AMAG Stock

Okay. I think we can start. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AMAG Austria Metall AG's conference call for the first half year of 2026. My name is Christoph Gabriel. I'm joined today by our CEO, Victor Breguncci; as well as our CFO, Claudia Trampitsch. Together, they will guide you through the development and results for the first 6 months of this year. As usual, the presentation, the press release, as well as the half year report, have been published this morning on our website under the register, Investor Relations. [Operator Instructions]

Before we begin the presentation, I would like to briefly draw your attention to the disclaimer that is included in our presentation slide deck.

With that said, I would now like to hand over to our CEO, Victor. He will start with the presentation. Thank you. Please start the presentation.

Thank you. Thank you very much, Christoph. Welcome, good morning, to our call of the first half of '26. So when moving to the first page, Page 3, I would like just to show, this is the official first talk to you that this -- our [ constellation ] have been working together for the last 100 days. We know each other for some time already, and this is working very well, I have to say. Alex Moser started in his new job, Chief Sales and Innovation Officer. And Claudia and I have been working already together for -- since I'm here at AMAG, but as Board members, for the last, for sure, 3 years.

Good. Let's go into our summary financial performance. I give you a highlight in Page #4. But then, of course, Claudia will deep dive with you on these numbers. But important is, we have important positive information to share. Revenue, 8.2% up versus first half of last year, EUR 850 million, driven for sure for growth in the Rolling Division, but also in the LME prices, as we all have seen.

But on the second level, you look at the EBITDA, which is a very important level of how we're generating cash, we see that we are above EUR 100 million, a 25% growth versus last year, which has to do, as I said before, with a very strong operational performance in Ranshofen, as I said in the end of Q1, a very positive market environment for our Canadian smelter in Alouette, and also driven by the LME price performance. So we see an EBITDA margin of almost 12%, which is an impressive growth versus the 10% of last year.

When we translate this into net income after taxes, it's a more impressive result, 74% growth, which shows how the strategy that we have developed so far is really paying off, and I'll talk about this coming down in the next slide. But important is, all 3 divisions have performed positively well in the first half of '26.

Free cash flow. This is where the challenge resides, minus EUR 76 million. It's a big impact mostly for building working capital to make sure that the ramp-up that we're doing in the first half takes place, but also the devaluation effect of our inventories, and the working capital that is attached to LME takes its toll on us. So we have seen that on one side, the EBITDA has positively impacted, but the free cash flow, for the moment, we are adjusting it to really reflect what we're doing in terms of growth. As a consequence, liquidity and debt, although our stability remains untouched -- we are there. We're prepared for whatever impact we have on the need of liquidity, EUR 186 million, a reduction of 30% versus last year in the first half, but indeed, stable, solid 2.7 net debt over EBITDA versus the end of '25, which was 2.3. But this is not something that keeps us worried. We are where we should be.

And to finalize my financial performance summary, we are adjusting our bandwidth from EUR 170 million to EUR 190 million EBITDA versus the EUR 150 million, EUR 180 million that we had announced in the beginning of this year, based on the current performance in our Rolling Division, the situation of the aluminum market, the LME pricing, but at the same time, taking into consideration risks and the whole geopolitical tariff, inflation scenario and how this market will persist in the coming 6 months.

So going a little bit on the operational performance in the first half of '26 on Page 5, we brought here some key highlights that brings why are we having this extraordinary -- or this positive performance in the first half compared to '25. So first and foremost, the successful ramp-up in Ranshofen. So we see that we are able to perform from where we were end of last year to where we are now. Q2 was a record quarter in shipments. We achieved 62,000 tonnes in this quarter in the segment Rolling, driven by strong performance in our mill productivity and -- but still remaining quality delivery performance at a strong level. And this is an important element that we would like to share with you. This ramp-up, that took place from the end of last year, and I'll tell you where it's coming from.

It's also important to say that we are achieving very good levels of safety. This is something that I want to bring in every meeting we have. We are achieving a TRIFR, which is our KPI of safety, of 0.7 in the first year of '26 versus 1.3. So I give you -- when you compare ourselves to the majority of the rolling mills in the world, this is indeed a very important indicator of how we are performing in terms of keeping our work safe. Our employees come and perform their work, the task and go back home safe, and satisfied with their performance. So we are going in the right direction. This is a daily work. This is not something that changes when we achieve it. Keeping the high level of performance safety is a task of every leader in the company, but everybody in the organization.

When I move to the right, order situation in the Rolling Division, we see that our strategic positioning, it's paying off, as I said. We have 2 very important rolling mill sets, [ Mill #1 and Mill #2 ], in one facility in Ranshofen. And we are being able to gain market share in specific areas where we play some premium products, which is the heat exchanger market, even driven by the data centers and the cooling material that is needed to keep the data centers cool. So we're getting some very strong position there, but also strong bottleneck limitations in North America, which drove additional demand for us, and we were able to capture. I'll talk about this later on. But not only this, we see, versus first half of last year, an improvement in the aerospace sector, which is a reflection on the build rates coming from our main OEMs, our main customers. But also, we see a slight improvement in the sentiment of the industrial side, specifically in Europe.

When I move into Page 7, I bring a little bit more information on numbers. So half -- first half of '25, we had a little bit above 200,000 tonnes of shipments -- 220,000 tonnes of shipments. And in first half of '26, we are in around same level, 0.5% growth. But below the water, when we look at below this number, what changed, and then I explain. So in the metal shipments, we -- of course, we are reacting to the tariff discussions we're having between Canada and North America -- and the U.S. So a portion of our production that naturally would go into North America, into the U.S. is now coming to Europe, even to us here in Austria. We received shipments in the magnitude of 5,000 tonnes in [ consortium ] coming directly from our [indiscernible] participation. And we see that in the first half of '25, we shipped 9,000 tonnes more, but we're going to see this reflection back in the second half of '26 because we're adjusting and optimizing logistics there.

In our Casting business, we performed very well in this first half, additional 2,000 tonnes. Very important margin increase in this segment as well despite the intense market for scrap, when you say scrap availability and also scrap pricing that has a direct impact on our P&L. So when you see the numbers in the back half of this presentation, you see that we are 4% below in the usage of scrap in our site, which is a reflection of how tight this market is, but also about -- also regarding mix that we produce in Ranshofen. So all in all, a very important element of our strategy. In summary, 8,500 tonnes more in the Rolling Division. We shipped 117,000 tonnes in the first 6 months, which is an 8% increase versus 2025.

When I come to Page 8, I go -- we do a deep dive here on the relevant markets. This is something we wanted to share with you to give a little bit more information on how we see the market today. So when you go into the first box, we have automotive and transport. And here, I want to say is, our long-term strategy is paying off. We have been always looking at qualifications, customers that we need to develop together, being patient in developing these new customers. And we see -- when the opportunity came, we grabbed it. So we see an impressive growth into the automotive segment in our business, but also in the magnitude of 30% growth versus 2025, as you can see there. And we see that the market is driven -- CRU forecast transport growth of 4.3%. And as you see the PMI, June '26 is around 51. So we see, despite the pressure that the OEMs are feeling, reading the newspapers, all the difficulties that we see in the major OEMs, we -- for those platforms that are intense in aluminum, we are well positioned.

On the second one, we have heat exchangers, very positive demand, as I said, driven by data centers, battery systems. And we are capturing all the market share opportunities we can. Our sales rose 23% in the first half versus last year, and it's driven by a very strong, not only Eurozone 51 in the PMI, but also U.S. 54, where we are also shipping globally in this segment.

Aerospace, a key market for us, a positive outlook for the next 10 years. It's all a matter of supply chain, how this destocking, build rates, supply chain capabilities, the ramp-up together with our key OEMs takes place. And raw material, as we are -- with plate and sheet, we are in the beginning of the supply chain. So we have to cope with this volatility that they have in their challenging supply chain. But even though this happened, we have shipments going in the magnitude of 9% versus '25, so which is a very important element of our strategic commercial strategy.

Industrial applications, this is where we have a big impact in terms of how can we ship overseas into North America. We have been successful in getting our product inside North America, but we're also taking advantage of this shift in the geopolitical battle for where the markets -- where the products are going to go. We're taking advantage of the semiconductors business in Southeast Asia, and also a more timid recovery in industrial and the machinery in Europe, specifically in Italy and Spain and Germany, not in the magnitude that we would be expecting, but we see signs of change being executed there.

Packaging, a very key market to us over the history of the company. We adjusted our shipments in the first half of '26 together with the customers to -- by around 20%, which enabled us to bring this capacity in other markets where we needed the cold mill capability. But this has been all adjusted and negotiated. The market remains stable. We have capacity developed for this business, but this ability to play with the mix is an important part of our portfolio. So this is what happened in packaging. We see a stable demand, 3.3% annum in the CRU, but also in the Eurozone, the main market for us is 51 in the PMI index. So it's a good number.

Last but not least, we have, on the others -- these are small tonnage markets but with very important margin that we see stability. No significant change in architectural. In the sports area, we see a little bit of volatility there. But in the end, shipments grew by a little, 3%, which is important for the overall positioning of our portfolio.

And going to Page 9, we show in our mix, in our pie chart of how we ship and where we are, we saw the main growth that I mentioned before. The pie grew. And also, there is a little bit of change in the mix. Automotive and heat exchanger are positive. Relevance in our mix, aerospace, other transport and sport, there was no change. And in our mix, industrial and packaging lost a little bit of representativeness, although in all of the markets, but packaging, we grew versus 2025.

So finalizing -- and then we can talk more in the Q&A, finalizing the view of where we are today. And I ask to be more transparent here on the target range. So we are very well booked until most likely the end of this year. We saw the evolution in the order intake, mainly driven for the new orders and new contracts we had in automotive, as I said before, especially in the supply chain bottlenecks in North America, but also in the market share gains that we had in heat exchanger, and the growth in aerospace and industrial, which is still very positive for us.

In essence, we are finishing the first half presenting to you a positive result, but still a very positive result for what's coming in the second half of '26.

I'll come back in the end. I give now to Claudia, so Claudia can go over the financial performance of the company.

Thank you, Victor. I will now give you some more details and information how that all ends up in our financial performance. First of all, I want to draw your attention on the market prices for raw materials and for aluminum that we were facing this first half. And as you can see on the slide, when you look for the prices, let's say, for the first -- for the second quarter last year and this year, but also for the first half last year and this year, in both comparisons, we saw attractive developments for our business. First of all, the aluminum price is higher than in the respective quarters last year. And also, the Midwest premium rose. This is due to U.S. tariffs, as you know, but they are also fully reflected in there. So it's built in the premiums already. And on the other side, we still saw the decreasing of the alumina price, which is a very important raw material for our Canadian smelter business. And therefore, we could gain attractive margins.

When we now take all this information we gave you into how our financials came out, we -- first of all, I want to give some information on our group revenues. And here, as we already saw it in the tonnage here, you can see that we could drive our revenue up to EUR 850.7 million for the first half of this year. What does it influence? Mostly, of course, our revenues are always quite hugely impacted by the volatility or development of the aluminum price. And this also, you can see in our revenues here. So a big part compared to last year is due to aluminum price. But as Victor already mentioned before, we are not just driven by market price, but also our actions on the sales side. And here, we saw regarding mix and volume increase as well. On the other side, a decrease due to mainly FX changes, euro-U.S. dollar, in our calculation. So therefore, we end up with a revenue of EUR 850.7 million.

This now brings me up to the group EBITDA. And when I give you an overall view on our group EBITDA, we can say that we had a very good EBITDA this first half of the year despite all the market circumstances we are facing. And why are we having this? There are many reasons. So first of all, Victor already mentioned, we had -- we could increase our sales. We have an operational performance that's extraordinary. We could do a ramp-up. And what we also did is not just taking the market conditions and the operational performance, but additionally, optimizing where it's possible. And one example for that is that we saw before that we had a decrease in volumes out of the Metal segment, and this is due to that we decided to logistically combine shipments which are now not happening every month when we go into Europe, but to combine it in bigger ships so that we are able to have a higher margin, but it will not occur every month, but every second or third month at the end. On the other side, we are very hard working on being also, on the financial side, efficient on our plants to look at every -- to look at our costs to make it a lean company. And this also already pays off in our results so that we see, at the end that, we could raise, compared to last half, our EBITDA by 25.4%.

