Flughafen Zürich AG

So let's start in time. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the presentation of our company's half year results 2018 at Zurich Airport.

I also welcome the attendants who are connected via phone and would like to remind these that the analyst presentation is available on our web page, zurich-airport.com. My name is Stephan Widrig.

I am the CEO of this company, and I will host the presentation, along with Lukas Brosi, the company's CFO. I will start with the business update and give you some insights on strategic topics before our CFO will provide you with detailed information on our financial performance, followed by a brief outlook.

At the end, we will have enough time to answer your questions. Between January and June 2018, 14.6 million passengers used Zurich Airport as their departure transfer or destination airport, representing an increase of 6.4% compared with the prior year period.

Total revenue increased by 10.5% to CHF 540 million, with both aviation and non-aviation on a positive trend. The half year results in 2017, as well as in 2018, have been impacted by one-off effects, whereas the divestment of the remaining shareholding in Bangalore boosted the profit in the last year, a provision for additional costs for sound insulation measures reduced EBITDA and profit in the first half year 2018.

I will explain the nature of these one-off effects in more detail in a second. Excluding one-off effects, EBITDA rose by 9.4% to CHF 297 million, and profit was up by 16.6% to CHF 130 million.

CapEx amounted CHF 209 million in the first half of 2018. Let's have first the closer look at aviation business.

The increase in passenger volumes divides into a 6.8% growth in the local passengers segment, while transfer passengers were up by 5.4%. The proportion of transfer passengers declined from 28.7% to 28.4% over the prior year period.

The number of flight movements climbed by 2.4% to 134,000 takeoffs and landings. Compared with the prior year period, the volume of freight handled at Zurich airport increased by 5.4%.

In June, the Federal Office of Civil Aviation, our regulator, announced a selective revision of the ordinance on airport charges. FOCA is planning to make some minor amendments and adjustments to the structure and to procedure for setting the charges, which we all welcome.

However, they are also considering to increase the transfer payments to cross subsidize the cost of the aviation segment. This mechanism is part of the adjusted dual tier structure of the regulatory framework in Switzerland.

Public hearings on this matter will start at the end of this year, with the final decision of the government expected in the first half of 2019. We will argue for leaving the adjustments at the current level.

Should the regulatory framework be adjusted in an unfavorable way for us, countermeasures, as for example, a review of the CapEx plan, have to be considered. As per the current time plan of the FOCA, the revised ordinance is expected to come into force in summer 2019, just ahead of the renegotiation phase for the next regulatory period.

The latter will start in 2020. Due to the increased traffic volumes on the one hand and the impact of constantly falling interest rates over the past years on the other hand, a tariff reduction has to be expected in all scenarios for the next regulatory period.

We expect charges to be unchanged until an agreement for the next regulatory period is found. As mentioned at the beginning, the enhancement of the sound insulation program negatively impacts our 2018 figures.

Flughafen Zürich AG is required to implement sound insulation measures in the area where it claims exemptions from noise emission limits. In the context of the updated Sectoral Aviation Infrastructure Plan, the field which allows us to increase capacity, the area with exemptions is also to be extended.

A provision for further cost of CHF 60 million, with a present value of CHF 57.6 million, was recognized in this context at the end of June 2018. It's important to highlight that this one-off effect is valuation neutral, and so all noise-related costs are refinanced by dedicated noise charges and fully covered by the Airport of Zurich Noise Fund.

The total estimated cost for sound insulation and resident protection now amounts to CHF 400 million. Furthermore, 2 rulings by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court enabled us to undertake a reappraisal of the outstanding cost of compensation for formal expropriations.

This type of compensation payments reflects the minor value to property owner because of aircraft noise. Based on the recalculation in the first half year 2018, the total cost expected in relation to formal expropriations decreased by CHF 34.5 million to CHF 350 million.

This change has no impact on the income statement, as the intangible asset from the right to formal expropriation was reduced by the same amount at the same time. Formal expropriations are also financed by the noise fund.

The earmarked noise fund is well-equipped and future financing secured. As mentioned earlier, shareholders are not affected by payments or returns of the noise fund.

