Voestalpine Ag Unsp/Adr

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Bristol-Pina AG Publications full year 2024-2025 conference call. I am Sandra, the call school operator. I would like to remind you that all participants have been listened only mode and the conference has been recorded. The presentation will be followed by a Q&A session. You can register for questions at any time by pressing star and 1 on your telephone. For operator assistance, please press star and 0. The content does not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Peter Fleischer. Please go ahead, sir.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to today's results presentation of our business year 2024-2025. We've got the complete management board today available for the presentation. Ms. Richter and the gentlemen will give you an overview of what has happened in the last business year, but also on what the current situation is looking like, and also how we see the world today and what we expect for the near future. Afterwards, after the presentation, this will take around 30 minutes, I guess. We are very happy to answer your questions. Thank you very much from this side, and, Herbert, please go ahead.

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Please let me start with what makes We are a global special metals steel and industrial group. And as you know, we can combine this steel and metal production with processing and engineering competence. And this in one hand. And I think it's... With this expertise, we focus on innovative solutions that offer a competitive advantage to our customers, and this all makes us a leading partner for high-tech industries with relatively high entry barriers such as aerospace, automotive, industry and also railway systems. We are a stock listed company since 1995 and we are committed to value creation for our customers and shareholders. So let's come to the highlights of last business year. You know that we all are in a very challenging environment. Despite this environment, we achieved solid results. Where does this come from? Particularly from railway systems running very good worldwide, good order intakes, long-term contracts. Aviation was very good, and hybrid warehouse is still growing business for us with very good results. On the other hand, we saw a ailing demand in automotive components and also in mechanical engineering. and construction, and this was the reason why we as a management, we clearly focus on free cash flow generation. The figures will be presented by Gerald Meyer afterwards. What's very important that we have a stable low debt situation and, you know, when you look at this, automotive components, mechanical engineering, and construction market, it was necessary that we started reorganization projects in two divisions, in metal forming and in high-performance metals, and we are in the middle of the implementation of all the measures in this year that the results, the negative results last year. We have not forgotten of our growth project, so all these projects will be further developed in the course of this year, and also the next years, and our green textile project is well on track, and we have one-third, that means 500 million of this 1.5 billion already invested. What was the global environment we were in? Europe was our biggest market, was very weak, and especially Germany was particularly hit very, very hard. In North America, positive development in the course of the year. At the end of the year, we see a reduced investment in the rest coming from the new policy of the president in Asia, in China. We have a good industrial growth, I would say, in our activities Also, we see and know, and I'm sure you are as well, that the real estate market in China is still very weak, and the problems there are not solved so far. In South America, Brazil, a growing market for us, but in the course of the year, after a good start, we see a certain slowdown because of the year and coming from a higher competition from Chinese input, but more from higher interest rates. So, I said before, we have not forgotten of our growth projects. I'll give you some examples. Good orders, long-term contracts with two truck manufacturers for the North America market. We have started the investment and it's roughly 70 million euros for that, and we think we can start with production in the next one and a half year. And we have also moved or implemented a production in the U.S. for hyper warehouses. You know, the demand is very high, so it's worth to invest in machines for this business. And also our production facility in Brazil after a big second step is now a third step. in new facilities be done and also when you look at railway infrastructure, a good example is that we have a joint venture in Egypt and the first turnouts are delivered to the customers, the first of 260 turnouts for the next coming months and years. So, fifth example is the expansion of our welding consumable, you know, a business which is very stable over years now and we increased our capacity in India. And now I would hand over to my colleagues in the different divisions, and start with the Steel Division.