Amrize Ltd Ordinary Shares

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to our Q3 Trading Update. It's a pleasure to reconnect with all of you today. For those of you who do not know me, I am Bénédicte Maier from the Investor Relations Team, and I am here with our Chairman and CEO, Jan Janisch, and with our CFO, Stephen Kindler. As usual, Jan and Stefan will share their perspective and discuss the company's performance over the last nine months. And after that, we will open the floor for your questions. If you are joining us by phone, you can ask your question by pressing star one four on your device. If you wish to withdraw from the queue, please simply press star one five. Additionally, if you are joining us via webcast today, you can also ask your question. Please check the instructions which are available under the Q&A link on the web page. With this, we are all set. And with no further ado, I will now hand it over to you, Jan. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Benedikt. And good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining our trading update on our Q3 results. Very satisfied with the results. We have achieved a record in EBIT in the Q3. Very happy about it. We had some softer markets in Q3. We had also significant Forex headwind. In Q3 alone, our EBIT was negatively influenced by 10%. And nevertheless, we made an all-time high in real Swiss franc of 1.6 billion. Very happy about it. It all comes down to the new strong earning profile of Holcim, which is based on many drivers from our fast expansion in North America with superior margins to the build-up of our four-segment solutions and products, most prominently with roofing systems where we have solutions Huge success and also very significant margins in that business. And then I would say all the way down to our sustainable product range with EcoPact, EcoPlant and our newest family member, EcoCycle, which helps us to go into value selling and provide sustainable building solutions our customers are asking for. Let me go into some details before Stefan will give us more details on the financial results. I talked about this, the EBIT margin in Swiss francs. We were able to increase it absolute year on year. And I'm very happy about that. And this is based on our strategy, on our strong earnings profile and will not stop growing. this year, but we will continue in the future with very strong margins. This also, our confidence is displayed in the upgrade of our guidance for the year, where we now upgrade from above 16% to above 17%, an industry-leading EBIT margin. We are very happy to do this upgrade. Our M&A is running. This is another driver for our strong earnings profile. We did 21 value accretive acquisitions, which is a clear directed strategy. On the left side, you see the buildup of solutions and products. You know, we started to build up in the US our advanced roofing systems. Now you see we also go into Latin America and we go into Europe with roofing acquisitions and also acquisitions for mortars, for facades and flooring adhesives. On the right side, our very value accretive Boldon Acquisitions, where we usually buy family owned businesses in specific market locations. And also here you see our focused approach with acquisitions in North America, in Europe and also in Australia, where we were able to acquire a very successful admixture company. When we just had the roofing day last month, I was very proud that our teams in this new segment for Holcim, we just started in 2021. So basically, we started two and a half years ago, and we are now able to have the ambition to become the leading roofing system company in the world with more than $6 billion of turnover and an overproportional increase in EBIT of more than $1.3 billion. We have on the decarbonization side, we go at fast speed. One of the KPIs we are measuring is the CO2 per net sales. You see the significant reduction in the past three years with the shift of our portfolio, but also the strong decarbonization of our processes and our solutions. We were able to more than 40% decrease this footprint. And in the first nine months of this year alone, we decreased by 20%. This shows that we are walking the talk and very happy here on this way to decarbonize. We have some more success stories for decarbonization. Very important for me is to translate the decarbonization in building solutions. So just three years ago, we launched our sustainable product ranges, EcoPact for concrete, EcoPlanet for cement, and they became billion, billion Swiss franc brands just within three years' time. EcoPact is 19% already of ready-mix sales. EcoPlanet also 90% of cement net sales. So very successful, also very important for our margins going forward. The newest branding initiative we are having is EcoCycle. EcoCycle stands for all the circular construction we are doing. You remember last year already we were the leading recycler of construction demolition waste with more than 7 million tons recycled. And we continue here with speed. We have 17% increase in recycled waste. construction demolition materials in the first nine months of the year. So very successful and we expect those run rates to continue in the double digit range. We want to be making circular construction a reality in all the metropolitan areas Holcim is active. Lastly, I'd like to share with you our progress in carbon capture utilization and storage. You know we do all the steps to work with alternative raw materials, to go fully for alternative fuels, to find new minerals, to mix with the cement and the concrete, like construction demolition materials. And for the last step in decarbonization, we make big progress for carbon capture utilization. usage and storage. And we have just received already a six grant from the European Union Innovation Fund in one of our factories in Greece. And this brings our total now to six grants For carbon capture utilization projects, I'm very happy to see that shows that our teams are spot on. They have projects, which are smart and which are realistic and have ambitious timelines. And you see here, the 1st project will be already with the start of production 2027 and. We have already six projects fully committed and fully approved by the European Union as part of the Green Deal, as part of decarbonizing Europe. So very happy with this. It's going to be a huge part for us in the future and also with significant return on investment. I think this was the last slide I wanted to share with you on the recent developments. And now I'm happy to hand over to Stefan, our CFO.

