Q.beyond (Xetra:QBY0) Q2 2026 Earnings Call

0:00 Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the h one earnings call 2026 of q.beyond AG. I would like to welcome the company's CEO, Thijs Rixen, and CFO, Nora Walters, who will guide us through the figures in a moment, followed by a q and a session with audio line and chat. And with that, I already hand over to you, mister Ericsson. Yeah. Thank you, Mara. Yeah. Welcome everybody to the q two call.

0:28 As usual, Nora and myself represented. I will start with a short introduction and setting the scene, and Nora will give you more insights in the q two numbers. Yeah. We called it the accelerated AI transformation in q two. So what what's the current status?

0:50 As we are better with AI and the AI progress as planned, but still we are, let's say, suffering a weak demand from from from our from our clients, from the German or European.

1:05 Adjusted EBITDA is is is as previous level. If you count the 1,000,000 or 900,000 transformation cost we invested in transferring our service desk to Romania and puts puts AI technology in it. So we have 2,500,000 EBITDA, 43 revenues, and a net and then net income of breakeven level. For us, it's not it's I would say it's disappointing. So we we plan different numbers and a different performance, and one part is one part is for sure. It's the economy. One part, the other part, it's it's ourself of the company later.

1:53 Good is that we have still a full order book, So we did more more order entry in q two as as last year, roughly 2,000,000 or roughly 10%. But still, we are, let's say, we are impacted by by last year's by last year. We see that we that we gain new orders, but still the signing is is underway. It's quite, I would say it's getting more and more complicated to get the signature under the contract. But we know what what is coming, and we know that we have a funnel of 200,000,000 which we have which we will harvest in q three and q four. And we know you you know that from our business model that we have stronger stronger numbers, especially in q four. And just we will deliver this year also.

2:50 Yeah. As we said in the press statement, the AI, let's say, impact is on the the positive side is better than we planned. It's for the if you look at operations of the managed service business, you see that in the middle of the chart. We automate a lot of workflows, a lot of work, six thousand hours per month. It's still growing, and this is right now, it equals to forty forty full time equivalents, and it will be more and more every month. Therefore, we decided to reduce the workforce this year, which we we will come to that later on.

3:38 This is good. The other thing I just I just said is that we already invested 900,000 in the enlargement of our international tech hub with Romania and also to put our service desk, which we have for our for our clients in Germany. We we transformed to Romania and invested in AI technology to be more efficient there.

4:06 You see that we will have end of the year fifty fifty employees. This this, let's say, measure would save us 1,000,000. We have said that we will save next year with all the transformation we do this year. We will save 7,000,000 in total of personal cost. We will have more efficiency, and Romania will be the, let's say, health care or SAP health care competency center. You have seen that we bought the my the 51% of SAP health care specialist, and then the workbench we will establish for new clients in Romania.

4:55 Having said that, this is a this is a nutshell. 10% in managed service already already gained. We are turning the company more and more an AI first company. So every, let's say, process should be AI driven. We will still be a service provider where the human being is important. But on the other hand, we we have to be more efficient to be more profitable, And this will AI will be of of our AI will be of our will be one of our most or or most important levers for the future. The $1,900,000 we already invested plus the 4 to 5,000,000, which we will invest this year, will lead to the 5 to 6,000,000 investment.

5:49 And this year, 1,000,000 is still in the books, and this will save us for next year 7,000,000 at least in in personal cost, and this will so we will do it once this year and have the 7,000,000 every year for the future. This is our business case we just announced today. Yeah. Putting all that into account, no one's myself, we decided to to adjust the guidance a little bit. So we are now expecting, in revenue, around 180,000,000 and in EBITDA, let's say, as a not including the the 6,000,000 of investment from three to seven.

