2024-03-18 13:05:07 ET
Lenzing Aktiengesellschaft (LNZNF)
Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript
March 15, 2024, 10:00 AM ET
Company Participants
Stephan Sielaff - CEO
Christian Skilich - CTO & CPO
Nico Reiner - CFO
Conference Call Participants
Isha Sharma - Stifel
Sebastian Bray - Berenberg
Brigitte Friedrich - BNP Paribas
Teresa Schinwald - Raiffeisen
Presentation
Stephan Sielaff
Thank you very much. Also from our side, a very warm welcome to the presentation of Lenzing's 2023 Annual Results. With me today is Nico Reiner, our CFO, and Christian Skilich, our Chief Pulp and Technology Officer.
Let's go through our agenda for today. We will start with the executive summary, followed by a market update by Christian Skilich and myself. Nico Reiner will guide you through the financials afterwards, and I will share an update on our holistic performance program, talk about some of the highlights in 2023, as well as the outlook. We will end, as always, with the Q&A.
Let's start with an overview of the key developments. The recovery expected for the second half of 2023 in the markets relevant to us has not occurred. Weak demand in the fiber market, as well as still elevated raw material and energy costs heavily affected our results. We took swift action in summer 2023, and introduced our holistic performance program. We lead the entire organization on strengthening the top line, enhancing our cost excellence, and generating free cash flows with a clear objective to increase our resilience. We are very satisfied with the progress of this program so far. It is ahead of plan with the first ultimate impact resulting in free positive cash flow in both Q3 and Q4 2023.
Let's now look at our financial results. Revenue in 2023 stagnated at around EUR2.5 billion in 2023, with a growing share from pulp. The EBITDA increased to EUR303 million, compared to EUR242 million in '22. This led to a net result after minorities and hybrid bonds of EUR469 million minus, of which a large part is coming from the non-cash impacted impairment of around about EUR465 million in 2023. As already mentioned, free cash flow in Q3 and Q4 2023 were positive and significantly increased for the full year to minus EUR103 million, compared to minus EUR741 million in the year 2022. Looking at our guidance, we expect EBITDA for the 2024 fiscal year to be higher than the previous year....
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Lenzing Aktiengesellschaft (LNZNF) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript