TAKKT AG (TTK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining TAKKT Analyst Conference Call 2023. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Maria Zesch. Please go ahead.

Welcome to this year's analyst conference. I'm here together with our CFO, Lars Bolscho, and we are both very happy for this opportunity to give you an update on where we stand with our strategy and what you can expect from us in 2023. This morning, we have published our annual report. We've already released and discussed the key financials about 1 month ago. So there should not be any surprises there. But what I hope was a positive surprise to you is that after 24 years, we have introduced a new look and a new logo to better communicate our new identity. And also the vision we have to the public, to our employees, but also to you, to the capital markets. So with the new look, we are also launching an employer branding campaign for the group, but I will give you more details on that later. In today's presentation, the focus will be on vision and the strategy. I will start off with an overview about our vision and our first steps to bring this vision into reality. I will then walk you through our achievements with the transformation and the strategy in 2022. And I will give you an outlook of what are our priorities in '23. I will hand over then to Lars, who will give you a few more detailed insights and the sum of the key financials '22 before I will close with the outlook. So let me start off with a reminder of our key points in our strategy and our story. So we are clearly here to bring new worlds of work to life, so to shape the worlds of working. We see huge opportunities out there in the B2B equipment market because we see strong trends and also sustainable trends. We have a clear strategy that we are executing on step by step. You know that we have ambitious targets for '25, and we have a comprehensive approach, which takes all stakeholders and their interest into account. Last but not least, I'm very happy that we have a very cash-generative business model. We have a strong balance sheet and a high equity ratio. And as you have seen, we also paid attractive dividends. Let me come now to our vision. So that's the vision which drives us, and honestly, it's also what motivates me personally each day to support and manage our transformation journey. Our vision is bringing new worlds of work to light. But what is it, what we mean with new worlds of work? Our customers are confronted with the changing working world. There's talent scarcity out there, a digital push, screen requirements and so forth. So our customers, they need a provider they can trust to help them adapt to the new reality of work. They need someone who not only sells working space products for them, but help them to drive the right answers to the questions like what are new trends out there? [ Are ] the employers do to retain and attract talent? Our customers need a partner who can help them stay ahead of the curve and support them resolving the challenges and the opportunities that lie ahead. So new walls of work is a projection on how work, workers and the workplace will evolve in the years ahead. And for us, the key question is always, what can we do to help our customers? So my beliefs are that we have to deliver on workspace solutions, not only on selling products. We have to deliver on new "in products" as I call it. So for example, well-being products to increase health of employees. But we should also be here as a partner where it is easy to do business with, to give our customers a great digital experience also via e-procurement. Last but not least, we have to deliver on sustainably sourced products to support ESG targets. Maybe I'll give you some examples of how these solutions look like. It's an ongoing process, but I think the following examples will help you to get an idea of what we are focusing on. You see here a chair. It's a sustainable chair from NBF, and our colleagues at NBF have introduced a new chair with great success. The Parker chair uses recycled products in manufacturing and shipping and is very durable to guarantee long-term use, and with that, a low environmental footprint. The second example I would like to give you is the economic workbench. And our own production site in Hann in Germany, we are manufacturing electrically height-adjustable individual work benches. So that's all an option not only for white-collar workers, but also for blue-collar workers. Last but not least, the third example is how we want to bring our vision into reality is project services and solution business. We help customers with project solutions and planning for the work environment. This includes planning, individual consultation and on-site measuring, but also execution on-site installation service through dedicated own experts and of course, our partner network. This should give you a flavor of what we mean with new worlds of work. So let me come now to our strategy, how we want to win, how we want to make sure that our vision comes into reality. Our strategy is very simple. It focuses on 3 pillars: Growth, OneTAKKT and Caring. Let me start again with our strategic targets '25. You already know strategic targets for '25, so I will not spend too much time on this slide, but I still want to address a few points. We developed and formulated our strategy and our ambition at the end of '21. Since then, we've been very successful with the