Metro AG

XETRA:B4B

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q3

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Q3 2020/2021 results presentation. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Dr. Steffen Greubel, CEO, METRO AG. Please go ahead.

[Steffen Greubel, CEO & Chairman of Management Board]

Yes. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to METRO's third quarter conference call. I hope everybody is staying safe and well on this sunny morning here in Düsseldorf. With me -- sitting next to me is Christian Baier, our CFO. And together, we'll walk you through the relevant strategic and financial updates for the quarter. I will start taking you through the highlights of the quarter and obviously also my first impressions at METRO. And then I will hand over to Christian for the financial update. Let's go directly to the next page. And I would like to give you sort of impression of my first 100 days -- it's actually not 100, it's 90 days, including the weekends and the bank holidays so I'm not sure what the official definition of 100 days is. But nevertheless, I would like to give you a short update. I spent, I would say, more than 50% of my time in the field, in the markets, in our companies with our customers and employees because I think that's very important to understand also the business bottom up. And so far, I've seen more than 30 stores, I've seen more than -- or spoken to more than 50 clients in 6 countries and visited also 10 depots. So I really invested a lot of time to get a feeling for METRO. And my observation, the summary for that is that we have indeed a very attractive asset base. The workforce has a high degree of motivation, I have to say. The brand is very good and strong, everybody knows us in the market. And our product knowledge, especially the sourcing knowledge and the supply chain knowledge, for me, is impressive and is a very solid and fantastic fundament to build our plans for the future on. We also do have strong values around customer centricity, customer success and then obviously also sustainability at our core. The entire industry is a great industry. It's still a very fragmented market, so the industry there is still a high potential for consolidation. And we all believe that the disruption coming by the COVID is a temporary phenomenon. And as long as we all believe, and we are a big believer in that, that social life will also happen outside sort of the own apartment or the own house, this is going to be a super attractive market for METRO. Our business model that I've seen so far is a very good one. It's the combination between stores, the delivery called distribution -- FSD and obviously digital services. And we did some analysis in the very beginning, showing that whenever customers are buying or coming to different customer contact points that we have an over proportionately high share of wallet and growth. So that's a very good fundament to build on for the future. And of course, since the market shares are still sort of low share of wallet, have potential. And the entire market, as I say, is not consolidated, there is a huge potential for us to grow organically in continuing the investments in growth we already made. We are currently working, as some of you know, on the strategy. We are doing that in a very sort of collaborative mode with our Supervisory Board and with our people. You can expect at the 26th of January to get an update with all the necessary details. But it's not going to be a huge surprise, I would say, in terms of strategic levers. There is so many good things that we do have in our hand, and it's now a lot about disseminating them, about implementing them, about executing them. So -- because we do have a lot of proven measures already in our hand, but maybe not everywhere, so that's going to be what we will sort of combine in our growth strategy. Having said that, this is also coming together in our Q3 results. It's a good indicator for what we can actually do and what we actually did in terms of growth. And let's just have a closer look at those results because it's not only -- and maybe we jump to the next page, please. It's not only the growth that is coming back, but it's also that the -- that our sort of customer performance is also very strong. So let me quickly walk you through that. The sales is growing 12.2%, this is in euro. Currency adjusted, it would be slightly above 15%. We are looking at EUR 6.2 billion in Q3. And our EBITDA is nearly doubling compared to last year to EUR 310 million. Apparently, this is not already cumulated to prepandemic levels, but it's getting close. In June, the sales or the growth has been -- even exceeded June 2019 figure. And EBITDA we are getting closer, I would say. So this is a very solid performance. And it's not only the lifting of restrictions that is making that happen. It's also that our business model and the loyalty we had our customers even in the times where others were going out of the market is sort of now paying off from my perspective. We never stopped sort of the investments in growth and in the business model during the pandemic, and this is now helping obviously to win market shares. Apparently, on the other hand, everything has a lot to do with restrictions, especially in the hospitality sector. Since we are now witnessing the lifting of restriction in our core countries, we do see a very solid growth in the hospitality sector, restaurants and so on. So here, we do have an overproportional growth of 57% versus previous year. And we performed above market levels we are convinced, yes. For the other segments like Trader and SCO, we are sort of close to previous year levels. Previous year, obviously, was very much influenced by stock-up purchases and other, I would say, one-off events. So overall, we can be sort of very satisfied with the performance on all