Kloeckner & Co SE

XETRA:KCO

Earnings Call Transcript 2019-Q1

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Q1 2019 analyst and investors conference call. [Operator Instructions] I must advise you that this conference is being recorded today on Tuesday, the 30th of April 2019. I would now like to turn the conference over to your first speaker today, Christina Kolbeck. Please go ahead.

[Christina Kolbeck, Head of Investor Relations & Sustainability]

Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our Q1 analysts and investors conference call. With me today is Marcus Ketter, CFO; and Jens Wegmann, COO of the company. After the presentation, we are happy to answer your questions. So with this, I'd like to hand over to Marcus Ketter. Please go ahead, sir.

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Thanks, Christina. Welcome, everyone, and thanks for joining this call. Today, we want to present our Q1 results. So let's go directly to Slide #4, please. Compared to last year, our shipments decreased this quarter. This was especially due to the weak automotive business in Europe as well as the overall lower demand. We increased our sales from 4.6% to EUR 1.7 billion mainly because of the higher price level. Gross profit is down from EUR 331 million in Q1 2018, which was benefiting from significant windfall, EUR 10 million, to EUR 303 million this quarter. Gross profit margin decreased to 17.8% and is, therefore, down by 2.6 percentage points. EBITDA came in at EUR 34 million and is down versus last year, but above the guidance. Our digital sales share improved again. Sales generated through digital channels were 19% in the first quarter 2018 and are now already at 27%, a plus of eight percentage points compared with Q1 2018. Coming to our new full year guidance. EBITDA is expected to be between EUR 180 million and EUR 200 million due to unexpected high and negative price effect and declining demand development, especially in the automotive business. To sum it up. Sales increased due to higher price level, shipments came down and EBITDA is considerably below last year. Let's now go to Slide #5 and I will give an update on our digitalization efforts. With our latest updates being only 6 weeks behind us, here's a quick insight into what has happened so far. We successfully started into digital consulting business with KCI and just had the launch of our first project, working for a well-known tax authority company. While the start into digital consulting business worked out pretty well, we recently partnered with diva-e, a leading transactional service company to get even more traction in the market. This partnership relates especially to end-to-end digital strategy and implementation consulting and adds perfectly to our existing connection with Springer hy. Moreover, we already signed around 30 third-party vendors on our KCO Marketplace in Europe. Let's switch to XOM. Gross merchandise value increased further and stands at EUR 8 million since our launch in Q1 2018. But with customer figures improving and especially new vendors on a contract accelerating and having 17 now, we are confident to take up even more speed from here. By now, already more than 50 sector specialists work for XOM in Berlin, Duisburg and Atlanta. We now also have sales representatives in Spain, Czechia countries where we as Klöckner do not have location. With regard to the financing round, first investor trying to convert to bonds. We are confident to close the first round in the next month. Let's now turn our focus to the financials on Slide #7. Let's take a look into shipment sales and gross profit in the first quarter of 2019. Shipments decreased year-over-year by 5.4%. Quarter-over-quarter, we saw the usual seasonal pattern in the first quarter with a 7.2% increase. All segments saw a diverse picture. While Klöckner Metals US and Klöckner Metals Switzerland shipments remained stable. Kloeckner Metals Services Europe declined by 12.7% due to the weak automotive business and Kloeckner Metals distribution by 11.5% due to the weaker economic environment in Germany and portfolio streamlining in France.Sales increased year-over-year by 4.6% due to higher average sales prices. The main contributor to this increase is our business in the U.S. with an increase of 22% year-over-year. Sales of Klöckner Metals Switzerland slightly increased by 4.3%. Sales of Kloeckner Metal Services Europe and Kloeckner Metals Distribution Europe decreased in line with the shipments by 10.8% and 6.7%, respectively. Reported gross profit for the first quarter decreased year-over-year from EUR 331 million to EUR 303 million. Adjusted for exchange rate effects, gross profit came down even more by EUR 39 million year-over-year. With the exception of Klöckner Metals Switzerland with a slight increase of EUR 2 million all other operating segments came in lower than in Q1 2018. Gross margin declined from 20.4% to 17.8% year-over-year as the average cost for inventory picked up stronger than sales. To sum it up, shipments decreased year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter due to the weakening automotive sector, less positive economic environment in Germany and portfolio streamlining in France. Sales increase due to a higher average sales prices. Gross profit for the group decreased due to higher average cost for inventory. We now focus on EBITDA. Following the gross profit, EBITDA came in at EUR 34 million significantly lower than Q1 of last year with EUR 56 million, but above the guidance given for Q1. We saw a negative volume effect of minus EUR 9 million and price effect of minus EUR 32 million. Our volumes were down in particular in our European distribution business, which accounted for EUR 6 million of a decline due to a less positive economic sentiment in Germany and the portfolio streamlining in France for rebar. The weaker automotive sector was the main reason for the volume loss of EUR 3 million at Kloeckner Metals Services Europe. Even more substantial was the negative price effect of minus EUR 