implementation and have reached important milestones. So with what we can control ourselves, I'm very confident. I'm convinced that we can increase our organic growth to an average of 10%, but we are not naive. Initially, we had not expected a war in Europe, a recession or an energy crisis. Considering this, meeting the financial targets in full by '25 has certainly become more challenging. Nevertheless, we are continuing to work towards realizing our ambition, and we are increasing our focus on M&A in '23. We expect significant contribution from this in the coming years, not just on growth, but also on improvements in efficiency and scalability and in strengthening our sustainability footprint with circular business models. But besides the financial targets, what are the underlying deliverables? What are the changes that we want to achieve until '25? And let me start with the focus on growth. So we have 3 specific growth areas we would like to focus on. It's divisional go-to-market in cross-selling, it's e-com and its pricing. On the divisional go-to-market, we combine our strengths of product assortment, sales skills, marketing and offer customers a one-stop shopping experience. Of course, we will also continue to reduce the number of brands. In e-com and e-com excellence, the trend towards easy-to-use online shopping is there. We need to offer customers the opportunity to have a good digital experience with us, independent on which channel they approach us. Easy to do business is a key success factor for us. Pricing, we need to understand customers' buying behavior even better, and then we'll come up with a more dynamic pricing. For example, we need to take price sensitivity per category into account. So that is about growth. Let me come to OneTAKKT. In OneTAKKT, we will continue with the divisional integration and setup of group functions. Here, the focus will now also extend to our U.S. activities in '23. This will allow us to operate with an integrated tech stack and an integrated supply chain and unlock a lot of additional synergies. We also want to strengthen our brand and company identity and use the new TAKKT as a strong employer brand for all businesses within the group. And finally, we are also convinced that there is a huge potential in being positioned as a sustainable and circular business. I believe we are on a good path, but we won't make this topic a key aspect in our interactions with customers. And I think it's good to give you an even more detailed view on where we are. So let me give you an overview about the progress we have achieved so far. Let me start with Growth. So what you here see is an example on the left-hand side for cross-selling. We started with the first cross-selling initiative in Q3 in I&P. We are seeing very promising developments here. The additional sales we are generating are above our expectations. We are now seeing the benefits of an integrated sales organization, and cross-selling allows us to offer products from a broader range and position our activities as one-stop shop to increase the value for our customers. We are starting to increase marketing for the cross-selling activities and will also roll this out into other regions and divisions. And then we see that we will unlock additional growth by fully leveraging existing customer contacts with all our activities. On the right-hand side, you find a smart pricing example. So when it comes to pricing, last year definitely was about inflation management. Looking ahead, we will follow more dynamic and differentiated pricing approach for product categories. In '22, we developed a framework for future differentiation and automation. We will now step by step implement this framework to have a more differentiated pricing in place, and we will use more competitive pricing, which can help us to gain traffic and orders. And at the same time, we will take advantage of less price-sensitive categories to keep our gross profit margin stable. Here is the second example, and in my view, one of the best ways to show what has changed in the last 18 months. It is a comparison of our group structure in '21 versus today. The old setup was focused on being a portfolio of stand-alone business units. So there were hardly any synergies and not much interaction. Today, we are organized in 3 divisions, which focus on the respective customer segments to drive growth and take care of sales and marketing and we have established group functions in finance and HR in TAKKT in operations to serve as a strong backbone for the divisions and have a more efficient and scalable setup. Last but not least, Caring. Caring includes a variety of aspects. We care about customers, about our employees and the planet we live in. We don't just do that because we think it matters and it's the right and responsible thing to do, we do it because we are convinced it's essential for our success. The one example demonstrates this quite well. In '22, we have developed and introduced the enkelfähig product rating to measure the sustainability of our products and make it more visible for customers. The rating takes several factors into account. You -- so there is an impact on circularity, on biodiversity and on climate change. But these products are not only superior in how they score against the sustainability aspect, they are also above average in growth and product margins. Currently, we are at a 20% revenues with enkelfähig product in '22, and we launched