Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Q2 2023 Results Conference Call and Live Webcast. I am Sandra, the call's 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 1 on your telephone. Webcast viewers may submit their questions or comments in writing via the relative field. For operator assistance, please press star and 0. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Ingrid McMahon, Director of IR. Please go ahead, madam. Good morning, and thank you for joining us. I'm Ingrid McMahon, Director of Investor Relations, and with me today hosting the call is Samuel Sigrist, CEO. The slides for the call are available for download on our investor website. This presentation may contain forward-looking statements involving risks and uncertainties that may cause results to differ materially from those statements. A full quarterly statement and disclaimer can be found on slide two of the presentation, which participants are encouraged to read carefully. With that, let me hand you over to Samuel. Thank you, Ingrid, and welcome, everybody. I'm pleased to report the solid financial performance for the first half of the year. Good organic top-line growth, driven by price increases, enabled us to recover cost inflation, leading to continued margin improvement. The acquisitions are meeting our performance expectations, and we continue to identify and to realize cross-selling opportunities between our different substrates. At the same time, we continue to launch exciting innovations, which will further support future growth. We are also investing into our strong filler pipeline and production footprint in order to maximize the many growth opportunities across the business. Turning now to the key figures for the first half. Revenue at constant currency grew by 35%. This includes the acquisitions, which together contributed EUR 377 million to revenue. We are on track to achieve our full-year growth guidance of 20%-22% at constant currency. The acquisitions were consolidated from June and August 2022, respectively, the second half comparison will be largely on a like-for-like basis. Organic revenue growth of 6.6% at constant currency relates to the aseptic carton business, which continues to perform well, with price increases and mixed benefits driving growth. This demonstrates that even when high inflation is affecting consumer behavior in many markets, our business remains resilient. We delivered strong adjusted EBITDA of EUR 384 million. The adjusted EBITDA margin of 24.9% was slightly above H1 2022 and included the dilution from acquisitions. The margin was also 140 basis points above the full year 2022 level, demonstrating the positive impact of price increases. Adjusted net income and adjusted earnings per share increased, notwithstanding higher interest and tax expenses. Free cash flow, which is structurally low in the first half, reflected an increase in net capital expenditure of EUR 156 million as we invest in the business. We expect the group to be highly cash generative in the second half of the year, in line with our normal seasonal pattern. Q2 organic sales grew by 6.4% at constant currency, with a recovery in China and strong growth in all regions, except for Middle East and Africa. Group revenue at constant currency grew by 27.6%, reflecting the contributions from the acquisitions. Adjusted EBITDA was EUR 209 million, up 29%, and the adjusted EBITDA margin of 25.7% was ahead of Q2 last year. Adjusted net income was in line with last year, as higher adjusted EBITDA was offset by higher tax and interest expense. Free cash flow was an outflow of EUR 118 million, which included a higher semiannual interest payment and EUR 84 million of CapEx. As I mentioned in my introduction, we continue to innovate with a key focus on sustainability. We are pleased to announce that by 2025, we are targeting cartons with more than 85% fiber content, which will make them eligible to enter the paper recycling stream in many markets. We have already initiated discussions with various recyclers regarding pilot projects. This is an advance towards our longer-term target of a 90% fiber structure by 2030. Together with our existing beverage carton recycling infrastructure, this development will enable a significant increase in collection and recycling rates. This is especially true for regional markets, which have varying or little established infrastructure for recycling. We are also tremendously excited to launch SIGNATURE Mini, a carton with the convenience of a bottle, but all the benefits of a carton. SIGNATURE Mini was developed by our European and Chinese R&D teams, and in June, we commenced commercial production. We have a lot of interest from customers around the world for this product. Through collaboration between our spouted pouch and carton engineers, we are now introducing in-line sterilization to the aseptic spouted pouch process. This will result in a lower total cost of ownership for the customer and increased food safety. We are completing testing for one of the largest banana puree producers in the world, and we see significant