Wienerberger AG (WIE) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Emma, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Wienerberger Conference Call on the Update to the COVID-19 Situation. Wienerberger will present with a presentation that is available on their website. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Ms. Anna Maria Grausgruber, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome from Anna through a conference call on the COVID-19 development. The first 2 months of the business year 2020 have been very strong, satisfactory and in line with our expectation. In March, however, the virus already started to affect some of our operations and Wienerberger reacted very quickly in all the 30 countries. We will, therefore, launch a series of this regular COVID conference call to give you an update on the developments in our markets and also very clearly show you how Wienerberger is reacting accordingly. For today, please take into account that this is not an earnings call, and we will update you with regards to financials in one of our next calls once we have more visibility. Our CEO, Heimo Scheuch, will now lead you through the presentation provided, and we are then ready to take your questions. I now hand over to Heimo Scheuch.

Thank you, Anna, and also from my side, a warm welcome to all of you. Thanks for being on the call. And as always, we will try to give you a very transparent picture of the current situation. It goes without saying, from my side at the beginning, that this unprecedented event, the COVID-19 outbreak and the sort of events that took place, especially in the last 2 weeks in Europe, are certainly extraordinary event, very, very particular. And we all have to deal with it on a day-to-day basis, and it poses us and also in the business environment with serious issues. However, I want to stress that what is important to us and to me personally, that the 17,000 people that work for us, their health and their personal situation, at this moment, is my major and only preoccupation. And I can say from personal experience and what we have seen and experienced in the north of Italy, we have worked throughout the closure, that means, 2 weeks ago without any incident of COVID-19 in our factories. And I think this is a great achievement for all the colleagues that work diligently together, and have implemented in very, very short time, all the necessary, not only local and other measures that are required. No, it is with a huge respect that we treat each other and did we deal on all levels, on a home/office level, on also the shift patterns, et cetera, where, obviously, we deal on a day-to-day level with this issue and manage it very well. And I'm proud of all the 17,000 how they have addressed it in this short time. I think this is very important that you, the stakeholders and the investors, understand that also from our side. I think Anna has already mentioned it. We've had a great start in this year, and I'm very positive and optimistic about the first quarter. We've seen good results coming through in all countries and are perfectly on track. Obviously, the current situation will affect us and will affect the whole value chain, and that's why I think it's important that we discuss this on such a call. Wienerberger has reacted very quickly. And I will give you an update on the different countries in a minute. I just want to draw your attention to the fact that, obviously, in a sort of 48-hour time frame, we decided to shift completely our focus from growth, from expansion to one that addresses the crisis. And what does it mean? We immediately addressed CapEx, for example, with everything on hold. We -- obviously, when you look at the CapEx -- special CapEx -- especially we have invested last year about EUR 100 million in this area, so this is on hold completely. We have stopped our M&A projects. We are currently not pursuing any active project right now and everything is on hold and there's no obligation of Wienerberger to consume any transaction right now. So that shows you how quick and how fast we were in implementing everything. Also from a personnel perspective, we are focusing on -- there's a hiring stop in the whole company. Obviously, we have addressed all the benefit cuts, the wage cuts. We have already launched in certain areas with necessary some redundancies. But very important, I think, what we've done very quickly is work with -- in the different countries, and this is very important. We have in Europe and also in the U.S., different systems, social systems and especially now systems how to address temporary compensations for short labor, for sort of cuts when it comes to time, et cetera. So in all the countries, we have our plans ready. We are already in this mode. And from the 1st of April onwards, we will take full advantage of the different options that we find: in countries like the U.K., it will be 80% of the salary cost that's taken over by a state; in Italy, it's 75%; in France, it's about 60%. So it's a very different sort of scenario that we have to work in, but -- and again, we have moved very fast and very quick and are reducing here and adjusting and aligning capacity as we speak. When it's necessary, if there are public shutdowns, then we obviously consume these from these sort of, I call it, advantages or helps or assistance from the state in the respective country. This leads me to another observation. Wienerberger business model is obviously a local one. We produce locally and have a local supply chain. And in such very critical situations, it's