Gielda Papierow Wartosciowych w Warszawie SA

WSE:GPW

Earnings Call Transcript 2022-Q3

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is [indiscernible]and on the behalf of Gielda Company. I am pleased to welcome you to the third quarter conference call with Wartosciowych Exchange management. Today, the company is represented by Mr. Marek Dietl, CEO and President of the Management Board; Izabela Olszewska Monika Gorgon and Adam Mlodkowski members of the Management Board as well as Piotr Listwo?, Vice President of the Management Board of the Polish Power Exchange.

Mr. Dietl, Please go ahead. The floor is yours.

[Marek Dietl, executive]

Thank you very much, and welcome to the conference on Q3 2021 results. Let me start with a brief overview of the key events from the last quarter. So first, I would refer to the -- to our core business. We have still quite good trading volumes on the equity market. It's plus 1% year-over-year. But we are especially pleased with our bond market catalyst where we have -- when we tripled the trading volumes. And we are very much satisfied with the derivatives. This market is really taking off with over 45% plus. Last quarter, effectively, we launched on the 1st of November, but most of the work was done in the Q3. On our side, it was global market. Global Connect is a market which offers international stocks to the Polish ecosystem to the policy investors.

We have currently a few German companies. And hopefully, our brokers will bring more international stocks to our venue. We also paid quite decent dividend a little bit higher than in our dividend policy of PLN 2.7 per share. And we start to work with international consulting company on the strategy for the years 2023 2027. From our current strategy, strategic initiatives, our GPW Logistics, our digital logistic operator is up and running. The company received a forwarding license. And we are very well advanced with negotiations with to clients relatively large industrial groups. And we also are done with our GPW data program, and we start commercialization of the data in the premium models that something boirfree, some more advanced parts and data will be charged.

In our tokenization and blockchain effort, we keep on running, we finished the second phase of the technology development in our -- in the R&D part of this project, market project. We also applied for crowd-funding prices to our market supervisor. And we continue development of our platform for tokenization of artwork of painting and also and other tokenization platforms and we still start internal and external tests. When it comes to our GPW Tech subsidiary, they are quite successful in getting customers for our GRC software. First, we have 2 modules, governance module and compliance model in place. And we are working on our module risk model, but there are already clients for the first 2 modules.

One client is, of course, our group, and we are implementing this in all our subsidiaries and our other company. But we have also first fee-paying external clients. It's quite promising that even at this stage, there are some clients who want to close to bet on this technology and to want to acquire it for purpose. Our index cater, our index calculating engine is fully integrated and replaced the previous old style engine and our GPW Tech is negotiating with some other foreign clients in one of the tendering procedure, we are at the last stage of the process.

We'll see if we can now win this or not. This was not only sold but fully implemented Wartosciowych Exchange, and we have several other lead sales leads for this set of tools. And GPW stock, our market survival tool is rolled out fully in TPW, our venue at our exchange, and we are now in the process of RFT the first external client and this client is also using it in the test mode. So hopefully, they're going to buy our piece of software. So that was more or less all when it comes to our development efforts. And now I would like to ask Izabela Olszewska to take over the stage and talk us through the business update. Thank you.

[Izabela Olszewska, executive]

Hello, Marek just kindly said, I'm Izabela Olszewska, and I'm member of the Management Board of VersaStack Exchange in charge of sales and business development and ESG. And I will have a pleasure to guide you through the next few slides, which presents a business on the financial market of our exchange. So the third quarter of 2022, was more by the effects of the world. So there's high inflation and increasing interest rates and also uncertainty. So just the general climate on the stock exchange was demanding. Plus as of the year, the third quarter includes 2 months of holiday. And normally, these months, they are more quiet than others. But we can say that the third quarter on financial market was not bad, pretty good, I would say.

The trading volumes on the main markets were slightly lower quarter-on-quarter but slightly higher year-on-year. And just we need to underline that 2021 was a really good year in our history. What is also worth underlying that the value of trading remains still much better than in the pandemic 2019 year. The average session trading volumes were, however, below PLN 1 billion. So just to comment how it is now. So normally, it is over PLN 1 billion, and we hope that it will continue until the end of the year. The average fee was 13 basis points.

