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Intrinsic Value is all-important and is the only logical way to evaluate the relative attractiveness of investments and businesses.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Heidi, for the introduction. I'm glad to have you all on our call today, when we present our key financial results for the Q3 2020. And let me remind you, as always, this is an oral presentation, and mistakes can happen. So if you have any doubts, please refer to the published documents on our web page. And I will follow through the usual agenda that we typically have.
We'll give you a brief insight into the market overview, key financials, give some insights on the operational developments and, of course, also the acquisitions that we have conducted in the third quarter. And then conclude with an outlook for the rest of the year and into 2021. Generally, it's -- I think we're all aware that corona times are providing quite unstable market environment. Unfortunately -- or fortunately, our industry has not been as heavily affected as others, particularly the German heating industry has been helping us here, where the oil and gas heat generating units did continue to show some growth in the third quarter.
Hasn't been like this in many other markets, like France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, they all showed heavy negative trends. Our dependency on the German market, in this case, has helped us to not be as heavily affected as others from the turmoil in the market. As a result of this, our revenue development showed some growth in the third quarter. We have grown from EUR 171.4 to EUR 179.7 million. Overall, a growth rate of 4.9%.
What are the drivers of this growth? While we continue to see a good development in Germany and the Netherlands, our core markets. This is really the founding basis of all these positive trends. We've seen a very strong development of our heat pump business, but also domestic ventilation market has been strong. The acquisition of IVT in the middle of 2019 has some impact on the nonorganic growth in the first half but was already consolidated in the third quarter, so it doesn't have an impact here for the third quarter.
Other businesses, like CHP business, was stable, still on a low level. We have seen the impact of the corona crisis in several markets outside of our core business. So France, Italy, Spain, China, they all had pure -- a poor development throughout the year. We have seen some recovery in China. The other European markets are still below our expectations and previous year numbers. And that, of course, also reflects in the regional sales development. Our share of international sales has dropped quite a jump from 47% in the previous year to 44%, which really reflects this market development.
Year-to-date, our sales growth was a 6.6%, from EUR 471.1 to EUR 502.1 million. The organic growth was 6%. When we look at the earnings development, also EBIT has improved, above average, so to speak, from EUR 14 million to EUR 15.8 million. Third quarter is always the third and fourth quarter, of course, have a bigger impact on our bottom line. It's seasonally the most important.
September, October, November are seasonally the most important months for our business. And the concerns that we had early in the year, we have been able to now put aside. It seems that this year, we will have a stable development. The earnings, however, and that's something that we simply have to be aware of, are also very positively affected by significantly lower costs in travel and promotional expenses. So in the third quarter alone, EUR 1.4 million were a result of lower travel and promotional costs, for the first 9 months, it's been EUR 5.7 million.
So overall, this has a big impact on our earnings development this year, linked to the fact that simply we are unable to attend trade fairs, we are unable to have as in-depth customer contacts as we usually have. Also within the group, it's difficult to have, let's say, site visits and meetings. It's all digital. COVID-19 is the best digital officer that you could imagine. On the other hand, it's not sustainable. I mean, in the future, we are really looking forward to be able to visit our customers, again, it's the basis for adding new customers to your business.
Apart from that, of course, the fact that the German heating market was strong, has a positive impact on our EBIT performance. This market where we have the best earnings performance. The -- some other factors in the Climate Systems segment were results of an extensive profitability improvement project for our air Handling business. We did have some negative impact from foreign group companies due to the corona crisis.
Gas Flue Systems. Again, sales growth shows some scale effects in the third quarter, with a strong market in Germany and the Netherlands. And in the Medical Technology & Engineering Plastics, we see a decline in the earnings, while the Medical Technology business is growing slightly. The Engineering Plastics business is very cyclical and is impacted by the economic slowdown in the corona crisis heavily, and this impacts our earnings position there.
When we look at earnings, after tax, of course, again, Q3 is the biggest contributor to this number. We have risen from EUR 9.9 million in the previous year to EUR 12.7 million. And apart from the improved operating results, we had a one-off depreciation last year that now leads to a slightly positive effect from depreciation. Financial result was better in Q3 as we had a better interest result and some recovery in our other financial results.
