NewPrinces S.p.A. (NWL) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining today's call on the Newlat Food 9 months 2024 results. My name is Benedetta Mastrolia. I'm the Investor Relations Manager of Newlat Food. And joining me today to discuss our results are Angelo Mastrolia, our Chairman; Giuseppe Mastrolia, CEO; Rocco Sergi, CFO; and Fabio Fazzari, Group Financial Director. We also have the pleasure to have Mr. Simon Harrison with us, the Princes CEO. Simon, would you like to introduce yourself briefly to the guests?

Yes, certainly. Hello, everybody. I'm Simon Harrison. I'm the CEO of Princes. Delighted to be joining you today. I've been with Princes for most of 3.5 years. And prior to that, I worked for Coca-Cola for 20 years. So I spent my whole career in food and drink. So I know the categories very well. I have to say that we're delighted with the new ownership, to become part of the Newlat Group. I think there's a number of reasons for that. Firstly, we operate in very complementary categories, we also operate in very complementary geographies, and we also have the advantage of being both brand and private label. So from our perspective, at Princes, we're really pleased with the acquisition. I have to say that we started very quickly on the integration. A number of projects have been running, and I'm sure we'll keep you updated of this.

Thank you, Simon. We're moving to the disclaimer as usual. So before commenting our results, I would like to remind you that this presentation may contain certain forward-looking statements that reflect the company's management's current views with respect to future events and financial and operational performance of the company and its subsidiaries. These forward-looking statements are based on Newlat Food S.p.A.'s current expectations and projections about future events and any reference to past performance of Newlat Food should not be taken as a representation or an indication that such performance will continue in the future. This is also not an offer or a solicitation of an offer to buy Newlat securities. Now we move directly to the presentation to Slide 7. For the purpose of this presentation, in particular, we are showing the combined financials. Therefore, we will show the financials from the 1st of January 2024 and the 1st of January 2023 for both Newlat and Princes. The reason being is that Princes has been consolidated into the group from the 1st of August. And also, on the other hand, the Princes' fiscal year ends at the end of March. Therefore, we will be aligning the Princes year-end to that of Newlat, therefore, to the 31st of December. And for that reason, the current fiscal year of Princes will be consisting of 9 months, going from April to the end of December. And the combined figures will give a better and more comprehensive understanding of the group performance and the impacts of the Princes business into Newlat Food, therefore, that's why we've decided to show the combined financials. And we would also like to highlight that for this presentation, we have presented the individual business units of both Newlat and Princes. Going forward from next year, we will be integrating these business units into fewer business units to give more of a cohesive and lean structure and also to facilitate analysis and reporting in the future. Now we go directly to the financial highlights, so Page 9. In terms of revenues, we could say that the last 9 months have been really good for the group as a whole. In general, we've surpassed the EUR 2 billion mark. So we had revenues of EUR 2.03 billion as opposed to EUR 2.08 billion in the first 9 months of 2023. Of course, this year was impacted by the heavy decrease in prices, in average selling prices overall. However, we had a very good performance in terms of volumes and also shown some resilience in some categories. In particular, we would like to highlight that the Newlat business unit, so just Newlat stand-alone, which had performed not so well in the last quarter, so Q2, where we had a minus 17% performance decrease in sales, actually picked up and only had basically a flat performance of minus 1% year-on-year in Q3. So we've really seen some improvement, and we expect to see that coming in the next months as well. In terms of the overall performance of our categories, we've had, as I said, some really good results in some categories, especially in dairy, where we had an increase on a year-on-year basis, so 9 months over the 9 months of last year, of more than 14%, almost 15%. Fish also performed really well with an increase of 6.6% of revenues and Drinks also performed well with an increase of 2.3%. In terms of EBITDA, we had an adjusted EBITDA of EUR 127.8 million with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 6.3%. For this year, we expect that the EBITDA performance will be backloaded. So we will see more of the contribution of EBITDA coming in, in the last quarter of the year compared to the first 9 months of the year. That is due to some challenging comparison base that we have at Princes level because of some contracts and some conditions that were actioned last year. However, with the new actions coming in place, we will see some really good contribution in the last quarter. And for that reason, we expect to end the year 2024 with a combined EBITDA in the range of between EUR 175 million to EUR 180 million. In terms of EBIT, we had a combined EBIT of EUR 191.5 million as opposed to EUR 164.2 million last year. Net income was EUR 153.4 million as opposed to EUR 133.3 million at the end of the 9 months 2023. In terms of free cash flow, we had a very good free cash flow generation with over EUR 120 million of free cash flow. That comes from, on one side, our good operational performance as a whole and also some efficiency actions that were actioned within the Princes business, especially to improve its net working capital, which we will see a bit more about in the next slide as well. In terms of net financial position, we've had a very good improvement compared to the figures that were shown in the last presentation, which were the ones at the end of August. So in just 1 month, we had a very good improvement. So we had net debt, on an excluding IFRS 16 basis, of EUR 332.7 million as opposed to EUR 354.2 million at the end