Deutsche Post AG (DHL) Earnings Call Transcript

Thank you for standing by. Welcome, and thank you for joining the DHL Group conference call. Please note that the call will be recorded. You can find the privacy notice on dhl.com. [Operator Instructions] The presentation will be followed by a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to turn the conference over to Martin Ziegenbalg, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Right. Thank you, and welcome you all on the Q2 '26 Cons call of DHL Group. You've seen our full set of reporting out Today, we've got with us here, Group CEO, Tobias Meyer; Mark Group CFO, Melanie Kreis, is going to be the usual procedure. After your presentation to be as Melanie, we go straight into Q&A. And then with that, over to you, Tobias.

Yes. Thank you, Martin. We had indeed a good second quarter as DHL Group with group revenue accelerating to 13% year-on-year, as you see on Page 2 of the and EBIT increasing by 30%. We had a good flow-through of the increased business through the bottom line due to the effects that we also spoke about in recent quarters, our Fit for Growth program, which we executed but also continued good management of both yields as well as capacity and thereby our cost base, especially in Express. The free cash flow reflects that we are in a growth situation with some buildup of working capital, as you would expect, but also one extraordinary item driven by the refunds of the EPA tariff, which are currently reversed as you will be aware of. So we had some temporary increases in cash flow given that we received payments in the last days of June, which are currently in the process of being repaid to customers. We are very satisfied with the acceleration of our growth path throughout the first half of this year. with significant increases in the volume that we transported in our Express network, but also we consider a good performance in Global Forwarding relative to our peers and continued very satisfying path for our supply chain business, which continues to develop very favorably. And this also gives us despite the continued uncertainty and volatility around us, the confidence to increase our guidance as we have communicated on July the and also to increase our share buyback program, which will extend until the end of next year and increase to a value of up to EUR 6.5 billion as the cumulative amount. Going into some details on Page 3. You see the development of group revenue growth. We also showed here the organic development, excluding FX, which is by far the bigger effect and M&A. So we had talked about some headwinds going away already with the report in the first quarter, those headwinds, particularly relate to FX with the strong appreciation of the euro against other currencies, including the U.S. dollars in February and March of 2025. That has now cycled out, and we basically have no major effects as it relates to FX on revenue and earnings in the second quarter, but also the volume development with the initial waves of tariffs coming into effect end of the first quarter of 2025, the second quarter has a lower baseline as it relates to volume. So those were headwinds that we anticipate going away. But as you see on the right side, you highlighted on Page 3 for the Express network, the weight that we carried in that network, we had a quarter-on-quarter increase of about 6 percentage points of volume. That figure is relatively stable if you compare to 2019 or whether you compare it to 2024. So that gives you a sense how the underlying business has developed and the really positive momentum that has unfolded in the second quarter on a very broad base across the business that we have increasing CASA demand and also growth in the sectors that we targeted. As shown on Page 4, our strategy 2030 is now in full execution with our focus on top line growth, but also profitability accelerators. So this is just a reminder on what we are working on, how that unfolds and what we're exactly targeting for Express is highlighted on Page 5. This is a longer-term graph and the share of the integrated industry, the express players relative to the total air freight market. We started collectively in the late 60s, early 70s. If you look at UPS, FedEx and us, in particular, at that time, the business was very much focused on documents, so not much tonnage, not much kilos transported. That has changed over the years with the integrated industry taking a growing share of the general air freight market. And we expect that to continue. We had this post-COVID normalization that was strongly driven also by a shift of e-commerce shipments leaving the integrated networks for cheaper ways of transportation, bulk charters and injection into lower-cost last-mile networks. We now are strongly focused on the growth in industrials, so B2B. And we believe that both our cost position relative to the general air freight market, but also our value proposition has improved and increased and this gives us the opportunity for significant share gains and continuing the 50-year journey of taking share from the general air freight market, that's what we are focused on, and that's what you also see in the second quarter numbers of Express that we're successful in executing that strategy and accessing volumes in verticals that are not traditionally the heaviest users of Express. Page 6 provides some examples on how we sell and what we sell based on. So it is the reliability is the speed and the predictability of the integrated model, which is superior on those dimensions to the general air freight product. and