There was a smaller one-off effect in a Dutch subsidiary on taxes. So overall, the earnings after tax has improved. Year-to-date, we are at EUR 19.1 million compared to EUR 16.9 million last year. When we look at our net financial position, you can see that, generally, our net financial position over equity has deteriorated a little bit over the last 3 years. This is largely a result of the share buyback programs, 3 -- share buyback programs, each had an impact of round about 12 basis points.
The acquisition of PARI is not yet included there but would have, of course, also an effect on the gearing rate on the net financial position here by around about 18, 20 basis points. The equity position is stable at 36%. Again, here, also, share buyback program had an impact of 2, 2.5 percentage points with each buyback that we did. Net working capital is fairly stable, despite the higher business activities that we have. So we're at EUR 96 million.
We did have increase in inventory but also in payables. So overall, it's a stable development. And of course, the good operational development reflects in the operating cash flow year-to-date. When we look at the investments, they are stable at EUR 7.5 million roundabout. So went down from EUR 7.8 million to EUR 7.4 million 2019 was a heavy investment year. We are on a similar level right now. The biggest investment activity is our factory in China that has been completed. I will say something to that in a minute.
We also had some other investment activities like the upgrade of 2 production halls in Meinberg, some IT infrastructure investments, numerous product development activities and so on that are reflected here in the investment activities. There was also -- we're using the new production hall for Moeller Medical. The hall is owned by the holding, so that's why these investments are shown in the Gas Flue Systems segment.
Let me continue with some operational highlights. One of the highlights, of course, was the inauguration and start of our activities at our new factory in Jiaxing in China, where we had the rollout of the first [ wolland ] boiler from the factory, you can see here the team with 2 of the boilers in the middle. It's been quite an effort to get this launched as a result of the fact that simply, we were not able to send experts from Europe to China, so it all had to work remote. And the team has done an excellent job to get it up and running.
We had a delay of 3 to 4 months, overall, which is, in my view, still a great result, and we started production at the end of August 2020. Currently, we have about 35 employees there, plan to go up to 50 on 15,000 square meters of production. Of course, it's a slow ramp-up that we need to develop here. We want to make sure that all the products that leave the factory have the same quality standards that we have in the entire group. The total investment was around about EUR 16 million.
We will produce products for the whole Centrotec group there. So not only the [ wolland ] boilers, but also for example, floor standing boilers, wall terminals from central therm for condensing, non-condensing boilers, some domestic ventilation units and so on. Step-by-step, we will introduce the production there in the coming years. All of the production at the moment is planned for the local Chinese market. We also concluded the third share buyback program as a result of the high level of liquidity that we had, and that was long-term secured. We have seen that the acquisition activities are smaller than originally expected.
We do not see significant opportunities in the pipeline. And also the need for acquisition activities now is reduced because the heat pump business is developing well for the time being, that's why we generated this public tender offer with a fixed price of EUR 14 per share. The tender offer was well oversubscribed with more than with more than 2 million shares offered. So one point -- sorry, there's a number -- error here. It's 1.463 million shares that were bought back at a value of around about EUR 20.5 million. Shares have been redeemed in September. The remaining number of outstanding shares is 13,167,926. Let me now highlight the acquisition of the PARI Group Ag that we conducted in the summer. And before I will go into what we acquired, let me tell you why we considered the acquisition in the first place. When we -- when I started at Centrotec in 2013, one of the biggest concerns that I saw was the dependency on the German market. It still is a concern. We are -- we have launched our production in China and enhance our activities on the international markets. Over the last 2 years, we have seen that the activities in the political environment to shift from oil and gas to renewable energy sources has gained traction significantly. It's not only a German trend. It's a global trend that we have to see and face.
As a result, over the last 2 years, only the oil business is almost being condemned in the public opinion. We have seen a decline of more than 30% within only 2 years in this business. It's a smaller share of our total business. If we see something similar happen on the gas business, and in fact, gas and oil together account for roughly 50% of our total sales, then we have a serious issue to resolve.
This is our cash cow. This is where we generate our returns, and we need to be able to develop and transform Centrotec into an organization that reduces its dependency, not only from the German heating market, but also from the gas heating Solutions. As a result, it's been the strategy of Centrotec for quite some time to expand our footprint or our business portfolio to other areas. Some of the areas that we are addressing are, of course, also benefiting from this trend, like heat pump, like ventilation, air handling units. But it's the organic growth of those is probably only partly solving this problem.
That's why we have conducted the acquisition of IVT last year to enhance our position in the building products for the Gas Flue Systems segment. And that is also a core reason why we now have acquired PARI Group Ag with Sonnenstromfabrik, CS Wismar, a profitable German photovoltaics module manufacturer that focuses on high-quality rooftop products. Again, the PV industry can be separated in large commercial parks, PV parks.
Our core belief is that there is a future in own use systems for residential and also for industrial reasons, but smaller sizes, where the longevity of the products gain more importance. So in the past, the whole business was driven around -- you get 20-year feed-in-tariff. So you need to make sure your product class for 20 years.
When you -- when this now moves from being a subsidized industry to one that has an own business case that is -- that makes sense without public subsidies, because you find a way to reduce your -- your energy bill of your home, then suddenly, the longevity of the products of the rooftop products gain importance and that is the focus of the Sonnenstromfabrik. It's one of the very few European manufacturers that offer also glass-glass modules. So a good share of the sales of the companies already today, glass-glass. So the back of the module is glass instead of a plastic component. And therefore, they can have 30-plus years' lifetime. So this explains why we have acquired the Sonnenstromfabrik. And the second rationale was the real estate portfolio. We had the high liquidity available also for acquisitions in our group. We have invested that in financial assets, I will outline that later on. But it has been a frequent response that we have received and also the fact that we have to face that the financial investments have been not as successful as we had hoped for. With this, we are stabilizing our financial income of the group.
We shift capital market investments to real estate returns. And we can also generate more professionalism in managing our own real estate. So Centrotec owns most of its production facilities, most of its offices, we are having way too many highly paid managers in each location, focusing on not only developing the operational development of our entities, but also the real estate development that we need to do. We want to outsource that to 1 central unit and have a professional real estate management, office management, generate workspaces within the group that provide attractive workplaces for people. And that is really the core or an additional effect that we have from the real estate investments.
Overall, this is a related party transaction. So we want to be as transparent as possible as PARI Group was held by the family of the majority shareholder, Guido Krass. The equity purchase price was EUR 43.3 million, the final price. The net debt that we acquired was EUR 16.9 million and the net working capital, EUR 4.9 million. It's slightly different to the originally published numbers as a result of the final numbers that we have seen. The transaction was closed on first of October. So it is not reflected in the public numbers of the third quarter.
Again, I have highlighted most of the rationale now. We believe that the PV market and, generally, it is a core belief that the PV market will continue to grow. It helps us step into -- to a market -- to enhance our renewable footprint. Not only in Germany, but Netherlands, our core markets, we believe that there is potential for further growth. The growth will be driven not only by mid- to large-sized commercial projects, but also own use systems, smaller, smaller systems.
The PSW Sonnenstromfabrik is a quality manufacturer for solar modules, product range comprises both framed and frameless glass modules, through roof-integrated modules. There is a low CO2 footprint modules. So there are special applications that are also being applied. So that's how they differentiate from the Asian manufacturers who more focus on the high-volume industrial needs products. With 110 employees in Wismar, in 2019, EUR 19.4 million in revenue have been generated and EUR 0.5 million EBITDA. For 2020, we have guided, and those will also be achieved, EUR 29 million of revenue and EUR 1.2 million EBITDA, maybe a bit higher.
Overall, so the general performance is growing. Of course, this growth was -- I don't think it would be wise to assume and we did not in our valuation, assume similar growth rates for the coming years, but there were some effects that led to a significant boom this year in the European market. However, we do see growth rates for the coming years. That will enable us to generate sustainable returns from this business.
