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Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thanks for joining METRO Q2 2021/'22 Results Presentation Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
I would now like to turn the conference over to Dr. Steffen Greubel, CEO of METRO AG. Please go ahead, sir.
Yes. Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to our Q2 '21/'22 results call. I'm very happy to walk you through our most recent business developments. And as always, our agenda is consisting of 3 parts: first, highlights of the quarter, I will do that. Then second, Christian, who is sitting next to me, our CFO, Christian Baier, is walking us through the financial section. And then, of course, we reserve proper time for Q&A.
So let's directly start with a summary of, I have to say, very ambiguous quarter. Of course, we do have the war in Ukraine that is impacting our business. For example, we had war-related bookings that drove down our EPS by EUR 0.60.
But nonetheless, 85% of the business is going good. It's outside of Russia and Ukraine. So yet sales and EBITDA figures are quite promising, and they are exceeding pre-COVID levels. There is, of course, inflation support in the figures.
But nevertheless, we see really operational progress in the execution of our sCore strategy that we presented to, sort of say, the world in our Capital Market Day in January. So we are also progressing on that one.
We see our multichannel opportunity, the foundation, the basis of our strategy, unchanged. Gastronomy is coming back. Digital is going to play a more and more important role. We see that FSD is growing. It's going to be important also for the future. So the basis for our strategy remains unchanged.
We, thus, raised the outlook for '21/'22. In April, of course, we are confirming that on basing off a very good Easter business, we did that. And business is still doing good, so we are quite confident that we are comfortable with the raised guidance.
So let's go a bit more in detail, and let's start with war. Let's start with the impact of the war in Ukraine. The focus of the entire Management Board and the organization is very much in supporting our Ukrainian colleagues, our Ukrainian operation, METRO Ukraine. So we did plenty of activities, not only here from the headquarter but also from the neighboring and non-neighboring countries. So the engagement of the entire organization to support Ukraine is very, very high and number -- priority #1.
So the support, you can say, is on the one hand side, humanitarian. So we had collected donations more than EUR 2 million. We continue to pay salaries. Nevertheless, if the people are working or in army, we continue to pay them. We're directly supporting employees. We are supporting refugees directly. And then of course, we are also supporting the financial -- or the operations with financial aid in Ukraine, might be help with locations with suppliers. It might be funding. So this is the priority #1 for all of us, to really help the Ukrainian business.
You might wonder how business is under war conditions. We managed to still keep 20 -- on average, 20 of our 26 stores open. Of course, supply chain is challenged, is interrupted. But with the help of our neighboring countries, we still managed to run a working food infrastructure in a country under war condition.
The business in Ukraine, until the war started, was very, very good, was growing 2 digits. It was one of our best companies in terms of wholesale proposition. So in the first half of the year, even with the impacts of war, we're still looking at a growth of 10%. Of course, the tendency is now declining since March, already was showing minus 45% in sales, which is obviously due to war conditions. And then subsequently and consequently, we also had to book EUR 64 million in impairments for several reasons in Q2 during this war. So that's Ukraine. So that's our priority #1, to really support operations and people there.
Talking war, we also have to talk about Russia. I mean we made our position clear that we, for various reasons, continue our operation in Russia. You can believe that this is not an easy decision, also not personally an easy decision. It's obviously a dilemma. But we still feel very responsible for our 10,000 employees there. We are selling food there. It's not a high technology. It's a basic -- business of basic supply. And what you have to know, our operations there are very local. It's very independent. It's 90% local sourcing. It's more than 90 -- to be precise 93% in food. So this is basic supply, and we feel this responsibility for our people and their family, and no need to say that we are compliant with sanctions and with all applicable sanctions.
The business, when you look at the figures, I would say it's stable. FX and impairments already hit our results. You -- I mean we are reporting Russia as a segment separately, so you might wonder the EUR 6 million investments that you see. This is all prewar. We stopped all growth investments. We reduced advertising. I mean we are running the business now in a very basic mode, I would say, and everything which is in terms of expansion or something like that is completely halted.
