be mainly then visible in '26? And should we expect then Packaging & Hygiene Solutions as a whole to reach this mid-teens margins after that?

Well, we have said that we are looking for significant improvement for the segment by next year. And I made a comment that the EMEA and Americas already in this very difficult market conditions without the benefit of any of these improvement actions is already within mid-teens range combined, so -- yes. And I think this will be gradual. There are some actions that will be quicker to show results. Of course, I did mention that APAC was particularly hit. And of course, with the maintenance shutdowns that we had impacting 2 of our sites and particularly those maintenance breaks are more painful when you have low revenue. So that's when you have difficult -- more difficulties of covering the fixed costs when you don't create any revenue. And therefore, we don't see that happening in -- particularly in APAC, rest of the year. But you'll see probably -- should we expect some gradual improvement in the profits -- profitability of PHS through -- towards next year.

Okay. Okay. That's clear. And lastly, maybe FX impact on EBITDA appears to be at least to me, somewhat higher than earlier anticipating. So assume the current rates, should we still expect similar kind of negative impact now in H2?

If you are -- if you look at the dollar rate because dollar was sort of the Trump trade was so that the dollar was very strong, close to parity towards the -- in Q4 of last year. This is now coming off memory. So of course, from the currency point of view, we'll have a tough comparison. So if that -- and the current dollar rate, yes, the comparison will be quite challenging in -- particularly in Q4. So yes, it is expected to continue. And I gave a rough estimate that each euro cent in the exchange rate between euro and the U.S. dollar is between EUR 1 million to EUR 2 million of EBITDA as a group -- as really as a sort of a rough guidance. Of course, it depends a little bit on the mix and et cetera. So don't take that literally, but it gives you an indication of the currency sensitivity.

And our outlook for the year assumes the end of Q2 exchange rate level to continue. Now, the next question, please.

The next question comes from Henri Parkkinen from OP Financial Group.

We can't hear you, Henri, unfortunately. So let's take the next question from the line, please.

The next question comes from Andrew Noël from ChemicalESG.

I've got 2, please. I wanted to ask what do you see as the main hindrances to doing M&A? If I may make an observation, where I'm sat, it feels like another week goes by when there's not some sort of water deal goes by and a lot of it is -- a lot of these by acquiring companies are PE-owned. So yes, I just wanted to sort of get a feel for -- is it a quality issue, would you say or a valuation gap? That's the first question. And the second one is with the U.S., there's a sort of seemingly a shift on PFAS protections and cutting limits, maybe the sort of pressure to eliminate PFAS is sort of reducing. And I just wondered what's your perspective on that? And are you going to kind of throttle your endeavors in that area if that does kind of -- if the slowdown in PFAS elimination does sort of take hold?

Thanks. There's -- I mean, there's no really hindrance from the execution of M&A. We are just very selective. We want to acquire businesses that build on our strategy and are kind of a good fit from financial, from product, from technology, from [indiscernible] perspective. So we're actively working on that, and there's no kind of practical hindrances for that. So work ongoing there. And then for the PFAS, I don't really see that impact. If you look at kind of -- there's a bit of a delay in the U.S. scheme now, but actually, still the U.S. regulation is going to be executed faster than the European, which is kind of maybe first time in these environmental things that something happens quicker in U.S. So even the kind of delayed scheme is more fast than what the EU is currently planning with the transition times here. But in Europe, we have seen many times that many countries, especially the Nordic countries have been implementing these environmental protection schemes faster than the EU regulation requires. And we expect the same to happen with the PFAS as you've seen that in Sweden already and so forth. So we're very confident on this market developing and building up.

I think we still have one question from the line, please, or one caller. So please, let's take the question.

The next question comes from Mr. Tomi Railo from DNB Carnegie.

It's Tomi from DNB Carnegie. Still coming back to the Packaging & Hygiene business margin 9.9% in that business, much lower than from the first quarter. Is this the low do you think? And then maybe sorry if I missed this from the earlier commentary, but any numeric kind of cost savings and performance improvement ambitions you could comment on if we think that you have been talking about margins getting closer to maybe 14%, 15%, you should be saving a couple of tens of millions of euros, I believe. Is this a fair assumption?

