WashTec AG

XETRA:WSU

Earnings Call Analysis

WashTec Posts Strong Q3 Results, Confirms 2023 Guidance

WashTec delivered impressive third-quarter results with a revenue of EUR 120 million and a significant 19% EBIT increase. The gross profit margin improved to 28.7%, driving a 19% rise in EBIT to EUR 26.9 million for the first 9 months of 2023. Chemical products contributed remarkable growth, attributing to a 17.7% jump in turnover, despite a decline in carwash volumes. Performance varied across regions; Europe saw a 5.5% revenue rise, North America a slight increase and Asia Pacific a 9.6% hike. The company's cost management efforts stabilized functional costs and lowered administrative expenses. With cash being a focal point, free cash flow reached EUR 26.8 million. Despite global uncertainties, WashTec reaffirms its year-end 2023 guidance, predicting revenue to be plus/minus 3% of the prior year and a 10% EBIT uplift.

Steady Growth Amidst Rising Revenues

The company has demonstrated a solid performance with revenues climbing by 5.3% to EUR 357 million. This increase is underpinned by strategic price hikes implemented over the past year, an expanding key account business, and substantial contributions from the chemical product line, particularly the environmentally friendly Green Car series. Amidst these revenue growth factors, the company has also kept a tight rein on costs, improving gross profit margin slightly from 27.1% to 27.4%. Operational efficiency in North America, evidenced by an impressive 19% upsurge in EBIT for Q3, further crowns these achievements.

Geographic Performance and Earnings Resilience

A detailed breakdown of the performance reveals a 5.5% revenue increase in the European sector, contrasting with slight revenue growth in North America and an impressive 9.6% leap in the Asia Pacific. Despite a highly competitive and challenging market in China, the APAC region is on the verge of breaking even. North America's turnaround from a loss to an EBIT of EUR 2.9 million signifies successful recovery efforts, while Europe's consistent EBIT contribution underscores a robust business core.

Optimism Fueled by Strong Order Backlog

Despite a dip in year-on-year order intake, matching broader market conditions, the company's order backlog augurs well for future revenue, standing at a historical high of 189.2% indexed to 2017 figures. This reservoir of forthcoming business deliveries provides a cushion against market volatilities and feeds into strategic initiatives aimed at expanding after-sales businesses, such as service and chemistry offerings, and advancing digitalization.

Financial Health and Prudent Capital Management

The company showcased a strong financial discipline with a decrease in net operating working capital and a marked reduction in inventories amounting to EUR 16 million. Furthermore, free cash flow remains robust despite aggressive capital expenditures, reflecting astute cash management. Meanwhile, a marginal rise in net financial debt and a slight dip to 26.7% in equity ratio continue to portray a stable financial position.

Guidance Amidst Global Uncertainties

On the outlook front, the company cautiously forecasts a revenue growth of plus/minus 3% relative to the previous year and an approximate 10% EBIT increase for the fiscal year 2023. Nevertheless, this guidance is given with a caveat, acknowledging the potential impact of geopolitical conflicts and economic turbulence on future operations and performance.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q3

[Operator]

Hello, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the WashTec AG Q3 2023 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions]Let me now turn the floor over to your host, Dr. Ralf Koeppe.