I will now move on to the non-aviation business and share some insights on the commercial business followed by an update on strategic projects. To start with, I would like to highlight certain characteristics of our 2 centers here at the airport of Zürich.

The first one is the airside center. It's approximately 14,000 square meters of floorspace, mainly for tax and duty-free operations, travel retail brands and food and beverage.

The airside center is only accessible to passengers, hence, there is a high correlation between passenger numbers and commercial turnover. The second one is the landside center with some 19,000 square meters of floor space, mainly for grocery stores, retail shops and restaurants.

The landside center is publicly accessible, open on Sundays and mainly frequented by visitors, commuters, employees and meeters and greeters. Public holidays, for example, Easter, as well as Svizra are standard, in general, generate high sales.

Therefore, changes in the timing of public holidays or weekends may distort the monthly performance of a single month. As a result of the different dynamics and characteristics of the 2 centers, we intend to focus in our reporting on the spend per departing passengers on the airside center, going forward, which will make our performance better comparable to other airports in previous periods.

I will now share a detailed overview on the commercial performance for the first half 2018. Total sales for retail outlets and restaurant operators at Zurich airport amounted to around CHF 285 million, an increase of 4.5%.

Thanks to rising passenger numbers, airside turnover was up by 7.9% during the first half of the year. All the restaurant units, and especially the waters and jewelry segment recorded above-average growth, following the remodeling to duty-free stores in the central departure and arrival area have had a good start with the new shop concept.

With a negative 0.2%, landside turnover was roughly at previous year's levels. Owing to the expansion of the baggage sorting system, 1 large landside restaurant closed its doors at the end of last year.

This closure was not immediately offset by new offerings. Thereafter, food retail segment saw a reasonable growth in the other units.

Other shops, in particular, fashion, continued to suffer from the increasing competition of online shopping. The average concession rates saw an increase of 0.8 percentage points to 21.5%, boosted, in particular, by the new duty-free contract.

Our large mixed-use real estate project, THE CIRCLE, is progressing well, and the shape of the buildings gets more and more visible. It is widely seen as a pioneer project in how to create a vibrant real estate platform at airports for an increasing demand of uses from hotels and offices to house our new retail formats, and it exploits the location potential of airports due to its perfect connection to all means of transport.

While no new major rental contracts have been announced in spring, negotiations are progressing well. With the constantly increasing number of interested parties, we perceive the market reception is very positive, and also, the envisaged pricing is adequate and accepted by the interested tenants.

Construction cost forecasts have also been stable and unchanged since our last public update was announced. Same holds true for the time line, where everything progresses according to the plan with the public opening planned for 2020.

Long story short, THE CIRCLE is on track and all stable. In 2017, Flughafen Zürich was awarded the concession to expand and operate the airport in the Southern Brazilian city of Florianópolis.

We took over the operation of this airport in January this year, and construction work on the new terminal commenced already in April. It is scheduled for completion in the second half of 2019, compliant with the concession agreement.

Floripa Airport also benefited from the favorable market conditions and secured a BRL 300 million financing. The debt financing was secured earlier than initially anticipated, leading to slightly higher financing cost of approximately CHF 2 million in 2018, which we now have included in the profit forecast.

Besides Latin America, the development of our international business is focused on projects in Europe and Asia. To develop the market in Asia, we set up a regional office in Kuala Lumpur, which will be able to coordinate expansion and explore market opportunities when they arise.

With this, I'm handing over to Lukas.

Thank you, Stephan. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Welcome also from my side. I will now give you an overview of the financial performance of the company.

As mentioned before, the total revenue increased by 10.5% to CHF 540 million. I will give you some more color on the sub-segments on the next slides.

As indicated at the beginning of the presentation, the half year results in 2017, as well as in 2018, have been impacted by one-off effects, whereas, the divestment of the remaining shareholding in Bangalore airport increased the figures below EBIT by more than CHF 30 million last year. The provisions for additional costs for sound insulation measures had a pretax impact of nearly CHF 60 million on EBITDA level in 2018.

The detailed figures are shown on the slide. At CHF 239.6 million, EBITDA is below the prior year figure.

Adjusted for the provision for sound insulation measures, EBITDA improved by 9.4% to CHF 297.1 million, representing an adjusted EBITDA margin of 55%. After deducting amortization and depreciation, EBIT was at CHF 115.8 billion.

