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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome to the Investors and Analysts Conference on the Half Year Results 2021/2022 of dormakaba Holding AG. I am Myra, the Chorus Call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants would be in listen-only mode and the conference has been recorded. [Operator Instructions]
After the presentation, there will be a moderated Q&A session. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. I would like to remind you that the conference call does include forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Listeners and viewers are therefore strongly encouraged to refer to the disclaimer, which is part of today's media release.
At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Jim-Heng Lee, CEO of dormakaba. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure to welcome you to this webcast today and to present our half-year results for 2021/2022. With me today is our CFO, Bernd Brinker.
Here's a quick review of our today's agenda. First, we will talk about the overview of the results from a business perspective, then we are in very much into implementation of Shape4Growth. Then, we'll guide you through the financial performance, and I will come back and walk you through the outlook for the full financial year.
Before I do that, I will share with you a few thoughts that went through my mind after being here for a couple of months. When I was responsible for Asia-Pacific, I was already deeply, deeply involved in Shape4Growth. I put in more than 20 years of industry insights, and more than seven years of company insights into building Shape4Growth. Now, as CEO, I was to realize that it is equally critical to stabilize our entire workforce in the middle of, A, pandemic, B, a top leadership change which few saw coming.
Further, we owe – dormakaba owe the precious team stability to our value investors, customers and partners. The executive team and I are determined to make it work. And together, we shall remind everyone that dormakaba remains a healthy company with a huge potentials worth fighting for. What worked for us in Asia-Pacific? Like drive specifications, increased customer centricity and stickiness to vertical approach and bundled solution selling, et cetera, could equally apply across dormakaba.
Another learning that I have is eyes on the board. To deliver business performance, you need that focus. And last but not least, a one dormakaba team spirit. A one dormakaba team spirit that built on trust and with unique competitive advantage to be one face to the customer [indiscernible] (00:04:00) literally fast to the next level.
How did we perform in the first half? This is a snapshot, dormakaba posted overall good results for the first half of financial year 2021-2022 with strong organic growth. Growth was driven by continued strong recovery in Asia, continued good demand in Europe, and an improvement of the US commercial construction market.
Our adjusted EBITDA increased due to good growth. However, our adjusted EBITDA margin was slightly below previous year, this is an area we can clearly do better. And it was mainly due to the impact of raw material and higher freight costs. Our operating cash flow was impacted by a big increase in net working capital, particularly inventories. The higher inventory level was driven by overall volume increase, as well as safety stock build-up for electronics.
On a more positive note, we achieved slightly higher net profit despite a CHF 12 million one-off cost, Bernd will provide more details later.
What are the highlights and headwinds? I would like to share them transparently with you, ladies and gentlemen. On a positive note, we had an overall good business environment. We saw organic sales growth across all segments. We're promising order intake and backlog. We had in place a proactive pricing policy and procurement initiatives that enable us to manage raw material and labor cost inflation and supply chain issues in a way that we could mostly offset their negative effects. Therefore, we are on track to achieve our pricing and procurement targets for the entire financial year.
Our headwinds, and what are they? A challenging environment, and we know that. Leading on to labor shortages, supply chain topics that impacted our business. Mesker continues to be a negative impact on our business. We will come back on this topic at the segment performance level. Movable Walls business remains weak due to continued delay in project execution.
Building on our highlights, allow me to share some of our successes with our customers. Indeed, we are a recognized global player providing dedicated solution and we drive market accessibility through new partnerships. How so? One dormakaba solution, one face to the customer, is uniquely dormakaba and our unique competitive advantage.
In terms of dedicated solution, I'm proud to showcase examples that you can see on your screen; in particular Suva, a renowned Swiss insurance company through over 500 mobile access points and 700 standalone components. We created a connected yet seamless working environment. In terms of driving market accessibility through partnerships, together with Vanderlande, we jointly offered the US Department of Homeland Security an integrated and self-screening security checkpoint for passenger flow and efficiency [indiscernible] (00:08:54) into our performance.
We achieved a year-on-year sales growth of 10%. Organic sales increased 6.6%. That contributed quite a bit to the overall sales growth. Organic growth and the associate higher volume were also reflected in a 7.9% higher adjusted EBITDA, which exclude IAC, items affecting comparability. The adjusted EBITDA margin was slightly lower than the previous year at 14.3% due to higher calls and sales mix.