32 million of which minus EUR 20 million relates to lower than prior year windfall effects in the U.S. Another minus EUR 5 million was attributable to Kloeckner Metals Services Europe, also a result of the development of the automotive business. The remaining price effect of minus EUR 5 million came from our European distribution business. Optimization measures, VC2, One Europe and One US contributed in total of EUR 5 million in Q1, mainly due to lower converting fees, OpEx improved by EUR 2 million.As you can see, the implementation of the new IFRS rules for leasing, that means IFRS 16, that showed positive impact on EBITDA of EUR 12 million. Leasing expenses are now no longer included in OpEx. That said, we have to capitalize the right of use for our leased assets and to record a corresponding financial liability. The right-of-use is then amortized over the leased terms. In essence, the OpEx for leases replaced by amortization of the right-of-use asset and interest on the leasing liability. To sum it up, EBITDA for Q1 with EUR 34 million was significantly below the prior year of EUR 56 million as a result of the negative market effect in all segments. IFRS 16 contributed plus EUR 12 million and our efficiency enhancement programs plus EUR 5 million. Let us focus on financing now. As you can see, our cash flow from operating activities came in with minus EUR 229 million. Starting from an EBITDA of EUR 34 million with a significantly cash out for net working capital of EUR 258 million. Interest payments were EUR 9 million, and we also paid taxes of EUR 7 million. The changes in operating assets and liabilities were EUR 12 million. Included herein are cash-ins from accrued vendor bonuses of approximately EUR 20 million, partly offset by changes in other operating assets that means VAT, pension and other provisions. Overall, our cash flow from operating activities was thus strongly negative with minus EUR 229 million. Gross CapEx in 2019 were EUR 6 million. We had cash flow from assets disposal of EUR 1 million so that our net cash flow from investing activities came in at minus EUR 5 million. Thus, free cash flow was minus EUR 234 million. Net financial debt increased from EUR 383 million to EUR 820 million mainly due to higher liabilities for leases. IFRS 16 again of EUR 191 million and negative free cash flows of EUR 234 million. The settlement of FX swaps for British pound and U.S. dollar came from hedging intercompany debt in addition to negative FX effect, EUR 8 million, on our net debt. To sum it up, operating cash flow came in at minus EUR 229 million, net debt increased from the end of 2018 from EUR 383 million to EUR 820 million mainly as a result of negative free cash flow and IFRS 16. Let us take a look at our funding portfolio and maturity profile. First of all, good news from the financing side. In April, we completed the amend-and-extend process of our syndicated revolving credit facility. The new maturity of the facility is May 2022, which is a refresh of the original 3-year term, including two 1-year extension options, as previously at the lender's discretion. The facility size of EUR 300 million is unchanged. Furthermore, we have amended the gearing covenant from 150% to 165% to neutralize the IFRS 16 impact. We will implement this covenant amendment also in the European ABS in the next weeks to align the covenants. So overall, we achieved a very good transaction with our core banks that provides an improvement of our maturity profile and also high level of financial flexibility. Secondly, I would like to come back to IFRS 16. At year-end, we have EUR 26 million finance leases reported under the old IAS 17. With the first-time application of IFRS 16, we now report leases of in total EUR 209 million for Q1 2019. This increase mainly comes, as guided, from our former operating leases. But by far, our largest leasing asset class is real estate, mainly warehouses with long-term retro agreement followed by trucks. We have decided to exclude the maturity of lease payments in the chart as we do not consider them as classical financial instruments from a treasury perspective. So overall, we've utilized approximately EUR 0.9 billion or 54% of our facilities, including leases. The number would be 47%, excluding leases. Virtually, we have no maturities in the next 2 years. The volume-weighted residual term of our core facilities is 2.5 years now. Financing costs are actually higher than in Q1 last year. The financial results came in at minus EUR 10.4 million, which is EUR 3.4 million higher than in 2018 due to higher gross debt and introduction of IFRS 16 with an additional interest expense of EUR 1.5 million. To sum it up, financing is very solid with strong headroom on our committed debt facilities, a solid equity ratio and a low gearing.Let's finally have a look on the balance sheet. As you can see, our balance sheet remains healthy with an equity of EUR 1.3 billion and an equity ratio of 38% despite higher net working capital and increased net debt. The increase in noncurrent asset is driven by the IFRS 16 implementation, which contributed EUR 191 million. Following the usual seasonal trends and also price related, net working capital increased by EUR 272 million. Net debt increased as a result of the net working capital increase and IFRS 16. Accordingly, gearing increased by 35 percentage points to 65%. Equity decreased by EUR 23 million to EUR 1,259 million mainly due to the negative net income and renewals, OCI, other comprehensive income, relating to pensions minus EUR 23 million and FX effects plus EUR 10 million. Our equity ratio decreased from 42% at the end of prior year to 38% at the end of Q1. This was also due to the increase of our balance sheets total due to the additional IFRS 16 right-of-use assets of EUR 191 million and the matching liability. Pension provisions increased by EUR 21 million from December 31, 2018, mainly due to lower interest rates used for the quarterly revaluation. I would like to hand over to Jens who will give us the business outlook.

