Elkem Asa Ord

Hello and good morning and a very warm welcome to LKM's third quarter results presentation. My name is Oddje Lyngstad and I'm responsible for investor relations in LKM. In today's presentation, we will go through the highlights for the quarter and give an update on the markets before we go through the outlook for the fourth quarter. CEO Helge Aasen will take us through this first part of the presentation before CFO Morten Viga will present the third quarter results in more detail. We will open for Q&A after Helge and Morten's presentations. So with that, I give the word to CEO Helge Aasen.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Very nice to see the turn up today. Yeah, we seem to be repeating ourselves when it comes to describing the markets we operate in. The story about the weak and challenging conditions doesn't seem to go away. And the market does actually remain much the same as it has been for a while now. However, despite the challenging macroeconomic environment, Alchem's results are relatively good, but of course below our financial targets. The EBITDA for the third, I'm sorry, the EBITDA for the Third quarter ended at $829 million, which gave an EBTA margin of 11% for the group. If you exclude silicones, the operating income ended at $4.1 billion, with an EBTA of $586 million, which then represents a margin of 14%. This result is to a great extent explained by good operational performance and ongoing cost improvements. Silicon products was impacted by low silicon and ferrosilicon prices in the third quarter, but specialty segments as foundry alloys. and micro-silica, which is a silica powder, delivered improved results. Carbon solutions continue to deliver good margins, but the operating income and the following EBITDA is impacted by the lower sales. Silicon has improved on cost and market positions and delivered a higher EBITDA compared to the same period last year. The strategic review is ongoing. gave an announcement some weeks ago and I can just confirm that this is moving ahead as planned with an exclusive sales process and we are still aiming for closing this transaction within the first half of next year. So before we go on to the market update and the results, I'd like to say a few words about our ESG work. It's built on two main pillars, to reduce CO2 emissions and to supply the green transition with critical materials. Our aim is to reduce and ultimately remove fossil CO2 emissions from the smelting processes. Elkem supports the green transition through the supply of critical raw materials and we work systematically to cut emissions and reduce waste throughout the entire value chain. Circularity is also playing an increasingly important role in this work. And we have introduced a new, actually a breakthrough method for recycling silicones through a mechanical recycling. And this then goes back into what used to be waste now is going back into new formulations. Our efforts within ESG are also recognized with strong ratings from Ecovadis and CDP. And in the third quarter, we received a gold rating from Ecovadis. And this puts us among the top 5% of all the companies they are assessing globally. And over the past years, Elkem has consistently received either gold or platinum ratings from Ecovadis, which places us among the top of the companies they are rating. Here, we show a couple of examples from silicon products and carbon solutions illustrating some of our strong cost and market positions. I mentioned micro-silica initially. It's SiO2 silica powder. a byproduct from the ferrosilicon and silicon metal smelting processes. And over decades, we have developed this into a portfolio of specialty products, which go into quite a wide range of applications. To mention some of them, construction, well drilling, cementing, refractories, and also polymers. Over the past years, this product area has consistently grown and shown stable high margins. And I think it's a very good, excellent example of how we are able to specialize on the basis of commodity production capacity. We're also a leading producer of electrode paste, electrodes, and refractory materials coming from Elkem Carbon. This goes into the metallurgical industry. And these products are probably not very familiar to you, but they are critical consumables and lining materials, which are very important for stable operations and lifetime in furnaces and electrolysis cells in the aluminum industry. Also here we are focusing on product development and we have developed a more environmentally friendly product with the bio-based binders which greatly improves the working conditions. This solution has a proven performance record and we have installed the product in more than 15,000 aluminum electrolytic cells. And we are gaining market share. Competitive cost position, sorry, can of course be explained by many factors, operational knowledge, operational excellence, economies of scale, upstream integration, et cetera. However, electric power is another of course very important cost factor in the production of most metals. We have long-term supply agreements for renewable hydropower in Norway, Iceland, Canada, Paraguay. And access to long-term competitive energy contracts is a prerequisite for achieving competitiveness and also, of course, predictability in order to plan investments, et cetera. And renewable sourcing of energy also gives us a low carbon footprint, which clearly is, if not gaining or achieving premiums on end products, it gives us a preferential supplier status. CRU, a global business intelligence company, have published their analysis of the 2025 cost curve, which is illustrated on the graph here. This is for silicon-99, silicon metal. And as you can see from the chart, this puts our Salton and Tamsav plants in Norway among the lowest cost producers in the western part of the world. Then coming to another important frame condition, which is trade barriers. That's affecting several markets and industries these days. as you know, a highly dynamic and quite unpredictable environment. We are affected by this directly and indirectly. Two relevant examples are EU's ongoing safeguard assessment on ferro-silicon and potentially silicon metal. and also a US countervailing duties assessment on silicon metal imports. EU safeguard measures could come into effect from November 19th. It's so far unclear how this is going to affect Elkem and how it will be structured. The potential measures will be aimed at raising prices, obviously, and protecting internal production within the EU. But we don't know how Norway and Iceland will be positioned in it. The regulations appear to focus on ferro-silicon and foundry alloys in this round, and there's no clear indication if silicon will be included, but most likely silicon will be subject to another process at a later stage. The U.S. has imposed countervailing duties. on silicon imported from several countries, including Norway, with a preliminary rate of 16.87%. The basis for these duties are the CO2 compensation and CO2 quotas that