Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Dufry's Q3 Results 2022 conference call and live webcast. I'm Alice, the conference call operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and one on your telephone. Webcast viewers may submit their questions or comments in writing via the relative field. For operator assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Mr. Xavier Rossinyol, CEO of Dufry. Please go ahead, sir. Good morning. Good afternoon. Welcome to this video call of presentation of the nine-month results of Dufry. I'm here in New York with our CFO, Yves Gerster, and we will go through the presentation together. Let me start in page four with a business update. Revenues for the first nine months of the year have reached a little bit more than CHF 5 billion, which is 24% less than 2019, but with a very strong third quarter, with more than CHF 2.1 billion sales, which is only 16% below the levels of 2019. Compared to 2021, the organic growth is close to 100% for the first nine months of the year. The nine months EBITDA has reached a little bit less than CHF 464 million, which is a EBITDA margin for the first nine months of 9.2%, compared to 7.8% on the first half and compared to 9.6% in the first nine months of 2019. Only 40 basis points lower than the year 2019. Equity free cash flow has reached CHF 337 million for the first nine months, compared to negative cash flow last year. The quarter and the first nine months have been very strong in revenues, core EBITDA margin, and equity free cash flow. Also, on the first nine months, we kept with the business development and we have opened 9,400 square meters of new space. Moving to page number 5, some of the supportive impacts we have seen year-to-date and some of the challenges we also see. With the numbers we present, it's very clear that despite the geopolitical challenges, the macroeconomic challenges, the lack of some of the key nationalities in travel retail, despite airport disruptions in many locations, the quarter has been very strong. Not only that, the strength of the performance continue for the full months of October, so the quarter four also started ahead of expectations. The pent-up demand remains strong, and we are convinced that the travel retail and the F&B at airports are a key essential part of the travel experience. What is evident on the numbers we are publishing today, we keep very strict cost discipline, and we focus a lot on cash flow generation despite the level of sales being still below 2019. We are, like any other company, facing general challenges, macroeconomic challenges, inflation in particular, which has had a limited effect so far, but it's still something we are continuing to monitor and being very vigilant. Still, there are some travel restrictions across the board, mostly in Asia Pacific. Energy cost, of course, is something we monitor carefully, even if for us it's relatively low with utilities representing less than 1% of the turnover. Supply chain is improving, but there still remains a challenge we need to be vigilant. Moving to page 6, we can see that the organic growth has been extraordinary on the first 9 months. As I said, close to 100% growth. Looking at 2019 levels, we are right now in the first 9 months to an 81% level of sales of 2019 on organic basis, meaning at the same exchange rate, with the third quarter being close to 90% and October being slightly ahead of that at 92% of 2019 levels. October has not seen a slowdown, but a slight acceleration to 2022 Q3. Looking at the performance by region, we see the strength of the performance both in EMEA and the Americas with 101% and 94% respectively of 2019 level of sales at the same exchange rate. Even if Asia is far behind that with 36%, you can clearly see that also in the last few months there has been an acceleration of the revenues there, along with the release of some of the travel limitation in the region. Leisure has continued to be one of the key drivers. The best performing areas of our portfolio are the Caribbean, are Mexico, are parts of South America and the Mediterranean region. But still, we had a good performance on other locations where depend more on less leisure travelers. In the US, we are seeing a pretty strong comeback of the business travel. Moving to the next slide. The business development, as I said, has continued to be strong with 9,400 square meters of new space. We have refurbished shy of 27,000. The combination of the two is about 6% of the total surface, which is still a little bit behind the normalized ratio. That makes sense because we are, as I said earlier, very vigilant on how we deploy the CapEx, to make sure that it goes along with the recovery of revenues. We keep opening stores. We keep extending the opening hours along the recovery of the traffic, but we still are slightly below the full normalized opening of stores. Before Yves explains the detail of the results, just one slide number 9, to emphasize the strategic focus we have on ESG. You have an update here. We keep introducing more and more sustainable products. We keep advancing on the diversity and inclusion programs. We have just launched the second group-wide survey, covering close to 75% of all the employees. We keep with another wave of D&I training. We keep pushing for science-based targets on our environmental impact. As we disclose during the strategic plan, our focus on developing programs that are meaningful for the communities where we are present. I'll come back in a few minutes to update on the strategy of the group, but now I hand over to Yves for the