[Jens Michael Wegmann, COO & Member of Management Board]

Yes. Thank you, Marcus. Well, let's start with Europe. Our old demand expectation was at around 1% growth, and we have now revised expectation to grow by less than 1% in Europe in 2019. This is mainly due to further weakening industrial sectors, especially the automotive. Construction will increase slightly this year, main market's outlook is still positive except for the U.K. 2018 was a very strong year for machinery and mechanical engineering. This will hardly be replicated in 2019. However, we expect a slight growth for this year. The energy sector situation is basically still unchanged. There are neither positive nor negative indications. Subsequently, we expect 2019 to be flat. The European auto sector remains under pressure. The drop of registrations in the second half of 2018 haven't come back yet and so the sector did not recover. We expect a decrease for the sector. To give you an understanding of the figures. The German DVA counted a decrease in production of 14% in Germany, Europe's most important auto market for March 2019, lining up to a Q1 decrease of overall 10%. We expect a double-digit decrease year-on-year also for the upcoming months. On shipbuilding, it remains strong. We expect reasonable growth for the entire industry in 2019. Now let's turn to the United States. We also revised our forecast for the real steel demand in the U.S. from originally 1% to 2% to around 1% year-on-year. This is due to a dampening economic environment in the U.S. with expected growth in construction and manufacturing to moderate. Overall, our customer markets are steady and employment situation remains very tight. Construction is expected to grow slightly in 2019 on a slower rate than in 2018. Nonresidential is leading the way here with anticipated growth of 3%, while residential is expected to grow by 1%. Now manufacturing and machinery looks still positive and should grow in 2019. Rates are also expected to be below last year's development, which was very strong. Appliances still looking good due to residential starts and replacements demand. Expectations for energy is rather flattish to slightly growing now. The growth of oil and gas, renewable, power generation and power transmission is continuing but with slower pace. Section 232 forces the sector to adapt to new cost structure. The development of the auto industry is now seemed rather flat or might even be slightly declining. Starting to the year was a bit weak for the sector. In February, seasonality adjusted rate of units was lowest since August 2017. Thus, the sector might have peaked. However, trucks and trailers backlog is 75% higher than 1 year ago. In shipbuilding, we should see some growth due to good large demand. Well, that's from my side towards the 2019 business outlook for Europe and to the U.S. So back to you, Marcus.

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Thanks, Jens. On Slide 14, you can find our outlook. We expect higher sales in Q2 due to seasonal patterns and our reported EBITDA should be between EUR 50 million and EUR 60 million. Concerning our fiscal year outlook, we changed our guidance. EBITDA will be between EUR 180 million and EUR 200 million before material net positive special effect. The net positive special effect includes the sale of 1 site in the U.K., with an expected gain of more than EUR 30 million. Considering this, we are able to compensate a big part of the market related negative price and automotive demand effects. Ladies and gentlemen, we are now open for your questions.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question today comes from the line of Matthias Pfeifenberger of Deutsche Bank.