We see momentum coming down now in sales in April. Until March, I would say it was okay. We also had some stock-up purchases when the war started. But now we really see business coming down in April, and we also expect the continuation of this slowing down of the business to a certain extent also in the second half of the year.
What is very important is that we are operating in a crisis committee. We are daily updating ourselves on the latest developments. It's a lot of variables in this decision. I can guarantee you that we are managing that topic in a very, very diligent way and that we are evaluating our decision, all the variables in a constant real-time manner.
So let's talk about business a little bit more in detail. Again, 85% of our business has not a direct implication from the war in Ukraine. So we did some good progress in the first half of the year. You see first half of the year figures now on that chart. Our strategic customer share consisting of trade and HoReCa customers is growing 8 percentage points. So that's substantial. We are now looking at 68% sales share with strategic customers.
We were talking about sales force as one of the strategic elements of the strategic measures to increase FSD and digital. We upgraded our sales force. We are very happy that we have 350 more people in the field -- on the field that are also -- this is 5% more. That is also helping us to ensure the growth also for the future. It's not that easy to get those people, so I'm quite proud actually to say that we managed to really get 350 people in our operation.
Own brand sales, another strategic important KPI figure, is growing. It's 18% now. The tendency is still very, very good. This is 3 percentage points more than before. And the trend is a very solid and stable one.
Customer feedback, our NPS is good for the strategic customer despite the fact that we are looking at increasing prices and inflation, which might actually be not so nice message to some of the customers. We are still having a better feedback from our customers. They are very much seeing also our efforts to professionalize our operation to become more wholesale, and we're getting good feedback for that.
And then also, we kept on investing in the business. I mean you've seen that we signed AGM before. We now closed it. We are full -- with full energy now working on the integration of the 7 stores and of the FSD business into our METRO Austrian operations. So we really feel that this is going in exactly the right direction.
Talking portfolio, talking acquisition. We also announced that we signed and closed Eijsink. Eijsink is a Dutch-based provider of point-of-sale payment system for restaurants. This is not sort of a crazy start-up. This is an established professional company operating since more than 20 years in Netherlands. It has 8,000 customers. It has a leading-edge technology called booq.
It's going to run -- it's cloud-based. It runs on every system you can imagine. It's very easy to handle, and it's a good supplement of our existing DISH offerings that is helping digitize the processes of our customers. We now are able to also digitize the central process of our customers, which is the payment. So this is a strategic, very relevant addition to our portfolio. We will now integrate that, and then we will scale that to our 1.6 million METRO hospitality customers. Do remember, we aim that 2030, every second of this customer, and the basis is still growing. It will have a digital tool.
So this tool booq, together with DISH, is going to help us to achieve that goal. So the idea is really to scale it now up and roll it out to 2 European countries per year.
You might remember the strategic visual of the 3 circles that is representing our multichannel sCore strategy. Let's look at how these individual figures, these individual channels are developing. We see the repositioning of the stores is one of the strategic elements, with 14% sales increase. So it's increasing. We see growth in FSD faster, 73% sales. We see in the last months 22%, which is all-time high. It's record.
And it's continued to be the 350 sales reps are doing something to really push that number for us and will help also even -- especially for the future to really grow when they achieve their full productivity because it's still a ramp-up phase. So they don't have full productivity yet. So we're looking very proud to those figures, and we are also optimistic for the future on that one.
And METRO Markets is in full swing in terms of rollout, it's 166% -- it's our marketplace -- more. This is still Spain and Germany. We will soon roll it out to Portugal and Italy. So we are also progressing on the digital side.
And thus, we are confirming our 2030 sCore targets. To remind, it's 1.2x more stores sales, it's 3x more FSD, and it's a EUR 3 billion net sales in marketplace. So we are confirming that. We are implementing that. We are bringing that every day to life, and we also keep on investing it.