now a specific campaign for -- in '23 to even increase this number. So these were examples on our execution in '22. Now the key question is, what are our priorities in '23? Let me again start with the growth area. So we have made good progress with strategy execution in '22, and what we want to do is continue at least with the same pace in '23. So looking at growth, we have prepared some great project initiatives that are ready to get rolled out and which will have a substantial impact this year. Let me start with cross-selling. We have already surpassed our own expectations with what we have achieved with the cooperation between KAISER+KRAFT and Ratioform. Now we are ready to bring this to the next level. In summer, we will merge the 2 separate brands through a relaunch of KAISER+KRAFT first in Germany, in Switzerland and Austria and then also in other markets. This will allow us to offer customers a broader product range and become more efficient with our marketing spend. In the U.S., we also started with cross-selling activities between Hubert and Central, and we expect substantial growth contribution from this already in '23. We will further continue with our e-com excellence focus. We believe that with further improving data-driven marketing, we can grow. We will continuously optimize customer journeys and will expand digital marketing channels and additional sales channels such as marketplaces. In I&P, we will roll out smart pricing to an increasing number of product categories and expect positive effects on topline and gross profit from that over the course of the year. In OneTAKKT, we continue to build up a more integrated tech platform. The focus here will be on I&P and FoodService, where we take the first steps to reduce the number of systems for ERP, web shop and also other softwares. Midterm, this will allow us to have a much more leveraged IT infrastructure. More or less, it's the same story in logistics. So let me just focus on 2 topics. We have bundled freight volume across the group, which will help us to lower freight rates and give us more weight in negotiating contracts. And we are starting to integrate the logistics network and will step-by-step reduce the number of locations we operate in Europe and the U.S. So within the divisions, we are now doing more joint purchasing between different brands. We will also reduce the number of suppliers per division. This allows us to bundle greater purchasing volumes with the remaining partners and then benefit from a closer cooperation, but also from a better pricing. Caring, our strategy follows a comprehensive approach and also includes specific targets for customers, employees and the environment. I've just presented our enkelfähig product push to you a few minutes ago. It's a very important topic for us, and I'm very confident that it will help us to fulfill our customer demands better. And in addition that we also achieve above-average growth in margin with these enkelfähig products. So we are committed to continue on our path to reduce emissions substantially and we expect to see further progress in '23. Our business, our most important assets are our employees. So it's a cornerstone of our Caring strategy. We have talked about talent scarcity in the beginning. So to be very well prepared for this ongoing challenge, we have launched TAKKT as new employer brand for all companies within the group, and we are convinced that diversity will help us that the diversity of our colleagues that this will be key for our future success. So we are continuing to focus on this when looking to fill positions in the group. We are also building up a female leadership network to help talent grow and be successful at TAKKT. There were some questions about M&A. So let me also focus on M&A a little bit more in '23. So we have only achieved our size, our international presence, our diversified positioning and our strength with both organic growth and with acquisitions. So successful M&A has always been an important part of the TAKKT story. Nevertheless, in the last few years, we didn't do many deals, both because of the difficult environment, but also because of the transformation. I promise this is changing now. We are committed to add substantial value to the group in the next 3 years via M&A. So what are we looking for? We are looking for targets in Europe and U.S. and see an active deal pipeline in both regions. So most likely acquisition would be in addition to one of the 3 divisions. In terms of financial, we are looking at not a turnaround, but rather companies with a solid financial performance, where we can unlock additional value with synergies and our shared platforms. But let me also be clear, the main driver and rationale for acquisition is to increase volume and to address additional markets and customer groups, but we are also looking to further diversify into having a larger share of service and other recurring revenue capabilities in the midterm. Finally, we are interested in smaller players, in companies who help us to accelerate our transformation. For example, in regards to sustainability, where we want to explore and establish circular business models in B2B equipment. Overall, the ambition is to add around EUR 400 million in additional sales via M&A in the next 3 years. So hopefully, I could give you a good overview about our strategy and where we are. And let me hand over now to Lars, who will give you insights into our numbers.