[Matthias Pfeifenberger, Research Analyst]

A couple of questions from my side. Really not trying to be cynical here, but maybe a bit on the financial guidance. You gave a quite ambitious outlook initially for fiscal '19, revised that number on basically sectors that were largely known at that time, weakness in Germany, automotive weakness. And then consequently, you guided down on a very weak Q1, now came out EUR 10 million, EUR 12 million better. So what is this? Is this reduced visibility? Reduced ability to forecast? Is this -- I don't know it's just not really good financial guidance because, I think, you could have guided more conservatively in the first place, and I think the IFRS impact was not known for the first quarter or the guidance didn't explicitly state that. So maybe some comments there. And then also on the net debt, we're now looking at a close to 5x leverage. I'm still not seeing the IFRS 16 impact on the IFRS 16 slides. So you're not mentioning it. 4 to 5 analysts are still forecasting net debt of below EUR 300 million. And maybe some guidance there, what's the level at year-end? How could the working capital get so much boosted in a time when demand and prices are weakening? And then just a housekeeping, what do you expect for windfall losses for the fiscal?

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Okay, Matthias. Let's get through your first question. What about our guidance? We actually -- when you compare our guidance, fiscal year 2019 to 2018, we considerably took down actually our guidance for 2019. The hardest part is actually to compare like-for-like and to not report it. So we said actually that we're going to be significantly below our EBITDA 2018 like-for-like. So we went already into the year with a significant reduced EBITDA guidance there. Then what happens is simply that Q1 came in. And we said, okay, as expected, it's going to be weak quarter also as we had in our internal budget. Considerably, we are significantly weaker than Q1 in 2018, but we expected actually to see some recovery actually in the second quarter, and we also expect that the outlook of -- for the second half of the year would not turn, let's say, a bit negative. So when we did the recent change in guidance, what we had was, a, an expected weak Q1. We had internal forecast for the second quarter which was below actually what we expected when we did the first guidance. And also, what we see in the U.S. but we didn't expect with our first guidance is that prices in the U.S. are weakening. We do not see that imports are decreasing. We see that imports are increasing, and we see in the U.S. that actually also there's a lot of capacity online, so prices are going down pretty recently actually in the U.S. We also actually have the official announcement of the automotive industry which we think was holding back some time that they are seeing also less demand. The numbers just came out for April which is at 14% below. So that's the whole mix we were in. And then we said okay, it's time actually to revise our guidance down to give our investors the early heads up actually where we see that the market is going right now. We did expect a retreat in the market. That's why our -- I repeat it, that's why our guidance, our first guidance was significantly below our EBITDA 2018 and now it's even more significantly below due to the factors I just mentioned. The net working capital went up. There are two effects. One of course is the seasonal pattern, and you need to see where we turn our inventory 4x per year. So every 3 months, it's turned. So we still have the high prices and actually when we bought the inventory approximately on average 3 months ago. So what you will see now going forward is actually expectation that the net working capital is coming further down again due to the weakening prices. But this is actually -- based on average, we do moving average costing. And as I said, we have four times per year. Every 3 months on average we turn the inventory. So that's the effect, there's a time a lag in there. On the windfall losses, I guess I will hand it over to Jens.

[Jens Michael Wegmann, COO & Member of Management Board]

For the windfall question, of course, for the full year, it's difficult to say. For the first half of the year, we expect about EUR 25 million in windfalls negative. That is also due to the higher-than-expected negative price effects that will materialize in Q2. As announced also in our document, we also expect the stabilization of the prices in H2 for Europe and the U.S. But currently, we don't see really an upside in this area. In the U.S., we still have good fundamentals. We just basically have to work, let's say, through the price correction, which is now basically ongoing.

[Operator]

Your next question today comes from the line of Rochus Brauneiser of Kepler.

[Rochus Brauneiser, Head of Steel Research]

First question is on your market comments for 2019. I think it's more for Mr. Wegmann. I think you said Europe is supposed to grow below 1%. But based on what you said, the division, it appears to me that market growth could be rather negative if the European auto sector is down double digit, which accounts for about a quarter of European steel demand. I hardly can see European steel consumption to be positive this year. Maybe can you get -- become a bit more specific on the market growth. What should we expect in your view based on that in terms of pricing. We're now at end of April. They're moving closer to the summer. Shall we think about the usual seasonality this year? Or is demand already that subdued in the first 4 months that this summer slowdown is really less pronounced? If the lack of price differential between Europe and China now creating a certain steel price floor, maybe a little bit more color on that would be appreciated? And likewise for the U.S., where you see a similar price turbulence. Is this -- as you said, is this primarily now the import side which is causing the problem? And to what extent is it the domestic supply here and there? Obviously, this [ Chase W Mill ] in Ohio is also said to be an issue? Maybe can you give a bit of a color there? And the third question is on your cost situation and potential restructuring necessities. When I look at your Q1 personnel cost, I think you had quite a significant increase, 3.5%. I think part of that is you have wage increases. Can you give us a figure how U.S. wages are increasing this year? And what are you going to do to keep your costs under control here? Is there any new restructuring plan in your group?