6:41 This is a once time once time effect, and next year, we are on track as we will be on track as we have been in the last few years. Again, it's it's for us, it's it's a movement we have to take to be better in '27 and '28 onwards. With that, I hand over to you, Laura. Thank you, Thijs, and a warm welcome from my side as well. Before I take you through the details of the quarter, let me start with what matters most. The second quarter confirms our consult to operate model. We are growing in consulting. We are earning significantly better margin than a year ago, and our recurring revenue give us stability to drive this transformation entirely from our own resources.

7:39 Let me show you what that looks like in the numbers. Group revenues came in at €43,000,000 in the second quarter after €44,400,000 a year ago. This decline of around 3% stems entirely from the critically sensitive managed service businesses. I will come back to that in a moment. What really matters is the structure underneath. Our consulting business grew by 5% to €16,000,000. This is precisely the mix shift we are aiming for. The growing part of our business is also the higher margin part.

8:26 Underneath of that sits a solid foundation. 71% of our revenues are recurring. 68% are generated in our five focus sectors. And our sales organization is delivering after its realignment. New orders rose by 12% to €20,600,000, and our sales funnel now exceeds €22,000,000. And this sale success is tangible. In the past three months alone, we won, for example, new customers like doctor Beckmans and Barbara Rosa Becker Reich among others. Two strong names from the German Mittelstand. These wins show that the realignment of our sales organization is working, not a promise, but in the order intake.

9:18 In short, in a market where German SMEs are barely investing, we are growing exactly where we want to grow. Just how bad this mix shift is working is shown in the margin. Gross profit in consulting rose from 2 point c to €4,200,000. It almost doubled. The gross margin jumped from 15 to 26%. With revenues up 5%, that means the leverage comes from working better, not just from working more. Four drivers sit behind this. First, significantly improved team utilization. Second, a rising demand for AI consulting.

10:07 And, sir, the growing demand for s four transitions. A wave with a fixed deadline, and mainstream maintenance for SAP ECC ends in 2027. And at last, high margin one off license revenues. Let me make the AI demand tangible for a moment. When it comes to artificial intelligence, our customers are wrestling with three problems. First, the data must not leave their premises. Second, they need to comply with the AI act. And at last, they struggle to move AI from pilot to stable productions.

10:48 We already have market ready answers to all these three. With our private enterprise AI, we have been offering the sovereign data platform since 2025. Private, local, made in Germany, 100% data sovereignty, including consulting service, training, and GPOS as a service. With AI act as a service, we launched a tool this year. This is unique in the market. Companies obtain a risk classification to the AI deployment, bookable online, usable without any integration, and managed AI workflows. SLA backed workflow automation operated twenty four seven in our German data center are going to market now.

11:39 The next steps in managed services with AI will follow in the next quarters. Our past towards to becoming the a operating partner of the German. Let me be transparent there. The license effect is a one off, but even without it, the margin is well above last year's level. In the structural drivers, AI consulting and s four, we carry as well through twenty twenty six. And from this quarter, GITG adds a further building block, Propriety IP for the succession of SAP ISH in the German market. This affects more than 500 hospitals. Now to managed services.

12:27 This is where the investment reluctance of German SMEs is most visible. Revenues came in at 27 millions after 29,200,000 a year ago. The gross margin before the one off provision stood at 19% after 22%. Three factors weigh on the segment. Subdued new business, price adjustment for existing customers in a sluggish economy, and quite deliberately, our ramping up AI investments. And this is exactly where the turning point lies. The increasing use of AI is already lifting our efficiency measurably by more than 10% in managed services.

13:16 That is not an announcement. This is a measurement. From the third quarter, our new site include Romania takes over AI assisted twenty four seven support. This alone will generate savings of more than €1,000,000 a year from 2027 by boosting output by 25%. And we are not keeping this efficiency to ourselves. We already automated 300 workflows internally with another 1,000 in development as this already said, saving more than €6,000 hours every month. This is precisely this field proven workflows that we will start marketing to third parties in the third quarter.