Adjusted for the one-off effect, EBIT improved by 14.6%. Profit in the first half of 2018 amounted to CHF 84.5 million, down CHF 58.7 million from the prior year period.

When adjusted for one-off effects, profit increased by 16.6% or CHF 18.5 million. In the first half of 2018, passenger-related charges increased in line with passenger growth by 6.5% to CHF 206.1 million.

Flight operation charges grew by 4.1% to CHF 66.1 million. This happened mainly on the back of the SWISS fleet replacement program, which led to higher revenues from landing charges.

The positive trend in aviation fees, which increased by CHF 0.7 million to CHF 34.6 million, is attributable to volume effects. In sum, aviation revenue rose by 5.7% to CHF 309 million.

Overall, non-aviation revenue increased by 17.7% to CHF 231.2 million. Commercial and parking revenue grew to CHF 117.5 million, an increase of 5.6%.

In particular, this was due to the higher revenue achieved from retail, tax and duty-free, plus food and beverage, of CHF 4.8 million. International revenues saw the biggest increase, mainly due to the full consolidation of Florianópolis airport.

Revenues increased by CHF 27 million to CHF 31.9 million. This includes CHF 8.8 million for construction projects under concession arrangements.

Let me remind you of the so-called concession accounting rules according to the international reporting standards. CapEx in our concession has to be reflected in the P&L as revenue and operating costs at the same time.

In total, this has a neutral impact on EBITDA. Let's switch from revenues to the development of our cost base.

Personnel expenses rose by 5.5% to CHF 103 million. Besides a small increase in Zurich, this is mainly due to consolidating the personnel cost of the international holdings.

Despite much higher passenger volumes, the cost for police and security rose by only 0.5%. The total operating expenses rose by 38.4% to CHF 300.6 million in the first half of 2018, in particular, because of the expansion of the sound insulation program.

After adjusting for this one-off effect, expenses rose by 11.9%, primarily due to setting up operations in Florianópolis. This increase includes the already before mentioned CHF 8.8 million for construction projects on the concession arrangements.

Operating expenses in Zürich increased by 1.9%, considerably lower than the growth in traffic. Let me now outline some key figures.

Net financial debt, excluding the Airport of Zurich Noise Fund, stands at CHF 670 million, leaving the net debt-to-EBITDA ratio unchanged at 1.1x. The return on invested capital on a 12-month rolling period is at 8.5%, up by 0.1 percentage point compared to the prior year period.

Although the operating cash flow was more or less on par with the previous year, the free cash flow declined by CHF 31 million because of higher CapEx. Let me give you some additional information on CapEx.

In the period under review, we invested CHF 109 million in ongoing projects. This includes, in particular, the investment in THE CIRCLE of CHF 36.4 million, representing more than 1/3 of our total investments.

The project to expand and upgrade the baggage handling system at Zürich Airport was officially launched in March 2018. The total investment cost will amount approximately CHF 470 million, with an expected completion of the project in 2025.

An additional 200-meter long multiple entry access taxiway is being built for runway 16 at Zurich Airport. Aircraft will then be able to line up more efficiently when taking off from this runway, which in turn will improve punctuality.

2 high-speed taxiways are also being built for runway 28 on the western side of Zurich Airport. The first high-speed taxiway is expected to be completed by November 2018, and the second one by June 2019.

High-speed taxiways allow aircraft to exit the landing run by -- more rapidly, and so release it to the next aircraft more quickly. Let's move on to the outlook.

The growth in traffic volume is based on a healthy mix between home carrier and foreign network carriers. Five new long-haul destinations departing from Zürich have been added to the summer fly timetable, Chengdu and Shenzhen in China, Denver and Philadelphia in the U.S., plus the Seychelles.

In addition, the number of flights to San Francisco and Vancouver have stepped up during the main season. Furthermore, Edelweiss announced an expansion of its fleet by 3 new Airbus A320s, bringing its fleet to 15 airplanes at the end of 2018.

The carrier will expand its long-haul network with flights to Colombo, Ho Chi Minh City, Varadero and Buenos Aires as per the upcoming winter timetable. These developments enhanced Zurich's attractiveness as the place to live and work, boost tourism, and provide businesses with faster and better access to new as well as existing markets.