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Okay. Maybe I'll start basically with the U.S. I mean the expected effect on the Section 232 that imports are basically very limited. Our knowledge now is that we have about 9.5 million tons still being imported from, let's say, capacity utilization point of view in the United States. That effect hasn't really been reduced in regards to the imports. Overall, as we see -- in the U.S., the price development, flat prices moved higher over the last 4 weeks, but not yet fully extend after our latest increase announcement. Long products, merchant bars, mill pricing are stable. Tubes and hollow sections, mills, announced 3 price reductions in the second half of March totaling to $80 per ton. Drop pricing is still very aggressively priced. Mill inventory is in good shape. Stainless surcharge higher in April, nickel trending up, mill bookings remains low and inventory levels are high, and distribution but coming down. Aluminum in Mid West, premium trending in flat, domestic mills remain in capacity for 2019 and also carbon plate price increased by $40 per ton announced for May. I'm certain if increase will stick, plate businesses is pretty much, let's say, under pressure. We had a very extreme winter in the States and also that caused some delays in jobs, basically, in the U.S. Outlook-wise in the U.S., overall, will be stable, the flat business. Long should also be stable with some downside risks. Stainless and Alu will also be stable based on, let's say, the higher nickel price development. Plate finally appears to be under some pressure after almost 1 year of stable pricing. So we expect only modest downward correction as you just did with demand in the limited imports.Now your question regarding Europe. In Europe, we also have incorporated the Debrunner business in basically Switzerland, [indiscernible] Switzerland. Also, here the business, it's still pretty good. The steel prices is flat as well below last year's level. Reasons for price-level decline: weakened demand from auto and aggressive price strategy by some competitors. Long reached highest peak for a long time. Steel mill is trying to boost prices. Rebar business, which is a strong part of our portfolio, trending sidewards and aluminum prices still show a slight increase tendency. So the general economic situation, Switzerland clearly deteriorated since last forecast. Foreign trade investments, slow decline in global trade mainly Europe and Western outlook like the decline in export demand. The construction sector is still promising, starting through 2019. Building and civil engineering is booming. Our order books are pretty full. Also, industrial, solid development in 2019. So our forecast for Switzerland turnover and sales are expected to be in line with the budget in Q2 and flat price is expected to remain more or less stable, except for long prices remaining stable or even marginally declining in Q2. Rebar, similar situation as in Q1. There was a lateral movement. And then aluminum, we shall now see an increase in the sales prices. For the Kloeckner Metals Services, of course, here we have the production decline in the automotive sector of 19% year-on-year in January, also mainly caused by the WLTP in the automotive sector and the trade barriers and impact from the Brexit, also seeing here in our tubes business. The outlook for carbon plate is trending or moving down. Aluminum, upwards moving, trend is stable. So from that perspective, we now see a different mix between automotive and industrial in our, let's say, Kloeckner Metals Service, let's say, business environment.For the rest of Europe, the situation on the price side and specific-target industry has dampening effects on demand and consequently, also on the prices. So here, the prices are clearly, let's say, under pressure. In general, our customers are somewhat reluctant to buy just -- they just buy what they really need. In France, in contrast, to most of the other European countries we see, let's say, solid developmental of demand in Q1 and also in Q2, let's say, so far. U.K. on the other hand, the PMI just turned below 50. So here, the Brexit uncertainty still determines the business situation, let's say, in the U.K. And also from an outlook perspective, it's still a little bit on the wait and see from a customer perspective. Carbon flat prices are basically under pressure. Long prices are stable. Stainless steel prices are further increasing, and Alu is in a stable, let's say, [ 5-month scenario ]. So that's a little bit on the prices. And overall, as mentioned also before on the segments, we still see, let's say some positive opportunities in the machinery and mechanical business and from that perspective, I hope I answered your question.