a help because we can source locally and we can sell locally. And that's why it's so important that we keep our distribution chains up. And there, again, I think this is my second important point to all of you. It is not without saying that it is important that we have focused so intensively on the digitalization of Wienerberger because, obviously, right now, it helps tremendously in selling our products and shifting it to the construction sites. Even -- and this is, I think, for you, important to note, Austria had the shutdown last week. All construction sites were down, and we had delivery rates of 50% of normal delivery. Why? Because we can shift products to smaller sites, to repair work, et cetera, and people can get products from us due to our digital means. So that means, that actually, we are already prepared for the next phase of changes after this crisis when it comes to a much more digital way of dealing and getting the products and the services to our clients. So I think very important to note from a crisis perspective, Wienerberger is local, top local management, very fast in implementing all these changes and adjustments, without any delay. We source locally, have no big issues on international supply chains. And we have, obviously, the digital needs in order to shift our products into the marketplace. On the another note, I just want to say, obviously, when we talk about the project and you remember the fast forward one, it's getting -- it was very difficult, and it's obviously literally impossible right now to shift people across borders. I mean, this is -- technicians cannot travel, so we can't do the projects that we want. So there will be some delay there. But that goes without saying as quickly. And in the future, obviously, when the travel bans are lifted, we can continue with this work also in a timely and speedy way. So again, if I may say, strict cuts when it comes to cost. All discretionary costs are freezed for the moment. So we are not doing anything on spending. We are just focusing on a day-to-day operations, getting the production out where it's needed and sold into the marketplace. And where there's a complete shutdown, we don't do any maintenance, any costs. And obviously, we are waiting to then start up the production as we are allowed to do so after. When I'm talking also, I think some of you will ask this question anyway, so I would like to address it right at the beginning. I think as we've seen a rather strong first quarter from a cash perspective, we are confident. I'm confident also when it comes to the liquidity situation of Wienerberger, roughly, and I would come to this in one of our next calls in more detail. But roughly, we have EUR 0.5 billion on liquidity for Wienerberger, so we can face the following months without any preoccupation. And on top of it, we are negotiating about the same amount currently with our banks. We got the great support. You see this on the back of a record result of last year. So we are in good relationship with our banks, and this will be no issue for us to ensure this sort of liquidity. By the way, just to draw your attention, I think some of you mentioned this also from a covenant perspective. At the year-end, we were at 1.4x net debt to EBITDA. Our current covenant that we have in our agreements is 3.9. So we have quite here, also, a lot of headroom. And as we are disciplined on M&A, as I said, no M&A, and we are disciplined on special CapEx, we're in good shape on both of them. So I think, from my perspective, when we addressed this issue right at the beginning, you get a clear message that we are in a rather good and comfortable situation to address the coming months because, obviously, when we talk about the different countries, this is -- these are going to be the critical ones due to the shutdown and due to the sort of situation that we find in certain areas of Europe. But let's now move to the different countries. If we look to Western Europe, and with a little bit of experience that we have and when I look at the Italian situation, our exposure to Italy is about 2% of our overall turnover, so very small. However, it's interesting to look at it. We have delivered and produced products throughout the whole period of time since -- till the moment that the government in Italy decided to get past -- to a total shutdown. So actually, in such an environment, we had better sales than last year, stronger activity and a very good and satisfactory running rate. So it shows actually that the building and the construction can go on and is not affected by this crisis when, obviously, there's not a public shutdown. And then when it shuts down, obviously, we have still, as I said, between 10% and 30% deliveries, depending on the smaller projects that are still carried out or renovation work, especially on the roof. So this is an experience that we have. If we look at the different countries, obviously, we have certain restrictions. We have -- the mobility of people is limited. And also one thing I think is important to know, Wienerberger was ready to the fact that we, timely and speedy, executed and put in place a business resilience team to be in a mode to work home office for all of our employees throughout Europe very quickly. So in a couple of days, we were ready to move this business from a normal business, I would say, in office buildings in 1 where we interact also from home and different locations. So I think here also it shows from a crisis perspective how strong we are in interacting and adjusting to new challenges within our