Ferroglobe PLC

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to Ferroglobe's fourth quarter and full year 2025 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference call may be recorded. I would now like to turn the call over to Alex Rotterman, Ferroglobe's Vice President of Investor Relations, You may begin.

Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining Ferraglobe's fourth quarter and full year 2025 conference call. Joining me today are Marco Levy, our Chief Executive Officer, and Beatriz Garcia-Cost, our Chief Financial Officer. Before we get started with some prepared remarks, I'm going to read a brief statement. Please turn to slide two at this time. Statements made by management during this conference call that are forward-looking are based on current expectations. Factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from these forward-looking statements can be found on Ferroglobe's most recent SEC filings and the exhibits to those filings, which are available on our website at ferroglobe.com. In addition, this discussion includes references to EBITDA, adjusted EBITDA, adjusted gross debt, adjusted net debt, and adjusted diluted earnings per share among other non-IFRS measures. Reconciliations of those non-IFRS measures may be found in our most recent SEC filings. We'll be participating in the BMO Metals, Mining, and Critical Materials Conference in Hollywood, Florida on February 23rd and 24th. We hope to see you there. With that, I'll turn the call over to Marco.

Thank you, Alex, and thank you all for joining us today. We appreciate your continued interest in Ferroglobe. Well, 2025 presented significant external challenges, including muted demand, tariff uncertainty, delayed trade measures, and elevated levels of predatory imports. It was a year in which Ferroglobe made important strategic progress and substantially strengthened its position for future growth. Most importantly, we achieved significant and impactful trade measures in both the European Union and the United States. In Europe, the European Commission voted to protect the federal oil industry by implementing safeguards, targeting a 25% reduction in imports relative to the baseline of average imports by country and product from 2022 through 2024. During those years, annual imports of ferro-silicon averaged approximately 450,000 tons, and manganese base alloys averaged approximately 900,000 tons. These safeguards create a substantial opportunity for domestic producers. including Ferroglobe to regain market share under a more balanced competitive framework while ensuring security of EU supply chains for critical and strategic materials. We are encouraged by the European Commission's advocacy to support and strengthen the long-term sustainability of local industry. To further enhance the EU manufacturing base and drive economic growth, the Made in Europe pledge was signed by more than 1,000 business leaders. This is similar to the Buy American pledge, encouraging increased use of products with domestic content. In the United States, The International Trade Commission ruled in favor of imposing anti-dumping and countervailing duties on ferro-silicon imports from Brazil, Kazakhstan, and Malaysia, after having ruled similarly against Russia in 2024. These decisions meaningfully improved the long-term outlook for the U.S. ferro-silicon market. To capitalize on improving ferro-silicon economics, we have converted three furnaces from silicone metal to ferro-silicon, one in the US and two in Europe. This highlights the benefits of our diversified global footprint, which enables us to optimize production in response to market dynamics and geopolitical factors. With respect to silicone metal in the US, the case was delayed due to the government shutdown. Prior to the shutdown, the preliminary decision in September indicated strong measures against Angola, Australia, Laos, Norway, and Thailand. The preliminary combined anti-dumping and countervailing duties range from 21% for Norway to 334% for Laos. We now expect the final decision on Angola, Laos, and Thailand later today, with Australia and Norway anticipated in June. Operationally, we executed with discipline and focus. Through proactive cost-control measures, including a hiring freeze and reduced discretionary and capital spending, we successfully navigated through weaker demand and lower pricing while maintaining a solid balance. After the new safeguard announcement on November 18, CRU index prices for ferro-silicon and manganese alloys in Europe jumped approximately 20%. While ferro-silicon has retreated some in recent weeks, it is still up more than 10% since the safeguard announcement. Our outlook for silicon metal remains more measured, due to its exclusion from EU safeguards and continued aggressive imports from China and increasingly from Angola. In the U.S., the silicon market is expected to grow modestly according to CRU. We are actively studying longer-term opportunities associated with our idled operations in Venezuela. This site includes three large ferro-silicon furnaces and a manganese alloy furnace originally designed to produce silicon metal, which can be converted back to silicon metal. In addition, the facility includes a Soderbergh-based plant that could be used to produce electrodes. While it is too early to determine the timing and condition of the infrastructure and operations, the asset base represents a potential opportunity for the future. Given Venezuela's proximity to the U.S. market, this opportunity could become strategically meaningful over time. We also took important steps to enhance our long-term cost structure and operating flexibility, signing a new competitive 10-year French energy agreement effective January 1st, 2026. In addition to competitive energy prices, this agreement provides greater flexibility, enabling us to produce up to 12 months a year in France. Combined with implementation of safeguards, this flexibility meaningfully improves the earnings potential