Thank you very much, Jan. Good morning, everybody. I'm glad to be here and give some more insights into our financials. Let's start with net sales. We had organic net sales growth of 6.2% for the nine months. Take you from left to right in this chart. First, the acquisitions and divestments. You know that by now this is mainly the divestment of India and Brazil. This is mainly on the acquisition, on the divestment side, on the acquisition side. It's mainly Euro last, but then also the bolt-ons that we do and some smaller divestments and acquisitions, leading to the 6.2% organic. The foreign exchange is quite significant with 7%. This is a mix of emerging market currencies like Argentina, Egypt, Nigeria, but also developed market currencies like the US dollar, the Canadian dollar, the euro. and so on and so on. That FX impact has actually increased in the last quarter versus the year to date. If we then move on to the same bridge for EBIT again, left to right, acquisitions, divestments, the same topics that I told you on net sales, the organic growth with almost 14%, almost 500 million Swiss francs of increase of organic EBIT margin. And the FX here, again, very significant. And again, in the last quarter, increasing. But we should also mention that Q3 had a positive EBIT already, despite scope, despite FX, and despite some softening in some markets. So this is a very good news. And lastly, what I wanted to highlight here is the 17.9% EBIT margin, which is the highest we ever had and which is obviously giving us confidence for the increased guidance that Jan just mentioned. Region by region, you see here in the overview, you see that every region contributes. Every region had very good sales growth. Almost all regions had also over-proportional EBIT growth. And I'll take you one by one now very quickly through those regions. Starting with North America, we have organic net sales growth of almost 13% and organic EBIT growth of almost 20%. We have record net sales and recurring EBIT leading to a margin of 22%. And we expect this good performance to continue in Q4. Latin America, similarly, net sales growth of over 22% and recurring EBIT growth of almost 17%. It's the 13th consecutive quarter of profitable organic growth. And also here, we expect the good performance to continue into Q4. Europe, strong increase in profitability. As you can see, net sales of 9%, recurring EBIT of 28%. We have a record recurring EBIT with strong margin expansion in Europe and we're accelerating the progress in decarbonization. Asia, Middle East and Africa, net sales of almost 9% and recurring EBIT of 16% broad-based across our key markets in the region. You know, it's a large region, but the growth and the EBIT improvement is really broad-based and we expect these strong trends to continue also into Q4. And that brings me lastly to solutions and products where we have a healthy underlying market demand in the US and Europe. We have positive price over cost. Our margin improved in the third quarter led by roofing. And we expect a strong growth in roofing in Q4. And a bit of a reminder to what we told you in the half-year mark, we explained that Q2 and Q3 of last year had the stocking effect. You see the bars here. And then you see the destocking effect in Q4 and Q1. What you also see is that our sales level in absolute is normalizing. And also in Q3, we had good sales at the end of the destocking. And now in Q4, we'll also have the positive comparables to show positive growth numbers. With that update, I would like to give back to Jan for the outlook.

Yeah, thank you, Stefan. So we are confident to close 2023 with a strong result. We will continue fulfill the guidances we gave until now for profitable growth, for cash flow, and we will have a significant reduction of CO2. And then we have upgraded the guidance on the EBIT margin from above 16% to above 17%. I think with this, I give back to Benedikt for Q&A.

Thank you, Jan. Thank you, Stefan. With this, we can open up the line for questions. Before proceeding, I would like to remind you that if you are joining by phone and would like to ask a question, please press star one four on your device. And if you would like to withdraw from the queue, simply press star one five. And if you are joining via the webcast, you can also check all the instructions available on the web page. And we will now take the first questions from the line of Elodie Roll from JP Morgan. Good morning, Elodie.

Good morning, everyone. Yes, can you hear me?

Yes, please go ahead.

Hello? Yeah, okay. Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. First of all, could we have a little bit of color between volume and price development? this quarter and over the last nine months at group level at least and maybe by the main region that would be very helpful. And second, a question on price. Did you start announcing or negotiating price increases in Europe or in the U.S. for next year in cement and roofing? Thanks very much.