[Ralf Koeppe, executive]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the WashTec Board, I would like to welcome you to the Q3 call. My colleague, Andreas Pabst, and I will host the session. You first have the presentation followed by an interactive Q&A. Detailed instruction will be given by the operator at the end of this presentation. It's my pleasure to provide you with some updates on WashTec before Andreas Pabst will present the financial figures and the outlook. In the second half of this year, we have achieved important milestones in our product development. The remaining SmartCare height options are completed and new production line for multiproduct assembly has started its operation in our Czech plant Norgani just to name a few. Equally important, additional functionalities are put into operation on our digital platform with each sprint. These functionalities allow us to scale and will contribute to drive our EUR 800 million revenue strategy 2030. And therefore, I will focus hereafter on the role of the digital platform as the enabler of growth in the aftermarket business. Next slide, please. Our mission is sustainable wash. The wash process performed by WashTec automatic carwash machines can be tailored and minimize wash water consumption in combination with the water treatment system. Cars are washed in the first phase by process water and in the final phase by freshwater. An average wash, for example, with our rollover system uses 30 to 40 liters of water as a comparison, the newest technology of laundry machines uses 40 to 50 liters. Our newest SmartCare, our newest machine generation SmartCare is the first digital machine in the market with superior performance. SmartCare is equipped with sensors and provide a tailored wash process with our smart dosing system, we have exact data of how much chemicals which tie and volume are applied to our customer car. For our SmartCare, we have completed the development of the remaining height options and production volume is growing driven by the demand of the direct customers and key accounts.By using our own Green Car products, we are assuring the most sustainable use of car chemicals. We know the chemical load that is brought into our water recycling system, AquaPur modelar at a certain time. And our connected water recycling system, AquaPur modelar can make use of this data to optimize the water treatment process. All data is processed by our my WashTec cloud platform to ensure the most sustainable operation of a car wash. We call it works team, which means that actions performed by our car wash system and effects on the water recycling system are known and can be controlled by the use of data. Customer satisfaction is our goal number1. We can generate additional high customer value by offering product service bundles that drive innovation based on the perks team. This generates sustainable growth and profitability drivers in our aftermarket segments, taking advantage of WashTec's largest installed base in the market. Let me give you some more insight on that product service bundles and the outstanding role of our digital platform as the enabler in offering these services. This brings us to the next slide. Our digital platform and the connected components allow us to offer various bundles, a bundle is the combination of physical systems and complementary digital and non-digital services. Preconditions are connected machines for car wash and connected water recycling equipment. WashTec offers remote support service packages in addition to classical service contracts for connected assets. This enables fast response and uptime, in approximately 20% of the cases, service tickets can be solved even remotely. Our digital technician app facilitates the support of operator customers to perform simple tasks on the machine, in the wash bay or technical room on standard mobile devices. More than 10,000 assets are connected online to our platform, while other assets with no connectivity can be managed through the platform as well. Examples are communication to customer service, contract management and web shop purchases. This slide shows 2 additional cases of bundled categories, the second category is chemical and sustainability and the third category is digital ticketing, total care and flat rate bundles. I will present one example for each of these categories on the next slides. The chemical supply service is not only a service of comfort for the operator. To run out of chemicals is the most frequent reason for a bad washing or drying result, a customer that experiences a was without one or more chemical supplied, will get a bad result. More than 50% of our chemical orders are processed by our web shop. An enhancement to the web shop connects orders to assets and generates a reorder list based on customer-specific product setups. This reorder list can be examined and processed using a smartphone device. A recorded reminder is generated dependent on the type of asset and wash figures. New equipment like the SmartCare measures the consumption on each chemical channel and can provide a reorder reminder on the actual status. Other equipment can generate chemical consumptions by wash figure estimates. All these digital functions strongly simplify the chemical supply process for the customer and for WashTec. Service bundles that include chemical delivery based on the machine consumptions are now step-by-step processed on a high automation level by our platform and ERP backbone. With the records of customers' wash figures and orders, chemical use can be extrapolated using data analytics and an optimal automated order delivery plan is generated. We integrate sustainability in this bundle by providing a Green Car Care certificate for wash sites that one operates a wash machine that second use green car chemicals; and third, are connected with the water recycling system. WashTec is represented along with the Green Car Care logo on the seal and certifying company. The seal is free of charge injected for renewal each year. We have already certified in a short time, 300 sites. Other sustainability functions can be designed into this bundled category in a similar way. For example, the documentation of possible upcoming regulatory requirements can be automated by such a process. Let's have a look on the product service bundle, TotalCare, as an example of the third category. TotalCare is the advancement of remote service and can be seen as the next step of digital service. The machine is supervised by a central remote help desk. Machine operation can be maintained using real-time video signals along with other technical capabilities. The degree of problem solving is extended and carwash customers that encounter a problem can directly access and address their request to the remote help desk. The purpose of a help desk is to make sure if something unexpected happens in a wash bay, the customer gets helped quickly and professionally. Very often a customer must wait for a long time to get help for many different reasons. But very often, because staff is not able to leave the shop or does not have technical training. With WashTec Helpdesk, the customer gets help immediately to have a 3-digit number of machines under Helpdesk operation. Furthermore, WashTec supports unmanned wash sites operation by total care. These types of installations are well known in the Nordic countries. TotalCare Service is monetized by a paper wash service and a chemical supply contract and can be scaled via flat rate functionality. Next slide, please. Until now, TotalCare required special equipment with somewhat high initial invest per station. We have now implemented the first step of total care that allows installation at a significant lower cost and therefore, TotalCare scales across our platform. TotalCare and Helpdesk have significant customer benefit. Quick responses lead to higher uptime and higher uptime leads to happy customers and more washes. Based on a hidden downtime analysis, we guarantee up to 99% uptime in combination with the chemical supply contract. Next slide, please. Last year, we presented our growth plan to achieve EUR 800 million revenue, our Vision 2030. In our strategy process, we have refined the plan. We will grow our aftermarket revenue split by 10% and grow the segment from approximately 40% to 50%. Each category, service, chemicals and for example, digital offers will contribute. The bundling of these offers with physical hardware is enabled by the digital platform at low transaction costs. This leads to attractive profitability, growth and higher EBIT margins. Market growth in North America will lead to an increase of revenue share of North America from 20% to 40%. This will be achieved by implementing our platform strategy in hardware and digital functionality, including a significant growth in our tunnel business. I now hand over to Andreas Pabst. Andreas will provide in his analysis, some more insight about the order backlog as well. The account customer orders that have been retained so far have been coming in, in September and October. Our big customers at different internal reasons for this delay that were not related to the overall market situation. Overall, car wash is continuing to generate good and stable cash flows for our customers. Isn't it?