The real estate entities that we're acquiring, there are 3, namely, the production facility of the Sonnenstromfabrik. There's a large commercial compound in Fürth in an attractive location, and there is a combined unit in Leipzig, where you have positions and homes or apartments in a very, very attractive location. Leipzig, the whole site area is 71,000 square meters of all of the 3 units. You can see by the colors how this shares between the 3 units that we have here. The rental space is around about 34,000 square meters, of course, the largest share of the rental space is in Fürth and also the largest share of the rental income.
We see a potential of EUR 2.5 million at the moment. For 2020, we're expecting EUR 2.1 million. Why is there a gap between what can be achieved and what will be achieved? One is that the intercompany rate in Wismar is a little lower than what is considered to be achievable in the area in Wismar. And the much, let's say, larger share of the gap comes from Fürth, where we, at the moment, are renovating a few offices to be more higher quality office spaces.
And there are also some warehouse spaces that we're currently not renting out long-term because there is also a development opportunity in this building, in this facility, that I want to highlight in a second, where these parts of the building will not be -- will have to be removed. And therefore, they are, at the moment, not rented out long term. There are 2 real estate development projects. One is right next to the building that we have acquired in Leipzig.
So on this picture on the right-hand side, you see a building, that is the one that we have acquired. And in the middle is a building that can be developed. We have also acquired the space there. Look at the ground there. And the larger development project is, of course, the Gesundheitscampus Fürth, a larger development that we have prepared or are in the process of preparing further to be developed over the next few years.
The -- let me again, return to the question why are we shifting our financial resources to the real estate investments. First of all, I want to generate some more transparency on what has actually been achieved with the financial investment strategy. What you see here, I believe the chart needs some explanation. What you see here is the green columns. They show the investment value that we had in our fund. So it went -- started in 2016 with around about EUR 20 million, then peaked in 2018 with almost EUR 120 million and has now been reduced.
In fact, as we speak, of course, the value is lower because some of these resources were used for the acquisition of the PARI Group. So at the moment, we only have around about EUR 8 million left in the fund. The fund itself showed a strong performance in 2016 and '17, a very poor performance in 2018. Again, a very strong performance in 2019 and the poor performance in 2020, year-to-date September. As a result, while the performance of the fund was 1.5% because the, the amounts that we had invested in the fund were highest in 2018. The overall returns from the investment activities over that period were EUR 3.4 million negative.
Just to give you a comparison, if we had, had all that fund in liquid funds with interest rates that would have been available in that time, the losses would have been EUR 1.5 million. In hindsight, of course, that would have been the better alternative. But I think it's also I also want to portray that the negative impact was not as bad as it was sometimes perceived.
The bigger issue maybe was that this also led to some volatility in our financial results in the P&L that has caused some discomfort to people analyzing our P&L. And by shifting the funds now, this transparency should be or this in in-transparency and uncertainty on financial results should be gone. Let me now highlight a little bit what does corona mean for us as a group. You may remember this chart, as I had a similar 1 in the last 2 presentations as well. So it's an update on the current situation.
As you are aware, we are in the middle of the second wave in all of our markets. And therefore, there is the fundamental risk of interruption of the supply chain. We did try to build up stock on key components. We can't do that for all of our components. And there are some components where if foreign production facilities be closed as they were in the first wave, this could also affect us. At the moment, thank God, we have been able to avoid it, but that risk certainly increases.
The risk of interrupting our business processes as a result of, let's say, high infection rates within our group, is still there. We have introduced group-wide hygiene and safety concept that allows us to ensure that people use home office as much as possible. People in the factory are able to keep the distance of 1.5 meters at all times. If not, they need to wear masks. We have had corona incidences in our group, around about 50 so far.
Since the beginning of the year, it was -- there were high numbers in March and April, then there was nothing for a long period of time. At the moment, we have, again, a strong increase of incidents. So we're now at 20 active cases at the moment. We are tracking this on a daily basis. We're making sure that whenever people are tested positively, that we make sure that we understand if there are any cross infection risks or have been across infection are really cautious. It's a risk that you can't exclude in total, but I think we are handling it as good as possible. And at the moment, we don't see a huge risk on this side.