Hi, Elodie. Good morning. Yeah, look, first of all, I just like to remind everyone that volumes for us is not the KPI anymore. We go into value selling. We are selling systems for buildings. So volume for us is not a KPI anymore. We go into sustainable solutions for the traditional products, which also is not volume focused anymore. But, of course, I answer your question. So we have in the Americas, I would say we have a positive situation. We started the year strong with positive volumes. Then I think the interest rates are a big burden for the moment on the residential housing in the U.S. You all have read with the 30-year mortgage going to 8%. That's a very high number, which I think wasn't reached in the last 20 years or so that – brought residential movements or new build to a stop for now. That has for us a little bit of an impact now. But nevertheless, in the U.S., we expect growing volumes again next year. We are very focused on the infrastructure and those projects will come into place. And then at some point, we will have less stress on the residential housing market. So nevertheless, our volumes in traditional products is flat in the U.S. for this year. While we were able, obviously, to have a lot of value pricing in place in the Americas, a similar situation here. We have very strong market demand in Mexico. Our biggest market is a lot of infrastructure, a lot of on shoring ongoing for the US market or the factories. white goods, electronics, automotive. So we have significant volume growth in Mexico. And then other markets like Ecuador, they were a little bit negative this year due to presidential elections. So in America, overall, we have a flat volume for this year now, but we expect growth for next year. In Europe, the situation is a bit different. We have a declining market for traditional volume products since May last year. I would say around five to six percent. And this continues until today. So we're going to see and we don't expect these volumes to recover. I mean, you're all reading, you know, we have markets like Germany, but also France. They are impacted by the war in the Ukraine, high energy costs. They are also impacted by high interest rates. We believe the long-term trends are very positive. We need more building. We need more housing. We need better infrastructure, and we have to make everything sustainable, so insulated and energy efficient. So the long-term trend is good for Europe, but we're going to see, I think, also next year, rather softer volumes. Not in the case of... In sales for Holcim, you have seen we had a record year in Europe this year despite lower volumes. And this is, I think, my important message. We are about value. We are not about volumes. And you see that in our numbers. That's the volumes in Europe. We have then big markets, not for us so much, but everyone talks about China. Here volumes are softer. You all read about the real estate critical situation there. And the market is this year also softer there, maybe minus 5% in volumes. And we have to wait now how the government is handling this. Real estate has always been the driving engine for the domestic China development, and I expect that we're probably going to see a bit of stimulus maybe for the next year.

All right. We will take the next question from the line of Cedar Egblon from Morgan Stanley. Good morning, Cedar.

Good morning. Thanks very much for taking the question. It's another solid quarter of profitability from the business, and yet the market seems quite unwilling to re-rate Holcim's equity. So I wanted to ask, how do you think about the different routes to a re-raising here? You're generating a lot of cash flow. There's obviously an opportunity to buy back stock. But there is also the potential to talk about crystallizing some of the value in your roofing portfolio, which, if you deliver your midterm target, will make it probably one of the largest, if not the largest, roofing platform in the U.S. So just talk to us a little bit about how you're thinking about the levers to drive this re-raising aside from good results, which seem to not be rewarded by the market at the moment. Thank you.

Good morning, Sida. Thank you for your positive remarks. We like the development of Holcim and we have developed the company significantly forward. When you look at our earnings profile now, where we entered into roofing systems, where we became already one of the big players globally are with significant contributions on our results when you look at our fast expansion in north america where this is already 40 percent of halts him today and then all our value accretive both on acquisitions which we also have our value accretive from year one. So I think we do a good job in strategy and especially in execution. And the field I like personally the best is our sustainability. And this went from being a challenge or something like that into a big opportunity. And you see now how fast we are running to decarbonize Holcim. But also to offer more sustainable solutions for the markets and the customers. I'm really satisfied with the speed. So now you ask me about what can we do different in capital allocation or maybe bolder strategic moves. That's a... you know, a big field for discussions. I think capital allocation, we are very positive. We had a very, I would say, successful share buyback of 2 billion Swiss francs lately, where we reduced our share count by 6%. I like this program very much. We told you before that we're going to wait now this year to see how is the balance of our free cash flow versus the acquisitions. And then we probably take another decision on the capital allocation. And this, you know, you have to give us some time to do that. Obviously, the cash flow is coming, right? We are well on track here to achieve the $3 billion. And if this is the case, I think we have a very solid balance sheet and can decide maybe what if we need to do a different capital allocation for next year.

Okay, thank you.

All right, let's move on with the next question, which is coming from the line of Arnaud Lehmann from Bank of America.

Thank you very much. Good morning, everybody. I have two questions, please. Firstly, on Ecopact and Ecoplanet, you said 19% of the amount of redeeming cells, which is quite an impressive number, I must say. Could you give us an indication by region? I'm assuming that it's more than 19% in Europe already. And do you disclose, let's say, a target for where you think the 19% could be in the coming years? That's my first question. And secondly, on U.S. roofing, you give a more positive message for Q4 with the end of this talking. The base effect is easier. On the other hand, have you seen any signs of delays in some commercial projects in the U.S. I think some of your competitors were highlighting that some of the more kind of traditional office, retail, warehousing projects were a bit delayed. And beyond the disk talking, there could be a negative effect there. Thank you.