of our federal lawyers' business by allowing higher volumes to leverage our fixed operating costs. Beyond our core operations, we continued to invest in long-term opportunities increasing our total investment in Corshell to $10 million in 2025, reflecting strong technological progress in the development of advanced silicon-rich EV batteries. In addition to ongoing collaboration with automotive OEMs, Corshell is expected to begin initial shipments to defense and robotics customers in the first quarter of this year. Furthermore, We are in the process of finalizing the multi-year supply agreement with Corsair. For those who are new to the Corsair story, silicon-rich anodes offer lower-cost batteries with increased capacity, longer driving range, faster charging, and maybe most importantly, a reduced reliance on graphite, of which more than 90% is produced in China. We believe this technology has the potential to become increasingly strategic over time. Alongside these trade developments and operational enhancements, we continue to execute on shareholder friendly capital allocation. We increased our first quarter 2025 dividend by 8% to 1.4 cents per share. And we are increasing it again by 7% to 1.5 cents per share, starting in the first quarter of 2026. In addition, during the early part of 2025, we selectively executed discretionary share purchases, acquiring 1.3 million shares at an average price of $3.55 per share. Looking forward to 2026, Ferroglobe is well positioned to benefit from the cumulative impact of the trade actions. We expect most of our segments to post considerable growth in 2026, and we anticipate revenues improving to a range of $1.5 to $1.7 billion, an increase of 20% at the midpoint over 2025. This expectation is driven primarily by strong volume growth in the silicon-based and manganese-based alloys segment. The implementation of EU ferroalloy safeguards and the US ferro-silicon anti-dumping and anti-circumvention rulings give us increased confidence in this outlook. Next slide, please. Our shipments increased by 13% to 165,000 tons on the strength of silicon-based and manganese-based alloys, resulting in a 6% increase in quarterly revenue to $329 million. Our adjusted EBITDA declined slightly to $15 million. while our free cash flow was negative $19 million. Beatriz will provide more detailed comments in her section. Next slide, please. I'll update on our segments, starting with silicon metal on slide five. This may sound like a repeat of last quarter, but the situation remains essentially unchanged. The demand is still weak across our regions, and Europe is still plagued by unabated predatory imports from China, which roughly doubled in 2025, as well as by rising imports from Angola up nearly fourfold, driving prices to unsustainable levels. As a critical and strategic material, the European Commission should ensure sufficient EU production to meet basic demand. Overall volumes and revenues declined by approximately 3% due to an 8% decline in U.S. shipments, partially offset by a 5% increase in shipments in the EU. It is important to note that the EU shipments in the fourth quarter were up from a very weak third quarter. We idled our EU silicon metal plants in the fourth quarter to the extremely low unprofitable price. Within the silicon metal segment, the aluminum sector is performing better in relative terms as highlighted by the recent recovery in aluminum prices compared to the weak polysilicon sector. The chemical sector remains weak also due to imported siloxane and silicones from China into Europe and the U.S. The U.S. index prices rose a modest 2% in the fourth quarter over the third quarter. EU prices declined by 7%, primarily due to imports. For the year, European prices are down by a third, while US index is up less than 2%. In the US, we expect the volumes to improve in the second half of 2026, as the anti-dumping and anti-circumvention measures are expected to be finalized in February and June. Next slide, please. The story is quite different in our other product segments. Globally, silicon-based alloys had a very strong fourth quarter. Total volumes increased by 19% to 51,000 tons, with the EU and North America increasing 25% and 14%, respectively. Pricing trends were mixed in the fourth quarter. The EU Ferro-Silicon Index rebounded strongly in the quarter, rising 22% to 1,495 euros from Q3, driven by the implementation of safeguards in November. In the US, the Ferro-Silicon Index retreated by more than 4% during the quarter. For the full year, the European Index gained 12%, the U.S. index is down less than 2% for the year. Overall, we are optimistic that 2026 will be a stronger year for total silicon basal alloy sales for FerroBloc. We have already booked incremental business for 2026 in Europe and in U.S. An additional catalyst for the second half of the year is expected from enhanced EU steel safeguards with a proposal to reduce import quotas by 50% and double tariffs to 50% for exceeding the quota. It is anticipated that domestic EU production will be ramped up as a result. These measures are expected to take place on July 1st, 2026. Next slide, please. Our manganese segment reported another strong quarter with a 16% volume increase to 81,000 tons, up from 70,000 tons in the third quarter. We benefit from a larger customer base as well as safeguards. U sales, which accounts for more than 90% of our manganese volumes grew 18%. Manganese alloy index prices improved substantially in the fourth quarter. with ferromanganese and silicon manganese increasing 16% and 21%, respectively. A combination of solid demand from our European steel customers, whose business is expected to grow by 3% in 2026 in the EU, and safeguards, should propel a robust volume increase in 2026. Accordingly, we are optimistic about the European market opportunity for manganese this year. I would now like to turn the call over to Beatriz Garcia-Cos, our Chief Financial Officer, to review the financial results in more detail. Beatriz?