the Norwegian companies receive under EU's carbon schemes. And our position on this is that these policies are a compensation for CO2 tax. and do not constitute counter-available subsidies, harming the U.S. domestic industry. We've had similar cases in the past, and each time we have been able to document that there was no injury to U.S. industry. So, we don't know the outcome of this round. It's now introduced as a preliminary measure, and then it will be followed by a permanent decision later on. Unclear when, partly because of the shutdown of the U.S. government at the moment. A few more words on the strategic review process. It's underway, as I mentioned, and it is going according to plan. We cannot say much more about the process beyond the status update that we gave during the third quarter. We are in an exclusive sales process with a major industrial player with a significant presence in the global chemical industry. The process is well aligned with the strategic review and represents an important milestone in a challenging market environment. But we are confident that the potential transaction will represent the best possible outcome for the silicones division in Elkem. And we're also confident that this process will be the best outcome for the rest of Elkem, and as such, benefit all stakeholders. Subject to further negotiations, final agreement and necessary approvals, the closing of the transaction is, as mentioned, expected to happen during the first half of next year. Now let's have a look at the markets. Automotive continues to be an important sector for Elkem, driving demand for many of our products. The growth in this sector remains weak, with the exception of China, where the production is up in 2025. This is mainly the case for electrical vehicles. During the first half of 2025, the overall production in the EU is characterized by weak order intake and consequently low number of new registrations. Forward-looking forecasts have been revised upwards as markets adapt to ongoing trade and structural changes. Europe's outlook is up, supported by improved expected demand in Germany, France, Austria and Turkey. China's forecast has increased due to incentives and export growth, but overcapacity and price competition clearly persists, especially for electrical vehicles. North America It's also seeing upgrades driven by tariff relief and higher production. In South America, the gains are so far limited by very high import pressure. So any improvement in the automotive sector will definitely have a positive impact for Elkem. Several markets have been impacted by weak demand and various trade regulations and governmental initiatives. In the EU, the silicon reference price dropped by approximately 20% in late June. This was mainly due to low import prices from China, which suffer from, I would say, a severe oversupply. Prices in the EU then recovered modestly again in September due to improved market balance. This was a result of capacity being taken out in Europe, as well as higher prices in China. US silicon prices have increased in the third quarter, and this is expected to continue to rise due to trade regulations. And in China, we have seen some price recovery from very low levels, mainly due to signals that the government will launch initiatives to curb overcapacity. Discussions are ongoing there regarding new energy consumption standards for the industry, which seems to be aimed at reducing overproduction. The ferro-silicon markets have many of the same drivers as silicon. Also here we have a market impacted by trade regulations and possible safeguard measures in the EU, which have resulted in price fluctuations. The market sentiment is still characterized by weak demand and downward price pressure. However, based on the expected safeguard measures in the EU in August, we saw feral silicon prices jump up. This didn't last very long. It dropped back down again when it became clear that no preliminary measures would be announced. Prices in the US increased towards the end of the third quarter. This was mainly driven by trade regulations. And in China, we've also seen some recovery from very low levels, partly due to this government focus on reducing excess production capacity. It's also somewhat linked to higher raw material costs in China. The market for carbon products is much smaller than silicon and ferro-silicon. We don't have reference prices to compare with here. Quite a big difference between regions when it comes to demand. But obviously the underlying driver is the production of steel, which again triggers ferroalloy demand, and then of course the aluminium industry. Global steel production in the third quarter remained quite stable compared to the same quarter last year. Europe experienced a 3% decline, whereas North America saw a 3% increase, largely due to tariffs again. The steel and ferroalloy markets continue to face challenges. Carbon solutions, specialized product offering, and wide geographic presence is, however, proving to be resilient and creating stability in earnings. Then moving on to silicones. Also like in silicon metal, overcapacity is significantly hampering any meaningful price recovery in the commodity part of the business. Producers are actively trying to increase prices and we've seen quite a lot of fluctuations in China in particular during the quarter. DMC prices first rose from a level of around 10,400 RMB per ton to up to 12,250. This was the result of a fire at one of the bigger players. But due to the overcapacity, that was a very short-lived price uptick, and prices subsequently lowered again because other producers are ready to fill the gap quite quickly. So the current price level is around 11,050 per ton, and quite sensitive to changes in raw material cost, where silicon metal obviously is one of the big input factors. Demand in China continues to be weak, especially in construction. Demand for commodity silicones in the EU and the US is also negatively impacted by changing tariff policies. But I would say in general, there's quite good and stable demand for specialties. So coming to the outlook, silicon products are still going to face quite challenging conditions and low demand on a historical basis. But as mentioned in the presentation, our leading cost position and good performance in the more specialized part of the business are mitigating the negative impact. Carbon solutions benefit from good cost positions and geographical diversity, and continued weak demand will have some impact on the results. Silicones producers are actively trying to increase prices, but as mentioned, the markets are still hampered by overcapacity. Potential trade regulations and protective measures are expected to impact our markets going forward and of course we are very eager to see the safeguard measure in the EU and how that's going to play out. It's not yet concluded and it's very hard to say the overall impact on Elkem from this. So I think with that, I'll give the word to you, Morten, and take us through the financials.

