Brenntag SE

XETRA:BNR

Earnings Call Analysis

Brenntag Reports Sequential Improvement Amidst Market Challenges

In Q2 2024, Brenntag's sales stood at EUR 4 billion, down 2% year-over-year. Despite geopolitical challenges and price pressures, the company achieved an operating gross profit of EUR 1 billion, up 1%, and an operating EBITA of EUR 297 million, down 10%. Earnings per share fell to EUR 1.03 from EUR 1.23. The company maintained gross profit per unit through margin initiatives and expects 2024 operating EBITA between EUR 1.1 billion and EUR 1.2 billion amid cautious market expectations for H2. Free cash flow dropped to EUR 158 million due to increased working capital investments.

Quarterly Performance Overview

In the second quarter of 2024, Brenntag's performance aligned with market expectations despite a competitive landscape. The company reported sales of around EUR 4 billion, down by 2% from the previous year. Operating gross profit saw a slight rise of 1%, amounting to EUR 1 billion, while operating EBITA declined by 10%, standing at EUR 297 million. Earnings per share dropped to EUR 1.03 from EUR 1.23 in the same period last year. The business faced continued pressure on chemical prices, influenced by geopolitical uncertainties and economic challenges. However, sequential recovery in volumes across regions and industries was evident, with volume improvement balancing lower gross profit per unit margins.

Divisional Performance

Brenntag's performance divisionally showed differentiation in trends. Brenntag Essentials achieved an operating gross profit of EUR 730 million, slightly surpassing last year's result driven by positive volume development in regions such as North America, Latin America, and APAC, which saw double-digit growth. The operating EBITA for the division stood at EUR 214 million. On the other hand, Brenntag Specialties maintained an operating gross profit of EUR 298 million, with challenges in gross profit per unit levels counterbalanced by higher volumes. Both divisions faced increased operating expenses and cost allocations from digital initiatives, affecting year-over-year comparison.

Cost Management and Cash Flow

Operating expenses increased slightly to EUR 642 million, influenced by investments in digital (DiDEX) and IT, alongside cost increases from acquired companies. Despite cost containment measures, higher operating costs due to volume-related increases and wage inflation were noted. Brenntag's focus remains on strict cost discipline, with efforts to optimize its cost base through targeted measures expected to save EUR 300 million by 2027. Free cash flow was notably lower at EUR 158 million compared to EUR 432 million in the prior year, primarily due to lower operating performance and higher working capital investments. Brenntag's working capital turnover improved to 7.8x, reflecting better management of inventory and purchasing days.

Strategic Initiatives and M&A Activities

Brenntag continues its strategy of increasing divisional autonomy and focusing on high-value areas. Successful acquisitions including Solventis and Industrial Chemicals Corporation are driving its ambitious growth targets. Emphasis on sustainability remains strong, with Brenntag receiving top industry ratings from EcoVadis and ISS ESG for corporate responsibility and transparency. Disentanglement of operational structures progresses prudently, focusing on optimization without disrupting operations. Long-term, these steps aim to create a robust and flexible organizational framework better aligned with market demands and growth opportunities.

Outlook for the Year

Looking ahead to the remainder of 2024, Brenntag is cautious about its growth prospects due to ongoing geopolitical tensions and inflationary pressures affecting the global economy. Expectations for sustained pressure on chemical selling prices suggest stable, rather than increased, gross profit per unit in the latter half of the year. Despite likely volume growth, the company has adjusted its operating EBITA forecast to be between EUR 1.1 billion and EUR 1.2 billion for the full year, emphasizing margin management and cost efficiency. Optimistically, Brenntag anticipates that the sequential improvement in demand seen this year will continue into 2025, bolstered by an overall recovery in the chemical cycle and better pricing conditions.

Earnings Call Transcript 2024-Q2

[Operator]

Good day. My name is Constantin and I will be your conference operator for today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Brenntag SE Second Quarter 2024 Results Call. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the call over to Thomas Altmann, Head of Investor Relations. You may now begin your conference.

[Thomas Altmann, executive]

Thank you, Constantin. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the earnings call for the second quarter of 2024. On the call with me today are our CEO, Dr. Christian Kohlpaintner; and our CFO, Dr. Kristin Neumann. They will walk you through today's presentation, which is followed by a Q&A session. All relevant documents have been published this morning on our website and can be found at brenntag.com in the Investor Relations section.

In the same area, you will also find the recording of this call later today. Before we begin, allow me to point you to our safe harbor statement, which you will find at the end of the slide deck.

With that, I will hand over to our CEO, Christian, over to you.

[Christian Kohlpaintner, executive]

Well, thank you, Thomas, and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I will start with the highlights of the second quarter 2024, and Kristin will then walk you through the details of our financial performance.