Yes, I know. Oh, thank you. And great questions. I started with the second question. So roofing, that was a unique situation for us that you have this stocking effect in the first place where even contractors in the time where products were hard to get were building up their own inventory and then we saw the correction. We provided an interesting slide, I think, in the presentation where you can see that Q3 was really the last quarter with an above average comparison period. And we should see in Q4 now, I'm expecting strong results from our roofing business. We don't see delays. We see our customers, the roofers, they are busy. They have projects. So then we see, especially in the re-roofing, also due to all these severe weather effects you have in the U.S., we see a lot of re-roofing going on. So we are very positive for Q4 and believe we're going to have a significant growth in that quarter. And the margins are already at a good level. And then we want to grow now significantly above last year. for ecopact i'm happy to share with you i really think this is a great story we just introduced that brand three years ago with the simple promise that it's at least a 30 co2 reduction compared to a traditional product you are right we have a good progress in europe so we have markets like Of course, Germany, France, Switzerland, the UK is actually in Central Europe, the strongest country. Also depends a little bit on the local building codes and the local available CO2 free minerals we can use. So in the UK, we are very advanced. I have a high share also in some of the Eastern European countries. So it depends a bit. It's a great global brand name, but it needs a lot of translation into local building environment and local capabilities. And for us, this is a great strategy to encourage all our people to make this happen. If you go to the Americas, a different picture, we have in the U.S. a bit more challenging building norms. So we have a more difficult time to go strong with those brands. They are there, but they are in the, let's say, maybe in the single digits still. And now we're working to change building norms. We are working to change, to lower the clinker factor in our plants to make eco-planetary reality on much larger scale. Latin America, comparatively, has always been a strong performance, quality, reputation, wholesome brand reach. And here also, they're very leading with those brands. And the customer in Latin America is very interested to buy those products. So we have a similar high penetration in Latin America like in Europe.

Thank you very much.

All right, let's take the next question from the line of Martin Hüssler from ZKB. Good morning, Martin.

Yes, good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Maybe a question on the cost situation. What do you inflation wise and maybe also energy wise for Q3 and maybe how does this trend price over cost going to develop for the next couple of quarters? That's the first question.

Martin, good morning. Look, I think we have proven that we are delivering strong margins and increasing margins, and this is also what we intend to do for next year. We have on the energy side, we still, and we shared that with you, that the first half of the year still has quite a challenging comparison base for energy costs, but also for logistics costs, packaging costs, maintenance costs. So The first half of the year was not easy for us to deliver our promise of improving margins. And in Q1, we were just there. In Q2, you saw another improvement. And then in Q3, best quarter of the year. And we expect this to continue. We still see a high inflationary environment for a lot of cost. And this, we have to see how this now turns out. But wherever it will turn, Holcim has the right price over cost strategy for the fourth quarter, but also for next year.

Thank you. And then maybe a link to that, your outlook and the current situation in Europe, obviously, is a bit more difficult. What do you think? would this mean for pricing next year? Do cement prices hold even though demand is coming back further?

Yeah, they will hold. Look, Martin, we have put everything in place from our value added eco products to the system selling solutions we have offered. And the decarbonization is the new reality in Europe. So we have significant CO2 costs now from that European certificate scheme. And now the one company who decarbonizes faster is benefiting from lower CO2 costs. And the market prices, in my view, will not come down. They will only go in one direction because the CO2 cost will be in the market prices. And Holcim decarbonizes at the forefront, so we will benefit. You have seen that this year already that we had record profitability in Europe this year, and we expect this trend to continue.

Okay, thanks a lot.

All right, and the next question comes from the line of Gregor Kuglic from UBS. Good morning, Gregor.

Hi, can you hear me? Hello?

Yes, we can hear you.

Okay, great. Thank you for taking my question. I want to understand a little bit more sort of directionally where you think you're heading into next year. I think you've given us some picture on volume, so thank you for that. It sounds like you think price-cost can continue to be positive. So I want to understand, do you think at this stage, and I appreciate it's a bit early, that you can continue to grow earnings and margins in 2024? And then maybe a second question specifically on roofing or perhaps solutions and products. You sound quite bullish, let's say, on Q4 and not really sure about next year, but maybe you care to elaborate. Probably a bit more so than some of your peers. I saw yesterday Carlisle was saying they still expect some sort of top line decline in Q4. So I want to understand kind of where we are now, how significant you think the rebound can be after you sort of went through the destocking cycle, which I think you said is over now.