that is attractive not only for small spare parts but also for bigger parts like turbines, be that for the use in aviation or for power generation for the supply chain of complex, high-value products. What you see, especially in IT and data center logistics, especially we've played a significant role in the semiconductor industry now for about 20 years. It's a vertical that was added to the integrator focus area about 20 years ago. Now it is also a much broader representation in that value chain and also in traditional areas, like automotive, in this case, motorcycles. There is a space for us with the cost position that we've reached with the scale that we have reached, if you look at our intercontinental fleet, it is the most efficient air cargo fleet around. And that is different than what we had in terms of scale and relative cost position 20 years ago. So that there is a natural and attractive play for us in those verticals. Beyond that, we continue to broaden our capability set to be an attractive provider to more industries in the space of new energy shown on Page 7, that is particularly the handling of DG of dangerous goods of their categories, but especially also batteries where there's a strong need to build up not only the supply chain for new goods, be that inbound to manufacturing or the distribution of such, but also increasingly a spare parts spare parts as it relates to full-scale batteries for EVs but also spare parts in areas like wind energy, where remote places have to be reached at an increasing amount to keep those machines running and provide the needed parts for such installations. Data center logistics is something that is in full swing with significant building taking place, especially in the United States, where we also increased our business there that is in 2 areas, mainly in the international transportation along that value chain, so inbound to the data center construction side, but also an increasingly so upstream and then the staging of material and sequencing at or near the construction sites of those facilities. There's obviously a high urgency to bring such sites into operation, and that urgency then translates into goods that need interim storage and sequencing to alleviate bottleneck capacities at the construction and us also taking over even certain installation services on site. So that's the 2 areas. We also expect significant spare parts business to follow as those installations mature, that is an area where we are traditionally very strong with our service logistics business. The journey on life science and health care also continues. This is a longer-term play for us where we systematically build out capacity, but also capabilities, especially on the Express side to offer an end-to-end cold chain service in the Express network. So this is something that did not have a significant impact on top line or bottom line in the quarter, but remains important for the mid- to long-term growth of the group overall and Supply Chain, Global Forward and Express in particular. As it relates to the profit accelerators on Page 8, we continue to do professional yield management. In this case, we highlight the example of parcel in Germany, where you see the development of volume and revenue and thereby, I can conclude on the yield measures that we have taken. This remains obviously a very important that we pass on inflationary effects, be that from labor or be that from fuel and other input components for fuel. We want a recovery mechanism, and that is also for the group overall, how it played out for the second quarter that we recovered the additional cost that we had through the elevated prices of fuel. Control growth, we have successfully in ahead of time executed and achieved our objectives as it relates to the savings. We'll obviously continue to be very mindful about productivity and efficiency in the different parts of the business. We'll continue to deploy technology to leverage efficiency potentials and realize such -- so it's not that we, in any way, lose focus on such opportunities. but as a structured program that was also meant to react to the changes we saw in the market post COVID. We have achieved our objectives, and we will now have a more embedded approach again which again does not mean that we lose focus on the absolute necessity to remain cost competitive. The same is true as it relates to our investments. We continue to spend diligently and enable new growth. So we are very mindful not to increase the capital intensity in our existing business. but we want to fuel growth where CapEx is required to realize such growth that is the case in Express but also in supply chain, where we have significant demand and a very good success track record to enable new real estate and new buildings for our customers and also increasingly automate and deploy robotics in those solutions, which means that the new businesses that we onboard there has a certain requirement to spend CapEx, which we happily do since such a business is accretive not only to the top line but also to the bottom line of our business. On Page 9 is the outlook, which is unchanged since the publishing of the preliminary results on July 7th. So we now expect to exceed EUR 6.5 billion EBIT for the full year of 2026 with the split that you see below the increase coming from the DHL divisions whilst P&P and group functions stay unchanged. Also free cash flow and gross CapEx guidance remains unchanged as the midterm outlook, which is also unchanged. With that, I'll hand over to Melanie for some more details on the divisional developments.

