Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Sugi, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome. Thank you for joining the conference call on Wienerberger's results on the first quarter of 2021. Throughout today's recorded presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, you may press star followed by one on your touchtone telephone. If any participant has difficulty hearing the conference, please press star key followed by zero on the telephone for operator assistance. I would now like to turn the conference over to Elisabeth Falkner, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead. Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome to the Wienerberger earnings call on the first quarter of 2021. Our board representatives today are our CEO, Mr. Heimo Scheuch, and our CFO, Mr. Gerhard Hanke. They will lead you through the presentation today, discussing our results in the first quarter of 2021, but also giving you an outlook on further growth opportunities for Wienerberger in the future. After the presentations, we are ready to take your questions. I will now hand over to Mr. Heimo Scheuch for the presentation. Thank you. A warm welcome from our side here in Vienna to all of you on the call. I will lead you through a little bit the general sort of background of quarter one and our strategy. My colleague, Gerhard, will speak a little bit about the results and the numbers. Then I will summarize from strategy perspective and outlook. If you look at the quarter one, we have had a strong start into the year with revenues more or less on the level of last year and EBITDA also on the same level as last year, a strong, obviously, net result due to the fact that we had no write-offs in this sense compared to last year. From a perspective of performance, strong operational performance. Please keep in mind that, obviously last year, 2020, before the pandemic hit us, we had a strong start as well into the year, and especially a very mild winter in big parts of Europe. I say this not as an excuse, but you need to understand when we talk about Building Solutions, and that's mostly our brick business, that the new build, and especially when you talk about one and two family houses, it can only be started and the groundwork can be done if it's mild, not freezing and not snow. If it's wet and it's freezing, they can't start the project. This is what we had this year. We had a normal winter in January and February in big parts of Europe, and there's a lot of projects that didn't start at this stage compared to last year. However, and this I think this is important for all of you, that we saw this strong rebound end of February and into March, obviously, a very strong activity, and this is continuing into April and onwards. I think from our perspective, we are starting here off for a good year. Obviously, in the new build and in the building materials segment, we had obviously a slower start due to the weather effect in the months of January and February. Nothing to worry about. Obviously, this is when it's cold. Production is also a little bit more difficult because the clay is thicker, and it's a bit more difficult to prepare it and burn it at the end of the day. These are things that normally happen in a strong winter, but nothing exceptional from our perspective. If you look at the different performances of our businesses, let's go into this for a minute. As I said, from Wienerberger Building Solutions side, 4% only from a turnover perspective under last year, and considering these weather effects, I think a very strong first quarter. The margins effect, it is also slightly under last year, but as I said, it's a volume-driven thing. It's nothing to do with prices or costs. I would say this is a very normal start into the year with that strong winter. As I say, the company takes momentum right now in March and April. The cost structure is also going in the right direction. Obviously from a cost inflation increase, we see the positive effects of our price increases in the market. Gerhard will talk a little bit about it, but we have been able successfully to offset these cost inflations with our price increases. On the Piping Solutions side, again, a very strong start. You see that infrastructure spending is on the rise, especially here in Europe, and obviously we took advantage of this, slightly improving margins. I think I will talk in a minute about the strategy and the way forward. We are moving in the right direction with this piping segment. North America, record results. Again, I would say in the first quarter, very strong start into the year with EBITDA up and the margins up considerably. Please keep in mind also there we had a difficult start from a weather perspective, but the recovery, especially in the South of the United States, went obviously quicker due to better weather than in February and March. We think, and we see it in the market, that obviously the following months and this year will be a strong year when we talk about new residential housing, and the performance in Canada is also very satisfactory with respect to our operations there. I will talk after the numbers of Gerhard a little bit more in detail about Meridian and the status of the takeover and give you more update on this important project for us in a minute. From a number perspective, a very good start, as I said, but also strategically. We have now moved, when you look at the piping segment, very strongly into the water management and water solution business in Nordic of Europe, with a strong investment in Sweden in the best and high-performing plant that the Nordic region has in Europe. Obviously, we want to be the leading player in energy and water management in the Nordic markets. With a strong focus on ESG, with a strong focus on digitalization and obviously gaining in momentum in the modern solution business for water and for energy. Therefore, obviously the investments that we take there from the aspect of products and solutions are very important, are the major drivers of future growth in this business. The new plant that we are building and the additions to the existing ones is obviously a state-of-the-art plant with all the modern features that you have in such a plant and where we will gain from the experience that we have in the group and gain, obviously, momentum on the cost side as well. The digitalization will help us in offering more solutions