So with having said that, I would like to hand over now to Christian Baier.
Yes. Thank you, Steffen, and good morning, everyone. Also from a financial perspective, we look at an ambiguous Q2. On the one hand, we certainly see strong progress on the top line level and on EBITDA. We have achieved 26% sales growth at constant currency versus PY. This was driven by our strategic customers recovering after termination of COVID-related restrictions. It was also driven by an increasing inflation and also by the good progress on the strategy execution. There, we see strong growth through all parts of our multichannel model. And we have also been able to translate this top line growth to the EBITDA line with a continuous focus on productivity.
On the other hand, though, war leads to impairments in Ukraine and in Russia and has a marked impact on the net financial result. Altogether, this drives down EPS and free cash flow for the quarter. When we take those effects into account, we have upgraded our fiscal year guidance for sales and EBITDA in April. However, at the same time, the war-related bookings are likely to lead to negative EPS for the year.
So let's look at some details now where the overall group performance is built on strong regions. Three of our regions have contributed to our growth in sales, with double-digit increases. The increase in adjusted EBITDA is driven mainly by the segment West. When we look now into it more specifically, in Germany, reported sales increased by 3% versus PY, and we see a continuingly good development of Rungis Express. On the HoReCa sales growth, there, we overcompensated the slight decrease in tobacco and SCO sales in METRO Germany. The HoReCa business, and we look at this a bit later, again outperformed the overall HoReCa market in Germany. The decline of the adjusted EBITDA to minus EUR 4 million is mainly due to investments into a strengthened FSD business, where we are making very strong progress, and it's also based on somewhat higher personnel cost that's on wage increases but, more importantly, also on short-term-work-related topics due to COVID in the prior year comparison base.
In the segment West, reported sales significantly increased by 48% and have reached EUR 2.5 billion. There, all countries contributed to this with double-digit growth rates. The largest sales growth was recorded in France, Italy and Portugal, where growth rates were over 50%. The adjusted EBITDA in West increased to EUR 52 million after minus EUR 12 million in the last year, and this is mainly due to the good sales development.
In Russia, sales in local currency increased by 16% while reported sales increased by 8% to EUR 0.6 billion. Adjusted EBITDA at constant currency increased by EUR 6 million compared to previous year.
When we look into the segment East, sales in local currency increased by 22% and are above pre-COVID levels. Reported sales grew slightly less by 17% to EUR 2.1 billion due to negative currency effects mostly in Turkey. The recovery of the HoReCa industry contributed to this positive development in almost all countries. In Ukraine, Q2 sales decreased by 5.5%, with minus 45% sales decrease in March, which is certainly heavily affected by the war. Turkey achieved the highest sales growth, strongly supported by inflation, but also continuous volume increases. The adjusted EBITDA decreased to EUR 44 million, mainly due to war-related stock write-offs in Ukraine of around EUR 20 million. Adjusted for exchange rate effects, the EBITDA declined by minus EUR 6 million. However, if we would take not into account the situation in Ukraine, EBITDA would have increased by EUR 16 million in that quarter.
In the segment Others, adjusted EBITDA amounted to EUR 31 million and slightly increased compared to the previous year. There are some effects from the reassessment of transaction-related provisions amounting to a low double-digit million euro amount, which had a positive impact in the current year. However, also in the prior year, there was broadly the same number of a positive impact. And you can look into the backup of the presentation for any one-off effects in the segment Others for the prior year.
So how does this operational performance translate into our market share development in our key HoReCa markets? Also in Q2, METRO has continuously developed above the markets, and we see an even increasing gap against market in all key countries. This positive Q2 trend is driven from our conviction by METRO being the trusted source also for stock-up purchases for many customers really ramping up their business and also by our aggressive restart campaigns that are not fully matched by FSD competitors. And there, we link it also to our strong availability and customer loyalty that we have especially built during the COVID times.