of August. If we look at net debt, including IFRS 16, we had a net debt of EUR 436.8 million as opposed to EUR 444.2 million at the end of August. So really trying to decrease our standard debt with our free cash flow performance as well. Now we move on to the comments on our sales and breakdown by business unit as well. So in general, as we open this presentation, we can say that we had a very good performance, especially in Q3 compared to Q2. In the first half, of course, we had a major impact coming from lower selling prices due to the deflationary environment. However, if we look at the overall decrease in average selling prices, which was over 5% year-on-year, we can say that our revenues had a very positive performance compared to these lower prices, showing a resilient volume demand. And underneath the impact from prices, we can really see that demand is really strong at group level, in general. If we look at our U.K. performance, in particular, because now U.K. is over 50% of our revenues, we can say that we've really outperformed the market. As you can see in this chart, we have the shop price index in the U.K. provided by Nielsen. And you can see that from last year, July 2023 to September 2024, we've had a decrease in shop price index of over 10%. However, at group level and also in the U.K., we've had just a slight decrease of around 2%. So we've had a really good performance which, let's say, outperformed the market by 7%. And in general, with these market data, we expect that food inflation in the U.K. but also in Europe will plateau in the next quarter, and this will continue in 2025. Therefore, we expect to have a normalization of prices at group level as well. Now we move on to the revenue breakdown by business unit. So we'll look firstly at Newlat, so the usual categories. Here, we can really see that we've had an improvement compared to the results that were shown in the last presentation in the first half. It is worth mentioning that some of these categories really outperformed last year's levels. For example, milk really had an increase of over 8% in Q3 compared to Q3 last year. We had a really good performance in dairy which, as mentioned at the beginning, grew by 14.7% over the last 9 months compared to the first 9 months of 2023, with an even better performance compared to the first half, which was already very positive. And lastly, we can finally say that we've seen some improvement in the Special Products segment, which had been halted because of the ongoing investments at our Ozzano Taro plant. So we had an increase of over 5% in Q3 compared to Q3 2023. And we've had a much better performance at the end of the 9 months compared to the first half of 2024 of over 11%. So we're really seeing that volume coming in after the investments, and we expect more to come into our factory at the Ozzano Taro in the next month. So we're really happy about that. Now we have the revenue breakdown by business unit of Princes. So since this is the first time that we're presenting Princes, we have sort of outlined what's included in these categories. So we have foods, which includes broadly canned beans and pulses, canned ready meals and canned soups. We have Drinks, which includes juice and juice concentrate, and carbonated soft drinks. Then we have fish, which includes mainly canned fish, in particular, tuna and also frozen fish. We have the Italian category, which includes tomato products and all the Napolina products, including pasta. So the Napolina pasta has not been put into the Newlat pasta category. And then oils, which is essentially edible oils, all types of edible oils. We can say that the last 9 months were pretty positive as a group for Princes. There were some declines, for example, in foods. In foods, we had a decline, which was mainly driven by the really good performance that was recorded in 2023. So the comparison base was really difficult to match. And there was also a softer overall market demand in the foods and in the pulses and canned foods business because of the seasonality of these products, which are mainly consumed in winter. So with milder winter, it has been slightly more challenging to increase our volumes in this category, and there was also an effect of lower prices in this category. However, we will see in the next slides some of the initiatives and the results that we've had with customers and consumers, which will hopefully drive more sales in the next month. In terms of Drinks, we had an increase, which was mainly driven by an increase in net selling prices. And we had a slight decline in volumes. However, we will see in the next slides some new projects, which are really exciting, which will be bringing more volume and more sales in general into this business. Fish performed really well. So we had an increase of over 6% in this category, and this was mainly driven by an increase in volumes at both Princes BV levels, in the Netherlands and also in the U.K., both in the B2B and industrial channels. And we also had some increase in average selling prices. However, we had a really good performance in terms of volumes as well. Italian Products remained stable in the period, which is the result of two factors, one being slightly higher net selling prices and also a rationalization of some nonperforming contracts. This is the first step of our shake-up plan for the Italian Products and also some other plans that we have for Princes, which will hopefully bring also margins up in the next month, and drive performance in this category as well. In terms of edible oils, we had a slight decrease, which was the result of two things. On one hand, we had a weaker performance in Poland because of the market conditions in Poland, but also a very strong performance in the U.K. olive oil market and also some new contracts, which will be coming in the next month as well. In general, we can say that we have a very good expectation in terms of sales for these business units in the next months coming from several multiyear contracts that have been signed, which have been extended, which are across drinks, foods and oils as well. So now we're moving on to the next slide. For these slides, I would like to hand over to Simon, who will introduce you to some projects that we have going on at Princes right now. Thank you.