Thank you, Maria, and Hi, everybody, from my side as well. Yes, let's look at the financials now. I've already presented our financials for 2022 in our last call about a month ago. So I will keep it rather short here, but still make use of this opportunity and give a bit more detailed look at some of the key topics of '22. Let's start with a short recap of our key financials. Starting with growth, in 2022, we achieved double-digit sales growth, both due to strong organic growth of 7.5% and positive currency impacts. And we achieved this despite the difficult economic environment with high inflation rates, with uncertainties around energy supplies, with disturbed supply chains and also more restrictive monetary policy of the central banks. Based on that strong growth, we saw positive leverage of our infrastructure, and then together with our good inflation management, we increased EBITDA significantly stronger than sales, with an increase of 17% to EUR 132.1 million. And in addition, we were once again successful on our free cash flow, where we generated EUR 70.4 million in cash, with a plus 36% increase substantially more than in 2021. And finally, this positive performance allows us to propose a special dividend of EUR 0.40 per share, and with that, a total dividend payout per share of EUR 1, in addition to the already running share buyback program I will talk about later. So let's have a quick look at the sources of our very successful sales development last year. I've already mentioned the positive currency impact, mainly out of a stronger U.S. dollar in 2022. And as you can see here, this is adding up to EUR 70.5 million positive impact in '22 or 6 percentage points growth. Looking at our divisions for the year '22, I think it's very important to mention that all 3 of our divisions were able to contribute with good organic growth rates in a challenging environment. Given the situation around the war in Ukraine and also uncertainties about energy supplies, the markets were a bit softer in our core markets in Europe. For example, in Germany, and then as a consequence, also our growth in our European business was a bit lower but still good I&P with an organic growth of plus 4%. And in comparison to that, our U.S. activities were growing stronger, OF&D with organically 11% growth and FoodService even higher organically 15%. Looking here at full year numbers for '22, let me please repeat what we have already mentioned in our last earnings call. During 2022, we have seen worsening economic circumstances. So our fourth quarter was weaker than the first 3 quarters of the year '22. Considering those more difficult circumstances, especially at the end of the year, we are even more happy to look at this strong organic sales development for '22 from all of our 3 divisions. Let's look at the gross profit margin. High inflation was one of the key commercial topics for us last year. We saw substantial price increases for products, also for freight, and in this environment, inflation management and passing on price increases in a smart way to our customers was a top priority for us to protect our margin. And we think we did a good job here, even if our gross profit margin declined from 40.2% to 39.3%. Because as you can see here on this bridge, we see a structural effect, a negative one. Half of our margin decline came from the higher sales share of our U.S. business, which comes with lower gross margins. So it was not a decrease of margin in one of our divisions. B2C is also that both in the division I&P and also OF&D, we kept our gross margin almost stable, despite the very difficult inflation management, so good success on inflation management here. In FoodService, we had some negative impacts on gross margin, partly out of the inventory situation. We have talked about it in 2022 that we have overshooted on increasing our inventories in the FoodService division. This led to a negative valuation impact, but also to a reduction of inventory then realized in the second half of the year at lower margins. So this was definitely hurting our gross margin, but on the other hand side, it was helping on the cash side by reducing our inventories. And in addition, we also had in the division FoodService some negative effects due to the fact that our business mix within the division shifted towards lower margin areas, for example, more to the project business. Looking at 2023, and Maria will talk about that later, we stick to our target to increase our gross profit margin to our target level of 40%, and we already see some positive impact at the beginning of the year out of our measures to support the margin. Looking at profits. We increased our EBITDA by approximately EUR 20 million last year to EUR 132.1 million. The currency impact helped also on this number with around EUR 7 million positive impact on profit. We were benefiting from the already shown good sales development and the almost stable gross profit margins resulting, as you can see on that slide, in EUR 53 million positive impact out of increased reported gross profit. In the main cost positions, personnel and marketing others we saw increases, but we were able to show good operational leverage and efficiency increases. So we improved our cost ratios in '22 compared to '21. Together with a positive delta of our onetime effects of EUR 3.7 million, we made it to the EUR 132 million EBITDA, slightly above the upper range of our guidance for the year. We were also able to achieve a strong free net cash flow of EUR 70.4 million in '22. Starting in this table here from our TAKKT cash flow, we developed quite similar to our EBITDA development. In net working capital, we have invested in '22 an amount of EUR 30.7 million, which is, in principle, nothing surprising considering the growth we were achieving in 2022. This increase of net working capital is coming from higher inventories and also higher receivables at the end of '22. Inventories were increased, especially in the first half of the year '22. While in the second half, we were able to reduce inventory levels again, but we also see some more way here to go. The year before 2021, the invest internet working capital was even EUR 7 million higher. As a consequence, our cash flow from operating activities grew stronger than our tech cash flow. Looking at our capital expenditure in 2022, it was comparatively low with EUR 14.6 million versus EUR 18.3 million in the year before. And last year, so the year 2021, we also had some cash in from sale of investments of EUR 30 million. So overall, this leads us to our free TAKKT cash flow of EUR 70.4 million, and with this, an increase of EUR 18.5 million versus 2021. This is a result of the cash strength of TAKKT and the decrease of inventories we achieved in the second half of 2022 with supply chains and also availability of products being in better shape. Let's have a quick look at the strength of our balance sheet. As you know, we have defined internal covenants, so it's purely internal KPIs. They are not part of our agreements or credit facilities with our banks, but they show us the strength and potential out of our balance sheet. And as shown on this slide, we are well below our internal threshold values in all of those 4 metrics: equity ratio, on debt repayment period, on interest cover and also on gearing, which gives us potential and financial flexibility to do M&A in the upcoming time and in parallel to the attractive proposed dividend payout and the investment into our already running share buyback program. Let's get to the dividend. And here, you see numbers what I've already mentioned. Our dividend proposal to our shareholders, which is in total EUR 1 per share, consisting of a special dividend of EUR 0.40 and a base dividend of EUR 0.60 per share. The special dividend being based on the mentioned strength of cash flow and a strong balance sheet and high equity ratio in 2022. Looking here at the long-term reliability on dividend payment from TAKKT, we are clearly committed to pay base dividend also in the following years and special dividend depending on the balance sheet and the investments into M&A in the respective years. And in addition, we also continue with our share buyback program, which we have started in autumn 2022 and have already invested an amount of something below and around EUR 7 million. We are quite happy with the success and we'll continue this program as planned. Before I hand over back to Maria, my summary on the financial 2022. The year '22 was a very successful financial year for TAKKT. Despite the difficult circumstances and also the negative economic trend, especially towards the end of the year, we generated strong growth and converted this nicely into profit. And we at TAKKT continue to be cash strong, which also allows us to run our share buyback program and to pursue our attractive dividend policy. And with this, I would like to hand back to you, Maria.

