OPmobility SE (OPM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

April 27, 2022

Euronext Paris FR Consumer Discretionary Automobile Components trading_statement 52 min

Earnings Call Speaker Segments

Operator

operator
#1

Hello, and welcome to the Plastic Omnium 2022 First Quarter Sales Call. My name is Jazz, and I'll be your coordinator for today's event. [Operator Instructions] I will now hand over to your host, Kathleen Wantz-O'Rourke, Group CFO and CIO of Plastic Omnium, to begin today's call. Thank you.

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#2

Thank you very much, Jazz. Good morning to everybody, and thank you very much for joining us this morning for our sales call on Q1 of 2022. I'd like to move on to our first slide. I'll guide you through a few slides before taking your questions and answers. Perhaps four key messages that I'd like you to take away from this call. First of all, we are seeing a very sustained dynamic in order intake again this year, where we are on track to overachieve our targets and probably even superior targets to 2021. And I think that's an excellent indicator of the order intake because it does show that despite the momentary crisis, where the automotive industry is going through at the moment, that the car manufacturers are positioning themselves for future growth. And Plastic Omnium is part of -- a significant part of that future growth. The second message is on sales. Solid sales despite the challenging backdrop with increasing inflation and the ongoing supply chain disruption. Third message is that, as you have heard, we started a number of strategic acquisitions, particularly in lighting with AMLS, a division of OSRAM; and electrification with ACTIA Power, a division of ACTIA; and a key investment in Verkor. So we're clearly accelerating on our expansion strategy and enlargening our portfolio on two strategic markets. And the fourth message is that we are confirming our financial guidance. Thanks to our management assumptions based on the S&P Global Mobility, the former IHS, forecast for 2022 that we have discounted by 5%, so our assumptions of 77 million vehicles in 2022 is maintained at this stage. I'd like to move on to the second slide. And I wanted to give you some color on the context of the industry at the moment. As you can see here on the left-hand side of the slide, the chip shortage has continued to weigh heavily on the industry and on production. We see a 4% drop in production in Q1 2022 versus 2021. 1.3 million vehicles were lost in Q1 2022, of which 90% is due to chip shortage and 10% is due to the war in Ukraine. In the first quarter of 2022, you can see that, in the middle of the slide, the disruptive environment has created significant disparities, as you can see, between the different regions, and in particular between Europe, on the one hand, decreasing by 18.2% year-on-year, and the other regions, on the other hand, which are less impacted. When you confront Europe with the other regions of the world, the other regions are fairly flat at plus 0.4% in growth against 2021. And on the right-hand side of this slide, you can see that the current context is strongly impacted by inflation with an increase of plastic prices by 25% and steel prices by 78% since January 2022. Perhaps just a word on the market evolution. So IHS, is now S&P Global Mobility, foresees as per their April 19 projections a first half of 2022 which is expected to decrease by 1.1%, coming in at 37.4 million vehicles against 37.8 million in H1 2021. The second half of the year, in H2, is expected to increase by 10.9%, coming in at 40.3 million vehicles against 36.4 million for the same period in 2021. So the full year outlook is, by IHS, is growth of 4.8%, so a prognostic or a forecast of 77.7 million vehicles against the 74.2 million that were manufactured in 2021. So based on -- when you look deeper into these assumptions by IHS, they're assuming that Europe and China will enter positive growth territory as of May this year. Moving on to the next slide. I'd like to spend some time with you then on our sales figures. If you can read this slide, you've got in the first column the Q1 2021 figures. The Q1 2022, you have the change linked to the foreign exchange impact, which is estimated in absolute figures at EUR 64 million at the end of Q1 and then you have the like-for-like comparison. The first message here is that globally, the Q1 2022 economic sales of the group amounted to EUR 2.1 billion, showing a limited decrease on a like-for-like basis of 5.5%, in line with global automotive production, which was down by 4% for the first quarter of 2022. The decrease is relatively similar, as you can see, between both Industries and Modules, demonstrating that the crisis is, in fact, quite well spread. Plastic Omnium's consolidated sales, excluding joint ventures, amounted to EUR 1.891 billion in the first quarter of 2022, down 7.3% at constant exchange rates compared to the first quarter of 2021. Our co-enterprises, the joint ventures, mostly in Asia, were particularly dynamic this quarter, showing a 14.1% increase on a like-for-like basis, of which the essential part is in China. Our exposition to Europe has decreased even further compared to 2021, down to 48% compared to 53% at the end of 2021. Germany, Spain, France, and to a certain extent, Morocco, which is very small, represent 31% of the consolidated sales of the group. And I think it's important that you retain this because the mix between the shutdowns linked