We also don't see that, as it was done in the first wave of this project, that there is a state-ordered production stop. So that, let's say, the state or the government say, all production activities of our factories have to be stopped to avoid a further spreading. I think the policymakers have also learned from the first wave that we need to take a more differentiated approach. And our factories are not really prone to high risks of infection rates.
Finally, the interruption of demand. That is a high-risk that I see in most European countries, Germany and the Netherlands are still hardly affected, and we hope it stays that way. I think this is less a -- while it is a short-term issue in the Western European countries, France, Italy, Spain, where the lockdown also leads to stop of installation activities or had, at least, led to such an effect that did not happen in Germany and the Netherlands, and I don't think that will happen again.
We have more a long-term topic that we need to be aware of that commercial building activities that are being conducted this year have been decided last year. And we see a -- studies also project us that the order intake on new commercial projects has dropped dramatically. We are late in the process of a new commercial project, so we do expect a decline in the commercial activities, building activities in the next year. I know I said that already towards the end of this year, I must say that did not happen. So during this year, we still see a -- we don't see growth as we have seen in the last years, but we still see a rather stable development of our sales for this year.
Order intakes are slowing down and it becomes more competitive on prices. It's still -- but the business is still there. I do see 2021 with a little more cautious eye. There's not only negative sites to corona, there are also, for us, at least positive sides. We have been very agile in developing a product, the air purifier, that is a product suited for classrooms, conference rooms, but also restaurants. And it is particularly made for locations where it is difficult to open windows properly or where it would be causing too much discomfort to have windows open every 20 minutes. It is filtering the air. So it's suitable for 6x filtering the air in the typical room of 60 to 70 square meters. The filter we are using are H14 HEPA filers that remove bio-aerosols that carry viruses. It is extremely silent. It's a Plug-n-Play unit, so you don't need any professional support to put it in. You can put it in the room, plug it in, define the air volume and you're done. It uses standard technologies that are proven with the H14 HEPA filers. It's in line with the Hygiene standards. It also has an activated carbon filter.
So overall, it's specifically designed for retrofit in rooms, where it's not possible to ventilate heavily or properly. I think this is a market that will -- that was not here before corona, and it probably will not be here after corona. It's a one-off opportunity that we are trying to take advantage of, and we are preparing our production facilities. So we are in the process of already producing units. I think for our guidance, we have already included the sales that we are expecting for this year and the earnings.
And it will probably continue into the first quarter next year and then the product as quickly as the product came, it may disappear again, but it helps us to alleviate some of the other developments that we see in the market. So outlook. As you have seen, mid-October, we already published the preliminary numbers and as a result of this and the developments that we've seen, the oncoming of the air purifier, we have raised our guidance to EUR 690 million to EUR 710 million in revenues and the EBIT is at EUR 43 million to EUR 46 million.
The key reasons for this is the fact that we continue to see the strong development in the German and Dutch market. We have the PARI acquisition included in Q4. Now the contribution of PARI will be EUR 8 million in revenues. The EBIT effect will be somewhere close to 0.00. Why is that? Well, first of all, the key purpose of the real estate is cash flow generation that shows up in EBITDA, but not necessarily in EBIT because depreciation requirements.
And in the same is also -- well, not the same is true, but when you do an acquisition of an operational entity, you are required by IFRS standards to activate all orders that you have in your books. So any sales that we make out of orders that came in before October, all the profits have to be activated and then depreciated as the sales are being made. And in the Sonnenstromfabrik, of course, much of the orders that we have in October will be sold in the fourth quarter. So there's no profit by definition of IFRS rules on these sales.
There are some positive corona-related effects, and they are quite extensive. We have to be aware, around about EUR 9 million can be contributed to that in the forecast. It's the cost savings on travel and marketing expenses. Those are, as I mentioned earlier, will be around EUR 7.5 million. And there are some extra sales and earnings from the air purifier, probably EUR 1 million, EUR 1.5 million coming from that.