Thank you. I thought it would be useful just to share just a few examples of some of the initiatives we are undertaking to continue to drive profitable growth across the business. First example I'll give you is from our Drinks business unit. And maybe just to draw your attention to the table in the middle of the chart that shows the mix of our Drinks business, with 90% of our business at the moment being private label, customer own brand. What we want to do is change that mix over time to a more stable, profitable mix by increasing the amount of business that we do in co-packing or co-manufacturing other businesses' brands. And as you can see from the chart, our objective is to move that mix to about 25% or 1/4 of our business from co-packing other businesses' brands. The good news is that we are very much on track with that. And the first big move to change that mix has been to bring in the manufacturing and distribution contract for the U.K. and Ireland of Capri Sun. Capri Sun is a well-known kids brand that's sold globally, but a particularly big market in the U.K. and Ireland. That business has been run by Coca-Cola for many years before this point. We've successfully won that business, taken that business into Princes. That's been a big project. We've actually relocated the manufacturing lines from Coca-Cola and moved those into our factory in Bradford. Good news is the project is very much on track. The first 2 lines have been delivered and built into our site in Bradford and are now running, and we are already distributing these products to customers like Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury's in the U.K. This will really help stabilize our Drinks business. These are longer-term contracts. This is a 5-year, but it will be a rolling 5-year contract, and I think it is a good example of how we started to change the mix of our Drinks business. Maybe, Benedetta, to the next slide, which just talks about our focus on sustainability. We really pride ourselves on our sustainability credentials. That's because it's the right thing to do, but it's also exactly what consumers and importantly, customers expect of a big food business like ours. This is just one of many examples that we are working on in the sustainability space. And we were really delighted with our Princes Tuna brand winning the MSC Seafood Brand of the Year, something that is well deserved and well recognized. And then maybe one more example on the next slide, Benedetta, which is really around quality. 80% of our business in terms of volume is private label or customers' own brands. Therefore, quality is extremely important. And that same quality that we apply to customer own brand or private label, we also apply to our own brands. And there's a great example here of our baked beans brand, Branston, performing extremely highly and beating our perhaps more well-known competitor in terms of the product quality and taste. What's also interesting, it's very difficult to see on that slide, but the other baked bean brands that won this award were customers' private label brands that we actually manufacture, so a really good sign of how we invest in quality and taste at the core of our products and portfolio. So just a few examples. Benedetta, I'll pass back to you.

