ASM International NV (ASM) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

[Audio Gap] fast-growing position in the silicon carbide market. All these achievements contributed to strong value creation for our company and our stakeholders. Since Benjamin took over as CEO, and you can blush, if you like, Benjamin, because I'm not done yet, the total shareholder return amounted to close to 500% or almost 60% annualized, placing ASM among the top performers in the sector. During this period, ASM's market cap increased from EUR 5 billion to roughly EUR 30 billion -- actually north of EUR 30 billion today. We are very, very happy that Benjamin agreed to stay on in an advisory role for the next few months to make sure that there will be a smooth transition with his successor. On behalf of the Supervisory Board, I'd like to thank you again, Benjamin, and congratulate you with your outstanding achievements over the last few years, and we wish you all the best for the future and with your next steps. Which brings me to Hichem. Hichem M'Saad, whom we believe to be the ideal successor of Benjamin. Hichem has been with ASM since 2015 and part of the Management Board since 2022. As a Supervisory Board, we've gotten to know Hichem quite well over the last few years as a strong leader with a very clear vision for the future of the company. Hichem has been a driving force behind many successful products and innovations at ASM, and he has built a very strong track record in innovation and also in former executive roles in the semiconductor industry. After this AGM, he will be ASM's new CEO and Chairman of the Management Board. And on behalf of the Supervisory Board, I wish him all the best in his new role and, Hichem, we can't wait to see where you will be taking this company next. And lastly, we have already said goodbye and will formally say goodbye to our colleague, Monica de Virgiliis this year, whose time -- term is expiring after this AGM. And unfortunately, she was not able be present today due to other commitments, but she sends her very best wishes and apologies. We have flowers for all of you, and I'll give you these flowers once the meeting is over. So please don't leave without them. As part of the agenda, we propose to nominate 2 new Supervisory Board members. You'll find them here seated in the front row, Tania Micki and Martin van den Brink, both present, and I will certainly introduce them a little further, but I will do so later when we get to agenda Item #6. Now, [Foreign Language]. [Interpreted] right. After these first introductions and lovely words for our colleagues, I will now continue in Dutch. And I would like to welcome you all again. Next to me at the table, just to be sure, so you know to the extent that you had not seen it, noticed it. And those of you who are joining us on the webcast, we have Benjamin Loh, CEO. Next to him, we have Paul Verhagen, our CFO. And next to him, Hichem M'Saad, CTO, and after this meeting, CEO. And we have also Esther Koens-Bromet, Company Secretary. Behind me, we have the Supervisory Board members, Didier Lamouche, Chair of the Nomination Selection Remuneration Committee; also Stefanie Kahle-Galonske, Chair of the Audit Committee; Marc de Jong; and Adalio Sanchez; and my name is Pauline van der Meer Mohr, Chairman of the Supervisory Board. And as you can see, all members of the Executive Board are present today, as are all members of the Supervisory Board with the exception of Monica, as I mentioned earlier. Also, we have Michel van Agt here, Notary Public at Loyens & Loeff. And Michel will take the minute of the meeting and I would like to thank you in advance for that. On top of that, also present is our accountant, Mr. Frederik Croiset van Uchelen of KPMG. He is there on the first row, and he will explain later on how KPMG conducted its audit. And finally, we have Mark-Jan Molenaar of Ernst & Young present, EY, and we will propose to appoint EY as auditors for the fiscal year 2025 under Item 7 on the agenda. Then before we start, some announcements. You know this. Just like last year, this general meeting is a physical one. The Emergency Law that was in place during COVID expired last year. So having a hybrid meeting with remote voting is not possible anymore for ASM as this possibility is not provided for, in our Articles of Association. All shareholders had the opportunity to cast a vote and a voting proxy. In the addition, a live webcast in English and in Dutch of the entire meeting is available to those shareholders who are connected via the company's website, and you were able to register for this, as indicated in the convocation of this meeting. No picture or sound recording is allowed during this meeting, except by the professional photographer we have allowed today. And I would also like to remind you to turn off your cell phone -- or yes, or mute it. Then when it comes to questions related to the agenda, the following: as indicated in the convocation, registered shareholders had until 2:00 p.m. last Monday, May 6, to submit questions in writing via the email address agm@asm.com. I can inform you that this was used once and we have, therefore, prepared for these questions. Furthermore, those present in the room can ask questions at the times that will be indicated during the meeting. The staff member will walk around with the microphone and if you have a question, you can raise your hand. We will group some agenda items so that you can ask questions for each bloc of the relevant agenda items. And this is to speed things up, not to be here at night. And the vote on the relevant block will also take place at one time. So if you ask the floor, I'd like to ask you to begin by stating your name and who, if any, you're representing. And in doing