We have also seen or expected, anticipated that the heavily affected markets will remain low for the coming months. They will not recover quickly, but they generally have a smaller impact on our earnings position. Let me take a little -- take you a little bit into 2021. What are we expecting short term and long term? What are the opportunities for '21? Of course, I'm not yet in a position to give you a guidance, but I can give you some highlights that you may want to include in your own assessment of the company.
There are some extra sales of the air purifier, and I expect them to continue in the winter months. So we will now see schools coming in and ordering. At the moment, our order book allows us for the first 2 weeks of production. And so we have 2 weeks' delivery times at the moment. Let's see how this develops over the next few weeks. But there is some potential positively on a short notice or on the short term.
We will continue to see subsidies for heating systems in Germany until the end of 2021. And however, and there is one risk linked to it that we need to be aware of. The way the subsidy schemes are being set up will be changed towards the end of the year. And while for the end customer, it may not have a big impact, it may impact us a little bit. One of the key drivers of growth in heat pump last year in our business was the great success of our Monoblock heat pump. The Monoblock pump is one that is a premium heat pump providing high efficiency, low sounds, attractive design and uses a natural refrigerant.
Unfortunately, next year, there will be no special, let's say, extra subsidy for highly efficient heat pumps more but there will be only a general assessment of the new building. At least for new buildings, in new builds, you will have a general subsidy for -- depending on the efficiency of the whole building. And therefore, there is no more differentiation, whether you have a heat pump that has high-efficiency or a heat pump that has, let's say, is cheaper, a cheaper Chinese split unit with lower efficiency, you can compensate for that, maybe with a better insulation of the building and so on.
So the unique selling proposition of our product is disappearing a little bit. We hope that we have been able to generate enough new customers and that they like our product. It's easy to install, so that we can still benefit from the good market position that we have developed over the last year. But there's a certain risk that very price-sensitive customers will move again to lower cost units from our competitors.
There is, of course, the additional sales and earnings from the PARI acquisition, long term. When we take a bit longer perspective, I think what corona brings is a little bit more awareness in the quality of air and the need for ventilation systems, and that is something that in the long run, could help us in our air Handling unit business, maybe also in domestic ventilation, but more in air handling.
What are the risks? Well, we have to be aware that a good share of the earnings growth was linked to cost savings on travel and marketing expenses, and they -- we will have those cost savings in the first quarter. But as the -- let's say, the corona crisis is being met, and hopefully, we will soon have a way to immunize against corona, then we will travel again and try to be with our customers, at our customers, and these costs will then reappear.
I explained the new subsidy scheme already. I also told you about the cool down that we expect in the commercial building sectors. The short-term decline in oil-based heating systems will continue, will not affect us badly because already today, oil only accounts roughly 5% of our sales. The biggest long-term concern that we have to address is the decline in all conventional heating systems that account for 50% of our group sales.
And this is what we're actively working against with the acquisition that we have done and with the continuous work on enhancing products like air handling units, domestic ventilation, building products.
And with that, I would like to -- and the usual disclaimer, I would like to close the presentation and open the line for questions that you may have.
[Operator Instructions] And the first question comes from the line of Eggert Kuls of Warburg Research.
On a couple of, I think, simple question. So I wonder if you could provide us with the current share of heat pumps, in comparison to your total business. And then the tax rate after 9 months was similar to that of last year. So I assumed initially, due to the problems in connection with corona, that tax rate could be higher this year because I assumed that you could be loss-making in several countries due to the corona crisis and pay taxes where you earn money.
So for the full year, it's a fair now to assume that the tax rate will remain at around 30% like last year? The second question. Then the operating cash flow was rather strong after 9 months. Usually, you have a very strong Q4. And do you also expect that for 2020? Or have we already seen some impact, which usually comes in Q4 already in Q3.
Then I'm interested to hear about the price of a new air purifier. And then lastly, with regard to CS Wismar, you mentioned that the EBITDA this year or last year, I don't know, was EUR 0.5 million. So I wonder, which level of EBITDA is needed to make CS Wismar also on the bottom line profitable.