[Andreas Pabst, executive]

For sure, it is good and stable cash flows. They are there. So thank you, Ralf. Also a very warm welcome from my side. Good to speak to you today. I've already mentioned that today, we will give some insight into our order backlog. But before that, let's look at our -- how to say, more standard KPIs. On this page, you can see our main KPIs for the first 9 months of the year. With one glimpse you can see that WashTec is doing good. Revenues increased by 5.3% to EUR 357 million. EBIT up by 19%, now coming in with EUR 27 million. Earnings per share rose by EUR 0.16 to now EUR 1.26. And also, our free cash flow was EUR 26.8 million after 9 months is a very respectable number. How did we achieve this? On the one hand side, our price increases we did last year and beginning of this year are now paying in. On the other hand, we were able to expand our key account business. And finally, our offering in chemicals contributed a lot. With our Green Car series, we have a convincing environmentally sustainable product, which now can be certified also for our customers. To expand this business, we have hired this year a new manager responsible for our global chemistry, Mr. Stefan [Indiscernible]. Furthermore, we also worked on our cost structure. We improved our gross profit margin from 27.1% to 27.4%. And we are currently working on further reduction of our production costs. Over the whole group, functional costs are stable at around EUR 70 million despite increasing top line. And in North America, we are running an efficiency program, which also contributed a lot. Employees at reporting date reduced by 56% to now 1,767 employees. You see, we are doing our homework. And therefore, we are happy to present you good results for the first 9 months 2023. Now let's have some few words on Q3 2023. After a record Q1 ‘23 and the record Q2 '23, also Q3 ‘23 comes in with record numbers. Again, revenue slightly increased to a new record level of now EUR 120 million. Even more impressive is our improvement in EBIT, up by 19% in Q3 with good progress in North America. In the third quarter, both gross profit and the gross profit margin increased compared to the prior year quarter. At 28.7%, the gross profit margin in the third quarter was higher than in the same period last year. There, we had 27.4% and also higher than in Q2 2023, where we had 27.8%. You see, we are developing in the right direction. In the third quarter, the EBIT of EUR 11.5 million was achieved and the EBIT margin is 9.6%. Next slide, please. On this side, you find the information about our revenues by product. As you see, Equipment & Service revenue increased by around EUR 10 million compared to the first 9 months of the prior year, mainly due to price increases. Impressive is our growth in chemicals. Turnover increased by 17.7% over the first 9 months and by 20.8% in the third quarter. Despite a weather-related fall in carwash volumes, significant revenue growth was achieved, thanks to some newly acquired customers in Europe. We already reported about this one in Q2. Furthermore, we strengthened our chemistry business, hiring people and invested in our production site in Gribenow. This is totally in line with our sharpened strategy to expand the aftersales business, service and chemistry and digitalization until 2030 to 50% of our overall revenues. Ralf already gave you some insights into this. Let's now move on to group revenue and earnings performance by region. In the European region, revenue rose in the first 9 months by 5.5% from EUR 265 million to EUR 280 million. Revenue grew across all customer and product groups with the chemical business developing, especially positively with a double-digit growth compared to the prior year. I already explained why. Revenue in North America was slightly up in the first 9 months compared to prior year and came in with around EUR 70 million. After a good Q1 and Q2, we had a revenue decrease there in Q3, partly due to lower volume of business with key accounts primarily because of the installation of some bigger orders have been postponed to the next quarter. In the Asia Pacific region, revenue rose by 9.6% in the first 9 months. Next slide, please. EBIT in the European region over the first 9 months remained at the level of the prior year. Overall, majority of EBIT still is created in Europe with an EBIT margin of 8.6% in the first 9 months of 2023 and 10.2% in the third quarter. Both ratios are slightly below the comparable figures in 2022 due to several smaller reasons like higher wages on salaries, launching cost of new products and some costs are containing the reorganization of our production value of Sprint. But all those topics are clearly addressed and will soon be solved. The North American region recorded