Earnings call transcript: Berens Group Q4 2024 sees mixed results

Berens Group reported its Q4 2024 earnings, highlighting a mixed financial performance. The company experienced a slight decline in consolidated revenues to €181.9 million, while EBITDA and EBIT showed significant increases of 20.7% and 37%, respectively. Despite these gains, the company reported a negative net profit of -€1.3 million. According to InvestingPro data, the company trades at an EV/EBITDA multiple of 4.0x, suggesting an attractive valuation relative to peers. Following the earnings release, Berens Group’s stock saw a 2.67% decline, closing at €4.39, down from a previous €4.54.

Key Takeaways

• Consolidated revenues declined slightly, while EBITDA and EBIT grew significantly.
• The company launched several new products, including Berenson Smoothie Shots and Miu Miu cans.
• Market conditions remain challenging due to inflation and consumer spending reluctance.
• Berens Group’s stock fell by 2.67% following the earnings announcement.
• The company forecasts 2025 revenues between €180-190 million.

Company Performance

Berens Group’s performance in Q4 2024 was marked by a slight decline in consolidated revenues but significant growth in profitability metrics such as EBITDA and EBIT. The company continues to leverage its strategic focus on strong brands and market leadership in the mini spirits segment. Despite a challenging market environment characterized by inflation and consumer spending reluctance, the company maintains a strong position in the premium private label market.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: €181.9 million, a slight decline from the previous year.
• EBITDA: Increased by 20.7%.
• EBIT: Increased by 37%.
• Gross profit margin: Grew by 300 basis points.
• Net Profit: -€1.3 million.

Market Reaction

Following the earnings announcement, Berens Group’s stock declined by 2.67%, closing at €4.39. This movement reflects investor concerns over the company’s negative net profit and the challenging market conditions. InvestingPro analysis indicates the stock is currently undervalued, with additional insights available through their comprehensive Pro Research Report. The stock trades at 0.89x book value and maintains a moderate debt-to-equity ratio of 0.25, suggesting financial stability despite current challenges. The stock remains below its 52-week high of €5.68, indicating cautious investor sentiment.

Outlook & Guidance

For 2025, Berens Group forecasts consolidated revenues between €180-190 million and EBITDA between €19-21 million. The company plans to increase its marketing budget from €3.5 million to €5 million and targets double-digit growth for its Miu Miu brand, with planned production of 7-8 million cans.

Executive Commentary

CEO Oliver Schliemann emphasized the company’s commitment to innovation and tradition, stating, "Our mission is to combine the strength of tradition with the spirit of innovation." He expressed confidence in achieving the 2025 targets through various strategic initiatives.

Risks and Challenges

• Inflation and consumer spending reluctance may continue to pressure revenues.
• Price negotiations with retailers remain difficult.
• The company faces potential interest cost increases.
• Market dynamics in international segments could pose challenges.
• Supply chain disruptions could affect product availability.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the growth potential of the Miu Miu brand, the rationale for increased marketing spend, and the company’s export plans, especially in the Benelux region. The management addressed these concerns by highlighting strategic initiatives and potential new brand acquisitions.

Full transcript - Berentzen Gruppe AG (BEZ) Q4 2024:

Moderator/Operator: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our full year twenty twenty four earnings call on this sunny spring day, at least in the Northeast and Northwest of Germany. Here with me today are the two members of our executive board: Oliver Speigmann, CEO and Ralf Bruhlifner, CFO. Good morning Oliver, good morning Ralf. If you have any questions, you can submit them by using the chat window.

At the end of the presentation, I will begin to read them out anonymously. I would now like to hand over directly to Oliver and Ralk.

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: Good afternoon or good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is Oliver Schliemann, the CEO of the Berens Group speaking. Together with my colleague and CFO, Lark Ruivner, we, as the Executive Board of the Berens Group, would like to welcome all of you to our full year twenty twenty four results video call. Also, I would like to welcome our colleague and Director, Investor Relations, Thorsten Schmid, who has already given the introduction to this session. After our presentation, Thorsten will collect your questions, which Ralf and I will answer as thoroughly as possible to meet your expectations.