scope for expanding this solution globally. Turning now to the performance by region. Europe delivered strong organic revenue growth of 10.5%, driven by price increases to recover cost inflation. As you recall, Europe's margin was mostly impacted in 2022 by higher raw material and energy costs. The SIG Terra portfolio of allo-free and biopolymer-based products has continued to perform well and has increased its share of revenue in the region. This demonstrates the pull effect from customers for low CO₂ packaging products, even in an inflationary environment. The revenue contribution from bag-in-box and spouted pouch added EUR 90 million to the regional revenue. Europe continues to win new business, including in countries such as Hungary, Romania, and the Czech Republic. Middle East and Africa report a constant currency growth of 4.2%. This reflected temporary foreign currency restrictions for customers in Egypt and a strong prior year base of comparison. Our broad presence in over 30 countries ensures temporary fluctuations in one country are offset over the longer term through a portfolio effect. Sub-Sahara and West Africa led growth during the period, driven by liquid dairy. The region's strong margin expansion of 400 basis points to 30% reflected price increases and lower freight costs. In Asia Pacific, we saw a recovery of growth in the second quarter, particularly in China, following the high levels of COVID-19 infections and low business activity in Q1. In Southeast Asia, our unique offering of filling solutions for a range of carton sizes is helping customers tackle high levels of inflation. We expect this to increasingly underpin volumes going forward. I'm pleased to report that the integration of the chilled carton acquisitions is progressing well. The business is achieving revenue growth ahead of the market due to product improvements and an enhanced customer service in line with SIG's operating model. The margin for the region was impacted by dilution from the acquisitions. The revenue contribution from chilled carton, spouted pouch, and bag-in-box was EUR 102 million for the period. The particularly high level of filler placements that we have seen in the region continued throughout the first half. The Americas continued to report strong constant currency growth, organic growth, with an increase of 14% for the half year. Deployment of new filling lines for portion packs contributed to growth in South America, while food service in beverage carton and bag-in-box continued to perform well in North America. The revenue contribution from bag-in-box and spouted pouch was EUR 186 million for the half year period. Price increases and mixed benefits, as well as currency tailwinds, more than offset margin dilution from acquisitions. We continue to realize cross-selling wins, including full system solutions for aseptic spouted pouch and bag-in-box. The most recent win was with our largest carton customer in the US for plant-based sour cream in spouted pouch. Turning to the adjusted EBITDA bridge. The growth in the adjusted EBITDA was driven by a top-line contribution of EUR 96 million, reflecting price and mix improvements. Price increases were implemented to offset cost inflation occurring in 2022 and 2023. Both raw material and production costs were higher in the first half. Raw materials include hedge contracts from the previous year. An increase in SG&A expenses reflected investments to support growth, including R&D and regional expansion and wage inflation. Overall, the margin increased slightly to 24.9%, compared with 24.6% for the past first half year last year. CapEx reflected investment into growth markets and a high level of filler orders. This resulted in an increase of EUR 135 million in gross CapEx compared to the first half of 2022. The increase included the ramp-up of our first site in Mexico to serve the North American market and the start of construction of our site in India, both for our production of aseptic carton sleeves. There was also an investment in capacity expansion for bag-in-box and spouted pouch in North America, as well as expansion for these substrates into emerging markets. In addition, investments in digital printing in Germany will bring new benefits to customers. A high level of activity at filling machine assembly plants reflected strong customer demand for SIG systems. Upfront cash for fillers received from customers decreased by EUR 20 million in the first half to EUR 51 million. As a result, net CapEx was EUR 156 million higher than the first half of 2022. In the second half of the year, gross capital expenditure is expected to be lower than in the first half, and upfront payments from customer are expected to increase due to the phasing of filling line projects. We reiterate our guidance that for the full year, net capital expenditure is expected to remain within the range of 7%-9% of revenue. In the first half of this year, free cash flow was negative EUR 230 million. This was primarily driven by the increase in capital expenditure of EUR 156 million. Net working capital outflows reflected the