environment. When we look at the different countries and you have the map in front of you, you see obviously that today, we have a situation where we are in a public shutdown in Italy and France, and since Friday, requested by the Prime Minister of Ireland, where we were passing also in a shutdown. We have a piping operations there, just to draw your attention to this small country, but we were in a position to shut it down so quickly that on Sunday night, the last employee left the factory in good order, and we actually also complied with the local authorities' regulation there in a very short time and very speedy. So again, here, I think it shows how quickly we can adjust. What does it mean, obviously? It means that, obviously, we ensure in our stock yards minimum activity. We keep the distribution and the value chain, hoping these people require the products. We have the digital means in order to serve our clients, and they can obviously be in contact with us, and we executed fast cost reductions. Ladies and gentlemen, it's now too early to discuss all these in detail, the cost reductions, because we are currently facing in this phase. Obviously, we'll be down in these countries as of 1st of April, so then we will see in a couple of weeks how this develops. And I think it's not about the cost-reduction program, it's about a very tough and quick reaction to the situations in order to save costs, to cut back on expenses and CapEx, that's what we are currently doing, but it's not something where we give weekly update on numbers. This is not now, I think, necessary. You should have the comfort that we will manage this through, and obviously, we'll ensure, and this is the clear message from Wienerberger that we can deliver products in all of these countries. We will see certainly a more sort of mode of shutdown in countries like Austria and Switzerland because we will take Belgium because we will move in this phase also where we take advantage of the state sort of possibility to partly shutdown and that a big part of the salaries and the wages are taken over by the state. So we'll do this in orderly way. We'll run in these countries then on reduced capacity. In Germany, we are running, at this very moment, at somehow reduced one but not very much, actually, a couple of percentage points, and the same goes for the Netherlands. So again, here, you see the picture. Obviously, in the U.K., we have moved also to a shutdown. The whole industry has, by the way, shutdown. And this is the same in other countries as well, like France, like Italy, like Austria, where you see that the whole business is shutdown, the competitors as well. So this puts, obviously, not a lot of pressure on working capital and on inventory and lay down prices. So I think we are facing here a good entry into this crisis mode and this adjustment mode of capacity. In the Nordic countries, Sweden, Finland and Norway, we are obviously less affected from this. Our piping operations run well up there, fully in line with expectation when it comes to 2020 expectations. And no sort of adjustments at this very moment ordered by government or by the market necessary. When we move to Eastern Europe, again, here, also a picture which is different from Western Europe. We have still, in most of the countries, with the exception of Slovakia and Austria, no capacity cuts and then obviously temporary closures. And Poland, the Czech Republic and the rest, they are running at the levels that we were expecting them to do so. But it goes without saying that we will sort of communicate in timely order to you if there are some changes or if some government move here and give some sort of instructions to the industry to stop or to sort of temporary close down, but there is no indication at this very moment on this. And again, here, we -- when we moved, like, in Slovakia and Austria, very quickly, very effectively in cutting shifts and cutting down, obviously, production in order not to have high working capital or stock level. So here, on this note, a very short note on Eastern Europe. North America is also affected, obviously, by the COVID-19 crisis. And again, here, we have installed also short labor. White-collar rotation is taking place, home office, teleworking. Blue collars, obviously, I already addressed the situation very quickly here. We had some issues with sort of state intervention in the state of Pennsylvania, where we had to shut down one of our factories, Watsontown. I think it's been probably easing up a little bit. In a weeks' time, we will reopen it. But this is also something where you see things are moving. Canada is down for the moment because this is obviously like in Europe, the state is supporting the workers and the business, and therefore, we take advantage of the situation. So from my perspective, as I said, and I summarize very quickly, we are addressing it by day-to-day because, obviously, the first 2 weeks were literally crisis more than you got different information from government, and they moved in a not very coordinated way throughout Europe. So we addressed everything. We did the necessary sort of things and decisions very quickly on management level and put it down on the local one. We ensure local distribution of our products. We ensure the continuity of our business. And we respect that this, obviously, of utmost importance is the safety of our employees. I think in a nutshell, this was my opening statement, and we're ready to take your questions. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Matthias Pfeifenberger with Deutsche Bank.