nine-month results details. Thank you. Thank you, Xavi, and welcome to everybody also from my side here from New York. Thank you very much for joining us today on the quarterly update. As you know, for Q1 and also for Q3, we are providing a trading update. However, as Xavi has already explained, for this quarter, due to the current environment, we thought it would be good also to provide you with the EBITDA and the EBITDA margin. Looking at slide 11, the third quarter historically shows the strongest performance, given summertime as high season. We have seen this pattern also in the current year in 2022. EBITDA reached CHF 237 million for the quarter, a similar amount as for the first half of the year, 2022. EBITDA margin stood at strong 11.7% for Q3, and at 9.2% year to date. We performed above target despite a challenging macroeconomic environment driven by robust travel and continued pent-up demand, as Xavier has mentioned before, which is reflected in the sales for the quarter. What is important to keep in mind, however, the fourth quarter will see a lower margin. This is in line with our typical seasonal pattern and nothing unusual. We have seen that in all the years before the pandemic. Moving on to slide 12 with the equity free cash flow. Normally, equity free cash flow also follows the typical seasonal pattern, with Q1 and Q4 being the weakest quarters, and Q3 typically being the strongest one. As you can see, the second quarter saw this year the highest cash flow generation with CHF 283 million. As discussed already at our half year results call in August, the second quarter was supported by some CapEx and net working capital phasing. Year to date, we generated CHF 337 million. What is important here for the full year outlook, typically, the fourth quarter sees a negative cash flow. In addition, we still expect CapEx to catch up to a certain degree. Also, this is in line with our new-normal seasonality, nothing unusual. Moving on to the next slide number 13. Our net debt position further decreased and stands at below CHF 2.7 billion as of the end of September. This is the lowest position since March 2015 and shows the progress we have made over the last quarters. The combination with Autogrill will further reduce our net debt position, while we will continue to focus on deleveraging. Moving on to slide number 14, with the covenants. Related to the net debt we just have discussed, we are also progressing well on the covenants. As a reminder, the covenant holiday is in place until and including June 2023, with the first covenant testing to happen only in September 2023, with a leverage threshold of 5x. However, as of September this year, we already stand at 5.1, so well ahead of initial expected levels and feeling confident that we will be below the target threshold by September next year. Having said that, I hand over back to Xavier Rossinyol. Thank you very much, Yves. Now moving to page 16. We keep our focus on developing Destination 2027, which is our new five-year strategy. As a reminder, it's based on four key pillars. The first one, based on the travel experience revolution. Being absolutely traveler-centric, and that is affecting our physical retail, our stores. We think the combination with Autogrill is absolutely strategic to get not only travel retail, but also F&B at the airport and being able to be a truly travel experience company. Also to develop a stronger digital engagement end-to-end. Second pillar is a dedicated geographical strategy. We focus on the U.S., and again, the combination with Autogrill will give us leadership in that market. A dedicated strategy for Asia-Pacific and the Chinese passengers. Keep developing our stronger markets for the rest of the world, EMEA, Latin America, Africa, and Middle East. The third pillar is focus on continuous improvement culture. We want to be able to generate consistent improvements on our efficiencies, and as we are showing in this quarter three, to adapt the cost basis and to adapt the cash flow profile to the level of sales, wherever that sales might be. The last pillar, ESG. ESG is not something we do on top of our day-to-day, but is an essential part of our daily work. Everything powered by our people, and we have already introduced some changes on our team. I'm very happy to welcome Katrin Volery as our new Chief People Officer. The HR and people management function will report to me going forward, and she will join our Group Executive Committee as of beginning next year. I wish her all the luck, and I think it's a clear example on how organization follows a strategy, and a clear example that we mean what we say, and we put people management, our team, and the culture at the center of what we do. Moving to the next page, an update on the merger with Autogrill. As you know, at the beginning of August, we had all the approvals we require from our general assembly, and we were able to move to all the regulatory approvals. In all of them, so far, we are going according to plan or ahead of plan, having achieved already the okay from the antitrust authorities in the U.S. that, as you know, was the most, complex and the larger antitrust approval we require. On that basis, we expect the transactions to be completed as we announced in July. The first part, the acquisition of the 50.3 of Edizione in Autogrill, will happen on the first quarter of next year, and that will allow us to do the mandatory tender offer for the remaining 49% in the second quarter of the year. Everything so far is going according to plan, and I confirm again. With all due respect to the regulatory