Looking ahead, we expect continued organic growth across all segments based on a healthy order backlog and a stable order intake. We had and will continue to increase sales price to offset higher raw material, freight and labor costs.
I will now go quickly through the segment performance. In Americas, we make some progress with regards to growth performance; sales growth organically at 5.7%; growth was broad-based across almost all product clusters. It is absolutely pleasing to see a recovery in the US commercial market, which led to attractive project wins and promising order intake. Mesker, as alluded to earlier, continued to negatively impact our EBITDA margin in the first half year by 230 basis point. As announced last November on Capital Market Day, we have initiated a structured divestment process for Mesker. This is an important step for the turning around of our Americas business to get to the level where we deserve to be at.
Next, Asia-Pacific. I'm personally very pleased with the performance for obvious reasons. We are clearly the trusted market leader there. The trusted market leader. We grew sales 20% year-on-year, 2-0. Growth was supported by many attractive project wins and by some catch-up demand from COVID-19-related project delays. All major region in Asia-Pacific contributed to the growth, in particular China, India and ASEAN posted strong double-digit growth.
Looking ahead to Asia Pacific, we continue to have good organic growth, but, but with a lower growth rate in the second half of 2021/2022 due to higher comparable basis. Growth will be supported by the recent acquisition in Australia, RELBDA and Solus in India, this bolt-on acquisition. We focus on our core business, [indiscernible] (00:12:21) accelerate our market access and [ph] enrich in (12:25) some of our core countries.
How did our German-speaking country perform, AS DACH? The segment saw strong growth, particularly Germany, Australia. Organic sales grew 8.6% year-on-year, despite headwind of shortages of materials and electronics component.
EntriWorX, it is a solution which you saw us sharing and presenting on Capital Market Day November 15 last year. It is now being brought to two countries. And I'm happy to announce that we have seen first orders streaming in. It is a game changer with huge potential to upskill. We are expecting this train to pick up based on the planned rollout to more countries also in line in our strategy [indiscernible] (00:13:28) divestiture of a glass system business that was completed on October 31. It will enable us greater focus on our core business.
AS EMEA is next. How I would describe their performance as continued good growth profitability, though a bit slightly impacted by higher raw materials and freight costs there. Underscored by a strong performance in UK and Benelux region, especially in service and distribution, Middle East order intake remains strong, with projects such as Qatar Airport. In Scandinavia, following the turnaround of our business in Norway and successfully divestiture of a project installation business in August 2020, we now achieve organic growth and profitability.
The future growth prospect for EMEA is [ph] poised (00:14:29) by the Fermatic Group, an acquisition that was completed in October last year of a French service business. This acquisition had already realized cross-selling opportunity between entrance system and electronic access data businesses.
In Key & Wall, that's the final segment here. Overall, organic sales growth of 2.6% year-on-year, Business Unit Key System and Movable recorded very different financial outperformances, Key System had a strong organic growth of 10%, or exactly 9.9%, this is not the case for Movable Wall. Organic sales were below the previous year. Project execution continued to be delayed, that was the main factor for the weaker organic growth.
Order backlog for Movable had reached record high level and order entry remained strong. We expect direct high order backlog in Walls, Movable Walls, and good demand in Key Systems to drive growth in the second half of the financial year.
I have closed this detailed overview of segment and I would like to change to a topic that is so close to all of us and so important to get it right. How we have been executing Shape4Growth? As this is an important topic to my heart, I would like to go a little slower. You saw this on Capital Market Day, November 15, last year. A quick update on what we wanted to achieve, and how far we have now come, and what we are currently at with the implementation. It is all about accelerating profitable growth; through eyes on the ball, focus on the company core businesses in commercial access solution. On our core markets, the top geographies through a lot of customer centricity, to generate customer stickiness, we want to achieve the differentiation through digitization and how we will contribute and we must to sustainability.