In the second quarter of 2024, we achieved results in line with market expectations despite a highly competitive business environment. Chemicals selling prices remain under pressure in various end markets. Multiple geopolitical challenges and uncertainties keep impacting the overall economic development. However, our sequential volume recovery quarter-by-quarter materialized as predicted.

Chemical manufacturers realized improving capacity utilization rates from depressed levels with less focus on selling prices. Sales for Brenntag in the second quarter amounted to around EUR 4 billion, which is 2% below the prior year period. Operating gross profit stood at EUR 1 billion, which represents a slight increase of around 1%. And our operating EBITA amounted to EUR 297 million which is a decline of around 10% year-over-year.

Earnings per share stood at EUR 1.03 compared to EUR 1.23 in the second quarter 2023. The combination of the year-over-year weaker performance and higher investments in working capital led to a free cash flow of EUR 158 million. This is significantly lower compared to the exceptionally high free cash flow in the prior year period, which was characterized by a substantial release of working capital.

Our sequential quarter-by-quarter performance in both divisions showed encouraging improvements compared to the first quarter of 2024. Volumes are continuing to show a sequential recovery across most regions and industries. Despite the pressure on average selling prices, we were able to keep gross profit per unit stable compared to the first quarter, thanks to various margin initiatives, which led as a result to a positive expansion of our gross profit over sales margin.

This is a clear success of our commercial teams to manage margins effectively in an intense competitive environment with continuing pressure on chemical prices. As a result, the group's operating second quarter EBITA could be improved sequentially.

On a year-on-year comparison, the higher volumes could slightly overcompensate the lower gross profit per unit margins. But due to higher costs, we achieved an overall lower result. Kristin will explain the moving parts on our cost development in more detail later.

We have executed further measures to achieve efficiencies, reduce our operating costs and to counteract inflation-driven cost increases. As presented at the Capital Markets Day in December 2023, the measures target an overall cost takeout in the amount of EUR 300 million by 2027. We constantly and carefully evaluate all potential levers across the group, including operations and SG&A as well as our DiDEX and IT-related spend.

In light of the performance in the first half of 2024, we will accelerate and expand our cost-out efforts and initiatives. We also continue to optimize our global site network. In 2023, we successfully closed 29 sites. And in 2024, we have closed an additional 10 sites already. Further shutdown measures are in progress or in preparation phase. Now let me say a few words on the outlook.

The sequential volume recovery materialized in the first half of 2024, as predicted. Also, we were able to stabilize our gross profit per unit in the second quarter compared to the first quarter due to various margin initiatives. However, the overall market trends and the chemical industry expectations observed recently, particularly in July, indicate that markets will remain highly competitive, which makes us more cautious for the remainder of the year. They indicate sustained pressure on industrial chemical selling prices.

Therefore, we do not expect a positive gross profit per unit development in the second half of the year anymore, but rather anticipate a more stable development on group level. In addition, although we still expect volumes to increase sequentially in the second half of 2024 the trends such as a slightly less supportive volume development than originally expected. Based on these assumptions, we now expect operating EBITA for the financial year 2024 to be in the range of EUR 1.1 billion to EUR 1.2 billion.

Let me provide a quick update on our M&A activities in 2024. Since the beginning of the year, we have signed 5 acquisitions with a total enterprise value of around EUR 340 million, strengthening key focus industries and geographies in both divisions. In Q1, we already highlighted the closing of 2 acquisitions as well as the signing of Quimica Delta in Mexico. We also successfully closed the acquisition of Solventis in June this year, which has already been signed end of 2023.

Furthermore, Brenntag Essentials signed the acquisition of Industrial Chemicals Corporation, a centrally located chemicals distribution facility and transportation hub in North America. And just recently, we announced the acquisition of Monarch Chemicals, one of the leading distributors of base and agricultural chemicals in the U.K. with in-house liquid and powder blending facilities. We will continue our M&A execution and are assessing several promising targets in our pipeline in line with our divisional strategies.

Another key strategic pillar for Brenntag is sustainability. I would like to emphasize 2 recent highlights here. Firstly, Brenntag, again, received the EcoVadis Platinum status which puts Brenntag in the top 1% of companies rated across all industries. In fact, Brenntag is now the only chemical distributor with a global EcoVadis Platinum rating which is the highest possible assessment achievable. And secondly, we have further improved our ISS ESG corporate rating to be B- after being awarded the prime status with a C+ rating already last year. The rating indicates a very high transparency level on ESG disclosure as well as industry-leading ESG performance.

Also here, Brenntag is the only chemical distributor with this rating. These are great achievements by our teams, especially considering that we were able to even further enhance our scores in both assessments compared to last year.

Now let me say a few words on our strategy execution. Despite market headwinds and the challenging environment, we stay course on executing our strategy while prudently managing our cost base and focusing on running the business. Brenntag continues to increase divisional autonomy and independence, focusing on areas with the highest value creation and differentiating potential. We are doing this step by step at our own pace and without jeopardizing our operations.