When you see, on the negative side, we have some influence on the -- out of valuation and rollover results, so the Metal -- this is compared to last year. And here, we have faced this year a backwardation on the forward curve on the aluminum price because when aluminum price is quite high, immediately, it was quite seen on the market as a short-term effect. And therefore, on the long side, a few months ahead, it was lower, and therefore, you have a backwardation that kicks in. And also, we had some -- last year, some higher valuation effects regarding the -- at the 30th of June, which are now lower, and this is also resulting in here.

When I now go to the divisions, first of all, Metal Division, I already told you that we decided to have lower shipment volumes this half -- the first half of the year, but this will come back in the second half of the year. So that's just a temporarily a shift of these margins. And on the other hand, the production at our smelter is high. So we are -- the lower volumes are not driven by lower production, but by decisions when to ship. But nevertheless, due to the high market prices and our possibility and usage of selling to the U.S. or to Europe or even through [indiscernible] as we did it, we are able to really optimize our EBITDA in the Metal Division additionally to having attractive prices.

On the Casting Division, even as it is a challenging business, as Victor said before, we could -- with being very focused on scrap availability, scrap prices, cost efficiency in this place, we could raise our EBITDA in this division there EUR 2.7 million. On the Rolling Division, we had an extraordinary EBITDA this month -- this half year. All the details regarding operations and sales, Victor already mentioned. I also want to add that also here, we are looking at our costs. We are looking at being efficient, even having a ramp-up, being efficient and driving our productivity at the rolling department, but also doing a good job at looking and evaluating energy prices and having hedges in place when needed.

If we just look at the second quarter, which amounts to EUR 44 million out of the half of the year, which were EUR 101 million, we see that most of the points that are raised out for the EBITDA of the first half of the year, the same point here drove to a higher EBITDA. But for example, alone the aluminum price, 2/3 of the increase of the aluminum price compared to last year was realized in the second half -- second quarter. And as we explained in the first quarter -- after the first quarter that although the price rise -- this price was higher, it will kick in later. This is what we are now seeing that we are also having here smart hedging strategies, could participate on rising aluminum prices, and this is now the case, and you see it in the second quarter. Other than that, there is nothing specific we say that in the second quarter to be mentioned additionally.

In our net income after taxes, so when we look further down our P&L, we have no unusual extraordinary topics to be reported. So it's just influenced by the positive trend in the EBITDA, but we have no additional topics here to mention.

We heard before, and it's given that when we have high aluminum prices, that does not only affect our revenues and our EBITDA. It also affects our working capital because of higher prices of raw material, but also higher valuation of inventories, and for sure, as the numbers are higher, higher receivables in our balance sheet. And when you have -- as we have it in our case, you have, at the one hand, this attractive market prices, which also lead to higher valuation. And on the other side, a rising in orders and production and tonnage should be delivered, which means we have to build up our stock to be able to produce this in time. We have 2 main topics that affect our cash flow this year temporarily that you can see. And this is something that we or I -- in our sensitivities and in our liquidity management, are preparing for. So when we have both of it in 1 year, like we have it now to have a ramp-up in the rolling mill and the higher prices, this affects our cash flow.

But even though we have now a free cash flow that's not -- that's negative, the operating cash flow at minus EUR 57 million and the free cash flow of minus EUR 76 million, I can tell you that nothing that worries me because I exactly know where it's coming from. It's something that we could have calculated -- we had calculated before. We were prepared for that, so our liquidity management preparing for that, and know that this is -- as it's driven by action in our group that will be paying off in the future, in the near future, we really could deal with this and see us, even though it's for the first half of '26, a negative cash flow as a positive -- the positive results will occur in the future. And Also, as I said before, we were able due to be prepared for temporarily negative cash flows, also be able to take decisions like selling out of the Metal Division later on and making more revenue or margin out of that.

Having said that, when we look at our net financial debt, it's -- as we already said before, our net debt -- EBITDA to net debt was rising a little bit to 2.7, but it's still stable. We know where it's coming from. It's under control, and we have all our possible measures in place so that we can very much use all the opportunities the market and sales are now facing to raise the EBITDA and the revenues we can make this half of the year and the next half of the year as well.

When we -- to finalize it, when we look at our equity, equity is stable. We could raise the equity by 3%. And equity ratio is a little bit lower than at the end of the year, also given the increase in total assets because of, I would say, the higher valuation I mentioned before, and still, yes, as we said, high level and very good results for us.

Finally, I give you a short overview on the key ESG indicators. And we always want to talk about our scrap utilization rates, our energy consumption, and most importantly, already mentioned the safety KPIs. And all of this sounds solid range, good level, energy consumption going down. So we are -- also on the ESG side, we have a very strong performance. And given all the effects of having a ramp-up and producing more than last year, we are really on a very good side on that.

Now, I hand over for Victor to tell you what -- out of what we have had in the first half, we expect for the second half of 2026.

Thank you very much, Claudia, for running through with everybody the numbers for the first half. Let me give you what we -- how we see the year of 2026. As I said in the beginning, we are adjusting our guidance to EUR 170 million to EUR 190 million based on 3 main elements. All divisions are performing well. We are seeing stable production in Alouette for the Metal side, the attractive price levels of aluminum and the benefit of the alumina price, but still being impacted, as Claudia mentioned, from the metal lag and also the falling -- the backwardation that we're living today. So this is to be observed because this impacts the P&L, in the end very, very heavily, depending on how it changes, on all the geopolitical topics we're having.

Casting, stable, performing very well. A challenging market, especially driven by the automotive industry in Europe, but we see challenges in all levels of platforms, but we are able to capture the needed level of scrap and absorbing the price fluctuations on the scrap at the same time, but most importantly, is capturing the prices and driving the cost efficiency. So we see stability in what we deliver until the end of the year, also a positive trend.

And in Rolling, it's very good teamwork in sense of delivering the orders that we need to have so that we can really ramp up the site in the right way, but also the excellent operational performance, quality, delivery performance and stability, having the right mix, and again, also an important level of focus on cost. All the 3 drivers -- all the business are driving positive trends. So we adjusted to EUR 170 million to EUR 1 million (sic) [ EUR 190 million ].

When we go to the second page of the outlook, I need to bring what makes us be a little bit more cautious, which is, market prices can change, especially for metal, from one day to the other, depending on how the whole geopolitical situation happens. There could be stronger impact on our business when we're shipping into North America, rolled products, where the tariffs today have an important impact. So how this communicating basis would happen, and especially, if there is an installation in the Middle East, what will be the availability of metal coming into Europe, which could be an opportunity for a company that has a very intense usage of scrap in the mix. So we're confident that the guidance is a realistic and positive one, addressing all the elements that were mentioned before.

So with no further ado, I think it's time now for the questions that you might have. And thank you very much for your attention on the last minutes. Christoph?

I think we can hand over to [indiscernible] the introduction of how the Q&A session works. Thank you.

Thank you very much for the presentation. [Operator Instructions] And we move to the first participant, Patrick Speck.

Can you hear me?

Yes.

Good. First of all, congrats on another strong quarter. My first question is -- maybe starting with one of your latest comments on the risk factors. My first question is, we see a strong increase in -- especially in gas prices recently, especially in Germany. I don't know the situation in Austria, to be honest. But how do you see this going? Because such a strong increase so far, and you are heavily relying on energy. Is this fully regarded in your guidance?

Thank you for your question. Yes, it is regarded in our guidance. We are managing the gas reality very closely. This is there. I have to say, when you compare electricity power with gas, gas is 2/3 of our demand of energy, right? So in the end, we manage this very closely. I see an equivalent in the whole European market on the pricing of gas. So this is not something that I would lose effectiveness because we're all in the same boat. But we have a very strong management on that. And this level of gas pricing that we see is reflected in our guidance. So if I answer your question, this is our answer.

Very good. Secondly, you mentioned a strong development in the automotive -- or coming demand from the automotive sector. This is a very positive surprise to me because, I mean, we know that the sector is struggling. How is that coming? You mentioned there are bottlenecks in the U.S. Are you gaining market share from competitors? Or yes, could you elaborate a bit on that?

Yes, of course. Yes. Well, first of all, we have to look at the market when we look at overall, right? Automotive as a whole has been impacted, most of the OEMs. But we have to look at the platforms in those OEMs that are in aluminum intensity, which has a different dynamics. So we are well positioned in the platforms that are growing. This is one answer. But we recognize the difficulties that our main customers in Europe are having, especially in Germany. And we work side-by-side with them to see how to compensate this volatility and this fluctuation. There is supply -- there were supply chain bottlenecks, driven by not a positive, how can I say, positioning of one of our competitors. I don't like to address that, that way, but it is a reality, that gave the market in the U.S. a reality of the needed material coming from outside the domestic market. And that's why I said that our strategy paid off that we've been working side-by-side with these key OEMs for a long time. And when the opportunity came, we were ready to absorb that fluctuation and get the additional tonnage that we absorbed in the first half of this year.

So if you look in our guidance in Q2 -- in Q1, when we did the press conference in February, we already addressed that opportunistic -- or the opportunity that's coming from automotive we already see in the end of last year, and it materialized, as we said. So we're gaining market share. We're sustaining possibly. This is something we're developing right now, what could stay for '27. But the other side of the equation is the heat exchangers that is driven by automotive as well, but mostly by data centers, as I said before, that needs battery cooling. And this is where we're really gaining market share. This is a very strong sales execution process. And in both sides, we were well positioned from a capability and a quality and a certification point of view.

Understood. Next one is on the valuation effect. I was a bit surprised that this was such a -- had such a negative impact in the second quarter. We now see a stabilizing aluminum price recently. So how do you see this effect going in the third quarter so far?

First of all, it's not just that everything of this materializes in the second quarter, but it's the difference to the second quarter last year. So it's -- even as we had positive effects last year, it seems to be even a bigger valuation effect than we would show if we just have the quarterly results. So it's more out of the waterfall. But mainly what's in there is that we have valuation effects that are affected by many different things. And I just point out a few so that it's not just the metal price. So it's -- I would say, 1/3 is out of the, let's say, the metal lag, the backwardation, the rolling over of metal hedges. But there is also included a part for valuation of -- FX valuation. And we have there, the valuation of risk -- risk valuation of onerous contracts. So, that we -- the risk provision where we see the -- for IFRS, we have to take provisions if we have [ proof of ] negative contracts. And this also always influences the position we have in the valuation effect. So it's not just driven by the market.

So now, to your question for the second half of the year, there -- I also want to split that, for example, for the backwardation and metal lag in this part. We now see -- for example, in April-May, we saw a backwardation for a few -- just if you look a few months forward in '26, for minus $40 at the peak, and now we are at minus $5. So we are putting this into our sensitivities, I would say. So we have [ the position ] there. At the moment, it's lower. For the year-end, we took some sensitivities on that because we saw this year, it's been quite volatile. This market is quite -- the price -- aluminum prices at the moment, not only driven by the demand in the market and the shortage because of the Middle East, but also headline driven by the Middle East conflict. So it could be that there is still a lot of volatility until the year-end. And some -- fourth quarter, it also could be the part where we do -- where we have long-term contracts that could also perhaps affect our valuation effect. But this is all implemented in the guidance and shows the chances and risk we are taking there.

Okay. Understood. And last question from my side. You mentioned the free cash flow development, which is not so satisfying yet, but you said it's a temporary negative effect. When do you think we could expect a swing to the positive here?