Thank you, Marco. Please turn to slide 9 for the review of the fourth quarter income statement. Fourth quarter sales grew 6 percent over the prior quarter to $329 million, while raw material costs increased 23 percent, excluding the $40 million impact of PPNAs for all power purchase agreements. Fourth quarter raw materials and energy as a percentage of sales increased from 58 percent to 67 percent, primarily due to temporary idling in France, again, excluding PP&As or purchase price agreements. These PP&As are mark-to-market using fair value. Given the long-term nature of our EDF contract, which accounts for the majority of the PP&A impact, we will continue to strip out PP&A mark-to-market volatility to provide a clearer view of our underlying operational performance. A strong silicon base alloys and manganese base alloys volumes drove the increased sales, with quarter-over-quarter volumes increasing 19% and 16%, respectively. Silicon metal volumes declined by 3%. Volume improvements were partially offset by a 6% decline in average selling price of silicon base alloys and manganese-based alloys, with silicon metal prices essentially flat. Adjusted EBITDA declined 20% from the prior quarter to $15 million versus $18 million. Adjusted EBITDA margin declined to 4%, driven by lower prices and elevated costs as a result of island in France. Next slide, please. Moving to product segment adjusted EBITDA breaches, silicon metal revenue declined 3% sequentially to $96 million in Q4, driven by a 3% decrease in shipment to 33,000 tons. The average selling price was essentially flat at $2,957 per ton. Volumes remained constrained due to soft markets in the U.S. and by Chinese and Angolan dumping of silicon metal in the European Union. Silicon metal adjusted EBITDA declined from $12 million to $1 million in Q4, with margins decreasing to 1%. The margin compression was primarily due to islanding in France, slightly offset by improved costs in North America. Next slide, please. Silicon-based alloys revenue grew 12% to $104 million, driven by a 19% sequential increase in volumes to 51,000 tons, partially offset by a 6% decline in average selling prices to 2,020 per ton. Adjusted EBITDA increased to $60 million in the fourth quarter, from $12 million in the third quarter. Margins expanded by 160 basis points to 15%. The improvement in adjusted EBITDA and margins result from lower costs in Spain, partially offset by early idling in France. Next slide, please. Manganese-based alloys revenue increased 10% to $93 million from $84 million in the prior quarter. Improvement was primarily due to a 16% increase in volumes to 81,000 tons. Fourth quarter, average selling price declined 6% to $1,147, mainly due to a lag versus index prices. Adjusted EBITDA in the fourth quarter doubled to $9 million, while adjusted EBITDA margins increased from 5% to 9%. This margin expansion was primarily driven by improved performance in Norway and higher overall volumes. Next slide, please. Adjusted EBITDA for the full year was $28 million. down from $154 million in 2024, and the adjusted EBITDA margin declined to 2%. The price decline, driven by weak demand and increased imports to Europe, had a significant impact on adjusted EBITDA, accounting for more than 80% or $104 million of the decline. reduced volumes account for another 16% of the EBITDA decline. Cost impact on adjusted EBITDA was negligible, while head office and non-core business detract less than $3 million from adjusted EBITDA. Next slide, please. There are lots of details on this slide, so I will just highlight a few of the most important items. For the full year, we generated $51 million in cash from operations, driven by a $48 million improvement in net working capital. We could sell CapEx by $16 million to $63 million in 2025. For the year, our free cash flow was negative $12 million. During the fourth quarter, we consumed $4 million in operating cash flow. due to weak EBITDA and an increase in networking capital of $8 million. For the year, we reduced our networking capital by $48 million, in line with our target of $50 million. Energy rebate was $7 million for the fourth quarter. As we operate under the new contract in France in 2026, We don't expect energy rebates going forward, which will help align our adjusted EBITDA generation more closely with our cash flow. Fourth quarter capital expenditures total $14 million, representing a $5 million reduction versus the third quarter. Next slide, please. Despite the headwinds in 2025, our balance sheet remains strong. In total, we paid $10.5 million in dividends during the year, and we are again increasing our dividend. Starting in the first quarter of 2036, our quarterly dividend will increase 7% to 1.5 cents per share. It will be paid on March 30th to shareholders of record on March 23rd. While we did not repurchase any shares in the second half, we bought back 1.3 million shares for the first half. Our discretionary share repurchase plan remains in place. Our net debt position increased to 30 million in 2025, and we remain in a solid financial position to support growth in 2036. We reduced our 2025 capex by 20% to $63 million. At this time, I will turn the call back to Marco.