Thank you very much, Tobias, and good morning, and welcome also from my side. I will start rural with the key takeaways of the quarter for the divisions, which you can see on Page 10. For DHL Express, I'm happy to simply underscore the key observations shared by Tobias just now and already disclosed in our pre-release on July 7. Strong EBIT performance mainly reflects the operating leverage from rate per day being back into growth mode in combination with our effect cost and yield actions. Yes, we had some benefits from the tighter air freight market conditions as reported in our pre-release and fuel price volatility is inflating both revenue and costs. But the key driver of the strong Express Q2 financials is simply the core operating performance were the Express team is finding the right growth at the right price and serving it with the best efficient and flexible network. I'll come back to that in a minute. DHL Global Forwarding also delivered a good second quarter. While we still have more structural work to do, our Q2 performance shows above-market growth of 7% for both ocean and fit volumes with Ocean free GP holding up well and airfreight yield NGP increasing strongly. Volatile markets are part of the new normal as it seems. So we should definitely not call this a one-off, but we still thought it's worth sharing that we think we have some more temporary benefit from the air market disruptions in as also mentioned in our prerelease already. With the phasing out of FX effects year-over-year, the full DHL supply chain growth momentum is now again visible also in the tolling development. This is 13% reported and 10% organic growth. And considering last year's positive one-off, EBIT is also further up year-over-year with a good margin of 6.5%. And it's worth mentioning that this is actually the first quarter where DHL Supply Chain delivered more than EUR 300 million in EBIT, excluding special effects like in Q2 of last year. DHL e-Commerce numbers continue to reflect deconsolidation of the business in the U.K. and Iberia now in the second quarter as a new effect. -- while the organic growth of 9.5% shows the continued strong underlying e-commerce growth momentum. -- which is the reason we keep investing into the expansion of our network, as you see reflected, for example, in higher depreciation holding back EBIT growth. And last but not least, P&P has delivered a quarter pretty much in line with expectations based on the known business drivers as the P&P team continues to work hard to counter the structural mail decline and stepwise wage inflation with continued parcel growth and effective cost actions. Let me briefly step back from Q2 and take a broader look at the Express performance drivers on Page 11. As we frequently get questions on what is explaining the strong Express development? And what KPI can be best used to forecast or track that development? So looking at what John and his team successfully do and at our internal discussions on financial performance and the daily decisions that lead to that financial performance I think the key observation from my side is that there is not the 1 single KPI that ultimately determines our express performance. Quite to the contrary, given the fixed asset nature of that business and the spend across more than 220 countries and territories, the key to success lies in the aligned and successfully steered interaction between where and how we grow, how we calibrate pricing accordingly and all that in alignment with the capacity and prospects of our network. So Beyond the improvement in a lot of single KPIs, which we currently see, the Express team has improved tools and enhanced visibility to execute this delicate steering better than ever before. and that gives me a lot of confidence also for our future development. In that context, please take note of the invite we sent out earlier this week for a capital market briefing to be hosted by John Pearson, our DHL Express CEO. It will take place in London on September 17, and Jon will provide some more details on how we manage profitable growth in the DHL Express division. So after that short advertisement, let me get back into the depths of our Q2 numbers, with a few observations on our Q2 P&L on Page 12 and the cash flow statement on Page 13. On the P&L, the 13% top line growth includes a roughly 5% point contribution from the pass-through of higher fuel prices, but no relevant FX effects different to the previous quarters. So organic revenue growth, excluding the fuel contribution accelerated to 8%, reflecting the improvement in business momentum as well as our continued yield management. higher activity levels and fuel pricing are equally visible in the higher purchase goods and services line. Bottom line, this year 30% increase in EBIT, reflecting accelerating volume/rate growth active yield management and continued cost focus and the ongoing share buyback program is, of course, supporting earnings per share growth in further. The same drivers are essentially visible in the cash flow statement with business growth as well as higher freight rates and fuel costs driving to the expected expansion of related working capital in Q2. Included in the working capital number is also a temporary positive effect from the EPA tariff reimbursement procedure, where we received reimbursements and then pass them on as quickly as possible back to our customers. So at the end, this will have no impact on our free cash flow generation. But in the second quarter cash flow, there was a positive effect of EUR 46 million of reimbursements received and not yet paid out to customers. We really saw a significant inflow, particularly in the last days of the quarter. And we are now, of course, working on reimbursing the received funds as quickly as possible. So much for the technical aspects, what fundamentally counts for me when I look at this cash flow statement is that you see EBIT growth very nicely flowing through to OCF before changes in working capital. And that confirms for me the very strong and healthy operating profit growth and that we invest into our organic growth ambitions with continued high discipline. This all is a basis for the very good free cash flow development in the first half of the year, which you can see on Page 14. The H1 performance puts us well on track to deliver on our full year free cash flow target. And I think it also confirms once more our structurally improved free cash flow generation which allows us to balance the 4 quadrants of our finance strategy, continued targeted investments in organic growth, attractive dividend, complementary inorganic growth in accordance with our strategy 2030 growth priorities, and share buybacks as an additional shareholder return instrument. We are therefore also in a position to extend our current share buyback program and increase the overall size once again, as shown on Page 15. This gives us up to EUR 1.5 billion of remaining share buyback firepower until the end of 2027. As a conclusion, I think the numbers pretty much say it all. We are accelerating growth driven by improving business activity as well as our strategic actions. And we are certainly watchful to ensure that this accelerated growth is sustainable for our shareholders in terms of value accretion through higher return on invested capital as well as continued free cash flow generation. And with that, let's get to your questions. Martin or operator?