Thank you, Lars. So let me give you an overview about our expectation for '23. We still see a high degree of uncertainty, and I believe that many of us got some headaches lately by the banking sector. So what we can say is, we remain cautious, and we will be prepared for different scenarios. So our main assumptions, they have remained more or less unchanged since last month. So we believe that the inflation will remain an important topic. We also believe that labor markets will continue to be tight. And for the economy in both Europe and the U.S., we are expecting only low GDP growth rates this year. Given these circumstances, we will still see a risk of a deeper recession. But for us, that means we have to stay flexible and to adjust the budget and spending according to the change in demand and the conditions throughout the year. As expected, we have seen a slow start to the year. This is what we prepared for, and we know how to deal with these circumstances. At the same time, we are also preparing for an upswing later this year. In this environment, we are exercising strict cost management, both in hiring new colleagues [ and also ] in our marketing budget. We continue with inflation management, but also expect positive impact on gross profit from joint purchasing within the divisions and due to our pricing initiative. We focus even more than before on managing the net working capital, which should allow us to release cash by reducing inventories in 2023. So regarding our top line. Our guidance and our baseline assumption is a stable organic sales development in '23. This is what we budget with. That's what our spending and cost planning is based on. At the same time, I have the internal ambition. We all have the internal ambition to generate organic growth also in this challenging environment this year. I challenge myself every day and challenge the organization every day to deliver on growth to focus on where we can bring the most value to our customers, And due to inflation, our cost position, they will increase this year. We are able and we will manage marketing costs very well and keep the marketing cost ratio stable. In personnel cost, the situation will be more challenging. As mentioned, we are cautious in bringing on new people, but we expect an increase in personnel costs driven by wage inflation. Overall, we think we will earn an EBITDA between EUR 120 million and EUR 140 million. We will continue with this transformation and expect similar costs associated with it as last year, so a mid-single-digit euro million amount for structural adjustments. In addition, we continue to invest in the further development of the group functions and integrated positioning of the divisions. So these transformation costs should also be around the same level as last year. As said, we will have an increased focus on net working capital and more reliability in the supply chain should help us to achieve a significant increase in free cash flow in the current year. As mentioned, we would love to be able to use this cash for an acquisition. So there are interesting opportunities out there and we are optimistic to be able to close deals in the next 3 years. So before we come to the Q&A session, let me wrap up this presentation today with a quick look at our investment thesis. First, I believe we have a huge growth potential. The market we are addressing has a volume of more than EUR 100 million, and it is very fragmented. It's a very attractive environment where we have more than enough room to expand. We have a diversified position with our activities in Europe and the U.S. and in our various markets. This has helped us in the past and will also be important in the future. To address this market and realize our full potential, we have set a clear vision and the strategy. We bring new worlds to work to life. We've talked about a few examples today, and I'm very, very sure that we will come next year with many others. As you have seen last year and during the pandemic, we have a very good financial track record and execution capabilities. We deliver on the financial goals. In times as challenging as today, we are committed to strict cost management and know how to adjust our cost structure to the current environment. And last, given the current uncertainty, I believe it's a big advantage because we operate from a position of financial strength and stability. We have a balance sheet which is strong. We generate substantial free cash flow, and we are able to commit it and are committed to reliably pay dividends to our shareholders. So the proposed payout for last year translates into a dividend yield of 7%. So that was it from our side. Many thanks for listening, and I'm really looking forward to your questions.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question is from the line of Craig Abbott from Kepler Cheuvreux.

