Outokumpu Oyj (OUTFF) Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

2025-02-13 12:28:32 ET

Outokumpu Oyj (OUTFF)

Q4 2024 Earnings Conference Call

February 13, 2025 8:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Linda Häkkilä – Head-Investor Relations

Kati ter Horst – Chief Executive Officer

Marc-Simon Schaar – Chief Financial Officer

Conference Call Participants

Ioannis Masvoulas – Morgan Stanley

Ioannis Masvoulas – Morgan Stanley

Tristan Gresser – BNP P. Exane

Anssi Raussi – SEB

Bastian Synagowitz – Deutsche Bank

Krishan Agarwal – Citibank

Maxime Kogge – Oddo-BHF

Ioannis Masvoulas – Morgan Stanley

Presentation

Linda Häkkilä

Hello all and welcome to Outokumpu’s Q4 2024 Results Webcast. My name is Linda Häkkilä and I’m the Head of Investor Relations here at Outokumpu. Today, as our main speakers we have our CEO, Kati ter Horst; and our CFO, Marc-Simon Schaar. As per usual, we will first start with our presentations and after that we are happy to answer your questions. Before we start with the presentation, I would like to remind you about the disclaimer as we might be making forward-looking statements.

But now without any further comments, I would like to hand over to our CEO.

Kati ter Horst

Thank you very much Linda and very warmly welcome everyone to our Q4 and full year 2024 result call. So, before I continue to discuss the result in more detail, I would like to say a couple opening words. So, in today’s geopolitical situation and with the ongoing tariff discussions, they are creating a lot of uncertainty for companies, industries and countries, that is in general not good for the investment climate nor for the economic growth in the world.

Outokumpu is of course a global player in stainless steel production in Europe and North America and we are in principle clearly an advocate of free trade and fair competition. However, as Asian imports have increased significantly both in North America and in Europe, we do welcome the measures to establish a level playing field and steel should also be seen as infrastructure critical industry worth protecting. Furthermore, Outokumpu is in very key position. Outokumpu is the industry leader in sustainability and stainless steel is part of the solution for the green transition, for instance in electrification, transport and energy.

Let’s now then move to discuss our result. To summarize the year 2024, our adjusted EBITDA totaled €177 million. The market conditions were difficult in terms of stainless steel deliveries and prices, but we kept our market positions. Number one in Europe with 31% market share and the clear number two in North America with 24% market share during the year 2024. Then ferrochrome this time actually contributed to 60% of our result and provided further stability. And there is clearly more interest for our low emission geopolitically well located ferrochrome as the only producer in the EU area.

Then we are clearly the industry leader in sustainability and safety. We are well on track with the emission reduction target and our total recordable incident rate of 1.5 is really a world class performance. And then despite the weaker profitability, we did maintain the strongest balance sheet in the industry and returned €144 million of capital to our shareholders. Given the current situation, we have continued to work on measures to improve our profitability....

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