Yes. Luke, this will be a good time to start the Q&A process.

[Operator Instructions] Our first question is from Alexia Dogani with JPMorgan.

And I have 3, if possible, please. Just firstly, on the weight per day growth you showed in Q2. Can you talk a little bit more in detail about the regional trends you're seeing? Obviously, Americas and the Middle East showed a very strong acceleration maybe kind of base effects explain that, but kind of fundamentally, what are you seeing by region would be quite helpful. Then secondly, you've again helpfully singled out the benefit in the quarter from the Middle East disruption. When you look at the outlook over the coming quarters, do you think some of that is sustained? Or do you think kind of markets have already corrected? And how should we think about the bridge into '27 because I guess we've just gone through our recovery post-COVID. Obviously, these one-off events help near term, but become a drag kind of in the future, is that how we should see the Middle East benefit? Or do you think other factors will help you keep kind of driving growth? And then finally, the market is focusing a lot on AI, CapEx. I think it's been on a couple of quarters where we've been hearing from you and peers that you see the benefits of this data center rollout, where would you say we are on the journey for that growth? Are we still at the beginning? Are we in the middle? Does it follow closely the AI CapEx numbers we hear from kind of the big hyperscalers. Just give us a sense of how quickly you benefit from those trends?

Yes. Thank you, Alex, for your questions. As it relates to the first that being weight per day growth, that's really pretty broad-based. Some of that obviously, especially as it relates to the Americas, the United States also has to be seen in the year-on-year comparison that the second quarter last year was a bit weaker, but Also, if we look at Asia Pacific, which is obviously from an export perspective, very important. We see good growth there. You already highlighted the Middle East and Africa, again, for us, relatively strong in the quarter despite the disruptions. I think we strengthened our market position there due to the excellent performance that the colleagues really delivered under difficult circumstances. Europe weaker, as you would expect, given the macroeconomic situation. So overall, weight per day growth pretty broad based. The benefits or the situation around the Middle East, I think, is not so easy to isolate. It's not the primary effect of the disruption in the Middle East that is positive. Within the Middle East, we as we talked also in the context of the Q1 reporting, we also had significant extra costs, those being operational, those being insurance related. It is more the overshadowing on the overall demand/supply situation on Asia-Europe, which is also why we called that out with EUR 150 million effect. Now whether that is going to settle down entirely and we'll back -- fully back to normal in 2027 for us is hard to say. We specified the amount relative to the situation prior to that disruption that major surge of or escalation as it relates to Iran. So that is what it constitutes whether we are fully back to normal in 2027 and would not have any other disruptions that influences the demand-supply balance on the overall Express & Air Freight market or Asia Europe for us is hard to judge. So you need to read the EUR 150 million to the situation prior and the primary effect being the changed demand supply situation for Asia Europe as the much broader and more significant market.