Two questions, please, from my side. First of all, I just wondered if you could give us like a concrete example -- and let's take Hubert and Central which you said you'll be addressing to combine more this year. And that you expect it to be able to realize significant cross-selling synergies. And that's my question. I was wondering if you could provide a concrete example of how you intend to achieve those cross-selling synergies? And then I'll follow up with a quick second question, please.

Thanks, Craig. Thanks for your questions. So a concrete example is, my understanding for Hubert and Central, how we do the cross-selling. That was the question, right?

Yes, yes.

Yes. So as you know, Hubert is focused on smallwares. Central is focused on bigger stuff, hardware like fridges and so on. So what we have seen in the last couple of months is that whenever we address the customer now can offer both smallware and the bigger hardware stuff, we see big feedback -- good feedback from our customers that they are interested in both different categories. So it's an enlargement of our assortment we bring to the customer. We go with this larger assortment with the different sales channels Central and Hubert brings in, and that's where we see very promising results already now.

Okay. Okay. Very clear. And my second question is more short term in nature, but back to your very opening comments about how -- we all know what's been going on in the financial markets in the last couple of weeks. And there are concerns now we might see some tightening of credit conditions, particularly in the U.S. And my question is just as a general statement, have you witnessed any very recent changes in customer behavior and customer confidence levels since this all came about over the last couple of weeks?

Yes. So maybe let me start and then Maria can also add her perspective. So generally, like the banking crisis or the uncertainty in the banking world, of course, as you mentioned, like could impact us like in 2 areas or 2 perspectives. The first one is like in further increase of the uncertainty in the economic environment, which you referred to, which honestly Maria can talk something about that. We haven't seen like substantial change now in the last few weeks on that. So that remains uncertain as it was before. But of course, we all don't know what will happen. Of course, like looking now at those challenges in the banking market or sector, we also look like at the direct impact to us. We didn't have any banking relationships with the banks that affected, not to Credit Suisse, not to Silicon Valley Bank. We have, as you know, quite a diversified structure of financing and also solid balance sheet. So on that direct impact, we are, at the moment, not very concerned. The uncertainty in the economic environment, yes, as I said, we don't know what will happen, but we don't see a big change at the moment.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from the line of Thilo Kleibauer from Warburg Research.