an EBIT of EUR 2.9 million in the first 9 months, whereas in prior year, we had a loss of EUR 1.2 million. This positive development was mainly a result of the effects of the efficiency program launched in the first quarter and which we are working hard on a day-by-day business basis. The Asia Pacific region reached almost breakeven in the first 9 months. The market in China remains challenging, and the company is reviewing its market approach there. The next slide, please. This is our EBIT bridge, which shows some more details to explain the EBIT development compared to the prior year. As already explained, we have some minor topics in the European production cost structure, which we clearly address. Nevertheless, our higher revenue volume helped us that gross profit in absolute terms increased by EUR 5.8 million to EUR 97.6 million. Mainly higher outbound freight led to higher selling costs, whereas our strict cost management led to stable R&D costs and especially lower administrative costs, which are now at a ratio of 3.8% compared to the revenues, whereas last year, we had a ratio of 4.1%. All this contributed to an increase of our EBIT by 19% to an overall amount of EUR 26.9 million, which is a respectable EBIT margin of 7.5% for the first 9 months 2023. Now let's spend a few words to some non-P&L figures. First, the net operating working capital. This figure decreased relatively to year-end 2022, falling by EUR 13 million to EUR 92 million. The main reason is comparable lower accounts receivables. But we are also working intensively in the optimizing of our stock. Compared to the end of September 2022, we were able to reduce the inventories by EUR 16 million. Second figure, free cash flow. I already spoke about this one at the beginning. In WashTec, cash is always a focus topic, and I'm happy to show such a good progress despite the high CapEx, which we have done this year already. Then net financial debt increased slightly by EUR 2.8 million and is overall in a good shape. Also the equity ratio. This KPI declined slightly by 0.3% to 26.7%, which is my perspective, still a reasonable number. Next slide, please. So this one is a pretty new slide. It shows the development of the order backlog. As you all know, currently, there is a lot of pressure in order intake in the German machine in Alagna. WashTec also reported that we see a decline in order intake year-on-year in the first 9 months, similar to overall market conditions. Nevertheless, in the months September and October 2023, our order intake is improving again. But to get here the full picture, we need to take the existing order backlog into consideration. As you see from this chart, since 2021, we had a very high order backlog compared to 2017, also end of September 2023, our order backlog is historically high at 189.2%. I forgot to mention that I have indexed the order backlog, meaning that the year 2017 is 100%, and I just show the development because historically, we did not show the absolute terms of our order backlog due to some competitive reasons. But once again, if you look at the 189.2% end of Q3 2023, it's a good number. There's a lot of orders in our books to be converted into revenue. This order backlog gives us the security to work further highly concentrated on our strategic targets. So overall, we are in a good shape. That brings me to the next slide. Coming now to our guidance. As you all know, we are facing time of global uncertainty, heavy political conflicts in many regions, not only the war in Ukraine, but now also the conflict in the near East. Economic prediction becomes more and more uncertain, that doesn't make life easier. Nevertheless, our order backlog is, as shown at a solidly high level at the end of the first 9 months, 2023. The aftersales business developed very positive, especially in the chemical business. This is why WashTec confirms the guidance for the fiscal year 2023. For revenue performance, the company expects revenue in the range of plus/minus 3% of the prior year and a significant increase in EBIT by around 10%. But we also state that this guidance is fundamentally subject to uncertainties. This may result, for example, from a possible escalation of the conflict in Ukraine or near East, a significant deterioration of economic conditions in the key sales markets or additional burdens from structural adjustments. As a last point on my part of this presentation, let's have a glimpse on our financial event calendar. You see here the update on the following slide. As you can see, our next event is the equity forum in Stanford. Ralf and I will be there and we hope to see you, too. This was it from my side. Now we are happy to answer your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Stefan Augustin, Warburg Research.