Thank you, Simon. Now I move over to our revenue breakdown by distribution channel. So for this presentation, you will notice that we've moved the private label channel into large retailers. That is because the final customer is essentially large retailers for both channels. So this will really help identify the end customer and the final customer as well. So we can say that our distribution channels were all pretty much in line with last year. So we had a good performance all in all. We had a positive performance, especially in Q3, and that was both because the Newlat products performed really well, but also because of the contribution of the Princes categories into some of these channels. We had large retailers, which had a very good performance because of a better mix of some categories, especially in the dairy, milk, fish and drinks categories. However, there was some impact coming from the food category. However, as Simon just showed, we have some really good results in terms of customer and perception of our quality. So we really expect to increase the position in this category in the next months. Overall, we can say that there was no particular difference or shift in these categories in the last months. In terms of geographies, now you can see that the green has doubled, more than doubled in size. So United Kingdom does account for more than 50% of our sales. And in general, again, we had an effect from the deflationary environment in all of our geographies. However, there was no huge impact in any of these categories. We also had some very good performance in Germany with over 13% of sales increase compared to last year, especially in the dairy and Italian Products divisions. And we had some slight decrease in the U.K. coming from foods. And in other countries, we had some slight decrease as well coming from pasta and oils, but nothing major all in all, considering the lowering prices compared to last year's levels. Now we move to EBITDA. So we're looking first at Newlat and then the Princes ones. So adjusted EBITDA for the whole group was, as we said, EUR 127.8 million with an EBITDA margin of 6.3%. If we look at just Newlat stand-alone, we had an average EBITDA of over 10%. So we had a really good performance in terms of marginality, and we had basically an increase in all of the categories shown, actually in all of them. So we recorded some double-digit margins in pasta, for example, which has been a trend for the past few months in our business and, as you may remember from previous years, it was not the case some years ago. So we're really happy to have been able to really increase our margins in pasta. We had really good performance in milk as well, extremely good performance in bakery with almost 17% margin, and also a very good performance also in Special Products despite the decrease in sales that we suffered from the investments going on at the Ozzano Taro factory. So really good performance overall. We're really happy about it. In terms of Princes EBITDA, so the performance had some challenges compared to last year's results. So last year was a really good year for Princes overall, especially in terms of margins. And this year, there were a few impacts, one coming from some fixed energy contracts, which really impacted the overall margin. However, these contracts have been since renegotiated. So we will see some good positive contribution coming in the last quarter of the year. And we also expect to have, as we said at the beginning, a back-end loaded performance in EBITDA. So we will see more of the EBITDA contribution and an improvement overall in EBITDA in the last quarter, also coming from some of the actions that have been put in place since the acquisition. We have some main highlights. So for Drinks, as we just saw, we have some new contracts coming into place. So Capri Sun, Vimto and more, more to come. So in that sense, we expect to really improve the EBITDA margin of Drinks in the next months and in the next years, of course. For Italian Products, we had a particularly different situation, which was impacted by a few reasons, one of them being that last year, there were EUR 2 million of provisions that were put aside. Therefore, that really impacted the EBITDA for this year. If we look at the 2023 results, there was also a positive contribution from the sale of some stock that was produced in 2022, which had a lower cost of goods sold, therefore, we had a much higher margin in 2023 compared to 2024, which is based on some of the 2023 raw materials. So therefore, there's been a really negative impact coming from the higher prices in raw materials. And also, we have put in place an early restructuring plan within the Italian Products segment. And this includes the rationalization of some low profit contracts, which were discarded. So therefore, we've had a lower level of EBITDA for this period. However, this is only a temporary effect, and we expect to really recover these margins in the next year. Now we move to the next slide, where we have a bit of what has been happening at Princes level in terms of EBITDA. So you can see a bridge of our EBITDA. So we can see that really there's going to be a very positive contribution coming in October, November and December, which will drive the figure to a very good level, and we expect to have a pro forma EBITDA, so a combined EBITDA, from January to December 2024 at group level of between EUR 175 million to EUR 180 million. And we also have some really strong visibility on the month of November and December. So we're pretty confident that we can reach those target goals. In terms of budget at Princes level, for the second half of the year, we have some significant points. So the first one is that this year, the EBITDA was impacted by the timing of this transaction because last year, there was a commitment to maximize EBITDA in the first half of 2023 because of the sale process. So that really impacted the comparison base. There were some price increase actions which were concentrated in the first part of last year. So therefore, this really showed in a sort of negative performance in this year. And as we talked about earlier, there were some fixed energy contracts which really