AMAG Austria Metall AG

VSE:AMAG

Earnings Call Transcript 2021-Q1

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I'm Costantino, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Q1 2021 results. [Operator Instructions]

The forecasts, budgets and forward-looking assessments and statements contained in this presentation were complied on the basis of all information available to AMAG as of the present time. In the event that the assumptions underlying these forecasts prove to be incorrect, targets be missed or risks occur, actual results may depart from those currently anticipated. We are not obligated to revise this forecast in the light of new information or future events. This presentation was prepared and the data contained in it verified with the greatest possible care. Nevertheless, misprints and rounding and transmission errors cannot be ruled out entirely. In particular, AMAG and its representatives do not assume any responsibility for the completeness and correctness of information included in this presentation.

This presentation is also available in German. In cases of doubt, the German language version takes precedence.

This presentation does not constitute either a recommendation or a solicitation to either purchase or sell securities of AMAG.

I would now like to turn the conference over to Christoph Gabriel, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

[Christoph Gabriel, executive]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our conference call for the first quarter 2021 of AMAG Austria Metall AG. Today, Gerald Mayer, CEO of AMAG, will present the development and results of the first 3 months of this year. As usual, after the presentation, you have the opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A session. Gerald, I will hand over it you to start the presentation.

[Gerald Mayer, executive]

Thank you, Christoph. Good morning from my side. I would like to start with the highlights for our first quarter 2021. All in all, we saw significantly improved market conditions in all our segments, means for the Upstream business with a higher price for aluminum, for example, but also in the Downstream business with high oil intakes, except the aircraft industry, but I think this was as planned and clear also in the beginning of this year 2021.

So revenue all in all was slightly up compared to the prior year to EUR 250 million roughly. EBITDA was down. We had an EBITDA of EUR 36.5 million in the first quarter 2020. This year, we're at EUR 30.3 million. And there's a good reason, and I mentioned it and I pointed out here in our fourth bullet. It was affected by 11,000 tonnes of primary metal, which had to be shifted to the second quarter 2021, simply because of the delayed departure of transport vessel of our plant in Alouette. So we were not able to recognize the sales and results of 11,000 tonnes.

Net income after taxes was, again, clearly positive after 3 months of short time -- of 3 quarters, sorry, of short time work. So all in all, in terms of results, in terms of business development, again, I would say, roughly where we were pre-COVID. And so the outlook for our results is defined -- a band of EUR 125 million to EUR 140 million. And this is, of course, significantly above the 2020 level, where we ended the year at EUR 108 million, as you know.

Let us flip to the second slide, where we have our overview, the [ fever ] curve of purchase manager indexes, which is a very good indicator for AMAG's, in particular, Downstream business and the order situation there. Again, we do not want to go into detail here, of course, but the color code tells the whole story. We saw year 2019, which was already, in particular, in the Eurozone, somehow in the reds. Also the year 2020, where you see dark red columns, which was, in particular, the second quarter 2020, that COVID touched us and the pandemic started in Europe, in particular. And then we saw recovery periods, let's say, starting in summer with very good and positive developments, and in particular, in the fourth quarter and also in the first quarter 2021. And as I said before, this is a good indicator for our downstream order situation, and this is really also reflected -- exactly reflected in the order intake situation, in particular, of our Rolling Division, and I will talk about this a little bit later.

Next slide, demand for aluminum. What I point out here -- I want to point out here is that we have a very positive development in terms of demand in primary aluminum, but also for rolled products in front of us. So we expect a growth in the year 2021 for both sectors of 8% roughly, and average growth rate for the next 3 years or 5 years of 4% per annum. So also here, a very positive development is expected in the upcoming period after, let's say, the hit we got in the year 2020 because of the pandemic. So those numbers are numbers from CRU, from Commodity Research Unit, and so we trust and we also use those numbers in our internal plannings and forecast. So the overall demand for the year 2021 for primary aluminum will be EUR 67 million after EUR 62 million in the year 2020. And for rolled products, it will be a EUR 29 million, roughly, after 27 million tonnes the year before.

Let us move to the next slide, Slide 7. Price trends in aluminum and alumina are most important raw material. What you see here is situation. The average numbers for the quarter-by-quarter starting in the first quarter 2020, where we had an average aluminum price of USD 1,700 per tonne. At the end of the first quarter, we had a number of below USD 1,500 per tonne. And you see then that in the second quarter, we had an average number of USD 1,520 roughly per tonne of aluminum. So then a period, step-by-step recovery started. And the fourth -- first quarter 2021, the average aluminium price per tonne of aluminium was more than USD 2,100 per tonne. And as of today, we are roughly at USD 2,400 per tonne.