And this indicates a larger share than a year of institutional investors and traders, which operate on the liquidity programs. And the share of HPP, so high-volume provider high-volume fund programs was respectively over 16% in third quarter 2022 and over 14% in third quarter 2021. And in my opinion, it's worth adding that participants of those programs operate on now on more than 140 corporates. So the only, they go, I would say, below SVA index, which is really good for other participants of the market, including also institutional investors and retail clients.

On the new connect market, we had quite significant drop of trading volumes, especially year-on-year. And I think that it's quite normal that in times of uncertainty and there is an outflow of money of investments from more risky markets. And the new connect market, it's a market of smaller companies with the shorter history in the market. And from that perspective, it is more risky. Plus the biggest and the most liquid new connect issuers, they are upgraded to main markets, and this is included, I would say, in DNA of new connect. This is in line with the goals of our SME platform. So in the third quarter of 2022, we had 4 transfers from new connect to the main market and one the but on new connect.

On the Structured Products segment, the trading volumes were slightly lower year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. But this segment is very important for us and develops very well. It's very useful providing investors with instruments that give an exposure to various categories of assets, including various commodities. And some positive information comes from ETF segment. So the trading volumes were up to 80% year-on-year and plus 11% quarter-on-quarter. The volatility on the market, encourage investors to trade mostly 2 ETFs. So one, it is ETF based on big enter, but with the leverage. So it follows the blue-chip index, but with twice as much force.

And then the next popular products was ETF based on big went as well, but short. So it gives the opportunity to achieve positive rate of return when the index is falling. So the most important thing is also that the assets under management of EPS just constantly the increase and the company, better securities, the provider of ETF to our market. Just announced at the beginning of November that the asset of the EPS they increased the PLN 4 million.

Now a few comments on IPO and SPU market. So from the beginning of the year, on all markets, we had 21 debut in corporates, 7 on the main markets, and they were only transfers from eConnect. -- and 14 on new Connect. And in the third quarter, there were 4 trousers from Connect to main market and wanted but on new Connect. I think that it's also worth saying that not only in Poland but all over Europe and the world, we observed a significantly less interest in IPO. And in the period of 9 first months of 2022, the number of IPOs in the world decreased by more than 40% year-on-year. And the volume of IPO decreased by 57%, and the source of this data is UI Global IPO trends report.

So I think that it is caused by this uncertainty and because of the world and the effects of the world. And some of the companies decided to postpone the process of IPO. They wait for better market condition and valuation. According to quarterly information provided by Police Security Commission at the end of the first quarter, there were 14 prospectus in the hands of FSA. But there's no just precise information how many of them were suspended and how many in process.

Of course, similar as in the previous years, we -- the sales team of the stock exchange, we conduct talks with the interesting companies, potential dividends. And I think that as soon as the market condition approved, so we'll have the new IPO on our market. I just want to comment also SPO segment because this is very interesting. And this market is quite vibrant. So we had many relatively many SPOs on the main market and new connects. And just we can read analysts don't rule out that a large wave of SPO will come soon. Just the next slide, please.

The next slide is about the situation on [indiscernible] market, and the third quarter was very successful for this segment. The overall trading volume increased by almost 50% year-on-year. But it is important that the biggest increase is concerned our flagship product, which is future contract on reaching 20. And we observed a slight -- a big participation of equity providers in this segment. So market makers and high-volume providers. So their activity provided a deeper order book, which is again very good for the investors, including credit clients.

The share in trading volumes of retail clients, it's very interesting because, to be honest, they built the derivatives market in Poland, but because of the growth of this market, the percentage share in trading volumes decreased, but we check it and in nominal values, they trade even more that a year and a couple of years ago. So volatility works well in the futures market, and we can see that the volatility was higher just both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year on index of white market, which is weak and as well as index of blue-chip week 20. So the next slide, please.

And I just would like to also comment on ESG, which is a very important trend on the financial market, and we receive a lot of questions from our investors and analysts. So it is why ESG is and will be included in our presentation. So last year, we announced the ESG strategy for our capital group. And this year, in 2022, we started to prepare the operational plans in every company of our capital growth. So the mother company and daughter Company, they have now the operating plans how to achieve also, we try to build the ESG culture in our growth. So we conduct web shop lectures dedicated to our employees just to compliant. And we also took some actions to implement ESG risk management as a part of our overall risk management system.