Consequently, these strategic parameters/pillars will influence the way we assess potential candidates for bolt-on acquisition. With regards to implementations, where are we now? We have changed our operating model as of January 2022, more than two months ago. We have initiated across dormakaba 75 transformation projects in the following areas: [indiscernible] (00:18:10) efficiency, understandably, a major focus at this time [ph] and age (00:18:16). Digital offering in our global core are in accelerated mode. Go-to-market excellence in our core countries, we call that LITC, leadership in the core, one of which was investment in specification capabilities. Not a number game. Specification is crucial for our project business in order to ensure that we are able to influence at very advanced stage of the design phase and this is absolutely crucial for us to make sure that we are effective, efficient, and we have the right tools and the right people to drive these important capabilities. Organizational changes backed with additional and accelerated investment in IT to close remaining gaps. Reduce internal complexity to enable growth.
Of course, we will and we have been working tirelessly to ensure that region America up [ph] their game (00:19:33), bring it up to next level and continue to get to where they deserve to be in terms of performance. My leadership team and I have eyes firmly cast on the ball. Shape4Growth shall be our top priority number one. It is all about value creation once we successfully implement it. To our shareholders, how is that so? Successful implementations and execution of Shape4Growth is not, if not [indiscernible] (00:20:19), it's a must do.
When we achieve that, we are committed to deliver 3% to 5% organic growth every year as of this financial year 2021-2022. And adjusted EBITDA margin ranging from 16% to 18% from the year after, i.e. 2023-2024. And in the same year, 2023-2024, a return on capital employed, ROCE, of no less than 30%. And definitely, and not the least, our focus on sustainability will come true by delivering on industry-leading ESG. We strive to reduce carbon footprint of our purchases. We strive to reduce carbon emissions of our purchases from our suppliers as well. In short, we will stick to our plan as communicated on November 15, 2021 Capital Market Day.
With that I close my part. I will come back later. For now, I would like to hand it over to Bernd, whom you are very familiar with, to walk you through the insights of our financial performance. Bernd?
Thank you very much, Jim-Heng.
Thank you.
Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome from me, too. Over the course of the next slides, I will share some more details of our financial performance in the first half of financial year 2021/2022.
Let's start with an overview. Sales for the first half of 2021/2022 financial year increased by 10%. The major driver was organic growth, which contributed 6.6 percentage points. Adjusted EBITDA increased by 7.9%, while the adjusted EBITDA margin went down by 30 basis points against the prior-year period. Nevertheless, net profit was slightly higher than in the previous year. And, finally, we increased return on capital employed, our newly introduced return-driven KPI, as just explained by Jim-Heng, from 18.4% to 25.8%.
Let's move on to the sales development. The upper right part of the slide shows the drivers behind the change in sales compared with the previous year. Our sales increased organically by CHF 81 million or 6.6%. This increase was due to volume growth as well as higher sales prices. The contribution from higher sales prices was two percentage points. All segments were able to achieve organic growth with the strongest growth rates coming from AS APAC with 20% and AS DACH with 8.6%. It is important to mention that AS AMER also grew organically, achieving a growth rate of 5.7%.
Our M&A activities contributed a net increase in sales of CHF 30 million. This was driven by acquisitions in Australia and France, as well as by our divestment of the interior glass business. Unlike in previous years, currency translation contributed to sales growth as well. Due to the weaker Swiss franc against all major currencies, except the euro, the positive currency translation effect amounted to CHF 11 million. The factors mentioned in relation to sales also apply to our profitability during the period under review.
As you can see on the chart for EBITDA development, driven by organic growth as well as M&A activity, our adjusted EBITDA increased by 7.9% to CHF 193.5 million. Currency translation also had a positive effect on EBITDA. The corresponding adjusted EBITDA margin was 14.3%, which is 30 basis points lower than the previous year. This fall was mainly due to the impact of higher raw material, higher freight and higher labor costs, as well as product mix effects, which more than offset the positive impact of higher volume, of sales price increases, and cost management initiatives. The adjusted EBITDA includes CHF 9.2 million of adjustments, mainly related to the preparation and implementation of our new strategy, Shape4Growth. In the prior year period, the adjustments to EBITDA were positive by CHF 2.6 million. At the segment level, AS DACH was able to improve its adjusted EBITDA margin, mainly due to further progress on plant efficiency, especially at the Ennepetal Plant.