Let me finish with an update on the guidance for this year. For a better understanding, we showed the 2017 reference numbers on the left-hand side.

Flughafen Zürich AG expects passenger growth of around 6%, with local passenger growth outperforming the increase in transfer volumes. Aviation revenues will be increasing on the back of passenger growth, and non-aviation revenues will benefit from new commercial concepts and our international activities.

International business will be the main driver for OpEx as well. However, costs in Zürich are expected to be slightly high too.

Given the number of complex projects that need to be planned and executed in the upcoming years, the headcount will slightly increase. Please note that non-aviation revenues, as well as OpEx, will be impacted by the already mentioned concession accounting.

However, this impact is EBITDA neutral. Factoring out one-off effects in the financial year 2017 and any one-off effects during the current year, EBITDA is expected to be 6% to 8% higher, whereas net profit is expected to be up between 10% and 12%.

Because of the before-mentioned higher financing cost in Brazil, the expected profit growth is disproportionately lower. Lastly, the company has earmarked around CHF 300 million for investments.

In addition to various work to maintain the value of the airport's infrastructure, the biggest investment volume of around CHF 120 million is for THE CIRCLE.

With this, we would like to conclude the presentation. We now open the Q&A part of this presentation with questions of the attendants here in the meeting room.

After that, participants on the phone will have the opportunity to bring up their questions. May I ask you to introduce yourself with your name and your company before asking your questions.

Participants in the room, please use the hand microphone.

This is Pascal Furger from Bank Vontobel. I have 3 questions from my side.

The first one is on the whole regulated business. So here, the FOCA did, I think, brokered an account in the east currently like doing this revision of the framework.

Here, you mentioned if the process would turn up more negative, as you initially expected, you would also adjust your CapEx. So here, which CapEx could you cut in case the exchange -- the increase basically in this transfer payment to the regulated assets from the nonregulated assets would exceed your initial expectations?

And is there a risk that basically other charges would be adjusted as well? And then the second question is with regards to your OpEx, so here, if I exclude the impact from the noise fund, at your rising underlying growth in OpEx of 1.9%, your particular personnel expenses increased 5.5%.

So the headcount increase related to the next CapEx cycle, you mentioned, has now been completed? Or do we see a sequential increase again?

So my question is basically will we see the operating leverage where we have a very strong track record again next year? And then maybe the last question, just on your international business, so here, you mentioned your office in Asia versus full year results.

You mentioned you already have a pipeline there. Has this pipeline been increased?

So are there more basically projects in the pipeline or can we expect closing there anytime soon?

So with regard to your first question of the link of the tariff regulation and CapEx there, I think, the main focus would be to review again CapEx investments, especially on stands and taxiways, partially runways that have large civil works proportion, and that we do for very few movements per hour in the peak. So I think there, depending on the regulation, we could react on the CapEx front, with sizable investments on the civil works side to compensate the effects.

I think with the buildings, terminal buildings, as such, where we plan from currently CHF 30 million over the next 15 years to reach somewhere 50 million passengers. This should not be impacted because, there, it's mainly generated also by the commercial businesses in terms of revenues.

So the main focus would be on the, I would say, on the investments outside on civil works.

Your question regarding OpEx, so in particular, the personnel expenses, I think, first of all, one has to distinguish between the impact of the international business and the cost development in Zürich in general, and cost development in Zürich was 1.9%, total OpEx in the first half year. The -- in particular, the operating costs in relation to future larger projects are impacted because we are in the very early stage of those projects.

We are in the study phase, where costs cannot be capitalized under the accounting rules. So I would say that whatever belongs to the CapEx program, going forward, in terms of operating costs can be capitalized once we are closer to the realization of those projects.

So I expect a slight increase in personnel expenses this year in Zürich, but definitely, disproportionately lower than the volume increase, obviously. And on the international business, we have opened the Asian office, it's correct.

We are following different projects, also, I would say, at an early stage. In concrete, the one project that is, I would say, the closest to realization is on the Philippines, where we are following a project near to Manila, which is Clark Airport.