So we are managing it quite closely. And the swing, I do not -- I cannot give an exact time line because it's so much driven also by valuation at the year-end, and we have -- as we said before, we have our inventories and receivables. I would say, it will come back, but I can't, at the moment, say at which point. But we are really able to manage it. We know exactly every million here is coming from. And what we can say, what is perhaps helping for understanding, I think the biggest thing is not for me, when it's coming back. But what I see is that I see, we are still very well at the operations. We are good at managing the tonnage in our inventories. We do a very good credit risk management on our receivables. So it will come back, and the risks are very well managed. So also, I'm very confident on that side.

And we move on to the next participant with raised hand, Mr. Patrick Steiner.

Hello? Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yes.

Most of my questions have been answered already. Congratulations on the results. I have 2, 3 questions remaining. Firstly, on your -- on the automotive discussions, can you give us maybe some kind of information on which OEM groups were responsible for this kind of improvement you've seen during the quarter? This would be the first one.

The second one, I know it's a tough question. You just outlined all the moving parts going into that. But within what range would you see free cash flow for the full year 2026?

And third and last question on net debt to EBITDA, what kind of range do you feel comfortable in the long term, given the character of your business?

Let me get the first one, which is the simplest. I'm bound by contracts with all my key customers and OEMs. So -- and we have a very strong confidentiality clause that we're not able to disclose because it impacts the whole market. So I can tell you, we are well positioned in the biggest platforms with key OEMs globally, not only in Europe, but in Asia, but also in North America. So unfortunately, I am not able to share that level of information with you.

On the free cash flow, I'll let Claudia answer.

So, on the free cash flow, in my answer before, I tried to point out how difficult it is now half a year before to give the guidance on the free cash flow and just showing you how we are working on it, what's the influence there and how we're seeing it to evaluate and where it's coming from. And most important, it's temporarily out of a positive and strong performance in our group and not because of lack of markets. So I can't give you an exact number on that.

For the EBITDA to -- net debt to EBITDA, you see we are always below -- far below 3. And also knowing that it's temporarily affected at the moment and showing a strong EBITDA, we are very confident with these numbers.

[Operator Instructions] And so, in the meantime, we have received no further questions. And therefore, I hand back to you, Christoph.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you to both of you, Patricks, Patrick Steiner and then Patrick Speck, for your questions. If there are any questions left, please feel free to give me a call afterwards and I'm always there for you. Thanks again for joining this call. Should you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out. Otherwise, I wish you a very pleasant Thursday. Enjoy a very hot summer and stay cool. Thank you. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Thanks for your attention.

Thank you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to AMAG Austria Metall AG's conference call for the first quarter of 2026. I'm joined today by our designated CEO, Victor Breguncci, who will officially assume the role of Chief Executive Officer tomorrow as well as our CFO, Claudia Trampitsch. Together, they will guide you through the development and results for the first 3 months of this year.

As usual, the presentation and the press release have been published this morning on our website under Investor Relations. Following the presentation, we will open the call for questions. [Operator Instructions]

With that, I would now like to hand over to Victor. Thank you.

Thank you, Christoph. Good morning, everyone. So getting back to the beginning on page -- the first page of the highlights for the first quarter. We had a very positive first quarter of 2026 with significant increase in earnings. So when we look at the numbers, we are very much in line in top line compared to 2025, 0.6% above. But below this line, we can see there is a very strong improvement in our cash generation.

EBITDA increased to EUR 57.1 million, a very relevant 24% increase compared to Q1, which was EUR 46 million. I'll explain later, and Claudia will also go in a little bit more details where it comes from. But as we can imagine, we see a very positive tailwinds from the aluminum price, but also in our rolling business we see an improvement in our mix of products that we sold in Q1.

When we go to the bottom line, net income after taxes rose to EUR 26.5 million, a significant increase compared to Q1, 63.8% above, which was EUR 60 million in 2025. As expected, operating cash flow got to the level of minus EUR 8.4 million, which very much reflects the price increase that we see impacting the EBITDA, but increases in our working capital valuation and also a little bit more working capital over our supply chain because of the growth increase in our rolling business as well.

We will talk very towards the end on the outlook for 2026, but we already predict that this year is going to be a better year in terms of performance. But because of the very present uncertainties in our market globally and also what we see in our performance in terms of production and shipments, we are predicting a range between EUR 150 million to EUR 180 million, which will be the results of the year in our cash generation.

When you go into the market, as we normally present, the sentiment indicator, we're seeing since the end of last year in 2025, we see a worldwide positive sentiment despite all the uncertainties that I mentioned before, especially in the areas where we have a very important relevance of our shipments. The Eurozone improved slightly in the first quarter. We see this reflection in our industrial orders, but also specifically in Germany and Austria, where we see the opportunity to capture more business.

On the other side, we see uncertainties surrounding the Middle East conflict and also the geopolitical aspects from tariffs coming from North America. What we can say, when we look at the analysis of the Middle East conflict, how is this impacting us in our business. So putting very directly, there is no direct impact to date, although we see the uncertainty coming in our direction. And I'm going to elaborate a little bit more on what this uncertainty impacts on us indirectly.

So aluminum price. Aluminum price, we are capturing the tailwinds of this developing pricing, having a very positive effect on our Metal division, and Claudia will detail this a little further. But on the other side, it increases our valuation in our inventories in our Ranshofen site. Energy for the contracted businesses that we have and also our hedging strategy has significantly cushioned the impact of these higher market prices. But also, we do have agreements with our customers that everything that is connected to more short-term market quotations, we pass through this impact to our pricing and is consistent with our calculations as well. So we somehow have managed to circumvent this energy impact in our bottom line.

Primary metal premiums and oil metals, cost increases affect, of course, our rolled slab production in the Rolling division. And as viscose energy, it's taken into account in our quotations. But it's something we manage very closely since this can be a sensitive element to our performance as well as auxiliary and operating materials. So we managed to have our safety stocks completed to ensure that for the coming 12 months, 8 to 12 months, this is something we're looking depending on the material, we resulted in having more protection in our value chain. But it has, again, also some impact in our bottom line with higher prices.

Same for transport costs. Immediately, the oil prices have impacted the short-term price increases, not only in truck transportation, but also in sea freight. And this reflects in our pricing methodology, but also impacts a little on our external sales outside of Europe to Asia and also to North America. Important to mention is the supply strategy that AMAG has with regards to raw material has been -- is very much widened and recognized. So we see customers coming to us for the very certainty that this negative impact have, but also on the supply side, we are able to provide certainty that we're going to be having the ability to produce over the coming months with no risk of this Middle East conflict. That's a certainty that we have.

So when you go a little bit down to numbers. In total, we are 1% below what we shipped in 2025, 110,000 tonnes in '25. Now we are 800 tonnes, 900 tonnes below, which has to do more with the adjustments in our mix in our company. So all our businesses have performed well in Q1. But you see in the metal business, we have some fluctuations in our shipping capacity. So we're trying to optimize everything we can in our boats, in our ships. So 1,400 tonnes below what was produced -- what was shipped in '25.

In the casting business, slightly slower shipments as compared to the previous year of our recycled cast alloys, 1,100 tonnes. And in rolling, we have seen some sales growth in automotive and heat exchangers. And as I said before, in industrial applications, that gave us the chance to ship 1,400 tonnes better than we had in '25. Adjustments in shipments in packaging in Q1 will be compensated in the coming months in our P&L.

Good. When I look at our main business in terms of volume here in Austria, Rolling division order trends, we are -- we're seeing a significant increase in the automotive sector. So there might be a question coming from your side, where is this big jump in order intake is coming from. Extraordinary short-term demand from the North America market, not only in automotive, but also we see potential growth in industrial applications here in Europe as well and as well as heat exchangers in Europe and in North America.

Aerospace, a very important market that we have in our portfolio is stable, which is a positive sign. We are performing as expected. And there is no major significant change in the scores in the consumer goods, sports and architectural products. As I said before, we have a very strong stability in the packaging business.

Okay. This slide came -- I'm back to the slide that should be there. The Rolling division before I talked about the order intake. So we see what happened in shipments. Automotive and industrial applications were above 2%, each one of them, as I said, pushed by demand increase in Europe, but also in North America. All the other markets are somehow stable compared to Q1, but we see an improvement in the bottom line that these markets are giving us the condition to grow our profitability.

So I just skipped this slide and then presented this one after. So sentiment of the market is positive. Our margins are well positioned with the supply. We have the order intake capturing what we could in Q1. So all businesses are performing above the expectations and above the 2025.

So I'll give this now to Claudia Trampitsch to progress with the business performance of the first quarter. Thank you.

So good morning from my side. I will start with some information on the market prices. You heard before that our results in these 3 quarters are also influenced by high aluminum prices. And here, we show you the increase we were facing in the -- since beginning of the year, and we are now at the level of, let's say, 300, 500 to -- and a little bit above in these months. Where does that have influence on? You will see the impact on our group revenues, on our working capital and also on the earning in the Metal division. And I come to that further on.

When we look at the U.S. Midwest premium for the last 3 months, there was the reflective increase as well as in here as there are the tariffs reflected, you see higher implemented tariffs out of the higher aluminum price and also still the need for imports to the U.S. So that influences the Midwest premium and it still covers all the U.S. tariffs which are still at 50%.

On the other hand, we have -- the trend we saw during 2025 is ongoing. And therefore, we -- it's relevant for our earnings in the Metal division that we really have attractive aluminum price levels that continuously stay at a very -- for us, very attractive level and therefore, influence our earnings in the Metal division in a positive way.

So when it now comes to the group revenues, Victor before already told you what's behind the shipped tonnes. But in total, it was -- we had a positive influence, not just because of the shipped tonnes, which were more or less the same, but also, as I mentioned, the higher aluminum price, the higher volume, but on the negative side, some influences from lower prices and premiums that are still there and some influences mainly due to a stronger euro against the U.S. dollar.

When we're now adding up to the EBITDA, we can see that in all our 3 business segments in the Metal division, the Casting division and the Rolling division, we had a higher EBITDA than last year. And the reasons for having a higher EBITDA, we mentioned most of them before already. So there is a higher aluminum price. We have downside, as I said before, on the prices and premiums in the Rolling division. We have an influence of the high alumina price levels and a positive effect of our volumes.

And when I break it down to the divisions, you can really see here that how it is divided between all the 3 divisions. But what I wanted to point out again, all of them are better than last year in the first quarter. So we have a positive performance across all AMAG divisions and it is affected by market conditions for sure as well, as we mentioned, but also affected by our higher volume we could ship and all the efficiency and cost measurements we did throughout the last years are still ongoing, are affecting our EBITDA.

For net income after taxes, there's nothing in particular relevant, which is extraordinary. So we have a higher net income after taxes due to the higher operating profit. As we mentioned before twice that the flip side of high aluminum prices when aluminum prices are rising, is that we have an effect on our working capital and on our inventories. And therefore, we only show in the operating cash flow higher tight capital.

So this is -- we had as we wrote here some increase in inventories, but the main effect is not that we have a higher increase in inventory, which was necessary to build up the stock for producing higher volumes as we did and we will do in the future months. But the main effect here is the higher prices we have on the aluminum side, which is affecting the working capital and therefore, not something where we had a structural change, but higher prices that affected temporarily.

For the investing activities, they are as planned below last year and also below our depreciation. That's the path we are following. And therefore, you also see here a reduction and that all ends up to a negative free cash flow of EUR 19.7 billion. When I move on now to the net financial debt, we were showing at the end of this quarter, you see that it's EUR 20 million more or less higher than at the end of the year. And as I said you before, we had a negative free cash flow out of roughly EUR 20 million, and that is affecting more or less the net financial debt. There are no other effects in there at the end.

When we look at the ratio for the net debt to the EBITDA on a 12-month average, we -- related to the last 12 months, you see that we are stable in that respect. We could achieve due to our because I told you before that our equity is higher than at the year-end. The equity ratio went down because of having higher short-term assets due to the reasons I mentioned before. And as you can see on the cash and cash equivalent side, that's also the effect of the free cash flow where we have EUR 30 million less than last year.

