Kloeckner & Co SE

XETRA:KCO

Earnings Call Analysis

Company Boosts Profit Margin; EBITDA to Rise

Despite a tough macroeconomic climate, particularly in Europe, the company managed to enhance gross profit margin significantly, from 13.1% to 16.7% year-over-year. EBITDA, before special effects, reached EUR 190 million for the full year, underpinned by effective net working capital management and successful cost containment even amid inflation. Robust operational performance and cash flow initiatives resulted in strong operating cash flows of EUR 287 million. However, net debt increased from EUR 584 million to EUR 775 million due to investments. Strategic divestitures are set to lower dependency on steel price volatility, with sales from North America projected to contribute 60% post-NMM acquisition. Innovative green initiatives have cut emissions by over 50%, with 96% of electricity from renewables. Looking forward, the company expects significant increases in shipments, sales, and an EBITDA before special effects ranging from EUR 30 million to EUR 70 million for the next quarter, with sustained year-on-year growth.

Adapting to Market Dynamics and Focusing on Profitability

The company's strategic maneuvers have led to shipments that slightly exceeded the previous year, bolstered by acquisitions and strong performance in the Americas. Despite a decline in sales due to lower price levels, the management's astute net working capital management resulted in an improved gross profit margin, leading to a respectable EBITDA of EUR 190 million.

Strengthening Financial Health Through Asset Management

Notably, despite the repayment of considerable convertible bonds and the potentially dilutive impact of acquisitions, the company successfully reduced net debt, underscored by robust operating cash flows of $287 million. Dividends continued for the third successive year, underscoring the company's commitment to delivering shareholder returns.

Strategic Shift toward High-Value Segments

In a transformative move, the company divested its steel distribution businesses in Europe, thereby sharpening its focus on more lucrative HVAC segments and reducing dependency on steel price fluctuations. This realignment is expected to enhance exposure in North America, which will constitute around 60% of sales, thereby de-risking the company's reliance on European markets.

Leveraging Mergers and Acquisitions for Expansion

The company has been aggressive in its M&A strategy, particularly in the United States, where it aims to boost its metal fabrication business and HVAC segment presence. These strategic acquisitions are not only value-accretive but also position the company as an innovator in the production and provision of sustainable steel products.

Commitment to Sustainability and Digital Innovation

With an impressive 52% reduction in Scope 1 and 2 emissions since 2019 and 96% of global electricity consumption sourced from renewable energy in '23, the company surpassed its ambitious targets and strengthened its role as a pioneer in sustainable steel production. Digital initiatives further underpin this sustainability drive, with automated digital quoting doubling in 2023, indicating significant operational efficiencies and customer reach.

Outlook: Expectations of Continued Growth Despite Headwinds

Looking forward, EBITDA is expected to be between EUR 30 million and EUR 70 million for the first quarter, with a significant year-over-year improvement anticipated. The management expresses confidence in achieving strong EBITDA before material special effects in '24 and a robust operating cash flow, maintaining a solid balance sheet while navigating the challenging macroeconomic environment.

Investing in the Future with Prudent Capital Expenditure

The company maintains a disciplined approach to capital expenditure, focusing on mid-to-high two-digit numbers for maintenance alongside investments in value-added segments to drive growth. Balancing organic development with strategic M&A activities, particularly in North America, reflects the company's commitment to building a sustainable, profit-generating business model.

Earnings Call Transcript 2023-Q4

[Operator]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to today's Q4 2023 Conference of Klockner & Co SE. For your information, this conference is being recorded. At this time, I would like to turn the call over to your host today, Mr. Fabian Joseph. Please go ahead, sir.

[Fabian Joseph, executive]

Thank you very much, and welcome to our Q4 call. With me today are our CEO, Guido Kerkhoff; our CFO, Oliver Falk; and our CEO, Americas, John Ganem. They will guide you through the presentation. And afterwards, we are happy to take your questions.

With that, I'd like to hand over to you, Guido.