14:05 What saves us cost today becomes revenue tomorrow. We are not hiding this weakness. We are systematically rebuilding the segment. AI is changing the cost curve of this market, and we have decided to be on the right side of that curve. So what does all of this mean for the income statement? My message upfront. Every deviation in this table has an explanation, and none of them is operational weakness. EBITDA came in at €1,600,000. This includes a provision of 0 point new million euros for the first stage of our AI transformation, the restructuring of our service organization.

14:54 Adjusted for this, EBITDA stood at 2,500,000, close to last year's level. The adjusted margin unchanged at 6%, and adjusted consolidated net income was zero exactly in the prior year. Two lines deserve a closer look. Sales and marketing expenses rose from 2.9 to €3,700,000. This is our deliberate investment in the realignment of our sales organization, and it's already paying off. You can see it in the 12% growth in new orders. In return, we reduced general and administrative expenses from 3.9 to €3,400,000.

15:41 This counter movement shows one thing, We are in control.

15:47 And the overallness of this transformation is simple. One off cost of 5 to €6,000,000 stand against savings of around €7,000,000 from 2027 per year. The payback period is less than one year. 2026 is the year of transformation. 2027 is the year of harvest. And we are funding this transformation entirely from our own resources. Resources. Net liquidity stood at €41,000,000 as of June 30, just 1,000,000 below the year end figure, even though we paid out variable remuneration of 3,900,000 during the quarter.

16:32 Compared with the same date last year, net liquidity actually increased. This corresponds to EUR 1.65 per share with an equity ratio of 70%. The free cash flow of minus €1,600,000 in the quarter is essentially a timing effect, not a structural outflow. In the third quarter, the purchase price for GITG will affect liquidity. That is planned for and fully funded from existing resources. This balanced trench gives us the freedom to do three things in parallel. First, fund the transformation. Second, grow inorganically with GATG.

17:21 And at least at the end of August, once the statutory waiting period has expired and subject to the decisions of the management and the supervisory board, buy back our own shares.

17:35 We are acting from a position of strength. And with that, I hand back to Thijs for the road ahead and our 2028 strategy. Thank you, Laura. So what will remain unchanged is our is our strategy 2028. So we set three things in March. One is the sector focus. So we like to to enter two two industries, health care and energy to drive or to harvest two macro trends. With the g g g acquisition, we did the first, and we will take some time to to integrate it or to to find a find a find a way, and then we will we will target the next target for the sector focus.

18:29 Enabling AI, I think we we we talked a lot about to give you more details, what our plans are.

18:36 And internationalization, we already started our go to market activities in Latvia and Spain and with Romania. It's already the setup is done, and we are hiring people there. So it's it's paid off. Here, you some see some details about GTG. I think we we we already stated this in our press statement. Maybe my summary is the market is there. There's this SAP, and they the the SAP solution will be will be out of the market in '27, latest 2030. That's the number two.

19:22 And the market is with 2,000 hospitals in in the DACH region. It's it's huge. 500 of them have have the SAP solutions. They all need to do something. So this is what we'd like to to tackle. And with this is number three with GTG

19:40 with their own AP IP. We have a foot in the door, and it's like an iceberg. So the revenue per per hospital is one thing. It's the SAP template, the health care SAP template. But the the majority of the business is the normal s four transformation and and cross selling. And cross selling, we will do concerning Microsoft business or security. So for us, it's more, let's say, sales it's more a sales machine than the business by its own. So that's number one. Number two, as you just said, Nora, we have several services live. So this is not q.beyond internally. This is what we offer to the market.

20:29 So we have our we launched our private enterprise AI. We launched the AI, I guess, as a service. We will launch

20:38 already already have launched the managed AI workflows, and then we will launch in q four the orchestration platform for our clients. And there's all what we learn internally will be incorporated for our clients also. And as we said, we expect 10% of the revenue be AI driven in the future. Internationalization, nearshore of the international national quote or nearshore quote is important for us. I think we will be end of this year roughly at 30%. We are gaining for 40% in in '28. So this is well on track. And here you see the the add on. Noah just just said the capital allocation.