Ladies and gentlemen, dear shareholders, the Berenson Group with a heritage spanning over two sixty years is dedicated to enriching people’s lives through a wide variety of beverages. From freshly pressed juice to start the morning, to refreshing lemonades during the day, and spirits that bring people together for special moments. Berenson offers beverages for every occasion from morning to evening. Our mission is to combine the strength of tradition with the spirit of innovation. For us, it’s not just about beverages, but about the moments and memories they help to create.

Now let us take a look at the key facts about our group. One important change that should be highlighted is that the Barents Group now operates six company locations after the sale of the Gruneberg production site in the past financial year. As a result, the number of employees has decreased to four thirty. All other facts are surely known to most of you. For this reason, I would like to move straight on to the highlights of the past financial year 2024.

Here you can see an overview of the financial highlights of our 2024 financial year. The Barents Group generated consolidated revenues of €181,900,000 This is slightly below the previous year’s figures. The background to this development is, on the one hand side, the overall decline in sales volume due to the ongoing challenging situation in an overall declining market. Consumers remain unsettled by inflation and the general economic crisis, which is reflected in a significant reluctance to consume. In addition, we had difficult price negotiations with some important retail partners, especially in the first quarter of the twenty twenty four financial year, which is why several high revenue promotional activities were not implemented mostly throughout the first half of the year.

Furthermore, the sale of the Gruneberg site along with the regional brands of mineral water and soft drinks associated with it, which I just mentioned, contributed significantly to a decline in revenues. In the view of such a challenging market environment, we are particularly pleased to report such a strong development of our key performance indicators. Consolidated EBITDA increased by 20.7% compared to the previous year. Even more remarkable is this 37% increase in consolidated EBIT. This represents the highest consolidated EBIT in many years, an important milestone for the Berenson Group that we can be proud These outstanding results are primarily due to a significant improvement in the group’s gross profits, as you can see on the upper right side.

Regaining our gross profit strength was a key objective, especially after the massive cost increases resulting from the war in Ukraine. In addition to the dynamic progress in the strategic core topics, noticeable improvements in product margins, in particular, have contributed to our success. As you can see, the overall gross profit margin grew by an impressive 300 basis points compared to 2023. As our cost structure is nearly stable, the increase in gross profit is directly reflected in EBIT. Let us now have a look at the development in the individual segments.

Revenues in the spirit segments of the Brands Group declined slightly by minus 2.8%, which is mainly due to declines in various categories revenues. However, despite this overall development, our strategic focus brand, Berenson, as well as certain product groups and markets were able to generate encouraging growth in pulses. Our strategic focus brand, Berenson, recorded an increase in revenues of plus 8.3% compared to the previous year, which confirms the strength and attractiveness of this brand in the market. As a key driver behind this development was the very successful launch of our new innovation, Barentsen Smoothie Shots. We also saw a positive development in the premium and medium segment of our private label brands with an increase of plus 1.7%.

This underlines an increased consumer demand for high quality products at a reasonable price, especially in times of inflation and uncertainty. In addition, our export business improved slightly. These results emphasize the effectiveness of our strategic measures and our focus on high margin and high quality products. They clearly show the importance of our strong brands and quality assurance. At the same time, these positive developments are an incentive to continue intensifying our efforts in these focus areas.

Like never before, we need a high focus on our strategic core pillars, especially in times when overall market environment conditions are no tailwind but headwind for our business. The non alcoholic beverage segment recorded a decline in revenues of minus 5.5% in the 2024 financial year. This decline is mainly due to the sale of our Gruneberg site at the associated mineral water and soft drink brands last year. As already announced at the end of the first half of twenty twenty four, the sale had a one time negative impact on earnings but was largely liquidity neutral. I will come back to this in a minute.