As an organizer of the trading platform for so many companies, we also sell this responsibility for education in ESG area. So we carried out education activities in the third quarter, and this is our constant activity. So we provide the information on ESG and almost every conference -- we also -- we are very active in promoting ESG instruments. And like, for example, green bond market, which we think that it would be very useful for many corporates willing to prepare the green transformation within the organization. And also with the more sustainable development through organizing some studies to show that it's we're doing and also through being organizing or being a partner of competition for ESG leaders. So thank you. This is also on my side, and Adam over to you.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

My name is Adam Mlodkowski,and I'm in charge of Finance in WSE Management Board. On the next 2 slides, I will present the financial results of the growth after last quarter. Okay. Let's look at the Slide 8. Thank you. In Q3 2022, total revenues amounted to PLN 88.4 million, which means a decrease of 2.4% year-on-year. We achieved a relatively high revenues on the financial market. 6.6% year-over-year due to higher trading volumes, but weaker revenues on the commodity markets were a decrease of almost 17% year-over-year to place. Operating expenses increased by over 20% quarter-on-quarter and CI ratio reached 64% after 9 months, but it remains within our target on 2022.

In Q3 2022, we also recognized a goodwill impairment allowance on the subsidiary company bond spot in the amount of PLN 6.7 million -- the allowance was recognized in other expenses. As a consequence of the decrease in revenues and an increase in cost, EBITDA original level of PLN 29.1 million, which means a decrease of over 14% quarter-on-quarter. The net profit amounted to PLN 51.1 million, which means a decrease of 13.5% year-over-year. But after 9 months, bottom line is near the results than we expected.

Next slide, please. Okay. the chart on the next slide shows a clear downward trend in EBITDA margin quarter-by-quarter to 42.9% and slightly minor decline in the net profit margin to 35.2%. We achieved higher net profit margin than EBITDA margin among others, due to an increase in financial income caused by an increase in the interest rates and an increase in the value of entities measured by the equity method. What is also important, the 2021 dividend for our shareholders was -- as Mr. President, Marek did said at the beginning of the presentation, PLN 2.74 per share, and it was higher than the minimum amount specified in the dividend policy. And the dividend was paid on August 5.

On the next slide, please. Revenue from trading on the financial market in Q3 accounted for over 43% of the group's total revenues and was resulted from the change in volumes. As Mr. Izabela Olszewska presented on the earlier slides. Trading revenues amounted to PLN 38.2 million, which means an increase of 7.5% year-over-year and a decrease of 0.5% quarter-on-quarter. And at this point, I would like to underline that the revenues from trading derivatives more than doubled year-on-year revenues from this business line.

Listing revenues in Q3 amounted to PLN 5.5 million and did not change year-on-year, while quarter-on-quarter, they fell by 1.9%. I -- revenues from the information service against sales of information in Q3 amounted to PLN 14.3 million, which means an increase of 6.8% year-on-year and a decrease of 2.5% quarter-on-quarter. And now its time the results from the commodity market. So I will pass the floor to TGE, Piotr, the floor is yours.

[Piotr Listwon, executive]

Thank you, Adam. Hello, everyone. I would like to present you the results from the commodity market in the third quarter. On the electricity market, we noticed a slight decrease in turnover quarter-on-quarter. However, on a year-on-year basis, there is the decline is already visible because it's over 42% decline in turnover is caused by the situation of the electricity markets in Europe, of course, caused by the Russia invasion on Ukraine, but also the legislation changes at the European and national level as, for example, the risk on evolution of the obligation to trade on the energy on the exchange and other, which significantly regulate the way the market operates currently.

In the face of uncertainty, high energy prices and gas prices as well as the regulatory changes, the risk of the regulatory changes. Market participants are quite significantly limited their activity on the energy market on our business lines, which are, of course, energy and gas markets. Drop in volumes on the gas market quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year is significant, 19% and 61%, respectively. When it comes to renewable energy certificates, we have recorded a decrease in the third quarter. So quarter-on-quarter, over 42%. That final moto fight out hours, this is caused mainly by the ending of the shipment period in June, meaning the compulsory redemption of the certificates that needs to be performed by the end of every June. This is the trend that we have every year.

You probably -- you had a chance to see that every second quarter is much better than the previous and the next quarters on the green certificates. However, comparing year-on-year basis, we recorded a slight growth, as you can see on the chart. On the white certificate, we have low volumes caused directly by the small amount of certificates issued by the energy regulatory office. Yes, that's all from this slide, and we come to the next one to the revenues. Of course, revenues in the Cote side in the third quarter are directly resulting from the trading volumes just discussed in the previous slide. So the causes of the smaller amount of the revenues that we gained in the first quarter are directly coming from new volumes.