But maybe if I could just add 1 thing here. So I mean, obviously, there are many moving parts, year-over-year comparison, the Middle East impact, and there is still a lot of volatility and fuel and so on. But I think what you can really see in a lot of the numbers we presented today is that there is also an underlying healthy trends and that the measures of our Strategy 2030 are really working I mean, just 1 number from supply chain, EUR 4 billion in new contract that you won in H1. So there's a lot of volatility. We have shown that we can deal with that volatility. But I think we also see increasing traction of our more structural long-term growth agenda.

Absolutely. And I think that's also visible in the absolute. Now if you look at the EUR 1.9 billion earnings in the quarter relative to the 150 million, the great majority of the increase is driven by what Melanie rightly characterizes as what we see is clearly sustainable long-term orientated growth. AI and the CapEx spend that impacts us in 2 ways. What has been particularly notable in the quarter is the warehousing and staging part, which we also highlighted where we had significant increase in activity. We also had increase in activity in the international transport of parts and components for data centers. We expect that to continue well beyond 2026. It will also transition then into more spare parts logistics where we see an opportunity. So while for us, it's hard to say whether the level of CapEx flow will continue we'll definitely see that this is a lasting component of our business to then also supply spare parts components for the ongoing operation of those sites. As we have done for many years, in other parts of that tech industry. If you think about telecommunication networks, if you think about the data networks, the ruling facilities, but also general data centers where we have a pretty strong position in supplying those not only at the pace of the initial build, but also at continued operations.

Excellent. Luke, the next caller, please.

Our next question comes from Jacob Lacks with Wolf Research.

So is the weight per day improvement you're seeing, is that at all tied to the airfreight capacity constraints you discussed? Or is that more so related to pricing? And then do you have any early expectations for how peak season is shaping up this year in Express? And given the improvement in weight per day, are you expecting a year of larger surcharges?

So on the weight per day development, as I tried to highlight, this is mainly driven by the strategy that we have in Express to refocus on industrial growth, smart industrial growth to hire the specific value proposition of the integrated model of our DHL Express capability to industrial customers, and that is what we see working out very well. You see that we are very disciplined with pricing. So it's not that we have been in any way attracting higher volumes to lower prices. That's not the case. We specified the spillover on the Asia-Europe lane as it relates to the changed balance of demand and supply. But the great majority of the growth that we see in Express intense per day is the execution of the Smart Industrial growth strategy. As it relates to peak, different than our -- some of our competitors, we currently do not have a peak surcharge as we speak in the nonpeak period. But if the season would unfold as per usual, and we would then expect also an increase in the buying rate or a rate we would use a peak surcharge as per usual. That's not decided yet how that exactly would play out. But it's a regular instrument that is a cost recovery mechanism for higher air freight cost and as such, is a normal instrument in the integrator industry, which will also continue to use under normal circumstances.

Jake, works for you, I hope. Luke, the next caller, please.

Our next question comes from Muneeba Kayani with Bank of America.

Yes. So first question around Express and the EUR 150 million benefit that you've had because of the tight air freight market. Just to clarify, has that gone through kind of the weight per day growth? Or is that coming through the year? Yes, part of Express. And if it's gone through -- if it's in that 9%, can you help us understand how much of that 9% was this kind of spillover from the tight air rate market? That's my first question. Secondly, on forwarding, your yields were super strong. Is there a mix shift happening in there? Can you help us understand kind of the moving parts in there? And then the third question around supply chain and the data centers. And you've talked about the increased activity. So can you kind of help us understand what the potential you see in your supply chain business from data center build-out, -- like how much has it contributed so far? And what sort of growth should we be thinking about based on what you're seeing right now?