Thank you, Beatriz. Before opening the call to Q&A, I'd like to provide key takeaways from today's presentation on slide 15. 2025 was a year of important progress for Federal Globe. The trade measures secured in Europe and in the United States represent a clear positive shift in our markets, particularly in Federal Loans. Europe's safeguards and U.S. anti-dumping and countervailing duty rulings significantly improve competitive conditions, support pricing, and give us increased confidence in a much stronger market environment in 2026. At the same time, we continue to execute a disciplined, shareholder-friendly capital allocation strategy. Despite the challenging macro backdrop, we increased our dividend during 2025, completed selected share repurchases, and have announced another dividend increase beginning in the first quarter of 2026. These actions underscore our confidence in the business and our focus on delivering consistent shareholder returns. We have also taken important steps to enhance the economics and flexibility of our operations. The new long-term energy agreement in France, combined with our ability to shift production from silicon metal to ferro-silicon, allow us to optimize volumes, better leverage fixed costs, and respond efficiently to changing market conditions across our global footprint. At the same time, we managed through a difficult demand and pricing environment in 2025 with discipline and focus. Proactive cost control, strong execution, and a solid balance sheet allowed us to navigate near-term headwinds while strengthening the foundation for future growth. Overall, we believe Ferroglobe is exceptionally well-positioned for 2026 and beyond With improving market fundamentals, increased confidence driven by trade actions and more flexible, efficient operating platform, we see a clear path to stronger performance and long-term value creation for our shareholders. Operator, we are ready for questions.

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, you will need to press star one, one on your telephone, and wait for your name to be announced. To withdraw your question, please press star one, one again. Please stand by while we compile the Q&A roster. We will take our first question. And the question comes from the line of Martin Englett from Seaport Research Partners. Please go ahead, your line is open.

Hello, good day, everyone. Hi, Martin.

Hi, Martin.