to our clients. For us, it's important, this is not only for the water business, but that's also for the business of roofs and facades and walls, to increase the convenience for our clients. This is, I think, the major issue that we focus on as a company. We want to make the life of our clients and customers easier. You remember, we talked a lot about the lack of skilled labor. We talked a lot about the cost increases that are out there in different products, in different aspects of building and infrastructure and renovation. By investing and by improving our solution business, also by new features of digitalization, we improve this performance for our customers and increase the value for them. I think we're perfectly in line with the development and the key drivers of the market. Not to be forgotten that ESG is a major part of our business in the sense of driving the future of the business. I just want to alert again, all of you to the fact that Wienerberger is fully now committed to the circular economy by saying all our products that we launch these days are fully recyclable or to be reused. We also have a clear commitment to biodiversity on any site that industrially speaking, we use and we develop, and utmost importance, obviously, our contribution, a positive one to climate change by reducing our CO2 emissions additionally by 15% in the next three years. I'm convinced, and all the steps that we are undertaking today, not only on the investment side, but also in the optimization of the business, lead in this direction and that we will reach those targets. Very important. I will say also a couple of words on the CO2 emissions after Gerhard has spoken in order to give you here a little bit more flavor to this issue. Gerhard, if I may ask you kindly to go through the numbers, please. Thank you, Heimo. Ladies and gentlemen, we are happy that we can present a successful first quarter performance. Our revenues are slightly above prior year, as Heimo mentioned, mainly driven by the strong demand which we have seen in our infrastructure and renovation market. Our EBITDA like-for-like margin is with 13.2%, slightly below prior year. As also already mentioned, the very harsh winter in the beginning of the year, especially in February, led also to a lower efficiency in the production process, especially in the business unit Building Materials. As mentioned, if it is freezing and cold, production is more difficult in the clay process. Our net debt EBITDA multiple is 1.9, is I think stable and is considering the normal working capital upswing, which we see on a yearly basis. Presenting you the income statement, I would like to highlight basically the development of our EBIT which is 20% above prior year. We have this year, EBIT is equal to the operating EBIT. As you remember, we had last year this impairment charges on the goodwill and on different tangible assets of more than EUR 100 million. The financial result is slightly declining compared to prior year. Finally, we closed the first quarter 2021 with a profit after tax of EUR 27 million compared to a -EUR 106 million last year. In the reconciliation from EBITDA as reported to EBITDA like-for-like, let me explain you the two most important adjustments which we did. On the one hand, it was about the FX adjustments, so the currency devaluations of the US dollar, the Polish zloty, and the Hungarian forint. As well, we had some one-offs out of the sale of non-operating assets, mainly in Austria and Germany, which we finally deducted again from the EBITDA as reported to end up with an EBITDA like-for-like. Basically, you see that the difference between EBITDA as reported and EBITDA like-for-like is rather immaterial. The strong balance sheet ratios, which I would like to highlight, I think is showing also the resilience of our business model. You see that the net debt is only driven from the beginning of the year to the closing of the first quarter by the working capital upswing, which is around about EUR 200 million on a yearly base. The working capital itself is still on a rather lower level compared to last year, but still fine. We will basically further keep going and optimizing the working capital level. For the rest, I think the balance sheet itself shows a very strong structure, compared also to prior year. Let me continue with the financing structure, respectively, the maturity profile that we have. We have, for the next years, a very balanced maturity profile. You see that we have no major redemptions till 2023. We have the first bigger redemptions in 2024 and in 2025, which is basically the settlement of the bonds. The first one was out of 2018, which had a volume of around about EUR 250 million. I think in 2025, we will settle the bond which we issued in 2020, which had a volume of EUR 400 million. Next to that, we have by the end of the first quarter a liquidity reserve of around about EUR 750 million available. Let me explain to you or let me say some words about the self-help program. Our newly set up self-help program is embedded in our strategic focus areas of our business units. One key aspect of operational excellence is the continuous upgrade of our industrial setup, meaning also the optimization of our plant network. When we look to innovation and digitalization, we focus further on the transformation to a full system provider. Expanding our portfolio with the new products, digital services, increasing the share of recyclable and reusable products are the key aspects in the field of innovation and digitalization. The last pillar of our self-help program is sustainability. Here the focus area is the further rollout of the existing technologies, but also new technologies to reduce the energy consumption and the CO2 emissions in the future. We also have a clear financial ambition set for the self-help program. Our total financial target is EUR 135 million on EBITDA enhancement till 2023 versus the baseline of 2020. Supported is this financial target by yearly gross investments in the amount of EUR 140 million, whereby EUR 60 million are allocated on ESG CapEx. Investments in circular economy, in biodiversity, and the reduction of CO2 emissions. Around about EUR 80 million per year are allocated for special CapEx, meaning broadening the range of the portfolio in the sense of system solutions, but also new product designs and recyclable and reusable products. With this program, basically where we already