Thanks for this call and sharing all the details. I would have 2 questions. One is on the supply of holding your ability to supply housing. So can you maybe go into a bit more detail on the dynamics of, first of all, like in case of Austria, when the construction sites are now being resumed because there's like a reduced distance requirement and obviously heightened precautions, which would then obviously increase your rate of deliveries from 1% to 30% to maybe, I don't know, 50%, 60%. And then you mentioned, on the other way, you are still shutting down because you want to basically benefit from the short-work theme. So in case of Austria, how is that playing out your ability to supply, but then also trying to get some of the costs covered? And then secondly, more from a demand perspective, how is this playing out? Is this a big consumer and housebuilder shock, and people will take time to do new decisions for building a house? Or would you rather even expect a positive medium- to long-term benefit from the crisis by just thinking about people who want to move out of cities with high population density and maybe move to greenbelts and build the houses there. Maybe some thoughts on these 2 questions.

I will take your macro and trend question a little later, and I think it's a very interesting one, by the way, Matthias. And the first one is obviously on the short-term supply and demand level. As you are well aware, obviously, during the winter months, we were running, so obviously, logically, we built up working capital for the spring period. And March and April are usually months, obviously, where a lot of material is taken out to construction sites. So in Austria, we saw good sort of demand levels in the first 2 months. And obviously, with this current sort of crisis, you're absolutely right. It went down and remained a little bit of 20%, 30% because, obviously -- and you appreciate this as well, we are delivering to the smaller sites in the country where people are doing themselves work, to repair work and build still. So we have this basic business, I would say, that is going through and will pick up literally a little bit. I think the bigger sites will have problems, because obviously, when you take the big companies like STRABAG and BAUR, they went down with the construction sites and a lot of their workers are from Eastern Europe. So they had to leave, and they will have difficulties getting them back in short notice, because obviously, with the current health issues, they won't get them across borders very quickly. So I think here, you will see a certain time lag, and this will sort of play out over the next, I would say, 3 months or the second quarter. And that's why I'm saying we better prepare ourself in time and go down with production right now not in order to build up too much working capital, and on top of it, take advantage of the state measures that are currently in place that are very favorable for us, by the way. Your second question is relating to trends. And I think, obviously, at this very stage, everybody living in Copenhagen, in London, in Paris, in Vienna dreams of a house in the countryside. Dreams of a house to go with the kids outside, go biking, hiking, and whatsoever, not sit in his apartment. I think this is certainly something which will be affecting our way of life and our way of thinking. If it's possible for everybody? I doubt it, but I think a fair amount of people will think twice again about the future, what they need and where they can find a job. So on the long run, I think, Wienerberger is again very well positioned with the product and the lifestyle that people want. And if we play this well, the healthy and a sustainable one is very important. I think it's also, Matthias; when I look at today's perspective, people want to source locally. I think we have a trend that goes a little bit away from globalization to local, local suppliers, local producers. And that's why I'm saying, Wienerberger is ideally positioned with local plants that service the surrounding areas. We are Hungarian in Hungary. We are Polish in Poland. We are French in France, and that's why it's so important. I think Wienerberger is a local company and adds to the value creation locally. And I think thousands of people work with our products, and this is important if we can communicate this well in the future. I think here, again, to play the sustainable sort of advantages of Wienerberger is a very important point in our sales efforts, and in the efforts, obviously, to convince people to choose for our products. And on top of it, I just want to restate it again, all the efforts with respect to digitalizations are helping. Helping in this way where no physical contact is needed. I mean, you can as a truck driver, come into our stock yards right now, you don't need to interact with anybody. You get loaded and you can drive out of the stock yard, and everything is done automatically. And I think this is important that we, even from time-to-time by some of our friends called an old industry, we have changed our way of doing very fast and are very modern in certain respects how we interact with the whole sort of distribution chain.

Maybe an add-on the demand side. I mean what do you think, how deep the shock on the hospital side will be? How was it in 2009? I mean, right now, interest rates are still very low. What do you think will be the lag when we, let's say, see a V-shaped recovery in the second half? How much longer will people hesitate to do housebuilding decisions because they are kind of in a shock because of short work and drop in securities. Will that resume right away? Or is there certain 6 months lag, where I think people will just want to get more comfortable and then go ahead and build the house?