approvals that we do not expect at this stage any surprises and we will be closing as expected. Moving to the next page. We decided this time to give a little bit of visibility on what are our expectations for the year end. The different forecasts for the traffic are showing to finish the year 2022 with -22% to -33% of 2019 volumes, and full recovery of the levels of traffic of 2019 in 2024. Again, as I said in previous calls and in previous conferences, just reaching the same levels doesn't mean going back to the same profile of passengers. The geographies have changed, the type of traveling purpose have changed. We focus more than the level of passengers, but we also focus on the profile of passengers. That said, our expectations as Dufry, and I'm moving now to page 20, are as we present in this slide. We expect to finish the year between CHF 6.6 billion and CHF 6.7 billion of revenues, with an EBITDA between CHF 560 million and CHF 580 million, which will be a margin between 8.4% and 8.8%. As Yves explained, the contribution of the last quarter is lower than the contribution of the third quarter on a typical year, and we are more and more going to a typical year. Equity Free Cash Flow, we expect to be in the range of CHF 250 million and CHF 270 million. In all the measures, a very strong performance for 2022. Of course, we remain vigilant, as I said, to any change on the current trends that are positive, and we will apply the same that we have done in the last quarter. We will adapt the cost structure, and we will adapt the cash flow profile to the level of turnover that we see this quarter and also next year. To finalize, as a conclusion, very strong performance with almost 100% organic growth between 2022 and 2021. Very strong quarter results in EBITDA and also on Equity Free Cash Flow. Net debt position lower than any time in the last 6 or 7 years. Faster deleveraging than anticipated. Strong commitment to this long-term vision of Destination 2027. To be very clear, to have a long-term commitment to the strategy is equally important for us to our uncompromised commitment to the daily delivery and the daily performance, and that's what we have seen in quarter 3 of 2023. Thank you very much. Now we will start the Q&A. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question or make a comment may press star and one on the touchtone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered the queue. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use only handsets when asking a question. Webcast viewers may submit their questions or comments in writing in the relevant field. Anyone who has a question or a comment may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from the line of Edward Robinson from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead. Yeah. Good afternoon, Xavier and Yves. Two questions for me. The first one on 2023 sales might be a little bit premature, but I'll just try to get a sense from you. Looking at your guidance, it looks to me like, you know, your sales in 2022 on an organic basis are gonna be down 15% versus 2019. You know, kind of triangulating what the international agencies are predicting for next year, would it be fair to assume a flat to a high single digit versus 2019 in terms of sales on an organic basis? That's question number one. Then question number two, you know, equity free cash flow, you know, better coming in than expected in Q3, so congratulations. If I look at the guidance, you know, for this year, so I think, you know, Yves, you implying -CHF 80 million in Q4, if you can just come back on the moving part on the seasonality elements. More importantly, again, might be a little bit premature, but what do you have in mind, you know, in terms of 2023, for Dufry standalone? You know, is the base case to assume that the equity free cash flow should be flat to up next year versus 2022? Thank you. Thank you for the questions. Look, it's always very difficult to answer what you expect is gonna happen in the future, especially in the current world. 2023, of course, remains a challenging year. Not so much linked to Dufry specific matters, but more linked to microeconomic and geopolitical matters. The good news is that we start with a much stronger base than we had anticipated. Not only quarter three, but also the beginning of quarter four, show a strength, both on passengers and spend per head, much stronger and much unaffected by microeconomic effects than anybody anticipate. We remain vigilant. I think to expect full recovery of sales of 2019 already next year, taking into consideration that we don't know what is gonna happen with some of the geopolitical effects on passenger profile in Europe, or what is gonna happen with the opening of Asia, particularly the Chinese restrictions, that even if they are lifted, nobody expects they will be lifted overnight. I don't think it's realistic to expect that next year we will be at the levels of 2019, but it's more maybe, as I said, the traffic expectations is more for a year later. That said, I remind everybody, we will stop talking about 2019 very soon. Because even if the level of passengers might reach that level, they are gonna be a different type of passengers, a different profile of passengers, a different nationality, different destinations, a different purpose of travel. I think what we are gonna look going forward is year on year. Do we expect 2023 to be better than 2022? Yes. Do we expect to be at the level of 2019 in absolute values? Probably not yet. On the cash flow, Yves will take the question. Thank you very