We don't give sort of that type of a guidance whether we have reached the bottom or what. But we clearly said that by next year, we expect significant improvement in the profitability. So your reading of it, I don't want to literally comment on whether you're actually exactly correct, but it is directionally what we are expecting. But it -- like I said, that the profit improvement program addresses fixed costs. It addresses variable costs, but it has to address also volumes. And when we are in a manufacturing business with a relatively high fixed cost burden, we need to get enough product to the machine, so to say. Otherwise, the scaling down of costs is very difficult. And I did mention -- give you an offer that we did lose one significant customer or relatively sizable customer in APAC, not because we lost it to another competitor, but because the customer actually ceased operations, and we have yet not been able to replace that volume. Of course, there are those sort of actions as well. So one should not take that this only comes from cost items. But no, we will not give any more sort of measure on what we need to do externally.

Maybe if I can throw in a second question, please. And again, apologies if you comment this. But regarding the share buyback program, positive news, I would say, so well done. Is there a certain kind of level of details you can reveal that how is the program to be executed? Is there a certain time frame or range kind of how do you determine that, okay? Could you just launch it or...

Yes, Tomi, perhaps you missed some of it. So we -- I already mentioned that it can be released earliest next Tuesday, so 22nd of July. And I did mention that just because of there is the liquidity restrictions that it will take quite some time to execute this. So the program authorization allows us to run this program until September of '26, meaning over a year. And it will take between 9 to 12 months or something like that to execute this without sort of disturbing the market. And yes, we have given the execution of the program to a third party. And so we will not make trading decisions, and this is all detailed in the stock exchange release.

Thank you. I think those were all the questions from the line today. We also have a few questions in the webcast questionnaire function. So maybe we take them now. And first, there is a question related to the Packaging & Hygiene Solutions profitability improvement initiative. So are the issues in China and the program that you have started linked together? So are these actions on costs and top line/volume taken, especially in APAC and China? Or is this a more broad exercise?

It is a more broad global exercise. But of course, the main focus will be in APAC where the profitability is the weakest. So we expect the kind of maturity of the actions take place in APAC, but it is a global program.

Yes. And then another question on the, let's say, the optimal leverage level. I think that Petri partly addressed this one earlier. But can you give some comments on how you look at capital allocation? As you said, one could say your leverage is suboptimal, but still you are spending only EUR 200 million on buybacks. Should we read this that your appetite for M&A is very high. Given the size of M&A you are looking for, tough to see any big changes in your leverage with current capital allocation plans. What is optimal leverage level? And then a follow-up question. Can you remind me what is a small and what is a midsized M&A in your commentary?

If I start from some part of the lengthy question and let Petri continue then on more details. But yes, I mean, we really have a high appetite for the acquisition. We have several times communicated that our growth strategy, especially in the Water business is partly relying on acquisitions, well-selected targeted acquisitions. So yes. And at some occasion, I've kind of given some guidance on the small -- when I talk about small and medium-sized acquisitions. So in our business, when I talk about small, you can use a kind of a proxy of, say, EUR 20 million -- EUR 10 million to EUR 20 million EV and medium could be up to maybe EUR 200 million. So these are the kind of ranges of company values that we talk about when we talk about small and medium size. But then there were some additional details in the question.

Yes, related to the optimal leverage level.

That's a really good question, tough question. It's a bit like a question on art. So it depends on viewpoints. I think you know when you're not there, but it's difficult to define, and we haven't even tried to define. I mentioned that we can borrow up to EUR 1 billion and invest -- maintain investment-grade credit profile, which we have said that, that's sort of perhaps the upper limit of that. It doesn't mean that we want to get necessarily to 2 or 2.5x leverage, but that's sort of -- that's where the upper limit is. So the optimal is probably somewhere in between. And I think there was also the question on the size of the buyback program. I think the liquidity restriction that I was alluding to in my previous answer, this will already take some time to execute. So unless we did a sort of a tender of shares and we don't feel that, that's the right thing to do. Really, we cannot actually execute on a whole lot of more at this time.

And then one last one on the fixed cost reduction. So can the fixed cost reduction as outlined in the EBITDA bridge and going forward, be function, process or other cost item?

I think I'll take that. So I think that's a pretty specific question. And I don't think we have that level of specificity. I think we are addressing many topics within the company from general headcounts and travel and consulting spend and recruiting, et cetera. And in some areas, there may be more to do than in some others. But I don't think that's -- this is now the place to start speculating on those.

Okay. I think it's now time to conclude our webcast. Thank you for the active participation and also the questions. And just as a reminder, we will report our Q3 report on October 24. So see you then at the latest. And of course, if there is any feedback on, for example, on the presentation format or so on, so we always welcome the feedback at Kemira IR. So please be in touch. And with that, I would like to wish everyone a great summer. So thank you for today.

Thank you.