Net worth is the increase in the other fees by over 47% year-on-year, mainly due to the higher revenues from the management of the clearing warranty funds that is performed by our total company TGE, which is a clearing house. Going to the next slide, revenues from the clearing in the first quarter amounted to PLN 8.3 million, over 24% lower than in the second quarter, mainly due to lower trading volumes in forward instruments on gas and energy.

And when we go down to the revenues of the registers, we see the drop quarter-on-quarter by 37%. And its cost, as I mentioned before, by the seasonal high operations in registers that are performed in the second quarter, remembering the compulsory redemption of the certificates in every June. However, we noticed better results in year-on-year comparison of 10% increase, mainly driven by the bigger volumes of issued properties rights and general turnover of the guarantee of origin. I think that's all from the community side. So I pass the voice to the -- my colleagues from Wartosciowych Exchange.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

Thank you, Piotr. We are coming back to the consolidated financial results of the group. -- and go on Slide 16. As I said before, cost-to-income ratio in Q3 increased to 64%, but remains within our target. Operating costs grew slightly more than 20% year-on-year. And this was mainly due to an increase in the cost of external services by PLN 5 million year-on-year and an increase in the labor cost by PLN 4.6 million. The increase in cost was the result of an increase in the cost of maintaining the IT infrastructure, promotion, consulting, market development, and additional employment in the implementation of strategic initiatives.

Next slide, please. On the '17 slide, you can see share of profit of entities measured by the equity methods. In Q3, value of this share increased by over 40% year-on-year. And this was the result of the increase in the net profit of the KDPW growth, due to higher revenues from the settle line of future transactions and higher profits from financial investments in conjunction with an increase in the interest rates on the financial market. WSC's share of KDPW, profit increased from PLN 5.8 million in Q3 '21 to PLN 8.2 million in Q3 '22. And finally, the next slide, please. Okay. This is the last slide of our presentation.

With the balance sheet, the growth asset after Q3, we reduced on the balance sheet by EUR 50 million Per year-on-year as a result of the lower value of financial assets measured by amortized cost with simultaneous increase in cash. The decrease in current liabilities was the result of the above-mentioned payment of the dividend on August the 5th in the amount of PLN 150 million. And the last comment from my side, the corporate bonds issued by WSE were redeemed at the beginning of October. So for this reason, there was no change in the balance sheet on August on August the 14th. So this is all for today. Thank you for your attention. Thank you.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] I think our first question comes from Miguel at Woden. Miguel, we lost you again I think. Perhaps we can start with a different questions. So we have a question from Andrzej Powierza from Anchor Investments.

[Andrzej Powierza, analyst]

I would like you to ask a couple of questions. First, and regarding the Armenian Stock Exchange acquisition, we would like to hear what the board strategic rationale behind it and the price you pay. And my second question would be regarding your middle and long-term goal for some metrics. Since you are working in the next strategy plan, are you setting any target for revenue growth, profit margin or return on equity? And lastly, since my last question, since the bolused owns 35% of the sales and more than 50% of the voting power, I would like to know whether the state might consider at some point to say it take a little bit in private hands. And just if you can comment about it.

[Piotr Listwon, executive]

Okay. So I will take the questions. Let me start with Armenia. We paid around EUR 1.5 million. We have also put option within 3 years. We can also separate ourselves from the stock exchange and Central Bank of Armenia as we'll be paying us back the amount we paid. And it was -- the price was defined as simply net asset value. So it was, from our perspective, very attractive price, but we also promised to do -- to conduct 60 initiatives to grow our MEA capital market. And the rationale was that it's a fast-growing exchange, profitable exchange. -- with roughly 20%, 30% EBITDA margin.

We like the border and also Armenia becomes -- despite the war and political tensions financial center of South Coast, so we believe it's a good place to be. About the war -- I mean, of course, we feel very sorry for those -- or all the casualties in this war and we look forward to a peace solution for solution, but we also see it as -- if you look at Armenia,GDP growth double-digit is between 10% to 13%. So it's a rapidly growing economy despite the war and also visit of Neslosses speaker of the household representative with 2 Armenian American Congresswomen and congressmen also show commitment from the United States of America to help maintain Armenian territory integrity. And we are, therefore, still quite positive.