Overall, the consumer spending remains certainly mostly below precrisis levels, and it might be the high inflation that may be contributing to consumers spending less. However, we are generating market shares. And as you can see in the chart, in all countries, we are at or above the levels on the HoReCa side as than we were before. We also sense the competitive advantage of our multichannel approach is working in volatile times and also in more structurally growing situations, so therefore, a good balance that we can provide with our business model and our portfolio of customers.
When we sum up the segments, we have achieved 26% FX-adjusted sales growth and have reached EUR 6.2 billion of sales. And therefore, in total, we exceed the prepandemic level. This was driven not only by the HoReCa development but also by inflation. Not only all segments but also all channels have contributed to that.
When we look at store sales, FSD and METRO Markets, the 3 key pillars there from a channel perspective, store sales increased by 14% to EUR 4.9 billion. FSD sales increased by 73% to EUR 1.4 billion and have reached in that quarter a record delivery sales share of 22%. And on the METRO Markets side, we have generated EUR 16 million of P&L sales, an increase of 166% versus previous year, and these are the P&L sales. Just for your information, the marketplace sales are roughly double of that amount. And this is driven by the continuously strong development of the marketplace in Germany as well as the expansion into Spain, and as you know, this year, we are expanding into further countries.
The sales recovery was also reflected in the earnings development, where adjusted EBITDA reached EUR 157 million compared to EUR 114 million in the prior year. EBITDA rose to EUR 169 million and exceeds also the prepandemic levels despite the war-related stock write-offs. In the Q2 EBITDA, this includes also a small real estate gain from selling a development plot in Warsaw.
Let's now move further down the P&L, where depreciation is significantly above PY levels, and that's mainly due to EUR 114 million of goodwill and asset impairments for Ukraine and for Russia, and we have indicated those numbers on the chart. As a result, EBIT decreased significantly. While the interest and investment result improved due to lower finance lease expenses, net financial result, this decreased significantly in light of swap closeouts with respect to the Russian ruble, and this effect amounts to roughly EUR 100 million. The income tax is unchanged compared to previous year. In summary, all mentioned effects of the war have an impact of more than negative EUR 0.60 on earnings per share, and therefore, Q2 earnings per share decreased in total by minus EUR 0.42 versus the prior year.
Let's now move to the cash flow perspective, where we start with the operating cash flow. There, the net working capital seasonality as well as war-related impact led to a negative operating cash flow. Especially, the softer net working capital development leads to a decrease versus Q2 '20/'21. The net working capital development comes after a strong performance in Q1 and also includes higher inventory levels as we prioritized product availability as well as increased receivables from ramping up our FSD business, which commercially shows that we are progressing very well also in that respect.
The investments increased mainly due to higher cash investments in the area of F-gas replacement and local IT in the countries that are also prone to further growth. On the divestment side, this mainly includes the real estate transaction in Warsaw that I mentioned, and the transactions and related cash-ins are more back-end loaded in this year compared to prior year, which also explains a significant part of the difference in free cash flow.
In the other position, this is mainly driven by the above-mentioned negative impact from war-related swap closeouts. And in sum, when we look at the overall free cash flow, we state that basically the change in the mix of business seasonality, the divestment phasing and also the war-related impact leads to a free cash flow of minus EUR 759 million compared to the minus EUR 438 million in the prior year. The corresponding increase in net debt compared to Q1 '21/'22 results. However, net debt stays well below the Q2 '20/'21 levels of EUR 4.5 billion.
So when we distill this performance into our overall guidance, the HoReCa recovery and the effects from inflation enabled us to reach strong sales and EBITDA growth in H1 '21/'22 versus the prior year. At the same time, for H2, we are looking at a much stronger comparison base from the prior year where we were growing double digit. This brings us to a guidance of around 9% to 15% sales growth compared to the prior year and an adjusted EBITDA slightly to moderately above the prior year as upgraded on the 21st of April '22.