diluted profitability, but these have been since renegotiated, so again, we will see some of the improvements coming from this side as well. So the improvement in the second half of the year will be driven by an easier comparison base, of course, because there won't be such a strong impact of prices, new contracts, which we've talked about before, and also some important supply chain and procurement improvements which have been really put in place in these months. Now we move to the next slide on net working capital and the deleveraging process of Princes. So as you can see in the first chart, we've had an improvement in net working capital. So from day 1, we've been working on the improvement and the reduction of net working capital at Princes level. So we've realigned the payment conditions of our suppliers to those of Newlat. So that's still an ongoing process. However, we've made some really good progress in the last months since we acquired Princes, and that can be shown in a reduction of average days from 110 to 70 days year-on-year at the end of September, and we expect to have an even better position at the end of December. We also have a lower inventory compared to the usually high level of inventory, which is usually between September and December, which are the months that we have the highest inventories. So we really expect to have a contribution from that as well. In terms of cash generation, as we said, we had really good cash generation in the last month. And we expect this to drive our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio below 2.5x at the end of 2024. And then we also expect to have a strong contribution from EBITDA. As we said, we expect EBITDA to grow next year. So therefore, that will also drive an increase in free cash flow and, of course, that will aid our deleveraging process in the first half of next year as well. Now we move to some more news on the integration of the 2 companies. So we've been working on many areas. One of them is definitely procurement. Procurement is, I would say, the #1 area which we've been working from day 1. We have since aligned some of the payment conditions, as we said. Also, we are really cross-checking our suppliers and really making sure that we have a group procurement unit. So it has been centralized and it's been led by our Chairman. In terms of business units, we have decided that to be able to really look at our customers' needs and requests and also to be more agile in our responses to customers and market demand, we have decided to really break down our business into 3 main units. One is U.K. and Ireland, which is our biggest market; then Italy; and then we have the rest of Europe and export markets, so the whole world, which will be led by 3 separate, let's say, management. But of course, these management will talk and have a sort of centralized strategy plan. However, there will be more flexibility in managing these countries in these areas separately. We also have some progress in terms of the integration of Princes Italia, so the tomato processing company. We will be integrating from 1st of January this company with Newlat's existing business, consisting of pasta, bakery products and special products. And this will enhance efficiency and coordination between these departments and really improve our operational efficiency in Italy for these products. We have started the full integration of Symington. So Symington has already been moved in terms of commercial responsibility to Princes led by Simon. However, we are looking to integrate the business units of Symington into Princes by the end of March, so at the end of March 2025. This is to align with the usual fiscal year-end of U.K. retailers, which ends in March. So we really have these 2 integrations going on right now, which we expect to give more efficiency improvements in the next months and the next years as well. More on some of the synergies that are being unlocked in these months, which we have been working on with our teams. These are more, I would say, commercial and innovation and brand type of synergies, which we haven't really talked about that much, but we have been working on these, again, from day 1. So we have some NPD happening right now in the U.K. because there are some opportunities with the Princes brand and Princes commercial teams to integrate some production into the Symington sites where we have some spare capacity. So there are some projects going on right now to launch new products between the 2 companies, which will be integrated, so in the U.K. in general, we can say. We have some collaboration, as we said, with the sales teams, especially in the U.K. but also in Europe, to really strengthen our position and relationship with the main retailers in the U.K. and in Europe. So that's also something that's been going on with the collaboration of the teams from across Newlat and Princes. We have started to cross-sell some of our brands into our customers, so for instance, Princes brands to Newlat's customers and vice versa. And as we just mentioned, we are working on a procurement efficiency project. So we are going on some deeper analysis in terms of raw materials and suppliers to really enhance our procurement strategy going forward as a group. Then last slide is on our guidance for 2024 and 2025. So for the year 2024, we have some good expectations in terms of EBITDA. As we said two times, we expect to have EBITDA of around EUR 175 million to EUR 180 million. In terms of net debt to EBITDA, we expect to be under 2.5x. And in terms of revenues, we expect to achieve EUR 2.7 billion revenues by the end of the year on a combined basis again. For 2025, we expect consolidated revenues to be over EUR 2.8 billion, consolidated EBITDA to be between EUR 210 million to EUR 220 million, adjusted consolidated net debt to be between EUR 300 million and EUR 330 million, and net debt-to-EBITDA ratio between 1.36x to 1.57x based on the lower end EBITDA figure. So we really expect to outperform the expectations that we and analysts had for the next months. So we think that we are on track to deliver this number, [ and we'll give ] an update in the next months. Thank you. Now we can move to the Q&A.