Hey. Wanted to touch on volume expectations across the three businesses for 2026, and then also the plan for the EU silicon assets. I know you provided some detail about the furnaces converting over to ferro-silicon, what remains idle there, and is it to remain idle for the foreseeable future? But any type of goalposts for volumes on silicon metal in 2026, silicon-based alloys and manganese-based alloys would be helpful. Thank you.

Yeah, thank you, Martin. Let me try to address your first question on volumes, and then I move to the assets. Protecting from Europe safeguards basically on ferro-silicon and ferro-silicon kind of products free up 25% of imports that were 450,000 tons in 2025. So 25%, about 100, 110,000 tons of these products are made available for EU 27 producers. For manganese, the imports were around 1 million tons. So when you calculate 25% of it, you end up to 250,000 tons of manganese. available for EU 27 producers. And of course, all this pie has to be shared among the local producers, assuming that safeguards are controlled and put in place in a proper way. When you go to the US, I think that we are at the end of the period where Inventories, mainly of Russian products, but also other products, have been waiting on volumes and also price recovery. So we expect some gains in ferro-silicon. And we see that already from our customer portfolio in US in the first quarter, 2026. On top, talking about trends, steel will improve, is expected to improve in Europe by about 3% across the year, mainly in the second part of the year when the new safeguard measures imposed by the EU will be applied. We refer the reduction of imports of 50%, an increase of tariffs, to 50% for excess of products. Aluminium is expected to grow in Europe by a solid 3% next year. In U.S., aluminum is expected to grow between 8% and 9%, while steel is expected to start recovering. And actually, we have seen asset utilization in U.S. recovering already in quarter four 2025. These are the major indicators for volumes in ferroalloys, both in U.S. and Europe. Going to your second question, yes, we have converted one furnace in Beverly to ferro-silicon already during 2025. We have converted, as of January, two furnaces in Europe, one in Sedona and one in Laudan, from silicon metal to ferro-silicon. And concerning the utilization of the other silicon metal furnaces in US and Canada, we're fully utilized. While in Europe, we are selectively restarting furnaces based on contracted demand. So some furnaces will stay idled in this first quarter, while some others and being restarted to supply contracted volumes already in January. Sorry for my voice.

Thank you. I appreciate all the detail and context there. I wanted to inquire about the component of minimum prices with EU safeguards for do you ultimately expect that domestic prices will gravitate to these levels, or is there a dynamic within the EU footprint where there's sufficient capacity out there and that there isn't necessarily maybe the case that we see parity with the minimum price levels embedded in the safeguards?

Well, the key question is demand, which uh which is not until now has not been great or has been used as both in europe and in us so the key question is how much demand is going to ramp up for the different products there is definitely enough capacity in view to cover the safeguards for all products the If you look at what happened until now in Europe in Ferro-Silicon, prices have jumped up by 22% on Ferro-Silicon immediately after safeguards have been announced. But then due to stocks and traders and others, the price, index price has been going back. And today it's only 10%. higher than previous safeguards announcement. Different trend for manganese. Manganese products have jumped up around 20 percent on average in terms of index price. The price is holding, is not improving, but is holding at this level. This is why I say that demand is critical. And again, I expect a major improvement of steel demand in Europe in the second half of 2026.

Do you know if Ukraine's manganese alloys facilities are still producing and supplying just some into the region overall?

Yes, they are, but at a very small rate for reasons that are related to supply chain, but also conditions of the assets. Of course, I I do not have too many detailed insights about the status of the assets, but considering the number of years of war, the location of the assets, I think that even when this is signed, the favor gets signed, it would take a while before they ramp up to the previous rates.

I understand. Are you able to explain a little bit and provide some context about how the EU carbon credits function? What's covered with your allocated carbon credits for 2026 volumes? and maybe discuss if you have to go back to the carbon credit market for incremental volume output that you may gain from market shares due to safeguards.