But other opportunities, which are not disclosed in detail, but are also on the, let's say, the earlier stage than the one mentioned.

And maybe one additional side note on the OpEx in Zürich. I just want to mention that the Zürich OpEx grew by 1.1%, with the growth in passengers, I think we stitched to the plan of keeping here very -- cost controlled, and that, of course, applies also for the future.

But if you look at the performance of the first half year, I think this is also quite a good achievement with these passenger volumes.

It's Rishika from Barclays. I have three questions as well if I may.

The first one on growth, I think the Swiss refleeting is coming towards an end now. So I guess I'll start about your medium-term growth outlook.

Is that restricted to the number of movements in the airport? Or is there still a load factor opportunity?

Do you know, for example, what the average load factor at the airport is currently and if there's room for upside there? My second question is also around the regulatory change.

Do you have a sense yet from the regulator what that 30% could go to? Is there a range yet that they've guided towards in terms of where that cost subsidy might move?

And my final question is on Brazil. I think in previous presentations, you said that you expect Brazil to be a positive contributor to profit this year.

You mentioned the higher financing charges. Clearly, there might be a currency impact from the real.

Is that still the case that you expect Brazil to be positive from a profit point of view this year?

With regard to your first question on the growth in Zurich airport, we would currently have about 66 movements per hour that we can do in a peak hour. And with all the political decisions that have been made, we are confident to be able to increase this to 70 movements per hour, both in the daily concept when we have landings from the north, as well in the evening concepts when we have landings from the east.

It will still take a few years till all the legal measures have been -- come to a conclusion. You have some people who take it to the Supreme Court, but I think the decisions that have been made by the right political bodies are in a way that we think is robust enough that we will achieve this 70 movements per hour in all concept at all weather conditions over the next 5 to 10 years at Zurich airport.

Then if we transform then the 70 movements an hour, with a mix of wide bodies, narrow bodies in a similar way as we have now with the home carrier, but at the same time also with the competitive set up on low-cost airlines, we believe that we can manage approximately 50 million passengers, and we will achieve this somewhere in the next 20 years. Difficult to predict, of course, depending on macroeconomic levels, but that's then where, with the current political decisions, we would have a saturation reached at this 70 movements per hour and 50 million per passengers.

Okay. Regarding your second and third questions, so the regulator, the FOCA has announced that it's currently assessing whether the transfer payments have or the transfer payment has to be adopted or not, but has not, in concrete, mentioned a percentage number.

Obviously, the correction will go upwards, and therefore, we are simply not able to give you a more precise guidance on that. For Brazil, I would -- we're not disclosing the financial numbers on individual assets.

But overall, we expect the positive contribution on EBITDA level of about CHF 50 million that year from international business with obviously, the majority comes from Florianópolis. And the financing cost, it's -- amounts to about CHF 2 million, as we heard, during the presentation.

So carving out the volatility on the real, I would say Florianópolis is able to provide a positive contribution, which is impressive in the first year of the concession. Obviously, also, we have a lot of uncertainty regarding the developments, looking at the upcoming roads in Brazil, et cetera, in terms of the currency.

But whatever belongs to the cross currency risk from consolidating the asset disclosed in the equity are not directly into P&L.

Next question in the room? No more questions in the room.

So we move on the questions on the conf call.

The first is related to the operating cash flows, which looks to be flat despite the EBITDA improvement on a like-for-like basis. So I noticed the cash taxes -- higher cash taxes and visible impact from liabilities.

So just more color on this -- on this trend. Duty Free, I noticed that the spend per PAX, the underlying spend per PAX, should be almost flat despite the refurbishment of the area in the Zürich terminal.

So can you explain what is happening there? Why it's not -- in this case, why it's not working, the new layout?

And just a confirmation on the dividends, the net profit outlook in '18, like-for-like should be up double digits. Should I wait for dividend growth of a similar amount?

Thank you. The CFO takes the big folder.

I'll start with the question on Duty Free. On Duty Free, you have to see that, again, very comfortable growth we had this year, of course, was mainly triggered by Swiss leisure traffic or general leisure and tourist traffic more than business traffic.