different segments in the Q3. The trend also continues in July. And we also see, especially in all of the segments, a very good and solid performance as of, sort of, month to date in July. And to just repeat that I do think that we have improved our competitive position. METRO is coming out stronger of this crisis than we went into, and we do have all the possibilities in our hands to really outperform the market and I guess we are already delivering enough proof for this. When we look at the 9 months, the total sales is then minus 3.5%, still below last year, cumulated, and the adjusted EBITDA is EUR 24 million better. We have, as I said, a very positive start now with the July figures into Q4. And subsequently, we also have updated our guidance. So we're now looking at a sales development for the full year of minus 0.5% to minus 3.5% versus previously minus 3% to minus 6%, and in the EBITDA of plus EUR 50 million to minus EUR 75 million versus previously guided EUR 50 million to EUR 175 million (sic) [ minus EUR 50 million to minus EUR 175 million ]. So we do see a significant upgrade in our performance and that was just the consequence of it, especially in combination with the good July we are looking at. The ranges are still broad because apparently, there is always some discussions going on with Delta variant and here and there you see other restrictions coming up. We are not 100% sure how market and how consumers and how customers are reacting to that. So that's the reason why we have actually -- or why we are still operating with sort of broad ranges in that. To just underline a little bit my observations around the business model, let me walk through a couple of details and anecdotes that I've seen in my visits and that are sort of giving you some insights on how we are working and what we are sort of pushing forward in the future. So what you do see here is depots. Depots is apparently important for our FSD business, for our Food Service Distribution business. And I was in Rome a couple of weeks ago, and we just opened the one you see in the lower end of the picture because it's a -- Rome is a EUR 1.5 billion market and obviously we try to gain market share there as well. The overall multichannel game is full in swing. That means that we have seen, especially in the pandemic, customers that will -- that are enjoying going to cash-and-carry stores plus getting delivered. And I guess this trend continues more and more and that's also the reason why we upgrade our growth investments in the FSD and then obviously depots are part of that. We are currently looking on the FSD, on the distribution side, on the delivery side to 70% growth compared to prepandemic sales -- compared to last year and the prepandemic sales share is sitting -- or the sales share is sitting at prepandemic levels of roughly 17%. So we recuperated that business very nicely, and of course, now it became really a growth driver. And I was speaking about Italy and Italy with the investments here, but also with the existing depot that we do have in Milano, which was one of our first depots in the world. The growth is now apparently overproportionate with 130%, but still, and this is the beauty of the multichannel model, the cash and carry growth is still there. Again, I repeat myself when customers are going to a store and when customers are getting delivered and when customers are using digital offers from us, the sales share, the share of wallet, the potential exhaustion is over proportionately. And that's the reason why we're going to upgrade on the FSD and on the digital, and of course, on store operations, we are already, I have to say, very good. So in combination, this is going to deliver and this is just one example how this is developing now. And of course, and I don't want to spoil too much about our strategy, this is going to be a core for the future, and depending on the market, 60%, 70%, 80% of the market is in the FSD. So we are actually ready to conquer that market. So let's go to the next one, which is lock-in. Lock-in, and these are pictures from Spain, is other word for creating partnerships. I think partnerships is a nicer word, actually. We are in B2B wholesale, so we know our customers. There is a personal interaction between our salespeople, between our store people and between sort of all the people in our organization and the customer. The beauty of it is obviously that based on this personal relation, we can create a partnership that is also a contextual partnership. So loyalty programs sort of METRO prime logic would play -- is playing an important role and we are double down -- we are sort of investing in that relation more and more. There are loyalty programs called, for instance, METRO Plus. In other countries, they are called METRO Pro that are helping to grow existing customers that, in the moment, have relatively low share of wallets. We are targeting with this in the moment rather customers that we would consider as B or C customers, that mean customers with a low share of wallet, and we try to upgrade them with sales commitments but also with value we are then delivering for them, may it be services, may it be discounts, it differs country by country. So we are really investing in these partnerships to bind the customer to us to make their life easier. And then when we're looking further down the road, we obviously will bring in digital. We obviously bring in financial services and things like that into that relation and then obviously we are going to sell that to our customers. One example from MAKRO Spain is very interesting and also very convincing. 