[Guido Kerkhoff, executive]

Yes. Thanks, Fabian, and welcome to our Full year 2023 call. I'd like to start right away with the highlights of this year. Please note that our financial statements were prepared according to our IFRS 5, hence the results only include our continuing operations. Full year '22 figures have also been adjusted in accordance with the requirements of IFRS 5.

Shipments overall came in slightly above previous year's level, driven by a strong performance of our Americas segment and the NMM acquisition in the second half of the year. Sales went down year-on-year as a result of the overall lower price levels compared to last year's quarter. U.S. prices, however, increased strongly in the year-end and price in Europe stabilized.

Although gross profit decreased in absolute terms, we achieved an increase in gross profit margin as the result of our consistent net working capital management. EBITDA therefore before material special effects came in at EUR 190 million, despite the ongoing challenging macroeconomic environment, especially in Europe, along with the steel price declines over the year.

And let me clearly say here. Gross profit was presented to as less affective than sales and EBITDA was less affective than gross profit, which clearly shows that we managed that downturn very well and especially on the OpEx side, we could compensate and fully compensate all the inflationary pressure we saw throughout this year and kept OpEx in absolute terms, stable.

Our solid operating performance coupled with our net working capital management, led to a strong and significantly positive operating cash flow of $287 million, second consecutive year of significant cash flow generation.

As a result of the NMM acquisition, net add increased year-on-year. Further, convertible bonds issued in 2016 with an outstanding amount of $141 million was fully repaid as scheduled. However, "net debt" already decreased significantly, driven by strong operating cash flow. I'm proud to announce that we will propose to the AGM to pay a dividend for the third time in a row, proving that shareholder remuneration remains a top priority with the aim of being a steady and sustainable dividend base.

Let's now focus on what we achieved during this challenging year. Let me recap what we accomplished in the last year to emphasize how this company has changed and involved. In December '23, we announced the intention to sell our low margin and volatile steel distribution businesses in France, U.K., Netherlands and Belgium.

The sale accelerates our transformation towards more HVAC exposure and makes us significantly less dependent on steel price developments. In the future, we will generate around 60% of our sales in North America, where we also achieved significant progress. In August, we closed our value-accretive NMM acquisition and integrated into Klockner provides the expected growth platform for the North American market.

In November, we successfully acquired and closed highly profitable industrial manufacturing services, significantly expanding our metal fabrication business in the U.S. and further increasing our exposure towards HVAC. In '23, we also consolidated our role as a pioneer of sustainable steel industry. Beginning of the year, we launched the Product Carbon Footprint PCF for almost all of our 190,000 products.

The PCF records all emissions of the product down to the kilogram from raw material extraction to delivery to the customer's factory gate. So [indiscernible] customer entry gate Scope 1, 2, 3. Later in the year, we launched Nexigen Data Services for smart digital management of carbon emission product emissions.

The data software offers customers suggestions for greener alternative products in ways to potentially reduce carbon emissions compared to previous orders. In addition, we concluded various partnerships regarding carbon emission reduced material considerably ramping up the availability of green material for our customers.

Further, in the second half of the year, we initiated measures to increase the efficiency in our European distribution business and already successfully completed this program. Our target was to cut around 10% of FTEs in all our European businesses, including the ones we disposed of and we could finally achieve it.

I think we're leading the pack here in adjusting down to the levels of the current market requirements are asking for. As I mentioned before, we will propose to the AGM to pay a dividend of EUR 0.20 for the full year '23, the third dividend in a row.

Let's now focus on the sale of part of our European distribution business. As we announced just before Christmas, we intend to sell our distribution business in France, U.K. and Netherlands and Belgium. In the meantime, signing took place and the sale was closed in Q1, '24 already. So everything is done, it's transferred money there.

The sale is a milestone and streamlining our portfolio. Country organizations we sold were exposed to the highly cyclical and low-margin commodity distribution business, which is especially characterized by highly dependent on steel price developments. Those entities accounted for around 10% of our sales, but for around 20% of our full employees, our FDs.