We continue to implement a targeted disentanglement in areas with higher differentiating effect. This means we disentangled the customer and supplier facing front end in our divisions. This means fully separated sales team, including now also separated global key accounts and a fully dedicated divisional supplier and sourcing management as well as separated supply chain services and capabilities. We maintain our strong joint backbone of last mile service operations and will formalize service level agreements between Brenntag Essentials and Brenntag Specialties.

We continue with the optimization of our legal entity setup, but as indicated at our Capital Markets Day end of last year, the disentanglement of our legal entity structure and our operations will be a longer-term exercise, which needs to be carried out prudently. For our support functions, the priority is to focus on continuously optimizing the cost base and force further disentanglement.

Now I would like to hand over to Kristin, who will talk about the financial performance in the second quarter in more detail.

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

Thank you, Christian. And also from my side, a warm welcome to everyone on this call. I will now talk about our key financial figures for the second quarter 2024, and I will start with the development of our operating EBITA on group level.

As a reminder, I'm talking about growth rate, we generally talk about FX adjusted rates. In the second quarter of 2023, we reported an operating EBITA of EUR 332 million. The translational foreign exchange effect in the second quarter of 2024 had a negative impact of EUR 1 million. Our acquisitions contributed EUR 7 million to the operating EBITA development. The acquisition of Quimica Delta is not yet closed, and thus, the M&A contribution is not included in our Q2 results.

Also, the acquisition of Solventis only contributed to our operating EBITA for 1 month since the closing took place at the beginning of June. In the second quarter of 2024, we reported an operating EBITA of EUR 297 million for the whole group which is 10% below the prior year figure. Organically, operating EBITA declined by EUR 42 million compared to the second quarter last year.

The EBITA conversion ratio for the group came in at 29% versus a conversion ratio of 33% in the prior year period. Our results are overall characterized by a continuously challenging market environment and intense competition, which put pressure on overall chemical prices. As expected, volumes were higher compared to Q2 2023. These higher volumes could slightly overcompensate the lower gross profit per unit margins.

However, in combination with higher costs, this led to a lower overall result year-over-year. On a sequential basis, compared to Q1 2024, we were able to keep gross profit per unit stable, thanks to various margin initiatives, which we initiated in Q2.

Let us now have a look at Brenntag Specialties. Brenntag Specialties reported an operating gross profit of EUR 298 million, which is on the level of the second quarter last year. Results of Brenntag Specialties were affected by a lower gross profit per unit level while volumes were above the prior year period.

Operating expenses for Brenntag Specialties increased year-over-year partly driven by M&A. On an organic basis, the increase was mainly driven by volume-related increase in transportation costs, higher personnel expenses and the internal allocation of further costs in connection with our DiDEX initiatives. These are costs from prior years, which had previously remained in group and regional services or formerly known as all other segments and were charged on this year when various digital products went into operation. As a result, operating EBITA declined by 13% and reached EUR 112 million. The segment Life Science reported year-on-year EBITA decline of 14%, where the operating EBITA in material science declined by 8%.

The EBITA conversion ratio for Brenntag Specialties was 38% and below the prior year level of 44%. Let us have a look at the gross profit performance of the segments and business units. All business units in the Life Science segment, except Pharma saw positive operating gross profit development year-over-year driven by volume. Nutrition, we saw a good positive business development, especially in EMEA, but also ongoing price pressure. In Beauty & Care, we achieved a higher operating gross profit in most regions, partly driven by M&A contribution.

Pharma showed a solid operating gross profit performance. However, the performance was not enough to replicate the strong prior year results, which were characterized by better pricing conditions in some product categories. The gross profit in material science was in line with Q2 2023. We saw positive developments in operating gross profit for [ case in ] construction, where EMEA remained strong and North America is improving constantly. And looking at the performance of Brenntag Specialties on a sequential basis. So compared to the first quarter 2024, we managed to increase volumes. We were also able to keep gross profit per unit more or less stable and we saw a positive momentum towards the end of the quarter.

Coming to the performance of Brenntag Essentials. Brenntag Essentials supported an operating gross profit of EUR 730 million, which is slightly above the prior year result. All our regions in Brenntag Essentials achieved a positive volume development. North America, Latin America and APAC achieved double-digit volume growth compared to last year. This volume development was able to offset lower gross profit per unit in most regions, resulting in a positive operating gross profit development in all regions except EMEA.

All segments were negatively impacted by volume-driven increases and transport costs. In addition, costs in connection with the DiDEX initiatives were allocated internally. These are costs from previous years, which have been booked in group and regional services, formerly known as all other segments and are only charged on this year when various digital products went into operation. Operating EBITA of Brenntag Essentials stood at EUR 214 million. This is 13% below Q2 last year. The EBITA conversion ratio for the division came in at around 29% compared to 34% in the second quarter 2023.