21:28 So we promised that we will do it this year, so we will do it this year. We have done all the necessary steps. We have to wait till the August 17. There's this waiting period, then it ends, then we will take the decisions as management and support. Let's say it's already decided, and then we will start the buyback the week after.

21:54 That's it, and we can buy 2,500,000,000 q.beyond shares back, which is our which is our goal. In summary, it's these three elements. Organic growth, yes, we have to do more. No. We have to do more. Pipeline is there. Our funnel is there. M and a, let's say, is working. We're very glad that the acquisition is done. We will find also a suitable next target for energy when the time is coming, And the AI operating partner is underway to build it and to to really we see that we have trust in the market and trust from our clients, and we will we will have more of them in the near future.

22:41 With that, I would say we're happy to take your questions, and thank you for your time.

22:48 Yes. Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, now it's your turn. We're opening up the q and a session. If you would like to ask your questions via audio line, please click on the raise hand button below. And if you are dialing in by phone, please press star key 9 to raise your hand and star key 6 to unmute yourself. Additionally, you are also welcome to place your questions into our chat box, and I will read them out loud for you. We have received a risen hand by mister Nielsen. Mister Nielsen, I just sent you an invite to unmute yourself. Thank you. Hear me now? Yes, hello. Hi. Thanks. Hi.

23:35 I mean, looking at your numbers, I mean, consulting in that part, there's really no signs of a weak market. I mean, the numbers are strong at least. But in Managed Services, it's quite the opposite. However, one would expect managed services to be more stable in a soft market and consulting perhaps to take a bigger hit. Now it's the opposite. Could you help us understand the reasons behind? Yeah. There's two things. One, we worked for the last two years of consulting. We worked, let's say, last two years heavily to get the structure right and also the resources we needed. So the the profit the profit gains are because of better let's it's a better it's a better mixture.

24:26 We we worked on the last two years. This is one part for consulting. The other one is SAP. So the transformation, I would say, it's more or less independent from the market. And if they have a good position there, and it will be even better with health care as though we we are gaining gaining from that. So we did let's say, we did the adjustments for consulting. We did during the last two years. This is now paying off. This is one. And for managed service to be quite open, there are two things. One thing is that the on the sales side, it's taking longer as a specter, and there is some there is some reluctance to to take bold decisions on the customer side. On the other side, we underestimated, at least for the budget this year, that the churn and the impact of the churn for this year, the customer churn. There's all this churn each year. We know that.

25:26 But normal normally, we are able to overcompensate it. And and therefore, this has an impact on the managed service side. So it's customer reluctance plus some plus some things which develops in different ways as we plan. That's clear. Thank you. And regarding the gross margin in consulting, it was very strong in this quarter. You mentioned some one offs license revenue. I mean, you give some kind of quantification of how large that impact was? I don't know. Do you have the details? A lower million revenue.

26:12 So which equals more or less also profit?

26:15 Yes. Yeah. Okay. Profit and revenue. Great. And lastly, my side, I assume that GITG is included in the new guidance. So the underlying cut is slightly higher. Is that how I should read the numbers here? Yeah. It's included. It's included. It has an has an impact, but we can only consolidate five five months right now. So there'll be a couple of millions of revenue and not even a million or not even a million in in profit. So it's included. It has an impact, but the impact is is small. Great.

26:59 That's all for me. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you so much for your questions. We have another risen hand by mister Zenewald. I just sent you an invite to unmute yourself. Yes. Thank you very much. I hope you can hear me. Hello, Nora. Hello. Yeah. Hi. Follow-up on managed services regarding the price adjustments in the existing base. Are you large largely done with them now, or do you have still some renewals coming up there?

27:34 It's yeah. The renewals, there's always some renewals every year. So the the May the major ones are done. So we did Rulish, the largest customer last year, and we did q. This year, so Freshnave is our third biggest customer. It's end of this year, but but we are in in we are in negotiations so level nothing nothing really happened happened there. There are smaller ones, but this is, I would say, in under control in a in a good way. So this is always the case, and the pressure will be there. It was always there as a price pressure. This is a normal this is a normal way of of doing business.

