AMAG Austria Metall AG ($AMAG)

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.