to the chip shortage, for example, in Spain and France, have played a role in consolidated sales and margins, where we've seen significant shutdowns. And in Germany and Central Europe, we've seen also significant shutdowns linked essentially -- primarily, I would say, not essentially, to the war in Ukraine. So whether it be in economic sales and consolidated sales, the year got off to a greater start. With January and February above the guidance, we actually saw a 7.7% increase against our guidance. For memory, if you recall, we based our guidance, the 77 million, on a start in Q1, which would have been similar to Q4 2021; a second quarter in 2022 with a slight recovery against the semiconductor crisis; and the second half of the year in recovery mode compared to 2021. The month of March in itself basically considerably decreased the advance that we had in January and February. We saw a minus 9.4 point difference in 1 single month against the accumulated advance that we had in January and February. What's interesting to look at is how the -- our guidance has the profile that we've announced at the beginning of the year, has evolved, as you can remember, IHS minus 5% with the first quarter more or less like Q4 2021. Q4 2021 came in at 20.4 million vehicles. And to everyone's surprise, with the new events in Q1 2022, came in at 19 million vehicles. So we're 7% down in auto production, global auto production in Q1 2022 compared to Q4 2021. And if you look then at the sales slide, you can see that our sales are fully in line with this decline. So the profile that we had provided in our guidance is totally in line with what we -- how we saw the evolution of automotive production in Q1 2022. I'd like to move now on to the next slide. So here, you can see the growth and the outperformance in the key geographies of the group. So in Europe, the market declined in Q1 2022 by 18.2%. And the group recorded a less significant decline, as you can see, with economic sales down 16.7% year-on-year. The downturn, as I mentioned a little bit earlier, was particularly pronounced for Plastic Omnium in France with production stoppages at its customers, Stellantis and Renault, due primarily to the semiconductor situation, and in Germany, with stoppages at Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW, who were heavily impacted by the Ukraine crisis. In North America, we're not seeing -- we're seeing quite a dynamic growth. Revenues were up by 9.7% at EUR 622 million in a declining market of minus 0.6%. So Plastic Omnium clearly outperformed the automotive production by 10.3 points, thanks in particular to a better allocation of chips to the North American OEMs and in particular, in our case, at General Motors in Mexico. Chinese sales, as you can see, are up 2.7%. The Modules activity was slowed down by the chip shortages in China while the Industries' activity suffered from the closure, the mandatory closure for the Olympic Games around the Beijing area and the start of the lockdowns, particularly in Shenyang. Asia, excluding China, performed well, up 7.6% year-on-year versus an order and production decrease of 6.5%. The region now represents 8% of group economic sales, up 1% compared to 2021. And growth here in this region was driven essentially by India and Thailand. As I mentioned earlier, order intake is strong. Here on this slide, you have a few examples of some successes that we can speak about and communicate on for Q1. In the U.S., as you can see there, we have for Ford Transit, the fuel systems that -- a significant order in fuel systems for Ford Transit. In China, to be noted, the production of tailgates for the new NIO ES5 Orion and an order for a plug-in electric vehicle platform for Geely's Xingyue/Xing Rui vehicle. And in Europe, we have front bumpers for Opel Movano, front and rear bumpers for the new Audi e-tron GT, SCR tanks for the Expert, Jumpy and Vivaro vehicles for Stellantis, and for Porsche Cayenne, the front-end carrier and front and rear bumpers for this vehicle. The starts of production for these orders is between the end of 2024 and 2025. A word on hydrogen. Hydrogen has been a very dynamic sector in the first quarter of 2021 for the group. We've managed to accelerate order intake significantly in Q1, was actually already achieved by mid-February our yearly target on order intake, which was roughly EUR 500 million. So we have successfully secured two new significant orders in Western Europe, in particular, for customers that I can't yet communicate on. But what we can say is that one of the orders is for utility vehicles, roughly 10,000 vehicles a year, with a start of production in mid-2024. And that's for reservoir hydrogen systems. We also have another significant order for buses for reservoirs, so stock storage vessels, sorry, in hydrogen for buses and for fuel cell solutions. So this contract is more than EUR 100 million. And it should enable us to actually load our factories in Herentals in Belgium and Wels in Austria. So as you can see, we're well on track today to securing our objectives in 2025, which is EUR 300 million of recurring revenue, and we've had quite excellent order book. So we will most likely overachieve that sale objective anyway, our new order intake for hydrogen in 2022. We couldn't do this call without a word of support for what's happening to the population in Ukraine. Plastic Omnium is actively contributing to helping the victims of the war in Ukraine. We've donated to EUR 500,000 to 4 different NGOs that are located