The outlook assumes stable exchange rates and no further adjustments to the portfolio. We certainly would see any further escalation of the war and/or broader sanctions could lead to additional negative effects on the business, especially in Ukraine and Russia.
The sales in the West and East segments are expected to grow at disproportionately high rates. In Germany, we would see disproportionately lower growth that is expected there, and the decrease compared to the prior year is expected for Russia. The development of the adjusted EBITDA will follow the sales development in the segment, except for the East segment. There, due to war-related impairment losses on inventories and operational impairments in Ukraine, a decline compared to the prior year is expected for the segment East.
When looking at items below EBITDA, we confirm our expectation of approximately EUR 100 million of real estate gains and minor transformation effects from '20/'21 measures. We have updated our expectation on a number of specific other items, for example, on D&A, where we now expect EUR 950 million, which increased due to the impairment that we have seen in Q2.
And in Q2, the net financial result, as mentioned, was impacted by the ruble-related effects of around EUR 100 million as mentioned. And we, therefore, expect a more negative financial result of around minus EUR 320 million. In light of the high market volatility and limited liquidity and hedging products, there might be a further noncash impact in Q3 and Q4. On the tax expense, we expect roughly EUR 175 million, which is in line with our increased EBITDA expectations.
Looking at the cash investments and our previous range of EUR 500 million to EUR 600 million, we now expect to be at the lower end of this range. In total and also linked to the 2 acquisitions of Eijsink and AGM, we would see a slightly growing net debt, which is also linked to some of the war-related effects. As a result of these updated expectations, we foresee a negative EPS for the year.
So let's take a step back on what we have achieved from an operational development perspective. Sales and EBITDA are growing structurally and this despite an extreme market situation. This confirms the strength of our strategic direction, and therefore, we continue the execution of the sCore strategy and reconfirm our midterm ambition of 3% to 5% sales and EBITDA CAGR in the periods '22 to '25.
With that, we conclude our presentation, and Steffen and I are now happy to take your questions.
[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Fabienne Caron from Kepler Cheuvreux.
Three questions from my side. The first one, on inflation. Could you share with us, out of the 26%, how much was inflation for the group in Q2?
The second question will be regarding free cash flow. Christian, could you help us a bit regarding what to expect for the full year for the working capital? And could you share with us as well what the weight of Russia in your free cash flow?
And finally, more on the outlook for the HoReCa business. You shared with us a very detailed outlook for top line, which is very useful for Q2 -- for H2, sorry. How do you expect the HoReCa market to evolve if we look at volume and inflation in H2, please?
Yes. Thank you very much for the questions. We just discussed who's answering what. Let me start with #3 first, outlook for HoReCa.
So we do see still a positive outlook for HoReCa for the rest of the year. The individual strong HoReCa markets like Spain, like France, like also Germany are growing good. We're seeing when we're talking to customer also, that is developing good and strongly. Of course, there's impact from inflation to be expected in downtrading and so on. But nevertheless, we see the positive feedback over compensating rather the negative one. So we still look at a positive expectation for the HoReCa market. And on the same hand, of course, we see sort of a slowing down, as I already said in my speech, of Russia and Ukraine also for the second half of the year.
Yes. And then, Fabienne, very happy to basically take your questions with respect to inflation and net working capital.
On the inflation side, we see in Q2, broadly 10% to 11% support that we do have there. In the 6 months period, it's roughly between 8% and 10% of support.
With respect to the free cash flow perspective and the net working capital side of things, while we have had a significantly positive impact in the last year, we do expect a negative impact somewhat this year in about the same range, around the negative EUR 100 million. And this is especially driven as we are ramping up significantly on the FSD side, where some receivables are being done there. And certainly, on the inventory side of things, we are moving ahead with respect to ensuring availability. However, this is certainly much more balanced than with the payables on our end.