Thank you, Muneeba. Let me start with the first question. So I mean, first of all, this is not a mathematical formula where you really kind of like get the 1 single answer. I think the EUR 150 million was our best attempt to quantify those more temporary impacts due to the tightness in the air freight market. And there, we have indeed seen that also volume, which normally would have gone with forwarders ended up in our core TDI product. So it had an impact on the rate per day growth. in the 9%, but it is by far not the dominant driver. So I think the real driver is that we really see the smart industrial growth in place, but there is a component now in Q2, which leads to the EUR 150 million impact from the more temporary nature.

So on DGF, this is a variety of factors that ultimately stem from the disciplined execution of the plan that Oscar has laid out. Mix shift is maybe a little part of that, but it's not particularly pronounced. We had a focus and applied usual measures to larger, not so profitable customers. But here, it's really also fairly broad-based that we have seen improvements in the business, both on the margin side as well as on the volume side. So both for Air and Ocean, I can say, I'm very satisfied with the trajectory that we are on. And there are no extraordinary effects or particular things that we would highlight. This is an organic development that we, again, are very pleased with, but I'm not surprised by. You already saw this in the first quarter, so we are accelerating on a good path, and I would not expect this to change in the quarters to come.

Actually, for those managers for those of you who listened to Oscar's capital markets briefing in London a couple of weeks ago. I think you could really see how the product and then try and regional organizations are working together much better to hunt profitable growth. I think this spots what we now really see in the numbers. So clearly something which is not one-off driven or 1 special effect but more the sustainable different way of working under Osco.

And we continue to have a strong focus on great service quality, invest in capabilities. So whilst we are also cost conscious, we are not single-minded about cost. You heard me talking about that before. But I think it is important. We are a service organization, particularly in Global Forwarding is extremely important to have great people and have great abilities, so we see that -- we see ourselves confirmed in having that balanced view and not being single-mindedly obsessed about cost. To your third question, Muneeba on supply chain and data center logistics. So what we have there, particularly in the U.S., but not only in the U.S. particularly multiyear contracts. This comes from a relatively small base as it relates to this particular activity, which is the staging of parts and components for the construction of data centers. We have been very well represented in other parts of the value chain. I talked about service logistics, so supply chains before. Obviously, in the semiconductor industry, we are an integral part of the supply chain. And we continue to be that and also profit from the overall uplift and we continue -- we expect that to continue the specific staging of ponent and having large warehouses for this activity comes from a relatively small base.

All right. Thank you, Muneeba. Luke, we're ready for the next caller.

Our next question comes from Alex Irving with Bernstein.

Two for me, please. First one is on Express. And I note that the Gulf carriers have been progressively restoring their networks. And of course, with that comes the belly hold capacity between Asia and Europe. How does that shape your expectations for weight per day growth and revenue per kilogram growth into Q3? And can you maybe share how July was on those metrics, please? Secondly, on DGF, great to see conversion improved about 19%. But can you help us understand a little bit more what is temporary versus permanent? You talked about the low to mid-double-digit million EBIT temporary effect. If I were to very crude sort of roll forward the Q1 unit gross profit in airfreight to mitigate the impact of disruption, that will be sort of a EUR 55 million hit rather low to mid-double-digit millions. That would give me a 16% to 17% conversion ratio. What am I missing? How can you help us to separate the temporary versus permanent impacts on DGFF profit in the quarter, please?

All right. I would start with Express and Melanie, would comment on the second question. So we do not see that the activity level of the [indiscernible] would change our outlook on weight per day for Express in any meaningful way. We see a broad brave growth out of multiple origins implementing our Smart Industrial growth strategy, and we would expect that to continue. How the yield effects play out also on the ACS product, which was mentioned which for us is a cost offset is hard to forecast as freight rates are generally hard to forecast. But again, we would not see significant effects coming from that also due to the sheer size of it. But on weight per day, I'm very confident that we'll continue a positive trajectory independent of the situation of the Middle East carriers.