But of course, we know the geopolitics is challenging. That's why we have this put option and we pay relatively as far as some concern low price. KPIs. -- that before the call, we had another workshop with our strategic advisers exactly on PIA we asked them to review the initial proposals, so we will come with a proposal, I don't know. Under this strategy, it was revenue, EBITDA and cost-to-income ratio and dividend the business level, what will be the next now. But there will be most probably some strategy-related things and some financials. But for sure, we are in business of growing the value of the company. So for sure, financial farm interest play important role. And we also research carefully our investor base, and we know that 80-plus percent of our investors are value-oriented. So for sure, the dividends is a kind of mass.

And last question about the state. I'm selling the shares of the stock exchange, it could be difficult for the Police government and any government. As we are on the list of 40, I think, 7 strategic companies, and there should uploading the shares there should be concerns from the parliament. So it's a ball political decision. And I'm not aware of any even attempt to do so. So actually, there's no any news on the privatization -- further privatization of next step on the privatization of Wartosciowych Exchange.

[Operator]

So our next question comes from Christopher Arnold.

[Unknown Analyst]

My question concerns excess cash. At the end of Q3, there were liquid assets of about SEK 565 million on the balance sheet and almost no debt. And also the operating cash flows are very strong and sufficient to cover the CapEx even at the currently elevated levels. So considering that holding lots of cash is very expensive for shareholders, especially in times of high inflation and interest rates. Do you have any plans or thoughts about how to use that cash or to return it to shareholders, for example, as a special dividend? Or is this something that will be part of the new strategy for 2023 onwards?

[Piotr Listwon, executive]

Thank you very much for this question. Just to update you, we repaid some of our bonds. So we are literally debt free company. So actually, our cash is a little bit standing a little bit lower now. But anyway, so first of all, we are committed a loan to our subsidiary, Polish Power Exchange to finance DET when there is an export of electricity from Poland by exchange. There is a VAT charge and the VATs recovered after 60 days. So for this bridge financing, we committed -- we offered a kind of a credit line of PLN 100 million. So we -- it's actually you can think about like it's working capital for us.

Let's put it this way. The other thing is that we are heavily investing time and money into our technology, what's technology products, what stands for worse automated trading system. And 1/3 is financed by the nonsale presence and development, but the 2/3 is final by us. It's another SEK 60 million. So as up to EUR 160 million. We have a few other initiatives where -- which is going to consume also some money. And we indeed look for the outcome of the new strategy. And also, we are in a few M&A processes, more or less promising different stages. So we also work heavily on this nonorganic growth -- of course, one, you never know how it's going to play out.

But the crucial thing of the strategy. We also were considering to buy the office building we are located in. We own part of it and part of the rest, but most probably will give up as the yields increased and the valuation was based on the old yield, so most probably won buy this real estate, but we spared some cash flow for buying that. And currently, it's not -- might be not the optimal moment for a request acquisition financing for that. So we rather -- if there will be an M&A, most probably will finance with our cash or we'll prepare to finance for our cash. So we are not that eager to dispose that amount, but in the first quarter next year, we'll know the strategy, and it can happen that we will pay out the special dividend. It's not -- I cannot exclude that it's so in our scope of thinking.

[Unknown Analyst]

Can I just ask another question? You mentioned the EUR 100 million that is kind of working capital. Is that related to the EUR 100 million revolving credit facility that you secured last year in 2021...

[Piotr Listwon, executive]

Yes, but we renew that. Actually, Polish Power Exchange has bank credit line of PLN 100 million and another THB 100 million comes from us. And in the past...

[Unknown Analyst]

Right Yes. Okay. So and maybe one more for the -- regarding the water automated trading system. Is the development still running to plan? Or are there any unforeseen problems? And in case there are some -- do you have some contingency plan, for example, to use UTP longer than planned in case that something goes wrong with the development and you realize you're not ready to go live as planned in I think it's Q1 2024.

[Piotr Listwon, executive]

On our end, everything goes according to the plan. Of course, there are some streams which are delayed. But all in all, we are still fine. But the issue of the local ecosystem if it's ready for the system, and we are in the discussion with our local clients when they're going to be ready for the new system. So this might postpone. That's why we signed another man with the Euromax. And this is, of course, very important that we get this support.

But actually, over the last few years, we have never used the support from Euromax. Of course, it's -- we want to have a maintenance contract, but we have not reduced that in the last 3 or 4 years. So also, our team is more and more experienced in the riding UTP. So we are hedged 2 ways. One is experience of our team and the second hedge is maintenance contract in Euromax. And everything depends on our clients and our investment firms, local ecosystem.