With respect to the Russia situation in the free cash flow, you broadly can count on historical numbers of EUR 140 million this year. With the expected reduction that we would see in the second half of the year, that number would probably go down to around EUR 100 million in very rough terms.
Our next question is from the line of Xavier Le Mené from BofA Securities.
So 3 questions, if I may. Just back on Russia. So the comment you made on free cash flow is, of course, very important. But what are the scenarios you're going to see in the coming months, in the coming years? You said that already you saw a slowdown in April. But would you be able to quantify that, just to get an idea of where we're going and potentially have also some thinking about fiscal year '23? That would be very interesting. And just a technical one, but you've seen, of course, a negative impact with the ruble in Q2. With the ruble significantly going up, should we expect actually that negative impact to reverse in Q3 for Russia?
The second one is about your performance in Germany. So you already elaborate why the profit was down. But what should we expect going forward? Should we still expect investment in FSD to impact the profitability for the rest of the year in Germany? And how long will it take for you to start to see the benefit of your investment on the margin side?
Yes. Thank you very much for the question. Let me start answering #1 and then continuing with 3 before I hand then over to Christian for #2.
Number one, Russia, of course, we -- I mean it's a very volatile situation. And I mean when we are looking back 3 months, then nobody would have expected a situation like that in the morning like that today. So I mean it's characterized by volatility. The only thing -- and we don't know. The only thing which we are doing is we are preparing scenarios, and of course, we're looking in every potential scenario and the impact of our business. But since the situation is so volatile, it's really hard to say and make a prediction -- a precise prediction how the situation is going to be in the future.
Regarding Germany, we continue to invest in FSD. We see also that the profitability of the FSD business, per se, is very much driven by the growth we are achieving, and it's improving. And we will see and we are already seeing benefits from the investments as of now. And we expect Germany also, it's going to be a transformation. So it's going to be a bit slower than maybe others. But we will continue to invest, and we will also see then the impact not only on the top but also on the bottom line.
And then I'm happy to take your question with respect to the ruble. I think a few statements there.
First of all, we are talking here about intercompany effects in the other financial results that would still provide volatility down the road. Secondly, we are talking about noncash effects, also if there is volatility in that other financial results. And with respect to the development at the current FX rates, which, I think, we would, probably most of us, agree that we're looking at reasonably artificial ruble exchange rates, that we do see there we would have an additional negative impact. In case the ruble actually weakens, there would be more positive developments happening in that other financial result and, again, noncash effects.
The next question is from the line of [ Thomas Klann ] from Gutmann Finanz Strategien AG.
Yes. [ Thomas Klann ] speaking. Regarding the supply chain for the next couple of, say, 1 year, is there any disruption to come? Or what is your quick caution to have no empty storage facilities in your stores? How do you deal with it? And what is the biggest problem so far?
Okay. Let me take that one. Thank you very much for the question. Of course, the supply chain is impacted by different things, right? I mean it was already, prewar, impacted by the shortage of labor and by some sort of post-COVID effects, ramping up of production, things like that. And it continues to be now, obviously with the situation, that Russia and Ukraine are big agricultural producers, so you see reality. Then when you look at shelves, and you see limited availability of sunflower oil or flour or anything like that.
Nevertheless, we are a wholesaler. We have a strong sourcing organization. I feel -- and it's competition-neutral, and I feel comfortable that with our experience and the connection to supplier, we are still able to overcome the biggest challenges and supply our most important customers. So yes, it's challenged, but we will manage and we are managing to the utmost extent possible. And then one sentence, when you look at, for instance, Russia, per se, as a country, most of the sourcing is done individually in the country, so we don't expect a big hit there as well.
One further question regarding when we saw in the 2020 times, there was toilet paper was -- in the shops was not anymore there. Shortly after that, we saw in METRO a lot of Greek toilet paper. So when I was, the last couple of weeks, traveling, I saw a lot of shelves in Europe, which means in Sweden, in Denmark, in Netherlands, in Belgium, in France, German olive oil. Is there are any idea how does it come? That is, there is no sunflower oil in Germany, but in the other European states, even with German labels on it.
