Gielda Papierow Wartosciowych w Warszawie SA

WSE:GPW

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q2

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. A very cordial welcome to the conference of WSE Capital Group. We are going to announce our performance for Q2 2023. We're going to have traditional formula, first slides and valid questions.The conference will be led by the members of the Board, Mrs. Monica Gorgon, Mrs. Izabela Olszewska, Mr. Mlodkowski, and Mr. [ Piotr Kajczuk ], Financial Director of WSE.Over to Mrs. Olszewska.

[Izabela Olszewska, executive]

Good morning, everyone. Traditionally, the first slide is about the key developments of Q2 2023 and our CEO, Mr. Marek Dietl, should be covering that, but due to the holiday season, I have the pleasure to fill in for him.Speaking of the highlights of Q2 2023, let me start with the financial section that will be further developed by our VP, Mr. Mlodkowski. But certainly, in terms of revenue, it was a very good quarter. The Capital Group of the stock exchange had revenue and over PLN 110 million and we had good annual dynamics year-on-year, nearly 12% up. However, when you look at the first 6 months of 2023, in terms of revenue, this is the best first 6 months or 6 months in the history of the Warsaw Stock Exchange in Warsaw. We are very happy to see such good performance in both financial segment and commodity segment. And we are happy to see revenue in the new business lines, nearly PLN 2 million, and this rapid revenue will continue during the upcoming conferences, so when we announce our results. This is the yield of our work on the strategy that we implemented, previous strategy and the current strategy that follows up on certain initiatives.In terms of new business lines, I would like to highlight 2 sources. One is Armenian, acquisition of the Armenian Stock Exchange and this is PLN 6.2 million in additional revenue and our new initiative, GPW Logistics, that yielded PLN 3.6 million in revenue. Net profit is at the good level of PLN 45 million. Year-on-year, we've been 18% up. So this is an excellent result. During the second quarter of 2023, we made the decision on the dividend payout for 2022. The dividend was paid in the first days of August 2023 and we paid PLN 2.70 per share per stock and this is in line with our dividend policy. So the dividend yield is 6.7%.In terms of the turnover, let me say that the average EOB shares turnover on the main market shows very strong performance over PLN 1.100 billion and we are up 5% year-on-year.And let me draw your attention to the derivative market where the total derivatives turnover was at PLN 7.5 million in contracts and that was the best first half since 2010. During Q2, we introduced the Analytical Coverage Support Programme 4.0. Specifically, on the 4th of July, the fourth edition of the program was launched and the first reports that are part of this program will be released in September. 59 stocks will have analytical coverage under this program supported by 12 investment companies. 26 are the newcomers. So far, they have never been part of the Analytical Coverage Support Programme and the remaining 33 have continued their presence in the upcoming edition of this program. Within this program, we -- when we qualify the companies, we check the free-float just to make sure that Analytical Coverage Support contributes to the greater liquidity and greater turnovers with the benefit to all the market participants.The important news came from Armenia. Armenian government announced they are going to support the development of the Armenian Stock Exchange and the Armenian Capital Market. They offered financial support for the companies that prepare for IPOs. And to us, this is also a positive sign that the Armenian government is going to support the further development of our project. GPW ventures, this is a daughter company of Warsaw Stock Exchange and the National Agricultural Support Center, KOWR, they jointly announced the project to invest in the development of agriculture. The purpose is to make sure that the National Agricultural Support Center will take up a package of stocks in the GPW ventures as a company and together with our investors, we should facilitate investments in promising products and companies operating in the agri sector. But that will take a separate formula. It will be fund-of-funds. So investments in other venture funds that will focus on the companies operating in the agricultural sector.And now the important information for those who really wanted to find out where we are going to take our business and where the