40% of the HoReCa sales of MAKRO Spain are already coming out of that program, which is 30,000 -- 13,000 customers representing that, and that doubled since October '20. So you see the relevance of that for our business, but also for our customers, which is more and more important customers like actually to get a full service package. And then they will also buy more and they also enjoy then the FSD compared with the store sales very much. So partnerships are an important part of our work as of today helping the growth and are going to be an important pillar for the strategy of tomorrow. Another similar thing, and I was mentioning that, is our digital solution. They also do drive loyalty very much. I just want to give you 2 examples. One is the M Companion app and the other one is, I would say, the DISH ecosystem that we have developed. On the companion app, which is an app with a lot of different functions. We have 450,000 roughly downloads as of today. And the -- it's a big driver of loyalty. We are seeing the customers who are using the app are buying 2x more than the average and the registrations are growing, plus 80% versus previous year, and it's already a penetration of 10% of the buying customers. So that's good. It also gives you some opportunities to digitize our processes. I just would like to mention the checkout process. So there is the possibility to get a digital invoice. So there is no more printout, which is saving paper, time, money and it's not waiting time for customer. So that's something we are really pushing forward. It's again, adding to the logic to bring customers closer to METRO to make their lives easier. So that's a classical win-win situation. And maybe the second one I would like to mention that is going a little bit in a different direction is what we call the sort of DISH family or the DISH offerings. There is different bundles. There is a reservation bundle. There's an order bundle. With our DISH Reservation tools, 11 million guests have been seated and 3 million reservations are made. Customers, and when you talk to them, you really feel that they are looking for possibilities to help them digitizing their own processes. And obviously, here, the crisis have -- or the COVID crisis has put some speed and pressure on that, right, because they obviously have to have a solution for reservation, for the digital menu and so on and so forth. And I think the investments that have been made even prior to that are now paying off big time and you see it in the numbers. Same thing for the DISH Order, which is a tool where customers can -- or restaurateurs can go to the market and get food deliveries to deliver directly to the customers or for takeaway and more than 100,000 orders have been already proceeded in more than 7 countries now. And there's a big push in the moment for our sales force, for our people in the stores to offer those tools to our customers to complete the multichannel offering even more. So here, I think it's a very good way that we are sort of helping customers to save time, to save -- to be -- to digitize their processes. Time is a very crucial resource in the moment in the gastronomy. So everything where we can sort of be helpful for our customers to save time for them is going to be valued very much. And so you see 2 tools that are helping their business and helping saving time for them, and this is obviously also then adding to our multichannel game. And in the last 3 months, that has been already paying off and you see the numbers there are quite impressive. That all, lifting the restrictions and all the activities we are doing, is then leading to a, from our perspective, solid outperformance of the recovered markets, which you see here on Page 8. This is the comparison against the market. It's NPD group data so we see almost in every market a solid outperformance of the average. This has to do, from our perspective also, a bit with market consolidation. A lot of the smaller, maybe regional players, cannot offer the entire store delivery and digital sort of bandwidth, which is now helping us and which is also helping to consolidate the market and you see it here in the figures. And it's also paying off that also during the crisis we didn't structurally reduce our sales and market capacity, and obviously this is now paying off. And we also didn't reduce stock levels so much so that our availability is in the moment there, and we are also now winning a big time new customers. By the way, and this is not mentioned here on the chart, our customer win rate, so new customers coming to METRO is a 2-years high in the moment. So this is showing that the offer is very attractive also for new customers. And that also, and I mentioned that in the very beginning space on a fundament of sustainability. We, as the first German wholesaler, committed ourselves to climate neutrality by 2040. We will invest EUR 1.5 billion mainly in our stores around cooling and insulation and energy and heating, which is making the vast majority of all of our emissions. So we will -- we are committed to actually hit this target by 2040 and we lined up to invest the money that is displayed right now. That's just an example. I think more and more everything we are doing is based on a solid sustainability -- on our solid sustainability values that will also actually help to be relevant for our customers because more and more they're demanding sort of the commitment of their suppliers towards that, which is also helping us and which might also be something that is a competitive advantage looking forward. So we are fully committed to those sustainability targets for the future. So overall, a very good third quarter. Business has continued to running well. The model, the business model, is very solid. The asset base is a fantastic one. So we will now focus in upgrading that more and more. We continue to work on the strategy. And then, obviously, we're going to share the details with you then on the 26th of January. And having said that, I would like to hand over to Christian -- to Christian Baier for some more details on the financial update. Thank you very much.