seasonality of our cash flow generation, while a higher interest rate environment increased the amount of interest paid. Net working capital, as a percentage of revenue, has increased compared with the 30th of June 2022. This is mainly due to the addition of the chilled carton acquisition. The bag-in-box, powder pouch, and chilled carton acquisitions have higher net working capital requirements than the aseptic carton business, and measures to reduce this have been identified and are being implemented. The increase in net debt reflected the payment of the 2022 dividend, capital investments, and the cash seasonality of the business. Strong adjusted EBITDA performance over the last 12 months positively contributed to the net leverage ratio, which was 3.4 times as of June 30, 2023. In the first half of 2023, the company repaid EUR 450 million of unsecured notes, funded by a bridge loan facility of EUR 350 million and other available credit lines. We remain committed to reducing gross debt by the year-end. This was a solid financial performance for the first half of the year. We maintain our full-year guidance. Our adjusted EBITDA growth and seasonal cash generation in the second half will enable us to progress towards our year-end 2024 net leverage target of 2.5 times. The strong growth in the acquired companies and the rapid progress we have made on the integration, together with the ongoing strength of the aseptic carton business, all reinforce our confidence for the full year and the future. With this, we would open up the call for your questions. I have here Jeff and team in the room from the finance team to help me on 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 touch-tone telephone. You will hear a tone to confirm that you have entered a 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 via the relative field. Anyone with a question may press star and one at this time. The first question comes from Joran Iked from UBS. Please go ahead. Thank you. Good morning, Samuel and Ingrid. Three questions, if I may. I will take them one by one. The first one would be on organic sales growth. What gives you the confidence that second half will be somewhat better versus the first half? You already see it in Q3, you get customer indications. Some more color you would be appreciated. This will be the first question, please. Thanks for the question, Joran. I mean, there are a couple of reasons why we see growth also for the second half year positive and maintain guidance. I mean, the China impact that we had in Q1 obviously is gonna wash out with every quarter that we have, and that's gonna help the growth. We also have good visibility of filler deployments that will come on stream in the second half and help us to deliver growth. The Middle East and Africa region, which had a bit of a softer Q2, is also expected to do better in the second half of the year. All reasons together give us good visibility for the second half of 2023. Thanks. The second question would be, please, some of your key suppliers for liquid paperboards seem to locked in into less favorable contracts with customers like SIG. At some point in time, I mean, we would expect that they are significantly increasing the average selling prices. Are you starting to anticipate this and already discuss this with your customers to pass it through? How do you see the situation here right now, if I may ask? Joran, you're familiar with the fact that we have multi-year supply agreement with our key suppliers for liquid packaging board. I think we also explained that overall, these years, we have seen price adjustments, but those price adjustments, they rather followed an underlying logic that tried to recover European inflation at the point where it was a lower inflation in the low single-digit level, and that's what we continue to expect. It's a market that is somewhat disconnected from the pulp price fluctuations that you can see in the market. There are multiple reasons for that. I think also in this year, we proved that obviously we have, we provide also them a good visibility on the offtake of the material, and I think that's something that they value. Okay, no, so no surcharges, or any significant price increases you also would expect for 2024, given the contracts you have locked in? I mean, we're gonna do 2023, 2024 pricing, obviously in the end of this year and early next year, we're gonna take into account all input cost changes. We're gonna look at the value that we provide for our customers. That will, as you're familiar, will it lead to the price adjustments for 2024. That's gonna be something that we're gonna look at once we get closer to it. We don't expect a significant step change. Okay, thanks. The last question, please, on your innovations with 85% plus of the packaging being fiber-based or some package by 2024. You have some examples by hand where you can put then the aseptic carton in the paper recycling circle, in which resources can happen? It seems like a big breakthrough innovation at the end of the day. No, we are super excited about that. It's 2025, the 85% target. It will be the pack, you know, without the closure, so the straw packs, the single serve, mainly. 