Okay. I'll do my very best to answer all of the questions. So share of heat pump is still less than 10% of our total business but it doubled this year. So we have seen a big growth rate there. I think it was also linked to the fact that our heat pump was a little bit unique in the market and enabled us to gain new customers that maybe would not have worked with our heat pumps. But it's -- so it's growing fast. It has outgrown oil and is now more important than the oil business quite well but it's still less than 10%.
With the tax rate and the operating cash flow, I must admit, I don't have the exact numbers at the top of my my head. I think it's fair to assume that the tax rate remains at 30%. With the operating cash flow, what we typically see is that there is -- there is a seasonal shift between quarters, yes. So it could be that some of the positive effects have already been achieved in the third quarter and will then be a little less strong in the third -- in the fourth quarter.
What is a little bit supporting that is that our net working capital is on the same level as it was in in 2019 in the third quarter. And if you had asked me upfront, what would have been my expectation before I saw those numbers, I would have expected that our net working capital would have been well higher. Why is that? Because we have stocked up on components to make sure that we can serve the market. On the other hand, the short-term liabilities have outgrown that. So that effect tells me that chances are that the fourth quarter effect on the operational cash flow is not going to be as heavy as it was in the last 2 years. But I -- please -- I have not done the analysis in detail.
The price for the air purifier is just under EUR 3,000. And I think it's -- so it is a competitive premium product for commercial usage. You have various -- I mean, there are many, many players in the market who are providing or trying to jump into that market. I think we've put ourselves in a good position there with a good product for commercial applications. Yes, that's about it.
Sonnenstromfabrik Wismar EBITDA 0.5 was the 2019 numbers in 2020. It is going to be well above EUR 1 million. The problem that I have at the moment is that we have not completed the purchase price allocation yet. The purchase price allocation has an impact on the depreciation levels because it depends to what extent funds are being -- funds of the purchase price, they can be allocated to the assets, but they also need to be allocated to the order on your books -- on the order book, but also on the brand name, on patents and so on and whatever remains is then put into goodwill. I, therefore, at the moment, cannot yet say exactly what the EBIT will look like, and, thus, also what would I need for an operational income. It does not have any impact on the valuation. It doesn't have any impact on the cash flow that the unit generates, their EBITDA is more important. But it depends on to what extent funds end up in goodwill or in other immaterial goods. The difference is goodwill is not depreciated. Brand name and other immaterial goods are depreciated over time. And that's why EBIT levels, I cannot give you a guidance on that yet.
Okay. So we will see it with the release of the full year.
The depreciation on the hard assets are -- those depreciation levels are not so high. So it's...
It's relatively [ ascertained ], I guess.
Yes.
Okay. Good. Maybe a follow-up on the heat plant. So you said it's a rather unique product. So you have a lot of competition in the heat pump business, or I guess...
I said it was rather, what -- sorry, I missed it. It's rather?
Okay. Let me start it. The heat pump.
Yes?
The heat pump. So you said it's a rather unique product. And so you have a lot of competition. So I guess all major hitting heating and heat equipment manufacturers have heat pumps. So good to hear that your product is superior to that of a competition. Do you think this will last also for the future? And what makes your heat pump so unique?
Yes. So what you have to be aware is that the innovation -- the heat pump business is less attractive than the gas and oil business. Why is that? First of all, margins are higher. Competition is lower and the innovation cycle is significantly faster. So you invest -- you have investments in a new product that you can't leave for 8 to 10 years as you do with gas and oil, but you need to recycle them every 4, 5 years, to be able to be in line with the competition.
Now we have introduced a new heat pump last year, and we were ahead of the game. But already now, we see other players, like Whalen. They have now introduced a heat pump that is comparable to ours. Yes. What are the differentiating factors? It's the efficiency rate. So what is the so-called basal, the performance, the seasonal performance factor, as it's called. Are you using natural refrigerants?
So it's kind of propane. Yes. Propane is a natural gas that you're using for your barbecue. And it's something that is much better than the older refrigerants that are used. They have a high global warming potential factor, as it's called. So our unit is highly efficient, uses a natural gas as a refrigerant, uses a natural refrigerant, uses a -- is designed attractively and is quiet. I don't think we will have a pole position in the long run, but it has helped us to generate market share quite well this year.