finances of the Warsaw Stock Exchange are going to be positioned. In May, we announced the strategy of the Capital Group for 2023 to 2027. The strategy was well received and well embraced that our 3 pillars; turnover, data and technologies and new business models. We also announced our financial performance, plans, and ambitions. So for everyone who would like to have a reminder of the strategy after the main presentation, I welcome you to review the presentation of our strategy that is available on our website.On the next slide, we present the Warsaw Stock Exchange compared to other European markets during Q2 2023 and there are some positive news that we would like to share with you. First of all, when you look at the upper chart on the left-hand side, you're able to see the dynamics. So EOB shares turnover and this data comes from the Federation of the European Stock Exchanges. So everything is denominated in euro. But simply speaking, we are showing our Warsaw Stock Exchange as compared to a large group of and diversified group of other stock exchanges in the region. And as you can tell, we are doing quite well. So year-on-year, the change in our EOB shares turnover is in the positive territory despite the fact where it was an extremely difficult time for all the stock exchanges.Difficulties were triggered by the external factors, but even the local situation and macroeconomic situation and the rebound of the banks and the power sector companies and the numerous ABB transactions. So all these things put together helped us generate what a good increase in the EOB shares turnover. We also have a good velocity ratio, 37.1%. So we are coming high in the total ranking of the European stock exchanges. So this result was possible because of the number of programs that we've been deploying for a number of years. So market animation, [ HBW/HVF ] programs. So other initiatives such as Analytical Coverage Support that helps keep the liquidity and velocity.On this slide, we show WIG index and WIG20 as compared to other recognized European and global indices. And as you can tell, it was a very good quarter for Warsaw market. Both Warsaw Stock Exchange indices were way ahead. All the other indices, as you can tell from this chart, where you see established stock exchange indices from Europe and elsewhere.So in terms of the cash market, well, first of all, the EOB equity turnover value is denominated first of all in the Polish zlotys. So in terms of Polish zlotys, we were more or less zero or slightly below. But nevertheless, the turnover was quite good with a good average session performance. I've already signaled that when I talk about the highlights for Q2, it is important to emphasize that the whole family of indices, the key ones like WIG20 or WIG80 or others such as WIG Banks, these indices were showing very healthy growth. WIG80 is actually getting at record highs. So small and medium-sized companies are performing very well. 2.06 bps is the average fee on the stock market, which shows that we have good activity from the liquidity providers that are making sure that the turnover is there.And under their programs, they do have the responsibilities, but they also rely on preferential price list provided that they comply. And HVP/HVF participation was 19% compared to 13.3% in the same quarter of the previous year. In the nominal terms, these entities also contributed more in the turnover. When we look at the NewConnect market, we see that there was some decline year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. And it is important to recognize certain factors that contributed to this declining phenomenon. Well, we had a transfer of the most liquid companies through the Main Market that has highest liquidity. So as a result, we are actually attaining the goal, but it is our ultimate goal for organizing the NewConnect market where we want to mature the companies and when we want to launch them to the Main Market.But that backfires on the NewConnect market because their turnover suffers as a result of that. With the structured products turnover, we've seen some decline year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. There was less volatility on the baseline instruments sub-structured products that are backed based on the oil and natural gas. But also, there are some other structure products based on the German index, DAX, where we see less volatility and therefore less turnover. ETF turnover year-on-year, a very handsome growth, over 20%. There was some decline quarter-on-quarter, but nevertheless this market segment certainly shows growing interest from