[Stefan Augustin, analyst]

The first one would be actually on the guidance. So you talked about still looking at the Chinese market approach. So if you eventually would do something there, is this already completely in the guidance. The second one is actually the free cash flow forecast of plus 10% looks a bit low versus the achievements in you made after the 9 months already. So this probably one of the target lines that could be more easily met. And also, when looking on the sales and your explanations that you had some business shifted from the third quarter in the fourth quarter in U.S. It looks a little bit like a catch-up effect. And therefore, I would also rather assume that on the sales side, we would be more looking for the upper end of the plus/minus 3%. So that would be the first part of my question.

[Andreas Pabst, executive]

So I guess the first one was, is China already included in the guidance we have. There are some talks currently and everything what I see is included in the guidance so far. Then there was the question about the free cash flow. Yes, it's correct. We have a really good free cash flow after 3 quarters, and I expect that we will do our homework also in the fourth quarter. So compared to the last year, I expect to have a more than 10% increase in the free cash flow, which will be a higher number. And then I guess your last question was about the guidance in terms of revenue. As I explained, we have currently a really a good order backlog, which we need to convert into revenue. But as we already saw in Q3, there is sometimes a little bit of slippage from one quarter to the next one. Our guidance for revenue is plus/minus 3%. Currently, it looks like that it will be more likely a plus than a minus. But at the year-end, there might also be a little bit of a slippage to the next year, but I feel comfortable that we will make it.

[Stefan Augustin, analyst]

The next one I would have is actually on that order intake graph you had in the slide. And thanks for, let's say, giving that much more detail on it. There are 2 things I would like to ask on this graph. So the first one is this is obviously a euro term. Would the graph or the difference be a lot different if we would you look at the number of units, that would be the first one. And the second one, that is actually the orders you have right for production. I think that will differ a little bit from, let's say, the soft volumes you have in longer-term frame orders. So when you look at this, let's say, let's call it, the possible order funnel or so is that possible order funnel also that much higher than the order intake you have in the backlog?

[Andreas Pabst, executive]

So maybe the first question was related to the units. Yes, it is true that if I look at the first 9 months of this year, there is a slight decrease in the number of units, but this decrease is lower than the increase due to the price increases. And this number here shows a red it shows a euro number. But nevertheless, it's a quite good euro number. What the second part of the question?

[Stefan Augustin, analyst]

The other one was, let's say, you also have frame orders, which you don't have the call-offs right now, and they are obviously not in the order backlog then I assume. So therefore, if we just look at this funnel of possible orders.

[Ralf Koeppe, executive]

It's always difficult to give a clear answer on this. But as I have explained, key accounts to various reasons have been not putting those orders, there's reasons were intel not related to the market reorganization of the company's purchasing of networks and reorientations and so on. And there are -- besides the stuff which came in, in September and October, we will also have other things clearly in front of us that will get into 2024. Maybe some of them also in 2023. But doing the planning for the year-end, we are already seeing in the preparation of the supply chain, on January and February 2024. It's including installation topics and so on. So it's not that we are missing out these things, our talk clearly shows that there is the funnel and there's the volume in the funnel, the conversion point also relates, of course, to the planning of our key accounts and also to the fiscal year of the key accounts. Some of them have the fiscal year end by end of March and some of them by the end of this year.