On a positive note, however, our strategic focus brand NEOMEO backed the general trend to achieve growth of plus 1.7% or €400,000 After the strong growth rates of recent years, we could not be satisfied with this only slight increase. But I need to point out that especially Miu Miu faced some serious conflicts with some retail customers due to significant price increases we hadn’t passed on to our clients. Those tough negotiations even led to a crash situation with one of our major Miomio clients in Germany, which still by today is not fixed yet. I can assure you that we are still working hard to get it fixed soon even if we have to stay consequent. However, we are conducting a wide range of projects and initiatives in 2025 to bring NeoMeo back on the former growth path again.

I will give you a deeper view into our matters a little bit later in my presentation. Now I would like to give you a quick overview of the sale of the Guneberg production site, highlighting the financial impact and the strategic advantages that this decision has brought to us. First of all, as mentioned before, the sale led to a decline in consolidated revenues of minus €1,300,000 in the 2024 financial year. For the upcoming years, we expect an impact of minus 8,000,000 to minus €10,000,000 on the consolidated revenues per year. This may seem negative at first glance, but it is offset by a significant improvement in the long term economic situation of the group.

For 2024, we have also an extraordinary effect, which will be explained by Ralf later in this presentation. Looking at the long term effects, we expect the sale to have a positive impact on consolidated EBIT of up to €1,000,000 per year from 2026 onwards. In addition, the sale will enable us to make significant savings in CapEx, which will amount to over €12,000,000 over the next three years. That will have a huge positive impact on our liquidity. This sale not only provided us with financial relief, but also with a further contract bottling agreement for our strategic focus branch Miomio.

This continues to ensure optimal supply and availability of Miomio in the Eastern Part of Germany. Let’s go back to our individual segments. Here you can see that revenues in our Fresh Tru Systems segment saw a slight positive development in 2024, increasing by 2.5% year on year to €20,100,000 in total. This development is largely due to our fruit juicers, which achieved strong revenue growth of plus 11.9% or €600,000 The introduction of the new Citrocasa X Producer in the past financial year is particularly noteworthy. This model offers a high degree of user friendliness and versatility.

We have also reorganized the sales team and worked closely with sales partners, which has significantly improved business. This positive development generally shows that the global trend towards natural and healthy food continues unabated. Now I would like to pass on to my colleague, Arav Bruyffner, who will give you more insights about the group’s financial performance.

Ralf Bruhlifner, CFO, Berens Group: Thank you, Oliver, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen also from my side. Oliver has just explained the operational result 2024. So let us now take a look on the items from EBIT to consolidated profit, which was negative by minus 1,300,000 in 2024. Exceptional effects and high interest expenses are the main reasons for lower consolidated net profit despite a much better EBIT. The IAS ’29 high inflation effect for our Turkish business is basically lower from previous years.

Compared to 2023, the amount is nearly stable with an only small increase of €100,000 mainly due to improved business activities in Turkey and an ongoing high inflation. The sale of our Grundberg production site has a negative one off effect on the net profit of €4,800,000 For this matter, we already recognized expenses of €4,600,000 in the first half of twenty twenty four. In an ATOK disclosure dated 08/01/2024, we finally estimated the total amount of €4,900,000 for the full year. With €4,800,000 we have therefore remained within this expected range. The composition of the amount is as follows: Firstly, we have to consider an impairment loss, which totaled to €2,800,000 These costs are completely non cash.

Secondly, the transaction costs amount to €1,800,000 mainly consisting of consultancy costs and maintenance obligations. At this point, I would like to emphasize once again that the positive effects of this transaction far outweigh the negative ones in terms of liquidity and earnings. Moreover, considering the €2,100,000 cash in from the sale of long term assets to the buyer, the transaction was approximately cash neutral. The increase in the financial result from 4,000,000 to €5,600,000 is mainly driven by the extended financing needs and higher interest costs at our growing and successful Turkish business. The financing costs at our DAF business activities, however, remained stable, although the average three month euro rebar rose the second year in a row.