And it's known that leisure traffics makes less spend per PAX here in Zürich. So the growth, of course, has not been exactly along the passenger growth because the mix has shifted a little bit more towards the leisure traffic, and this has been also, if you just look at spend per PAX, has an impact.

If you look at the absolute figures, of course, the growth has been also quite well.

[Foreign Language] Dividend, obviously, will be decided next year in the shareholder meeting. But from today's point of view, I can confirm that there will not be adjustments so far as to the dividend policy.

And also, the one-off effect of the increased sound insulation liabilities does not affect the underlying profit number for dividends. Your questions regarding operating cash flow, well, this is mainly attributable to the shift we had in relation to also the increased liability for sound insulation.

I recommend you to stick to the annual or to the half year results on Page 21, has to be considered that this is also impacted by the year one-off effect in the 2 periods we are comparing. But the underlying EBITDA growth leads obviously also to a higher operating cash flow when factoring out all this effect.

Yes, just a follow-up on the cash flows. I mean, this is -- this one-off is non-cash, so you have a lower net income and then you have the equal adjustment a few lines below.

So this is -- should not be included in the cash flow calculation. Is that correct?

Let me check and I answer to your questions later on in the call.

I have 3 questions. On the potential change of the transfer payment potentially forced up on you by the FOCA, I appreciate we do not yet know how much the transfer payment will change, but can you give us a sensitivity whether 10 percentage point change of the transfer payment means in terms of aviation fees, so how much will aviation fees change for every 10% increase in the transfer payment?

And then secondly, any news on Laudamotion? Are they planning to grow in Zürich anytime soon?

Or do they still lack aircraft? And then thirdly, in the past, you always mentioned easyJet as one of the major drivers for capacity growth at the airport that was missing this time.

I was just wondering if there are any change in plans by easyJet for Zürich.

I start with the second question on Laudamotion or Ryanair if you want. So I don't think this will have a major presence in Zürich for various reasons.

I, nevertheless, believe that Zürich is a very attractive market for the established low-cost airlines here, such as easyJet, Vueling and Germania. The program with the low cost here, of course, is with slot constraints.

It's difficult to make. And with the night curfew, it's difficult to make -- to place additional aircraft here.

We, of course, try still to have a few more slots for aircraft space in Switzerland with a full rotation. But mainly, I think the growth of these airlines will be triggered by fleets they have based somewhere else, and that they fly in Zürich and fly out again, and this growth of easyJet last year has been quite sizable, and has this year, been on -- has been held stable in their volumes, but we see also a continued interest of this.

I would say low-cost airlines that fit to the Swiss and Zürich market, as the ones mentioned before. So -- and overall, of course, our strategy is to keep a strong healthy hub carrier here with SWISS, and to grow out their network as a medium-sized hub as a intercontinental carrier with -- focusing also on a certain premium market.

And at the same time, keep the competitive set on the European routes, and there, also have this easyJet, Vueling, Germania and the like growing in a similar way as SWISS grows. And if you look at the figures in half year, first half year of this year, this was very much done in this way, and we expect this to continue in the same way, and this is also our strategy with having a strong home carrier for Intercontinental, and having then a good competitive set on European route.

So also quite special was additional long-distance routes, Lukas was mentioning. So for example, San Francisco, we had previously only SWISS.

Now we have with United, the second carrier on the route, that increased the competitivity. Also Vancouver, with Air Canada, for example; China with 2 Chinese carriers now flying to Zürich, with Edelweiss still increasing its network, inter-continentally with Denver and Seychelles in the first half year, now in the second half year with Buenos Aires and Vietnam.

So very good developments, I think, on the network front -- in our perception and very stable on the current mix we have and that works for Zürich.

Okay. So let me answer your questions regarding the sensitivities of the transfer -- to transfer payment.

Well, obviously, we are not providing yet detailed sensitivities. What I can give you as an idea or an indication is that at the end of 2017, this transfer payment amounted to CHF 13 million.

And by the half year 2018, the number was even slightly lower. The transfer payment amounted to roughly CHF 12 million.

So I think you can do your calculations on that.

Okay. I'll try and see you on Thursday.

Can I come back on the airport charges because I think you indicated in your prepared remarks that under all circumstances, regardless of the outcome of the transfer payment debate, we should be working or assuming a reduction in fees. Are you able to offer any indication of the quantum of that?