Let's turn next to the income statement. I already mentioned the change in net sales. So, the gross margin for the reporting period was 40.8%, which is 90 basis points below the previous year to the reasons I just explained when I commented on our EBITDA margin development. In accordance with our strategic focus on the relevance of innovation, we slightly increased our spending on R&D compared with the previous year. The R&D ratio is at 4%. We significantly improved our net financial result, thanks to a much more favorable interest rate environment for our debt portfolio. Our income tax rate remained unchanged at 23%. The total adjustments to EBIT for the period under review came to CHF 12.4 million, while in the prior year period, the amount was positive by CHF 2.6 million. In total, a net change of CHF 15 million.
I would like to remind you that starting with this financial year, we introduced the methodology of items affecting comparability. Thus, adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBIT to focus on the underlying financial performance by removing exceptional items outside the normal course of business, such as restructuring and reorganization, impairments, or changes in the scope of consolidation. This will help to improve transparency and allow a better understanding of performance and guidance. In total, we were able to slightly improve our net profit to CHF 100.6 million versus CHF 99.9 million for the previous year. This offset the net CHF 15 million of nonrecurring items, which have been adjusted as just explained.
Let's move onto the cash flow. Cash flow for the reporting period was significantly impacted by a strong increase in net working capital, particularly an increase in inventories, caused by higher volumes, safety stock for electronic components, and certain other raw materials, higher goods in transit due to freight issues, and higher raw material prices. This buildup is a result of significant supply chain challenges, as well as conscious decisions to prioritize business continuity and safeguard supply.
And the result, cash flow from operations decreased to CHF 88 million. In the prior year period, cash flow benefited from COVID-19-related cash scheme principles. The operating cash flow margin came to only 3.7% compared to 15.8% a year earlier. And how did we use this cash? First of all, as announced, we started to increase investments in our existing business. Capital expenditures amounted to CHF 36 million, which is equivalent to 2.7% of sales compared with 2.5% in the previous year.
In addition, we restarted M&A activities in line with our strategy. Including one divestment IGS, we closed five transactions during the period under review leading to M&A related net investments of almost CHF 70 million. As a result, free cash flow was negative CHF 54 million compared with the positive CHF 153 million in the prior-year period.
And finally, I would like to talk about the development of net debt. Net debt increased by around CHF 150 million against last year to CHF 708 million. The mix of our financial debt instruments changed during the first half of 2021-2022 as one of our two corporate bonds fell due in October 2021. The amount of CHF 360 million has been refinanced via our short-term syndicated credit facility. The second corporate bond worth CHF 320 million will fall due in October 2025. Dormakaba thus continues to have a solid financial profile. This is reflected in the leverage ratio of net debt-to-EBITDA of 1.9 times for the period under review which is unchanged on last year. We have further financial room for maneuver up to a leverage of 2.5 times. We could even push the ratio higher for a period of time.
And with this, I conclude my part of the presentation and hand back to our CEO, Jim-Heng, please.
Thank you, Bernd. Thank you. In the next few minutes, I will give you our full-year outlook for the current financial year. Before I get there, there are management changes which I would like to draw your attention to. First, I'm very pleased that Kaspar Kelterborn will be joining us as interim CFO as of 1st of April 2022. He will stay on until a permanent replacement for Bernd has been appointed. Kaspar is an experienced CFO coming with broad knowhow in a global industrial and publicly-listed environment. Kaspar's expertise and experience will be a great support for me and for dormakaba to move smoothly through this transition time, so that we can keep our eyes on the ball.
Next, Andy Jones has been appointed as my successor as President-Asia Pacific since January 12, 2022, this year. Andy is a seasoned industrialist, industrial leader with an impressive long-term track record in our market and he is highly regarded in the region.
Before we start our Q&A, I would like to give you information about our assessment of the current business environment, as well as the outlook for the financial year 2021/2022. The current business environment still categorized by uncertainties and lack of visibility. This is due to the COVID-19 pandemic and macroeconomic factors, such as potentially higher interest rates and geopolitical tensions as well as to the potential impact of a further deterioration of global supply chains and higher inflation. We will continue to focus on profitable growth, targeting market share gains and accelerating order backlog conversion. We will also focus on sales price increases to compensate for inflationary effects and support our margin progression.