in Slovakia and Poland. More than 50 of our sites in the group have set up support initiatives for the victims of the war in Ukraine, in particular the donations of food, hygiene products and medicine and clothing. A word perhaps on the business side of things. As I've already had the opportunity to explain, we're not exposed directly to Ukraine at all. We have no production facilities in Ukraine. We do have, however, 270 employees, who were Ukrainian origin, employed in Central Europe and our German factories and who have left to go back and fight in the war. In Russia itself, our exposure is very limited. We're in a joint venture arrangement, 51% and 49%, with a Russian partner, a joint venture called DIPO, D-I-P-O. And we manufacture plastic fuel systems in Russia. We achieved EUR 47 million in sales in 2021. As you can see, it's fairly limited. We employ 180 people approximately in Russia, all of Russian origin. And our balance sheet exposure is also fairly contained, a net exposure of approximately EUR 17 million. So we're currently evaluating the scenarios in relation to that particular activity in Russia. A word now on -- to introduce the three external growth opportunities that we are in the process of finalizing at the moment. As you know, our strategy will be detailed at our Capital Markets Day on the 12th of May. But I'd just like to say a word here to situate these acquisition projects that we're currently working on. These projects fall fully into the four mega trends that are accelerating the transition in the automotive industry today. First of all, around electrification, we believe that hydrogen will play a key role in the medium term. Zero-emission vehicles will represent 30% of light vehicles in 2030 according to our forecasts. Connectivity and digitalization, we see a value shift in cars from hardware to software. And we expect 90% of vehicles to be connected by 2035. Active safety and autonomy, so ADAS solutions are definitely growing. And the growth has accelerated as safety regulations push the sector. Levels 1 to 3 autonomy will represent, according to our projections, roughly 80% of the vehicle mix in 2030. And the customer experience is also a key driver, a key trend in the industry. Design will remain key for brand identity and attractiveness. The demand is increasing for applications and functionalities in the vehicles. And with those mega trends in mind, we have secured or in the process of securing some new portfolio elements around electrification and lighting. So first of all, we've entered into exclusive negotiations with the ACTIA Group to acquire the ACTIA Power division, which showed a 2021 revenue of EUR 22 million. It employs about 200 people in France, Germany, the U.K. and the U.S.A. And the aim of this acquisition is to acquire a basis to business development in a full range of energy management solutions for heavy electric mobility, in particular for trucks, buses, trains, et cetera. The second operation in the area of electrification is linked to a EUR 20 million investment to be paid during the first semester of 2022 to Verkor, a French manufacturer of low-carbon, high-efficiency battery cells. This investment is complemented by an industrial partnership with Verkor to develop production and marketing capacities for modules and electric battery packs. And the third topic, you can see on this slide, is in the area of lighting. And we have an agreement with the ams OSRAM Group to acquire 100% of AMLS, a fast-growing German lighting player, for an enterprise value of EUR 65 million. And this acquisition will enable the group to enrich its body -- its exterior bodywork systems. It's a division that, AMLS, that has high value-added lighting content with lead components, projection and illumination solutions. And it responds to the new trends in style, safety and electrification that I just mentioned on the previous slide. If we move now, before opening for questions and answers, to the final slide of my presentation this morning on the guidance. As you know, we're navigating in a context where there are continued disruptions on the automotive market with different -- very different developments between regions, and visibility is extremely difficult. The situation in Ukraine is accentuating already the high inflation that we had already seen as well as tensions in the European supply chain, which is still suffering from the semiconductor shortages. Supply disruptions continue to generate throughout Europe, in particular, production stoppages at car manufacturers and suppliers. In addition, the restrictions linked to the rise of the new COVID wave in China since early March are paralyzing activity in certain regions of China and will most likely weigh quite heavily on global supply chains and logistics this year. So the combination of these factors is increasing at the moment market instability and visibility. Nevertheless, our guidance assumption of between -- of 77 million vehicles in 2022, so IHS minus 5%, is still in line the latest IHS forecast of 77.7 million vehicles. So we are confirming our guidance despite this challenging backdrop, thanks to the flexibility that we've already proven that we are capable of achieving and the cost reduction programs that we have in place. So we're looking at outperforming the market in economic sales, an operating margin of between 5% and 6% of sales and a generation of free cash flow of more than EUR 260 million. That being said, I'd like to open up for questions and answers.