[Unknown Analyst]

Okay. And maybe one last question. What -- can you say what are the expected annual favoring from the new trading system compared to the cost of UTP...

[Piotr Listwon, executive]

Well, basically, our NPV from what is positive even if we do not sell what worth trading outside of our capital group because the contract of -- and it's now even more attractive because we are charging euros by Euromax obviously. So basically, we are very positive as the maintenance cost will decrease. Our new worst trading system is not only according to the independent test done by Worsley the fastest in the world, but also has a much greater capacity. So we will need much less hardware to run it. And we will also replace not only our trading system here at the Wartosciowych Exchange, but also at our bond spot, our bond market and Polish Power Exchange.

So we will also reduce the complexity of the systems. We have go in our ecosystem, there are 7 trading systems actually won't be dividend, but it's true from different vendors. So the extreme cost efficiencies related to that, so we'll recover our investment just by that. And of course, we hope to sell it to third party to other exchanges. And also when we were deciding on the -- on what we were not sure about Armenia and hopefully, sooner or later, also our Armenia colleagues going to use this was. So for sure, it's NPV-positive project even in the contingency scenario.

So even in case we are just the only user of that. But hopefully, we will have more users. This is really a very nice piece of software work is really good. Clients are testing that, clients like that. are impressed by the efficiency. And it's really -- we don't have a legacy as our competitors. So it's a really brand new system on the RAS technology, which was recently also Google or Alphabet is converting all their systems into RAS technology. So we were 2 years ahead and really the trust program language and the technology platform is very, very efficient. So we are very positive on the market prospect. But we start with us with our capital groupment, it will keep us busy for some time, but our GPW take our 100% own subsidiaries also in talks with some potential clients for what. But usually clients say, okay, we want to see it that we implement that and then we will decide if we see how it works in real life sonar.

[Unknown Analyst]

There's also one question on Yes. And this question on chart to Europolis one because it's about what are the drivers of lower electricity and gas volumes and higher prices? And what -- and can you explain a little bit what has happened in our energy market, what is the situation there? Because there's a lot of things happening there.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

Of course, yes. So the drivers for the lower electricity and gas volumes are, of course, the prices of the coal ETS and gas prices is the main reason. The second is uncertainty of the supply of the coal and gas to the power plants in Poland. Also, the bigger profit margin gain by the power plants. That's the reason of the higher prices of the energy in Poland. And the record high prices on the market caused also the higher demanding from the higher deposits from the members because of the of the fluctuation prices of the energy and gas market makes the higher deposits that are demanding from the -- from our opinions.

That all makes our market participants a little bit started from opening new positions and just waiting what will be at the end of the year. But this is only from the functional side of the market, caused mainly by the prices of the coal ETS and gas prices. However, on the second side, that is also answer for the second part of the question. There is regulatory concerns of the market participants, and its concern is very big caused by the major changes in national level, that should go even further from the regulations provided by the European on the European level.

The first one is the risk of abolition -- of the obligation to trade energy on the exchange. The second is the regulations of the reduction obligation level on the gas market. We currently are -- we see the proposal of the regulation that makes a reduction from 55% trading combination of the gas on the market to 30% for this year and the next year. It has not yet implemented, but there is the project that was already put for the consultation. And the second -- the third one and the last one is the art that limiting the energy prices on the exchange that makes the very overregulated market in Poland and makes the most concerns of the market participants in trading on the exchange. So we have both energy, both energy prices, and also regulatory concerns on the market participant side. But all of them making them a little bit stop of trading so much on the market and just waiting what will happen with the regulations and how the market will be performed in next year.

[Operator]

Thank you. Maybe we can try Miguel from Wood & Co. again. Miguel, are you there? Can you connect?

[Unknown Analyst]

Sorry, I might have had some that issues on my side. I'll try to be brief. I have a couple of questions. The first one is regarding the cost-to-income ratio, if there are any cost saving measures that are planned? And if yes, in which areas? And how do you see headcount evolve in the future? Also, are you able to pass some of these cost increases to each your customers by means of ICs on either GPW or TGE. Then I would like to also ask Piotr if it could provide some guidance on the impact of all of these regulatory rotary constructions on the energy market. How are -- how will this affect energy trading turnovers in the future? And last question will be regarding dividends. if you still see the .1 growth until 2025, meaning that in 2023, you'd pay 2.7% in 2024, 2.8% and 225 2.9%. Yes, that's all. Thank you very much.