Just in terms of a range, obviously, you can't be too precise. I appreciate that.

On retail, you said that, going forward, you would be focusing, I think, your discussions on the performance of airside retail for, I think, better comparability with other airports. What are we meant to think about what that means for the business of the landside?

And when it opens, how will you be presenting the performance of THE CIRCLE because that is effectively landside trading as well. And then a third question on the airside retail.

I think in response to a previous question, you were looking to defend the performance of the Duty Free, in particular, being about flat. But compared to other airports, who have reported recently, you're doing brilliantly.

So I was rather curious, rather than explaining away the weakening mix, I was just curious to understand why you guys are doing so well compared to your peers around Europe?

That's good for a change to have such a comment in an Investor Conference. Thank you, but let's leave the CFO first to answer on the charges question.

Well, for the time being, I think it's taking -- the major drivers for calculating the tariffs, which is basically the cost of capital, the estimated volume growth, but also the CapEx to be spent during a regulated period. I think one can confirm that, obviously, the cost of capital and the strong passenger growth leads to a decrease of the tariffs, which is basically what we expect for the next tariff period.

For the time being, we are not providing more details on that, as I think also, the regulatory framework is under review. So it makes it also hard for us to predict this impact and the percentage number for the tariff for the next tariff period.

For THE CIRCLE, in terms of how we measure the performance, I think we currently are setting up the reporting accordingly. I think the first step, as Stephan has explained, is to make also more visibility on the different dynamics on landside and airside, and CIRCLE, obviously, is closer to the dynamics on landside, which we then will adopt once it comes closer to the opening of THE CIRCLE.

And we will see the report, the landside turnover is on a monthly level, but not showed a turnover per departing passengers with the mix of landside and airside. The, I think, previous report, the fixed revenues, rental revenues on THE CIRCLE, you have also a lot of fixed rental returns, as you do now at Zurich airport.

With regard to your comment on the performance, in general, I think I would say this is mainly due to very strong also macroeconomic conditions and purchase power in Switzerland that probably merits more of this than our performance, but on the latter, at least, I think what we have is now 2 commercial platforms that really work. So also on the landside, retail, we can clearly beat the overall retail trend in Zürich because we have this commuter flow constantly increasing at Zurich Airport.

So we are very comparable to a railway commercial platform for the domestic market. That's the only retail that really grows in Switzerland.

And with THE CIRCLE, I'm also very sure that we can on the one hand, reach new segments, such as cars, or obviously, more rebrand houses more going towards from sales, towards brands presence. Also, this is towards house.

And at the same time, become probably the #1 commercial machine of Switzerland and Zürich, combining the landside, retail and THE CIRCLE. So this make us also as a kind of flagship destination for brands to showcase their heritage.

But this is more, I would say, a 5-, 10-year development. This is not really the opening of THE CIRCLE.

But if you just look at the platforms, how they are positioned and how they are envisaged, I think, everyone and now it's visible. I think everyone would agree that we have a good foundation to also be successful in a new retail reality with online sales quite transforming the industry, and making us changing from pure sales business from pure turnover figures towards brand showcases and marketing revenues at the end.

And I think on that transformation, we are well ahead with our platforms towards the overall industry, so at least, at this kind of merit. But otherwise, mainly, the figures, of course, are triggered by Swiss purchase power and Switzerland doing very well macroeconomically.

Apologies for that. It's the follow-up on the regulatory right?

So assuming that the scenario on the next regulatory period has changed in the possible contribution from the non-aviation business to the aviation business, and assuming that all the rest of the elements are equal, so equal, one, tier 1 OpEx expectation and traffic growth, a hair contribution from an aviation business should imply a higher drop in the aviation tariff. Is that correct?

If I understood your question correctly, your question is if the transfer payment is increasing to a maximum, assumed that this lead to a higher drop in tariff, then yes...

Shift with Hispanic routes, shift with -- all the rest equal, obviously?

Yes.

Yes. So this assume a higher drop in aviation tariff?

Basically, the transfer payment, let's say, if the regulator assumes as for the time being, it's at 5.8% at allowed return, this includes also the transfer payment, and the higher the transfer payment is, the lower is, the, let's say, allowed organic return on the regulated business. So your assumption is correct.