much. Look, on the cash flow is relatively simple. I mean, you mentioned the -CHF 80 million for the fourth quarter, and how this is split into the different components. Look, we are not providing detailed guidance there, but to keep it relatively simple, what you can assume is that roughly half of it is coming from the normal operational performance in the fourth quarter, and the other half is roughly coming from the catch-up of the CapEx we have mentioned previously, where we are lacking a little bit behind the usual schedule. Question, please. Thank you, Yves. Sorry, on next year as well, if you can give us your sense of what we should expect? Look, I think Xavi was clear in that regard. This is, from today's perspective, difficult to provide detailed guidance on cash flow levels as well as Xavi has mentioned before on the revenues. From today's perspective, we are not going to the details there. Sorry to push on that, but without giving a figure, you know, should we expect flat, up or down, you know, in terms of your sense? Look, I think what we are trying to communicate is that as a company and as a management team, we adapt as much as possible the cost base, the projects, the CapEx, the way we approach working capital to the level of turnover. I think expecting or discussing absolute terms, figures being that cost, cash flow, EBITDA, for a longer period than the next few months, I don't think is the right approach. What we are saying is, we will keep the discipline, we will keep adapting cost and CapEx, especially at the level of revenues. At this stage, we don't think we should go more on 2023 figures. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Next question. The next question. Yeah. Hi, Xavi. Hi, Yves. Can you hear me? Yes. Hi, Jörn. Hi. Sorry. I was not sure if the line is open. Hi, thanks for taking my questions. The first one would be please on your preparation for the 2023 potential macro crisis and incremental consumer weakness. Are you preparing a change in the product portfolio? Are you preparing more promotions? How do you also manage your personnel cost base with temps versus full-time employees? Where do we stand here? Maybe if you can provide us with some more color on this topic. The second question would be please a technical one. I think your Q4 guidance would indicate your sales versus 2019 are incrementally 10 percentage points lower in Q4 versus Q3. I mean, to what extent is it FX? Do you expect weakening trends in November, December? Just maybe you can clarify. This would also be helpful. Thanks a lot. Our approach, both to the retail concepts, pricing, promotions, changes on assortment, changes on layout, it is done very much based on the expected customer base location by location. Of course, we have some general guidance, but what we try to adapt is our assortment and our pricing and our commercial offer to whatever are the profile of customers we expect. I think what it's a proof of 2022 is that the company is able to do that. We expect to increase the number of full-time equivalents in 2023. Yes, for several reasons. We expect stronger sales. We expect therefore to open more shops. Also, some of the opening hours that were limited, particularly in the first half of this year, are keeping extending. The more the normalized level of passengers or sales come back, the more FTEs we will have to have. We also need to consider that there are inflationary pressures on the cost. That said, we will try to keep doing that in line with increase of sales and therefore keeping efficiencies where needed. The second question, I forgot. The second one was around the Q4 expectation in respect to turnover. Look, when you give a guidance, you need to take into consideration, as you very well pointed out, things that are not under your control. For example, you know we report in Swiss francs and there is a translation effect. Swiss francs has strengthened a lot, in particular against the pound and again, the euro. So that might have and might continue having an effect on the last quarter, and that's why we are also taking some possibilities of that to affect our last quarter sales. Okay. Thanks for the decision. To clarify, I think your Q4 guidance implies around 75% of 2019 Q4. Q3 was 85% fully gone, of course, the FX impact, but then it's just more so a concept of prudence you apply for then November, December. I would understand that even the like-for-like recovery you are implying in your guidance for the total sales has some prudent character. Is it fair to say? Yes. I mean, look, the October we had was not expected. It has been stronger than not only market expectations, but our own expectations. We would like to see it continue, but I don't think, as you said, it's a prudent approach. There is something very important. If you are too focused on the sales and you have the risk of people being too bullish on the cost side. I rather have conservative approach to sales and making sure that our teams across the regions monitor cost accordingly. If we have higher sales, of course, we are gonna be all very happy. We keep prudent because, look, the world is very volatile. We don't know what is gonna happen. We have a war in the middle of Europe. I mean, Chinese passengers are still completely locked down, and we don't know how things will go in one way or the other. I think being conservative and prudent is the right approach in today's world. Yep. Totally understand. Thanks for your thoughts. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Jon Cox with Kepler Cheuvreux. Please go ahead. Thanks very much, and congratulations, guys, on the guidance, at least. Maybe the sales looked a bit light of expectations. Just on the guidance and, you know, like the last time around, we had a presentation, you were sort of putting asterisks everywhere on the free cash flow saying, you know, it's there’s MAG relief, there’s this, that, and the other. Now you don't seem so concerned. It looks like you're gonna have a free cash flow conversion from EBITDA close to 50%, this year. At the Capital Markets Day, you were saying it will be maybe a little bit over 20%, you know, as you integrate Autogrill. I'm just wondering, should we just rip up what you told us at the Capital Markets Day in terms of all that guidance? You just feel that confident? That's the first question. Secondly, I wonder if you just give us an idea of the MAG relief in that free cash flow, 'cause I saw Aena's presentation for the nine months, and they had EUR 200 million down, which I guess you probably got the bulk of, on the MAG release. Maybe you can just give us a little bit on that. The last one on the margin. Of course, the margin is much better than expected. Again, do we rip up the guidance you gave us on the EBITDA margin for next year? You know, basically a baseline of 9% for the combined entity, maybe moving towards 10%, over the period. Three questions, really. One on the free cash flow, you know, do we rip up that conversion figure, given what's happened? The second one, how much do you think are one-offs in your free cash flow of the year? The third one, just on the EBITDA guidance you gave us at that Capital Markets Day, do we rip that up as well? Thank you. Thank you very much. It's always challenging to cope with your very high expectation, John. Look, I think there is the concept of normalized cash flow and the one-offs, and I think that's two completely different things. This cash flow does not include one-offs in the sense that we have an income that was not expected or a cost release that it is not correct to include in the accounts. What happens, and the MAG relief is a very good example. We don't get MAG reliefs because they like us. We get MAG relief because the level of passengers and the level of sales are far from the ones that were used to establish the MAG. If you want, it's normal that if you have lower passengers and lower sales as a consequence of it, you have lower MAG. MAGs will come back. MAGs, if they come back, but also the passengers come back, the effect could be there, but it shouldn't be due massively on one side, on the other side. What I think is important to know when you talk about cash flow conversion is that one thing that is clear in 2022, we have adapted particularly the CapEx to the level of sales. I think we were very clear that the first half specifically had much lower CapEx than a normalized year. It is not realistic to expect a cash flow conversion, EBITDA to equity free cash flow of 50%. That has never been the case of Dufry, and that will not be the case of Dufry, standalone or combined with Autogrill. On the guidance we gave in the Capital Markets Day, it was for the combined entity. I recognize that maybe we put the two entities together too soon, there was too much information to process. When the market still didn't understand Dufry standalone, we included Autogrill. The guidance we gave, or the guidance, the outlook or the expectations were based on the information we had at that time. It's true that today we start already with a stronger position than we had with the half-year results. The recovery of quarter three has been stronger than any of us expected. Cash flow conversion will not be at the levels we have seen this year because you have probably CHF 50 million, CHF 70 million, CHF 80 million of CapEx that we haven't done this year that in a normalized year we would have done. The Aena relief, that's an interesting one. Again, also the passengers and the volume of sales in Spain have been much lower. The normalized concession fee on sales we have in Spain today is not different from the one we had in the past. The only thing that instead of applying the MAG, it applies the variable. There might be some small effect, but it's not a massive effect, and therefore, not the one that you mentioned. Just in terms of the cash flow conversion next year, because the guidance originally was for, you know, over 20%. I'm guessing now we should maybe assume that's gonna be more likely over 30%, and then maybe your long-term guidance for this above 30%, 2025 onwards, maybe potentially the conversion is gonna be closer to 40% than the sort of above 30% guidance you gave. 'Cause, you know, literally at the moment, you know, Xavier, we're just throwing darts at the board, you know? It's very difficult for us to get a handle on what's happening. You know, when we had the, we had a, you know, a very constructive Capital Markets Day, and then it looks like the whole tone and guidance is changing a little bit. Look, I understand what you're saying, but I think. You need to understand that for us as management, and for me in particular, what is important is the results we are gonna generate, not necessarily the guidance. For me, it's very important to have the whole team motivated on being very disciplined on cost and cash flow generation. For that, we need to be realistic, and we need to anticipate that things might go better than expected, but there could also be things that could go worse than expected. That I have everybody focused on cost discipline, on vigilant CapEx expenditure, et cetera, et cetera. Now to start giving all kind of