[Stefan Augustin, analyst]

Maybe to clarify a little bit what I was looking for. If we have an increase of the order backlog by 90% compared to, let's say, the pre-COVID area, is the total order funnel also in a likewise scope increased? Or is the increase not that much as we have here on the order backlog? And maybe as an add-on, do you expect that order backlog actually finally to go down again in, let's say, normalized.

[Ralf Koeppe, executive]

So this is a difficult question because we're talking about different products like tunnels, jet wash and rollovers, we see different things in that funnel to certain different chances of putting into AE. And with the current talks decision to say it's the same. We see the same increase in the funnel or decrease in the funnel would be premature. That's why we have these tranches related, but we talk high volumes also for other products currently. And the question is really the turning point when those key accounts will put that and then we convert into the order intake. And therefore, the precise answer to this question is rather difficult. Andreas, you might want to.

[Andreas Pabst, executive]

Totally right, you need to look at. So on the one cluster, there is non-key account or direct customers, but on the other, there are the key accounts and one big ticket of a key account really could influence those figures, and they are acting. You cannot say that all key accounts act in the same way. They are acting different. And what we saw now in September and October is that some key accounts really come back with a volume, which I would say, which we did not expect in May, for example. But now they are coming back. They are investing. That's quite good. So therefore, it's positive.

[Ralf Koeppe, executive]

We have the new product lineups with SmartCare. We have the new jet wash shown on the fare and the production line is basically running. So there are also impact because of the new product portfolio that really also urged the exchange of equipment and also the new to industry to equip the new to industry sites with those type of equipment.

[Stefan Augustin, analyst]

When we speak about the bundles, actually from that planning of increasing the share of let's say, service and consumables, so the recurring part. Does the majority rather come from the chemical side? Or is it to be seen on the services? Or is it, let's say, do you expect that 50-50? And maybe when you look at the more recent transactions you do, do you already let see an increase or, let's say, a demand to accept or easily accept these bundles by the market?

[Ralf Koeppe, executive]

Well, I would say, first, what we see in the short term is, of course, with the Green Car care that we have an increase in the aftermarket due to the chemicals. But there's also a pull factor by the digital services or by this remote services and also by the TotalCare. So the customer demand when we talk with also our big key account customers, we have less and less personnel on site, on the wash side and the only solution is using those solutions that we offer and that we show them. Of course, to convert that in long-term contracts that also these larger networks takes a lot of negotiations and the technical capability on our digital platform is now coming in step by step. So it's not more of vision. It's product in the first phase and that are in the planning 2024 step-by-step increase in functionality. Therefore, I would not talk about pushing those things into the market, but rather having a demand by the market that we can fulfill as the leader in digitalization.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Tore Fangmann, from Berenberg.

[Tore Fangmann, analyst]

Can I do have 3 questions. And if this all right, I will take them one by one, so we don't mix anything up. My first question would be just a small one. I just noticed a slight change in the wording on your EBIT guidance for this year, basically changed from increasing by 10% or more percent to around 10%. Is there anything behind there? Or are you just wording.

[Andreas Pabst, executive]

Maybe I can take this question is a little bit in conjunction with the question, Stefan Augustin ask what are we doing in China? So we have currently some plans there. But in China, as long as you have not signed the contract and executed everything, I would say we’ll be cautious. So our, let's call it, restructuring, the change of our market approach in China will cost a little bit. And this is now included in the guidance. What we see as of today. Therefore, we wanted to -- not to adjust the guidance, but we want to make it more precise that we expect that the EBIT increase is at the lower edge of this increase because more than 10% also could have meant 12% or 13%, something like that.

[Tore Fangmann, analyst]

The second one would be on the growth in Q3. So we had a 1.5% revenue growth. Could you may be roughly split out how much of this is the price effect in there? And how much was, I guess, a decrease then in units?

[Ralf Koeppe, executive]

So there's really a price effect in it. That's correct. But especially in terms of chemistry, there is also a volume effect included. And also in terms of service, we have done slightly more service reports that comparable bigger last year. And in chemistry, there was really much more tons, which we sold this year than last year. We're looking into a record volume in the plant in labor now by the end of this year.