Next year, we already see competitors offering similar products. Whalen has a very similar product. So I would expect that players, like Viessmann and Bosch, will also follow-up. So it's not a long-lasting, unique selling proposition that you have. But you also have to be aware, installers don't like to shift. So they had to shift last year, and there is a chance, and we hope that we will be able to maintain some of that competitive advantage.
And unfortunately, the incentive scheme was in favor of our product last year and may not be so next year. It's going to be a long-term battle for market share in this industry, and we are ready to fight it. We have the competencies to develop those products. We probably will need to continue our investments in our team, in our development team.
So compared to the development team that we have for this product is, of course, significantly higher in percent of the sales that we're doing than what we need for gas and oil. But it's -- you don't have a competitive advantage as a result of patents or anything. That doesn't exist.
The next question is from Werner Friedmann of A's & I's.
It's one on the air purifier. You give the product some 6 months of lifetime. How many pieces of this could you produce in that time?
So what we are assuming for this year is in our guidance and our expectation, we have included somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 for this year. We can do -- once we have the production full up and running, which will be by the end of this month, we could do several hundred a week, 500, 600, something like that, that we could produce. Maybe it's -- yes. It is -- to me, this is one of the most dynamic product developments, and it's really unusual to be so uncertain about the needs. We are, at the moment, taking a little risk because we do believe in the product. And we are -- we now need to purchase the volume of our ventilators, what are needed for this product for end of January.
So the problem is while at the moment, I see, okay, I have sold 1,000. Yes. I hope I will be able -- that they are now being produced. I hope I expect to sell another 1,000 in December, then now I'm guesstimating of what January and February are going to bring. And the public debate is changing on a weekly basis. So whether or not investments are coming from schools or from the state governments remains to be seen.
The -- it could be that we are completely sold out. It could be that we end up with a lot of stock that we cannot sell. So I'm confident it is a product and there will be a market for it. I am confident, but there's -- at the moment, it's difficult for me to judge.
And the most customers up-to-date, are they schools or who's buying?
You wouldn't believe what range of customers we have. It is coming from schools to barbers, to restaurants, to office spaces.
Okay. Another question would be on the net debt impact of the PARI acquisition. In your speech, I understood you said EUR 80 million, 8-0 million?
No, no, no, sorry. I was referring to the net financial position over equity. We are currently in the third quarter at minus 40 basis points. And it could go by -- down by 18 to 20 basis points, so minus 58, 59, something like that on the basis of the Q3 numbers. Now again, of course, you will have a...
But what you're paying is 43.3 million plus 16.9 that...
Yes.
Okay. And then on the depreciation level that will come on top from Wismar and the real estate next year, any guess how much this was?
As I said, I don't want to guess because the problem is that -- that is one of those things that -- at the moment, I don't have a clear view on the goodwill amount. And unless I have that, I can't guess.
You can't exclude goodwill and PPA completely because anyway, this is going to be by the analysts not regarded. But just -- usually, real estate brings with it a lot of depreciation. That's why I'm asking.
So I am -- this is an IFRS question. And I'm not sure I am fully able to answer to that because the problem is the following. We are acquiring the assets, but it's not an asset deal, it's a share deal. So I am, at the moment, a little bit unsure whether in IFRS, the assets are being assigned at market value and then depreciated, or whether they are used at the book value of the acquisition. That will have a big impact.
Sorry, but let me put it that way. Around about 2/3 of the enterprise value is linked to the real estate. So that gives you an idea of the value of the buildings and the building activities and if they are put in at the value. But please, I can't give you the exact number there. That is an IFRS question that I haven't discussed it with my team.
[Operator Instructions] And there are no more questions at this time. I would like to hand back to Dr. Thomas Kneip for closing comments.
Okay. Well, thank you very much in this turbulent times for joining us for our Q3 call. Unfortunately, we will not have the opportunity to meet in person at the Eigenkapitalforum. That was canceled. So I'm looking forward to talk to you again when we have the annual results. Thank you very much, and bye-bye.