Thank you very much, Helge, and good morning, everybody. So it's a pleasure to go through the financial numbers for Q3. Our operating income for the quarter amounted to 7.5 billion NOK, and that's down 7% compared to the third quarter last year. All divisions had a decline in operating income this quarter, mainly explained by lower sales prices. LKM's CBDA for the quarter was 829 million NOK. This was also well below the third quarter last year, but it's slightly higher than Q2 this year. The reported group EBTA margin for the quarter amounted to 11%, which is somewhat below our long-term target of 15% to 20% EBTA margin. Having said that, we should also emphasize that the EBTA margin for the continuous operations, i.e. excluding silicones, was 14%. And it is important to bear in mind that these margins are generated in a situation where sales prices in key markets are at or close to historical low levels. And as such, the EBITDA is not supported by market conditions, but it's held up by good operational performance and a very strong underlying cost position. There were no particular one-offs affecting the EBITDA in the third quarter. As usual, we provide an overview of some of the main financial numbers and ratios. I will not go into detail on all of them, but it is important to note that the silicones division has been reclassified as discontinued operations and assets held for sale. In this presentation, we mainly focus on the financial numbers which include silicones. However, the regular financial statements, including the profit and loss statements, reflects Elkem's results excluding silicones. And in the table to the right, you can see the comparable figures for Elkem with and without silicones. Including silicones, the group EBITDA amounted to 129, I'm sorry, 829 millinoc. The realized effects from the currency hedging program was minus 16 millinoc reported in the segment order. Other items amounted to 78 million NOK and the main items were gains on power and currency derivatives of 99 million NOK and restructuring expenses of minus 17 million NOK. Net finance expenses were minus 34 million NOK, and here are the main items related to net interest expenses of minus 114 million NOK, which was largely offset by currency gains on 96 million NOK, mainly related to translation effects on our external loans. The income tax was minus 96 million NOK, and this gives a very high effective tax rate at 65%. And the reason for that is that the silicones division had a loss before income tax, which is rather high, and there is no tax in a major part of that division. Let's then take a look at the divisions and start with the silicon products division. So the silicon and ferrosilicon markets remained difficult, but the divisions EBTA for the third quarter was supported by good operating performance. Total operating income amounted to 3.4 billion NOC, representing an 8% decrease compared to the same quarter in 2024. And the decline in operating income is mainly driven by lower sales prices for the commodity segments in silicon and ferrosilicon. EBITDA amounted to 389 million NOC, representing an EBITDA margin of 12%. The EBITDA is higher than the previous quarter, but significantly lower than Q3-24, and this is explained by significantly lower sales prices, particularly for silicon. This is partly countered by good and stable results from the specialty segments, particularly foundry alloys. And as I said, in addition, the EBTA is supported by strong operations and good cost improvements. Sales volume increased by 13% compared to third quarter last year, mainly due to improved sales of specialty products. So if we look at the carbon solutions, this division is once again presenting good margins and it reached an EBITDA margin of 28% in the third quarter, despite very challenging market conditions. Total operating income amounted to 822 million NOC, which was down 7% from the third quarter last year. And the decline also here is mainly explained by lower sales prices. The EBITDA was 231 millinoc, which represents an EBITDA margin of 28%. The EBITDA margin is in line with the previous quarter, but it's somewhat lower than Q3 24, mainly explained by lower sales prices and somewhat higher raw material costs. The sales volume for the third quarter was in line with previous quarter, but it is negatively affected by low steel production, particularly in the EU. As mentioned and very well known, the silicones division is under strategic review. the division has a good portfolio of specialty products, which provide, to a large extent, stable sales and margins. But also the division's exposure to commodity market is still very significant. And particularly in China, we have seen strong price pressure