I have 2 or 3 questions. The first one is also on current trading. I mean we are now almost near to the end of Q1. So maybe can you give us a little bit more visibility, what slow starts to the year means? And if it is across all segments at a similar magnitude. My second question would be with respect to the targets for '25. I mean, overall, you want to achieve an EBITDA margin of 12%, and now you are at 10%. So what are the main driver for the increase from 10% to 12%? Is it the absence of transformation costs? Is it simple the growth effect that you have economies of scale? Or what is the bridge from 10% in '22, '23 to 12% in 2025? And my third question is regarding your customer structure. You highlighted that you want to be -- want to have an even stronger focus on price-sensitive products and categories and that you want to be more dynamic in terms of pricing. Does it mean that you will have a higher share of business with small companies? Or what is about the share of your large account, which was always -- also for KAISER+KRAFT and the European business, a strong pillar. So is there a kind of shift within the customer structure which is a consequence of your current strategy? So these are my 3 questions.

So let me start with your first question on current trading, Thilo. So on current trading -- and it's, as we said, and honestly, as we expected that the start was slow into the year. So I would say, it was in line with our expectations and also what we planned. So the uncertainty and also the volatility out is also reflected in more frequent changes in some of the order behavior for our customers. So you asked for more details on the different segments. So for the overall group, we see order intake and sales declining in the low to mid percentage range. And there's not really a big difference between Europe and the U.S. Maybe one thing to highlight, FoodService is currently running below average in order intake, but this was due to a very high order intake in Q1 in '22. In sales in FoodService, they might even be slightly positive in Q1 because due to backlog reduction, so different here, order intake versus sales. So hopefully, that answers your current trading question, Thilo.

That's helpful, yes.

Then I would continue with your question concerning profitability driver. First of all, yes, you're right. For 2025, we -- also our ambition and target to increase our profitability on EBITDA margin, and you also already mentioned the 2 elements of that. The first one is, of course, with the higher growth we go for and target. We will have the scalability of our platform -- so of our infrastructure. So we don't expect our cost then to increase in a similar way until 2025. So this will help, of course, our profitability, our EBITDA margin. And the second element is also coming out of that pillar of OneTAKKT that due to building those global group functions, especially in the tech area and in the operations or supply chain area. We are also aiming for higher efficiencies there. For example, if we combine our supply chain networks or if we harmonize tech or IT systems more across our activities, this will also help them on the margin.

So Thilo, and then your third question was about customer structure, if our strategy is changing here. So let me clarify this. So we have a very good and excellent customer structure, and we will further develop this customer structure with the pricing approach we have in mind. So what we did in '22, we developed a framework which should help us to differentiate specific categories. So -- and we will now implement in '23 this framework. To make sure that for products or categories with more price-sensitive focus, we will also gain traffic and orders. But at the same time and that's equally important, we will take advantage of less price-sensitive categories. So overall, there's a clear ambition to keep the gross profit margin stable and reach the 40% again.

And in terms of customer, I mean, obviously, you want to gain new customers or at least new orders from new accounts with this price strategy. So I mean the share of business with large customer, is it stable? Or will this slightly decline?

So there is no change in structure of our customers planned. Now, we will focus as we focus currently. With KAISER+KRAFT, we have a very strong foothold in the larger customers. That's also because we have very good e-procurement skills and linked to big customers. Of course, this will stay. And as we said, we also want to grow in the midsize customer segments where we could address different pricing logics for different product categories, but it should help us to grow and customer structure should not be influenced by that.

[Operator Instructions] Our next question is from the line of Roland Könen with Value-Holdings. Unfortunately, we can't hear Mr. Könen. [Operator Instructions] Seems like there are no further questions at this time, and I hand back to Maria Zesch for closing comments.

So many thanks for listening and really looking forward to our next analyst conference. So have a nice day and speak to you...

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.