The most important raw material in the production of aluminum -- of primary aluminum is, of course, alumina. And you saw that we are still in a very fast -- favorable environment, so alumina prices were low in the last year -- throughout the last year. They were very low, in particular, throughout the pandemic, but that still, I would say, a favorable level for our industry and our business, for our Metal Division in this case. So we are at roughly USD 300 per tonne on an average in the first quarter 2021.

So the environment -- to summarize, that for primary aluminum, we have increased demand. We have a good pricing environment for raw materials and for our end product, which looks promising.

Next slide, Slide 8, the number of shipments. Shipment volume are roughly at the level of the prior year, just slightly below those -- the number. And the main reason, I mentioned it before, is that a little bit behind, in particular, in the Metal Division with 1,900 tonnes, but also a little bit in the Aircraft Division, that has also to do have product mix and, of course, the missing volumes from the aerospace industry. In Rolling Division, we're also slightly behind the first quarter 2020, which was, by the way, a very good first quarter for us.

Next slide, the shipment distribution in our Rolling Division. There are 2, 3 interesting things to mention. We are up in automotive. And you see that the Automotive business had a share of 16%, and this is 4% more than in the comparing period last year. So we come from a level of 12%, and we are now at 16% roughly. On the other side, we are down -- massively down in the Aircraft industry -- in the Aircraft business. So the shipments there are up to 6% of our total portfolio, and this is down 9% compared to the prior year.

With regard to foil stock, this is also worthwhile to mention, we are also down there. This is more or less a shift from foil stock to automotive, what you can see there. So massive, I would say, changes in product mix, what we see -- what we saw in the first quarter 2021.

In the next slide, Slide 10. There is also one detail, which shows you once again this massive shift in product mix. You see that in the Automotive business, we were at the level of roughly 15% -- 14%, 15%, end of 2019, beginning of 2020. And with the pandemic, the share of automotive -- I'm sorry, Aircraft business came down to 10%, 7% and 5%, and now it's slightly up again at 6% share for Automotive. It's the other way around. So we started at a level of 12%, 13%, and we are now at 16%, means way higher compared to the prior year. So this also reflects the shift in product mix for our Rolling Division, in particular, driven by the pandemic, but also driven by the ramp-up of our plant and of our business in the automotive sector, in general.

Slide 11 reflects the order backlog of AMAG Rolling Division. And what you see there is that we compare here month -- quarter-by-quarter, sorry, starting in the first quarter 2019. You see, normally, we had -- we used to have an order backlog of roughly 50,000 tonnes plus. This reflected 2, 3 months of order backlog for us throughout the pandemic. Of course, we consume some of this order backlog. But with Q4, in particular, we started a sharp recovery there with very positive incoming orders. And right now, we see -- we have an all-time high in our order book in terms of volume. The only thing where we miss, of course, still miss order intake is the aircraft industry. So this is as planned and as expected. So as of today, I would say our order backlog situation reflects a workload of more than 5 months. And so capacity utilization is quite secured until, let's say, fine to the second half of this year.

Regarding revenue development, Slide 12, we see that the higher price level of aluminum compensated for slightly lower volumes and, in particular, a weaker, I would say, product mix situation. So we are up slightly by 2%, but more or less at the level where we have been last year. And last year, again, the first quarter was still not impacted, hardly impacted by COVID in our business. And so it was a very good first quarter, and we are more or less, let's say, especially with regard to revenue, back to normal.

Regarding the EBITDA, Slide 13. Yes, what you see there is, of course, the impact that we are down by 17% to EUR 30 million. But as I mentioned before, we have to bear in mind there that 11,000 tonnes did not leave the port at our plant in Canada. So they were late by just 2 days, means this is a month -- this is roughly a production of a full month, which we were not able to recognize sales and the reflected results in the sales. So, therefore, this is the main reason why we were down there. If we would include the effect of these 10,000, 11,000 tonnes that we will be at the level of the prior year in terms of EBITDA.

Yes. So if we look at the bridge, the bridge -- starting point, our first quarter EBITDA of the year 2020, EUR 36.5 million. We had a positive impact of aluminum price of roughly EUR 6 million and other price effect, in particular, aluminum price premiums of EUR 1 million, and then we had a negative impact of raw materials and the prices are higher compared to the prior year and higher energy cost by EUR 4 million. Volume and mix has an effect of roughly EUR 5 million minus. And then there are some other, in particular, valuation effects compared to prior year with regard to foreign exchange translations, and they add up to roughly EUR 4 million. And so we end up the EUR 30 million EBITDA for the first quarter 2021.