investors and we do hope that we shall be able to further develop this segment.We had a number of conferences, more so passive investment conference. This conference was dedicated to passive investments. We had the GPW Innovation Day where we present to the investors the companies that are coming up with innovations, Progressive Investor Day. So this is where we promote the companies that effectively deliver their long-term investment programs and strategies and Space Days Conference is about the space companies.Now, moving on to the IPO market. The number of IPOs was just 3 and they were just shifts from NewConnect. There were 4 IPOs on the NewConnect, altogether PLN 54 million in IPO. So altogether, across Europe and in Poland, the IPO market is sort of staying low on the radar. High interest rates and concerns about valuations make the companies and investors more timid. So we are still waiting for this segment to get activated.So when you look at across Europe, the first 6 months of 2023 and when you compare it to the first 6 months of [ 2027 ], in terms of the value, we went down 27% across the region. So this is not something that is just about us. That's something that affects all the European markets. Now, in terms of the SPOs. A lot of companies are taking advantage of that and this is how the stock exchange mechanism should be used. The companies that are already listed should have the opportunity to continue to use the stock exchange financing.If we move on now to the derivatives. As I have already mentioned, it was a good quarter. The first half of the year was also good. Year-on-year growth about 4%, minus 5.5% quarter-to-quarter. And we can be very happy about the fact that a large part of this turnover is turnover and contracts with our flagship products, WIG20, which is the highest margin products for the Warsaw Stock Exchange. We have a high share of entities that ensure liquidity in the market. HVP/HVF is 5.7%, 5.3% high share of the animator. The entities provide also liquidity to other players on the market, account for about 40% in our turnover. If we look at WIG, 18.2%, which is slightly lower than in the same quarter last year, slightly above the first quarter 2023 and the similar comment can go for WIG20.As always, in the results presentation, I talk about what we are doing in our ESG strategy in GPW Group. We had a lot of activities that help us achieve the goals and that we announced as part of our strategy. We published a consolidated report, an integrated report that was drafted based on Global Reporting Initiative standards. So these are recognized international standards. Interestingly, for the first time, we quoted KPIs for 2022. This will be our baseline year to which we will make references later on when we inform market players and our shareholders of the developments of our ratios.We are developing, in the climate reporting, for the first time, we submitted the so-called CDP report, which is a repository of climate-related data from a variety of sectors, examining the national repository, which meets the highest reporting standards and we were able to prepare this document. We are monitoring issuances that result from our activities in Scope 1 and Scope 2.In our [ server room ], we were informed that the contract for energy purchase had been concluded and we will have renewable energy sources used under this contract, which will help us achieve our ambitions with regard to reducing our emissions levels. We are educating also employees across the group about environmental impact and climate-related matters. We are also doing a lot within the group in terms of supporting market players in following this very important trend. We launched a new segment, Warsaw Sustainable segment. And that is an activity which fits into a broader initiative of Sustainable Finances Platform that is run under the leadership of the Ministry of Finance. So all those instruments we have here are going to be sustainable. And we had the first edition of the course, GPW growth, ESG in practice, and we are working on updating our manual or list of guidelines for ESG reporting.We have been waiting for European Commission to include, incorporate EU recommendations into our guidelines. We are engaged in a group that is working with the Ministry of Finance, that is a platform for Sustainable Finance, and we promote ESG issues in partnership with UNG Compact and we also partner in developing the next report, green financing in Poland 2023.That is it from me and I would like to hand over to Adam Mlodkowski.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