so, I ask that you not ask more than one question in one round if there is sufficient time. Obviously, I will give the opportunity for a second and possibly a third round of questions. Questions may be asked in either Dutch or English. And those of you who appreciate it, you were able to obtain headphones at the entrance as so to hear simultaneous translation from English to Dutch and vice versa during the meeting. Questions and answers asked during the meeting will be included in the minutes of this meeting. And these minutes will be posted as drafts on ASM's website within 3 months, and shareholders will then have 3 months to respond. I would also like to inform you about voting. There are 2 ways to cast your vote. Those entitled to vote at this meeting can cast their vote using a voting device with a voting card, and you received it at the registration desk, I hope. And when you place the voting card with the gold chip into the keypad, and your name appears on the screen, you are ready to vote. If at any time, you have trouble casting your vote, please raise your hand so that you may receive assistance in resolving the problem. The device and the voting card must be returned or turned in at the exit of the room when you finally exit, not when you temporarily leave the room. Once I open the vote, you will have the opportunity to vote. The choices are 1, 2 or 3. Choice 1 represents for; two is against; and three is abstention. You can change your vote until I close the vote and your last choice made counts. You have also been able to vote by proxy. If you have done that, then you have already given your voting instructions to Mr. Michel van Agt, Notary. Mr. Van Agt will ensure that the voting instructions are carried out. Then for U.S. proxies issued by New York registry shareholders, the voting instructions will also be carried out lawfully. As I have explained to you, we will work with some vote or voting blocks. You can ask the questions about the relevant voting block in advance. And after that vote will be taken on the agenda items in that respective voting block. The voting blocks are divided as follows: the first voting block is Items 3 and 4, so the annual statement with the remuneration report, the adoption of the dividend proposal, discharge of members of the Executive Board, Supervisory Board. The second voting block is Item 5 and 6, so that Supervisory Board remuneration proposal to amend the remuneration policy for Supervisory Board members and a proposal to amend the remuneration of the members of the Supervisory Board and its committees. And Item 6, composition of the Supervisory Board with reappointment of Didier Lamouche and the appointment of Tania Micki and Martin van den Brink. And then the third voting block, which is items 7 to 11. Item 7 is the appointment of the auditor for fiscal year 2025. Then 8, designation of the Board of Management as the authorized body to issue common shares and grant rights to subscribe for ordinary shares and limit or exclude preemptive rights. And Item 9, then the authorization of the Board of Management to repurchase ordinary shares in ASM. Item 10, proposal to withdraw or cancel all ordinary shares held by ASM. And then, Item 11 is proposal to amend the Articles of Association. That's Block 3. Now during each voting block, votes may be cast on all resolutions or voting items. And at the end of each of such block, I will show you the voting results. And for the sake of clarity at the end of the meeting, I will show you the voting results for all items on the agenda. So the results of the items, which will be voted on will also be posted on the company's website within 15 days. Then all documents for the meeting were posted on the company's website on March 26. The convocation or the notice that was issued the same day, also stated that the full agenda with explanatory notes, the 2023 Annual Report including remuneration report and all other appendices were available for inspection at the company's offices and at ABN AMRO Bank N.V. in Amsterdam. The U.S. proxy card, attendance card and U.S. notice card were also posted and sent on the website. And for the sake of completeness, I also report that the record date is April 15, 2024. The total number of issued shares on the record date, April 15, was 49,428,548. There were 213,931 shares in treasury on that date and, thus, 49,214,617 shares could be voted on. After Item 2, Michel will -- the Notary will communicate to me the final number of shares that have been registered and that have voting rights in this meeting. On this basis, I note and conclude that the shareholders have been correctly convened according to the Articles of Association and legal provisions and that, therefore, resolutions can be validly passed in this meeting. Before we start with the report on the financial year 2023, we would like to provide a substantive update on a number of remuneration issues with respect to the Executive Board. We had a dialogue with various stakeholders, including a number of shareholders regarding Item 5, the adjustment of remuneration policy for the Supervisory Board. During these discussions, several stakeholders asked more information. Also on Hichem M'Saad's remuneration after appointment as CEO and also on Benjamin Loh's severance scheme and the nonfinancial targets applicable to the Executive Board for fiscal year 2024. Of course, all these issues will come back next year in the Remuneration Report 2024. But we promise and we understand the questions and, therefore, promise to address these issues and in part as part of this AGM. I would, therefore, like to give the floor to Didier Lamouche, Chair of our Nomination Selection and Remuneration Committee to comment on these 3 issues. Didier, go ahead.