[Christian Baier, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Yes. Thank you, Steffen, and good morning, everyone. As you have heard already, the lifting of restrictions led to a surge in HoReCa demand across our country portfolio. As a result, we have achieved a swift recovery of all financial metrics and that's across the P&L, but also the cash flow statement, which is proving the agility of our business model. So let me give you some highlights here of the quarter. Sales have grown by 15% while delivery sales have even grown by 70% and reached almost the prepandemic sales share level of 17%. Adjusted EBITDA has grown strongly to EUR 310 million, albeit from a low PY basis. On EPS, with a EUR 0.56 growth leading to EUR 0.17 EPS this quarter. And the free cash flow has improved by almost EUR 600 million year-on-year. This all adds up to a strong performance in the 9-month period, which is now standing at minus 3.5% on the sales side and EBITDA at EUR 24 million above PY at constant currency. EPS for the 9 months is at EUR 0.09. We have, therefore, raised our outlook for this year to reflect the better-than-expected HoReCa business, which continues also during July to date. Let's now look a bit in more detail into the Q3 data. The strong sales growth of 15% was partially driven by the relaxation of government restrictions, which has been positive for all market participants. However, we are convinced that the activation of our existing customers and the acquisition of new customers through the restart campaign has really paid off for us gaining market share. And therefore, we are convinced that the homework we have done during the pandemic is really bearing fruit. Sales have, therefore, reached EUR 6.2 billion, however, still below the prepandemic level. This was achieved despite a negative calendar impact of roughly 1 percentage point due to earlier Easter. The reported sales grew at 12%, and this was driven by somewhat negative currency developments mainly in Russia, Turkey and the Ukraine. On the EBITDA side, the adjusted EBITDA almost doubled and reached EUR 310 million at constant currency. The June EBITDA, just for your information, was roughly on the level of fiscal '18/'19, so the real prepandemic comparison. EBITDA was further supported by a real estate transaction where, in Portugal, we have executed on a sale-and-leaseback of a store and the headquarter in Portugal. Let me now zoom into the drivers for this development on the following pages. Before we look at the numbers, let me remind you of the explanation for the spread and performance across the regions. The 3 customer groups are impacted differently, whereby this quarter, HoReCa has shown strong recovery following the relaxation of restrictions and our lock-in initiatives. On the other side, Trader and SCO showed slightly weaker performance against a very strong comparison base in the previous year quarter. These customer groups are then represented to a different extent across our regions, whereby Russia has the smallest and Western Europe the largest HoReCa share. Lastly, the relaxation of restrictions has been highly heterogeneous across the countries where, for example, in Italy, the lift of the restrictions already started from the 26th of April with outdoor gastronomy reopening, while in Germany reopening only started in the second half of May. Now let's look into the regional performance, starting with Germany, where sales declined by 3%. Through the gradual reopening of the gastronomy, HoReCa sales improved but could not compensate for the SCO stock-up purchases in the last year. New and selective showed sales at 3% above PY with HoReCa growing at plus 22% versus PY. This was also supported by the previously described METRO Plus program on the partnerships with our customers and also other commercial actions. The EBITDA in turn remained flat this quarter. In Western Europe, we have seen the strongest increase with sales increases of 34%. The quarter certainly benefited from the hospitality restarting, while last year was significantly impacted by government restrictions. Spain and Pro à Pro recorded the largest sales increases with growth rates of more than 50%. Italy, Portugal and France also benefited from double-digit sales growth. As a result, we've been able to improve our EBITDA by EUR 116 million. When we look at Russia, sales were roughly flat in local currency and HoReCa sales largely compensated for a decline in sales to Trader and SCO customers in light of an extraordinary comparison base. EBITDA was almost flat at EUR 3 million below previous year. Looking at Eastern Europe, sales in local currency increased strongly by 13% and this was also driven by the HoReCa recovery in the sales perspective. All countries have grown compared to PY, while Romania, the Ukraine and Turkey were the biggest drivers. On the EBITDA line, our EUR 19 million increase was mostly driven by the sales growth and that's particularly visible in Romania and in Bulgaria. Lastly, when we look at Asia, the sales development was at roughly plus 11% and all countries contributed to that, especially Classic Fine Foods benefited from the recovery in the hospitality sector, while in the end, for Asia, EBITDA remained flat. If we now look back to the group view and starting with the bridge from reported EBITDA to EPS. D&A was flat year-on-year. The interest and investment result improved due to lower interest from finance leases. Looking at the tax expense, and that's also no change to the 2 previous quarters. To avoid distortion in the current COVID-19 situation, reported taxes are calculated based on the expected tax expense for the full year and not on the expected tax rate. The Q3 tax expense is hence not comparable to the Q3 expense last year. In total, this brings us to an EPS for Q3 that has grown by EUR 0.56 to EUR 0.17 and that's obviously driven by the strong sales and resulting EBITDA growth and the remaining parts of the P&L. If we now move to the cash flow perspective, we see a growth of almost EUR 600 million in the free cash flow as the business returned. The growth is not only driven by the EBITDA development, but also by a significantly positive net working capital contribution. Net working capital always follows the sales trajectory as we have discussed also on prior calls, and there is a very agile and swift recovery in net working capital as sales do return. And especially as the HoReCa volumes have returned, especially in Western Europe, again, we experienced a very favorable development and that's particularly on the trade payable side. On the cash investment perspective, we were roughly on the PY level, and therefore, in turn, the free cash flow in this adjusted definition increased by -- or was at EUR 559 million, an increase of almost EUR 600 million. The net debt significantly decreased versus last year to EUR 3.8 billion, again mainly driven by the favorable change in the net working capital. In summary, and as you have seen, we have seen a very strong Q3. And in June, we have exceeded the prepandemic sales levels and continued to develop very positively in July. This development led us to upgrade our financial guidance despite the continued COVID volatility. Now we do expect sales in local currency and like-for-like to be in the range of minus 0.5% to minus 3.5% and the adjusted EBITDA to come in at plus EUR 50 million to minus EUR 75 million in -- versus the prior year. We expect, in that composition of the guidance, sales growth in Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia. And on the earnings side, we expect a relatively heterogeneous development. In Western Europe, we expect the largest impact on sales and earnings coming from government restrictions. With regards to the further P&L expectations, we confirm our previous comments. Against that background, let us now summarize this quarter in the 4 points shown on this chart. We have achieved a strong Q3 performance with 15% sales growth. Adjusted EBITDA almost doubled to EUR 310 million. We have observed a very swift recovery of all financial metrics as a result of our business resilience and proximity to our customers. We continued to outperform the market, which is a large achievement this quarter as volumes returned and competitors opened up again. HoReCa sales thereby increased by almost 60%. This is the result of our dedicated operational measures, our partnerships that aim to lock in sales via customized offerings, our multichannel business model, and of course, the digital tools that save time and money for our customers hence driving loyalty. Our goal now is to continue to drive the growth momentum as a pure wholesaler. And we have a very strong foundation in order to do this.