85% will allow us already to move to the paper recycling stream in some of the European markets, and there are other markets also globally, where we can use that. That's gonna be a first step into this direction. Ultimately, and you're familiar with that, we wanna drive it to 90%, and that will then also include the fitment, where we, you know, need also a fiber-based solution for the fitment for the closure. All right, thanks a lot. Thanks for your questions. The next question comes from Lars Kjellberg from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Thank you. I just have a couple of questions left. Starting with where we ended in the prior questions, you know, the Terra allo-free and forest-based polymers, et cetera. You talk about that as being a strong growth contributor in Europe, specifically, which is good, of course. Could you share with us, you know, terms of revenue benefits and margin benefits in that, if you could, as this business grows, would that be margin accretive? That's essentially the question. Second question I have is about, you've refinanced now, of course, right? Could you share with us what sort of average interest rate we should be looking at heading into H2? And if that should be broadly stable where we sit today. The final point coming back to China, which of course, had been weak. China seems to be stop and start all the time. Do you actually have this ability in that market now? How much did India finally contribute to your performance in the APAC region, and what do you expect for the balance of the year? Those were my questions. Thank you. Thanks for your questions, Lars. I mean, the SIG Terra portfolio encompasses a number of solutions. It's the allo-free compound structures. It's also the ones where we replace polymers from finite sources, the biomass-based polymers. It's basically what you could label the part of the portfolio of our offering, which is even more environmentally friendly and comes with, you know, even lower CO₂ footprint, as the beverage carton per se, is the best performing substrate already when it comes to the CO₂ footprint. We do see decent growth rates, the growth rates that are above what we report for Europe. I mean, for us, in general, innovation, and we consider all our products that also bring environmental benefits as innovations. Innovations come at higher price points, yield better margins. Over time, obviously, with scaling them up, we also are prepared to adjust prices. Ultimately, you know, we can only make an impact as a business if we offer those even more sustainable solutions, also at scale, and also at price points that allow customers to adopt them, that's where we are committed to do that. In introduction, as normally innovation comes with a higher price. That's also the case for those solutions. Indeed, we have retired our unsecured notes, have put a bridge loan in place for EUR 350 million. We have talked about that already in Q1. Average cost of debt for H1, around 4%, I think there is no major change expected now for the second half. China, yeah, I mean, we did see in our industry, obviously, and we serve this kind of entry-level of pack, processed and packaged food. I mean, we did see this Q1 impact, you recall, because of the high COVID infections post, kind of the opening, basically, of China. Customers continued to indicate to us that they wanna hit their volume targets, and that obviously does provide us some visibility, and from their perspective, we remain positive from China also for the second half year. The India contribution, obviously, as it lies in the nature of a market ramping up, has significant growth rates on a relative basis. We gave an indication already that by end of 2018, we had 3 filling machines in the market. By end of this year, we're gonna have 40. They're all not yet fully loaded, by then they're gonna go through a ramp-up curve, but it becomes more and more relevant as a market to our growth. Does that momentum continue into 2024 with new, potential filler lines being placed? We are very pleased with the filler pipeline that we see, and we had a record number, if I may say so, of placements last year. We already said early this year that we expect a similar number for the current year and also beyond. We see really good demand for our solutions. Yes. Very good. Thank you. Thank you, Lars. The next question comes from Christian Arnold from Stifel Schweiz. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning. I have 3 questions. First, on the restriction of foreign currency availability in Egypt. You mentioned temporarily restriction. Have you already seen an easing of the situation? Can we expect growth again already in the near region, in Q3? Good morning, Christian. Thanks for your question. I mean, we also have a bit of a history with these kind of restrictions. You recall, there were at times, similar problems in Libya, which is a larger market. There were, at times, similar topics also in Algeria. They come and go. You know, that's difficult to predict, but normally they stay in place for not longer than a quarter, then they may come back again. Those restrictions, they often limited to a subset of, kind of, products, and they can change from one to another quarter. Normally, we see these impacts for a quarter, and then it goes back to the growth that we normally expect from this region. The same is true also for this year, for Middle East and Africa. Okay. At the moment it's just Egypt, which makes a little bit of a headache? Yes. Okay. Second question would be on your search for a new CFO. You must be quite satisfied with the current situation. You haven't announced a new CFO. Can you give us an update here? Absolutely. I wouldn't say we're satisfied, but I think we have a very capable team here, but we also look forward to our new CFO to join. The status is that we have signed a contract with someone who has resigned as the current employer, and we were in contact with the current employer to agree on an aligned transition in terms of also communication. It's gonna take the current employer of our future CFO another couple of weeks, but I'm confident that by mid-August, we're gonna come out with a press release and talk about that person, can also share a name. What we also agreed is the start date. We expect this person to start on the first of November this year. That means in due time for year-end and then also year-end announcement. Okay, very good. Last question on the guidance margin. I mean, assuming normal seasonality this year, usually you have higher margin in the second half than in the first half. Now, you're already at 24.9% for the first six months. One could actually assume that margin could go higher than the 24%-25% range you are guiding for. Any thoughts on that? No, I'm glad you're asking that because I think, as already discussed in the Q1 call, we don't expect the margin profile to be the same as what we saw prior to the acquisition. We already talked about that we expect a more or less evenly distributed margin over the year. In other words, less fluctuation or not this kind of peak towards the second half. If you compare H1 and H2, we don't expect to have the similar delta between the two margins as we had them prior to acquisition. This is a function of the acquisition that we did, and maybe also a bit of how our business expanded, and, you know, seasons in the different markets are different. For example, India, it's now a season that is rather geared towards H1. I think the margin you saw for Q2 was an exceptionally strong one as we experienced very positive mix impacts. I don't think you should assume that to be the normal for the remainder of the year. I would agree that obviously, by guiding now for the range of 24%-25%, it is fair to assume that we were gonna land in the upper half, but I think we should not get carried away by now. Thank you very much. Thank you, Christian. The next question comes from Alessandro Folletti from Octavian. Please go ahead. Yes, good morning, everybody. Thank you for taking my questions. Can I ask you a few, maybe three or four, just one by one? Very quickly, can you give an indication of the split, price versus volume in your growth rates, if possible, in the different regions? Good morning, Alessandro. Thanks for your question. No, we're gonna see in our growth rate, the organic growth rate, that is largely driven by price and mix. You recall, you know, prior to the inflationary environment we went through, especially last year, we haven't broken down and dissected our growth rate for many reasons. We already said at the beginning of the year, we're gonna move back to this past practice, as we only wanted to reassure people last year that also in our industry, price is gonna move. You can assume, to give you a bit of qualitative color, they're largely driven by price and mix. I think maybe you're on mute, Alessandro. Yes, I am on mute. Sorry. On the cash flow, if possible, you already mentioned that you expect good free cash flow delivery in the second half of the year. Now, the starting point in H1 is really very low, and I spot the working capital. You say it's seasonal, kind of normal, et cetera, but this payable outflow was enormous. Can you give more indication there, and really, what of expectation can we have? Are you able to catch it up completely? I think it's a good question. I mean, you're familiar, you follow our cash flow development since 2018, since the IPO. I mean, what we had now in the first half year, apart from the seasonal pattern, which is also, to a large degree, the outflows of the volume bonuses, and they were increased also in last year. We also had a bit of elevated stock levels for two reasons. Our plant in Rayong operates a capacity limit for the second half of the year, so they pulled a bit forward of production into the first half. The other one, that we have this plant in Mexico ramping up, where you normally have a bit of a safety stock to build up. These are two reasons why we look at elevated stock levels. Also, as in all the other years, we are