CURRENT MARKET ENVIRONMENT
In general, the European housing market is still
expected to grow. This is supported by a structural
undersupply of housing, demographic growth, and
urbanisation.
The positive trends seen during 2021 have continued
into 2022, further supported by a relatively mild
winter, which allowed for continued high activity
across European construction industries.
However, while the underlying demand remains
strong, the current geopolitical situation has
adversely impacted growth visibility and driven
inflation rates within the construction industry to
exceptionally high levels. A continuation of such
increases in inflation rates may adversely impact
future customer demand.
In Germany, a significant lack of housing space—
especially in the larger cities—from a growing
number of smaller households provides a solid
demand outlook for both AAC and CSU.
Due to a continued lack of installation capacity and
available land, the number of issued permits have
consistently outnumbered completions of new
buildings causing backlogs among house builders to
grow considerably over the recent years.
However, current geopolitical events have caused
increased uncertainties in the German markets for
the remainder of 2022.
The continued high inflationary pressure has led to
the announcement of large sales price increases to
counter the negative impact on earnings margins,
and H+H has recently announced further sales price
increases which will come into effect in late-Q2
2022.
The integration of the Feuchtwangen factory and
preparations for the upgrade of the Wittenborn
factory caused certain production inefficiencies
which led to a relatively higher usage of raw
materials and relatively lower production in Q1
2022.
In the Nordics, economic outlook and expectations
for the construction industry are relatively more
negative due to high inflation and shortage of labour
and materials. However, activity remains high, and
the largest housebuilders are reporting very strong
forward sales for the remainder of 2022.
In both Switzerland and the Benelux countries,
uncertainties from current geopolitical events have
resulted in relatively softer outlook for economic
growth in 2022.
In the United Kingdom (“UK”), leading market
indicators point to a continued strong demand and
price growth, but the sharp rises in energy costs and
general inflation have caused a slow-down in
economic growth compared to previous
expectations.
The continued strong demand has supported the
implementation of significant sales price increases in
the UK market to counter the growing inflation.
As the prices for raw materials and energy continue
to rise, H+H has notified customers of further sales
price increases with effect from May 2022.
In line with the increasing focus on Modern Methods
of Construction, H+H sees growing interest in and
demand for element-based products. The nature of
the demand does however remain project related.
In Poland, demand remains high which has
supported the trend of significant sales price
increases for both AAC and CSU products seen over
the past 12 months.
It is expected that AAC sales prices and volumes will
stabilise in line with market demand over the coming
months due to lower activity among individual
investors.
In the CSU business, further price increases are
expected due to newly negotiated contracts coming
into effect later in the year. In addition, potential
market-driven price upsides may be seen towards
the end of the year.
CSU volumes remain supported by the Company’s
order backlog. Additional capacity was added to the
Polish CSU market during the first quarter, but there
are currently no indications that this will impact on
market pricing.
MOST MATERIAL RISKS AND
UNCERTAINTIES
For most material risk and uncertainties, please refer
to note 6 “Significant accounting estimates and
judgements” and to note 13 “Risks Management”.