Let me briefly comment on the performance of Brenntag Essentials on a sequential basis compared to the first quarter 2024. We saw an increase in volumes. And at the same time, we were able to keep our gross profit per unit stable compared to Q1 2024. This is the achievement of our commercial teams and reflects their ability to manage margins effectively in this intense competitive environment with a lot of pressure on chemical prices.

Moving to Slide 9, where we look at the income statement in more detail. We generated sales of EUR 4.2 billion, a decline of 2%. Our operating gross profit stood at EUR 1.03 billion and increased slightly compared to the last year. Operating expenses, excluding special items, increased moderately and stood at EUR 642 million in the first quarter.

I will talk about our cost development in more detail in a minute, but let us first continue with the income statement. We reported an operating EBITA of EUR 297 million in the second quarter 2024. Special items below operating EBITA had a negative impact of EUR 21 million. It mainly includes advisory and severance expenses, which relate to the planning for the legal and operational disentanglement of the 2 divisions and which will have to achieve the cost reduction targets.

Furthermore, it includes provision for legal risks arising from the sale of talc and similar products in North America. It also includes the income, which is mainly related to further insurance reimbursements in connection with the fire at the Brenntag site in Canada.

Depreciation and amortization amounted to EUR 106 million and were higher compared to last year. Net finance costs stood at EUR 43 million, which represents a slight increase compared to the second quarter of 2023. Our performance translated into a profit after tax of EUR 151 million and earnings per share of EUR 1.03. This compares to the prior year profit after tax of EUR 189 million and earnings per share of EUR 1.23 last year.

To provide more clarity on the development of our operating expenses, we show an OpEx bridge on Slide 10. In the second quarter 2023, we reported operating expenses of EUR 611 million. Translational foreign exchange effect in Q2 2024 had no major impact. Operating expenses increased by around EUR 25 million, driven by additional costs from acquired companies, but also from our DiDEX and IT investments. When looking at our underlying cost development, we were able to reduce our OpEx slightly despite volume-related cost increases and wage inflation.

This is partly driven by lower variable personnel expenses, but also by our cost containment measures. As a result, operating expenses for the group stood at EUR 642 million at the end of Q2 2024. Cost measures announced at our Capital Markets Day are on track and we will continue to focus on our cost development and strict discipline.

In light of the performance in the first half of 2024, we will accelerate and expand our cost-out efforts and initiatives. As announced with our Q1 results, we will also postpone discretionary spend and stretch IT and DiDEX investments in selected areas over a longer period of time.

Flipping to Page 11. In Q2 2024, we generated a free cash flow of EUR 158 million. This is below the record number of EUR 432 million last year. The decline in free cash flow generation is partly driven by lower operating performance, but mainly due to additional cash outflow for investments in our working capital, whereas we reported an inflow from working capital release last year.

Our working capital turnover was higher compared to last year and stood at 7.8x. The increase reflects our initiatives to manage our working capital more effectively and is mainly related to lower days of inventory outstanding and higher days of purchases outstanding compared to the prior year period.

Looking at our balance sheet. Our net financial liabilities amounted to EUR 2.9 billion at the end of the second quarter. The increase compared to end of December 2023, is driven by our annual dividend payment in Q2 as well as the cash outflow for acquisitions, in particular Solventis. In addition, lease liabilities were higher compared to the end of last year also partly driven by Solventis. Our leverage ratio, net debt to operating EBITDA stood at 1.9x.

On the right-hand side of the slide, you can see our current maturity profile. Compared to the first quarter 2024, the syndicated loan no longer appears by name in the maturity profile as it is currently undrawn, and we, therefore, have no outstanding liabilities linked to the syndicated loan.

And with this, I would like to hand back to Christian to talk about the outlook for 2024.

[Christian Kohlpaintner, executive]

Thank you, Kristin. Ladies and gentlemen, let me close with the outlook. For the remainder of 2024, we continue to expect a challenging business environment. The ongoing tense geopolitical situation and the slowly softening inflation will continue to create uncertainty about growth expectations of the global economy. The overall market trends and the chemical industry expectations observed recently, particularly in July indicate that markets will remain highly competitive, which makes us more cautious for the remainder of the year. They indicate sustained pressure on industrial chemical selling prices.

Therefore, we do not expect a positive gross profit per unit development in the second half of the year anymore, but rather anticipate a more stable development on group level. In addition, although we still expect volumes to increase sequentially in the second half of 2024. The trends suggest a slightly less supportive volume development than originally expected. Based on these assumptions, we now expect operating EBITA for the financial year 2024 to be in the range of EUR 1.1 billion to EUR 1.2 billion. To reach our guidance, we will continue to focus on margin management and cost reduction. Looking beyond 2024, we expect that the currently observed sequential improvement in demand will continue in 2025 based on the general recovery of the chemical cycle, combined with an improved pricing environment.