But with the beginning of the second last quarter twenty twenty four and up to now, the oil rebar came down and has recently further fallen, which will have favorable effect on the financing costs 2025. All this is important to know is the three month year rebar is our base interest rate for our very main part of financial debt. Now please take a look at our balance sheet. The balance sheet total is €136,800,000 therefore lower than in the previous year. The main drivers behind this are effects of the assets sold in the Greenberg deal on the one hand and the lower inventories due to a restrictive working capital management on the other hand.

Despite a slightly lower equity, the equity ratio rose from 32.6% to approximately 34%, mainly due to a significantly reduced balance sheet total. The equity ratio is persistently solid, meaning that onethree of the assets are financed by equity items. In addition to that, the total of equity plus noncurrent liabilities is approximately €66,000,000 exceeding the noncurrent assets value of €56,000,000 by approximately €12,000,000 Considering the matching maturities, the Barents Group was able to secure solid financing. Taking a deeper look into assets and liabilities, we see that in 2024, we have a net debt position of €6,600,000 calculating as €15,900,000 financial debt minus €9,300,000 cash. This is nearly on a level like the year before.

Although we have lower financing needs, taking into consideration that the net usage of factoring was reduced by €4,500,000 But as factoring is an off balance item, our unmanaged net debt was nearly stable in comparison to 2023. However, the dynamic gearing ratio has improved due to significant increase in EBITDA. Thus, the ratio is quite far away from any kind of covenant breaches, which are basically contained in our credit agreements. As investments in trade working capital had huge impacts on our financial positions, let me please explain what the level of trade working capital was before inflation started and how it developed since then. Inflation and growth have triggered the trade working capital level massively.

The trade working capital of the Beersk Group rose from minus 1,100,000 in 2020 and 2021, the years before the war in Ukraine, by approximately 18,000,000 at years end 2024. This is more than 10% of the balance sheet total. What are the main influences? Firstly, we have to talk about inventories. I’m material prices had a huge impact on the inventory value, which rapidly rose from approximately €14,000,000 in 2021 by €10,000,000 to around about €50,000,000 in ’twenty two, ’twenty three, although we manage the inventory reach and units in stock very actively.

By getting better each year, we succeeded in reducing inventory value from the peaks at twenty twenty two-twenty twenty three by 3,000,000 to €4,000,000 to approximately €48,000,000 at year end 2024. Secondly, we see higher trade receivables. Sales prices and sales volume growth in the non affected businesses like non alcohol beverages and spirits in Turkey have led to a higher level of trade receivables. The increase from ’20 to ’24 amounts to €3,300,000 Thirdly,

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: in

Ralf Bruhlifner, CFO, Berens Group: the same period, the total of trade payables and alcohol tax liability decreased by €6,900,000 As a result, lower short term liabilities were not helpful for the counter financing of the higher short term assets. Compared to 2023, the increase in trade working capital was therefore lower overall, and we are confident that the peak has been reached. On the next slide, we can see a very satisfying development. After two years with a negative sign, we have succeeded in generating a positive free cash flow again. Let me please explain this in more detail.

The operating cash flow was increased to €12,600,000 mainly due to the significant improvement in our consolidated EBITDA. In addition, the development of our total working capital resulted in a significantly smaller minus than in the previous year. After minus €12,800,000 in 2023, it now amounts to minus €5,400,000 composed of the developments in trade working capital and other working capital items. The lower cash outflow from investing activities has also a positive effect. In 2024, investments totaling €6,600,000 were offset by cash inflows from the disposal of assets amounting to €2,200,000 This cash flow is related to the sale of the Grundeberg side.

We are convinced that we will be able to continue this positive development of our free cash flow also in 2025. Let us now take a look at our dividend proposal. Together with the supervisory board, we will propose the payment of a dividend of €0.11 per share to the upcoming Annual General Meeting. We have decided to take the step despite the negative consolidated net profit in 2024. On the one hand, we have generated a positive free cash flow, which means that we have sufficient liquidity and do not need to finance the dividend with debt.