So in total, what we can see, we had a strong Q1, which affected very positively our earnings. The effects in the cash flow are not seen now because of the first effects on working capital and so on, which are due to our business model and due to the higher aluminum prices. And when we move on to our ESG figures, we can also -- there are, for example, for the scrap utilization rate, some decreases that's due to the mix, but it's not -- we didn't change our structural focus on recycling and all the other figures are on a good path as well.

With that overview of our financials, I now will hand over to Victor, who will give us -- give you some information on the dividend and on the outlook for 2026.

Thank you, Claudia. If we move on to the dividend outlook, I mean, we -- as expected and very much approved in our Annual General Meeting on April 16, our dividend payment went through on the 23rd of April. So in this sense, everything went as planned. When we talk about now the final slide, when we talk about the outlook for 2026, we are foreseeing a positive outlook for us.

The situation today is subdued global economic outlook as we write here and the sharp rise in energy prices, the U.S. trade policy brings some sort of uncertainty to -- not only to us in the Western European part of Europe, the Central European market, but also to our customers, and this could be reflected in our ordering pattern. But what we see today is the value of the resilient market position that we have. We have a very strong diversity in our portfolio of products, our portfolio of customers.

And the way we position ourselves, as Claudia just mentioned, our share of scrap in our raw material strategy is relevant, 73.7%, very much dependent on mix. So it gives us a very good position in all of these uncertainties coming from the Middle East, coming from demand growth that we see in North America gives us the chance to really become a secure base to our customers. So we see this transiting not only in the automotive and heat exchangers that I just said before, but industrial improvements in Europe, we see customers rushing into AMAG for a safe haven for what could happen. It gives us a lot of responsibility to that. And it is something somehow reflected in our outlook.

So when we go into the divisions, we -- the full production attractive marketplaces create excellent conditions for earnings this year, can be easily impacted for the uncertainty that I just mentioned before, but we remain bullish with the Metal division. Casting has improved business performance despite the difficult market environment, especially in Europe. But we see that our team has been thriving in getting the right orders and using the maximum capacity we have, not only for shipments internally at AMAG, but also outside shipments.

And the Rolling division in Ranshofen, the positive order development that I just mentioned, especially from the unprecedented demand spurt that we had in the North America market and also our strong position in the heat exchanger sector with our investments that we did in the last decade gives us a chance to really seize short-term market share and we confirm that there will be an increase in sales for 2026 coming from this segment.

Somehow price sensitivity, we still have tariffs impacting our price position in North America, but we're seeing the ability to pass on these tariffs into the industrial market. So we see for the AMAG Group this year, a positive development when compared to 2025. Growth in volume, improvement in mix and also price execution. So it gives us an EBITDA range from EUR 150 million to EUR 180 million as our guidance for 2026 numbers.

So thank you very much. This was my first call. Looking forward to the next ones, and we open now to our Q&A. Christoph?

Exactly. And before wrapping up with the Q&A session, please refer to the disclaimer at the beginning of the presentation that for sure is relevant for the whole call. So now Sarah, it's your turn. Please explain how the Q&A session works and then we're ready to answering your questions. Thank you.

Thank you so much for handing over, and thank you for the presentation. So we're now open for your questions. [Operator Instructions] And in the meantime, we received the first question [indiscernible] from Mr. Speck.

And first of all, congrats on the very impressive results in the first quarter. My first question is on your outlook because to me, even the upper end of your outlook range, the EBITDA range of EUR 150 million to EUR 180 million looks rather cautious. I mean, so my question is if the aluminum prices would stay on a level like this, what could stop you from reaching an EBITDA even above the EUR 200 million?

Yes. So I take this question. First of all, I think you know from our track record that we normally reach our outlook. So we are putting a lot of efforts in building them. And there are several input factors we have to consider. And for sure, the aluminum price is now at the high level. But if you look at the prices in the near future, if you look at the, let's say, some months ahead, we have a very strong backwardation. And that we took also into consideration on the one hand that we -- when we look at where do we see the aluminum price for the rest of year, but also when we have our valuation going on for our derivatives, our hedging strategy and so on, where we also are impacted for that.

So that's also on the aluminum price that we do not only calculate with the actual aluminum price, but also with outlooks and have to consider the backwardation, which is affecting our business as well. And for sure, we have still, as Victor said before, we have price sensitivity -- price elasticities. We have high energy cost we have to consider. We have uncertainty in the market, which we have to consider. And therefore, we came in total to that range where we see now at the moment where we will get on at the end of the year. And also what I forget to mention before, which was, for example, affecting now this quarter as well is the U.S. dollar development.

Okay. Understood. Secondly, my next question is on your order book in the Rolling division. I mean, you showed a quite impressive jump in the order backlog. Is this also maybe due to some pull-forward effects from customers?

Yes. Thank you for the questions. There are -- for sure, the first major effect is short-term demand coming from North America, given supply chain constraints that we have there with some of our competitors. So we are perceived in North America as a desired international mill, and this demand came to us and all the POs that came, came for the whole year. So this has this big impact right in Q1.

We do see somehow on a qualitative basis, a desire from some of our legacy customers anticipating their potential demand to ensure that they get the capacity that they need. So we do see some kind of pull-forward effect, as I mentioned. But this is not the major impact that we see in the order intake. This is more from this unanticipated demand coming from customers.

Then also on the cash flow development, I mean, the cash flow was rather weak, but perhaps you could explain why buildups in working capital, et cetera. From today's point of view, would you say that the buildup is done and so we could expect maybe a swing in cash flow development in the second quarter? Or what should we expect here?

What we can expect is that it will come back because you always have when you have a high rise in aluminum prices and then it stabilizes or it goes down, then it comes back. But when we have it compared also with higher shipping volumes and higher production and so on, it needs some time. So for the second quarter, I wouldn't see a reversal at the moment.

But sooner or later, there should be a swing in the free cash flow, right? So at the end of the year, you might end with a positive free cash flow.

It has to be reversed because it's not because we are -- it's based on our -- more or less the business model that we have to -- we first have the negative finance part of the higher aluminum price and then we get it back when we sell everything. To make it very simple. So that will, for sure, be temporarily. But at the moment, it's too early for me to say in which quarter it could come. But if you take it, let's say, if it's 2 years or something like that, normally, when you look in the back, we always had this up and down in the cash flow where you can see that then it comes back. But it's at the moment, yes.

Okay. Yes. Got it. And my last question is, again, on the outlook, especially on the remarks on the output. Did I get it correctly that you are gaining market shares in the current situation because of the Middle East conflict, et cetera?

Yes. It's -- the point is there are 2 segments here that I just mentioned, automotive and heat exchangers. So there is no major new development coming. So tonnage is increasing. So we assume market shares are being gained, right? And in this case of North America that I just mentioned to you, we see that the share that is coming to us is originated in this demand from customers in this region that is not being served by local domestic mills. So it is a market share gain in these 2 segments that I just mentioned.

And then we will move on with Mr. Steiner, who is in the phone line.

It's Patrick Steiner speaking from ODDO BHF. Congratulations to the good results and also to the first conference call, Mr. Breguncci. One question remaining from my side. Could you please give us more detail on the expected earnings development in the Metal segment? I mean I would be specifically interested in the valuation or the accounting effects resulting from the backwardation situation on the LME copper price.

Yes. So as I mentioned at the beginning for the Metal segment, we have the impact -- rough impact from the aluminum price, we have the impact out of the alumina price. So for the alumina price, we are stable. So this is not the one that we are now making that big effect on the outlook. But for the aluminum price, at the Metal segment, it's not only we have there our [indiscernible] business, but also our risk management of the metal price risk. So in there, we manage the risk for the whole metal price segment. And there, we have derivatives that are related to the whole business of AMAG Group.

And in this business, we have -- when we do that risk management, we do it also if needed, via derivatives. And this derivatives can have negative pricing effects. We realize them or we don't realize them. But if they are unrealized, we have to do our valuation on them and they can impact our earnings in the Metals segment as well. So it's not just the operational part of it as you perhaps have presumed that we say you sell it at the high price, why don't we see it only that? It's also adding up the risk management for the whole group where we can also have valuation effects that can be quite big.

And you know there's a backwardation in the market at the moment, which is was last month up to $40 negatively where we normally have $1 or $2 per tonne. So this affects a lot our valuations there. And what could be a part when I say risk management, just perhaps to add this as well, it's also securing the values of our stocks and securing the risk of our supply of material we buy our raw material we are supplying and so on. So it's not just the operational business of [indiscernible] that's affecting our numbers.

Okay. And should we expect a negative contribution from that effect going forward in Q2, Q3? And if yes, what kind of size?

I don't have the exact number, but we see the market -- the backwardation. And as I told before, we are -- all the market anticipations in the forward curve, we are putting into our numbers. And when the aluminum price is going down, then normally, that could swap again into a contango. So these sensitivities we build in our models, yes.

Thank you for your questions, Mr. Steiner. [Operator Instructions] So with this we're happy to take the questions from Mr. Matejka.

Can you hear me? Fine. I'm really surprised about the technology. So congratulations about your numbers and your outlook. And it looks like me that Chuck Norris is living again because you have all the cards in your hand and you have done everything right in the past. And therefore, I promise you a really good future in relation to the incomparable political environment developing you have some kind of natural hedge in that. My question is twofold. On the one side, I'm always asking about the cross-alloy feature around what's happening all there and there is, let's say, the latest steps in that relation. And thanks to Mr. Kaufmann always being a party in that case to give me a proper answer.

And the second part of the question will be about your recently announced share buyback program. Is it already in place? Is it already working? Are you already giving some features on that? And yes, maybe some words about the future potential on that.

Okay. Thank you very much for the motivating questions. I'll take on the cross-alloy and then Claudia will answer you about your second question. Cross-alloy, Cross-alloy is an attempt as we have been marketing to develop an alloy that would position ourselves in a very strong position on combining 2 different kind of alloys, 6,000 and 8,000, 5,000 and 7,000. We are doing some pilots in some applications in Europe and the pilots we are waiting for the results that they could give.

We are taking very cautionary measures that we don't overestimate or underestimate the potential that the alloy will have, but we are positively surprised in the execution of these trials in the applications we have in the market, which are treated very much under close scrutiny from our R&D department. So eventually, we will come back with a little bit more information on that front, but it's progressing as expected. If I can give you this answer, we are very cautious and progressing with our trials and our tests. So as soon as we have information that could be shared in this forum, we'll for sure bring it and share with you and our investors.

And I will answer the second question. So I think the question was a little bit not addressing what we were doing or what was the intent we had in our General Annual Meeting because it was not that we announced payback program. What we did and what we also had in the past that we have just in case we do some -- and it's named quite [ taxative ] if we do have an M&A or something going on and using own shares would be a very good way to finance or --.

Acquisition currency, yes.

As you say as an acquisition currency, that's the right term that then we are able to do that very -- in a very efficient and short way because we do it without the AGM, we can do it without having the preferred rights for the other investors. And this was the same we had before. So we knew what we had. And it was just giving us the authorization to do so without having any plans to concrete plans and we have no share buyback program.

Yes, this will be the only answer to be given. But it wasn't mentioned in the analysis around and so on because of the small free float that you already have, it would be some kind of not the best idea to buy back shares again. And therefore, the proper goal to use it as a currency for M&A is the right answer.

And in the meantime, we have received no further questions. Therefore, I hand back to you, Christoph.

Thanks a lot for all your interesting questions. Thanks again for joining today's call. It was a pleasure. Should you have any remaining questions, please, as always, feel free to give me a call or reach out to me directly via e-mail. Otherwise, have a very pleasant Thursday and looking forward to hearing you soon. Thank you. Goodbye.

Goodbye. Thank you.

Goodbye.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to our conference call for the financial year results 2025 of AMAG Austria Metall AG. I am Christoph Gabriel, Head of Investor Relations, and I'm delighted to welcome our management Board members, Dr. Helmut Kaufmann, CEO and COO; Claudia Trampitsch, CFO; and Victor Breguncci, CSO. All Board members are guiding you through the business development in 2025 based on our full year's presentation.

