Voestalpine Ag Unsp/Adr

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the first Alpine AG publication, first half of the Business Year 2026-2027 Conference Call. I am Moira, the Chorus Call Operator. I would like to remind you that all participants will be in this and 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. Operator Assistance, please press star and zero. The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast. At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Dino Malkic, Head of IR. Please go ahead.

Welcome ladies and gentlemen, here is Dino Malkic, Head of Investor Relations of Stalpine AG. Thank you very much for participating today. We are here to give you an update about the figures of the first half of business year 2026-27 and the management will also provide you with an updated outlook. After the management remarks, you will be able to ask your questions. And with me today is Herbert Eibensteiner, our CEO, and Gerald Mayer, our CFO. And I want to hand over to you, Herbert. The stage is yours.

Thank you Dino. Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. We are pleased to present our results for the first half of our financial year. I just jump directly to the executive summary Yes, when we start on the left-hand side, despite this challenging market condition, we were able to achieve a solid result. Turnover remained virtually unchanged compared with the same period last year. EBIT and EBITDA were above prior year's figures. When we look at our positive parts of our portfolio as the last time railway systems, very good aerospace and power industries, is still strong with very good order book and also warehouse and rack solutions is still very solid long order book far into next year. When you look at the steel market update, we think that the EU safeguard measures and CBAM turned out positive as a trade measure and on the The negative side especially with our tubes and section business was this additional US duties which were impacting this business most recently. When we look at our reorganization activities, high performance metals is well on track and all these measures almost completed. So we see this first positive results out of that. and also the reorganization in automotive body parts is on track. There are some activities to do till the end of the year and we will come after that also that we see that some additional measures we will have to implement it. Green Textile. It's it's as as last time everything is on time on budget then we will ramp up this first two electro arc furnaces in the first half of 2027 and we have adjusted Our guidance due to increased energy and logistic costs as well as additional tariffs in tubulars as I mentioned before. We had some logistic problems in steel and we have lowered the upper limit of the outlook whilst leaving the lower limit unchanged. So what is the macro view on our markets? I'll start with Europe. I mentioned before these logistic costs and in particular high energy costs. Since August, we see low water levels around our factories. and we have received these new tariffs and additional duties in tubulars. And the positive thing in Europe is that we have these new safeguard measures in place with all the positive effects around it. On the left hand side, second biggest market, North America. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. You know that stable growth is mostly supported by exports all over the world, but with a weaker domestic economy. And when you look at Brazil, it's, I would say, very low growth rates, high interest rates. and also deliveries from South America to the US are difficult. They have the same tariff regime as we in Europe and the economy is impacted by Chinese imports. Green Textile, again, on time, on budget. Everything is so far prepared for start-up. Just to remind you, we will have this commissioning of the electric arc furnace In Linz and in Donovitz it's an investment of 1.5 billion and we are more or less on track and at the end of this next year we will deliver green steel, greener steel to our customers. Let's jump to our divisions. Strong performance in steel division. We had some costs, inflations, energy costs, logistic costs driven by this Middle East conflict. For us it's mostly gas which has influenced our results and these higher logistic costs and from August onwards we had these difficulties with low water levels and some constraints in outbound logistics. The outlook is for Steel Division is that we see these higher costs and when it comes to heavy plates, further postponement of energy projects in the Middle East, safeguards, CPM is positive, this price trend. is supported by these activities and we have a positive outlook in prices. Why we see a normalization of inventories, European inventories in the next weeks and months to come and we have positive signals for the negotiations in January 2027. High-performance metals, it's a, you know, tooling business is a worldwide business. It's more or less mixed development across the region, but improving. We have a very robust demand in food and beverage and medtech and mining, which are smaller parts of this business. And we have this very positive trend The Outlook is and many more. Metal engineering railway system, very good. Strong order book also for next years. Again, these US duties were impacting especially our OCTG business in Austria. and the outlook is that all those duties will remain and affecting this tubulous business. We have reacted with a reduction of shifts and 150 less FTEs till March. and also wire is confronted with a very weak demand in automotive business and railway will stay very, very well. We've promised you that we look a bit closer to railway system. You know, we have, it's the largest segment in railway is turnout. And again, we see a lot of positive development across regions in EU Germany, in US class one, but also new activity. In Canada and also in China, we are in discussion for new high-speed projects. Most of you know that the basis or the core of our business model there is replace and maintenance. This is good, this is the basics, but there are some projects In the future for us as well and especially our signaling segment is very strong. Signaling is all these sensors and digitalization we do around the turnout system and axle counting and the detection of problems of the This is a growing business for us and as I mentioned before, the book is good and China and the US will also be improving in the future. Metal forming, difficult, I have to say. We are in the middle of the reorganization of automotive components. It's good, on track, on plan, with positive effects, but there is a way to go. We have to reduce another 150 FTAs till the end of the business year. This was the plan. Everything is so far on plan, but due to the Even lower than expected demand, we plan an additional project with another 500 people till 2028 to make redundant and then we think we can achieve this 4-5% EBIT in that area. Thank you very much. Some complaints around new activities of new projects. But warehouse and rack, very good, good performance, good results, high return on capital employed, and good order book. And when you look at the outlook, so we stick to this reorganization measures in We have measures in place. Now I would like to hand over to Gerald for his presentation.