started in the beginning of the year, we already achieved a contribution in the first quarter of EUR 8 million on EBITDA enhancement. For the whole year, we expect an EBITDA contribution of EUR 40 million as part of the EUR 135 million. Let me as a last topic, which I would like to highlight, also say some words about the cost management, as we have seen during the last months and still see a general upward trend of input prices. Based on our local supply chain structures, meaning that we have local sourcing supported by a central contracting team, this helps us protecting us from the rising input prices. We have for most of our raw material prices, our raw materials contracts in place, which are based on a local supply chain and which are negotiated and supported by the central procurement department. We announced and basically implemented in the beginning of the year our price increases. These price increases, which we have announced and implemented, are already covering the input price increases, which are around about 2% to 3% on average in most of our markets in the first quarter of 2021. One second topic which is important to mention is active margin management, which we are doing in relation to the price increase of the plastic granulates in the piping business. We see a continuous upward price trend for plastic granulates, which is pushed by the shortage of availability from producers, mainly due to maintenance work and force majeure events in production. Thanks to our proactive margin management, we were largely successful in mitigating the effect of rising input costs. The last point which I would like to highlight is the topic of energy hedging, as it is also for us as Wienerberger a huge cost position, which is important to hedge or respectively to actively manage. We're having our hedging strategy, our hedging policy in place, meaning also that big part of the volumes and big part of the price is basically what we need for 2021, meaning more than 90% is already hedged and fixed. That basically helps us benefiting from the attractive price levels of the prior year where we locked in. Basically, with our successful inventory management, our long-term supplier relations, and also long-term contracts which we have in place, our local supply chains and our proactive cost management, we were able, in the first quarter, to meet our customers' demands at any time during the first quarter. With these final words, I would like also to hand over again, to Heimo. Thank you, Gerhard, and ladies and gentlemen. I think from what you heard, we are perfectly on track with our self-help program. Just to alert you to the fact, obviously, beginning of this year, politically speaking, we couldn't move our people around Europe still. This was, obviously, a major setback for us because the engineers were not able to travel yet due to this turmoil with vaccines and other things. As we speak, quarter two will help us in sort of putting a lot more emphasis on the manufacturing side, and the projects will run quicker and therefore, obviously, the improvement of the contribution from this self-help program will improve dramatically in quarter two and quarter three. This is some additional information on the front of the Self-help. If we look at the markets as such in Europe and in North America, let's look at it from the perspective of new build, renovation and infrastructure. I think when we look at renovation, it goes without saying that in all of our markets, regionally speaking, we see a positive trend. All the aspects of renovation are on the rise. I just redraw your attention to the fact that the turnover in this part of the business is about 20% of the whole turnover of Wienerberger and increasing. When we talk about infrastructure, more or less 25% of our turnover goes into this sort of end market. We see a stable, slightly growing market when it comes to infrastructure in Western Europe, Central Eastern Europe, Nordics, and definitely a growing one in North America. Here again, a very good market environment. On the new build side, obviously growing in North America and especially in the U.S., we have a slight decrease in the Nordics. Our exposure is minor to this market in the Nordics and our major exposure is in Western Europe and Central Eastern Europe. You have probably noted that we are more optimistic and positive about Western Europe. That has to do with the markets as they have performed in recent weeks and months. We talk about big markets, the Benelux for us, France, also the U.K. and also in Central Europe. Poland is picking up, the Czech Republic, Austria and Hungary and Romania. Here, good underlying trends. We see also the trend that obviously after COVID, people are investing in the rural parts of these markets, more in one family houses. Our key markets, obviously, because they want to invest in the future and they have their own sort of gardens. From a health perspective, they feel here a better sort of situation than being in an apartment. Here again, we see some positive trends for our business, not just for the coming months, but for the following years. I have promised that I say a couple of words on the following items. Meridian. Meridian acquisition, everything is going well. We had our discussions with the United States Department of Justice in the U.S. as foreseen by the procedure. It took probably a little longer due to the COVID effect and the change of administration in the U.S. Nevertheless, we are moving in the right direction. We foresee sort of closing of this transaction in the quarter now. That means in the second quarter, that we can then consolidate the business probably, as I say, half year onwards. Nothing to sort of worry about. The businesses are performing well, so there's no cash drain in the business of Meridian, and it's going in the right direction. I'm not allowed to say anything more because obviously bound by the sort of regulations in the U.S. and especially Department of Justice. You will understand if I can't sort of answer very particular questions as to the performance of the businesses. To ours, yes, but not to their colleagues. As I said, I'm very optimistic that we close this transaction in quarter two. I said also, I would say a couple of words on CO2 emissions. That's an important subject. From our perspective, as you are all well aware, we are part of the trading scheme of the European Commission. We are now in