fantastic projections, I don't think makes any sense. I keep vigilant, I keep prudent. We have a war in the middle of Europe, and we don't know what is gonna happen. There is expected a very tough winter across Europe. We don't know how that is gonna affect consumer sentiment, how it's gonna affect next year. Looking at the last quarter, we should be very optimistic, but I think it would not be the right approach. We need to be prudent. We need to be vigilant. Therefore, I think hopefully we will do better than we expected. I would not be comfortable at this stage taking any of the figures you started throwing, because this is a business that you need to generate that cash flow daily, weekly, monthly. It's a tough business. It depends on so many considerations. Very good basis, very good last four months, but we still keep a vigilant and prudent approach going forward. Okay, maybe just some nuts and bolts on the minorities and potentially paying for that. It looks like with interest rates going up, it's more likely to be potentially, you know, equity issued rather than debt issued, despite the good free cash flow you're guiding for this year. Would that be a fair assumption? The first question. Second one, I think it's EUR 800 million you've got 2024. Just wondering when that refinancing would come. It looks like you'd be paying maybe 2%-4% more than you currently do, you know, on that debt. Do you have any thoughts on that generally for interest rates for your balance sheet in an environment where clearly the interest rates have moved up a fair amount? You want to start? You take both of them, no? Look, on the refinancing, let's start with that first. Look, as we have mentioned previously, we typically refinance any maturity at least 12-18 months ahead of maturity. The maturity you mentioned is in October 2024, it's still two years to go. Having said that, as I have mentioned today, our leverage has decreased substantially. We currently have CHF 2.7 billion net debt, which is the lowest level since 2015. We also have a substantial amount of liquidity of more than CHF 2.3 billion. In respect to the interest levels you have mentioned, the group historically had, on one hand side, access to a number of different products in the capital market. We feel fairly relaxed about the refinancing risk and the execution. On top of that, the group currently have, after all the initiatives we have taken before the crisis, but also during the pandemic, around 80% of fixed interest coupon at very attractive terms, and especially the ones who have a low coupon, have an above average remaining lifetime. Yes, depending on the execution of the refinancing, it potentially comes at slightly lower or worse terms than the current bond, potentially. On the other hand, if you consider the overall volume, it's also not impacting the financial expenses of the group's materially. Look, I mean, you have seen it. We have generated some cash already this year, a substantial amount. We also are in a position potentially not be required to refinance the full amount of those facilities. Look, it's something we will decide and communicate in the next quarters. The other question, look, yes, interest rates might be higher, but nothing that we had not anticipated more or less at the closing of the transaction. We keep the same expectations right now, 60/40/60, 50/50 between equity and debt to finance the minorities, the mandatory tender offer of Autogrill. We remain committed to the same expectations of what we said. Great. Thank you very much. Next question, please. The next question comes from the line of Ali Naqvi with HSBC. Please go ahead. Hi, evening. Thank you for taking the questions. Could you just highlight which markets you've got approval for in the Autogrill or transactions? If they don't include the U.S., when do you expect to get the U.S. regulatory approval? Could you also give us the sensitivities on FX please, for your major currencies on revenue and earnings and cash? Thank you for your questions. We got the U.S. antitrust approval. We got the U.K. also. There are some other pending, which are not less important but less volume. The most important, and you all know, was the U.S., and that was already achieved, and that was a very smooth process. That's why we believe being absolutely respectful to the antitrust authorities, that if it was not an issue in the U.S., shouldn't be an issue on the rest. On the currency? On the currency exposure we have, and I'm talking about top line now, is around 40% for the nine months is US dollar exposure. Around 30% is euro exposure, around 15% sterling, and the rest is various others. You actually have it in the annex of the presentation. Thanks. I just meant for a percentage movement in dollar or euro, what that impacts in terms of revenue or costs, please? On the third quarter is -1.9% overall currencies. Thanks. Thank you. The next question comes from the line of Dimitri Demetriades with Schroders. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Hopefully you can hear me. Just one question on margins. From my side, I think we provided those in slide 10. I believe it was slide five, slide six. I just wanted to ask how those margins compare to pre-COVID levels. That's slide 11, sorry, slide 11. You show, yeah, Q3 at 11.7%. How does that compare to Q3 2019? Thank you. Look, if you look at the number year-to-date, as Xavier has mentioned before, I think it was in his speech, it's around 40 basis points different to 2019 level. 40 basis points below? 