With this, I would like to close the presentation now and thank all of you for participating in today's call, and we look forward now to your questions. Thank you very much.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Annelies Vermeulen from Morgan Stanley.

[Annelies Vermeulen, analyst]

Christian and Kristin. I have 3 questions, please. So firstly, you've talked a few times in your presentation today around markets remaining highly competitive and sustained pressure on pricing. I'm just wondering if you could elaborate on that. Is it behavior from your suppliers? Is it behavior among your competitors. Are you seeing less discipline in the industry in either of those segments? So any additional color on that would be helpful.

Then secondly, on the net expense from special cost items, should we expect a similar level for those in Q3 and Q4, as was the case in Q2. It looked like those were factored into consensus EPS expectations for Q2. So any guidance on that for the rest of the year would be helpful.

And then just lastly, Christian, in your opening remarks, I think you said you are pausing the disentanglement, but correct me if I misheard that. Is it fair to say that is less of a priority now as you navigate market volatility in the near term, but it remains a priority over the medium term. Is that fair?

[Christian Kohlpaintner, executive]

Annelies, I will take the first and the third question. I'll let Kristin then answer to the net expense development and special items later on. On the market environment, this pricing pressure, first of all, we observed it, particularly in the industrial chemical side, so more on the Essentials than on the Specialties. Actually, on the Specialties side, the pricing has stabilized, and we saw encouraging side on the pricing in Specialties as we were also moving into Q3. So that's less the issue.

The issue is indeed more the industrial chemical pricing and that comes by its majority from chemical manufacturers determining the pricing of large volume chemicals in the market compared to Specialties manufacturers. Reason is a very, very typical for the recovery of our chemical cycle.

In that recovery of our chemical cycle, first, the volumes go up because manufacturers tend to benefit from reduced costs for underutilized capacity. And why these are -- volumes go up, they are very -- I would say have pricing as a second priority because their margins are expanding by the sheer higher volume they are producing. And that makes it a little bit more challenging on industrial chemical side and how the pricing is there determined by the manufacturers, 80% of what they produce, they sell themselves. And here, new chemical distribution serves only about 20% of that output.

So here, we see the pricing impact by large players impacting us. So less direct competition. Let me also emphasize that it's really more how large suppliers determine pricing for large chemical volumes in the market to some extent at this moment of the cycle. But that will change in '25. I'm pretty much convinced.

The third topic is don't overinterpret that. The disentanglement pause of the service functions is just short-term measure where we are clearly looking into how can we optimize our cost structure supporting our business performance. This is not any pause for a longer period of time or that we just put this off the chart. We need to continue to prepare for autonomy and independence of both divisions step-by-step and so that's not a deviation from our plan to reduce '24, '25 for that preparatory steps. So that's how you should interpret this, please.

Now I give Kristin, the question of -- the second question about the net expense.

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

Annelies, also from my side. If you look at the special items, there's kind of a bunch of different topics in there. And the majority of that is hard to predict. What we can predict is the expenses in relation to our [ project beyond ], which is the disentanglement of the 2 divisions and also our cost out program. And I think that is also important that this covers those and we guided already in Q1 that there will be a high 2-digit million amount for the full year.

And I would like to stick to that guidance, maybe a little bit more pronounced for the cost-out measures than in the first part of the year.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Isha Sharma from Stifel.

[Isha Sharma, analyst]

I have 2 questions as well, please. The sequential improvement in EBITDA that we have seen in Q2 versus Q1 mainly comes from Essentials North America. Could you tell us what drove that? And should we expect a similar trend also going forward?

On the guidance, I would also like to ask Christian your comments were quite cautious, and you are talking about a difficult continued environment. How should we draw confidence on the guidance because you assume sort of a current run rate for the second half as well? And third is just housekeeping. There was a bit of a step-up in D&A and financial costs in Q2. Are these now a good benchmark for the following quarters, please?

[Christian Kohlpaintner, executive]

Isha, thank you so much. Third question, I give then to Kristin. On the sequential improvement, I think it was not only North America, but here, it's, of course, 1 of our key markets, and we have been quite longer performing on North America with substantial volume improvements, particularly on the Essentials side, this is both organic, but also acquisition driven.

So currently, we see that sequential volume improvement continuing to some extent in North America, so overall, I think, we gained market share in North America. That's our interpretation, but we also have, as I said, done substantial acquisitions in North America like old world last year, which are contributing now also to that result.

So North America currently is the strongest market. Here, I'm a little bit more concerned about the pricing development. So I think we need to balance here more carefully out volume growth versus margin management. And I think the teams are carefully working towards that in Q3, but nevertheless, as Essentials all the industrial chemicals, you have a direct impact of what I described in my answer to the question of Annelies that this is currently driven large manufacturers determining for a large volume chemicals pricing to an extent which makes it difficult at this moment to really expand our margins here going forward.