Thank you very much. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. As Mrs. Izabela Olszewska has said in spite of continuing unfavorable macroeconomic conditions started by the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, Russia's aggression of Ukraine, which had implications for all Europe and across the world as well, in the first half of this year, as a group on the Warsaw Stock Exchange, we achieved very good results. And I mean by this above all, record levels of revenues from sales. PLN 223 million, which is a growth of 6.5% year-on-year. And in the second quarter alone, our revenues amounted to PLN 111 million, and year-on-year growth, if we compare the second quarter of 2022 and 2023, it stands at almost 11%.So the results are very good. It has already been said, but I would like to reiterate this to a larger extent, this results from our implementation of the diversification strategy. We diversify our operations and that includes acquisition of AMX Group. We developed GPW Logistics and as a result, the revenues from new business lines and those strategic initiatives reached the level of PLN 20 million in the first 6 months of the year.So that is 10% of the total revenue. Hence, the impact is significant. But it was not only revenues from new business lines that were satisfying, we also recorded growth in the financial market, 4.3% year-on-year. In this segment, PLN 61.1 million. And it is also surprising but definitely positive, we managed to obtain a positive result. And growth in revenues in the commodities market, just to remind you, last year, there was a suspension of the obligation to trade in gas. In the energy market, this obligation was suspended. But thanks to the decisions taken by the Management Board of the Commodities Exchange regarding revision of prices, a positive result was obtained. And Piotr Listwon will tell you more about this.As regards the costs of our operations, operating expenses in the second quarter amounted to PLN 75 million, and that is a significant growth, 20% year-on-year. And the drivers of this growth, elements that contribute to this growth include growing cost of third-party services, consulting costs related to the development of new strategy, M&A projects, in which we, as the group were involved.There were also personnel costs increases as a result of pay rises, which took place at the end of last year. These were not visible in last year's results yet. We also increased the headcount. This employment was increased mainly owing to the development of our strategic projects, which in the longer term, will generate additional revenues. And in subsequent periods, we will optimize the employment. It was also the effect of AMX acquisition because it is not only revenues but also expenses related to such transactions and logistics, that is our strategic initiatives. The difference in terms of operating expenses between the first half of 2023 and first half of 2022, the change stands at PLN 30 million, almost PLN 30 million, of which almost half, about PLN 15 million comes from costs expenses related to launching new business lines. But this is obviously a profitable activity, which builds our profitability in operating revenue terms. The pace of operating expenses growth was higher than the rate of growth of revenues from sale. Our operating profitability dropped. And this drop was lower than expected, both by the market and by ourselves.EBITDA achieved in the second quarter is at PLN 44 million, which has decreased by less than 6% year-on-year. I would like to stress, however, that this EBITDA is still 10% above the market consensus announced by the Polish Press Agency. As regards net profits, here, the situation is even better. Net profit we achieved in the second quarter amounts to PLN 45 million, which represents a growth by over 18% year-on-year. This is more than satisfying. That is more than 24% above the market consensus. And this result is achieved, thanks to higher financial revenues, which is possible in the circumstances of high interest rates. But on the other hand, we know that such conditions have an unfavorable effect on new IPOs. Basically, transitions were only from one market to another. And here, we obtained financial revenues higher than last year. We also had provisions for VAT-related issues. And that had a positive effect on our financial costs. We also benefited from very good results of our associated company, the National Depository of Securities.After the first 6 months of the year, we can see a clear trend of growing revenues. If you look at the graph on the left-hand side, and if you extended it, on the left, into the past, you would see that this trend is becoming clear over time. So this is very much aligned with our expectations, and we are satisfied with those results. In spite of the drop in operating profitability, our EBITDA margin was almost 40%, which is also a very good result. Aligned in our long-term assumptions, we want to achieve 50% EBITDA margin. But for the time being, the result is very satisfying. And also an excellent result in terms of net profit in the second quarter. That is the third best result in the second quarter in the history of the Warsaw Stock Exchange. So these results prove the benefits of our diversified structure.Now, moving to the revenue. On the financial market, during Q2, we showed substantial improvement and the growth of more than 12% from that business line. So eventually, we had PLN 43 million but we were also showing growth in revenue from listing. It was 8.4% up on the year-to-year with over PLN 6 million in revenue. And a stable revenue from information services. We were up over 2%. And on the quarterly basis, it was PLN 15 million. An additional piece of information here. In addition to the numbers that we show in the chart, we -- as a Capital Group, we had over PLN 943 million in revenue from AMX, clearing. Because just as a reminder, AMX Group is not just a stock exchange but this is also the depository of the securities. So this is the new business line that contributes to the revenue base. In addition to our commodities and the energy market, this is another pillar that we have in our revenue base.On this slide, we see the breakdown of our revenue across the entire group. So this is how the total PLN 110 million is distributed across different segments. And I would like to draw your attention to the change that we can observe in this breakdown. When you look at the darker section of the chart, I don't know how to describe that. Is it brown? Yes. I think that I should call it brown or orange. I'm sorry. Perhaps I have a problem with colors, but I was given a hint, but it's rather orange. So this is other revenue. Other revenue means new business lines that have just emerged, but we really wanted to highlight during the presentation.As a result, other business lines contributed plus because of this emerging line. So when you look at the financial market, in Q2, it was over PLN 46 million, and that accounts for less than 42%. The second in the ranking is commodity market over -- that generated nearly PLN 40 million in revenue, and they contribute to 35.6% compared to 39.5% in Q2 2022. And well, the market data was PLN 15 million had also had declining share of 13.8%, but this is due to the diversification of our business and the very fact that the new business lines are coming strong with nearly 9% contribution.But right now, it's time for the information from the commodity market. So let me turn over the floor to my colleague.