[Operator Instructions] Yes, Arianna, you can go on.

My first question regards the 2025 guidance. So I understand that you are implementing a lot of actions and signing new contracts that would benefit on the turnover in 2025. But beyond that, in a muted environment as for overall consumption that is expected next year at the macroeconomic level, what are your assumptions on pricing behind that target you set? And then second, if you could provide more color on [ bakery ] performance, which are weak. So I was wondering if you could have some words on the competitive scenario in those categories.

Thank you, Arianna. About the guidance, it's clear that most of the guidance for next year is driven by the integration project. There isn't a related direct impact of macroeconomic condition and consumptions. So most of the EBITDA improvement is related to the different projects that we have in place to try to optimize the profitability of the group. This means that in terms of pricing, we don't have, I would say, a unique view for all products, but there is a project in sight to try to optimize the proposition and the positioning of our products into the shelf. But it's clear that it's different product by product because also this is part of the optimization process that we have in place. And I think that also a good support will be from the new contract that we just started this month substantially, and that will be visible mainly starting from the first month of next year. So it's a complex aggregation of different actions that will drive this huge improvement that we expect for next year. In terms of what happened for the single product like you mentioned, beans, et cetera, I can leave to Simon to comment a bit on this category. But generally speaking, I would say that, as we explained last time when we spoke about the general performance of Newlat, you have always to consider that our business is not linear because the order could be different from 1 month to the other. It could be an impact of the comparison of last year in which maybe you start introducing a product and you have a more challenging comparison versus maybe the previous month, of the next month. So there is nothing I would say, negative that this performance should explain or show. It's just a matter linked to the dynamic of the market that is not linear and could be impacted by the base of the comparison that you have. But maybe, Simon, if you want to add something in general, about the commercial trend.

Yes. I mean maybe if I start with the kind of macro environment, particularly in the U.K. 80% of the Princes business is U.K., so that's a key indicator. We're pretty optimistic. Inflation has started to come down to far more normalized levels now. Unemployment is pretty stable. And actually, if you look at real wage growth, that's positive. So for kind of consumer spending on food and beverages, we feel pretty optimistic. That said, it's still a very tough environment for many families. The products we sell are household staples. They're kind of product fillers. These are categories that people buy into every day. So they're very big, stable categories. So from kind of a macroeconomic perspective in the U.K., we're reasonably optimistic. In terms of pricing, the way that we look at pricing is obviously more nuanced than just headline price. Clearly, we'll continue to take headline price where we're able to. But there are other levers on pricing that we continue to really focus on, mix being one and making sure that we have the right product mix. And wherever possible, we strip out complexity that grows our overall pricing. Promotional terms, we're seeing changes to the way that retailers focus on promotions in store now, making sure that we optimize and get the best return on investment from our promotional investment. And then of course, there's terms that we put behind executing the marketing plans in the market. So we have a very detailed, nuanced approach to pricing and, again, a pretty positive outlook and our ability to drive our pricing forward.

Thank you, Simon. I don't know, Arianna, if you have a follow-up.

Paola, Equita.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

I have a few. The first one, sorry, if you can clarify about the uplift and the results we are expecting for Q4, whether this should be already driven by the new contracts you have signed and the procurement savings allowed by the centralized approach to procurement, which started on October 1. Or let's say, is this something to be more expected for 2025? Just to understand whether about EUR 50 million EBITDA expected for Q4 is already helped by these drivers or not yet? Second question is if you can come back on your plan for the integration in Italy and in the U.K., giving us a bit more color on the execution of these projects and also if we can expect any physical advantage maybe from this kind of reorganization? And a further question, sorry, is about your free cash flow for 2025, your indication, which leads to EUR 300 million, EUR 330 million of debt. If you can share with us the main drivers behind that in terms of CapEx, further opportunities in working capital and so on.