Yes. I mean, I think, that it's just a chain of things that are happening because, I mean, almost 80% of sunflower oil is exported from Ukraine. This is obviously broken, and then people tend then to go to the next available option, which is usually rapeseed oil. If this is out, yes, because then you see also stocking up purchases, things like that, then they also could go to olive oil, which is way more sort of expensive. And I guess that's just a normal chain that people are trading through the individual subcategories of oil. I can say that for METRO, we don't see a shortage in olive oil, and we are able to serve our most important customers constantly. Sometimes, it could happen that something is not in a shelf, but it doesn't mean that the products are not available for our customers. We then keep it for them in the backrooms and supply them. And we still have toilet paper, plenty of it.
[Operator Instructions] We have a follow-up question from the line of Fabienne Caron.
Regarding Russia, again, I understand it's a very difficult situation for you as you are both in Russia and in Ukraine, and you started to pay some impairment. What is the biggest risk? Could you share with us what's the book value of Russia for you, i.e., if it all goes wrong and we have to write it off, how much impairment will we see?
Yes. I think the on -- with respect to the book value, Fabienne, I would refer you to the segment reporting basically, where the segment assets are indicated there. We are talking here in this quarter just below EUR 700 million. And while that's not the exact amount in any of the scenarios that you've just described, the direction of that would be appropriate. And I think with respect to the other topics around scenarios, we do not want to speculate on those. But obviously, on the other hand, we are very well prepared and working on any sort of scenarios in order to ensure that any of the commercial, humanitarian and financial impact are manageable, and we can confirm that this is very much the case.
Okay. Very clear. And on the local sourcing you just talked about, how much of this local sourcing is just international brands producing in Russia that may have to exit over time?
Well, the -- as mentioned, most of the products, over 90% are being sourced locally. As you said, there might be the one or the other in there where there eventually is an international producer. It is a good balance between local producers and international ones. However, we can confirm at this very stage, we do not see a shortage of supply in any of the key categories. Therefore, the choice, over time, will probably expectedly go down somewhat, but the big impact from the business perspective and the choice view, we do not see at this very point of time. But obviously, we have slightly reduced expectations for the second half of the year where this part is also included.
Our next follow-up is from the line of Xavier Le Mené from BofA Securities.
Just one quick one for me. What is the base of -- for your EPS -- sorry, dividend calculation? So are you going to restate the impairment or kind of one-off noncash charges you've got on financial charges to get a kind of clean EPS, and that will be the base for your dividend calculation? Or are you just going to take the EPS as it is?
Yes. Xavier, thank you for your question. At this very stage, our dividend payout policy stands where it is communicated of 45% to 55% of EPS. Having said that, I think it's just important in those very volatile times to have an eye on the developments that are going to happen. So at this stage, we confirm the dividend payout policy, and then we'll look when we do the suggestion to the AGM later in December or January, how we deal with that specific situation. So no change in the dividend payout policy at this point of time.
Yes. But you just confirmed that you will include the impairment in your EPS.
I confirm that we stick to our dividend payout policy, which is exactly doing this. And I also confirm that we are living in volatile times where we are ensuring to keep a good balance from a shareholder return and overall group management perspective. And therefore, it is a confirmation and still ensuring that we are having the pulse on the situation as it is when the decision on the dividend stays.
There are no more questions at this time. I hand back to Dr. Steffen Greubel for closing comments.
Yes. Thank you very much for the questions. Thank you very much for your attention and for the participation. I can ensure you that we will manage the crisis situation in a very diligent way and look at our decisions also very critically every day. And on the other hand, we will go full steam on implementing the key elements of our strategy going forward to deliver also good results in the next quarter and in the rest of the entire year. Stay safe. Thank you very much again, and then speak to you soon.
Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.