Based on this, we confirm the outlook for the current financial year 2021-2022. We anticipate organic sales growth between 3% to 5%, as well as an adjusted EBITDA margin of slightly above 14.2%. This guidance is based on the assumption that there is no further supply chain deterioration, especially for electronic component, which would temporarily impact some of our high-margin businesses. Further, it also does not take into account any potential impact resulting from the currently escalating conflict between Russia and the Ukraine.
We are now ready to take your questions. Ladies and gentlemen, for that, I hand it over to operator. Operator, please.
We will now begin the Q&A session. [Operator Instructions] Please limit yourself to one question and one follow up. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from Maidi Rizk from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon, Jim, Bernd and [ph] Sigge (00:36:03). I'll stick to two. And thanks for the opportunity to ask questions. So, the first one for you, Jim. Just perhaps a high level question. Shape4Growth has been initiated by your predecessor. You stated that you're backing it. I'm just wondering if you could just, as we're still getting to know you, if you could just talk about your industry experience prior to dormakaba. So, we know that the integration was successful in the division that you were heading, Asia-Pac. But perhaps can you talk about your experience in turning around access control businesses prior to dormakaba. I'll start there.
You would like to lead on the second question, or you wait for me to answer the first. Good afternoon.
Yes. Just go ahead and I'll...
Thank you.
...take them one at a time.
Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for your questions. If I hear you correctly, you ask that we are back to Shape4Growth. I have to be careful with that because I was never out of Shape4Growth. So, I just want to make a correction here. I don't think that's what you meant. But for the audience, it's very important for me to make that comment. I contributed to Shape4Growth in my prior capacity as Asia-Pacific COO. And now that I'm in this new capacity, I continue to believe in Shape4Growth and this is what I would like to bring together with my team to a new level. So, it's different capacity here that we are talking about.
Now, prior to dormakaba, I have had quite a number of years that I spend, continue to be in this industry, and notably, my years spent with one of our competition, Assa Abloy. I was able to move businesses in Southeast Asia from a relative unknown to a larger player through specification driving and focusing on customer-centricity. I was part of the team in China during my days in Assa Abloy that grew our business again by focusing on driving pre-sales influence and pretty much total solution. I have also experienced interesting development in India whereby we have grown the market together with our partner to a level by capitalizing on a lot of ensuring that customer pain points were addressed. So, I hope that gives you some color of what I have done previously before joining dormakaba.
Thank you very much. The second one is on how should we think about the EBITDA bridge in the second half. So, perhaps different components here. Number one is on pricing. My understanding is you've done 2% in H1, which is shy of what your main competitor in Europe has been able to achieve over the same period, although that you've had slightly higher volumes than them. Like what sort of price increases should we expect in the second half of the year? And how should we think about the price cost equation in H2?
Rizk, I will take that question. I think, as I just mentioned during my introduction report, we achieved so far a price increase of 2% throughout our portfolio. Our underlying assumption for the full year remains, as we indicated already at the end of last year, that we achieve a price increase throughout the entire portfolio by 3%. And the expectation is, as you could see, that we had a negative squeeze in the first half that based on what we know today, that we will be able to slightly close that negative squeeze to neutralize the squeeze. So, we are optimistic to fully offset the impact of higher raw material costs and other additional costs from freight and labor in our – in the second half. That's the underlying assumption, which is also built into the outlook which you have just seen.
Okay. Thank you very much.
Rizk, thank you.
The next question is from Martin Flueckiger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. I'll take one at a time. Firstly, coming back to your organic growth outlook for the full year, that 3% to 5%. Now, I'm trying to do the math here. If I assume the upper end, i.e., 5%, I would get a lower sales figure, absolute for the group as a whole in the second half. And that's – pre-COVID, the seasonality pattern was a different one that you were CHF 20 million, CHF 30 million, CHF 40 million higher in the second half versus the first one now. Just trying to figure out, what could be the reason here for you being a little bit more cautious on H2 apart from the geopolitical discussion, of course? That would be my first question.
Yeah.
And I'll take a second one afterwards, please.
Thank you, Martin, for your questions. We do not expect a major change in our underlying demand across dormakaba. However, as I stated earlier, first half of this financial year, in particular, Asia-Pacific but not limited to Asia-Pacific, there were post-COVID catch-up that benefited us. That's kind of a headwind – tailwind. So, that benefited us. So, that is one first element.