28:22 What is unnormal for us, as I said, is that we are not have not been able to overcompensate the effects. And, therefore, we we we are now quite sure that that the funnel is big enough and that we that we have enough enough chances, and we have the deals are there. So we have always two phases. There's a yes from the customer, and then it's a yes. Then it's a signal signature, like, under the contract. So we have several yes already in the books, and we are working out the last details. And then the next thing is that we are as we said, we will adapt the the related cost to the managed service business, and then the profit will be different than this year.

29:11 So you expect it to turn starting next year? Yes. No. As we said. So we will we do the do the measures now, get the hit now. It was not an easy decision, but it's it's better to have it now, and then be be be prepared next year and the year after. Alright. I don't know if you said it, but on consulting, you mentioned those one off high margin revenues. Can you size those? Just I already said, a lower million sum. Okay. Okay. So alright. And what what do you what what would you call What is important what is important for the SAP lie this is SAP licenses we sell. So the transformation will last at least for the next two to three years.

30:02 So we expect, and we have find now the right answers to the market. We expect this this will not be only this year. So we we see it for at least two years that we can have this kind of mixture as we have it as we have this year because the the the clients the the clients are waiting what SAP is doing, and the last chance they have is twenty thirteen now, so in four years. And there will be the majority of the transformation projects, and we build one of the partners doing them for the German Mittelstand. Yeah. Okay. I mean, looking at the 26 now, that's that's, of course, they're not the base level. What would you regard to current base level of the consulting margin gross margin?

30:51 Yeah. At least at least above 20%. So there, we will stabilize it. So '21, 22, 23 with this area. So broad bottom margin. Yeah. Yeah, of course. Then on process automation, you mentioned in the report that you and you mentioned also in the presentation that you write an automated processes to the tune of equivalent to what forty FTE can do, and you wanna improve that even further, you mentioned, how many people you plan to let go? How how how how much percent of workforce? The current and with the current measurement, we said 70. Yeah? Yeah. Seventy seventy. Seventy seventy seven zero two eight zero.

31:36 Yeah. This is a mixture of, let's say, layoffs, and then we will have some we left we always have some information, which we not where we will not hire new ones. We have the the retirement retirement waves going on in Germany for the baby boomers. So not only this year, next year, year after. So this is a basket of of of several measures. In total, it will be 70 to 80 headcounts this year. This mean additionally, this means 10% of the German employees. 1010%. And that's probably the the 4 to 5,000,000 additional one offs cost you plan for second half. Right? Yes.

32:24 Alright. Okay. Last one on the you know, just your your guidance for this year. Looking into your midterm guidance, those 250,000,000 sales target you have, that's roughly, yeah, $7,580,000,000 you gotta add inside two years. Can you can you give me the the building blocks of of this? Yeah. Yeah. This is m and a. This is also also the building blocks are organic growth. Organic growth, we now we can put a question mark on it. So we expect it as we put out the strategy that the that at least the terminal the German and mid mid market will recover will will recover sooner.

33:11 So this is building block number one. Building block number two is inorganic growth, so acquisitions. And the third one is AI new AI business. So I'm quite I'm quite quite sure that we will have to that the the plans for for number two, and organic growth will work. And also for AI, I would put a little question mark on number one, the organic growth. So a bit rough on the numbers here. Like like, saying those 75,000,002 starting from FY '26, How much of that is you just said organic growth. You can't be too sure about that. So let's see. And how much of this is how much further m and a you wanna add or m and a Ask me ask me next year again, please. Yeah.