This would present the efficiency gains arising from the sale. Going forward, we will focus on our strong presence in North America, which makes up around 60% of our sales and the DAX region, which makes up around 40% of our sales, there of around 15% in Switzerland which means the EU or largely Germany stay only at around 25%, 75% of Klockner is outside EU.

In these regions, we will focus on increasing our exposure to the more profitable and more stable [indiscernible] business. Our acquisition of IMS in November last year, it's another proof point of this strategy. IMS, we significantly expand our metal fabrication business in the U.S. We acquired a highly profitable company and further reduce our dependence on steel prices, and there is more to come as we're dedicated to further accelerate our HVAC exposure.

Let's now focus on our progress with respect to our sustainability strategy. As part of our SBTI approved carbon emission reduction targets, we reduced committed -- we have committed ourselves to have half our Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2030. Already in '23, we achieved this ambitious midterm goal. Scope 1 and 2 emissions in '23 were reduced by around 52% compared to the baseline year 2019.

One important lever to our direct carbon emissions is the use of renewable energy. Many of our sites have already switched to electricity from renewable sources. As a result, 96% of global electricity consumption was already sourced from renewable sources in '23, great success, and thanks to all employees involved.

We always emphasize that we proceed for sustainability transformation as a significant opportunity for us to enable sustainable business models and to also increase our margins. Recently, we announced another strategic partnership with GEA. We become GEA's first supplier of carbon-reduced stainless steel and delivered the quantities by our subsidiary, Becker stainless.

The stainless steel is delivered -- we delivered as a comp footprint that is around 90% lower than conventional stainless steel. This place is still in the pro category or Nexigen product categorization for carbon-reduced stainless steel.

In the future, we intend to expand our cooperation with GEA and to capitalize further on sustainable business opportunities. GEA also receives a protocol footprint declaration with the delivery, determining the exact emissions per kilogram that were generated from the resource extraction and production to processing and transportation to the plant gate, Cradle-to-customer entry. That is on the strategy plan. Oliver, please takeover for the financials.

[Oliver Falk, executive]

As Guido stated, we achieved a solid operating performance with a positive operating income and cash flow generation in each quarter of the year despite the ongoing challenging market environment. 2023 marks the second consecutive year of significant cash flow generation and also marks another proof point of our ability to mitigate costs of negative price risk during the steel price correction over a large parts of the year.

However, towards the end of the year, prices in the U.S. increased and prices in Europe stabilized. The state of cost of our European distribution business, which has now completed the lowest our dependency on those steel price developments and increases our resilience and profitability level further. In addition, we continue to leverage our digitalization and automation initiatives. The number of digital quotes, meaning quotes handled automatically by the [indiscernible] assessments more than doubled in 2023.

In addition, the average number of manual changes per digital order further decreased by 15% in 2023. Let's take a look at the shipment sales, gross profit and gross profit margin for the fourth quarter 2023. Shipments were considerably up by 9% year-on-year, driven by the strong development of our segment Klockner metals Americas. Sales decreased from EUR 1.8 billion in quarter 4 '22 to EUR 1.6 billion in quarter 4, '23 due to the overall lower average price level.

Gross profit went up considerably year-on-year and came in at EUR 269 million after a gross profit of EUR 232 million in quarter 4 of 2022. Gross profit margin also went up considerably year-on-year from 13.1% to 16.7%. We will now focus on the EBITDA for the full year 2023. EBITDA before material special effects for our continuing operations came in at EUR 190 million. In quarter 4, we had a positive year-over-year volume effect of EUR 21 million and EUR 17 million for the full year 2023. The year-on-year price effect in quarter 4 '23 was positive with EUR [ 22 ] million and negative was EUR 179 million for the full year '23.

After the unprecedented positive price development in the first half of '22. OpEx were stable year-on-year in full year '23 despite the overall inflationary environment in this year and as a result of the -- of our successfully completed European efficiency program. Lastly, we had negative material special effects of EUR 5 million resulting from the implementation of efficiency measures in quarter 4 '23.

We are now coming to the cash flow and net debt development. We had a significant net working capital release of EUR 251 million driven by our net working capital as I mentioned. Taking into consideration interest, tax payments and other of in total EUR 154 million, cash flow from operating activities came in at EUR 287 million in full year '23.