And we also know, I mean, we remain cautious that in the coming months, a high level of uncertainty underlying due to geopolitical tensions. We didn't know then last week, now we know what we know better, that we will have a ripple effect, we hope not. Supply chain topic and shortages of electronic components. So, the recent escalations of Russia and Ukraine just add more mist to the outlook. Hence, we guided to 3% to 5% growth here, Martin.
Okay. Got it. Thanks. And my second question is regarding the divestment process of Mesker. Just wondering whether you could give us a little bit more flesh on the bone and how far advanced you are and if there's any particular period where you – by when you think will have divested Mesker.
What I can say is that we make progress since we communicated on Capital Market Day in November 15 that we had a structured process of divesting Mesker. We continue to be in the process. Relative to November 15, we make progress.
Okay. Thanks.
Thank you.
The next question is from Patrick Rafaisz from UBS. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you for taking my questions. The first will be a follow-up from Martin's question on the implied growth outlook for the second half because if we take the midpoint or even the higher end of the range and deduct pricing, which would likely be around 4%, right, that implies actually flat volumes in your second half. And from your comments, I gather that Key & Wall will – should accelerate assuming execution is picking up, right, and the order books look good. AsiaPac still growing even if [ph] comps become (00:45:32) tougher. So, that leaves me thinking where should we – when should we anticipate negative volumes in order to make the maths work here? Thanks.
Thank you for asking that question. I did my math as well. Let me specifically address the topic of Key & Walls. This is a project business and I'm very familiar with project business. The project business could only be converted once the developer has the desire and the appetite, had the muscle, and had the resources, and had the financial ability, had already lined up activities and events that they would like to trigger a conversion that will come, and an order will come our way. Otherwise, it remains as a contract awarded.
And our Movable Wall Systems depend very heavily on project business. And this is very different from fast moving product sales. And of course, the other part of our business is really services and other. Specifically to Key & Wall, we have a record high orders intake and backlog. Your guess is as good as my guess when will this project be converted. We chose not to overpromise and backfire when we underdeliver.
With regards to Asia Pacific, it is clearly a case of first half of this financial year whereby my region benefited from demand that was somehow slowed down during COVID. This will not repeat in the second half. And that is an important contributor. Hence, we continue to guide the market of a 3% to 5% organic growth, which we are rather comfortable within the range knowing that we have returned 6.6% in the first half on those caveats that by now we can all remember so well; supply chain, electronics, escalating tension between Ukraine and Russia, what have you. So, this shall be my current guidance.
Okay. Okay. Thanks for these clarifications. And if I may, just another question on cash flow in the second half. You explained well what happened with the working capital and the inventories in the first half. You think you will have to carry these safety stocks through the second half as well or when shall we anticipate a normalization setting in for your inventory levels?
Patrick, I'll take that question. So again, we have some underlying assumptions on the second half. However, we don't know what we don't know yet. We continued to prioritize availability of stock to be able to deliver to the market. This is for us the most important priority. While, second, we obviously believe that the current level of inventories is not something which we would like to continue mid to long term. Currently, the assumption is that the level will normalize, not entirely throughout the second half, but we will see some normalization. If circumstances changes, we might change again our priorities.
Excellent. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Martin.
The next question is from Basic Emrah from Baader Helvea. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good afternoon. Thank you very much. My first question would be regarding the one-offs that you're having. Is it still that you're planning to spend around CHF 25 million for the full year? And also on top of it, I think you've mentioned last year that you have some IT costs that you plan to – I mean, you're going to have OpEx costs around CHF 15 million, that the rest will be cash related. Is that still the case? And, overall, just could you shed some light of this one-off costs that you have? Like what is going into that? And then I will have a follow-on question.
Okay. I will take those questions. So, the first question, I would like to make reference to the Capital Market Day presentation and especially to page 75. That might be a good reference point. So, in the first half, we basically spent, out of the CHF 15 million IT cost, we spent CHF 5 million and our expectation is that we will spend the remainder in the second half, so the CHF 10 million. And in terms of other costs, we have spent so far CHF 7 million.