Hi, Gregor. Good morning. No, I think it's important to see we have been positive on price over cost, not just for the quarter, but for many quarters now. And that's clearly the target of the whole SIM strategy with this strength and earnings profile from sustainability to building up products and solutions to also growth. to do proper value pricing and system pricing for our services and products and solutions. And we have been successful, and this is our number one priority also going forward. So that's why we are very positive that our EBIT margin will stay strong and the price over cost is positive for next year, even so we are not at a time where we would give any guidance for next year. On the roofing, I can just give you my personal situation. And we have a slide in the presentation where, again, we show this stocking and then destocking effect. And you can clearly see that obviously Q3 last year was an inflated situation. an inflated number and people were putting products on stock and now they have to decrease their own stocks. But that is over now after Q3. So Q4, we expect to be strong in sales. The margin is already on a good level, so that will continue. So we're going to expect strong results from roofing in the fourth quarter.

Thank you.

All right, let's move on to the next question, which comes from the line of Yacine Touari from Onfield Research. Good morning, Yacine.

Yes, good morning. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

So a couple of questions. So do you expect to achieve 4 billion Swiss francs of sales in roofing in 2023? And when I look at the 2026 target, it seems like a big part of the additional 2 billion of sales might come from acquisition, given uncertainty on the volumes. Can you give us a little bit more color on your merger and acquisition pipeline? In which region do you feel there is the most opportunities in the coming years? And also, what kind of returns do you target on acquisition targets? in this business? Do you think about multiple? Do you think about return on invested capital? That would be very helpful to get a little bit of color on your strategy and where you see the merger and acquisition activity going forward.

Hey, good morning, Yacine, and thank you for your question. I'm very happy to answer that. I don't want to go now into details and give more guidance on the roofing. I think we have given a lot of guidance already from last year, achieving already 19% of EBIT margin in the roofing. in the roofing segment, and this will not decrease this year and will go very strongly forward. You are right that the target of above six billion will be a mix of M&A, but also of strong organic growth. We have put all the pieces together nicely. So we have a lot of innovation in the roofing space coming from self-adhered roofing to the system selling, which can still be further increased in our key markets. So we have a lot of organic and acquisition growth in the roofing space. You also have seen maybe on our roofing day, we shared a bit the oncoming new factories we are having, especially in the US. So we have very strong plans going forward to make those six billion plus a reality already in 2026. On the M&A, this is a very good question because we are obviously we have changed the earnings profile of Holcim very much also by M&A. We have divested big parts of our business and we have invested in new parts for Holcim. And I'm very proud that we made this very value accretive. If you put the numbers together in the past three, four years, how we have lowered the debt, the debt, debt leverage at the same time, we increased our financial performance. I think we did that very well. And we are very rigorous in the valuation for those acquisitions. And you can the first proof of it is that we are able to increase the EBIT margin, including all the M&A. So we don't do any special line and say, OK, this is now before acquisitions or something or after acquisitions. We only have one number and we're very happy to put the acquisitions in. We have the 21 acquisitions you have seen for the first nine months. They are all value accretive next year. So we are not wasting any time. On the ROIC, we have the question, the multiples you were asking. That's for me a question always, what are you going to do with the business? So if you sometimes buy a company and you have to pay a bit higher multiple, maybe the ROIC you start with is 5% or 6%. And I'm very happy that for the roofing acquisitions, We are already at 10% ROIC as of now. So very important for me to have the discipline on the valuation and the discipline on the execution, because you don't want to be hanging with 21 acquisitions already in the first nine months. You want to make sure they contribute from day one. And this is what is happening at Holcim.

And the next question comes from the line of Luis Prieto from Kepler Chevreux. Good morning, Luis.

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. The first one is, what could the U.S. end up representing of the company's earnings in the longer term? And if that figure becomes very meaningful, which I suspect it could, would a potential U.S. listing be on the agenda? And then my second question, Jan, you've spoken about potential acquisitions or pipeline, but what about the disposal pipeline on the heavy side front? Any obvious candidates for short-term transactions?

oh okay louis you're trying to bring me into trouble uh this morning but um no look i think on the disposal site we have been doing our big parts of the divestments from indonesia to malaysia then to brazil and india and i think we executed very well sold i would say very value accretive for our shareholders and making enough cash for the acquisitions but also for share buyback and to strengthen the balance sheet. So your question is, what's next? So we have signed the divestment of South Africa earlier this year, and you can probably expect that we are working on a few focused divestments in markets where we believe we have maybe a better owner for our business.