[Piotr Listwon, executive]

Good afternoon, and thank you for giving me the floor. I would like to share with you the financial performance of the commodity market and the turnover that we've seen in this market. As Mr. Mlodkowski said, the regulatory and macro environment has not been really conducive for a longer while. And if you look at the regulatory framework for the power sector, with the new regimes since the early 2022, with the new regulations for the electricity and the natural gas and the important legislation that caps the prices of electricity and natural gas for the final offtakers, we have to emphasize that the commodity market survived this turbulent time. But obviously, that impacted the turnover within individual sectors of this market. However, overall, the performance for Q2 was quite well.Let me speak about the turnover for Q2 2022. Now, let me look at individual segments. First, electricity market. In Q2, we had 42.5-terawatt hours, which means that quarter-on-quarter, we were slightly below. It's most -- it's nearly the same volume. But when you look at -- on year-on-year, then we were down by more than 5%, 5.6%. But mind you, in Q2 2022, we didn't have the new regulations that I have just mentioned. The market of the forward and future products is important in this market. The forward turnover volume was down nearly 30% year-on-year. Well, we had a high base on the spot market of 14.5 terawatt hours. And this is the year-on-year increase. That is quite substantial. I have to say that this is the second-best quarter in the history of this market.Now, moving on to the natural gas. Here, the turnover was at 25.8 terawatt hours. We were down by 16% on a year-to-year basis. And quarter-to-quarter, we were down by 36.6%. And the same is true for the spot and for the forward turnovers. I believe that while the seasonal effect of Q2 is such that the turnover volumes are much lower since this is not the winter time. But when you look at the entire market, there is still uncertainty about the gas prices for the upcoming winter season. So the entities are still waiting. They believe that the contract -- we believe that the contracting will be growing as we approach winter.Now property rights market. Here, the turnover volume compared to Q1 was much stronger. We were at 5.2 terawatt hours and ended the Q2 at 6.9 terawatt hours. And again, it had something to do with seasonality and identification of the property rights of the market participants as at the end of June 2023 when we had the end of the redemption period when the companies were about to redeem their certificates. Compared to the end of Q2 2022, we were actually down by nearly 24%. And that was caused by a number of regulatory changes that were introduced to support financially the individual users of electricity and energy.So the level of certificates that had to be redeemed was reduced to 12% this year and also the number of the installations that enjoyed support was also reduced. However, we are quite happy to see the performance of Energy Efficiency segment. For some time, we were in the declining trend, but now the situation reversed. And during the recent quarters, we had the uptake, 6% year-on-year and also a handsome growth quarter-on-quarter. This is, again, the effect coming from the Certificates of Origin.Now, when you look at the next slide and you look at the volumes, our rights and the turnover revenues are quite strongly correlated. So the rights relate to the volumes. The fees are charged are megawatt hours. So if the volumes go up, then the revenue goes up of the commodity market. So during Q2, we increased our revenue by 5%. And when you compare Q2 of 2023 against Q2 of 2022, we were up by 8.9%. I think that it's useful to say that we had a record high turnover on the spot market. We had a reduced turnover on the forward market, which is due to the regulations and uncertainty amongst the market participants, whether the preferential regulatory framework for the end users will continue for the next year. But we do hope that this activity will be intensified towards the end of the market. Now when you -- we had a major increase in revenue on property rights, which was due to the redemption of the property rights and the higher turnover at the end of June.Now, in terms of the revenue from transaction settlements, it's PLN 11.4 million. This is a growth year-to-year by 3.8% but quarter-to-quarter, we were down by 17%. Now, we had a good revenue level because of clearing of the electricity spot market. Here, we were up by 262%, but we had some decline in the revenue from clearing on the property rights market. And that reflects the situation that we had in this market. In terms of Register of Certificates of Origin, here, we were at PLN 6.6 million, which means that we were down year-on-year by 23% and quarter-to-quarter, it was 5.3%. So this is due to the fewer certificates. But the Register of Certificates of Origin is actually growing quite well. We were growing at 6.4% quarter-to-quarter. That would be all from me. Thank you.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

Thank you. So well, we are going back to financial performance. And here, we added the operating expenses. The electricity market contributes to the profitability of GPW Group. Therefore, performance that was generated on that market was something that we are really happy about.Now, moving to the operating expenses. Here, we have 2 most important things that we always highlight. The major contributor to the cost base is -- well, employee costs. Year-to-year, we were up by nearly 19%. I was discussing the reasons for that increase. Well, I was at the first slide where we had the revenue, the EBITDA margin and the costs. So perhaps, I will not repeat the same story again. But the trend that we see compared to Q2 2022, specifically in employee cost, it's PLN 5.2 million. But another item that contributed to our OpEx is the third-party services and third-party services were up by 40%. And again, there is a difference between the external service charges in Q2 2023 compared to Q2 2022. And this difference is PLN 8.7 million.And here, I was also highlighting the reasons. Some of the reasons are one-off like advisory and consulting services that we had to procure. But that also includes the costs related to the consolidation of GPW Logistic, this is PLN 3.4 million and AMX, which is PLN 2 million. But in addition to that, there were other drivers such as promotion, education and market development that accounted in total for PLN 2.8 million. And last year, it was PLN 1.7 million. And the last piece of information that I want to highlight on this slide is CapEx. CapEx rose up tremendously. In Q2 2023, it was at PLN 22.2 million, which is really 20% of sales revenue for the period.Now the next slide. As regards share of profit in entities measured by the equity method, it was PLN 9.1 million, which represents a year-on-year growth of almost 17%. And this is thanks to excellent results of the National Depository of Securities. The difference, the change in the share in the profits of the National Depository was PLN 1.6 million and it had this little loss of PLN 300,000 in the stock exchange center. The total assets in the balance sheet now, the total assets were reduced slightly by about PLN 50 million, which resulted from the lower value of financial assets valued at depreciated cost. And on equity, we recorded a decrease related to payment of the dividend for the 2022.Ladies and gentlemen, now we will move on to the Q&A session.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