On the other hand, we remain convinced of the positive path of the Berenson Group and the time to come. And at least we hope to reason our shareholders’ concerns coming from the regrettable performance of the share price since autumn twenty twenty four. Most of you are probably aware of the reason for this. My first, previously the second largest shareholder, has yet to liquidate its position in Barents’ shares, and it has done so via the German stock exchanges. But that’s not all.

Until February 2025, almost 80% of the share capital had been traded, which means this is far more than what is usual in what has sold. Nevertheless, with the exception of MainFirst, our shareholder base has not changed significantly. So all in all, this led to a considerable share price loss, although it has recovered somewhat in recent days. There may be a good reason for the recovery. The share price at the end of twenty twenty four corresponds to an EVEBITDA multiple of just four.

This should be an attractive entry opportunity. However, it is well known that microcaps like Derensla are not so much on institutional investors’ watch list. Our good and increased annual operating profit and the positive free cash flow will hopefully change that. I will now hand over to Ottoman again.

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: Thank you, Ralf. Let us now look at the forecast of the 2025 financial year. We continue to stand by the Building Variants in 2028 corporate strategy that we published last year. Our strategy also includes the first medium term forecast with ambitious targets for 2028. This is also reflected in our forecast for the 2025 financial year.

We expect consolidated revenues to be in the range of 180,000,000 to €190,000,000 Please keep in mind that we expect a significant negative turnover effect from the Brunyberg sale. Therefore, adjusted, we forecast a growth in our consolidated revenues. For our key earning figures, we expect our EBITDA to be in the range of 19,000,000 to €21,000,000 and our consolidated EBIT to be in the range of 10,000,000 to €12,000,000 Due to the numerous measures and marketing investments for future growth, we will not be able to long termly increase our EBIT even more this year. However, we expect our intensified marketing and media initiatives to have a sustainable and long term impact on our growth dynamics that paves into our Barentsen Twenty Twenty Eight journey. But in a nutshell, we are aiming for further growth in all key figures this year.

We are confident that we will achieve these targets through a series of projects and initiatives. I would like to give you a brief outlook on this. In 2025, we are significantly increasing our marketing budgets. Our key focus is on innovative products and marketing measures to further strengthen our brands and reach new target groups. A milestone we already achieved was the launch of our popular Miu Miu brand in a 0.33 liter can as of February of this year.

This step allows us to tap into new sales channels such as petrol stations and drugstores, which are particularly suitable for the distribution of beverages and cans. We are expanding the reach and availability of our strategic focus brand Miu Miu, which continues to play a key role in our portfolio. We have also selectively expanded our product range in the spirits segment. With the introduction and launch of three new products under our four good brands Berenson and Pushkin, we are appealing to different customer segments and relying on innovation to further drive our growth in this segment. The biggest highlight of our marketing activities is the return of the Berenson brand into mass media like television, accompanied by an attention grabbing campaign that focuses on community and joy of life.

This TV presence not only strengthens the brand image but also increases the visibility of our products and helps to generate additional demand. These measures emphasize our strategic focus on strong brands and innovative products, accompanied by effective marketing activities that are designed to further consolidate and expand our market position. Now I would like to hand over to Ralf for the final information.

Ralf Bruhlifner, CFO, Berens Group: Yes, final information. Finally, let us take a very brief look at our financial calendar, which you can also find regularly updated on our corporate website. As you can see, we are taking part in different conferences also this year to get in touch with our shareholders and to inspire new shareholders for the Barentsen Group. I would also like to take this opportunity to invite you to our virtual Annual General Meeting on May 23. The convening will be published in a few days.

We would be delighted if many of you attend. So thank you for your attention. Now we are happy to receive your questions.

Moderator/Operator: Thank you, Ivan and Oliver, for your presentation. So now let’s move on to the questions. We already have a first one. What growth is expected for Miu Miu this year? How much turnover is expected to be achieved with the Miu Miu cans this year?