34:02 But you have you have the material guidance out out now. Right? So what what's your feeling here? Ask me, please, next year again. Alright. Alright. Fair enough. Alright, Keith. Nora, thanks for answering my questions. I will move back to to the queue. Thank you. We have another raised hand by mister Price. You may unmute yourself now. I just sent you an invite. Hello. Thank thanks for taking the questions. I have a few, if I may. And to start with, I would like to express my congratulations, and I don't want to seem arrogant by any way. The linguistic improvements you've made, Nora, since the last poll are really day and night. It's a pleasure to hear that because facts matter, of course, but communication is what is understood. So thank you very much for doing that.

34:57 So to the questions. Firstly, very simple one. Are you employing a mix of AI models? So is that basically something like Claude, or can you give give us any specifics on what you are using practically? And, the second one, regarding the share buyback, maybe I'll ask that, after the first quick answer. Yeah. So we are employing several ones on a limit we are employing several models. It's for the, let's say, office workers. They use Copilot for Microsoft. So to to to to organize of the the work, let's say, for the process automation, we use our own model, let's say, open source models, which we operate on our own.

35:51 So open source models. And then for some special things, we are we are working with and traffic was cloud mainly. So we have we have three models. One is from the office workers. It's Microsoft. And for the main part, we use open source models, which we train by ourselves, and we are hosting it by ourselves. And the third one is in traffic cloud. So data security and data privacy are are your main focus? Yeah. Sure. And this, we will while we are doing it, one thing is to to be secure and compliant. The other one is token con cost control. So so this, we like to and the third one is we'd like to build a portfolio for ourselves as you can offer also to to our clients and this on a European scale. As we said, we will roll out all what we did what we what we develop here in Germany. We will roll out all the AI services we roll out to to Latvia and Spain.

36:59 And, basically, you offer Copilot as it is and customize everything else? Yes. Yep. Good. So what is the advantage for a customer then to order Copilot via q.beyond and also directly with No. Okay. No. It's for ourselves. No? So ourselves, we we we will we will not offer co pilot for the market. So what we offer for to the market, we develop ourselves, and this is based on open source. The the Copilot, it's more an intertactical. We will will offer what what everyone can offer because it's it's it's a Microsoft product. It's more it's more enabling workshops, train the people, and all the other stuff.

37:44 So normal consultancy business for Copilot. Thanks. A quick follow-up on on that easy topic still, which just cropped up into my mind. In the last call, you said you'd expect it to enhance the usage level of your data center in Hamburg because of that trend to to be a bit more independent from US companies. Did you make any progress on that front? Yeah. We we sold we sold, let's say, 20% of it. So we sold 20%. We expect to sell more during the year. So there is some progress not as we like it to be, but step by step.

38:33 But when do you expect it to to be fully rented out? Let's see. The plans of the pipeline is the pipeline allow with the pipeline, we have a chance to sell it to sell the 100% of the free capacity till the end of the year. But let's see if the deals are are coming or not. That's good to hear. Thanks a lot. So now to to the more imminent and more prominent topic, the buyback. First question regarding that is my understanding is that you were blocked, including the seventeenth of this month, from really buying shares. But it it wouldn't be my understanding that you would be blocked from taking the decisions already now or earlier than the seventeenth, be that on c level or be that in the supervisory board. You just may not do it before that waiting period is over.

39:32 Right? No. Unfortunately not. We have to wait until this waiting period is closed on August 17 so the decision can be made at the end of August. But can we understand that to be a formal timeline then? Yeah. That's formal. That's all the formal stuff. So on Noah's side. So there could be an. I don't know I don't know what it is in English. So we have to wait, but the as I said, the the management decision is already if we took already the management decision, and we aligned with the supervisory board. We just have to wait. And there are some formal some formal things we have to cover, and we will cover them and then start, let's say, end of the month.

40:22 Good to hear. And second important topic is you imposed yourself regulations also for a tender, which are similar to the safe harbor provisions, not being able to pay more than 10% premium. I understood during your presentation now that it's your clear and present intention not only to make a bid for those 2,500,000 shares, but to really get them. And I also understood that you already checked that legally that you can do both, buy at the market and do a tender. Is that right? What we like to do is a tender.