hampering our margins. The division has, however, been able to compensate for lower commodity sales prices in the quarter through higher sales volumes and good cost improvements. Total operating income amounted to $3.6 billion, which was down 6% from the third quarter last year. A higher sales volume in the third quarter was more than offset by lower commodity sales prices. The EBITDA amounted to 248 million NOC, representing an EBITDA margin of 7%. And this is in line with the previous quarter, but it is significantly 23% higher than the third quarter last year, mainly driven by cost improvements and better sales volume. Sales volume was up 10% compared to third quarter last year, mainly due to higher sales volumes in the Asia-Pacific region, where we also have introduced a new production line, higher capacity, and significantly stronger underlying cost position. Let's now take a closer look at some of LKM's key financial ratios. The earnings per share EPS were quite low also in the third quarter with 0.05 NOC per share and that brings the EPS year to date to minus 0.77 NOC per share. And we are of course not satisfied with this and we are working on further cost reductions and other improvements to mitigate the market situation. The EPS was also this quarter negatively impacted by net losses from the silicones division, which is under strategic review. And if you exclude the silicones division, the EPS for the third quarter would have been 0.34 NOC per share plus, and it would have been a positive 0.40 NOC per share year to date. The balance sheet remains very solid. Total equity amounts to 24 billion NOK by the end of third quarter, which equals an equity ratio of 50%, very stable level. LQM's financing position is well managed, and we have a very good and robust maturity profile. However, as you can see, the interest-bearing debt has continued to increase, and the current leverage is above our target level of 1 to 2 times EBITDA last 12 months. By the end of the third quarter, our net interest bearing debt amounted to $11.7 billion, and that's up by $0.3 billion from the previous quarter. And based on the last 12 months EBTA, the debt leverage ratio is now 3.1%. Our target is clearly to bring down the leverage and Elkem has a plan to deleverage the company after the strategic review process has been concluded, which we plan to achieve during the first half of next year. By the end of the third quarter, Elkem's interest coverage ratio was six times, which is well within the covenant of four times, which is the covenant in our loan agreements. The cash flow from operation was 526 million NOK in the third quarter. We have a high emphasis on preserving and generating a good cash flow despite underlying market weaknesses. And this was a clear improvement from the previous quarters. It's explained by lower reinvestments and also positive working capital changes. As already mentioned, the markets are weak and we will definitely continue to focus on a very disciplined capital spending as long as the weak market conditions prevail. In the third quarter, total investments were down to 312 million. And reinvestments were 244 million NOC, which amounted to 39% of depreciations. Strategic investments are very much down and amounted only to 68 million NOC, as we have completed all major strategic CapEx projects previously. So let me take the opportunity to wrap up this presentation by summarizing the main headlines and takeaways from the quarter. We will continue to focus on cash generation and a very disciplined capital spending in response to the challenging market conditions. We're very happy to see that silicon products has leading cost positions and strong performance within the specialty segments. And I think this is very important to bear in mind when the markets are really, really tough out there. Also carbon solutions is in a very good position and we benefit from good cost positions and a very geographically diverse customer base. Silicones, also a very tough market, but we have improved our cost and market positions based on specialization and also based on new and more modern production lines, both in China and in France. The safeguard measures for ferro-silicon and ferro-alloys in the EU and a new trade defense regime for steel in the EU could lead to improved market conditions if these measures are successfully supporting increased industry production in the EU, which is the intention. The strategic review process is progressing as planned with an exclusive sales process ongoing. And as we said, we expect to have the transaction closed within the first half of 2026. So, I think that summarizes the presentation and then I hand back the word to Helge for the Q&A session. Thank you.