Other mainly includes value-added taxes and bonus payment for employees and suppliers. Including net CapEx of EUR 84 million and acquisitions of in total EUR 348 million, the free cash flow was at minus EUR 145 million. As a consequence, after negative FX effects, leasing and other effects, our net financial debt increased year-over-year from EUR 584 million to EUR 775 million. Despite the increase, we maintain a strong and solid balance sheet.

I now hand over to John to have a closer look at our end markets in North America.

[George Ganem, executive]

Thank you, Oliver. Looking at North America, I think while the U.S. economy outperformed expectations, I think 2023 was a generally disappointing year for steel demand in North America while there were some pockets of strength in such segments as automotive, nonresidential, construction and renewable energy, persistent weakness in manufacturing, like be caused overall apparent consumption to be negative in the U.S., while Mexico experienced a much more positive growth trend thanks to automotive and ongoing reshoring activity.

Despite these demand headwinds, Klockner same-store shipments were up approximately 3% in the U.S. and over 30% in Mexico. When adding in the partial year impact from our acquisitions, overall North American shipments increased 12.5% in 2023 with Mexico up almost 250%. This indicates that we successfully gained meaningful market share on a same-store basis while at the same time positioning ourselves for a much more explosive and long-term growth in Mexico, where demand is expected to outperform most other markets over the next number of years.

Turning to the 2024 outlook. We see overall positive demand growth in North America of around 1% to 3%, with Mexico likely again outperforming the U.S. We would expect the first half to be fairly stable at 2023 levels and then things should start to begin to accelerate as interest rates and borrowing costs come down. Turning to specific segments. Construction remain positive with residential improving as the year progresses and lower mortgage rates improve affordability.

Nonbuilding infrastructure-related investments should help to offset any potential cyclical weakness in nonresidential and I think the overall outlook for all construction segments in 2025 and beyond remain extremely positive.

Looking at manufacturing, things remain under pressure, and this is clearly indicated by the IMS index, which has shown negative growth trends for the past 16 consecutive months. Given other more positive indicators and OEM-specific forecast, we expect a generally stable development with current demand levels being maintained in early 2024 before starting to show improvement as the year progresses.

The situation is very similar in transportation, where automotive shifts from a strong growth driver in 2023 to a more stable situation in 2024. Heavy trucks and truck trailer demand growth will moderate, while shipbuilding should deliver continued consistent and positive growth. Appliance struggled somewhat in 2023 and is expected to remain steady at current levels until residential construction begins to pick up steam in the second half of 2024.

Energy should continue to be a net positive with explosive growth in renewable energy investment offsetting is what is expected to be a somewhat sideways development and extraction. Klockner's acquisition of Sol Components positions us directly in the renewable sector, which we feel will be another strong growth platform for us in 2024 and beyond. So in summary, overall demand should remain positive with growth rates steadily improving as the year goes on. And with our recent investment, Klockner expects to again outperform the market with continued market share gains in 2024 and beyond.

Guido, I'll turn it over to you to talk about Europe. .

[Guido Kerkhoff, executive]

Thanks, John. Coming to our sectors in Europe. The construction industry, the high interest rates continued during the sector with infrastructure still providing support. The industry will considerably benefit from ECB rate costs over the course of the year. However, full impact will be felt more strongly in '25 due to the transmission rate. Manufacturing, machinery and mechanical engineering, existing order backlog continues to enable production.

However, the sectors impacted on the overall weak demand and still tight monetary policy. Transportation, first, we will dive into the outlook for the automotive sector before moving on to the shipbuilding outlook. Order backlogs continue to decline along with low demand in the auto sector and uncertainty in the market despite falling inflation. Industry organization [ BDA ] especially expect a weak year for EVs. Now let's move to the shipbuilding sector.

Commercial segment is still under pressure. However, we continue to see opportunities from the gray ship sector also in 2024, we invested in our side being close to that sector and could gain market share there. Household and commercial appliances segment with marginal impact on our European business.