All right.

And regarding the U.S.?

How? The U.S.? Yeah. No, look, first of all, we are very happy that we could build up this U.S. business. I mean, we were three years ago, I think we had 23% of our net sales in North America, and now we are... around 40% for this year. And I like this very much. And at the same time, the margins in the U.S. are maybe above the group margins. So we have done, I think, a great job in executing this. And so where do we go from here now? We shared with you earlier this year that the big infrastructure investments will be very beneficial to Holcim, and we expect an extra 5% of growth annually once all those plans come into effect starting next year. So we're pretty excited about North America. pretty excited for organic growth you have seen in roofing we discussed with the last question how we're building our new plants because we have the roofing demand goes beyond our production capacity so we're very happy to invest organically but also m&a north america where we're going to end up this comes a bit back to my discipline and valuation so uh we had 40 percent now this will this go to 50 percent over the next couple of years uh I think there's an opportunity. It will go there. For the US listing, we have no plans to do that right now. But nevertheless, we, of course, always work on all strategic options.

Excellent. Thank you.

Thank you. And let's move on to the next question, which comes from the line of Brijesh Kumar from HSBC. Good morning, Brijesh.

Hello, Ken. I have one question, which is on the carbon capture project. So you have six projects now with a cumulative capacity of 5 million tons. I guess you have a 2030 target of 5 million tons. So having achieved that already, would you say that that number, would you like to kind of go to around 10 million tons? Anything, any revised target for that? And supplementary to it, you previously indicated that subsidy numbers are close to 70% of that total cost. Has that number changed in the last transactions or the bids you won?

Good morning, Bridget. I think first, I'm very satisfied about this accelerated speed for those carbon capture projects. I'm very happy they are linked to the Green Deal in Europe with these grants. So they have given us the last 14 months. We received all those six grants. I think the sector received something like 10. So we received six out of 10, which for me is, first of all, a good feedback on the quality of our projects. So what our people are planning is positive and also realistic and with clear execution paths. So I'm very happy about that. The subsidies are significantly. And more than... The subsidies is that the projects have excellent return on investments because we're going to save the CO2 costs. We're going to probably have some premium in the market. And the investment CapEx is shared with the European Union. So we're very happy about those projects. And I personally cannot wait to have the first one in operation in 2027. You had, I think, a related question on the numbers. So we gave, I think, earlier this year, we gave a guidance on we're going to capture 5 million tons of CO2 per year. By 2030, we guided on 2 billion Swiss franc investment on the CCUS projects. And I'm very excited to probably we're going to upgrade those numbers maybe for the full year results because we made more progress there. this year than maybe we thought is possible. So we'll probably give you an upgrade, and that upgrade will go in one direction, which will be with more ambitious KPIs, I think, as you suggested.

Thank you.

Thank you. And the next question comes from the line of Ross Harvey from Davie. Good morning, Ross.

Can you discuss a little bit more your outlook for AMEA and Latin America? I know that there's easing comps in AMEA. It's probably the opposite in Latin America. So I know we've spoken about Europe and North America a lot. You might just touch on those. And secondly, can I just double check, Jan? I think you said you're generating 10% ROIC and roofing. Just to check that that's the same type of figure as the 10% for the group overall. So it kind of implies broadly similar returns than traditional products.

good morning ross yeah of course and we're very excited because uh if you do m a especially in recent years you know there are um significant price tags so significant multiples you have to shoulder so i'm i'm very and for me the proof is then to to make a success story so basically What we did, you double the profit or double the returns. And that's what it's all about, right? To use that new business as a growth platform, to use the synergies and then to make more money. And I'm very happy we could show that. And so in roofing is already in line with our group numbers, which is, I think, quite an achievement after only two and a half years of entering the space. You asked for a bit more color on, I think, Latin America. So Latin America is a fantastic market. Our biggest market for us is Mexico. I was just in Mexico recently. You don't imagine the... The amount of government spending now they do for new train lines, for infrastructure is a very positive environment. I met a lot of builders, a lot of entrepreneurs in the real estate space. They have, in addition, they have this onshoring. They have basically seen from the U.S. they have this onshoring. contracts with the U.S. that Mexico is seen as a domestic production space. So there's huge onshoring in Mexico going on, especially all these electronic products, all the white goods or automotive supply, which traditionally came more from Asia in recent years. And in the first half year, of 2023, Mexico the first time imported more products into the U.S. than China. And you can feel it when you visit the country. It's really in strong movement. Then Coming with the infrastructure investments and the onshoring, you have a very positive situation for the people. So a lot of real estate for residential is ongoing and it's a very positive environment. The government is able to put that all into proper figures so they are not high in depth and so on. So Mexico is really moving and we are very happy we are there. Then the other key countries we are in, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, they're all a little bit different, but they're all positive. Then we still have this huge development in Latin America where we come from selling cement bags for on-site mixing on the construction site to going into bulk, to going into proper ready mix. And also here again, Mexico, I think is now, this year is the first time they're selling more bulk cement than bulk. back cement and with this also we are entering into aggregates because once you start to have proper ready mix plants you need proper specified aggregates and we had five years ago we had no aggregates in mexico and i think we have at this point now five quarries our people are A very forward looking and they invested, I think, at the right time. And then once that market takes off, you see that the aggregate price is basically almost doubling because you're selling a higher quality, which is needed for proper ready mix concrete. So very positive in Latin America. We have also big inroads into our branding. So we talked about this before with Arno that EcoPact, EcoPlanet is a big seller in Latin America. Fits very well to our marketing strategy. And then what you don't see in our traditional lines, we also are strong in the solutions and products. We made a customized range for Latin America for waterproofing, liquid waterproofing. product technology we received from our acquisitions in the US. And we made a customized approach and also started local production in Latin America. So also solutions and products is fast growing in Latin America. It's a very exciting market to be in.