First question related to market data. As part of its new strategy, there was a stock exchange plans to increase revenues for market data. Could you give us some specifics in this regard?

[Izabela Olszewska, executive]

I will answer this one. As regards data in general, this is one of our pillars, driving growth under the new strategy announced in May, data plus technology. As for data, we will continue to develop what we have understood is market data. That is a variety of products that rely on our data that we receive, for example, after a trading session, be that data that have been processed or be that raw data. And we want to add to this segment a lot of other data-based products that will be linked to SGE, for example, area. Here, we see major gaps in data available in the market. And we are getting numerous signals from market players, especially investors about this. So we want to pay extra attention to this SGE area.Secondly, we completed our product, GPW data. And as part of this project, we will also have finance reports of companies listed here. And these reports will be in ESPRL format. So that will allow us to develop numerous products in this GPW data initiative. We're also considering data products for algo traders and alternative data like sentiment analysis. So a lot will be happening in this regard. As I have mentioned, this is an important pillar of our strategy for the upcoming 5 years.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

The second question is related to IPOs. Will there be any IPOs this year? How many companies are interested in entering the Main Market this regarding transitions from NewConnect? And the second part of the question is, is there a chance for Polish companies in AI sector to get funding in IPOs?

[Izabela Olszewska, executive]

As I already mentioned in the context of IPO market, this market is still relatively quiet, and we hope it will change. Obviously, not only in Poland but across Europe, we are seeing now much lower numbers and values related to IPOs. This is mainly due to external factors. We, as Warsaw Stock Exchange are talking with companies because we believe that when the right time comes when valuations are very good and a window of IPOs opens, the companies that want to raise capital for development or stabilization of their business should be prepared for this time and window. That is why we are in touch with them. But as regards detailed specifics, we can rely on the information that is presented by the Financial Supervision Authority. As far as I can recall now, there were about 4 prospectuses. And we do not have any information yet whether these IPO preparation processes are active or whether they have been suspended. There was just this number mentioned.NewConnect market also remains open to smaller companies. Possibly such IPOs can be expected this year. SyPi -- and companies that are active in AI and new technologies, that will be something of great interest to our investors. So I believe that potential for these companies to raise capital for their development exists in the Warsaw Stock Exchange. However, those circumstances must exist in particular, good valuations and unblocking of this IPO window.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

Another question concerns Logistics business, which is developing very well. And the question is, what is the plan for the development of this business? What margins can be expected from GPW Logistics in the future?

[Izabela Olszewska, executive]

I will answer this one. GPW Logistics is already generating revenues as we showed in the presentation. We count on the profitability growing mainly because of the forwarding and logistics industry is very scalable, and we want profitability to reach within the range of 30% to 50% in the future. We look forward to the use of state-of-the-art platforms for forwarding and logistics businesses. This platform will contribute to digitization, optimization and the use of artificial intelligence in logistics.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