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, as the Chairwoman said, I will provide you first with some details regarding the remuneration of the exiting CEO, Mr. Benjamin Loh. In the second step, with an overview of the remuneration aspects and details of the newly appointed CEO, Mr. Hichem M'Saad. And finally, as Pauline said, at the request of many of our shareholders, which we meet, at least regularly, at least once a year, to provide more transparency on the way the Supervisory Board sets the short-term target for the Management Board. We will then disclose the nonfinancial targets for the Management Board, short-term cash incentive scheme as applicable going forward in 2024. This explanation again has been promised before to some of our investors as outcome of the engagement sessions held in February this year. But at that point, ASM's performance target setting process was not completed yet, that's why we give those details today. On the first slide, which is showing up behind me, I don't know who's -- thank you. First of all, let's cover the remuneration aspects related to the departure of Benjamin Loh as former CEO. Given his departure, there will be, of course, no salary increase nor long-term incentive grants awarded for 2024. As far as the short-term incentive is concerned, Benjamin will receive a prorated short-term incentive at target level for the period that he has served as CEO in '24, meaning from January 1 until today. Furthermore, Benjamin will be eligible at the date of his exit, which is actually today, for an accelerated vesting of the 2 outstanding long-term incentive grants, which he received in 2022 and 2023. For avoidance of doubt, we can also confirm, and that was a question that we received also, that there is no severance in any form paid to Benjamin. Lastly, and as previously already communicated, we can confirm that Mr. Loh has accepted to stay, and we thank him for that, to stay on for 3 months, but obviously no longer as a member of the Management Board to support a smooth CEO transition. And again, I renew on behalf of the Board, all our thanks for his help, as well, again, as his remarkable contribution since 2020. We can go now to Slide #2. Thank you. Let me now elaborate on the compensation package of the new incoming CEO, Mr. M'Saad, as applicable as of today. The proposed compensation has been set in full compliance with the remuneration policy, which has been approved at the AGM on May 15 last year. It has also been set taking into consideration the expertise -- the experience, the contribution of the new CEO as well as a thorough competitive benchmarking, which has been conducted by a third-party external consultant. The fixed annual gross salary for Mr. M'Saad will be EUR 700,000 per year. The short-term incentive at target is 100% of the annual base. And the LTI, the long-term incentive at target remains unchanged vis-a-vis his current remuneration that is to say at 450% of his annual base, which, as you know, is reflective of the U.S. market practice, given the fact that Hichem's previous employment background is in the U.S. Hichem will relocate to the Netherlands during the summer period and some typical international mobility benefits will be applicable, all in line with our Management Board remuneration policy. Last but not least, and that's some details are provided on the following slide, which is going to come here. Last but not least, next one, please. I would like -- at the request of many of our shareholders, I would like to spend some time also on explaining the nonfinancial targets for the Management Board 2024 going forward as far as the short-term incentive is concerned. As you can see on the slide, and I'm not going to cover all the details of those. As you can see on the slide, this is a mix of mainly ESG-related targets such as a continuation of our net zero 2025 pathway as well as a series of people-related targets in the domain of leadership development, culture, engagements as well as organizational design. Also, as you know, this year is a specific year in terms of ESG, the preparation of the European CSRD reporting and disclosure is one of the targets, which is extremely important this year. And another target also is the safety performance recorded across the company. Lastly, a company-specific target -- strategic target, I should say, the implementation of the new ERP software, namely SAP S4 HANA has been added to the STI target for '24. And you see on the slide behind me, the weight, the respective weight of each of those targets. And with that, I give you back the mic, Pauline.