Great.

Thank you.

And we are now taking the next question, which is coming from the line of Efrem Ravi from Citi. Good morning, Efrem.

Two questions. Firstly, Jan, you mentioned one of the constraints in rolling out Ecopat more widely was the availability of cementitious materials and in other parts of the world. So are you looking at M&A for other cementitious materials, fly ash or pozzolan or something like that across the world? The second question is, Obviously, you have reduced your net CO2 emissions as a percentage of net sales. But on a like for like basis, do you have a number as to how much it has come down by? Because I guess a lot of the reduction is because of disposals in India and Brazil, which probably had much higher CO2 as a percentage of net sales.

Oh, hey, good morning. Look, we at this point in time, middle in the year of the business, we don't want to go into too much details. You know, we have the most comprehensive climate report out, which was published earlier this year and was voted on by our shareholders. And we will give you all the detailed information you want to have. And it's a mix. Of course, we changed the portfolio. We have divested India, Brazil, which has a big impact. They were still consolidated. the first eight months of this year so we have we benefit from that situation but but again it's an intended situation right that we lower our co2 footprint at the same time we significantly lowered our co2 for traditional cementitious products also to uh to do what we promised to do um a frame what was the second part of your question sorry i'm uh I was so excited about the other part of your question. You were asking what type of minerals we are bringing in to make the sustainable products happen. This is super exciting. I personally am the biggest fan of construction demolition. and of the new calcined clay. And the construction demolition well is a fantastic material. We have last year, we are the biggest recycler of that product. We have already recycled more than 7 million tons last year at Holcim. Using it, as a new aggregate, using it into our concrete, but also using it into our cement as a raw material and as a mineral component for the final cement. This is a fantastic development, and that circular construction, we want to be the leader in the future. We have grown that 7 million tons by 17% in the first nine months of the year, and you can expect double-digit growth grow for all the years to come. We want to be the recycler of choice in all the metropolitan areas where Holcim is present. The second one is the clay. We have super clay resources in our key markets and we have a lot of, we have the first two production lines for calcined clay. It's a fantastic product. The clay, if it's calcined, it's at the low temperature, doesn't emit CO2, no chemical process emitting CO2. At the same time, it's a super reactive product, so it can be like it's a full cement clinker replacement. So we have now very ambitious projects how to introduce that into our product range, and it's happening right now. And if you join our decarbonization day in November, you will see or you will receive many more details on how this is happening. So I'm, again, a huge fan. You're asking the right questions about all these new alternative CO2-reduced or CO2-free minerals. They are the future for Holcim.

Thank you. Looking forward to the decarbonization day.

Well, let's take the next question from the line of Yuri Serov from Redburn. Good morning, Yuri.

Yes, good morning. I have one question, actually. Can you please give us an update on the process of CEO selection, where we are and when we're going to hear something?

Hi, Yuri. Good morning. Look, we are well on track. We promised to have the announcement beginning of next year, and this is what we intend to do. This year, the team is focused to deliver record results, and then we will, as promised earlier this year, we will announce the CEO succession.

Which I presume means that full year results around that time.

We said we're going to do that within 12 months. So that's, I would say that's latest at the full year results. And we also shared with you, we have internal succession candidates. So we're going to have a very smooth, very smooth transition period. And also we have high caliber people who can take over the CEO position.

All right, the next question comes from the line of Harry Goat from Berenberg. Good morning, Harry.