Also in this sector, inflation is negatively impacting the overall development. The energy industry, commitment towards green energy generation encourage stronger investments in green energy and green energy where we will participate.

Now coming to the financial outlook for the first quarter of this year and Full year '24. John and I pointed out, we expect the macroeconomic environment to remain challenging, especially in Europe. However, for the ongoing quarter, we expect a considerable increase of shipments and sales each quarter-over-quarter.

Further, EBITDA before material special effects is expected to increase considerably quarter-over-quarter and to come in at a strong level between EUR 30 million and EUR 70 million. Well the full year '24, we forecast shipments to considerably increase compared to the previous year. Consequently, sales are also expected to come in considerably above the previous year's figure for '24. In total, we expect a strong EBITDA before material special effects in '24, where we will clearly see how much progress this company made over the last year. Hence, we expect EBITDA before material special effects to considerably increase year-on-year.

Moreover, we also expect the operating cash flow to come in significantly positive after '23 and '22, strong figures. Also in '24, we will continue to increase our HVAC exposure further to substantially increase our underlying profitability base going forward.

With that, we're now happy to take your questions.

[Operator]

Dear ladies and gentlemen, we are now beginning with the question-and-answer session [Operator Instructions]. So the first question comes from [indiscernible].

[Unknown Analyst]

Hello hope you hear me. I wanted to hear about your level of maintenance CapEx and generally your CapEx expectation for the next 2, 3 years.

[Guido Kerkhoff, executive]

Pascal, thanks for the question. What we're currently doing is a large part of our CapEx that we're spending is kind of a mix of upgrades and replacements. So maintenance CapEx comes in as well, mid- to a high 2-digit number. So as you can see, our current organic CapEx is below depreciation and amortization. And therefore, over time, we would like to do is selectively to increase CapEx in the value-add business to support our not only our organic business we have, but to integrate more and leverage all the opportunities coming out of the M&A section largely what we see in North America.

And you might have seen that we're doing with some of the mills like in Brandenburg, Kentucky investments on site to grow our business. So -- our CapEx is somewhat split, again, mid- to high 2-digit number on replacements, but they're largely always have an upgrade of the underlying technology.

[Operator]

There seem to be no further questions at the moment. [Operator Instructions]. So the next question comes from Thomas [indiscernible].

[Unknown Analyst]

I hope you can hear me. Okay, perfect. So I have 2 questions. First is on your guidance. So your Q1 adjusted EBITDA guidance range it's relatively broad at EUR 30 million to EUR 70 million. Could you give maybe some color on the assumptions for the lower and the upper end of the guidance? That would be great. And furthermore, it would be great if you could tell us what you expect to step up in Q2 compared to Q1. And if you feel comfortable with the current Full year '24 consensus, which currently stands at EUR 280 million, I think.

And my second question would be on the current HFC spot prices in the U.S. So the prices there have fallen sharply in recent weeks. So could you maybe elaborate on the drivers about this development. And if you expect prices to stabilize, then these lower levels now or to rise again in the near future. So yes.

[Guido Kerkhoff, executive]

Thanks, Thomas. Let me start with the guidance, and then I think John will take over on the spot price in the U.S. Well, if they continue to fall like they do now in the second half, they'll be negative. So that has to change in any case. But John will give more details. On the guidance, the 30 to 70, I mean it's -- you can expect a sort of volume and price, but price-wise and the NRV related where will the price levels by the end of the day, especially as you mentioned U.S. prices come down, where will they be at the end of the quarter.

And how does that affect them that led us a bit to the point of having a bit of broader range of the guidance because that can always affect if you see it continuing and a bit on NRV, you could be lower. Otherwise, we could have been a bit more precise, but that made us a bit cautious on that one. So not really the underlying at all. But do we have at the end of the month, and this is hard to predict than any revaluations we have to do on a book basis, not on a cash basis.