At this stage, I would like to remind you that our full year presentation as well as the financial report and the magazine for 2025 have already been published on our website under Investor Relations this morning. After the presentation, you will have the opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A session. Please also feel free to reach out directly to me, in case of any further questions, that might occur after the Q&A session. As always, please note the disclaimer, especially regarding forward-looking statements that can be found at the beginning of our presentation, on Slide 2.

I'm now handing over to Helmut Kaufmann, CEO, who will start with presenting the main highlights in 2025. Thank you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, from my side. As Christoph mentioned, I will start with the slide on financial highlights for the year 2025. And I would like to point out that in a difficult year, operational strength, consistent cost management and some tailwinds from the Canadian investment in the primary metals smelter Alouette, supported our revenues and earnings trends and ensured again, financial stability. The revenues grew by 2.1% to EUR 1,478 million and compared to the 2024 number of EUR 1,448 million.

The EBITDA resulted in EUR 137 million, slightly above the announced upper limit, despite some challenging conditions throughout the year, especially for the site, Ranshofen, which was actually 23.5% down, the EUR 179.2 million EBITDA for AMAG in 2024. Net income after taxes resulted in exactly EUR 34 million, which was 21.3% down compared to the EUR 43.2 million in the year 2024, which resided in earnings per share of EUR 0.96 compared to EUR 1.23 in 2024. The operating cash flow grew by 41.3% to EUR 168.1 million and resulted in a very strong free cash flow, a growth of 262.5% to EUR 115.3 million, compared to the 2024 numbers, EUR 119 million for the operating and EUR 31.8 million for the free cash flow. The dividend proposal, which we will present to the general assembly in April is EUR 0.75 per share compared to EUR 1.20 per share in 2024.

Finally, a brief outlook for this year 2026. Of course, it's very early in the year. We see a lot of volatility and, therefore, a precise EBITDA forecast at that point in time is not possible but however, we can point out that we see some positive signals from the markets.

Let me shift to the operational highlights for last year. I mentioned already that we had a volatile surroundings but the operational strength was supporting AMAG. Metal Division, let me start with this one. Very important for the future development of AMAG is that an agreement was reached in the middle of last year. So the key terms and conditions for a long-term electricity contract for our Canadian smelter Alouette, which shall last to the end of 2045, so for the next 20 years.

In the Casting Division, productivity grew compared to 2024 delivery reliability. So delivery performance was high and customer satisfaction was also high. In the Rolling Division, continuous process optimization in the internal slab production significantly reduced the scrap rate and increased delivery performance. Productivity gains were made in the rolling slab production as well as in the rolling mill and productivity grew in both areas compared to 2024. And the utilization of the rolling mills was successfully stabilized, which was not so easy this volatile environment. We were even able to increase the capacity for plate production and able to sell this additional capacity so that we could achieve record sales for heat-treated aluminum plates last year.

So generally speaking, for AMAG Ranshofen, we had a successful continuation of ongoing working capital measures. Metal inventories were reduced to the lowest level since 2019. And investments in equipment were deliberately reduced to a minimum and are focused mostly on replacement activities because, as you know, we are very well invested, very modern plant in the center of Europe.

Let me continue with innovation, highlights there were, of course, in the area of sustainable alloys, especially sustainable alloys for the foundry industry at the beginning. It is important to develop materials, which can consume higher amounts of scrap and are therefore optimized for recycling. And we focus here on the utilization of mixed scrap and try to develop materials, which are fully capable for safety critical components. And we were also able to develop and introduce high-strength ductile structural components for the automotive industry.

Our alloy developments for our sustainable material brand, AL4 ever continued. AL4 ever stands for CO2 optimized materials where we actually guarantee levels of CO2 emissions connected to the production of this material. And this was now also introduced in the area of aircraft products, where maximum strength, corrosion resistance and safety are combined with minimum CO2 impact. And we also continued in the development of virtual rolling techniques. So computer optimized process development and product development at the site in Ranshofen. Of course, our customers can benefit from such solutions because we customize the products and we are quicker in the introduction of new products.

So let me have a short look at last years in a little bit more detail. I think for the first time, we show here a summary of the 4 quarters because it was so volatile that the 4 quarters actually were different. At the very beginning in Q1 last year, very volatile aluminum prices. You remember from '24 into '25, very high alumina cost, significant increases in the U.S. Midwest premium and an announcement of 25% of the U.S. tariffs, of course, had a strong impact. So the general market sentiment was subdued globally.

This was connected to a weakening industrial activity and, of course, increased the pressure on us to sell and to sell at good margins in Casting and Rolling division. In the second quarter of 2025, the aluminum price increased significantly. The alumina price, on the other hand, was reduced. And because of the increase now to 50% increased American U.S. tariffs, U.S. Midwest premium grew. Direct and indirect effects, we talked about indirect effects because of an impact on our customers in Europe because of the U.S. import tariffs gradually were reflected in our earnings performance and at AMAG's operating divisions. Challenges in the availability and the price development of aluminum scrap because of scrap export from Europe to international markets also led to rather unfavorable conditions. And basically, we had to be very careful and selective with products and markets for the Rolling Division.

In Q3 last year, the conditions for the Metal division remained rather attractive. So aluminum prices high, alumina prices low, rising premiums, this was good. Nevertheless, cautious optimism was evident, partly due also to some positive attitude of the purchasing managers reflected in the purchasing managers' index, including Germany. But on the other hand, competition increased, especially in the area of industrial applications. Effects of U.S. tariffs, again, were intensifying the margin pressure in the Rolling Division.

And finally, in Q4 last year, again, further increase in aluminum price and stable alumina prices were positive for us, sustained increase in the U.S. Midwest premium now was really fully offsetting the negative effect of the U.S. tariffs. But in the Rolling Division, the competition remained high, connected to continued high competitive pressure on pricing, especially in Europe, especially again for recycled foundry alloys and aluminum products for the foundry alloys also because again of scrap availability and pricing of scrap. And the increased price pressure particularly had influence on the margin in the area of industrial applications, and this was reflected in the earnings situation in the Rolling Divisions.

So of course, we did not just sit and watch the development. We responded with stabilizing measures that we quickly were able to implement. We also in the past, we oftentimes mentioned that AMAG is flexible and flexibility helps. We had to show flexibility in basically all our product areas. So in the Metal Division, of course, there was a strong impact on the American tariffs and our sales had to decide continuously basically on a daily basis into which global area we would sell our primary metal. And we were able to quickly change and try to find the best solution for AMAG. As you can see in 2024, we sold 100% of the primary metal to North America. In 2025, only 60% of the products went to North America, 40% already to Europe. So as I mentioned, this was daily activity to decide.

Let me continue with the Casting Division. We were here rather indirectly affected. As I mentioned before, the Casting Division to about 95% sales into the automotive industry. Automotive customers from Europe were affected by the American tariffs. It was more difficult or partly impossible for them to sell into the American market, and this had some negative influence on the Casting Division. Again, we had to adjust and we did so.

In the Rolling Division, tariff clauses in our contracts and difficult to produce products with some complexity enabled AMAG Rolling to stabilize the delivery even to the American customers in terms of volumes. It is shown on this slide that roughly 15% of our overall shipments in the past and also last year go to the American market. But of course, these changes and the adjustments in pricing had, of course, some influence on our competitive situation, and it increased the price pressure and the earnings quality in the Rolling Division.

In operational words, I can tell you that we, of course, looked into the subject of productivity, and we were able to achieve productivity gains in both cast houses and in both rolling mills. So the numbers here are certainly better than in the years before, where we also reported good numbers. The shipments of rolled products more or less remained unchanged in terms of tonnage to the year before -- to the year 2024. But let me say, the wide, as we always say, the wide product portfolio allowed us to adjust. So we, again, were able to sell 204,000 tonnes of flat-rolled products but the product mix was different, and Victor will explain in detail later.

The supply of raw materials, especially the supply of aluminum scrap could be secured. This was also possible because of our ability to utilize lower scrap qualities. But even for these lower scrap qualities, the prices increased. So this certainly had an influence. And I have to tell you also that we successfully continued our cost efficiency measures at the site in Ranshofen. So we were able to achieve savings in excess of the inflation. and a little bit more. And this helped us to cushion the effects of the increased price pressure that came from basically all global markets. And in addition, finally, I can tell you that we were also very strict in terms of investment discipline and working capital optimization. This contributed very nicely to AMAG Group's financial position.

And with this information, I would like to hand over to Victor, who will tell you about the market and shipment situation in 2025.

Thank you. Thank you, Helmut, very much. Good morning from my side. Turning to Page 12, where, as Helmut just described, the challenging year of 2025, we can see in the sentiment indicator of the PMI index that we're still not yet completely in a reversal of the trend but we saw that at the end of the year, we were coming from an economical situation with a little bit of more positive and more better expectations for the economic situation globally. We still don't see strength in all the markets but we see that reflected in our order intake that I will mention more towards the end of my slides.

When we come to the global demand for aluminum, it remains solid, very promising for the next 4, 5 years, not only in the primary side but also in the flat-rolled product in all the areas. China is a main driver of growth. Europe still subdued. We don't see necessarily a strong recovery from the demand in the Western market where we ship the magnitude of 70% to 75% of our sales. But it's important to mention that the flat-rolled product demand for aluminum, especially for our site in Ranshofen remains strong in the medium to long term.

When we try to translate that into segments, as we have been showing in the last 3, 5 years, transport, driven by aerospace, automotive, transportation remains a strong user of aluminum, where we are very well positioned in our capabilities and our assets. packaging and industry with mechanical engineering being also good drivers. And this gives us, as we saw in the execution of our strategy last year, how can we mitigate fluctuations in markets with a broad portfolio of capabilities in the flat rolled in Ranshofen. But this steady growth gives us a positive outlook that we have reached somehow the bottom of this demand cycle and that '26 might show better signs of recovery.

But I would like to explain a little bit and give a little bit of more details on what happened last year in our shipments. From 2024 -- when we go to Page 15, in 2024 to 2025, we saw a drop of almost 22% on our total shipments. How did it happen? In the Metal business in our smelter in Canada, there was a drop of a magnitude of 5,000 tonnes last year due mainly for pot relining and temporary availability of pots, but this is back into full capacity in our smelter in 2026. So this was an important impact in our sales from our Canadian Alouette smelter.

As Helmut already mentioned, casting business has been very much impacted not only in our upside in our shipments, but also in the margins but also as well in the mix. We try to mitigate the lower demand and the overcapacity we have in the foundry alloys, primary and secondary alloys with more liquid material, which gives us a little bit more flexibility in where we can position our capacity. But nevertheless, we saw a reduction in our shipments in the region of Western and Central Europe in the magnitude of 2,500 tonnes.

Rolling, our main business in Ranshofen, we saw a big impact from the mix changes that happened when compared to 2024, a reduction in aerospace business, which created and we saw this in the whole market, I mean, not only the U.S. tariffs impacted, also the very strong inventory quantity we had in North America but also in Europe, together with the fluctuations in the build rates on the main airframers, we saw that the availability of heat treat capacity impacted very much the aerospace demand during the year of 2025. But we use this capacity to shift this availability of rolling hours into the industrial application segment, not only in Europe but in the United States as well, but also in Asia, especially driven for semicon industry and also some industrial machinery where we saw at the end of the year, an improvement in the sentiment and in the demand.

Packaging was also a big driver. We saw this happening here in Europe, and we took advantage of the situation to support those customers in that area. But as we've been saying, Helmut mentioned this and mentioning again, the overcapacity, the scrap availability, the pressure on the pricing of scrap, and we saw also the impact on how can we position our products in most profitable markets impacted us, especially in Q3, Q4 that we saw, as I said before, sort of the bottom of our shipments capability.