[Adam Mlodkowski, executive]

So I'll start with the first question, the remaining part, I will leave to Piotr Listwon. So first of all, cost-to-income ratio has increased. And I don't think we'll have this ratio in the next strategy as we keep some attractive businesses with EBITDA margin of 20%, 30%, which because of they were spoiling our cost-to-income ratio target. So it's -- I don't think it's an efficient ratio. When it comes to headcount, we have indeed increased our number of people at our company, mainly for the strategic projects. So -- but we would like -- and we are lagging -- anyway, we are lagging behind the -- and the efficiency of other exchanges when you account revenues per employee or even on the per euro basis, so for every Euro, we pay our resort we pay. We have lower returns in terms of revenues than other exchanges of the similar size.

So basically, we look very closely in that. But for the time being, we are solely expanding the business lines, but more or less, we are happy with the number of people we have and we can continue. So unless there are very ambitious strategic initiatives in the new strategy, we will be filing with the current headcount. Cost pass-through, it's very difficult. We were checking our last price increases in many business lines were very many years ago. So if we were to put it to the today's values, we will be we will be forced to increase our prices by 50%, 60%. So it's not realistic.

And so we will rather do some smaller changes now to our pricing, and we'll try to get some of the cost increases through, but it's very, very difficult on the current market situation and also there's a pressure from our ecosystem that we actually lower prices. So when we come up with the increased prices, it's we come on the strong resistance. So we have to be very smart and very selective where we can slightly increase our -- improve slightly our pricing. And I don't know what is -- I know a little bit what is at the end of the June when the cost passed through to the prices. So Piotr, if you can take over the second part of the third question and elaborate a little bit more on the TG perspective?

[Piotr Listwon, executive]

Yes. Thank you for the question. From -- we forecast trading volumes on the energy side to be much lower than this year, maybe not half of the trading volumes that were performed this year, but much lower than we had it this year from the energy side. From the gas, side will be a slight difference, a slight decrease in the trading volumes both in the forward instruments and the spot trading. However, going to the next question about the fees that we are -- if we are planning to introduce any changes in the structure of the fees I would like to say that don't be afraid of the profitability of the DGE side because in the matter, but we are losing a little bit the trading volumes from the market.

And because we were not introducing any changes in the FTs since 12 years on the energy market and the 10 years on the gas market, we are planning to introduce some changes from the beginning of next year in the trading fees. Our goal is to maintain the profitability of the TGE and our local company at a similar level as it is in the current year.

[Unknown Analyst]

If just you could also comment on the dividend question, that will be very much appreciated. If you want, I can repeat is about the expectations for dividend payment for the coming years if you still see that you'll be able to maintain the pace of growth of PLN 0.1 per year, meaning that by 2025, you'd be paying 2.9% according to the previous strategy Thanks.

[Piotr Listwon, executive]

Sorry, sorry, sorry. I missed the question. 0.1 per year. You mean dividend, yes? . Yes. I mean we will have a new strategy in dividend policy but is doable. I mean, I talk a lot to our investors, and they were very pleased that it's a foreseeable growth path for the dividend was highly appreciated. So if I were to decide now, I will go for a similar range, depending, of course, on our CapEx requirements with the new strategy, but it seems that we will have CapEx lighter initiatives than in this strategy around. So it seems to be feasible. But of course, as I mentioned, there are several challenges to our business, especially related to the cost pressure and limited pass-through rate. Polish power exchanges in this respect in a slightly better position as it is now that, I think, cheapest power exchange in Europe, by the way. So there is still some room for price improvement.

[Operator]

Thank you. I'm not seeing any more questions. So perhaps I can hand back to the GPW team for closing remarks.

[Marek Dietl, executive]

So first of all, let me thank you for joining. It was the record number of participants. I also enjoyed this live discussion, the chart things and answering in pain was somehow difficult for me. So I really like this call. Hopefully, it was also informative for you. And if you have any further questions to hesitate to contact our IR team, and we'll have an about 3 months, 3, 4 months another chance to chat on our fourth quarter and yearly results, and I look forward to this conference, and thank you very much for the kind of participation in this meeting. Thank you, and have a great afternoon and evening. Well, thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. That concludes today's meeting.