So, there is also a smaller piece to go for the second half. In terms of severance costs, we indicated that we expect to reduce our workforce by around 300 FTEs. This is still the case and is confirmed. However, we have not yet finalized this restructuring plan. And in order to be able to implement the provision, we need to finalize this plan first. Our current assumption is that we will finalize the restructuring plan in the remainder of the second half. And what I can indicate, the CHF 25 million severance costs which we indicated will be absolutely the cap. So most likely, we will not spend the entire amount, but more details to come once we finalize the restructuring plan and once we disclose the second half results.
With regard to your second question, in the items affecting comparability, you asked what is included. To give you an overall idea, I think I already explained during my presentation that we include costs for reorganization and restructuring. We include also costs related to a change in the scope of consolidation. And we also include other one-off costs in the first half. The main elements, which we have included, are the costs to define and implement the Shape4Growth strategy. And in addition, the IT costs, which we deem to be in part of acceleration of our IT efforts.
All right. So these CHF 12 million so far at the first half, they are there. We don't have the CHF 25 million severance costs included yet. Not at all, right?
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah.
Okay. Okay. Then, yes, actually, I still have a follow-up question if that will be okay. Or just as second question. That will be regarding the EBITDA margin development. So out of these 30 bps decrease, how much – can you quantify how much is owed to freight and labor costs? Or another question, if we wouldn't have these disruptions, what would have the margin development approximately looked like?
Okay. So we are not disclosing more detail on the impact of additional – of certain elements, such as raw material, freight and labor. However, what I can share with you is the most significant impact comes from raw materials. The second largest impact comes from labor, and the third largest is freight.
All right. Thank you very much.
Thank you.
We have a follow-up question from Maidi Rizk from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Yes. So, hi again. Thanks for taking the follow-up. Just perhaps, Bernd, a bit of clarification, when you say you're expecting price to cost inflation to neutralize in H2, does that include the procurement savings that you sort of announced at the CMD, and I think that was 1% to 2% net savings on a CHF 1.2 billion spend? And can you just remind us about how much savings should we assume for this program this year?
Okay. So at the time of the Capital Market Day, we indicated that our expectation for procurement benefits as part of Shape4Growth is in the magnitude of 1 to 2 percentage points per annum, and this relates to a total spend of roughly CHF 1.2 billion. What I can share with you is that given the current business environment where we are in, we are at the lower end of the procurement savings. However, still in the range. With regards to the squeeze, procurement is an integrated part of our approach to compensate for raw material price inflation, for freight and labor costs, so it's included here in the squeeze.
Thank you very much. And then, if I move to the other part of the sort of EBIT bridge, which is the operating – what you call operating model and SG&A and the CHF 30 million savings. My understanding is this is more backend loaded, so we shouldn't expect anything here at least this year.
Yeah, you're right. You should not expect significant saving this year. We expect already the first savings in the next financial year and going back to our Capital Market presentation, what I can confirm is that we expect in the next year 40% of the savings to be realized, while the full potential, the full run rate will be available the year after.
Okay. Thank you very much. The last one is really about your partnership with Latch. So my understanding is it is currently solely focused on the European residential business of them. I don't know if you have any thoughts on what their ambition is in Europe and is there scope to expand the cooperation to Americas? My understanding they are pretty strong on the non-residential side in the US.
Thank you for the question. Again, it's a very interesting one because it addressed what dormakaba can do in terms of partnership in order to have a strategic reach so that we become a more integrated complete solution provider. Latch is one step in the right direction.
However, I have to say that it is still early day for us. I think we announced that on Capital Market Day or slightly later that this is happening. I would want to give it a period of time for us to decide if it works in Europe and not just dormakaba. This is a strategic partnership that it is also equally important for Latch to tell us how is that going to work out in the initial phase. So, therefore, my question is that increasingly at the start, it looks promising. Otherwise, you would not have come into that partnership. But we need more time. We need more time in order to see if that is equally making sense for us, for the rest of dormakaba.
Okay. And thank you very much and good luck, Bernd, on your future endeavors.
Thanks, Rizk.
Thank you. Thanks a lot. Thanks for your well-wishes. [indiscernible] (00:58:24).
The next question is from Remo Rosenau from Helvetische Bank. Please go ahead.