Matthias, I fully appreciate and everybody and all of us get a little older and myself also through the last crisis in '09, '10 and '11 as well. But I think it would be not very wise today to take this other crisis, which was purely, I would say, a financial one -- with this one here. It's a more complex one, and it's not really to do anything with financials. It's to do with health, which becomes very political and -- which has to do then, obviously, with confidence. And I strongly have to state one thing, building and investing is about trust and confidence in the future. Liquidity won't be the issue, I guess, at the end of this probably 3 or 4 months' time when certain bans are lifted. I think the big issue is, do I have a job, do I have confidence in the future, as you rightly say, and this has to be worked out by the countries, by the politicians, by the statesmen that are currently managing very eagerly this crisis because they're in the media every day. But I think what we need to prepare very quickly is a plan how we exit this whole situation and where we get confidence back. And as I said earlier, with work shortage and experienced people on construction site, we will need some time that people come back to these construction sites very quickly and timely because, obviously, they had to leave to their home countries, most of them in Eastern and Central Europe.

The next question comes from the line of Markus Remis with RCB.

First question would actually be more of a clarification. So I'd be interesting to get a sense on -- to which extent the capacity reductions you are implementing or kind of just the reaction or the response to the government for shutdowns or whether you are already preparing for a lower level of demand? So in a sense that, yes, you considered already mothballing and idling plants for a longer period of time?

I fully appreciate your question -- no, I fully appreciate your question. But actually, right now, as Anna and myself told you, we are coming from a very high rate of activity. January, February was very strong and also demand levels, and order intakes in March, very high. So we had, actually, not to adjust anything. And I think we were sailing in very promising waters, if I may say so. And the public shutdowns, the enforced sort of actions that we had to take because of this situation in the number of countries that I showed you earlier is purely because of this. At this stage, I think we have not -- we are not envisaging doing something else than that. If and in the event, in the next couple of weeks, we see that there is a change or there's a dramatic shift in confidence or everything, then obviously, we will talk about measures. But at this stage, I think we have done the necessary steps that are required by law and by regulations and also by good order that we have to put in place. And then we'll see what will play out in the second quarter.

Okay. Very clear. And then can I ask you on the dividend. You've proposed a 60% dividend. We've seen a lot of companies kind of taking back dividend proposals. Is that anything that you would consider on the current circumstances?

I think we are 2 weeks into this situation. I've clearly made the point that from a liquidity perspective, Wienerberger is in a very good shape. We are a strong company. We have a very strong balance sheet, and we have done well last year. And I think it's worth to consider this also, and to some extent, also think of our shareholders. And also, they are in this situation with us, and I'm not rushing into conclusions. As you see, I'm trying to manage the situation and the health of our employees first, and then we will address it. I know that we will have our general assembly very soon, but we will put in due time proposal up. But you consider the points that I've mentioned; I think you can make up your mind.

The next question comes from the line of Ami Galla with Citi.

Just a couple of questions from me. The first on the covenants. I understand your point on the balance sheet being reasonably strong. But I was wondering, is there a scope or has there been early discussions with your lenders to be more relaxed on the covenants if this disruption goes longer than what we currently see at this stage? My second question is really on the sort of -- in countries where you're still operating, albeit with a reduced capacity. Can you give us some color as to the mix of construction activity that is still going on? And more so, what implications does that have on the sort of product mix that is actually going through in terms of the demand pipeline?

Thank you very much. If I may take your second question. I think what you see here is the smaller projects are going on. These are projects out in the countryside; roof repairs, for example, is something that's continuous; extensions are continuing; and some small new building, one family houses. These are the projects that you have here. I call it the bread-and-butter business for Wienerberger because this is clearly the one that is important for us and where we have solid and strong client. Sorry if I apologize, but your first question acoustically, I didn't get everything. I think it had to do with this public funding and this -- but could you kindly repeat it? Because I had...

Yes, I'll just -- I mean, it was really on the financial covenants. If this disruption goes longer than what we currently see, is there a scope or plan to have a discussion with your lenders in terms of relaxing any of the hardline covenant limits that are there on the balance sheet?

I fully understand that. I think, as I said, the covenant that is important to look at, at this stage, is the 3.9x EBITDA to net debt, and I think here we are far away. And I do -- I'm saying even in a stressed scenario that we are doing a lot of scenarios and looking at that. We think we have enough liquidity in order to have this. But obviously, if we are talking about a completely different set of issues, I don't know, there's 2 years no activity at all and a shut -- complete shutdown, but I don't envisage that, by the way, then obviously, you will have discussions. I'm going from one extreme to the other, but I tried to make you understand that, obviously, I think we are mature people in business, and we will discuss. And even our lenders will have the situation to address this and I think here I see a common understanding of this, from the financial institution side and from ourselves, to handle this well and in a very professional way.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Gregor Kuglitsch with UBS.