With the full year consensus, as you mentioned [ 280 ], it's something we feel comfortable with. Otherwise, we would have had to state something, but we do. And we always see -- I mean, clearly, if you see 30 to 70 and whatever you take out of it, times more, could hit it, but just at the upper end, but you always start a bit softer into the year. And then we have the price effect in currency, especially in the U.S., they're hitting a bit Q1.

So that's why we feel comfortable with that to underline. But John, take over on the U.S. on the HFC.

[George Ganem, executive]

Yes, sure. As Guido mentioned, we did see a significant improvement in hot rolled pricing towards the end of 2023. And we entered kind of on an upward trajectory into January. And as you mentioned, clearly, based on current indicators, hot rolled is falling and falling pretty dramatically. That's not really from our perspective, an issue related to underlying demand. I think as we just outlined in our outlook, demand is pretty stable, certainly on the contractual side of our business, and there are certain pockets that are very strong.

So like we don't think demand is the driver here. This is really probably an overshoot of what should be the normal hot rolled price in the U.S. towards the end of last year and early Q1. That caused probably an increase in imports as in Q1, and that's going to persist probably through the end of the quarter. And that kind of throws the supply-demand balance off a bit, and that caused the prices to start to trend down. And of course, then psychology takes over and prices start to move in a different direction until there's an indication that were at the bottom.

And I think last week, you saw that indication with almost all mills coming out with a price announcement setting essentially a floor on hot rolled. We feel that, that floor is pretty solid. We've seen activity levels already start to increase because many buyers are on the sidelines. So we're pretty confident that we're probably close to the bottom of the current cycle, which was very short, but significant.

And we would not be surprised to see prices begin to at least rebalance and move up modestly depending on how scrap develops, and that should start to improve on just seasonally better demand and production at the mills. So we think we're at the bottom. We think there's some upward possibilities in second quarter.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Christian [indiscernible] Research.

[Unknown Analyst]

That actually relates to your cooperation with GEA in the field of green steel. So I wonder, do you have more cooperations like that in the pipeline? Or are you working on more cooperation in that regard? And also is your green steel initiatives. Is this supportive to your trading margin. So is the GP per unit or the GP per ton you make actually in this new business field. Is this supportive and for the group margin.

[Guido Kerkhoff, executive]

Yes. Thanks. No, we're not only working with GEA. We have announced before that already Siemens and others where we're working and very successfully working on and have kind of partnerships. Now regarding what we can get out of this green steel environment overall, you should not reduce it just to the amount sold as just purely flat screen or being in the high plus pro categories.

Why do I say that? Because many of the companies have targets to reduce by 25% or 50% over time. And this can already happen within the gray section. So if you move from 3 tons to 2 or 1, you have already a significant reduction because we can offer with our Nexigen data services, the full Scope 1, 2, 3 emissions are Cradle-to-gate and being certified on that one.

We offer our customers the full transparency and sell these certificates so that you have not only the full transparency on the certificate and we make money on that. But then we can work with these customers on how to reduce over time and what sources are there and what price earnings will they get on decarbonizing and what's the cost of it.

And that overall, because as we're the only one who can offer that kind of broad range and comparable levels of the emissions you have makes our offer better and our customers if they want to decarbonize, then have to take the broader range, and this is pretty attractive to many of them. So we're in many talks there. So it doesn't only have to be green steel driving the green business behind. That's what I wanted to say, and it strengthens our position in many fields.

[Operator]

The next question comes from Pascal [indiscernible].

[Unknown Analyst]

What was the impact of the sale of the distribution business on your net debt.

[Guido Kerkhoff, executive]

So it will reduce it in a higher 2-digit lower 3-digit number in that vicinity. So it's cash we will receive -- we have received.

[Operator]

Thank you. There seems to be no questions there at the moment. [Operator Instructions]. I would suggest we wait a couple more seconds. Otherwise, I would like to turn the floor back over to the host.

[Guido Kerkhoff, executive]

Thank you very much for all your questions. If you have additional questions, please don't hesitate to call us Fabian and his team and Oliver and me and John were available for your questions later on. Thank you very much, and see you next time with the Q1 call then in May.

[Operator]

The conference is no longer being recorded.