Operator

operator
#3

[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from the line of Thomas Besson from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Thomas Besson

analyst
#4

It's Thomas Besson at Kepler Cheuvreux. I have two questions, please. The first one is I just want to check, you confirm the guidance on the same volume assumptions than before, right? Basically, you just consider that IHS was too optimistic and they're coming closer to your forecast. You did not take the new forecast by just 5%.

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#5

No. We're remaining on the initial guidance that we gave.

Thomas Besson

analyst
#6

Perfect, very clear. Second question, I'm quite impressed, you confirm the margin guidance, given the deterioration of the environment for many things, including energy, logistics and so on. And I'd like to know if this is maybe partly linked as well with the fact that North America is so resilient compared with the other ones and the fact that maybe this is for you a source of positive surprise.

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#7

It is partially linked to that, Thomas. The -- I mean, I think we've never hidden the fact that our biggest challenge this year is inflation that we're working on quite vigorously and following up quite vigorously, in particular with the negotiations that we have in place with our customers and suppliers and the work we're doing around those topics. The volume forecast for the time being is totally in line with what we expected. North America is much more dynamic. In particular, what we're seeing is that our platforms in Mexico are back and better than before. And once again, as you know, we've worked quite hard in the last 2 years to really reduce the breakeven of the group. And we're in -- we're very well positioned to receive additional volumes and generate leverage on that. So in regions where we do have that -- those volumes, we're seeing quite good and profitable growth.

Operator

operator
#8

The next question comes from the line of Michael Foundoukidis from ODDO.

Michael Foundoukidis

analyst
#9

Michael from ODDO. So two questions from my side. First, maybe as a follow-up of Thomas' questions, how confident you are regarding IHS latest forecast. Because you have seen some suppliers taking more cautious assumptions recently. So what's your view on that? And second question is on M&A. We have seen some press remarks, so I doubt you would comment on them. But you said lighting was a key pillar during the presentation, but it's only like EUR 150 million revenue. So what should we think about that?

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#10

Thanks, Michael. I mean, IHS is just a forecasting tool as I think we all share the view that the notion of performance, outperformance against IHS is in a crisis situation that we've been going through for the past 2 years, probably not the most definite way of measuring performance. But because that is the way that the whole industry is structured today and we have no better substitute, that's obviously what we're using. How confident are we in IHS? I mean, I think you understand our confidence in IHS. We have systematically discounted their outlooks in the past. We're sticking to our guidance for 2022. But we -- obviously, we follow up on IHS, and we're always very curious around the 15th of every month to see what their new outlooks are. So as I said, they're foreseeing now just over 1% decline in growth for the first half of 2022 and a beginning of a slow return to growth for Europe and for China as of the month of May. So I mean, that's their assumptions. And we're sticking to our yearly guidance. In terms of M&A, lighting, I can't comment obviously on what you've just said. I mean, we've never hidden the fact that we are screening the market when possibilities do come our way. And lighting, we see, as I mentioned earlier, as a pillar in the four mega trends that we've been looking at. We're very happy, and we hope to close the deal with AMLS OSRAM in the first half of this year, and we'll see how we go from there.

Michael Foundoukidis

analyst
#11

Okay. And maybe a follow-up on the first one, on the production and your guidance. Should we expect some significant margin seasonality between H1 and H2 in this respect? I mean, would H1 margin be, let's say, significantly below the full year guidance or not necessarily?

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#12

The guidance that we gave is a yearly average. And as I said to you in the profile of our sales, we had Q1 more or less like Q4 2021, a slight recovery in sales in the second quarter and then the recovery in the second half of the year. So I mean, with that said, you can imagine that the -- our guidance is based on an average of between 5% and 6% for the year. And it would make sense that the first half is, of course, lower than the second half. I mean, that's exactly what we planned.

Operator

operator
#13

The next question comes from the line of Akshat Kacker from JPMorgan.

