Buzzi S.p.A., H1 2023 Earnings Call, Aug 03, 2023

Operator

Good afternoon. This is the Chorus Call conference operator. Welcome and thank you for joining the Buzzi S.p.A First Half 2023 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]

At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Pietro Buzzi, Chief Executive Officer of Buzzi SpA. Mr. Buzzi, you have the floor, sir.

Pietro Buzzi

Yes. Thank you, and good afternoon to everyone, and welcome to our semiannual conference call. Yes. I assume that you are -- if not in your end, it's in front of you, the presentation that we just published on our website, and I will try to follow that as quickly as possible, not necessarily all the pages, but try to do it maybe in a summarized way, and then give some space for the question that you may have.

If you look at the first half 2023, in terms of market trends, we have experienced, generally speaking, some slowdown. More in some areas, less in others. But overall, the decline or the slowdown in cement volume was around 8% across the scope of consolidation. On the other hand, looking at the first line, so the turnover, the other major variable was the selling prices as usual, which have strengthened quite a bit also not everywhere again, but in some areas, also during Q2. So with different degree of intensity. But overall, quite a good, let's say, trend for selling prices in the first half. This mix, let's say, this scenario backdrop brought the turnover up quite significantly. So we went about 14%. We've been about [ 40 ]% better to 23% versus 2022, driven, as we said, mainly by the positive price effect. We didn't almost have -- or atleast not any significant foreign exchange fluctuation. So a small contribution of EUR 8 million to favorable in this case to the overall turnover.

When we look at the first level, let's say, operating results, the performance was even better because in the meantime, we experienced in the meantime during the first 6 months, we also experienced some kind of a tailwind or a positive price cost spread. Costs behaved in a way that was still, let's say, inflationary but definitely less than what are planning at the beginning of the year or at the time of the budget approval last year. And this was reflected into a very strong performance. So growth in EBITDA of more than 55% and particularly also very strong recovery in margins about 700 basis points. So really an excellent performance and definitely above our internal expectations. Net cash position also increased by about EUR 124 million compared to the end of 2022 and is ending at EUR 412 million by June 30.