[Jens Michael Wegmann, COO & Member of Management Board]

So Rochus, in regards to the personnel expenses which you can see here, actually that's the -- the delta is EUR 5.1 million, which you saw. However, there's effects also and so our personal expenses actually went only up, if you take this year, year-over-year only by EUR 2.8 million and of that actually, I can tell you that EUR 1.2 million is actually reversal of provision in France, which we had prior year, so that's on the increase in this year. So this is where the delta is coming from, the reversal of provisional EUR 1.2 million, so then you are down to EUR 1.6 million. And of the EUR 1.6 million actually, we have built up in comparison to last year more staff at XOM, which is another EUR 0.8 million then you're really down to EUR 2.8 million there. Plus of course, as I mentioned, FX. So there's not a material increase in personnel expenses. If you look at our EBITDA bridge, you can also see that actually our OpEx is over EUR 2 million lower than in the first quarter of 2018. So all in all, there's no -- as I said, no real personnel expense increase. We also see that the pricing effect, which is by far the biggest effect, will be a temporary effect. And as I said before, every 3 months, we turn our inventory. So from our current perspective, we see a definite need to control our costs until we are cutting down on our costs, and we also see a definite need for controlling our CapEx, of course, in this kind of situation, but currently there are no plans for further restructuring within the group.

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

In addition, we have our continuous improvement program, let's say, under VC2 and combined with our base measures, we have an overall package of improvement measures in the magnitude of EUR 23 million.

[Rochus Brauneiser, Head of Steel Research]

Can I get back to my volume question? I'm not sure whether I understood your message clearly. As I said before, you're saying the auto sector is down double digit, which is a quarter of European steel consumption. And if you consider that the rest is flat to slightly up, it feels that European market is showing negative growth this year. What shall we expect how this is translating into your volumes this year? Are you expecting a positive volume trends in your shipments? Or shall we expect some decrease based on what you see -- what you reported in the first quarter?

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Well, overall, let's say, compared, let's say, to our budget in previous years, I mean from the volume side, we see there's definitely a decline overall the group. Of course, depending on the regions, this volume drop is different. I mean we see it right now, the double-digit drop for the European distribution sector and single digit, let's say, in our services business and very slight drop in Switzerland, almost nothing and a slight positive trend in the U.S. So overall for the group, it's a single-digit drop in volume what we anticipate in the outlook going forward.

[Rochus Brauneiser, Head of Steel Research]

So we're talking about the whole 2019, yes?

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

We're talking about ultimately '19, yes.

[Operator]

And your next question comes from the line of Kevin Hellegård from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

[Kevin Hellegård Nielsen, Analyst]

I just was wondering if you could clarify on your second half in terms of your full year outlook. Are you baking in any windfall gains from increasing pricing? Or just baking in that there will be no further losses in the second half?

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

At the moment, as I said before, from a windfall perspective, the full year forecast to make it is very difficult at the moment. What I had mentioned from a windfall, what we anticipate in the first half is the EUR 25 million. Yes, we anticipate stabilization of prices, let's say, in H2, but also that is pretty tough to say in this current market environment.

[Jens Michael Wegmann, COO & Member of Management Board]

So we definitely got a lot -- or gains there right now. We're very cautious. If you do the comparison, you're like-for-like. And if you exclude the IFRS 16 effect for the whole year, which we say is between EUR 45 million and EUR 50 million and then do a like-for-like comparison of our guidance with fiscal year 2018, you'll see that we are very cautious for this year.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] And your next question comes from the line of Marc Gabriel from Bankhaus Lampe.

[Marc Gabriel, Analyst]

I have only one question regarding KM Services, where we saw the strong margin drop mainly related to the automotive industry. Are you planning any measures to recover the margin in the short term? And could you shed some more light on the aluminum business as well? How is that developing?

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Yes. So basically on the volume side on the steel sector, we are, as you can see, replacing the lacking automotive with industrial business. I think that is, from a volume point of view, our clear strategy here. Of course, the margins will be under pressure in that new kind of business mix. On the aluminum side, we were targeting, let's say, EUR 34 million ramp-up for this year in that sector in terms of tons, which is basically putting us on track of more than 2,000 tons per month. The budget from the aluminum side was 26,000 to 28,000 tons for 2019 in that sense.

[Marc Gabriel, Analyst]

And any measures on the recovery of the margins? Then you're down from 13% in Q1 2017 to now 4.26%.

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

If you're discussing things like restructuring, nothing is planned at this point in time.

[Operator]

Thank you very much. There are no further questions at this time. Please continue.

[Marcus A. Ketter, CFO & Member of the Management Board]

Okay. So that ends the call, I think. So thank you very much for participating and yes, goodbye.

[Jens Michael Wegmann, COO & Member of Management Board]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That does conclude your conference for today. Thank you all for participating. You may now disconnect. Have a good day.