Akshat Kacker

analyst
#14

Akshat from JPMorgan. Three questions from my side, please. The first one, again sorry to come back to the auto production outlook. I think there are two underlying parts to my question. First, on Europe, relatively, the region obviously has software in-sourcing, incremental semi supply. How much visibility for OEMs have here, and this will improve going into the second half or even the fourth quarter of 2022? And secondly, on China, with the recent lockdowns, what are you seeing on the ground there? And what gives you confidence of again a recovery in consumer sentiment and demand and the limited impact on global supply chain? That's the first question. The second one is on the Omega transformation plan and the restructuring benefits. For 2022, can you please remind us of your assumption on the net benefit that you expect on the P&L from these actions? And how much of that is offset by different elements of cost inflation today? Finally, on Greer, can you just talk about the utilization of your Greer plant in North America? Recently, BMW made a few announcements that they'll have to expand production to Mexico, given the very strong demand for their X models. So what does this mean for the margin level of this plant? Should it already be at the group level in 2022?

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#15

Thanks, Akshat. I'd just like to recall that this is a sales release call, but I'm happy to answer your questions, of course. So on auto production in Europe and in China, obviously, visibility is low. And I think I said that during the call. And we're really monitoring the situation on a weekly basis. We're putting into place our tools to monitor that. We're looking at all of the shutdowns in particular. I think what we're seeing currently is that the month of March or the first quarter, in particular, or the month of March of 2022 was very similar across the board to what we experienced in terms of shutdowns in September, October last year. So as you can remember, when we all got back from the summer holidays here in Europe, we were all confronted with the shutdowns from the semiconductor crisis. So that's quite a number of shutdowns, quite a number of shifts have been lost. And so we're monitoring that situation very clearly. It's hard to say for Europe, Akshat, because we will see some factories starting up again and then stopping and then starting up again and stopping. So we're in that situation, a similar situation to what we had last year. As far as China is concerned, what we're seeing is that effectively, and this has been the case now for a few weeks, is that, particularly in the Shanghai region, the authorities have authorized some factories to be able to host workers in the factories to be able to start production. So we currently have roughly 12 plants that are shut down at the moment. But some manufacturers, some OEM manufacturers are starting up production again through this mechanism of having the people come and sleep in the factories. The only issue that we're hearing from the ground is that production is fairly erratic because there are supply chain issues within China itself. As you know, the port is still closed down. So it's not just for outbound traffic but also for inbound components. And we're seeing that ourselves because we do supply certain components into the Chinese market from other regions to manufacture cars in China. And there as well, we have inbound freight topics. So how -- even if China does open up tomorrow, there will be a lagging effect, a certain inertia in terms of logistics and supply chain for a few months, most likely. In terms of Omega, we've always reported on and we're confirming today a EUR 100 million impact in run rate in 2022. Obviously, yes, it does offset partially and even considerably inflation. Particularly, if you recall the first bricks of Omega, one of them, in particular, the biggest brick, focuses on procurement. And we've done quite a lot of work on -- particularly in the area of energy by securing hedges, extensive hedges for our energy costs. So even if we do have some residual inflation today on energy, we have -- we spend roughly EUR 100 million a year on energy. If we had not been hedged, we would have doubled that basically today in 2022. So it has been a fantastic lever to compensate inflation. As far as Greer is concerned, Greer is performing extremely well in terms of load. We're still on a 6-day a week shift. Margin performance is increasing. We still have a number of issues, I've never hidden that, to work on in terms of the cost of non-quality, in terms of the layout of the factory. So we've still got a list of very operational topics that we're working on. But Greer is definitely a good performer in Q1 2022.

Operator

operator
#16

The next question comes from the line of Thomas Besson from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Thomas Besson

analyst
#17

Yes, I had a follow-up, Kathleen. With the transactions you've announced, could you give us your best estimates of the 2023 impact of the different operations you've announced in terms of revenues? Because you've mentioned the base for '21. But I think it's unclear for many investors what the revenue and earnings trajectory are, in particular for the OSRAM business.

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#18

So we've never communicated on that. We haven't concluded these acquisitions yet, Thomas. So I'm not in a position to communicate on that today. We still have to conclude the deal. So I understand that it's not clear because we've never communicated on it, but we will, in due course, of course.

Thomas Besson

analyst
#19

Okay. And so the transactions are expected to close in Q2?

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#20

So AMLS, lighting is expected to close in Q2. ACTIA Power, we're in exclusive negotiations. We're hoping to conclude those negotiations and secure that acquisition in the second half of this year.

Thomas Besson

analyst
#21

Okay. Last question for me, please. I find it pretty clear that we are going to be in a situation where the three French OE suppliers or the three larger French OE suppliers are going to be suppliers of lighting solutions. And it was deemed to be a horrible business in the 1990s because of a technology transition. Do you see this now today, as you say, aligned with mega trends? Is it specifically attractive to understand the appeal to everyone in France now?