Hi, good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two, please. So firstly, if we could just go back to the solutions and products division, and I may have misheard you, but I think you said the destock effect had already played out in Q3, and I think you said there's a positive price-cost spread. So just can you give a little bit more detail behind that, whether it was 8%, 9% drop in organic revenue in the quarter, just what was driving that? And then secondly, a more general question, I guess you're beginning the budgeting process with your country heads. What is the sense of, at a very high level, your thought from the European cycle into 24? I think you talked about volumes running at down 5%, 6% this year. Is it feasible that goes back to flattish next year? Or do you think it's another year of volume contraction? Thanks.

I start with the second question, Harry, and then maybe our CFO can talk a bit about the margin situation and solutions and products. Look, I think the whole cycle discussion is not true for Holcim anymore. I mean, we have been through the pandemic. We have been through the hyperinflation. Now we have softer markets in Europe and some other key markets, and we are delivering, nevertheless, profitable growth and very convincing margins and growth. and bottom line figures. So, uh, and this is how we see the world. So, so we, we moved away from volume to value. And that's also why we are very confident. We will have a positive price over cost for next year. And, uh, we will make, uh, uh, ambitious targets for next year and the years to come based on that strategy and the volumes we discussed earlier. I think LOD was asking the question on the volumes and I gave an update how this is going to move out. And, um, And we are very comfortable with that situation.

Maybe I comment on the roofing situation. Look, the segment has been in an industry-wide decline due to the destocking situation. And we also said that demand for the roofing solutions has normalized in the third quarter. A few evidences why we dare to say that. The sales have been seasonally lower in Q3 versus Q2 in the past, which has not been the case in 2023 for us. And also the Q3 in 2023 sales at Elevate have been above Q3 2021 levels. So for us, this is one of a couple of evidences that lead us to say that the sales has normalized, the destocking is over. The comparables in the third quarter were still normal. very high because the stocking happened in the second and third quarter last year. And now with the fourth quarter, we're going to see different comparables. Also for the margin, the margins are improving in roofing in Q3, EBIT as well as EBITDA. And so for us, in addition to what Janis explained strategically, the operational performance is back on track. And we're looking, of course, as we said, we're looking at positive numbers for the fourth quarter, also reported positive numbers on sales and EBIT. Okay.

Thank you very much.

Well, let's move on to the next question, which is coming from the line of Remo Rosenau, Helvetica Bank. Good morning, Remo.

Yes, hi. Can you hear me?

Yes, we can hear you.

Yes, okay. Well, I come back once more on the stocking and destocking effects on the roofing cases. Although my predecessor just mentioned it, but do you have any idea by how much the volumes were impacted by destocking and destocking effects? Just kind of a ballpark number. I mean, was it rather 5% or 40% of volumes in these quarters? I mean, you must have some idea here, right?

Good morning. Yeah, of course we have the numbers, but I think it makes, you know, we share already this detailed slide where you can easily see this stocking effect we had in the second quarter and third quarter last year. And then you can see the sharp drop in the fourth quarter where basically the destocking has started. And this is why I think important for us is to understand that It's over now, and we're going to have a growth in the fourth quarter. We don't want to give more details. It wouldn't help anything. We can see from the chart that we had a very special effect, stocking and then destocking, and now it's a normalized situation. Important, Remo, is to understand that we have good demand in the U.S. We have – in the U.S., we have – Our roofers, our customers are all busy with projects well into next year. We have in the residential roofing, interestingly, a double digit growth this year. So our Malachi advanced shingle systems are double digit growing, which It's maybe surprising to some because we have this standstill in U.S. residential market, but this is not a standstill for the repair and renovation. And we have all these severe weather effects. Most believe we had this hailstorm in California earlier this year, and that was devastating. huge repair business for our shingles. So we are even, for the full year, already up in volumes for the residential roofing segment because the demand is so high for the repair segment. In the commercial, in the flat roofing, this will be happening now in Q4.

Okay. So the message is that the divergence of the blue bars, of the blue bars in this chart is predominantly due to the stocking and destocking effects that not much else is in there.

Absolutely. Yeah, correct. Correct, Remo.

Okay. Fair enough. Thank you.

All right. So this was our last question. We've reached the end of our session today. And I would like to thank you very much for joining us again. And I will hand it back to you, Jan, for some concluding remarks.

No, I will not waste your time. I thank you very much for joining the 60 Minutes sessions with us. I look very much forward to see you very soon. I think we have a sales side dinner next week. So please come and see us. I'm going to be in London and look very much forward to share More background with you and happy to discuss also your view on the market and what's going to happen next. So I wish you a great Friday. Happy writing and going to see you in London next week. Thank you.