41:11 Well, what we like to do is the tender. I'm not sure if we can do both. So what we like to do is a tender. And, yes, the the assumption is right that we want to get them the 2,500,000 shares we want to get them, this is also right. So let's see where we end up. Yeah. Well, I mean, not not few people have been buying in at current levels. So if you really want to get the shares, the the price would have to be satisfactory for even for somebody who has entered on a pricier level than today. So, my personal understanding would be it is imperative to be able to make an offer that is acceptable.

41:59 Yeah? And, 10% from from these levels, from, like, $3.30, yeah, would would still be a pretty suppressed level historically. So a route that you could consider is buying just normally on an etcetera or blocks or whatever to to have a level that with an upside of 10% from that point is an acceptable level so you really get the shares because otherwise, you only bid for them. That's true. So you are considering that route? I will not go to into too much detail, but as I said, we are we are aiming for the 2,500,000.

42:45 And for us, it's clear that we have to do the necessary steps to get that. Okay. And the the price for the the recent takeover wasn't made public, as I understood, until now. But can you at least give us a rough ballpark figure or even maybe a ballpark figure where you will end up in net cash after the takeover has been paid and after assuming you really get those 2.5 shares where we will end? Will we end it like I mean, right now, we're spending at like 60% of the market cap in cash. So do you have any range or or broad rough ballpark figure estimate?

43:34 Will we then, after both is paid, stand at, 15 or 20 or 10 or 30? Or can you say any rough thing about that? So starting with the multiple of the EBITDA multiple, it's I will say it's a market multiple. When you say you pay for consulting business with own IP, you could pay between eight and twelve. Eight and twelve, then it's more the middle of it for the concerning the EBITDA multiple and the cash position, I would say, would be a would be would be above 30,000,000 after the after the buyback? More or less. No. Yeah. Roughly. Oh, that's glad to hear that. Thanks a lot for everything.

44:24 You, Mr. Price, for your questions. We have one more risen hand by Mr. Kinderman. You may unmute yourself now. I just sent you an invitation. Yes. Hello. Thank you for the presentation. You just mentioned the cost control regarding the choice of models. And I want to ask, as to scale internal AI usage and have already automated the 300 processes, I would expect the usage cost to, like, partly offset the savings on the personnel side. Is this a correct assumption, and is this figure already included in your expected savings of 7,000,000? Yeah. It's included, and it's much, much, much less. The main reason is we are using open source models, which we train by ourselves, and we're much in control of the total cost.

45:15 When I get your question right. So so the 7,000,000 of of savings for next year including is has already the the total cost are already included. Okay. So just that because it's the open source model, you just have the data center cost which you Yeah. On yourself. Yes. K. And then maybe on the timing of the layoffs and the additional one off costs, are these more in the third or in the fourth quarter? In most quarters. It depends on the speed Speed. We get this, and most of them in third quarter, but the rest in the fourth. Okay. Well, thank you. That's it already from my side.

46:01 Thank you so much, Mr. Kinnemann, for your questions. We have one more question in our chat box by Mr. Sheffers. He's asking, will the current earnings trend affect the planned share buybacks program? I understand that the transformation program needs to be funded, but your liquidity seems still to be sufficient for a share repurchase. Yeah. It will not have an impact. So we will move on as planned. We we are aiming to buy the the full 10% we allow to buy back. We will buy we will buy, and and there will be no impact on the share buyback program by the current measures. Alright. Thank you very much.

46:47 We have not received any other risen hands or questions in our chat box as far as I can see right now. So I would say with no further questions, we will come to the end of today's earnings call. Thank you very much for your interest in q.beyond AG, and a big thank you also to you, Mr. Riksen and Mrs. Walters, for your presentation and the time you took to answer all the questions. Should you have any further questions at a later time, please feel free to contact investor relations. I wish you all a successful day. Thank you, and bye bye. Thank you. Bye. Bye bye.