the third phase that goes up to 2029. We are obviously part of the carbon leakage status as an industry and get allocated free allowances on the CO2 side. These allowances we use, we have obviously enough of those. As it is the policy of such a trading scheme, we are obliged to reduce our emissions year by year by a pre-agreed number. This is what we are doing. On top of it, we clearly said, that's what Gerhard was alluding to with the program of ESG investment, in decreasing or reducing our CO2 emissions by another 15%. Again, here, strong effort of Wienerberger to do so. What does it mean? From our perspective, we will optimize our structures as much as we can, reduce our emissions step by step and obviously from an optimization standpoint, don't shy away from any effort to reduce it further and make a positive contribution to climate change. On the front of different resources of energy, we have tried those, have experienced with those, electrification of kilns, for example. That's what we're currently doing in one of our projects in Belgium. It's running very well, and we obviously use such different resources of energy like hydrogen as well in order to test it. Also, a positive outcome from those tests. I think we are ready also to use biogas when we get it, like in Denmark, for example, we add already biogas very successfully to our production. Such an approach, step by step, and national market by national market. Why? Ladies and gentlemen, because Europe has no common policy. You will see also emerge from a national perspective, very different approaches from Denmark to the Netherlands, from the Netherlands to Germany and Austria. People will propose different solutions, and we as an industry will take advantage of those. Our general policy is to be open-minded as far as energy resources are concerned, alternative ones, use them, implement them, and as I said, we've already prepared ourselves to these different resources of energy and are able to use them. This will continue as we speak. A last word also before I go to the outlook on the M&A side. We have a completely full pipeline of M&A projects in all the different areas of our businesses, meaning Piping, meaning the Building Solutions sites throughout Europe, especially. We will pursue those growth projects in the not-too-distant future because they fit nicely into our businesses, enhance the performance of those businesses, and create stronger and faster-growing businesses as we speak. This is something where we do our work thoroughly and with a lot of diligence, and therefore it's not to be timed that some transaction will be completed in quarter two or quarter three. As I said, we have a full pipeline of those projects for this year. This leads me to my final comment. That's the guidance for this year. From all the things that have been said by Gerhard and myself, I can confirm again that all the cost inflation has been covered by price increases and successfully so in the market as we speak. I will dedicate a couple of words to the specific item of plastic granulate prices, because I think this is an important item that you have to understand. We had obviously a force majeure called by the major producers worldwide at the beginning of this year. They were all down for maintenance and created a shortage of supply. Prices went up by 50% to 60%. This was a really tough situation for all the producers in the plastic industry and therefore also for us as well. We managed it very well, by the way, as Gerhard pointed out in quarter one, but it will hit us eventually also now in quarter two and three. Why? Because we have long-term contracts with our clients on infrastructure projects and where we obviously can't pass them through immediately. This will stay with us. It's a max amount of EUR 20 million that we see as of today. It's the same amount as of the beginning of the year. We see it to materialize in quarter two and quarter three. It's a one-time effect, by the way. Again, I think when we take our guidance and if we position ourselves on the, I would say, on the upper side of our guidance, meaning the EUR 620, then obviously when you add the EUR 20 million of this plastic granulate price impact on us, then you have obviously a serious number that is a real indicator where Wienerberger's performance is going to this year. This means I'm rather optimistic for the rest of the year. I'm not saying I'm disappointed by the first three months, because actually for me, there was only one month in one of the business areas that was strong. That was March. I see with optimism the numbers coming in on April and May. As I say, the performance is moving in the right direction. As Gerhard pointed out, the self-help program is picking up momentum. On the CapEx spending side, we are again very disciplined. All in all, and as I said, from a perspective also on the M&A front, we have good projects ahead of us. It gives me the optimism that we will move in the right direction with respect to our guidance. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope we covered some ground and answered probably one or other questions that you had already burning and probably could contribute it. If there are more questions to come, my team is and myself are obviously ready to take those. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star followed by one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star followed by two. If you are using speaker equipment today, please lift the handset before making your selection. Anyone who has a question, you may press star followed by one at this time. One moment for the first question, please. The first question is from the line of Tobias Woerner, Stifel Europe. Your question please. Yes, good afternoon, gentlemen. Thanks for taking my questions. The first question you in a way alluded to already, it seems to be supported by data we look at, i.e., that you've been selling from inventories in the first quarter. You also mentioned difficulties producing or getting clay out of the ground, so to speak. Should we see this as the main impact on margins for you in the first quarter? Your working capital was obviously significantly lower. If we look at the piping solution side of the equation, is it basically there where your inventories are higher building up for the typical seasonal selling? That's the first question. The second question, you mentioned price increases to the tune