Net income, Slide 15. As I mentioned before, after 3 quarters of COVID, we managed to drive home or drive in, I would say, very stable and clearly positive net income after taxes of roughly EUR 5 million, of the EUR 11 million in the prior year. And of course, the reduction is mainly driven by the reduction of the EBITDA, which I just explained before.

Slide 16 shows our numbers -- summarizes all the numbers. I would like to skip this slide. This is stuff -- reading stuff, and so I would like to flip to Slide 17, positive cash flow trends. This is what we saw, in general, in the first quarter 2020, where we were really cash flow strong and highly positive EUR 15 million. And this year, in the year, 2020, what we saw there is, of course, an impact of a rise in aluminum price and higher inventory levels, which were driven, of course, by the ramp-up of our plant here in Austria, in particular, after the pandemic. So the impact of working capital is negative, and this mainly causes the reduced cash flow from operating activities to a level of EUR 4 million. Cash flow from investing activities is stable and as planned. And the cash flow -- free cash flow is negative, is minus EUR 10 million in the first quarter.

Slide 18 and Slide 19 gives you a flavor of our, let's say, key financials, as we call them, means net financial debt, cash situation, equity and gearing. So all in all, I would say, very stable. Net financial debt at the stable level of EUR 320 million. We are at the level of end of the year 2020 there. And in terms of cash and cash equivalent, of course, pre distribution of our dividend, which was distributed 2 weeks ago, last week is the EUR 350 million, quite strong.

Equity, as we also mentioned and said, during our full year presentation, AMAG exited this pandemic as strong as we started this situation. So we managed to hold together everything here as good as possible by reducing structural costs and so on and so forth. And with a lot of, I would say, successful working capital management there.

Gearing is also at the level of year-end 2020. It's roughly a little bit above 50%. So very stable balance sheet situation in our group.

Metal Division, to summarize what happened here. Again, main impact was looking at the 31st of March was the delayed departure of our transport vessel with a full month production. And so this is what we will recognize them in the second quarter, impact, roughly EUR 6 million. But we also had -- and I mentioned it here in the last bullet, also a shipment delay because of bad weather conditions in the [ third ] quarter last year. The difference there was that the margins last year were way lower than this year, if you seem to look at the aluminum price end of the first quarter 2020, was around USD 1,500 per tonne. Now we are at USD 2,100 -- we have been at USD 2,100 per tonne. In addition to that, we had some positive impact last year from -- in particular, from currency translation, Canadian dollar compared to the U.S. dollar positive effect last year, slightly negative this year. So this is the impact by the solid deviation this year. Comparing apples to apples, the performance was better this year than in the prior year, and this is the message here.

Regarding Casting Division, they had an excellent first quarter. So the market environment improved. They did a fantastic job. They increased the shipments by over 11%. And here, the driver is mainly the automotive industry, where the demands are really strong. And we also mentioned here that we successfully mentioned -- managed to expand our customer base by new customers, also in the automotive industry for the Casting Division.

Rolling Division, to summarize the developments there. Yes, what we saw last year, as I mentioned before, there was hardly any impact or no impact more or less from COVID in the first quarter. This first quarter was, of course, in particular, affected by negative mix developments because of COVID, aircraft products lacking behind. And we are, I think, 60% down compared to the prior year in terms of aircraft shipments. So the revenue is slightly down. External EBITDA is at EUR 17 million compared to EUR 22 million in the prior year, but prior year was a good one, and then I mentioned the reasons. And -- but all in all, we are definitely positive for the rest of the year. Of course, exactly aircraft industry, but all in all, I think the development is good. Situation is very good. And so this summarizes the first quarter.

How do we see the upcoming months and the rest of the year? First of all, in our first bullet, we mentioned that the environment, of course, is still influenced by COVID and also the ramp-up period after COVID -- post COVID. When I say -- and I mentioned that it's still influenced, and it also has to do with risk, of course. And you all read about chips for the automotive industry, we all read about logistical issues and so on. So a lot of things are, of course, affected, still affected by COVID. But on the other side, we, of course, also see the high order intake, which is also assumed or forecasted by CRU, and I mentioned plus 8% for the year 2021.