Few questions. Just a point of clarification on the covenants. Just to be clear, I think it was 3.5 to 4, maybe with the previous IFRS. Is that the adaptation to an accounting standard?

Correct, Gregor.

Great. And then the second question is on liquidity. So I'm actually quite surprised because it's high, as you said, which obviously suggests you had a good cash in the first quarter, which I think is quite unusual because normally you have working capital outflows as you suggested before. So if you can just shed some light on that point because I look at the refinancings you did earlier in the year and it suggests to me you would be more like EUR 400 million rather than EUR 500 million, and maybe it's a bit of a point of detail, but just for clarification. And then perhaps one on kind of fixed cost and kind of sensitivities. If we take a scenario where, I don't know, you lose EUR 100 million of sales because of COVID-19 -- I know it will be -- the answer will be, it depends. But if you kind of take a holistic view or sort of average view, including all the stuff you can do in kind of temporary unemployment and all that sort of stuff, how much EBITDA do you think you lose in these sort of circumstances? Is it -- I think normally, I would say, it's 40%, 50% of that, but perhaps it's less given some of the numbers or some of the initiatives governments have put in place? And then one final point on CapEx. Can you just confirm how low you can go on maintenance? I think last year, you did EUR 140 million. How low can that go? Because obviously, if you're shutting down plants, I guess you need less maintenance. So if you could just give us a little bit of help what the direction could be?

Thank you, Gregor. And all of your questions are very valid. And I'm certainly not being evasive on that. If I use the word, as you said, it depends. But when I come to your CapEx question, I think it's also depending how long we are down with certain plants and how many plants are down in our network. But you can be assured that, obviously, from this level, we will manage -- we will certainly not use the whole amount of maintenance CapEx because some of the plants will be down and are currently down. But keep in mind also, when you have to start them up again, you need also some maintenance. And all in all, I think you need to understand that we will do it in a very diligent way and very focused and not overspend anything this year. But I would -- sort of, you know our bracket that we have given what we need as a group, EUR 120 million to EUR 140 million. We've given this year guidance in normal circumstances, EUR 140 million. This doesn't necessarily mean that we have to spend EUR 130 million or EUR 120 million or whatever. But I think you understand from our perspective that we do it very diligently and will limit our spending. Is this a fair answer to your question on CapEx?

Yes. That's fair.

And on your EBITDA front, I think in your sort of estimates, you're right again with your first sort of quick shot on this EUR 130 million, EUR 140 million. But at the end of the day, again, it depends a little bit how much the state is taking over on the salary cost. And again, here, when I have countries like the U.K. with 80%, it makes a big difference. And we have other countries with 55% or 60%. So again, here, I think you have a little bit of shift. It will tend in general tendency a little lower than you have mentioned. You're absolutely right.

And on liquidity?

On liquidity, yes, and you are talking to the CEO. I'm not the CFO. Next time, I will have Carlo with me on this call. He will be more accurate. But I mean, it doesn't play out now a couple of million, if I want to say that. Is this okay? But we had a good...

The next question comes from the line of Tobias Woerner with MainFirst.

Yes. Two, if I may. Number one, Heimo, the liquidity, you mentioned negotiated, you said could be as high as the one currently in hand. Is that -- did I understand that correctly, i.e. that it could double? That would be the first question. And secondly, clearly, you've all worked very hard at Wienerberger over the last decade to change the group and improve it. Can you, in your mind, just set out what do you think is different today than to -- back then, which should help you in this scenario, over above your balance sheet, at this point in time?