[Tore Fangmann, analyst]

I have one last question. This would be on orders and understanding backlog. Maybe like in the current environment, do you see a lot of renegotiations on the price of both the order intake and also the stalling backlog? And I know you don't give it very quantitative takes for the update on the backlog. But could you say like how long roughly the visibility, do you have visibility and then maybe end of Q1 next year or just to basically the start of next year?

[Andreas Pabst, executive]

Let's start with the visit. Renegotiation of prices now, have come into attention to that. And the review of that is different depending on the type of product, of course, whether we talk about exchange or whether about new-to-industry sites, on the tunnel side, we still see a longer conversion rate in new-to-industry sites because of all the construction activities. And also, we have delivery times set up to 12 weeks to work on the inventory to better work on the reduction of inventory. However, if needed, we can also fulfill our tasks or our orders in 6 weeks as prior to COVID, this is an optimization what we use in but the demand from the market for shorter delivery times is not there. So conversion rate is still a little bit slaggier than prior to COVID, I would say. So in general, we say normally, it's 4 to 6 months, but it is important to understand what Ralf said. It depends also on the product. It is longer in tunnels. It's slightly shorter, I would say, in jet wash and rollover is something like that.

[Operator]

There seems to be no further questions in the queue now. [Operator Instructions] So apparently, there are no further questions. So I will close the Q&A session now. Mr. Stefan Augustin here again from Warburg Research.

[Stefan Augustin, analyst]

You did a very good job in the U.S., and you have rolled out a lot of measures. Can you take us a little bit through how much there is still to come and what you have already executed? And did you make a decision to also produce chemicals in the U.S. finally in the future?

[Ralf Koeppe, executive]

I can take the question for the chemical side and then on the optimization side. Andreas Pabst mentioned that we hired with Stephan [indiscernible], now a Managing Director for our chemicals. And when you look at his Vita, he has much experience in the U.S. in form in his former jobs. And this is not by accident. And that's all what I would like to say for now.

[Andreas Pabst, executive]

So in terms of sustainability of these cost efficiency measures which we have planned. So there's a bigger portion in it in lowering the material costs, for example. We went to all our customers to the majority of our suppliers -- sorry, not to the customers, the suppliers, renegotiated. And for sure, there will be a long-term effect on it. On the other side, we really did deep in our service contracts and how we offer service, and we have now a much better view on which service job was a guaranteed job and which one can be built and stuff like that. So there's also a lot of improvement in the processes. So to answer your question, is there a lot to come. I would say what we have done is really sustainable and should be there also in the future.

[Operator]

Next question comes from Tore Fangmann, from Berenberg.

[Tore Fangmann, analyst]

So there were news in September about National Car wash in the U.S. exploring a EUR 3 billion sales. Maybe just a more question on this. In the U.S. itself, do you see a lot of, let's say, color potential for consolidation in the market. I mean, with this company also owning RiKo solutions, one of your biggest competitors? Do you see the more opportunities of were to maybe engage in M&A?

[Ralf Koeppe, executive]

First of all, I think in the market, there's a desire for, let's say, a third big tunnel producer and supplier. That's what we get from a lot of talks that we have, and I think we also have many talks to our key accounts that usually by rollover systems or in the AlgoMatch we call it in the U.S., and that are looking now into short tunnels. And since we have a long relationship and a good relationship with those, we are looking into such kind of short tunnel offers, but also we talk about long tunnel. So I've seen that there's a lot of discussion about private equity selling those 2 big companies we're talking about, but we will see how this will be realized.

[Andreas Pabst, executive]

Maybe I can add, as Ross said at the end of his presentation, car wash business is cash-rich business, and that is still the case. And therefore, it is somehow very attractive for private equity. But what is there really ongoing in the M&A. That's not our topic to comment. It is like it is. It's a profitable business type of business.

[Operator]

If there seem to be no further questions in the queue, I would conclude the Q&A session now and hand back over to the host. Thank you very much for attending our Q3 call today. We both are looking forward to see you at the Iden Capital Forum in Frankfurt. Thank you for attending.