When we shift into the distribution of how our shipments in the rolling business happened, it's just giving a little bit of numbers. We saw a reduction in demand in automotive, driven mostly from United States tariff implications from some customers but also some indirect impact from our OEMs here in Europe, where had issues in placing orders for their platform. So we saw the indirect impact in our shipments in the magnitude of 3%. Aerospace, as I mentioned before, we use the capacity into the industrial applications, which grew 8% compared to 2024.

In the heat exchanger business, we saw a little bit of adjustments in the market here in Europe and a little bit of growth more towards the United States, where having this ability to play with premium products and the rise of the Midwest gave us the chance to penetrate the United States and North America with better product mix in the heat exchangers as well.

In any sense, based on this scenario and on the situation that we saw during the year, we are believing, and we're going to mention this towards the end of the discussions today that we have a noticeable increase in the average order backlog. So we see a little bit of improvement coming back from aerospace in the beginning of this year, towards the middle of this year. So we -- this is a positive trend. And there are some supply chain shortages happening in North America, where we also see the reflection in our order intake. Industrials in Europe also show a positive trend in our order intake. So we're coming from a very difficult Q3, Q4 from a volume mix and margin point of view into a scenario where we see based on the economical trend but also we see in our order intake in our order book positive signs that '25 difficulties is in the direction of improvement.

I will transfer now my -- the part of the slides to Claudia, who will give a flavor on how the numbers are looking like. Thank you.

So hello from my side. I will start with some information on the market prices that are relevant for our group earnings. First of all, we heard it before from my colleagues. We had a very strong aluminum price development this -- the last year, where you see that at the end of the year, we were above 3,000 and that level still is -- so we still are keeping this level and that is relevant for our sales out of Canada and as well for -- has influence on our group revenues but also on our revenues, on our working capital.

When we now go through the Midwest premium development, here, you can see reflected all of the information you got before on the U.S. tariffs because all the high increase we can see here is due to higher U.S. tariffs that are offset by the premium. And therefore, now the Midwest premium is at the level above $2,200, which fully covers now the tariffs in there. On the positive side compared to last year, where we had a more or less record high for quite a long time on alumina price, which directly affects our revenue costs. Now the level really went down, and we are now seeing a level at about USD 300 per tonne and compared with the high aluminum price, I mentioned before, we now have a very attractive relation between these 2 market prices that affects especially our revenues and earnings out of the Metal segment.

When I go now to the revenues, you can see that compared to 2024 and even given the difficulties we heard about before, we had an increase in the revenues out of -- with 2%. And that's mainly -- as you can see in our reconciliation, it's mainly due to the aluminum price, as I mentioned before, which had a steep increase in the last year compared to the year before.

And when I now go to the EBITDA, we see -- we can tell that even though we had increase in the revenues, which you can see in nearly all segments. What we now will see when we go to the EBITDA that the EBITDA went -- we can't transfer that increase to -- fully to the EBITDA and that has several reasons. One of them was mentioned before by my colleagues that we had mix shifts due to market conditions. We had price effects due to the price pressures, Victor mentioned before in the relevant markets where we are in, and we had the effects by the U.S. tariffs, the direct and indirect effects we were talking about before. And -- in addition to all of that, we also see that we had to deal with negative impacts out of personnel costs, energy costs. And this all sums up to that our EBITDA 2025 is lower but at least at a very solid level given all the circumstances we are in at EUR 137 million.

I now want to give you a little bit more detail on the several segments so that I have -- can sum it up in that area. So for the Metal Division, we have the effect that the lower shipments we mentioned before. But out of the U.S. tariffs, even though the U.S. tariffs are compensated by the U.S. Midwest premium, what changes for us is that in the years before, we had an advantage out of Canada to the U.S. as we had a tariff exemption, which sums up to 10% for the rest of the companies who sell. And this exemption is now eliminated, and therefore, we have as well a decrease in our earnings in the Metal Division. The positive effect I showed you before is that our raw material costs for alumina, especially in the second half are going down.

For the Casting Division, we have a lower EBITDA due to the challenging market condition we mentioned before and the price pressure as well. And for the Rolling Division, I think Victor explained everything that leads to the changes in the product mix, the increased competition and the price pressure. But I want to mention again, these are all negative influences but as Helmut elaborated before on we didn't sit and wait but did a lot of measures where we were able to influence and contribute to make the best out of the macroeconomic situation, we are not able to change.

When we have a short look also on the EBITDA of the fourth quarter, it shows even more precise or drastically the things I mentioned before because when you see the whole year, we had a first quarter, which wasn't influenced by tariffs and so on. But when you just look at the fourth quarter, you see it even more, namely the effects of the tariffs and the changed product mix in there. And this leads to a different picture than 1 year ago for the fourth quarter.

The net income after tax, just to finalize it up to there is influenced by a much lower depreciation than last year. Just to remind you, last year, we had an impairment loss, we had to balance in. This year, it's quite more or less a normal depreciation. And given the lower investment, also our depreciation is below our investments.

This now brings me up to the -- to our cash flow statement. And when I mentioned before that we did everything and worked very hard on make all the best out of the situation and influence where we can -- are able to do it. You can -- most -- many of these things you see reflected in our cash flow as we have a very -- we have a cash flow out of EUR 168 million from the operating activities. And in there, we have a positive impact out of our working capital measurements where we have a level -- not in value because the value is influenced by the alumina price but in tons, a level that is lower than 2019 on the Metal side and we reduced our inventories.

We did measures on the receivables side to do all things possible to increase our cash flow. And the same is true for the investing activities. You know from AMAG that we are a very modern and well-built facility in Ranshofen had very big investments in the last years. So we are now in a phase where we, at the one side, have lower investments because of our past activities but also very strict on where and how we now do our investments there. So this all sums up to a record level of free cash flow we had in 2025 of EUR 115 million.

So to sum it up, I can -- we can give you a short view on all our key figures for the group. And as I mentioned before, we were able in this difficult environment to keep our revenues. We did everything to achieve an EBITDA of EUR 137 million and had a very attractive influence then on our balance sheet.

This leads me now to the balance sheet. And everything that we mentioned before leads to an effect on the net financial debt as well. So we could significantly reduce our net financial debt with 16% alone this year. And we could reduce our ratio of the EBITDA to net debt as well with 23.5%. So we are now at the level of 2.3%, and this is a very solid and good basis for us for the year to come. And again, we see that the equity and the equity ratio, given all the measurements on balance sheet and working capital and our financial stability, we see that we could increase our equity ratio with 1%.

Also in times where we have to figure on our financial stability, we do not lose that lens on the ESG key figures. And we heard before about flexibility, mix shifts and so on. But still, we were able to have a high or even higher than last year's scrap utilization rate, and that's given to the efforts of our team to source and recycle all the scrap needed to achieve these numbers. And also for the TFR, I also want to point out, we were able to reduce it even more. So we are also proud of that achievement as well.

So now I can hand over to Helmut again, who will give you some information on the dividends and the outlook for 2026.

Yes. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. I try to speed up a little now so that we will have some time for Q&A as well. I already mentioned that we will propose EUR 0.75 as a dividend to the Annual General Assembly on 16th of April. And 1 week later, the dividend payment date will happen. I try to be quick here as well. We do expect a general growth continuation in the various global markets as is shown here, and we do see already some positive signals, especially in our Rolling Division.

In more detail, for Metal Division, this year, we expect the full utilization of the installed capacity combined with good prices for aluminum and still positive for us, relatively low prices for alumina. So this is -- lets us expect general positive development for this division. Casting Division still under pressure, as we said, very strongly dependent on the European automotive industry. The availability of scrap and the scrap prices connected to this business are of major importance. So here, of course, there is some fight on the market to be expected.

For the Rolling Division, we expect sales increase. Victor already mentioned some reasons. Aerospace is one where we expect continued growth or ramp-up of the 2 big aircraft producers. Automotive, on the one hand side, remains challenging in Europe, however, there are some short-term market opportunities in the United States. We do expect a positive effect from this. And we, therefore, expect a stronger sales this year. Packaging, architecture, sports remain stable and industrial applications, which is also of global importance for us, remains price sensitive. So this means also that our internal programs to optimize our cost position have to continue.

So of course, it's impossible at the moment to tell you a detailed numbers but the signal that I want to send to you is as positive as we see it from the market, we expect a positive development this year. And very finally, in a little more than a year from now, we celebrate the 15-year anniversary -- what did I say? In a month from now, yes. Sorry, on April 8, we will celebrate 15 years of AMAG being listed at the Vienna Stock Exchange. And I think this was a positive move for us. It secured our long-term future. It was very positive for our investment program at the site in Ranshofen, and it helped us to achieve autonomy and independence and a positive development also for the future. So thank you very much for now. We are now open for your questions.

[Operator Instructions] So we will start with Patrick Speck. So please go ahead with your questions.

Yes. Can you hear me?

Yes.

First of all, congratulations on the very solid performance in 2025, and thanks a lot for the very detailed presentation. My first question is about the current situation of tariffs in the U.S. After the Supreme Court decision on general tariffs, do you see any chance that the still existing tariffs on aluminum could be lifted too? I mean, are there any lawsuits against those types of tariffs, too? What's your knowledge about that?

As you correctly mentioned, the current U.S. Supreme Court is only relevant for other tariffs but not for the tariffs on the steel and aluminum. And I'm not aware of any lawsuits there. So at the moment, also the sentiment we get from the U.S. Aluminum Association, the Canadians and so on is that people are expecting it to stay.

Okay. But as you mentioned, the premium now covers those tariffs, right?

It's true. The premium covers the tariffs. And at the end, it's reflected then in there -- in the input price for every company, which processes the aluminum because you must take into account the -- when you bought -- let's say, a U.S. producer, you bought aluminum 2024. It was, let's say, a price of $2,200 and $400 premium, so $2,600. And now you have $3,000 aluminum and $2,200 Midwest. So you're now at the double price for the same product 1 year ago. So it's really, really affecting their input costs.

Yes, understood. Secondly, your CapEx spendings came down significantly, I think, as planned, as you mentioned. What should we expect for the current year? Maybe a side step or further reduction? -- what should we type in the models?

So what we -- what our goal is or our plan is to stay below depreciation because we invested a lot the last years. And now it's -- we are in a situation where we could maintain the high level of our high quality of our equipment and to stay there modern, but there is no big investment plan. So therefore, we are below depreciation. That's the plan.

Okay. But could be, I mean, anything below EUR 80 million then maybe that's roughly your depreciation.

Yes. That's roughly.

Okay. And thirdly, maybe I missed it, but I think you did not mention the new CBAM regulation or at least the sharpened CBAM regulation. Could you comment on that, how it's affecting your business? And maybe also what's the financial burden you expect from this regulation in the current year?

I didn't mention it, you're right because it's -- the phase where you have to, let's say, pay for CBAM starts with January 2026, and therefore, we didn't have it in there. And I think the big issue is that even though it's now in the phase where you have to pay for CBAM, the calculation itself and the input numbers are still at the one side, unclear. And at the other side, if you need to use actual numbers, you will be able in 2027 to calculate the real numbers for 2026. So that's, I think, one of the big -- globally, the big issues with CBAM that it's very difficult to figure out what's the real impact on that side. So how do we deal with it? On the one side, we are affected when bringing the aluminum from Canada to Europe because then it's a non-European import.

Therefore, we normally sell it duty uncleared so that it's not on our balance -- not in our duties, let's put it that way. And on the other hand, we are -- when we have to import on the -- for Ranshofen site, we try to import it at least duty cleared or in a way that we can minimize the risk of additional payments, so importing from the EU, for example. But it's an interesting topic, and it will, let's say, evolve over the next years because when the free CO2 allowances we get in Europe will go down until 2034. It will be more and more a cost factor there.

But in one sentence, a lot of things unclear. We have a lot of people working on that on a daily basis to look at it so that we are -- we know which measures we need to do if there is more information on there.

Yes, exactly. I think it's a bit early to tell. But in any way, it's facing the whole industry. So yes, thanks a lot for commenting. That's it from my side so far.