Well, I'm -- absolutely, thank you for both questions. I think you understood me very accurately. And as I said, we're working on this diligently on the cash and the liquidity side. And yes, you're -- what you heard was right. I said this. And we're working on it. I'm pretty confident we'll get there. Yes? And on the second issue is, I think, 2 things that I want to mention. I could mention a lot, but I think very important is, when you look at our innovation rate and our digitalization, both of them are helping us considerably these days because, obviously, with this products that we have developed, you're much quick in installing them, you need less labor and you can be very effective on the construction side. Because these days, when you install products and you are not so close to each other and you can work faster, it means a lot of gain, and it means safety for the people on the construction side. And I think this is key when it comes to the success of Wienerberger in the future and what we have changed dramatically. I'm referring to systems like Spyder, when we talk about electrical installations. I'm referring to sort of gluing bricks together because it goes faster and you don't need so many people around the site. So all these things are very important, especially in such crisis scenarios. And secondly, I mean, look at the portfolio, when you look at the map, I mean, look at the Nordic countries where we are strong in piping, where we have been growing our business, they are not so affected by certain things. Look at the spread that we have throughout Europe and the different distribution channels. I think, here, you see that Wienerberger is not only focused on one market, and this makes us stronger, better and more resilient also.

Okay. And maybe one last question, if I may. Your working capital should -- or you should see your working capital inflow in context of volume declines. I have a rule of thumb in the back of my mind, but what sort of levels do you -- or first, do you think, you will see some working capital inflow when the revenue line -- the top line comes down, which normally will be the case and to what extent?

Well, I think -- let me give you -- I don't want to -- again, I think it's a little early. We start with the measures right now. You will see the effect, probably the first effect in the 2 weeks or some time or 3 time, and we will have the next call anyway in 2 weeks or so, and I think then I can give you a better feel for that. It's a little bit too early to shoot, to hear, and we will see how the markets develop, the dynamics in it. I mean, just one thing, the French are currently also already discussing again to start up construction sites. Let us go through the Easter period, and after Easter, I think I can give you a better feel for that, if this is okay, Tobias.

The next question comes from the line of Xintong Ouyang with On Field Investment Research.

So I have 2 questions, if I may. The first one is, I'm wondering if you can give a little bit of more color on the volume and pricing scenario now in the key markets in Europe. For example, I know that the shipping is around 10 30 in Italy, but what about in France, in the U.K.? Is there a more specific number? And also, I'm thinking, given this underlying market situation, are you still seeing a pretty, say, solid pricing scenario or you have to do some kind of adjustments? And the second question is more about the long term. So I'm thinking, like, this has been a very long time since people have to stay at home for months and staying in their houses, and probably they will notice more flaws or advantages in certain design. So I'm just thinking, in that case, does it give you more, say, new direction for M&A in the sense that how do you improve your building envelope offerings? And if so, in what direction?

Yes. And I think I take your second question first. We all -- I think, we all, not us only in Wienerberger, especially, we will think about new solutions, new ideas because I mean, this is certainly not the last health issue that will affect us. And I think here carefully, housing and planning and all of this will be adjusted. And again, we can offer solutions to the industry. We can work on it. And you're absolutely right, from an innovation perspective, we will try to come up with some solutions that we probably haven't even thought of right now, but then it's to the governmental institutions to approve them. We will make it available to the public and to install them. So I think, here, it's going to be a process. But you remember, I talked very openly about the heatwaves in the summer and that certain buildings need to be changed. I think, here, also, you have this discussion. And as I said earlier, the sustainable aspect, even after this sort of crisis plays out, will remain a very important one, and especially when it comes to the health of the people, we'll have to consider this more and more. And here again, I think Wienerberger and our product portfolio is well positioned, and we will even position it stronger with new products and some new ideas. To your first question, I think from a pricing perspective, we see that pricing is holding. I think here, again, it's important that what I said earlier, that the whole industry is going down, and therefore, it's -- there's not that pressure on pricing at this very stage. We will monitor it very closely. We'll do the necessary things if it's -- if they are required. But at this stage, I think we are in the right situation as we speak. And on the volume side, please be aware, I mean, I gave you some indications in order to give you a feel for this, but let us go a little bit further into it and see what comes through. Because I think we get mixed signals from the markets every day, and it's not a daily day -- a day-to-day thing that I want to do with you. But I will give you a more detailed update the next time we talk, if it's okay for you.

[Operator Instructions] Ms. Grausgruber, there are no further questions at this time. I hand back over to you.

Thank you, operator. Thank you, everyone, for dialing in today. At the end of the call, I would like to mention again that we will provide these COVID calls on a regular basis from now on, and I will inform you in due time about the next date. Thank you very much, and I wish you a good afternoon. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Wienerberger Conference Call. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.