On the guidance, I think we have accomplished EUR 566 million in the first half. We expect that we deliver a better performance in the second half. Still we are cautious, of course, because the moving part is predominantly the pricing part on the volumes. We are confident, maybe not as strongly as we were maybe a couple of months ago. But the chemical cycle recovery is in my point of view, in a good development, region by region differently. I think we have to clearly distinguish also Europe and North America here. But that volume recovery or the second half better volumes than first half is what our current planning is assuming. The unknown in the whole equation is indeed the pricing and the gross profit per unit development as we go forward, and we see indeed also some pressure here in the key markets we are serving.

But nevertheless, based on the EUR 560 million and a better performance in the second half makes us feel comfortable with the midpoint of our guidance, which we have given you today. And now the third question to Kristin.

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

Isha, so if you look at the financial cost, yes, indeed, they increased. And I would say that this is a good estimate for the upcoming quarters due to the fact that our net debt position increased as described before, because of the dividend payment, the acquisitions and also higher lease liabilities.

But please bear in mind that there are always similar elements to the financial result, not only the pure interest cost is also at effect and also the valuation of M&A liabilities for outstanding shares for our acquisitions, which are hard to predict, but from a pure financing cost this year.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Rikin Patel from BNP Paribas.

[Rikin Patel, analyst]

Questions, please. Firstly, on outlook. At the midpoint of our new guidance range, it implies that H2 EBIT will be up on H1. If I look at historical seasonality, you typically have a first half weighted year, what makes you think that seasonality will be different this time around?

And secondly, you mentioned in the prepared comments that you'll look to expand some of the cost containment measures possibly by lowering the pace of the DiDEX investments. Could you maybe size some of those cost outs for the second half?

[Christian Kohlpaintner, executive]

Okay, Rikin. And again, it's based on our assumption that we see the sequential volume recovery continuing. I think we have predicted correctly about what we believe 2023 versus 2024, the 2024 volumes overall will be better than 2023. So the first half clearly also proved that and what we see and understand from the market dynamic, we also expect that volume continues to recover. Maybe not to the full extent, we were hoping for that gives us on the volume side, a confidence that we have a supporting element here for the second half.

And how we have started into the third quarter, I would see also encouraging volume developments. So that is supporting that trend. Again, not to the extent we were hoping for, but nevertheless, incremental sequential volume increases there. And if you combine this with a stable gross profit per ton, which we hopefully can manage on the group level you would have indeed an upside for the second half versus the first half which would justify that midpoint.

We have also already seen also positive signs on the gross profit per unit development for Specialties. Kristin has mentioned that. We saw it at the end of Q2, and it continues well into Q3. So the pricing on Specialties is less vulnerable at this moment than it is on the industrial chemical side. Combining all of that, we are confident that even the second half will show a better performance than the first half. And don't forget, Q1 was a very bad start to the year. And why we had to adjust our guidance was also partly associated to this very weak start into 2024.

Now the second question, I hand over to Kristin on the cost containment.

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

Rikin, indeed, so we have designed a bunch of different measures. Looking at all our discretionary spend at [ projects ] and also in our DiDEX program. Please bear in mind that last year, we spent already a very high amount of money for the DiDEX program. And so will be in 2024. However, we cut -- and prolonged some of the DiDEX project to later periods, which does not mean that we lower the spend compared to the prior year, but did not increase it also to make clear that we will continue with our DiDEX initiatives.

But it's not only the DiDEX program, it's also not replacing provisions and really strongly also working on structural changes in our organization. So I think it's a full bunch of different measures. And we have defined measures of a mid-2 digit million amount for the second half of 2024.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Rory McKenzie from UBS.

[Rory Mckenzie, analyst]

It's Rory from UBS. Two topics, please. First, on the average gross profit per unit. In Q1, you said there had been some exceptional pressure due to the price volatility in the market as supply expanded, I think that particularly hit your direct business.

But at the time, you said that you were seeing signs of dealing with it better in Q2. I understand that reducing selling prices can cause short-term pressure on markups, but it's still not clear to me why you expect this lower level of gross profit per unit to now be permanent. Have you seen signs that manufacturers are pushing into more of your customer base? Or is this just a point around timing and it might just take longer for the market to normalize?

And then secondly, on the cost base. Do you think that your actions will mean the cost base can be lower in H2 than in H1. You've been talking about cost out programs for a while. Obviously, total SG&A is still rising. But I wondered whether the -- now some of those DiDEX products are live. Does that mean you can start to take faster action on the legacy cost base in any areas?

[Christian Kohlpaintner, executive]

Thank you, Rory again. I will take the first question, Kristin will talk about the cost base. Your question around Q1, Q2 GP per ton and pressure in the market and how you see it. I mean it's -- my interpretation from knowing the chemical industry quite well and how chemical cycles do technically take shape. It is very typical that now you see actually manufacturers focusing very strongly on gaining volume and trying to utilize their capacities much better and then you see margins actually improving.