confident for cash generation in the second half. I would say, you know, we're comfortable with basically the consensus expectation, where free cash flow is concerned also for the full year. Also, as I said, around CapEx, we expect higher upfront cash inflow for the filling line project, which is a bit of a phasing thing. We saw that also in earlier quarters, CapEx also is gonna be lower than in the first half. It was a front-loaded year with the outflow, we are confident to generate the cash now in the second half, and again, also comfortable with the consensus expectation. All right, thank you. If I may, one question or two questions that I pack into one, is related with the acquisitions. You mentioned both cross-selling and, the launch of the in-line sterilization for the spouted pouches. Can you give more indication with that, as to, you know, what have you acquired as business and this launch, what does it represent? Is it just still the first prototype, or are we really going towards, you know, industrial, an industrial product that you will be able to scale up? Give some more color on timing and volumes, if possible. Sure. I mean, the cross-selling wins, I think we reported on them very specifically since the acquisitions, we now kind of elevated it a bit more to a more general statement, because in isolation, those cases are not material. In combination, they are, and we also talked about the fact that they're very important, especially early in the business combination, because they prove, are proof of concept, but also give confidence to the sales team, and that continues to be very positive. I mean, the aseptic spouted pouch filler that we deployed is what we refer normally to as the second generation, that has this ability for inline generation. That's now the prototype that goes into the market with the largest banana puree producer. We're super excited. That's a milestone for us. That's a filler that still comes at the speed of around 100 packs per minute. The next step, what we aim now for the 3rd generation, is to drive the speed further up and to move it also to from pre-manufactured spouted pouch to a system where we produce the spouted pouch on customer site. I think we are in line, and this is an important milestone, in line with our planning of delivering innovation to the market. Again, this one filler alone is not gonna move the needle, but it's a proof of concept that our engineers deliver the innovation in line with our plans. Okay, thank you. Thank you, Alessandro. The next question comes from Ephrem Ravi from Citi. Please go ahead. Thanks. Two questions. Firstly, you mentioned that you were expecting more fillers in the second half than the first half. Last year, you did about sort of 90 fillers, if I'm correct, in terms of machines. Can you give us a sense of how many was installed in the first half, and how many are you expecting in the second half, just to get some confidence that the growth numbers are going to come through? Secondly, in terms of the big trends that we are seeing in the market, like, shrinkflation and, you know, down dining in foods, food halls, is it possible at all to kind of isolate how much of the growth you're seeing is because of these kind of mix shifts that are happening in the market, compared to overall, you know, demand growth rate in, in beverage and liquid food consumption? No, absolutely. Thank you for your questions. To start with the filler one, you're absolutely right. Last year was all the making new 90 fillers, and we said we expect a similar number this year. I would have said, roughly one third, a bit more than one third deployed in the first half, two thirds to be deployed in the second half, so it back-end loaded, in other words. For your second question, shrinkflation, down-dining, definitely these are trends where we benefit from. We talked about the shrinkflation, our ability to do volume change on our filling machines, to size it down from 200 to 180 ml and so on and so forth. That continues to be, I think, one of the reason why you see a good number of filler placements. People understand that SIG equipment provides them with options, whether that's on the food capability, food filling capability, in terms of high-viscous products, for product with chunky pieces, also this volume flexibility that is helpful in an environment of higher inflation. Also down-dining is a trend we definitely benefit from. Also, as the beneficiaries of this down-dining trends are the quick service restaurants, obviously that's where we sell our bag-in-box solutions to, or through them. We sell the bag-in-box solutions for syrups, for soft drinks. I think it's difficult to dissect that and to give you an exact number, definitely the trends are helpful. Thank you. Thank you. The next question comes from Ming Xiang Tsun from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead. Hi, thank you very much for taking my question. Just want to have a better understanding on your margin profile for the second half of the year. You mentioned... It's a follow-up on a previous question. You mentioned