Very good. Thank you Helge and thank you Morten. We have a good audience here today, so I think we will start and see if there are any questions from the audience.

There is?

Marcus? Yeah.

We have a mic here, so... Marcus Haveli, Parallel Securities. So you talked about the safeguard measures, and clearly we have no visibility right now, but could you try to provide us some color on how you think about a potentially worst-case scenario with high tariffs and with LKM potentially not being as competitive in the EU market? What sort of flexibility do you see having to redirect volumes and do other sort of measures to fight that?

Well, I think if we are left on the outside of this and have to compete on the same basis as everybody else, EU is a big net importer of ferro-silicon. And I would claim that Norway and Iceland are among the best position to continue to supply that market. So I don't think we will have to redirect volumes. Obviously, we are very uncertain about how the price protection mechanism will be constructed or put together. So that could, of course, I would say I don't see a big downside, but there is quite a significant upside if this is done in a way that favors us. So, yeah.

Thank you. And also just to follow up on the, you mentioned the cost reductions that you're currently looking at. Could you also provide some color on what sort of measures that is? We've seen some first outcome production now being curtailed. Is it more trying to optimize the production or is it actual... larger reductions you're looking at?

This is a wide range of different measures obviously focusing on fixed cost reductions continuously but it's also linked to a lot of optimization in production producing campaigns where we have the best cost position in different plants and furnaces and yield improvements and There's not one particular program that's yielding this, but a very big effort ongoing, and it's giving results over time.

That's all for me.

Magnus Rasmussen, SEB. You have an improvement in the silicon products EBITDA Q1Q, despite lower silicon metal prices, as you said, in Q2. Our understanding is that after the decision that you were to be allocated more CO2 quotas, which you reported in early July, you have to purchase less CO2 quotas on a running basis to cover what was previously a deficit. Has that been a positive driver this quarter? And by how much?

Sounds like a CFO question.

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. We have got the ruling from the Norwegian ministry securing equal treatment with our European competitors. And that's very important. We have not yet received any additional quotas. Such things takes a bit of time, but we are very sure that we will receive a good amount of new quotas. And of course, that will put us in a much better position. There are no particular significant, let's say, CO2 quota P&L elements in our Q3 results.

When you on a running basis start to receive quotas on equal terms as your peers in Europe, then I assume you will not have to purchase quotas to cover that deficit as you've done in the past. Doesn't that imply that you will get a cost saving?

That is correct, that in the future there are two important things about this. First of all, equal treatment. That's very important as a principle. And certainly we will have significantly lower CO2 quota costs in the future when we receive those quotas. either late this year or early next year, we assume. So for a long-term competitiveness, it's good news, very good news.

Okay, thank you. And also, I see that your net interest-bearing debt in silicones is increasing by about 375 million quarter-on-quarter. And it seems to me like more or less half of that is driven by you repaying what you label as bills payable in your balance sheet. And bills payable has come down by more than half of the past year. So I'm just wondering why you are repaying that working capital financing ahead of a sale of the division.

I'm looking at you, Olga, because you have many hats here.

No, that is kind of a working capital management by the Chinese operation, so I'm not able to give a precise answer to that. But they're managing this position, and as you rightly say, they have decided to repay some of that and reduce some of the bills outstanding.

Should we expect bills payable to be repaid ahead of the sale and or should we look at bills payable as interest-bearing debt when assessing the sales price?

You should not look at the bills payable as interest-bearing debt, so it's part of the working capital management and locally in China. Okay, thank you. Are there any further questions among the audience? If not, I think the questions are quite well covered from what I see here, but one additional question maybe that could, and that is how long you expect curtailments at Rana in Iceland to last, and also if any of our competitors are reducing capacity to the same extent.

Yeah, we had an idle furnace in Rana and we decided to postpone starting it up again. We are closely monitoring what's happening now. It's obviously inventory management, but it's also in anticipation of what will be the outcome of this safeguard decision in November. And then we're going to stop one furnace in Iceland in mid-November. And that will be idle for two months approximately? Yeah, one and a half. And what was the other part of the question? What about competition? Yes, interestingly enough, Ferroglobe, which is our biggest competitor in silicon products, in a conference, I think a couple of weeks ago, announced that they are now stopping all production in Europe. So it says something about Elkem's competitive position.

Very good. Thank you very much. And that also concludes our presentation here today. So thank you very much for attending.

Thank you.