And then we will move on with the question from Michael Marschallinger. Mr. Marschallinger, I can see that you're speaking into your microphone but unfortunately we can't hear you. So maybe you need to switch to another device.

Let's move on, in the meantime, to a person who's dialing with the phone ending 6609. [Operator Instructions] Therefore, we can't hear you as well.

So Mr. Marschallinger, let's try again.

Can you hear me now?

Yes.

Perfect. So thanks and I have 2 questions left. Firstly, on the pricing pressure you see in rolling. I believe you always face some kind of price pressure on the end market. So how does this pricing pressure in the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarters? Is it possible to provide some numbers here? And also, would you expect the same degree of pricing pressure to continue in the following quarters?

Let me take that one, Michael. First of all, it's important that we recognize that for some products that we have in our portfolio, especially those that are more commercial and commodity oriented, there is a very strong overcapacity, not only in Europe, But globally, right, rolling capacity. So when we have any relaxation in demand, this overcapacity really takes its toll on us. And you see this what's happening in the direction of executing our commercial strategy. Q3 and Q4 were the moments where we saw the direct and indirect impacts of the U.S. tariffs, and we saw the impact of capacity in Europe and as well as in the U.S. And we shifted our capacity to -- from this high premium products to products in the industrial areas, where we see -- we saw that we were competing face-to-face with regional and global players where we were able to shift the capacity from aerospace, as I said before, into the industrial, right? So Q3 and Q4 were very difficult because of the order intake we had in Q1 and Q2, which was full of uncertainties.

And we saw now in Q4 in terms of shipments, the impact on the numbers, as we said before. But we expect this trend, especially now as Claudia was mentioning, CBAM has put in a little bit of more pressure on the Rotterdam premium. We see the Rotterdam premiums increasing a little bit more. So this all impacts the whole dynamics in the European landscape. So we expect that demand will be an improvement, as I said in the sentiment indicator. We have more clarity -- more clarity and more understanding how to -- how the players can play in the United States in North America, given the geopolitical conditions. And in the end, we are seeing the recovery of some premium markets that will remove the need to sell into industrial and gives a chance to be more fierce on our commercial execution for industry.

So to your question, I explained Q3 and Q4, and I gave you a little bit of sentiment on what's expected for Q1 and Q2, specifically maybe for the whole year of '26.

Okay. Then it's also fair to assume, I believe that the fourth quarter also marked the bottom really in results for rolling. Is it fair to assume?

That's -- it's not wrong to say that for reasons that are far beyond our capability to define from a market-oriented condition but also from how we could deploy our capacity in the right market. So it was in my view today and the view of our company, the moment of recovery that we're seeing now in the order intake that I mentioned in the end of my slides.

And then in the meantime, Mr. Steiner from the phone dial-in has sent his questions over to us. So on behalf of him, I would read them out. So his first question is, how do you see product mix developing in Rolling and Casting over the year? Any expected changes worth highlighting that could affect margins in the current year?

Okay. Let me take that one. First of all, thank you, Patrick, for the question. Well, in the Casting business, we are navigating the better recovery on the casting products in Europe, right? In Germany, specifically, we see potential improvement. Our order intake is demonstrating that. Still very much challenged on the mix of combustion engine and electric cars, how can we position our products there if we sell ingots or we sell liquid materials. So we're navigating as we see the opportunities. In Rolling, as I said before, we see the short-term -- the shortages in the U.S. for automotive and the improvements in the heat exchanger business. So these are premium products where we are placing confidently that we increase shipments during the year of '26. And needless to say, recovery, given the destocking that is finishing from the aerospace, not only in Europe but also in North America, we see recovery on our shipments in aerospace as well.

So in all sense, we -- despite the uncertainties we see ahead of us with regards mainly to the tariffs and how this affects us in the United States but also in Europe, we see a positive trend in our order book for 2026 given the mix changes that I just mentioned now.

All right. And his second question is primary aluminum production capacity over 2026. Any maintenance or other capacity -- sorry, reducing events expected over the current year?

So at the end of 2025 and beginning this year, we were back to full capacity in the smelter. And this is also the plan for the year 2026. So even though we are doing maintenance, it's a regular way. So we do not expect any losses there at the moment.

And then Mr. Steiner says thanks a lot very helpful. And then we have 2 questions left from Mr. Matejka. So his first one is, could you give some words on the features of AL4 ever and what happened to your cross-alloy developments?

[Foreign Language] Sorry, I have to answer in English. I know Mr. Matejka understand German, sorry. Yes, AL4 ever is a general brand name that applies to all our products where customers request defined upper limits for the connected CO2 level. Actually, we sold such products to various branches, automotive, packaging, sports. And we see that a growing number of customers is asking for this. At the moment, beginning, I would say, with Trump last year, there was a feeling in the market that sustainability questions are now less important but new development is maybe a little more difficult. This has some influence on the development of cast alloy. But we -- so the development is slower than we expected.

Nevertheless, we continue with trials with different customers in, again, various application areas. But I think this is generally true material development and convincing of customers to use alternative materials to their already well-known current use is time-consuming and difficult but this is one of the activities that we are used to and keep doing.

And then the last question is from Mr. Matejka as well. It's a bit longer. You mentioned new energy contract in Canada gives some comfort on future energy price developments. In respect to the actual expanding need for electricity from data centers, is this a competitive advantage against your competitors besides your partner, Alouette?

So for the smelter, it is very relevant to have a secured energy supply. And of course, as it is a monopolist in Canada, so we are talking to the politicians there to negotiate the contract. It's -- they decide -- they have the possibility to decide which strategy they are going on if they want to support it or supply the energy to existing industry that provides work or employment there or to give it to new companies. And I think that that's always something that, that they have to measure out. But I would say we are now in the region for more than 30 years, and we are a very reliable energy consumer there. So we ourselves do not see us at the moment that they are building their data center, and we have some issues there because it's quite regional. We can't buy -- we have to buy from the region, the energy. So it's not something we can buy somewhere else.

But I think globally, there is some issues or pressure on who and where we will distribute the energy. And we saw it in the industry, for example, that there was in Mozambique smelter, which will be closed in 3 months because of exactly this issue that they do not get any further energy contract because of the government decision to transfer or distribute the energy to other areas. So that's definitely an issue and very, very key topic for a smelter to be competitive.

Thank you so much. And in the meantime, we have received no further questions. Therefore, I hand back to Christoph.

Ladies and gentlemen, thanks a lot for your participation to this call. Again, feel free to give me a call or write me an e-mail should there be any questions left. I'm happy to assist. Otherwise, I wish you a great weekend. The weather forecast certainly looks promising. Thanks a lot. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the information on the Third Quarter 2025 Conference Call. I'm Valentina, the Chorus Call operator. [Operator Instructions] The conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The conference must not be recorded for publication or broadcast.

The forecasts, plans, forward-looking assessments and statements contained in this presentation were made on the basis of all information available to AMAG up to 17 October, 2025. The economic and trade policy environment has changed several times in recent months. Internal calculations and earnings analysis are based on various assumptions. These include, among other things, the continued validity of global U.S. import duties on aluminum products.

If the assumptions underlying the forecasts do not materialize, targets are not achieved or risks arise, actual earnings may differ from those currently anticipated. We undertake no obligation to update such forecasts in light of new information or future events. This presentation has been prepared with the utmost care and the data has been checked. However, rounding, transmission or printing errors cannot be ruled out. AMAG and its representatives accept no liability for the completeness and accuracy of the information contained in this presentation. This presentation is also available in German, whereby the German version shall prevail in case of doubt. This presentation does not constitute a recommendation or invitation to buy or sell AMAG securities.

At this time, it's my pleasure to hand over to Christoph Gabriel, Head of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome again to our conference call for the first 3 quarters of 2025 of AMAG.

Today, Helmut Kaufmann, CEO and COO; as well as Claudia Trampitsch, CFO, will present the developments and results of the first 9 months of this year. After the presentation, you have the opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A session. As usual, both the presentation and the press release have been published this morning on our home page under Investor Relations.

I would now like to hand over to Helmut. Please start the presentation. Thank you.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, from my side.

It's a pleasure to present Q3 earnings and the result of the first 9 months for AMAG. I would like to start with Slide #3, the highlights, and point out that we or AMAG showed high resilience in a continuously difficult environment, but rapidly implemented efficiency measures enabled stable earnings development in Q3 and also supported the performance of the first 9 months. The revenues grew by 5.4% to EUR 1,137 million compared to EUR 1,078,000 the year before. And this was mostly due to higher aluminum prices. The EBITDA came to EUR 114.2 million, and this number already exceeds the lower limit of the range that we communicated in the past. And for the full year, where we said the limits would be EUR 110 million to EUR 130 million. So with EUR 114.2 million, the EBITDA is 22.6% lower compared to the same time period last year, where AMAG achieved EUR147.6 million.

Net income after taxes reached EUR 33.8 million compared to EUR 54.3 million, which is a minus of 37.7% Cash flow from operating activities recorded a growth of 23.3% to EUR 134.8 million compared to EUR 109.3 million last year same time period. So with the numbers presented, we can mention the following outlook for the financial year -- full year 2025. Since the EBITDA already exceeded the lower limit, we now say that we expect a result at the upper end of the communicated range, close to the EUR 130 million. Although -- and this is important to point out, our experience shows that valuation effects can have a noticeable impact on these numbers.

Let me continue with Slide #5 and look at the current market sentiment. The so-called Purchasing Managers' Index shows a slight improvement compared to previous period. And the global threshold of 50 is slightly exceeded at this point in time, but we do not see a significant improvement in the sentiment in the Eurozone. And we do not see a significant improvement in Austria, but a slightly stabilizing trend in Germany. Germany is an important market area for AMAG.

Let us continue with Slide #6 and look at the total shipments of the AMAG Group. In Q1 to Q3 of 2025, we sold 320,800 tonnes of various products to our customers, which is 1% down compared to the year before. A look at the 3 divisions indicates that the Metal Division compared to previous year is 4,800 tonnes lower, mostly due to a slightly lower number of active pots in the recent months.

In the Casting Division, where we produced the recycled foundry alloys due to market development, especially in the automotive industry, we are down by 2,800 tonnes compared to last year. And in the Rolling Division in terms of volumes delivered to our customers, we saw an increase compared to last year by 5,100 tonnes, connected, however, to a change in mix. So the transportation sector was in a more -- still is in a more difficult period, while we were able to grow the volumes for industrial applications and packaging products.

Slide #7 gives you details to what I just mentioned. We still benefit from our diversity in products because this stabilizes our sales volume. And as you can see here, especially automotive, aerospace and other transport products are down compared to last year. And we have a significant increase in industrial applications, which is 12,006 tonnes more than last year. Also packaging products, foil stock is up 1,400 tonnes compared to last year.

This brings us to Slide #8, where you can see the development of our order backlog. And there, we have a slight decrease. Still we are above 50,000 tonnes in order backlog. But due to a reduced order intake, especially from the transportation sector that I mentioned before, this is slightly down. And of course, we can see also a negative impact from the U.S. tariffs, and this is reflected in the order backlog.

So, this brings us to business performance information, which Claudia Trampitsch will now present to you. Thank you very much.

Good morning from my side as well.

I will start with an outlook on the market price developments we had in the last quarter. And when we look at Page 10, you can see that the aluminum price increased over the quarter -- over the year 2025 compared to last year. So, we see now a very good aluminum price level in Q3 2025 and also year-to-date. So year-to-date, you see around 7% increase of the aluminum price.

When we move on to the U.S. Midwest premium, you can see here that as we also mentioned already last quarter that the premium moved up significantly due to the U.S. tariffs. And apart from the higher -- from the impact of the U.S. tariffs, you now see every time the LME price of the aluminum goes up, it also is reflected in the development of the U.S. Midwest premium. And you can see also how much it is on the right side where we have up to 163% increase.