that the margin could come lower compared to the Q2, because Q2 is exceptional. What kind of headwinds are you looking for for the margins? The other question is, can you disclose the cost which is hedged? What is the level compared to the previous year, if possible? Thank you. Thanks for your question. I wouldn't say there is necessarily margin headwind. I would rather say, you know, there was tailwind in the Q2. This was a function of very positive mix impact. You know, mix impact is kind of the combination of the countries, customers, and product. We saw that and discussed that on these calls also in earlier quarters, that can have effects that in one quarter, can be more pronounced to the positive or to the negative. I would say we look back on the Q2 with very positive mix effects, and we expect them to go back to more normal levels. That's one point. The other one was really also to kind of prepare the ground, that you should not expect this margin seasonality between H1 and H2, that we used to have prior to the acquisitions. That's why I said before, you know, we shouldn't get carried away. I would agree that it's probably more likely that we land now in the upper half of our guided range, but that's how we look at it. With regards to the hedging ratio, we had, at the end of the year, about 53% of the aluminum and for the polymers hedged. Can you... Apologize, just for a follow-up question, can you also say, like, how much is the hedging cost of this year compared to the last year? Of the 53% of the aluminum price, how has the hedge cost has changed? I mean, you know, this is obviously always a function of the contract you put in place, and you get a bit of a proxy if you look into last year, right? Because if you do a 12-month forward price, that is normally not too far away from a, from a current spot. That suggests that we obviously locked in at last year's level prices that we're gonna have this year. That means also that your remaining 47% are subject to spot rates that we see this year. All of that is obviously embedded in our margin guidance for the full year. Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question comes from Benjamin Thielmann from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Good morning, everybody. Hey, Samuel. Hi, Ingrid. Maybe one more question from my side. Regarding your CapEx, we have seen that CapEx into PP&E and intangible growth was a little bit more than EUR 90 million. We have seen that filling lines was roughly EUR 130 million. I was just wondering, you were saying that the CapEx was partly coming from a ramp up of the fleece plant in Mexico, a little bit for the new plant in India, and also something into the Scholle business. I was wondering, could you maybe break that down a little bit? Like, just a ballpark range, how much CapEx that went actually into the bag-in-box and spouted pouch business, how expensive was the digital printing? To get a little bit of a feeling, how much of these CapEx went into the aseptic business, and how much was kind of maintenance, how much was going into the Scholle business? You know, we normally don't provide this level of detail for CapEx, but I can try to give you some pointers. Maybe to start, in general, between maintenance and growth CapEx, we always refer to that as being more or less 2%-3% of our for our aseptic carton business being the maintenance CapEx. That's generally, not specifically for this year. When I say 2%-3%, I mean 2%-3% net CapEx, of revenue. I think in terms of the distribution between the two businesses, between bag-in-box, spouted pouch and the aseptic one, I think, over let's put it that way. We put over proportional versus the revenue split CapEx now in bag-in-box and spouted pouch, as we do have opportunities in North America for capacity expansion and footprint rationalization, as well as we expand into emerging markets for capabilities for bag-in-box, spouted pouches. This is one of the investment thesis in this business combination that we can drive growth through bringing bag-in-box and spouted pouch in our emerging markets platform. I mean, the printer, in general, the printer is somewhere north of EUR 10 million, just to give you a bit of a color. Mexico, India, these are plants for the aseptic carton, where we have obviously payments to that are kind of That started earlier from Mexico, but dragged into this year, and now for India, where we expect to come on stream late next year. We already have certain down payments now for supply of equipment. Okay, that's it, from my side. All questions already answered before. Thank you. Thanks, Benjamin. The next question comes from Daniel Koenig, from Mirabaud Securities. Please go ahead. Yes. Good morning, thanks for taking my questions. I had some questions on the Middle East, Africa. I was wondering how much Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan and Nigeria are in% of the Middle East, Africa sales? Then, I was wondering, your margin improvement is so fantastic in Middle East, Africa. You mentioned some reasons. Could you give an indicative EBITDA