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: So first of all, we expect a significant growth of Miu Miu, which should result in a double digit growth in turnover this year. It is very tough to be specific on the turnover and the turnover of cans. As you all know, and this what I presented is, we are still in a conflict of a very big retailer, we are working very hard on to get that solved. And of course, to be in a crash situation with this kind of a key retailer in Germany means that growth dynamics are currently still a little bit limited as long as the credit situation is ongoing. For us, it is very important that we keep the price level and the margin level of Meomio position.

That is why we need to be very consequent on the demands for price increases at the retailer. But again, we are quite confident that number one, we will achieve double digit draws in MiO MiO this year again and number two, a big, big helper will be the cans in this year. This year, we planned roundabout 7,000,000 to 8,000,000 cans in pieces for this year. Of course, this also very much depends on how quickly are we building up distribution, but the resonance of the market is extremely strong.

Moderator/Operator: Can you quantify the increase in marketing spend and its distribution? Regarding capital allocation, are you considering expanding to new brands or verticals? Given your comments about the attractive valuation, would you consider doing buybacks this year?

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: For the first part, I can give you an overview about the marketing spendings. Last year, in 2024, we spent roundabout €2,500,000 in the marketing campaign sorry, 2023. ’20 ’20 ’4, this already increased to €3,500,000 And this year, we aim to spend €5,000,000 So if you look at our spendings, that would mean that the spendings in 2025 would be already doubled versus 2023. And you’ll remember that in the building bans in 2028, we said we will triple the marketing spendings up to twenty twenty eight. So we are quite delivering against our strategy, which we displayed in the Building Brands in 2028 program.

So let me look what was the second part? New brands and verticals. I mean, currently, we are strongly focusing on our core products. And as I said before, there’s a lot and plenty of room for new products within our current brands. That’s why we last year, we launched very successfully the Berenson Smoothies.

This year, Berenson will come in a new flavor like Berenson Lemon. And of course, the biggest and most important launch this year will be the brand Miu Miu in cans. So there is plenty of room for growth in our current brand setup and our core brands. However, the market is very dynamic. There’s a lot of interesting new products available out there.

There’s always start ups coming in. We are talking to many of them with their ideas. So we will be prepared to really think about acquiring smaller brands when they appear and when they are when they have already proven that they can be successful in the market. So there’s no concrete plan at that time. But again, the market is very dynamic.

There are quite some offers out there. Not all is very attractive, but some of them are. So let’s see where it leads us to. But we are generally ready for new brands in our portfolio in the future.

Ralf Bruhlifner, CFO, Berens Group: And so the questions left, don’t know.

Moderator/Operator: Doing buybacks

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: on shares.

Ralf Bruhlifner, CFO, Berens Group: Buybacks on shares, yes. Of course, our approval for buying back shares will end legally with the beginning of the AGM in 2024, on the May 23. We always consider this. But actually, we are not taking this into consideration, but we will take the chance just to put this issue on the AGM again so that we will have a stock decision for the next five years. And when times come and the times will be should be a good option just to buy back shares, but actually, we’re not planning this.

Moderator/Operator: Another question. How much turnover do the Barents and Minis account for last year? How do sales of Barents and Minis look this year compared to last year with regard to this year’s Carnival? I have the feeling that there were some out of stock costs. Is there any feedback from the supermarkets?

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: Yes. Probably, I can I just if you want have a concrete number last year, I will check it on the minis, but I don’t have that at hand? The thing is that the minis were they had double digit growth last year, but I will figure out the concrete number right now. On the minis, yes, there were we were sold out at minis for carnival. We have a very strong carnival season on the minis.

We’re not displaying third of our figures, but there is a high, high double digit number of increase in sales in minis in the first two months, which included carnival this year compared to last year. So we have a strong, strong, strong growth on the minis. And of course, our target is to continue the double digit growth on the minis because the demand on the minis is extremely positive. And on the streets of carnival in Germany, we are by far the market leader in this segment. And you’re right, the out of stocks are true.

We have been totally sold out of minis. So the orders were overwhelming, and the orders exceeded our capacity to produce these minis, although we have high speed lines. That’s why we are very confident that the minis can grow double digit this year further. Now I have a look at

Ralf Bruhlifner, CFO, Berens Group: More than 40% growth.