40 basis points below year-to-date 2019 levels. Is that correct? Yes. 20 Thank you. What about 2019 nine-month, 9.6% EBITDA margin, and now we have 9.2% EBITDA margin year to date. Okay. What about Q3 specifically? Q3 specifically, we have been basically 20 basis points worse than the same quarter, 2019. 2019 had some. Even when you look at the quarter, the seasonality and sometimes expenses go from one place to the other. You normalize that, we have been basically at the same level of 2019. Again, before anybody comes with crazy expectations, as I said, in some cases we don't have the full employees back because not all the shops are open. There are a few considerations to take before we project already 2019 margins. Okay. I understand there is so many challenges in the short term and so much uncertainty, but if we go beyond the you know the next few quarters, is expectation or the aspiration of management that in the medium term you can get back to those levels of profitability that you had pre-COVID? In other words, do you see any structural changes that will in the medium longer term prevent you from going back to those levels? Thank you for the question. This is a very difficult question because 2019. We might go back to 2019 level of passengers, but we will never go back to 2019 exact profile of passengers. There are new generations traveling. There is new nationalities traveling. There is new lines. Also, our scope of business have changed. The categories are evolving, pricing is evolving. If we are more or less successful with the travel experience revolution, and I think we were clear on the Capital Markets Day, nobody knows how. Even if you improve spend per head and maybe margin, maybe then part of that has to be reinvested in concession fees to keep renewing and extending the portfolio. It's many moving pieces. That's why I don't like to talk about 2019 as a proxy of anything because that 2019 is gone. The world has changed. Dufry has changed. Travel has changed. We feel more comfortable on guiding or expecting, or at least explaining what we are gonna try to do. What we are gonna try to do is, with all these moving parts, combining them in such a way that year-on-year we improve our EBITDA margin. Depending on the periods, if it's more recovery or stable, we mention 30-40 basis points of improvement on the EBITDA margin year-on-year. That's I think the approach I like, and that's I think a realistic approach. Talking about something that happened three, four, five years ago, it is not really reflecting the world where we are today anymore. I think that's, very clear. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye. The next question comes from the line of Rebecca McClellan with Santander CIB. Please go ahead. Yes. Hi. Good morning. Can you hear me? Very well. Hi, Rebecca. Hi. Good. Hi, hi there. I've got four really easy questions for you. Firstly, what is the number of opening hours over the nine-month period, or the percentage of opening hours in comparison to 2019? Secondly, in October, was there any sort of bumpiness in terms of the traffic? Was it sort of driven by perhaps a really stronger than anticipated half term, or was it more evenly spread across the month, perhaps because of currencies or I don't know? Then my other question is on staffing. I think you talked earlier, as in perhaps at the capital markets event, about there sort of still being a shortage of about 2,500 staff across the business. How is that evolving? Finally, can we make any mention? I think you said earlier that spend per passenger is evolving positively still. Can you give us any idea as to sort of where it is year-over-year or versus 2019? Thank you for your questions, Rebecca. I'm not sure they are easy to answer, but we will try our best. Look, I think the opening hours and the number of stores, I think if we use the information that is in page eight, which talks about the number of stores, you should apply a little bit additional to that on number of hours. So it's on average, we have open between 80% and 90% of the stores, so probably on opening hours you need to add another 5% that is still not fully open. So like seventy-five to eighty-five? Yes. I think that's a good proxy. Of course, yes. On passengers and spend per head, that I think was your second question, you break up a little bit. I mean, what we have seen in the third quarter is both increase of passengers and increase on the spend per head. As I said in our last presentations, we look at that for key customer profile, for example, nationality and for key destination. Because a lot of the consolidated numbers are affected by a weighted average. What we see is in general improvement on the number of passengers, but also improvement on the spend per head across the board, even if, of course, the average is affected, for example, by the lack of some of the higher spender nationalities. Hiring it remains a challenge and the new Chief People Officer is already starting ideas maybe with the support of technology to accelerate some of the openings we have. We have less people that we used to have because we have less shops open, we have less hours, but also because there is people we would like to hire that are not available. Retail, like hospitality and other industries, in particular in the U.S., U.K., remains a very challenging market. That's why, for example, in particular in the U.S., we have accelerated the deployment of the self-checkouts. It's helping sales, but it's also supporting some of the hiring needs. The last question, I think, was on the passengers evolution. Yes, we still see recovery on the passengers, probably in the