And on your DGF question. So probably 3 components to the answer from my side. I think the first 1 is, like this Express, we try to quantify to the best way possible, the more temporary impact from the air freight market distortions with this, yes, relatively wide range because, again, it's not a mathematical formula. So there was a positive impact from the current market situation, but it is not the main driver for the progress we see. So we would have had year-over-year implement also excluding that. Having said that, we are clearly not where we want to be on Global Forwarding. I already said that in my comments earlier that we have further work to do. The encouraging thing is that we see the trend going in the right direction. But obviously, as you pointed out, the 19% conversion rate is not where we want to be. So there's more work to be done.

Next caller please.

Our next question comes from Marco Limite with Barclays.

I hope you can hear me. If you can confirm?

Yes, we can.

First question is on the share buyback. So you have extended the share buyback of EUR 27 million and EUR 500 million plus. But if we do the math, EUR 500 million executed year-to-date, plus EUR 1.5 billion and year-end EUR 27 million is EUR 2 billion, which is EUR 1 billion and let's say, we were modeling 1.5 for 26. So the run rate on a per year basis for now has come down. Can you just explain to us why, let's say, you have extended by 1 year, but only increased by EUR 500 million despite, let's say, the generic environment being quite strong would be my first question? The second question is a bit more details on Express revenues where I'll go actually 2 questions there. So the first 1 is as you focus more on heavy weight cargo, shall we expect a negative price mix going forward as let's say, the average price per kilo goes down as you focus on larger, more heavy weight sort of cargo. On my math, it looks like, yes, Q2 pricing was a bit below expectations. And then also within Express revenues, I've noticed that if I compare volume growth versus revenue growth, for example, America revenue growth is below volume growth. So also wondering is driving, let's say, pricing dilution in Americas. And then the third question is a follow-up to something that's been out trying to be a bit more explicit. So as we think about the EUR 150 million and it brought to me double benefits in Q2. To an extent, shall we expect these numbers, let's say, to repeat in Q3, if any indication would be get...

Marco, let me start with the first question on the share buyback. Yes. So indeed, year-to-date, we have executed EUR 500 million and with the pit until the end of 2017. We now have 1.5 left for 1.5 years roughly I think that is also the run rate which we had at the beginning of the program for many years. We then opted in between, but I think it is a healthy run rate, and it clearly gives us quite a good firing power now for the next months to come.

On Express revenue, I would say that the growth we are currently seeing is accretive. And it's -- you see this also obviously in the margin is very beneficial. There will always be mix effects, but there are also a difference in the cost structure. If you deliver a 200-gram flyer, Obviously, the variable air freight cost is much, much lower than the cost of the stop on the route. So heavier shipments have a different cost structure and thereby might have slightly lower revenue per kilo than what you see in a mix of lightweights that have a lot of flyers as well, documents that means. So that's normal. What we manage is that it's accretive growth, and I think we're very successful with that. also on backhaul lens, which is the case, for instance, for the Americas, there are backhaul lanes out of the Americas, where the headline revenue might be lower but the cost structure is also much lower. We feel backhaul space that would elsewise be empty. So also that growth while it might look on the headline as being dilutive, can be very accretive. And that's exactly what we have seen in the second quarter. So we're not at all worried about yield dilution. We think the growth that we currently see in Express is very healthy. And there has been a specific focus to also grow on backhaul lanes which again might mean lower head lower yields, but still very accretive growth as the cost structure for that volume is also much lower.

Just 1 very fundamental complement to what Tobias just explained. So I think the foundation for the heavyweight product at Express was always that this is not a cheap forwarding product in our premium network, but this is a heavier shipment in an express network with express pricing, where then, of course, take into consideration as to just the cost to produce and stuff, but this is an express priced heavy rate product and hence, accretive also to the express profitability.