[Steffen Greubel, CEO & Chairman of Management Board]

Yes. Thank you very much, Christian. So based on the strong operational and financial development in the first 9 months and obviously our continuously strong performance in July, we have actually raised the guidance, as you said, to reflect our better-than-expected performance. The past weeks give us high confidence for what's ahead of us. In METRO, we have incredibly attractive assets, right, as I already said in the very beginning. We are playing in a great industry that is growing and still highly fragmented. We have a proven multichannel business model and we have ample room for organic growth. I firmly believe that METRO is one of the companies that will emerge stronger from the pandemic. We will explain in more detail what this means to us and to our capital markets -- in our Capital Markets Day January. With that, we are happy to start the Q&A. So thank you very much.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from the line of Volker Bosse with Baader Bank.

[Volker Bosse, Co]

Volker Bosse, Baader Bank. Thanks for all the provided details so far. And welcome, Mr. Greubel, and all best for the new position. Thanks for sharing also your first impressions and this would lead me to my first question. You said METRO is in great shape. However, to be honest, what are the key challenges, which you have observed which you want to attack first, whether you see, so to say, early need of action so within the first 100 days? First question. The second question would be on the competitive situation. It's good that you win new customers, but how does the number of clients develop? I mean, I think there are also clients who gave up. So do you see a shrinking market due to clients left the market? So how many percentage or whatever you can say about clients who left the market during the crisis would be helpful. And the last one would be on Fasol. You did not mention Fasol. In the past, it was also kind of growth driver with a growing number of participants in that program. So an update here on Fasol and how Fasol is progressing in this environment would be helpful.