Another question related to finances. Cash and cash equivalents account for about 1/3 of the value of the company. What is your idea for using this money and is there any chance for additional dividend? I will answer this question. As regards level of cash and cash equivalents, according to the data at the end of June, that was indeed PLN 1.5 million, but we should remember that we paid out a dividend of over PLN 113 million for 2022. So this initial amount has already been reduced by the amount of the dividend. As regards protecting this cash against negative impact on inflation, we are taking steps in line with our policy. Recently, we have also updated this policy by introducing the possibility of using slightly different instruments with greater revenues. We can see that in the very good net result because they contributed to this overall net profit.Also, as we have mentioned while presenting our strategy. And also, as we mentioned at the previous conference, we said we were planning high investments. So we will have a significant growth in our CapEx. Now, after the second quarter, we can see that 20% of revenues, that is the CapEx that we have, that is why we need to have money earmarked for those initiatives. Most of those initiatives require financial backing. Also, we need to ensure a certain financial surplus in the case of changes that might occur. And indeed, and our liquidity ratio increased. It is very high. However, we also have an M&AO program, which we also mentioned on the occasion of presenting our strategy. I also talked about the cost of M&AO projects that are recognized under third-party services and consulting and advisory services. We are still involved in a number of M&A projects. And the outcomes of those activities deferred in time.And secondly, not all of those initiatives -- not all of those projects are completed successfully. However, we remain active in a few processes about which we are optimistic and with regard to which we think we will be able to sign contracts possibly by the end of this year. I cannot reveal any details at the moment, but the circumstances I have mentioned that is the need to secure funds for dividend payment, which took place earlier this month, the need to secure funds for capital expenditures and this safe financial buffer plus funds for planned M&A transactions. Mean of the surplus in reality is not that high after all. We had, in our past experience transactions where the surplus was not sufficient. And we don't want to use that leverage. Bearing all this in mind, we do not plan any additional payment of the dividend. The dividend policy that is part of the new strategy, and that is in fact a continuation of the previous dividend policy continues to be attractive to the investors. It should be perceived as beneficial. And it was one of the highest. I think it was the second highest in the history, maybe the third highest. But anyway, one of the highest dividend payments in history.And when we look at benchmarks with our peers' stock exchanges in other countries, we could see that this benchmark was among the best in the market. And the last question is about the war in Ukraine. How does the war in Ukraine influence current operations of the Warsaw Stock Exchange and what will be the role of the capital market in the reconstruction of Ukraine? Does the Warsaw Stock Exchange see a business potential for itself here?

[Izabela Olszewska, executive]

I think that the war in Ukraine, as we have repeatedly said, has affected the entire business environment in which capital market functions, both in Poland and in Europe. This slowing down of IPO, for example, is a natural consequence of the war situation. For sure, inflation, high-interest rates and uncertainty affected the capital market and the stock exchange. Nevertheless, at present, we do not see any effects and implications that would be linked to the fact that we are close to the frontline and that might mean that investors see greater risk in this. I think the implications have already been in some way reflected in the developments in the market. And as regards reconstruction, together with the European Bank for Development and the reconstruction and the Ukrainian Commission, an agreement was concluded to the effect that we want to be involved in the process of supporting reconstruction in Ukraine. So we will take part in consulting about the future shape of the capital market.Various forms of support will be developed by the Warsaw Stock Exchange in partnership with the European Bank of Development. So a lot of things are happening right now. We're optimistic about our possible involvement in the reconstruction of the capital market in our neighbors.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

Perhaps I will follow up on what Mrs. Olszewska said. In the financial framework, the war really impacted our business. We didn't have any issue with business continuity. But we definitely were able to see more cyber attacks. We are well prepared to defend ourselves against all the cyber attacks that come mainly from the East. But as we heard the higher inflation increased the third-party services cost and also contributed to the higher wages, which led to the decline in profitability. We consumed that in 2022, but we were down with our profitability by 20%.I don't know to what extent you may say, but this is the direct effect of the war in Ukraine, but the war was certainly a major contributor. And the very fact that globally, the market is sluggish. And therefore, we do not see many IPOs coming up and that impacts negatively our revenue, but also commodity market was in turbulence. First, we had escalation of the deposits. And then we had the regulatory changes that Mr. Listwon referred to but also it hit the market. And it also impacted the performance of our commodity segment.It appears that currently, we do not have such a direct impact of that situation on us. But -- on the other hand, we see that Ukrainian companies have problems with keeping the settlements with the stock exchange timely. It is improving. So I'm not saying that this is a very negative thing, but we do see that these factors impact our operation in the bottom-line. And the same is for the -- true for the transportation market. Our logistics could be growing much faster if not for the situation that we are having. But on the other hand, we were very much involved in the transportation and shipment of coal, and that was a positive contributor. So there is like a mix of various factors that come into play.But as my colleague said, we definitely plan to be involved in rebuilding the capital market in Ukraine, and that would include the commodity components. So we are looking for the opportunities for us.And ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention. Thank you for joining us today and should you have any further questions, please be in touch with our Investor Relations team. Thank you, and goodbye.[Statements in English on this transcript were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call.]