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#22

Yes. And that's -- thank you very much for that question, Thomas. It's a great reason to come to our Capital Markets Day on the 12th of March, where we will -- on the 12th of May, sorry, where we will unveil the secrets to that topic. Now quite clearly, Plastic Omnium is positioned a bit differently compared to the other players that you mentioned. Our strategy will be -- we're in a position where we can supply complete system solutions for the exterior envelope of the cars. So we have modules. We have the bumpers. We have the rear ends. And as you know, the lighting trend is significant. It's a fast-growing segment. And discussions with our customers have led us to believe that they're looking for players that can offer complete solutions as our customers will be focusing more and more towards high value-added components around electrification, internalizing the battery topics, internalizing or growing the software topics. So they'll be looking to find partners who can accompany them on more complete solutions in terms of the exterior systems. And that's where we believe that we have quite a differentiated position compared to our other competitors.

Thomas Besson

analyst
#23

Yes. Sorry, I had said it was my last question, but I have another last question, if I may. Could you remind us where you stand on the joint venture you have with Hella, the timing and possible transaction to acquire the remaining 1/3 you don't own in HBPO?

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#24

Yes. Well, as Laurent Favre has had the opportunity to mention, we're not in a hurry in any event on our side to conclude that particular transaction. We're very much focusing on the short term, on the crisis, on the inflation topics. Now the contract that we have in place, the joint venture agreement, does foresee a certain number of conditions. Those conditions, we have currently mutually suspended to have bilateral conversations on that topic. But once again, we're not in any hurry to conclude. It would have to be for a reasonable price.

Operator

operator
#25

The next question comes from the line of Christoph Laskawi from Deutsche Bank.

Christoph Laskawi

analyst
#26

Just one on essentially sourcing and working capital, do you stock up on certain components that you need, where you see a very stressed supply chain currently? And if we take that more or less on the free cash generation, I assume it's fair to say that with H2 margins being higher, free cash flow should be higher in H2 anyways as well, also with a potentially normalized working capital effect then?

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#27

Thanks, Christoph, for the question. Once again, this is a sales call. But obviously, stock is a topic once again with the new crisis that we're having. We're monitoring very closely working capital. We don't actually stock as such. We do a lot of -- we do mostly just-in-time and just-in-sequence manufacturing. So anything that we do order on to -- into stock, with the exception to the reserve stock, is really for immediate manufacturing. Obviously, with the stop and starts that we are experiencing, we're very much in a similar situation to last year. But as you can remember, in 2021, we managed very well to manage our operational stock as such with very little impact, very stable from 1 year to the other. So we're working on that topic at the moment. And it's right to assume that free cash flow should be higher in the second half of the year.

Operator

operator
#28

The next question comes from the line of Pierre Quemener from Stifel.

Pierre-Yves Quemener

analyst
#29

Pierre here with Stifel. Just to come back again on your full year '22 guide and just the robustness of your margin guide and how much headroom you have left, two points. Would the guide stick if your LVP assumption would fall, let's say, a couple of points below your unchanged volume assumption for '22? And on the cost side, what has been the incremental cost inflation headwinds, if any, for you since the Ukraine invasion?

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#30

Once again, thank you very much for the question. And we're really in a sales release this quarter. Look, if volumes do decrease, we will get back to you on that. As we've mentioned to you now very clearly in our press release this morning, we're monitoring the situation very, very closely. And of course, in all transparency, should we see a significant change in volumes and does have a material impact, we will obviously revise the situation. But today, I think we don't have the visibility. And there's no point being in panic mode and changing outlooks and predicting future volumes when we don't have -- as I mentioned earlier, there are certain factories starting up again, you know what I mean? So that's our situation today. And the cost of the incremental headwinds, they're very strong, as you can imagine. The Ukraine situation has exacerbated inflation that was already quite strong in Europe. And as I've had the opportunity to mention already, we're giving ourselves this business year to negotiate with our customers and our suppliers to compensate as much as possible on that particular topic. And it's a difficult conversation. We've never hidden that, that is the case. But we're prepared to go as far as necessary to do that.

Operator

operator
#31

There are no further questions. So I will hand the call back to your host for some closing remarks.

Kathleen Wantz-O’Rourke

executive
#32

So I'd like to say thank you to everybody for being there this morning up and early. And I know that there's been quite a busy day yesterday with some other actors in the market, so I really appreciate your being present this morning. Thank you very much, and I wish you all a great day. Goodbye.

Operator

operator
#33

Thank you for joining today's call. You may now disconnect your lines.

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