Yes. Thank you. About the potential disposal of Mesker. In 2016, you paid $142.5 million. So all the goodwill was, of course, written off against the equity immediately. But still, by the time of disposal, do you reckon that there might still be a book loss, even excluding the whole goodwill, which is not on the balance sheet anymore?
Okay, and I take this question. So I think just to frame it a little bit what our accounting principles are, according to [indiscernible] (00:59:17), that at the time of an acquisition, we fully write the goodwill against equity. So we offset it against equity without any P&L impact. This was the way we also handled Mesker.
At the time, the goodwill was roughly, if I'm not mistaken, CHF 95 million or so. And so it was deducted against the equity. Later on, what we did, and I explained that during, I think, the Capital Market Day, we internally transferred one piece of the business, which we call architectural hardware from the Mesker business into our Door Hardware organization in the US. And related to this internal transaction, we also transferred a certain part of the goodwill into to this Door Hardware business. So the remaining goodwill from Mesker, which is now part of the transaction, is roughly CHF 50 million. And if and when we are going to close such a transaction, this goodwill needs to be recycled, so it will be part of the transaction. It will also go through the P&L. We will see an impact from that goodwill in our P&L as well at the time of the transaction.
Yeah. That's clear. So the thing is, so you have to recycle the goodwill, let's say, CHF 50 million, then [indiscernible] (01:00:57) the price you get and the difference will be written off, which is a noncash thing, of course. My question is, will the write-off be even bigger than the goodwill?
Yeah. Okay.
So, you know.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I got your point. So, obviously, Mesker today also has certain net assets in the balance sheet. And those net assets are in the magnitude of, let's say, roughly CHF 20 million. And so subject to the divestment agreement and the divestment price, we will see additional impacts on the one or the other side related to those net asset values.
Okay. Got it. Okay. Thank you.
Thank you. [Operator Instructions]
The next question is a follow-up question from Martin Flueckiger from Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thanks for taking my follow-ups. Actually, I've got two. Firstly, for Bernd, maybe the tax rate at 23% was a little bit lower than what I had expected. I was just wondering whether you could provide us an update on your guidance with respect to the tax rate in the second half and also the next, say, two, three years if possible. And I'll wait for my second question.
Okay. Yeah, Martin, so, tax, income tax rate is favorable at 23% for the first half. We expect based on the current underlying assumption that it might slightly increase for the full financial year. Obviously, we indicated earlier that we expect the tax rate to go up midterm and even for the current financial year to something in the magnitude of 25% to 26%. That is still my mid- to long-term guidance based on the profit profile of our company on a global level, so 25% to 26% income tax rate going forward.
For the current financial year, it might be lower. But again, if we are able to close the Mesker transaction, it might also have a slightly negative impact on the income tax rate. So if we exclude Mesker for the time being, then I would indicate to you that it would be slightly more favorable than 25% to 26% long term.
Can we say Mesker might have a slightly negative impact, you mean it could lower the tax rate?
It could lead to a higher income tax rate because we most likely...
How higher?
...not able to take full advantage of the negative contribution in our tax rate.
Okay. Got it. Thanks. And then my second question is on Bernd's replacement Kaspar Kelterborn, looks like a seasoned guy to me from his CV, and I was just wondering why you consider him only as Interim CFO and not as a permanent one?
Martin?
Yes.
Well, it's interesting that you asked me that question because the question could equally be directed to Kaspar, because we had an open discussion. Let me put it – let me frame it this way. We had our selection criterias for what we believe to be the right criteria that we must have to put Bernd's replacement in place. And we diligently and with strict discipline applied that. And then, that came out with a pipeline that we are now proceeding, again, diligently trying to come to a final decision.
We have a separate workstream that will allow us a Plan B. So, Kaspar came from the Plan B workstream. He was not into the Plan A. And that's where we are, and we are happy to have him, to step into the interim role.
Got it. Thanks.
You're welcome.
There are no more questions at this time. I would now like to turn the conference back over to you, gentlemen, for any closing remarks.
Thank you so much. So it is my pleasure, together with Bernd, to explain our result for the first half, and I will continue to emphasize that dormakaba remain an extremely healthy company, and execution is top of our mind from our management team and the senior leadership team as well.
So with that, I would like to close this session, and I would like to thank you for your participations, for your questions, for your attention and for your care. Goodbye.
Goodbye.