[Steffen Greubel, CEO & Chairman of Management Board]

So thank you very much for the questions. Let me start with the first one, so what kind of key challenges are in the moment in the business and ahead of us. And I think I would answer in 3 dimensions. The number one, after the dismantling of the organization to really focus on wholesale, we have still the topic that we then, with the core we are having at METRO, need to truly then become a wholesaler, let's say it like that. So that means that in our offer, in our go-to-market, in our entire logical how to approach customers, we need to focus more and more to professional customers and offerings. So we here and there have, let me, for instance, give you the example of Germany, still a sort of way -- or some way to go to really sharpen our offering towards the HoReCa and the professional customers, yes. This starts with format, this is in the offering so there is some transformation still ahead now to become really a wholesaler everywhere. I think that's one answer. The second one is obviously that we need to upgrade in our sales capacity and capabilities. That's very important because a lot of the things we are mentioning here we need to sell proactively. So people will not come. We need to go. So that's going to transform the business in a push model. And obviously, this is a transformation of the company and therefore a challenge, but I'm sure we are equipped well for that. And then number three, and this is, I would say, competition-neutral, we need to upgrade our availability in the moment. We are still, I would say, ahead of competition, but we are not happy with that. So in the moment, the availability of products because all the supply chains are sort of no more in order because of all this pandemic crisis, we need to sort of double down now to get today the availability in order, and we are doing good progress on that. Clients, your second question, so who is really going out of the market, I have to say from my travels and from the ride-alongs I did with sales reps, they are all telling me that they have never so many new customers than ever before. The thing is, as long as the location is not closing. There's a lot of well-organized restaurateurs out there that are desperately waiting to get those locations from the ones that are not so organized. So overall, I think the people who are going out of business are the ones that are not that organized. Since we do have low market share, especially in the delivery, this is going to give us a possibility because we are more attractive for the people who are then getting those locations and expanding their businesses. So I think it's rather a chance than a threat in the moment for us. And on Fasol and we do have -- which is a franchise concept in Russia, as you mentioned, right, we do have 2,000 stores now out in the market. It's still growing. It's 120 more versus previous year. It's a concept that is very much similar to the one we do have in Romania, where we also look at 1,500 roundabout stores in a very similar format. Let me -- the logic of this is also to lock in professional customers. So it's nothing else than what we are also doing on the restaurateur side, on the HoReCa side. It's just in a contractual agreement to bind the professional customer. So that's the same thing. So we are fully committed to the Fasol one. And we will also upgrade that concept and we are right now evaluating how we can grow that not only in Russia, but also in other markets.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from the line of Xavier Le Mené with Bank of America.

[Xavier Le Mené]

One, if I may, actually. So we've seen the strong improvement in Q3 with your like-for-like. Also we can say Western Europe is doing very well, Eastern Europe, too. Russia and Germany being potentially a bit soft. But what are you expecting going forward in terms of reopening? So do you think that you can be back to 2019 level as soon as 2022? Or do you think that it will be a slightly longer process and recovery for all your clients actually to be back to full speed? Just to get a sense of how you expect the recovery going forward lead to the reopening.

[Christian Baier, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Yes. Well, I think -- Xavier, thank you for your question. And I think the key point is, at this very stage, we have been speaking about June and we are also speaking about the current performance in July. We do see that even with the current level of the performance, we are above the 2019 levels. So that gives us the confidence that, on the one hand, what Steffen just described, our customers are coming back. And while the overall HoReCa industry is not really back to 2019 levels, we have been able basically to extend our market share to the extent that, for us, our business on that side can be at or above the prepandemic levels in a way. With respect to your question going forward, this certainly very, very strongly relates to the situation around the overall COVID pandemic where the volatility will be an element that we cannot judge entirely. We will need to see to, over time, coming back not only to the small community elements in restaurants, but also to the bigger celebrations and also the festivals and other topics where we certainly also do have a share in. So we are confident that from our strength, we have all what it takes to capture not only a lifting market, but also stronger market share. And the remaining part of it, unfortunately, then is the exogenous factor of the volatility on the pandemic where we have seen that our customers are very nimble, but then restrictions and the health situation also needs to be in place. And that's basically the decisive factor between '22 or any period thereafter.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] As there are no more questions at this time, I hand back to Dr. Steffen Greubel for closing comments.

[Steffen Greubel, CEO & Chairman of Management Board]

Yes. Thank you very much for your questions and for the attention. So yes, we will be happy actually to hopefully share then also similar or even better results than when we speak next time. Until then, I wish you all a good and obviously also healthy summer and a good vacation for those of you who haven't been. Go out eating, so that's the best thing you can actually do for us and which we will also do a lot, right, because for a lot of us, the vacation is still ahead. So I'm looking forward actually to meet you, to see you. And then latest, we see each other then on our Capital Markets Day on the 26th of January. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

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