Nevertheless, as for our Canadian company, we lost our exemption of the U.S. tariffs. We also lost there our meaningful profits. When we move on to the alumina price, we see that compared to last year, the price development downward, as we had in the first 2 quarters now, really stabilized itself. So, we are still at a very low level. So at the moment, we are around compared to the aluminum price, which is compared higher than last year, we see a really good price level in relation to around 12% at the moment, which is very positive for the Metal Division. And although when we compare the year-to-date comparison to last year, the decrease is not that big because it's a 6%. But when you look at the quarter, you now can see that compared to last year, where the trend went up to really high aluminum prices -- alumina prices, we now see the trend going down, and that will also affect the results of the fourth quarter.

When we move on to the revenues of AMAG Group, we already mentioned that the revenues -- the Q1 to Q3 2025 are 5% higher than for the respective period of last year. And when we look at where does it come from, the main impact comes from the higher aluminum price. So, this is mainly also due to the Metal segment, but you can see the high increase here and also in the Rolling segment. But for the Rolling segment, you see the vice versa effect in the material cost as well. So apart from that, everything was just mentioned before, we have an impact on -- because of volumes, prices and so on. But just to remember, the main impact came out of the high aluminum prices.

When we now look at the EBITDA of AMAG Group, you see that the EBITDA for the first 3 quarters sums up to EUR 114.2 million, which is 23% lower than last year. When we have a deeper look at it, you see that although I mentioned before, we had higher revenues due to the aluminum price, in the EBITDA, you also had an impact of the higher aluminum price. But here, as I mentioned before, it's mainly out of the Metal Division because in the Rolling Division, it's also -- the high aluminum price also affects the production cost.

When we see in the reconciliation, why is the EBITDA lower than last year, there is big impact out of price and premium. And this is what we mentioned before due to the effects in the Rolling Division, as Helmut mentioned before, in the transport sector. But here, we also see lower prices because of the weak economy and also the impact of the U.S. tariff kicks in there. Another effect we can see is that the EBITDA is influenced by raw material costs and energy costs. And at the moment, also in the raw material costs still for the first 3 quarters, there is an effect of higher alumina costs compared to last year and higher energy cost on the metal side because of the high LME prices.

When we look at Page 15, you have another one division -- the EBITDA division-wise, where we have in the Metal Division, lower primary aluminum shipments, as mentioned before, and an impact of the higher aluminum price and already kicking in the attractive alumina market price that we can see here. But as mentioned before, we are also -- we are always influenced compared to 2024 to now being fully displaced to U.S. tariffs compared to last year where we had an exemption.

For the Casting Division, there's nothing else to mention. As we mentioned before, the market environment, which had an effect on the shipments and prices in the Casting Division, but we were able to be flexible and react accordingly. And the same is true for the Rolling Division, where we saw an increase in shipments and revenues, but due to changed product mix affected by tariffs and price dynamics, we saw a pressure here, but we are able to stabilize the impact also if you compare it to the second quarter. So, we're more or less on the same level in the second quarter. There you can see that even due to the impact of the higher U.S. tariffs, we were able to stabilize our results in the Rolling Division. So in general, we can see that we showed our ability to adapt to the actual situation and set measures to stabilize our results.

When you now look at the EBITDA of the third quarter 2025, which is at EUR 33.5 million, which is compared to last third quarter, a minus of 36%. I think it's worth mentioning that, of course, here, you can see that it's lower than last year. But last year, we had -- as we told you before, totally different circumstances we were in. But when we compare it to the second quarter 2025, so last quarter, we see that we are more or less at the same level because there, we had EUR 34.6 million. And this shows us that we set the right measures, showed our flexibility to move to other areas, other product mix and so on to stabilize our results here and to make other measures to the increased price mix we see.

For the net income after taxes, the reduction is due to the low operating profit. There are no special effects in there. So, I can move on to the cash flow statement of AMAG Group for the first 3 quarters. And on that side, we can show -- even though the cash flow, as it is impacted by the lower EBITDA compared to last year, we show an increase in operating cash flow because of our measures we do on the working capital side. We also see that there is a significant lower investment cash flow. These are measures we planned because due to our situation we are in and the circumstances, we decided to reduce our investment volumes and this also affected the cash flow in a positive way so that we can show you that we had for the first 9 months, a free cash flow of EUR 94.2 million, which is an increase of 134%.

When we move on to Slide 20, we show you our net financial debt in million euro. And there, you can see that we reduced our net financial debt with 10% compared to year-end. And the ratio EBITDA to net debt rise from 2.1 to 2.4, but this is due to the lower EBITDA for the last 12 months and still a stable number and a solid number for AMAG.

When we go on to the next balance sheet figures, KPIs, our equity is as well stable. We have 1% less than at the year-end. Yes, there are some effects in it, but perhaps I want to point out that there is also a translation difference out of the U.S. dollar in there, which we had due to the weaker U.S. dollar and our U.S. dollar business in Canada, which had an effect there compared to last year. But apart from that, we are stable at the equity. And we can show you also that on the cash side, we have an increase. This is due to refinancing measures we did the last month.

I mentioned everything for the division. So, I will not tell you anything more on that side. You have all details you -- we can present on the following slides. And so finally, I just want to go on, on the ESG key figures as we always also want to tell you how we are performing on that side and show you that our focus still is as well on being positive and have positive development on our ESG figures. And to point out just one when you see how our scrap utilization rate develops, we are still on high level and even could increase it. This also is -- when you see that we had a shift in product mix and therefore, a good sign that we could increase our utilization rate, we also could increase our utilization rate and we could decrease our specific energy consumption and also all our other numbers here that we show, let's say, the TRIFR or the compliance valuation is everything very positive that we can report.

With that, I now hand over to Helmut again for some closing words and some information on the outlook.

Thank you very much.

What we can clearly say with numerous discussions with our customers, the economic environment remains challenging. So the global economic outlook and the influence of the American or U.S. tariff policy on our business remains subdued. And this has especially negative influence on the development of the industry in the Eurozone. The earnings performance of AMAG's divisions were discussed in detail. We are, of course, influenced by these global developments, but we can see and foresee for the last quarter that Metal Division and our smelter in Canada performs well. And the rolling and casting activities in Ranshofen answer to these demands very flexibly, and cost efficiency is always in the center of our activities at the moment. And the shift in product mix, I think, will continue.

We have to stay flexible because of this. But overall, I can repeat what I mentioned already before. We now expect EBITDA for the full year of 2025 at the upper limit of the communicated range, and this was EUR 130 million. And again, I have to point out that valuation effects now in the last quarter may, of course, have a noticeable impact on this result.

With this, we are open for your questions and try to answer these as good as possible. Thank you very much.

[Operator Instructions] The first question comes from Michael Marschallinger from Erste Group.

I have 2. Firstly, on your guidance. You already said you achieved EUR 140 million for the first 9 months. You are guiding now for EUR 130 million, but this would still imply a rather steep drop in the fourth quarter of some [ EUR 16 ] million. This would be more than 50% in comparison to the third quarter. So, could you maybe walk us through the divisions where you would expect such a big drop?

Well, as we said, still we think, unstable market. There might be, again, some shift in mix, but there are some chances and there are some risks remaining to these numbers. Chances, of course, we are actively looking at all cost positions that we have and continue to improve our cost efficiency. But then there can be other risks, especially I missed the English word now for, but for example, for contract risks for long-term contracts for the future that might not have a full cost positive result. Such things are under development, especially in the last quarter when future contracts are being negotiated with our customers. Changes in tariffs are more in the area of risk and the level of products sold to the customers still under negotiation, and there is some uncertainty connected to the volumes that we can sell and to the mix that we can sell.

Yes, go ahead?

This would be like more risks that could materialize, you mean, but like if the business continues performing well similar to the third quarter, do you see maybe also some upside potential that's above this EUR 130 million?

Generally, you have to understand that the fourth quarter always more or less has 2 months because the December, in our case, is always a low result. This is planned like this because of longer stop of the factory for maintenance purposes. And like -- yes, if you look at last year's or previous years, you will always see that the December is not that strong. And therefore, Q4 is always weaker than the months before.

And perhaps I can add because you compare it with the first quarter that our first quarter this year was not already -- was not...

Sorry, it was the third quarter, sorry. I compared with the first quarter. And in the first quarter, you have already the full effect.

Third, sorry. I did got it wrong. Yes. But we always do and you can see it in our history, we always do a very thorough analysis of how our forecast will look like. And I think we proved that we are very thorough and look good in detail in that. And that's what we forecast therefore. And therefore, we can say, we see ourselves on the upper end of our forecast bandwidth, but taking everything in account in this volatile environment, this is what we see at the moment where our year-end will -- how our year-end result will probably look like.

Okay. And then just lastly, quickly on the Metal Division, the shipments volumes were temporarily impacted. So, would you expect some reversal of this effect in the fourth quarter?

When we say temporarily, that means that we have the pots that are producing the primary aluminum. And there, some pots of them -- when we have the full -- all of them working full setup, then we can produce more aluminum and then some of them are in the relining process or undergoing maintenance. Then there can be a period where there are less pots in production and then we produce less metal, and that was what was the case. But when we look at our forecast, we see on the maintenance in relining process as it is called, we are on track to be up to full capacity by year-end, I would say.

[Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Volker Bosse from Baader Bank.

Volker Bosse, Baader Bank. I would have 3 questions, please. First is on your outlook. You gave a subdued market outlook. However, you also successfully implemented several cost efficiency measures. My question would be what is to come in '26 if the situation remains unchanged? What kind of measures do you have still in the bag or planned already for '26 to also to be more efficient than next year if the top line remains as it is? So to say, perhaps also any one-offs, which you can also indicate for next year potentially? Or maybe just your thoughts on how you will react on the unfavorable situation? Would be the first out of 3 questions.

Well, we do not expect a significantly improved market environment next year. We expect more or less that it will continue the way it is this year, doesn't make sense to be too positive. Therefore, as we mentioned, we look at efficiency measures, which we, of course, also did in the past, but now, so to say, reinforced. And this is what we can say at the moment.

Can you be a little more specific what you have in mind if you speak about general efficiency measures to come in? Which areas, which directions you think what can be done, so to say?

To be very honest, we look at every single cost position.

Okay. Good to go with that. And second question would be on your CapEx plans. Could you remind me perhaps what is the CapEx for the full year? And yes, given the unfavorable situation, what are the CapEx plans for next year, please?

We try. And this was the same this year, to stay below the depreciation level. And this depreciation level is in the range of EUR 82 million.

As you know that, we did a big investment program 10 years ago, so 2024 to 2027 -- 2014 to 2017 since we increased capacity here. We had some big investments in Canada. There are also some modernizations going on there because of not increasing of capacity, but necessary investments. But taking this all into account, we have, as Helmut said, depreciation level, which we will not exceed the next years because of -- we already had the big investments and now we are staying at the state-of-the-art level we have.

Yes. I want to point out that we still have the most modern plant in the Western world. We invested from recycling equipment, casting equipment, all the way to rolling and finishing lines equipment. And the last important or major investment that we did was surface treatment line 1.5 years ago. And so we are now well set, well equipped, and this allows us to do this.

And third question would be perhaps a brief one on current trading. If you can give indications about the volumes, about shipments in the fourth quarter, how does it look year-on-year?

Maybe you can repeat the question, Volker.

Yes. It's a question on current trading. Question is about the volumes, the shipments in Q4, where do you stand? What do you expect in a year-on-year comparison?

You're talking about the Rolling Division, right?

Yes. Volume and shipments.

We think that it will be in a similar range to last year in my understanding.

Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question. I would now like to turn the conference back over to Christoph Gabriel for any closing remarks.

Thank you very much to all of you for joining this call.

As always, I'm pleased to answer any further questions that may come. And in that case, just give me a call or write an e-mail, I'm always there for you. Thank you very much, and have a great Thursday. Goodbye.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference is now over. Thank you for choosing Chorus Call, and thank you for participating in the conference. You may now disconnect your lines. Goodbye.