Marc Spieker: Yes. Meike, thanks for those questions. Let me start with the last point. So we — not sure whether I got you case wrong. We did not decrease; we further increase actually our risk buffer. And basically we not just didn’t change our guidance. Its six weeks to go. Let’s see where this winter goes. As I said, that’s a sizable buffer. And if nothing happens of extraordinary nature. You should assume that this will feed through to our also net income line in the last year. I think that also gives you the answer to, why is now the remaining four quarters somewhat different if you look at our guidance or our nine-month delivery versus the remaining year. I think your ballpark right, that typically you should assume a contribution of another €200 or €300 million in the fourth quarter.
And what we implicitly guide for now is basically a negative contribution against kind of a normal level of €600 million €700 million. It’s pretty straightforward. We have the €300 million odd buffer, which we simply have included. Again if nothing happens, we will see a different performance in the fourth quarter. And secondly, we were clear in our H1 communication that we take responsibility for our customers and will implement price decreases with wholesale prices coming down. And of course when we then, do these price adjustments we do not only look at a single quarter outcome, but obviously we take a look at our procurement position also already for 2024, as we don’t want to kind of continuously run into price decreases, increases and so on.
And so to a certain degree, you do see a compression in margins specifically in Germany in the fourth quarter which is simply a reflection of price increases. If you take a look at our procurement position for 2024, you come back to what I also then, I said in my speech, there are a sustainable margin level going forward will be significantly higher earlier than we expected back in March. So in that sense in Q4 I would say it comes across a bit technical, but fundamentally sustainably the margins in energy retail look really good. I’m not sure whether I missed out …
Iris Eveleigh: Minorities.
Marc Spieker: …minorities look relatively high as of nine months. They will come down. It’s a bit technical issue of earnings composition across businesses. So we expect that one actually to come down by full year.
Meike Becker: Thank you so much.
Iris Eveleigh: Thank you, Marc.
Marc Spieker: You’re welcome.
Iris Eveleigh: Next question comes from Harry Wyburd, Exane. Harry?
Harry Wyburd: Hi everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. And — so firstly on Customer Solutions and retail, so you talked about bringing forward effectively an improvement in EBITDA there. But is it really only bringing it forward? Because presumably in your plan you had initiatives to improve margins add services and so on structurally over the next few years? So maybe to challenge you a little bit on it, is this really just bringing it forward? Or is the actual long-term area you can get your EBITDA to buy say 2027 actually improved here? And then secondly I just wanted to — a bit more long-term question. I think on past conference calls, you mentioned that the strategic review that you do with full year results you might look at the dividend.
And I guess you just mentioned or highlighted the headroom that you think you’ve got and what S&P said and so on. Are you still thinking about the dividend? Or do you need to do anything on the balance sheet to accommodate higher growth in a high-growth scenario if you do get the returns you want? Should we be thinking about whether you need to trim the dividend or look at funding equity somewhere or make disposals? Or do you feel fully confident you can fund a high growth trajectory without any disposals or energy action [ph]? Thanks.
Marc Spieker: Yes, thank you for the questions. Let me start with the second one. Of course, we always think comprehensively when it comes to our financial framework but we are also crystal clear with regard to one commitment and that is a, to annually grow our dividend per share i.e. every year our dividend per share will grow and yes, we kept the growth outlook at 5%. So it will not grow more than 5% but our investors can rely that this commitment will stay untouched. And otherwise, we are looking at everything and should the economic incentives be right for further CapEx. Of course, that would rather favor than CapEx. If not that will then pose other questions in from us then definitely also responses by margin terms of how we will then allocate capital.
But the answers to that then as I said will come in March. And I can’t not speculate and elaborate more on that as we are still waiting for the final termination also of the regulatory parameters in both Germany and Sweden. On retail for today, you should kind of take what I said that is – that this margin improvement will come earlier. Again I just want to put things in context. At the point in time, where we articulated that ambition in March. We still were in an environment of high volatility, high uncertainty about how would price be continued or not? When would markets actually reopen or not. And so while we were clear about the fundamental opportunity to expand margins in that environment there was a high degree of uncertainty about the timing.
And I think that’s the strong and positive message for today. There we have much more visibility that will come earlier and whether that will give room for more that will come in March for today, the message is it will be earlier. I guess that covers your two questions.