The third bullet here mentions that the order intake trend is really strong in all our industry, except aircraft. This is still the case. So there is no reason for being pessimistic here. So from the aircraft, from the demand side, I think, we have to expect a strong 6 months or so ahead of us because this is the visibility we have right now.

So this current order level ensures our good capacity utilization, as I mentioned, for the next 5, 6 months. And so we think the whole environment looks promising, also from the Metal Division, market conditions with high aluminum price compared to the prior periods and also a very low -- still very low price for alumina. And this is also the reason why the -- present here and outlook for the year 2021 between EUR 125 million and EUR 140 million, which is significantly above the performance of the year 2020, where we ended at EUR 108 million. And we are looking forward, and hopefully, that the situation stays as it is right now because then we have, let's say, promising month ahead of us. So this was my presentation now, and I'm happy to answer your questions. Thanks for listening.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Michael Marschallinger with Erste Group.

[Michael Marschallinger, analyst]

I have 2, if I may. Maybe the first one on the current event of this EUR 125 million to EUR 140 million, and on the assumptions. I mean, to reach the upper range, this EUR 140 million, would this be in your view more dependent on the direction of aluminum prices? Do they have to stay higher [indiscernible] more dependent on the order situation of second half of the year? And my second question also on the order situation. We noted that the aircraft is weak and lagging. But with the current vaccine rollout all over Europe, traveling restrictions being lifted, people traveling soon again, hopefully, do you expect any improvement in the order situation in the second half year or more at the end of the year?

[Gerald Mayer, executive]

Yes. I think if I got your question, your first question, correctly, then you are asking what is the -- what are the assumptions to reach the EUR 140 million? Is it more affected by the upstream assumptions? Or is it more the order intake situation downstream? So this is, for me -- I would say, to summarize it, downstream, I would say, the bottleneck we have in downstream right now is manning, is tough to build up the shifts and to get the right flow there. We have to train people on board to -- also perhaps to driving higher volumes. So I would say 40 -- EUR 140 million, we need definitely the aluminum price assumptions in the 2000 for the whole year and so on. So this is mainly the driver there. In our assumptions for rolling, I feel -- I think we feel quite comfortable in our forecast. But there is not a lot of room there or plus/minus because simply, we are limited in terms of capacity for many -- for some reasons, at least. One is manning, as I said before. The other reason, of course, is that in the aircraft industry, we cannot, let's say, expect big jumps this year, and this is simply what we will be missing.

And your last question regarding aircraft industry. I agree to what you said. It will be driven by the rollout. In particular, passenger traveling will be driven by the rollout. And I also would say -- and I would say this is no secret because what the big OEMs published are increasing build rates again for their planes. And I guess starting in particular with the single-aisle planes, the A320, the Boeing 737 and so on, and they will come earlier starting this year. And we expect definitely build rates, which are going up, but they are all reflected in our internal forecast and then the assumptions we made for the EUR 125 million to EUR 140 million. Yes. I hope this answers a little bit of your question.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Christoph Gabriel for closing comments. Apologies. We do have another question from the line of [ Gunther Eckert ] with [indiscernible].

[Unknown Analyst]

You mentioned about the aircraft industry. I have a question about this new F-35, which were given also to more countries than before. Do you see a chance there to get orders?

[Gerald Mayer, executive]

You mean a new defense plane, I guess?

[Unknown Analyst]

Yes.

[Gerald Mayer, executive]

From our side, our core customers there. First of all, going to the aerospace industry business and getting their shares and packages to supply projects, this is a long-term -- a very long term, I would say, and it takes a lot of efforts and takes time. And what our -- and this is and will be the core customer there, is the Airbus group. We are, let's say, producer in Europe. We are supplying naturally to Europe and to European plants, cost effectively. And we are working on many, many, I would say, to -- of course, to have our footprint everywhere where possible. But our main target is to increase and stabilize the volumes. We have with the big volume, let's say, bring us. And this is the A320, and this is where we are and where we are in. And so for the rest, we have, of course, we have certifications for many or more or less all the producers. And -- but we do not, let's say, distribute and publish specifically in what programs we are in, but it's not the core. The core, I would say, for us, is to supply, in particular, the A320 program and A320 family there.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I hand back to Christoph Gabriel for closing comments. Thank you.

[Gerald Mayer, executive]

Thank you very much for joining this call. As always, I invite you to give me a call should there be any questions left. I wish you all the best and stay healthy. Thank you.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for joining, and have a pleasant day. Goodbye.