of 2%-3% in the U.S. We're already seeing in March a price increase of almost 4%. Just remind us of your usual practice and the ability for you to pass on further price increases as the year goes on. Just lastly, permits in the U.S., housing permits in the U.S. and Poland are extremely strong as of March. Are you seeing similar pictures in other markets? Thank you. Thank you, Tobias, for your three questions. Let me just talk about the housing permits. We see those numbers as well in Poland and especially in the U.S. From my perspective, I don't see this sort of steep increases in other markets yet, to be honest with you, but I see strong numbers coming through from other markets. The Netherlands or Belgium are more stable, so you don't see these hikes up and down. Even there, if we see a couple of percentage points plus, I'm delighted to see those, to be honest. Also the English market is moving in the right direction. Again, not those sort of increases that we see in Poland and in the U.S. with respect to permits, but still very good ones. On the price side. The price side is something, as we said, Gerhard and myself, we were very disciplined to get the price increases through quickly. It's positive to say that beginning of May, we have everything aligned. Yes, there might be additional price increases throughout the year. We have certain markets where we are active in that are open to such sort of things. I'm saying this with respect to Eastern Europe. Northern Europe is a little bit more disciplined when it comes to pricing. They usually do one price increase a year, exceptionally two. If we are in a situation like this one where steep increases are like I alluded to in the piping one with the plastic granulate. When we take other markets in Western Europe, usually we are here also in the situation for one, max two price increases. As I say, from this perspective, we are already moving in the right direction. If there's additional possibilities and needs, Wienerberger will certainly move on that. By the way, in the U.S. it's much higher, the price increases on our side, it's about 5%. Just to give you the feedback on this thing. Do you want to say something on the inventory side, Gerhard, or shall I continue? I think the inventory side, there are two aspects. I think the one what you already mentioned, that we had inefficiencies in the production, which was due to the cold weather. This is not leading to a big limitation in the output of clay products because it is basically an issue what you have with clay production. We had a very strong start in the renovation part, where basically volumes started picking up already in the beginning of the year. I would say we are right on track with the development on working capital and already now in May, we simply see that working capital is on the level where it should be for the season of this year. Thank you very much. Maybe one add-on question, if I may. In the U.K. and also in Poland, volumes deliveries seem to be up according to the data we follow, about 12% and 11% respectively. Is that something you're seeing as well? We see this from a perspective of general remarks. The U.K. market is strong, definitely. The Polish market, as I said, when we talk essentially about our brick business, and that's the walling segment, Tobias, that's the clay blocks. As I said, from a starting perspective, the winter was especially also harsh in Poland. January and February were slower, but in March and April, we see the pickup again. This obviously is increasing strongly, and the numbers you're hinting towards are right. This is also some sort of effect because the January and February numbers were lower. This has to be seen a little bit on the long run if this continues this trend, especially when we talk about Poland. Thank you very much. Very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Yves Bromehead, Exane BNP Paribas. Your question, please. Good afternoon, gentlemen. I hope you're well. I will have just a few questions on my side. I'll take them one by one, if that's okay. My first question is on the like-for-like. I'm struggling to reconcile the Q1 like-for-like in the Clay Building Materials Europe. You mentioned you had a negative effects of around 2%, but I remember that you also divested some assets last year, including in Switzerland. Could you maybe help us to understand what's the actual organic revenue development in Q1 and split this between volumes and prices? I guess we could assume 2%-3% price and the rest is volume. If you could help us on this. I guess related to that, you mentioned March and April is strong. We're already halfway through May. Can you maybe help us understand the exit rates in March? What's happening in April and May in terms of volume developments? Well, if I may take the second one. As I said, volumes are up and strongly in March and April and also into May. As I said, I'm positive and go with optimism in the second quarter. If you pretty well understand that the second quarter will be a very strong one compared to last year because obviously the comparable numbers last year were affected by lockdowns, et cetera. We will see, again, a very strong performance in the second quarter, but not only due to this effect, but to the effect that numbers are improving in April and May. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead, sorry. Now we may need to move to your first question, the like-for-like. Yeah? Maybe I think what we have to consider also, because you mentioned the CBME or the clay business unit. There is also this year, when we look to the currency development, there is an impact in it on the zloty and on the Hungarian forint, which is hitting basically the business unit this year rather strong. Looking to the development for like-for-like, I think what is important, what we already mentioned, that we had this year a totally different first two months development like we had in 2020. Out of that, I would say that the months is January and February are the most basically influencing factors which are basically showing or explaining the different development of the CBME business unit compared to prior year. Are you sorry, are you just able to quantify the like-for-like in percentage development in Q1? Is that something you could give in the clay building solution? We cannot quantify it or we would not like to quantify it really in detail. As we said, we basically adjust the EBITDAs by one-offs, which you have seen, like the sale of non-core assets and the currency devaluations. You mentioned also the Swiss topic, which basically was sold last year I think in November, in September as far as I remember. This is considered also in the like-for-like comparison in the position of consolidation. Out of that, basically the reconciliation, the like-for-like reconciliation should be possible to make up for you. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I was more talking about revenues to be fair in the clay building solution. If you can provide that would be great. If you want to follow up after the call, that's fine. Maybe just a second question on the outlook. I understand you're keeping the EBITDA guidance. Just to be completely clear, given the comments you just made on pricing and the fact that you could potentially come back to the pricing and increase it further sequentially, given the strong increase in volumes. Is it fair to assume that your current EBITDA guidance of EUR 600-EUR 620 does not include any further price hike sequentially speaking? If I may take this one up. I said in my sort of statement that we see ourselves on the upper range already of the guidance, so EUR 620. I think we have made here a considerable step already. Yeah. I also said that the EUR 20 million of plastic granulate additional price increases that we have to absorb. Basically from a perspective of Wienerberger, we are far ahead of this already guidance that we gave at the beginning of the year, sorry. Yes, the answer is also a yes, we have not built into this additional price increases. We have assumed that we can offset the inflationary cost increases with price increases. If other price increases were to follow, they will add on, obviously. As I said, it's very important to note from all of you listening into the call that we actually improved already our guidance upwards. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Priya Seer. HSBC. Your question, please. Hello, gents. Good afternoon. I have two questions, if I may. The first one is on the exit rate. You helpfully talked about the improvement. If you could put some number around it, how the clay brick business kind of performed in March and April, and if you could contextualize with 2019 numbers so that way at least we see that the comparison is not being mixed with the COVID-19 impact. Well, I think what we are not going to do when the time of speaking, we are not now breaking down quarter results by monthly results or numbers because that would then only create more confusion, et cetera. I say that the trading numbers of March and April are strongly up and substantially up, I think this gives you a good indication already. Yeah. Compared to last year. Yeah. Here we, I think give you already a substantial information in this respect. Okay. Understood. If we look at the exhibit, slide 25, you kind of raise the numbers for new build and infrastructure that's kind of down to flat. Could you please tell us what are the kind of countries where you have seen those positive strength from what you communicated in February? As I said when I talked about the Western European markets, we have seen obviously and confirmed that the U.K. market is doing better than originally expected. Also the Benelux markets, Belgium and Netherlands are becoming better right now, and that's why we obviously realigned it from a red to a more stable one. I think these were the major drivers for this change, and these are the most important markets, if I may say so, in this region for Wienerberger. Okay. Probably a last one on the plastic granulate. That number being confirmed at EUR 20 million for this year again. If we just follow through your comment and you talk about there is a delay in pass-through, does that mean we are going to get a benefit in Q4, hence the impact of EUR 20 million may not be fully seen for this year? It could be EUR 15 million or EUR 10 million, depending upon where the plastic granulate pricing will be in Q2 or Q3? I think what we need to see, first of all, and I think that's too early to make a judgment. I understand fully and appreciate your comment. First of all, we need to see a stabilization on the plastic granulate prices and then the full supply coming in. What we assume as of today, and we have not more information than that the production capacities of the producers of plastic granulate are now up and running, first of all. The supply issue should, as I said earlier, move away, in quarter two and into quarter three, and therefore, then the pricing should come down as well and stabilize. I think these are things, if we then see these positive trends, then we can probably talk about a little bit of positive impact on these EUR 20 million. For the moment, I think from a risk perspective, it's the best information that we can give you at this stage. Yeah. Okay, fair enough. Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Matthias Weissenberger, Deutsche Bank. Your question, please. Hi, good afternoon, lady and gents. Only one question from my side. Could you elaborate a bit on France and Germany and which new business data we saw over the last couple of months and how that has developed? Was it just a freeze? Is that something that's going to bite us maybe later in the year? How are the dynamics there? On France to start with, strong dynamics on the renovation market. That's important for us because we have a roofing business there. We see on the new build side here an improving market environment. Started a little slow, permits and other activities picking up in France. This is a positive trend that we see there. On the German side, renovation, again, also strong and forward-looking, also positive. On the new build side, I would call it a more established environment. Nothing to worry about immediately and nothing in the not too distant future, but it's more a stable environment. Okay, great. Thanks. The next question come from the line of Markus Remis, RBI. Your question please. Good afternoon. Actually, I've withdrawn from the line. All my questions have been answered. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Yassine Touahri, On Field Investment Research. Your question, please. Yes, good afternoon. Couple of questions. First, you mentioned that you've got 2% to 3% price increase covering the cost. You mentioned 5% for North America. Could you give a bit of color for your piping solution and your clay building solution in Europe? Is it lower than 2%, 3% in those two divisions? I've got a second question, which is on gas prices. I understand that you're fully hedged this year, that you are largely hedged for 2022, at least for part of the year. When I look at the gas prices right now in Europe, they are very, very high. Is it a concern for you for next year and for 2023? What's your strategy there? A third question, which is probably much more long-term, is that, have you thought of a strategy for carbon neutral Wienerberger by 2050? Just before Gerhard comes in. Yes, we have thought about the carbon strategy of Wienerberger. I try to be very brief in my sort of statements. Obviously, we have a tremendous plan behind it when we talk about different resources of energy, what we can use, how we can access them. It's a national approach, because as I said at the beginning, it's going to be very different from country to country, in Europe especially, and therefore, we need to adjust to this. One very important subject for you at this stage. We successfully moved away already from natural gas only in Denmark to biogas. Yeah. You see how quickly we can do it if the availability is there, if we have assurance, if enough of this energy is there, and if the supply can be sent through a network of pipelines. This is very important. We can talk a lot about, for example, hydrogen or others. If it's not available for us at this stage, it's an interesting subject, but we can't work on it. The only thing we can do, and that's what I tried to explain earlier, that in case we have access to such alternative resources of energy, we can use them. Kilns, we need to adapt certain things, but we can use them. The same goes for electrification. You can do certain aspects of production and especially burning with electrification, but then you need enormous amounts of electricity that, first of all, need to be available long-term, 365 days a year, and also then be brought to your production sites. One is the reduction of our CO2 emissions by cutting our input of energy. Second is efficiency improvements throughout our production process, and third is our alternative resources. This is our clear strategy ahead. If we come to your second question, it's about gas hedging or whatever you want to take first. Exactly. Let me start with your first questions, where you were asking about pricing development. You mentioned basically the 2% to 3% price increase, what we communicated in the first quarter, and also basically the 5% on the piping side. Yes, on the piping side, we have even higher price increases, but also not forget that we also have higher input prices. We see basically a stable margin development, and we are able to manage the margins, especially on the piping side, very good. That leads also to even higher price increases on the piping segment or in the piping business unit. Especially here in the U.S., where we have a rather flexible pricing mechanism. Basically, when we look to the building solutions, as Heimo Scheuch mentioned, we see this 2% to 3% price increase in average, which is covering the input cost inflation or input cost increase, what we see across the business unit of building solutions. The second question, if I may add, is the topic of hedging. As I mentioned before, the big part of our prices for 2021 is already fixed. Maybe to add some figures to that, the gas is already for 90% fixed for 2021, and for 2022, we even have 70% fixed on the price level. We are benefiting at the moment on a favorable cost structure as we locked in already these volumes or these prices basically last year. On the electricity side, which is not that material for us, but still also a big cost position, it is comparable. We have on the electricity side or on the power side, around about 90% fixed for 2021. For 2022, we also have around about 70% already fixed for 2022. This hopefully answers your questions about the volumes or the prices basically, which are hedged for the future. Is it fair to assume that the hedging price for 2022 is higher than the average price for 2021? The hedging price of 2022 is slightly higher than the hedging price which we have in place today for 2021. Yeah, right. The risk is mostly for 2023, which is a long time down the road. We have for 2023, and we only have small volumes basically hedged so far, but this is simply going too far. Okay. That's very clear and very helpful. Thank you very much for all those key answers. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Cedar Ekblom, Morgan Stanley. Your question, please. Thanks very much. Hi, gentlemen. I had a question on your M&A strategy going forward. I wanted to ask how you see the M&A landscape, and if you could compare and contrast maybe what you're seeing on the piping side versus the brick side in Europe, and maybe give us a bit of color in terms of how you see capital allocation going forward, where you see the growth opportunities. Maybe also talk about multiples in the different markets. I would assume that multiples of piping businesses are probably a bit higher than on the brick side of things. Maybe just give us an understanding of the next leg of the M&A strategy, please. Thank you. Thank you, obviously appreciate your question on this. From our side, when we talk about the pipeline, it's again, a mixed one. It's small deals in the Building Solutions side, add-ons that we require on accessories and others. As I say, it's a mixture of mid-size and small deals, couple of million EUR, et cetera. The multiples are not that high and not that different from before or didn't develop that much. This is, I think, very digestible and from a perspective of further growth makes a lot of sense. You are absolutely right. If I look around and look at different multiples that are currently paid in the building materials side in Europe, we are approaching quite high multiples. From our perspective, we will be very careful because it's a matter of creating value that is obviously in the center of our attention and not just buying companies. On the piping front, we see a multitude of mid-sized and smaller deals that we can absorb and do in different geographies around Europe, Eastern and Northern and Western part of Europe, and that we will move on. We see them as perfect add-ons to our current structure and exposure. As we said, water management and energy management are two major focus points, and also on the in-house business when it comes to piping. These are the major focus points. Multiples have not increased dramatically. They are not higher than in the building solution sides, by the way, pretty much in line. I don't foresee in recent months that they shoot up or go through the roof as we speak. As I said, we are known for a disciplined team of people when we talk about the M&A side of the business. Again, yes, there are good opportunities out there. We pursue them. We are eager to take these opportunities if we can get them at the right price. We will sort of make sure that our teams are ready to integrate it. Finally, yes, they are more in Europe at this stage because on the U.S. side, we will have our hands full of integrating Meridian then from the next quarter onwards. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Miroslav Zuzak, JMS Invest AG. Your question, please. Yes. Hello, gentlemen. Thank you for taking my questions. I have four. The first one would be regarding the gross margin. Now in the current quarter, you seem to be very, let's say, bullish on the price increases and that you can offset the raw material prices. Is it fair to assume that your gross margin, which has been a little bit under pressure now in Q1, will normalize in Q2 already? By normalizing, I mean not going back to the previous year level, but to the 2019 level, so 36, 37%. Is this realistic? That would be my first question. Yeah. I think obviously we always have the same development. I think gross margin, you need to see over the year, by the way, and not over quarters, because obviously you get, first of all, shutdowns for maintenance and then startup of plants that are in certain quarters. You're absolutely right. In quarter two, due to the full utilization of plants, they're running smoothly and the output is increasing. Obviously, margin goes up. I would say it's fair to assume that we go to the 2019 level. Okay. I think on the piping side, as Heimo Scheuch already mentioned, we foresee that there is some pressure on the margins, which we quantified by a maximum risk, which partly will affect quarters two and finally also quarter three. Okay. Thank you. Regarding the carbon leakage status, which now basically is guaranteed until 2029, what happens thereafter? That's a good question of yours, but obviously we have different sort of schools of thinking, and I think we need to be very agile and very flexible because I'm certain that there are some people, and you see the tendencies already in Europe, that this gets replaced by a national policy. That the governments put national policies in place like carbon taxes, like references with respect to carbon prices and et cetera. I'm not sure that we will have from 2029 onwards a common European approach, by the way. We might have a common European approach on the borders of Europe, but as far as the national ones are concerned, there could be eventually a move towards a more, call it nationalistic approach, by all due respect. That's something where we see already certain tendencies when we look through our landscape of activities that we have. That's a best guess. We can also have a broader reflection because the U.S. is currently talking to Europe again about this whole sort of climate change procedure. We might see a bigger discussion on those items. It's like looking into a glass ball, to be honest. I can't give you here more of this information. The only thing is that I can tell you, we prepare ourselves for all sorts of different scenarios. It's not only one scenario that we are basically looking at, meaning that this sort of trading scheme continues. We think also of more national approaches as well. Okay. The third question would be regarding the selling cost, which has been down year-over-year. Are you more efficient there? Can we expect to have a lower level in terms of percentage of sales going forward? Compared to the 2019 levels, are you more effective there, or was there a temporary effect in Q1? I think we obviously are more effective because we do a lot in digitalization. We put a lot of emphasis, as Gerhard puts it, on the Fast Forward or now the self-help program. Here we have made considerable improvements, but it would be also too ambitious to see that we do it every year and in the same amounts. I think it gradually goes lower, and obviously the last part is then more difficult to reach. I think if we are very efficient already to squeeze out another percentage point is much quicker than at the beginning of such a journey. Yes, we will continue to positively develop, but not at the same pace as we did in the past. Okay, cool. The administrative cost was up. It's quite the contrarian development. Was there any one-offs or is this the new flight level, the 64? No, I think, again, quarter by quarter is difficult to adjust, because obviously here again in the first quarter you might have some bonuses in it and some from the past some issues. Please don't overreact on those things in the first quarter. Gerhard, you can confirm that. I think there's nothing special what you see. I think especially on the administration costs, it is really only a timing impact, what you see. On the selling costs, I only can underline what Heimo said. We did our efforts and also what we should not forget, there was also last year, this year, no fairs, basically, which also were a part of the selling cost in the past. We constantly are coming down. As we said, I think the efforts what we are showing are coming also to a level where every percentage point to go further down is difficult and challenging. Okay, cool. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you. All the best for Q2. Thank you. The rest of the year. Operator, I think we need to look at also our timing. Yeah. I think if there are one or two more questions, we might take them, but if not, then we will close the call. There are no further questions at this time. Thank you. Thank you very much, operator. Ladies and gentlemen, thanks very much for dialing in today. The next conference call will be on August 11th for our half year results. For today, I can only wish you a nice remaining afternoon. Thank you very much for dialing in again, and goodbye. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Wienerberger conference call. Thank you for joining and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.