bridge of this? Then, I was just wondering what to expect in the second half in Middle East, Africa, in terms of margin, because the margin improvement is so good, it's almost too good to be true. Thanks. Good morning. Thanks for your question, Daniel. I mean, the first one is a very specific one, so we don't necessarily disclose, as you're familiar, revenue by country. Pakistan, Nigeria, you know, to give you a bit of a proxy, once we get a build up a presence in the country and it becomes more relevant for us, I think population is a good indication for the market size. There, Pakistan and Nigeria, besides Egypt and Turkey, are relevant, very relevant markets in this region. Now, the margin improvement, I think, what is important to keep in mind is that this region saw lowest to none dilution from acquisitions. What you called "too good to be true," is basically explained by that. You know, there we see really the full swing back of the cost recovery that we had to do. It is a function of pricing, but also then we do see lower freight costs that we experience in the region. I think versus the other ones, if you compare year-over-year, they saw basically no dilution from the acquisitions. Okay. I think that also explains a bit the outlook into the second half. I mean, we remain positive. I mean, on the margin profile, we don't expect a significant step change, but on the growth outlook, we remain positive on this region. We always said, you know, this region comes with attractive margins, and they also make up to some degree for quarterly fluctuation that we also have experienced. Quarterly growth rate fluctuations, a bit slower, a bit faster growth in earlier quarters. Okay. Thanks a lot. Thank you. The next question is a follow-up from our Lars Kjellberg from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Just one very specific question. Sorry, a very specific question. When it comes to group functions, that was a relatively high number in H1. How should we look at that number for the full year? I mean, the group functions, obviously, also carried R&D costs. We discussed that earlier in earlier calls. Lars, you probably remember that R&D spend is a bit more lumpy as it comes with projects, right? We don't provide specific guidance for the group functions. That's all embedded in our margin guidance for the full year. I think it's mainly also driven by R&D spend profile. All right. Thank you. Thank you, Lars. The next question is a follow-up from Benjamin Thielmann from Berenberg. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, it's me again. Just one follow-up. Regarding margins in APAC, which have been down by 300 basis points. I was wondering how much of that was actually driven by acquisitions? Yeah, I would say that's largely explained by that. I think obviously there is improvement as you put price increases on the aseptic carton side. You can assume that there is a positive contribution, and then overall, the downside is the dilution. I think it's in other words, larger than what the delta is that you see. Hmm. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. We have another follow-up question from Mr. Alessandro Folletti from Octavian. Please go ahead. Yes, thank you for taking my follow-up again. Just one question, a very quick one on the tax rate. I think it was pretty high. Can you give an indication for in H1? Can you give an indication for the full year? We hope for the full year, we maintain the guidance, with the 28%. You know, it also comes as, you know, if you have the catch-up payments, that is not a, not a normal outflow there. Okay. Full year guide is confirmed. Right. You mentioned the debt level, that you remain committed to reduce it. Can you give an indication by how much you plan to reduce it? Yes. Maybe I can add to your earlier question. It's just to seem to me a point which is very, very relevant. What also drives now the tax rate in the first half is the mix between the countries, so versus last year. We now, as we now have put through the price increases also in Europe, obviously, the country mix also a factor there, but for the full year, the 28%. The gross debt reduction, we left that, we didn't quantify it so far. We're gonna do that later in the year, but there is definitely a commitment to do that. We think that's healthy for the business, healthy for us as a management team to also repay gross debt. Obviously, it will help us eventually also in lower interest expense. We didn't quantify it yet. Yes, this is still to come. Okay, there will be then a quantification at some point? Yes, definitely. All right. Thanks. Thanks, Alessandro. As a reminder, if you wish to register for a question, please press star followed by one. So far, there are no more questions on the phone. I would say thank you very much for your time this morning and your questions. We look forward to see you either on the H1 roadshow in September or then latest on the Q3 call. Until then, we wish all of you a good summer. Thank you very much for joining us this morning. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.