And you saw, I think, in the Q2 results here and there are clear indications of how that has helped manufacturers and that, of course, puts pricing in a second priority. That will change as more the recovery cycle will mature, and that's based on the comment I also made in my statement around 2025.

The chemical recovery in my point of view is in full swing. It has its ups and downs month by month. I mean, it's not a straightforward line upwards. We have to be also clear about this. But overall, we have now the chemical cycle gaining a little bit traction, although manufacturers are still very skeptical here and there. But nevertheless, it's clearly visible to me. And that means in 2025, once capacity utilization rates are reaching a certain level, pricing will also follow.

So this is why we believe we see -- and again, I've stated also to -- during other discussions. I mean, don't crucify me if I'm wrong by 1 or 2 quarters, but it will gradually move in that direction and how the cycle and how the industry actually works and acts. So this is a long answer to your question. Yes, it is timing, and it's not a structural topic at this moment. And Kristin, please on the cost base.

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

Rory, so first of all, I think it's important to keep in mind that our cost position is also affected by M&A activity due to inorganic changes and also driven by volume development. So that is always something which lies into our OpEx cost on higher volumes. We will also see that the OpEx line will increase.

However, if I look at our cost provision for H2, we assess that this will go -- compared to H1 will go slightly down with all the volume assumptions we have now right in our forecast and also the M&A assumptions. So if there is a bigger M&A acquisition, which is not included in our forecast now is coming then, of course, the changes -- the picture can also change.

[Rory Mckenzie, analyst]

And just a follow-up on the cost base. It was quite notable that I think the Life Sciences costs went up a lot this quarter maybe up 14%, 15% year-over-year. Can you describe what kind of new products you've pushed into that division now and how that fits into the overall IT roadmap?

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

I think it's a mixture of different items we see here. So what you can see is that we have higher transport cost as well because of strong increase in volumes. And the second point is that we also increased our personnel capabilities, especially in pharma division and that also gave us an increase, which is a bit higher compared to the other business and divisions in Specialties.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Himanshu Agarwal from Bank of America.

[Himanshu Agarwal, analyst]

I have a couple. First one on the inventories. I see inventories have substantially increased to around EUR 1.55 billion in Q2. We understand some normalization from low levels, but it seems quite a sharp increase, given you expect softer demand and want to maintain price discipline.

So could you help us understand that? And second, on the guidance, it seems like you're assuming a stable gross profit per unit in second half? And given your commentary around the increased pricing pressure, especially in Essentials from July onwards. It sounds like the market has deteriorated. So what gives you confidence to maintain a stable gross profit per unit in Essentials?

And then thirdly, I just wanted to ask about the legal costs, which stepped up quite substantially in Q2. Can you share a bit more detail with regards to where you are in this legal process? And what's the scope and if there is more -- if there are more provisions to come in second half?

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

Thank you, Himanshu, for your questions. So first of all, if I look at the inventory, that is indeed true that we have a steep increase in the inventory numbers. That is, first of all, driven by the higher volumes we process. And that is also something we see to continue because still we expect that we have a sequential volume uptick also for the following months. That is 1 driver.

You can also see that reflected in our revenues going up which is a normal part of the business. The second driver is that we have included some acquisitions here, which did not affect the cash flow per se. But if you look at the balance sheet and look at the pure working capital account, then you can see that we have a higher inventory because of this acquisition.

And that is, again, for vendors because [ wasn't ] a sizable acquisition and that is visible in the balance sheet as well. If it comes to the GP per ton development, yes, we expect that this GP per ton development is stable compared to what we saw in Q2. Of course, we have guided last May and you need to compare it to this status. We have guided that we expect the prices and the GP per ton levels to increase and to uptick in the second half of the year.

And therefore, we mentioned that also at the beginning of the second half of the year, in July, we saw not a change -- a major change in the trend. And also in the last couple of months, we could not observe that on the group level. So therefore, we need to interpret this comment in this way.

If you look at the special items of the talc cases, those are lawsuits, which are hired against us. And these lawsuits or these cases stem from talc sales, we did mostly more than 20 years back and the claims are being made against Brenntag by persons who came into contact with those talc products. And we are now providing for those potential future cases. And of course, we also need to take into account the dynamic behind there. And if there is a change we need to provide for those talc cases.

Of course, we are defending ourselves against those cases by all means, and we also make or try to indemnify third parties for those to the extent that we believe they are responsible for those talc cases. But it's a pending topic in our P&L and balance sheet but that is what we currently know.

[Himanshu Agarwal, analyst]

And any indication on the [indiscernible] you could give.

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

So we expect that there will be further cases coming. It's very, very hard to predict how many and what the number will be. So therefore, we need to see what the latest movements are going forward.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from the line of Christian Obst from Baader Bank.