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: It’s more than 40% growth in the first two months, yes?

Ralf Bruhlifner, CFO, Berens Group: In comparison to the last two months in 2020. Yes.

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: And the overall Mini East in total. And the turnover in German market only for Berenson was more than EUR 4,000,000 in turnover of the brand.

Moderator/Operator: We have no questions so far. So last chance. All right. This one is in German. Which financial results do you expect for this year?

And will the financial result be better due to lower interest costs? Yes.

Ralf Bruhlifner, CFO, Berens Group: We expect that. I already explained that in a sentence, in one sentence only. But our expectation is that we will have decreasing financing costs all in all. I told you that the three months already has come down since, let me say, it was, I think, March 2024, but the average costs were very high in 2020 for comparison to 2023. So this is not going on.

The three months of repo just actually is about 2.4% yearly, and it was at peak of 4%. So you can imagine that the difference of 1.6, around 160 basis points is very, very evident of our financing costs on the one hand. The other hand is the business in Turkey, as I already explained. There’s very it’s interest cost bearing because they have a lot of great working capital to bear. And there is a financing burden or financing bearing debt, which lays on this working capital requirement in Turkish business.

And these interest expenses are very, very high due to inflation and the FX exchange rates, Turkey versus euro. So we have interest costs of about 50% to 60% by financing the trade working capital of Turkish business. And as you may hear from me just a few minutes ago, the increase of the interest expenses mainly related to more than 90% of the Turkish business. But let me underline, by the way, that the Turkish business, even after interest costs and even after IAS 29 effects, is profitable at all. So it depends a little bit in 2025 how the Turkish business is just going on.

But all in all, we will have, of course, decreasing financing costs.

Moderator/Operator: Could you tell a bit more about export plans for 2025, especially for the Benelux? How much represents exports revenues of the total revenues? Isn’t there more margin for growth? Thank you.

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: Yes. Generally, yes. Especially for the let’s say, the branded business in Germany, we do have export initiatives. Benelux is a strong area for growth, especially Barentsen is a very strong brand in The Netherlands. And The Netherlands will also benefit from the innovations we’re doing, like the Barentsen Smoothies where we start to introduce them.

The minis business is very attractive for them. So there is chances for our brands to go in the Europe external markets, especially in the Benelux. But also, and this is even more valid, that our private label business is very strong internationalizing its business. So we are in the Benelux business, for example, we are a strong partner of Colvoid in Belgium with premium private label. We are have increased our business in the premium private label in Austria and in Switzerland.

So generally, there is growth, especially when it comes to premium private label. We see a lot of opportunities to work together with more international retailers who we can attract with our solutions for premium private label. Number two, this business is going to grow this year. And when you ask me about what’s the current international business on our group profits, it’s not so easy to tell. It’s roundabout 25% of our overall turnover.

But sometimes, we work together with German retailers who are internationally have internationally subsidiaries. So the very clear cut to show the figure is not too easy. But generally, roughly, it’s about 25% of our revenues is

Ralf Bruhlifner, CFO, Berens Group: international. Just look for the page in our annual accounts. It’s on Page 125, where you can see the details of our external revenues, international revenues.

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: And by the way, sorry, to add one more thing. The Miu Miu can is one big weapon to be faster on the internationalization of Miu Miu. You know that so far, we only had this returnable glass bottles, which for some countries, it’s quite difficult to handle and also the logistics are quite difficult. With the new Miu Miu cans, we see a good opportunity to have much lower market entry barriers for the brand Miu Miu in foreign countries. That’s probably important to know.

Moderator/Operator: All right. There are no more questions. So then we’ve reached the end for the day. Thanks again for sharing the insights with us, Sole van der Alve. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for your participation.

If you have any questions afterwards, please do not hesitate to contact me and my department. We hope to see you soon, maybe at our AGM. All the best. Have a good day. Bye bye.

Oliver Schliemann, CEO, Berens Group: Bye bye. Bye. Thank you. Bye bye.

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