So this is a question that requires about one day of explanations, but let me try to be short. First of all, at the moment on CBAN, we are impacted only for high-carbon ferromanganate. not for the other products. And the way that the CBAM works basically looks at the imported products, looked at the content of actually the emissions of CO2 per ton required to produce these products. and they apply to this amount the cost of CO2 in Europe per ton deducting whatever the supplier is paid in his own country for his CO2 emissions. So the overall game is to tax CO2 heavy exporters to Europe to favor European producers who are producing with lower CO2 emissions. Now, all of this would be beautiful, was beautiful, if one there was a proper calculation of the CO2 emissions for every kind of producer in the exporting countries. All of this would be beautiful if, you know, if Europe was not anxious to reduce our CO2 credits. Because trying to implement these measures when you don't have all the data, you end up potentially penalizing more of the European producers than the exporters. So of course the Commission is aware of that. They are doing their best. So still is heavily involved in that. we will see how the situation develops. But again, our impact at the moment is minor due to the fact that sebum is applied on this tricarbon ferromanganese.

Okay. I appreciate all the color and detail and good job on the cost performance given the fundamental volume headwinds. Thank you. Thank you, Martin. Thanks, Martin.

Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press star 1, 1 on your telephone. We will take our next question. The question comes from Nick Giles from B Riley Securities. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

Thanks, operator. Good morning, guys. Hi.

Hi, Nick.

Hi. Hi. My first question was maybe just back to silicon metals exclusion from EU safeguards and just wanted to get your perspective on what the EU's appetite might be to revisit an inclusion of silicon metal in those safeguards. and maybe any background you can provide on kind of what prevented them from being included in the first place. Thanks.

Yeah, well, as you know, we asked for safeguards for silico metal in Europe. The reasons why, the official reasons why Europe did not support us on this request are related to the fact that silicon metal has a much stronger energy footprint, meaning it requires much more energy to be produced versus the other products. The other key element from a WTO perspective is related to the fact that imports did not increase in absolute terms. They only increased in relative terms for the period considered because the imports gain an 85% market share in the U27 territory, but in absolute terms, they did not. These were the main two reasons. The third reason was about our point is related to the force that silicon metal and ferro silicon are interchangeable. which is hard to dispute because we can convert our furnaces from silicon metal and ferro-silicon and vice versa, and our customers still can move from ferro-silicon to silicon metal. So the fact that they called for non interchangeability was quite a surprise due to the time and the number of meetings that we spent to explain our business. The top reason was a strong opposition of the chemical industry to protect silicon metal and the strong opposition of Germany to trade measures. And so there is a combination of, there was a combination of technical, if you want, and political and legal aspects that excluded silicon metal from the safeguards. This situation doesn't make any sense for two reasons. One is that without protecting silicon metal, you basically don't protect ferro-silicon. And because it's quite easy for steel producers to replace ferro-silicon with silicone metal when the price difference is not there. Silicone metal should be much more expensive because of the energy which is required to produce it. So uploading safeguards for ferro-silicon and then not only protecting silicone metal is like shooting in your own foot. and this shouldn't be a surprise for the European community. Going to the first part of your question, yes, we are working on new measures for silicon metal in Europe. Actually, the Commission has asked us to submit our data, so we have submitted them mid-December relative to the last year in Europe. and we are waiting for their reactions to this document. The expectation is that we will go for anti-dumping against the major dampers in Europe. China is number one. And then we are still to see how do we address Angola, which is a sort of subsidiary of China with the same pricing policy. The combined volume of the two countries, if you calculate also Vietnam, which is pure circumvention of silicon metal from China, basically shows that last year, the volume coming from China or China subsidies doubled. And in a market that has been going down, of course, with pure liquidity, they have been determining price based on index. And like I reported in the last quarter, they go to market with prices 25-30 percent below the cash cost of European producers. So it's clear dumping. The case is clear. The difficulty is not the case. It's the fact that, as you know, Europe and the industry in Europe is finally reacting to these situations. And so the Commission table is jammed with cases asking for protection for every kind of product. And this causes some delays. So at the moment, the game is all about early hours, politically pushing to get our case at the top of the pile of cases of the European Commission.

Marco, I... Really appreciate all that background and your perspective on the situation. I guess my follow-up question to that is ultimately, you know, there's plenty of reason for optimism in barosilicon when you look at that segment in a vacuum, but do you think that these dynamics within silicon metal could ultimately weigh on pricing, volume, expectations in Fezzi?

