Harry Wyburd: So 2 as usual for me. So firstly, you mentioned several times that you could further increase CapEx beyond what you put in the guidance today, which obviously begs the question, how much could you increase CapEx buy? And you sort of mentioned you got €5 million to €7 billion of spare balance sheet headroom plus potentially some more on top from disposals. So does the additional CapEx headroom kind of conveniently match that €5 billion to €10 billion? Or could it even be more than that? So that’s the first question. And the second question is on timing effects. I think — and on a very simple level, it seems like what’s happening this year is a repeat of last year. I guess the regulator sets the expected grid losses and redispatch costs in Q4, and then power prices fall significantly in the beginning of the year — this year as well as last year.
So the question is, what have you assumed for basically, I don’t know what the right word is it’s not our performance, but gains that you’ll make on timing effects this year because of the fall in power prices. Have you assumed everything you could get based on today’s low power prices? Or could there be more timing effects that go in your favor throughout 2024 like we had last year?
Marc Spieker: Yes. Welcome, Harry. Thanks for the questions. Let me start with the second one. It’s too early to now talk about what does the current price environment mean. And you can rely upon that. We have built our guidance on prudent assumptions and as we — as the year unfolds, we will update you. But from today’s point of view, everything in our guidance looks robust that we will be able to deliver in the current environment, but also should environment change. That brings into the headroom, the €5 billion to €10 billion headroom should tell you 2 things. First of all, a message of comfort and strength that we have headroom to do more. And it should also send the message of comfort that we really stick to our value creation targets.
What you see with our current midterm plan is that we will pretty much keep our leverage factor constant. And that means the growth trajectory that we write or show you for the next 5 years is pretty much something which we could deliver for many, many decades to come at the same regulatory conditions. But what, of course, we foresee is that there will potentially be more investment opportunities and needs as we roll into — well into the next decade. And for that, we are now running the discussion with the regulator, what needs to be done in order to improve the conditions, in order to incentivize these investments. And so the message of the €5 billion to €10 billion for our investors should be one of comfort and strength.
Harry Wyburd: Just — sorry, just to follow on the CapEx envolop, how much higher could you go on CapEx?
Marc Spieker: Sorry, say that again. I didn’t get the question acoustically.
Harry Wyburd: So the question was, you mentioned there’s more to do on CapEx that you haven’t included in the guidance today. So how much more CapEx could you do relative to the program you just announced?
Marc Spieker: So we put out the €42 billion, and we are very comfortable to be able to deliver that. And then first of all, we will be looking at how will the incentives for further growth look like. And before that, it just doesn’t make any sense to speculate about what is in or what is not in, you can rely upon that we will deliver the €42 billion. I mean that we will continue when we further elaborate whether or not to step this up that we will focus very much on the potential to create value for our shareholders.
Iris Eveleigh: Next question comes from Wanda from UBS.
Wierzbicka Serwinowska: Wanda Serwinowska from UBS. Two questions for me. The first one on the Networks EBITDA guidance. I mean on Slide 8; you mentioned continued debating points on the existing assets. So could you please clarify what exactly was baked into the guidance? And what are the remaining points? And when do you expect basically the decision from the regulator? And also, you more than double the contribution from the operational excellence outperformance. I mean how sustainable it is in the longer term beyond the current regulatory period? The second question is on the dividend. If we assume a 5% annual dividend growth until 2028, the payout ratio will be still well below the regulated peers. We will be looking at 55% based on our guidance.
Fees are at 70%, 75%, and as a result, the dividend yield that you are offering your shareholders, is 100, 150 bps below the regulated piece. So my question is, you improved the earnings guidance, the outlook is much better than we thought is going to be. So why you capped the dividend policy unchanged?
Leonhard Birnbaum: So I’ll take the operational excellence. Actually, if you look at it, we are significantly more increasing our CapEx commitment compared to our OpEx target. So we are increasing year-over-year, the efficiency and we can tracked it also in operational KPIs. So we are confident that we can keep up with the track record that we have shown over the last years. Obviously, this is also partially dependent on the respective regulatory treatment that we are getting. So in that sense, we feel pretty comfortable around the sustainability of operational excellence, which we have included, the outperformance, which we have included. I would say that when it comes to the regulatory, I would not like to speculate now too much into the future.
We know that we have a significant additional investment need, but that will depended on the outcome of the new regulatory consultation, which just — now has just started. For us right now, we have planned for the next 5 years, which we know. And we are not planning beyond that before we have some more clarity about the outcome of what is being discussed right now in the appropriate circles. And on dividend, I’ll give it to you.