Yes. Thank you, Paola. About the slide that we shared showing the strong performance we expect for the last quarter of the year, I would say that this was already part of the Symington budget. As we explained for this year, the performance of Princes was planned as back-end loaded due to several reasons, but this performance was already expected. It is not particularly driven by the project that we put in place. It's clear that, on this basis, the project that we put in place are expected to give an additional contribution, especially since the beginning of the next year. I want to add that as we explained in the slide, October is already delivered and was in line with these strong expectations. And we have already strong visibility also on November and December. So we do not expect any particular surprise on this month. This strong performance will be delivered. About the plan on the integration in the U.K. and in Italy, I think it's generally very simple. In the U.K., we are going to integrate Symington inside Princes. We will do that using what in Italy is well known as the rent of the operating asset of the company. And it's substantially something that we already did, if you remember, in the past between Newlat and Centrale del Latte d'Italia. And we are working to be ready since the beginning of the year. It's clear that probably we could consider also to start since the beginning of April, considering that most of the retailers are going to close the fiscal year in March. So to change the invoices from Symington to Princes, et cetera, probably this could be a better timing. But it's just related to this, not because we need to delay the process. The process is already in good shape, and we are ready to deliver this since the beginning of the year. The other integrations will be made in Italy. In Italy, substantially, we will have the rent of the operating asset of Newlat Food to Princes Italia. And this will create a more aggregate unit to operate also on the future development of the business. And in terms of the physical advantage that we may expect, as we already explained since the beginning, Princes Italia has some physical assets that it's clear that we would like to benefit from. And we believe and hope that starting from the next year, this could be an additional advantage that we can take. In terms of the free cash flow for...

Sorry, Fabio, I don't know if you can quantify this to some extent?

I think it's too early to do that. It is material, but I don't want to share numbers that maybe could be misunderstood or not be perfectly correct. I know that you are very precise, and I prefer not to share what I don't have in precise number now.

Fabio, just to clarify, the fiscal credit in Princes is a very big size. It will cover the very big amount of positive results in the next future. In any case, I believe the impact is very relevant, just to give more color on the situation. If you can imagine, we have about EUR 100 million to the past loss in the company, you imagine how much we have to cover in the net income in the new organization, new structure of the company.

And the last question was the free cash flow of 2025. I think that the driver will remain substantially the same of this year. First of all, the big jump that we expect in EBITDA, it's clearly giving the first material contributions. We expect to have several additional actions on the working capital because, at the moment, we had some improvement in terms of days of payable and something also in terms of inventories, but we expect the activity on the optimization of the net working capital to continue and to deliver more, especially on the inventory side. And on the CapEx spending, I think that this should remain substantially in line with the expectations that we gave in the past for the combined entity, around EUR 30 million per year.

May I go on with a follow-up? There are no more questions at the moment. I would like to take the chance to have an update, if any, on your cross-selling initiatives like the opportunity of selling some of the Princes products like in Italy or in Germany or the other way around to launch some products under the Newlat brand through Princes in the U.K. So basically, you had given some example of potential opportunities here. I don't know if there's something closer you're working on.

Yes. So maybe I'll take this. First of all, our first approach is on the German market with the tomato production and the tomato range of product that we produce in our plant. This will be our first step that we will integrate into the portfolio of Newlat GmbH in Germany. We are already preparing from end of January 2025 to deliver the product to present and deliver the first product to the retailer. We are making the presentation during this period. On the other way around, we are preparing ourselves to be present on Italian market, both on private label business for tomato and branded business under the brand as well. And then the good integration that was already implemented and is in final step of implementation is the integration of pasta in the U.K. So of course, relaunching Napolina pasta in the U.K. segment through the internal production of Newlat that, as you all know, we have 5 different production sites and a big portfolio range to gain more market share under the Napolina brand in the U.K. market. Off the top of my head, these are the main topics in the next quarter. If we look more long term, we have several topics, but it will be better to disclose in the next investor meet.

So if there are no more questions, we may end the call. In case you do have any follow-up questions, you can always e-mail or call us, and we'll be happy to answer any other questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you, everybody. Bye.