[Christian Obst, analyst]

First, a short question on the transport cost. Can you remind us how many do you pay for transport approximately? And how do you transfer the transport cost to customers. Is it possible to do it more or less than you have done it before, the first question.

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

Yes. So normally, we can pass on increases in transport costs to our customers, but these are now linked to higher volume. And of course, the customers will also pay for those. But if you then isolate and look at our OpEx line that will affect an increase in our cost base. If we look at the exact number for Q2, it's roughly 30% of our total OpEx number.

[Christian Obst, analyst]

Okay, but in the end, you can transfer more or less 100% to customers.

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

More or less, yes. Of course, there are always exceptions there -- but yes, more or less, yes.

[Christian Obst, analyst]

Okay. So then from the start on the entire disentanglement, which is a very complex process, of course, until the year '27, something like that. And you stated in the Capital Markets Day or during the Capital Markets Day, the large amount is about taxes. Do you have any further or any more detailed idea of how taxes will occur when it comes to the disentanglement. And as a result, will the entire cost today is more on the line of EUR 450 million or more of the end of EUR 650 million after all.

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

In the Capital Markets Day 2023, we indeed guided that we have overall cost for the achievement of the cost out program and also for the legal and operations disentanglement of EUR 450 million to EUR 650 million. And indeed, we also guided to you that there is a major part, which is linked to tax leakage.

In the meantime, we also worked on the tax leakage to lower the number. So I would assume that this number will go down, and we will see more or less cost for the cost out program and also for the operational disentanglement and consulting fees. However, not that much of a tax impact anymore. We are not ready to update the guidance right now, but you can expect that there is a lower number to come.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Chetan Udeshi from JPMorgan.

[Chetan Udeshi, analyst]

I had a few questions. I'll start one by one. Maybe the first one, I'm just trying to understand the comments on July a bit better. So I heard Christian, you mentioned the GP per unit is improving in the Specialties business, but what about the Essentials business? Is July or was July worse in GP per unit terms for Essentials than Q2 average?

The second question, you talked about chemical cycle and volumes continuing to get better in current quarter? Does that mean at least sequentially, your earnings should be up versus Q2, given also you have some seasonal decline in Q4? And the last question I heard Kristin talk about some digital platforms going live recently. Can you talk about what capabilities have you gathered from these platforms? What is the customer reception? How are you leveraging it in your business on a day-to-day basis? Any color there will be useful.

[Christian Kohlpaintner, executive]

Okay, Chetan, thank you so much. I will take the first 2 questions, and then Kristin, the other one. I mean, the comment on July was referring more to the general sentiment in the chemical industry. I think you have seen after some encouraging news more down tuned comments from chemical manufacturers of how they see the current business conditions, in particular, around July.

I mean you have seen the publications. And that tells us, combined with what we observed that the pressure in the markets are actually there. And when we look at the gross profit per unit, I mean, we see, as I said, on a group level, a stable development. And we see encouraging signs on the Specialties side. We see a little bit losses on the Essentials side, but overall, we are able to maintain that also in July, more or less, I must say.

The volume development in July has been encouraging in both divisions, very encouraging, I have to say. So again, we need to now carefully manage our margins according to that volume picture, which particularly exists in North America coming back to the question we had earlier in that call from Isha.

Volume and pricing are better, earnings up. I mean, yes, I mean, we have said that when you look at H1 and H2 comparison, and this is reflected in our midpoint guidance, will show slightly positive improvement compared to H1. And never forget that the first quarter in H1 was an unusually weak quarter for Brenntag. I think we have been expressing our disappointment with a very weak start into the year, which again makes it difficult to catch up fully towards the end.

And the cycle you mentioned, and again, you know it is equally good as I know it. The cycle follows a certain profile in the chemical industry. And currently, we are now in the phase where volumes are gradually sequentially, slightly improving and pricing is not the determining factor that will change. That's at least my assumption in '25 and going forward. Now Kristin, on the other topic.

[Kristin Neumann, executive]

Chetan. So we had some products, for example, the customer growth engine, but also sales force and also some supply chain planning and analytics tools, which went into operations. Those helped us to improve our performance in terms of how much product do we order. For instance, how do we also improve our working capital and also how do we plan our cost of goods sold in an efficient way, for instance. But also the customer growth engines helped us to or helped our sales force to be closer to our customer to make automated suggestions when and what to order and that also helped our gross profit. They are -- those 2 examples, which then led to the fact that the costs also need to be allocated where the benefit sits.

[Operator]

There are no further questions at this time. So I'd like to turn the call over to Thomas Altmann for closing remarks.

[Thomas Altmann, executive]

Thank you, Constantin. This brings us to the end of the conference call. In case of further questions, please do not hesitate to reach out to the IR team. Our Q3 results will be published on November 12, 2024. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for joining us today. Have a good day, and goodbye.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference. Thank you for your participation. You may now disconnect.