May we please answer also the open question from Vittorio in terms of the cash flow statement I dived into and we -- starting with an EBITDA, excluding all the one-off effects we had in the previous year and in the current year, the delta is about CHF 25 million. And the difference why we end up with the cash flow being met is mainly attributable to an increase in taxes and net -- an increase of the net current assets.

I think your question was also if the provision is non-cash, which is true, if this answers your question, then fine. Otherwise, please reach out to us after the call for going into more details.

So we change to a final round of question in the room here, and we start with Mr. Rechberger.

Microphone?

Landside, rather weak first half year. What's your expectation there?

On retail, I mean, Duty Free -- and so not Duty Free, on retail, yes, and restaurants and so on. Then the Philippines, you mentioned your Clark -- the Clark airport near to Manila, you expect there rather bigger investments?

Or is it more management contract or what are your plans there? Then car parking, an increase of only 2% versus first half of 2017, why is that?

I mean, you had local passengers grew stronger than 2%. And then I would like to have some more regarding THE CIRCLE office space development.

How is the situation there? It seems to be rather tough now, the market in Zürich, but it seems you see quite some interest in your spaces now.

So regarding retail on landside, I wouldn't agree to say it's a bad performance. Retail on landside was also impacted in the first half of 2018 by the mentioned closing of one of the larger restaurant, which has an impact on the numbers.

And compared -- even considering this, compared with the previous, we think that the performance is quite okay. And I think the right way of looking into the performance of both entities, whether we are able to increase also the concession rate, which was true, and in detail also, the revenues out of the sales on landside have been increased, which I think is the right way of measuring the performance from our point of view as the landlord of those centers.

Then on Clark, we are targeting a minority investment, together with a financial partner, and not give you an idea on the equity, as this is something for technical reasons we don't want to be too -- disclose.

Car park revenues under the average growth, I think, is also a clear indication that the growth is mainly triggered by leisure traffic and leisure people don't really take the car to the airport the same way how business passengers would do. So I think this is an indication.

Overall, the profitability of the car parks is very good and strongly performing. We couldn't grow at these figures.

We grow passenger-wise also with the car park for a long time. So we still have the potential there to grow also on the pricing and on the product differentiation with flexible pricing also, but we are quite happy.

But of course, you can't grow in the same way as the passengers do because leisure traffic doesn't pay CHF 200 for a week of holidays for their car at Zurich Airport. With regard to THE CIRCLE and your question on the office market, I think now with the project coming visible, people really understand that, that's not just an office building, but they rent office space in a vibrant platform, with restaurants, with hotels, convention retail formats.

So we can more or less put on the market a product that is probably equally visible on the Zürich market as the prime tower would be. So you have a flagship building, but we see much more diverse interior.

And this is, I think, an attractive proposition that we can differentiate from a pure office building somewhere in Zürich North, and that's what we feel also on the reception in the discussions we have. So the visibility of the building with construction progresses really helps here also, especially also for a lot of -- of course, one problem also was in the initial marketing of the project that we, of course, looked for an anchor tenant taking a very large space.

And with the office market turning and with banks rather reducing, this was difficult to get this anchor tenant 3, 4 years before the project. And now with 1.5 years to go till the opening, of course, all the people that look for smaller space, 1,000 square meters, 2,000 square meters, they now -- for them, now the window opens to look at new office.

And especially for them, it seems to be a very good proposition. So it's probably looking ahead rather not the discussion of having -- I mean, we have all the key anchor tenants in all the buildings and it's probably not so much a question of getting 1 big anchor tenant for 1 building, but it's more the question of getting 10 or 20 tenants having a few thousand square meters.

And that, of course, they have a smaller time frame. And now with the visibility and with the time for the opening, also these discussions can open, and there, we see a very good reception on the market.

More questions in the room? Good.

So we are quite good in time, 1 hour. I haven't achieved this so far, but I think...

We take it as a positive.

Take it, yes, as a solid strong business performance in the first half year. Thank you, all, for attending on the call.

Thank you, all, for coming and at least for the people in the room, we can offer some sandwiches in the back. So I close the session here, and thank you for coming.