Well, it all depends on, yeah, it all depends on demand and appetite of steelmakers to embark in reformulating with silicon metal, knowing that medium term, it doesn't make sense. to have silicon metal at the price of ferro-silicon in Europe. At this stage, our order portfolio has started going up already in quarter four on ferro-silicon, both in US and in Europe.

Understood. My next question would just be, over the past, couple of years, and especially with the change in the administration in the US, I think, you know, end market exposure has shifted. And then you kind of layer on the conversion of some of your silicon metal capacity to Fezzi, that kind of relates things more towards the steel market. So I was just hoping you could kind of zoom out and provide us a high level breakdown of your ultimate end market exposure. I think about solar as an area that comes to mind that might be less relevant today than it was in the past. So appreciate any color you can provide there.

Well, today when you look at our total business, I would say that the 70, 80% of the business is protected. And only 20% is not, which is basically silico metal in Europe. So the other high level thing is not a surprise that the United States, apart from government shutdown, are pretty favorable to protect critical and strategic minerals. And this is why we are going for anti-dumping, anti-circumvention, and things are going fast. But it's also true that things are changing in Europe. and the speed that we would like. But in terms of political support, I have to assure you that our case is at the top of the agenda of all the states that are involved in federal laws and silicon metal. So Europe has decided to protect industry has decided to protect our industry, like the chemical industry or other industries. The problem is that Europe is not united like the United States. So there is quite an exchange of continuous exchange of responsibilities between the center, the commission, and the single states. The last case was last week when Wunderland basically told the states who were complaining about how slow the EU is in deciding, basically pushing back decisions to the states. And this delicate situation in the EU is causing the EU to be much slower. On the other side, when I talk to politicians in Spain, in Norway, and in France, they are pretty aware of what we need to do. which is a combination of protection, right, energy price for the industry, and make sure that when they think about products, they think about supply chains and not about single products.

Very good. Maybe just one quick one, if I could, for Beatrice. I want to commend you on really managing the cash balance during the trough here. I mean, you still have a pretty healthy net cash position. So can you just touch on anything we should be focused on from a working capital perspective? CapEx was down year on year. Should we kind of expect CapEx to be more flat this year? Anything I might have left out just from a cash flow or capital allocation perspective?

Yeah, thank you. Thank you for the question, Nick. As you have been seen on the deck, so the cash position at the end of the year, we finish the year with a strong cash position. Nevertheless, I have to say that this difficult year, the cash is coming. mainly from the release of the working capital. So we have been releasing at the end 48 millions of working capital and therefore a total positive operating cash flow for the year. Looking into 2026, I think one of the things that we are working and we have already seen the results is the additional release of the working capital, even if the business we are planning to produce more volumes and sell a higher number of tons, that this typically creates consumption of working capital. Because we have this S&OP in place, we plan to continue to release additional working capital. And I refer to the target that we put out there, I think, in 2024, when we said that we want to run the company with a 20% less of working capital, if you remember. Now we are close to the $400 million and we expect to continue to go down into the release of working capital. So that's one angle. On the other side, we are in a net debt position at the end of the year and we expect to improve slightly maybe as well this net debt position as we go through the year and of course supported by the release of the working capital and cost reductions, as Marco has been mentioning.

And then just CapEx, you would expect CapEx to be pretty similar to 2025 levels?

Yeah, so this year we went to $63 million for CapEx. That is already at 20 percent less versus 2024. And in 2036, we expect a similar or slightly lower levels of CapEx, of course. This is, I'm always talking about maintenance capex, price of the company or sustaining capex. Yeah, maybe around the same number.

Got it. Got it. Understood. Well, guys, I appreciate the update as always and continue. Best of luck. Thank you.

Thank you. This concludes today's question and answer session. I'll now hand back for closing remarks.

Thank you, Heidi. We are encouraged by our accomplishments in positioning the company for a more robust market environment and much stronger financial performance in 2026. Thank you again for your participation. We look forward to updating you on the next call in May. Have a great day.

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.