last quarter, very strong on all the summer locations. I think I mentioned that. Maybe the biggest change is on some parts of South America that were lagging a little bit behind in the Americas than the rest of the Central and North America. Of course, even if it's on a very low basis, Asia-Pacific is starting to recover. Not mainland China, not other parts of northern Asia or other parts very linked to Chinese passengers, but places like Australia and Indonesia are starting to pick up. We are very aware that Asia-Pacific will not go back to the levels we used to have until the Chinese passengers travel again. This is very, very low visibility. That could be next year, but we probably expect only to be meaningful at, in 2024 or maybe at the end of 2023. We do not expect to see big changes on the Chinese passengers for the next 6, 9, and maybe even 12 months. At least that's our conservative approach on that. Okay. There was no bumpiness about the October performance. It was fairly smooth across the month, was it? July and August were very similar. September was a little bit better. October is in line with September. In general, if there is not like a crazy peak motivated by something special, et cetera, it's across the board, a few countries better than others. What is clear is that the summer this year has been longer than usual. We cannot of course know if that's forever now or it was due to some travel restrictions of this year. Thank you. Thanks. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star and one on your telephone. Webcast viewers may submit their questions in writing by the relevant field. The next question from the telephone comes from the line of Manjari Dhar with RBC. Please go ahead. Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. I was just wondering what have you been seeing in terms of performance by category in Q3 and in October? Is it still duty paid that's been outperforming? Secondly, what have you been seeing in terms of the tender market and the level of competition you're seeing here? Thank you. The category and the channel evolution is reflecting a more normalized business. Duty-free is growing again at the usual level. As you know, in 2021, duty paid was having an overweight compared to historical patterns, but that was related to limitations on the international traffic and more on domestic traffic. Now the international is opening up. We probably will go to very similar levels to what we used to have in the coming months. The second question, sorry, I didn't get it. What are you seeing in the tender market and the level of competition that you're seeing here? Look, In terms of new tenders coming to the market. Yeah. I mean, nothing unusual. I mean, it's the same players that have been over the last five years, so all great companies. It's not something materially different from what we used to see. I would not say everybody survived the crisis, so the level of competition. Nothing particular to point out. Great. Thank you. Thank you. We have a follow-up question coming from the line of Ali Naqvi, HSBC. Please go ahead. All right. Sorry, thank you. Just a very quick follow-up. If we were to assume that the sales progression into the tail end of Q4 was to remain flat, what would the sort of drop through or impact be on EBITDA? Well, it depends where those are flat sales. I cannot answer, in fairness, that question. I mean, this is speculation. Not every country has the same profitability, not the same customer line has the same. We sometimes pay different concession fee per category. It's too complicated. I feel comfortable with the guidance or the outlook we gave for the full year, and we stick to that. I think the rest is too complicated to speculation, if you allow me. Sorry for that. No worries. Thank you. There are no more questions from the telephone. Back to you to read the questions from the webcast. Most of the questions have already been answered, so maybe one last question here from Manuel Lang. You mentioned that the profile of travelers has changed. Could you explain how has it changed and how does it affect revenues? Look, the changes are everywhere. One of the key elements of our newer strategic plan and the customer centricity is to adapt to those changes. I think a true retailer tries to understand what passengers or potential customers want and to change everything from the layout, the entertainment on the store, the assortment, a more dynamic pricing, and very, very importantly, more flexible stores. It doesn't make sense to design a store expecting that will last the way it has been designed for five, seven or 10 years. Market changes rapidly, and we need to change with the market. If we do a good job, passengers are there and we do a good job as a retailer, we should be able to keep benefiting whatever the profile of the customers. As we said in the Capital Markets Day, we believe the opportunity is huge. We believe the combination with the F&B and Autogrill will give us an opportunity to become from a travel retailer, a travel experience, to better understand the passenger, to better manage the dwell time. Over time, and it's not something that's gonna happen in three months or in six months, but over time, to be more meaningful for passengers and more successful in converting passengers into customers. It's our job to adapt to them, not the other way around. With a strong partnership with our brands and a strong partnership with our airlines. Thank you very much for your attention. We will talk soon at the beginning of next year for the full year results. Thank you.