[Interpreted] Well, thank you, Didier. Well, this was the introduction. This is not for further discussion now. But since we've received a lot of questions about this in a couple of months of this year, [indiscernible] behind us, we thought that it was good to only share it with you. Now I would like to continue with the agenda and with the first substantive agenda item. The first substantive agenda item concerns the report for the fiscal year 2023. This is an item for discussion, and it consists of agenda items 2A and 2B. So 2 parts. We'll start with 2A. This is your report on fiscal year 2023. The Board of management will thus report on the year, but there will also be an explanation on it. And before the Board of management will do so, I as a Chair of the Supervisory Board, I would like to make some comments about the last fiscal year. 2033 was another year to be proud of, for ASM. It was a difficult year in the semiconductor market, where we saw several of our customers put investments on hold. Nevertheless, as in previous years, ASM was able to grow its sales and its performance outperformed the market. We focused on strengthening ASM in 2023, also in view of its medium- and long-term growth plans. The Supervisory Board and the Board of Management often discussed challenges and opportunities in the areas of customers, products, technologies and talent attraction and retention. In a quieter market like 2023, it was important to improve the supply chain and find a good balance between working capital and inventories. Also given the scarcity of some materials, this was, therefore, a recurring theme in our discussions with the Executive Committee and the Board of Management. The Supervisory Board was also involved in various investments from R&D to the 2 large-scale expansions in Korea and Arizona that ASM announced last year. We discussed current geopolitical tensions and increasingly stringent export controls, restrictions from the U.S. Regulatory changes and other developments in ESG and sustainability were also rapidly discussed at meetings of the Audit Committee and the Supervisory Board as a whole. We also went into sustainability innovations. These are important because ASM is highly dependent on its customers and value chain to be able to reduce its Scope 3 emissions. Moreover, we paid a lot of attention to diversity and inclusion with new higher targets in terms of a more balanced distribution of men and women, the organization and the culture of ASM. This also includes talent management and attracting good talent, but also retaining -- talent retention, development and advancement of these employees. As members of the Supervisory Board, we also met various talents. This allow us to hear what is going on and how they see ASM. In conclusion, the Supervisory Board looks back on a very successful and satisfying year, for which we express our thanks to the Board of management, the Executive Committee, and of course, to all of the ASM colleagues. Now I'd like to give the floor to Benjamin Loh, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO. And after this, Paul Verhagen, CFO and member of the Board of Management will say something about the company's ESG policy. Benjamin, please?

Good afternoon to everybody. And I just want to start off by acknowledging Pauline for her very kind introduction at the beginning. Thank you very much, Pauline. I will give a report on what we have done in 2023 and also try to give an outlook of 2024 and beyond. So just the cautionary statement. We can move on to the next slide. So my report will be broken up into 6 parts. There's a couple of key messages that I would like to share with you. And we look into a little bit of details on 2023, and then we proceed to, what does the outlook for 2024 looks like. And then we will expand on what we are doing in terms of ESG. And a very important topic for us is, of course, the people topic, that will be following the ESG. And finally, a little bit longer term on what the midterm brings for ASM. So 2023, just to repeat what Pauline has mentioned, I think it was still another successful year for us. It was not an easy year. It was a difficult year. We grew at 13% at constant currency, but quite a number of our peers actually recorded negative growth simply because the industry was going through an inventory correction and investments were held back. But I think we managed to excel and outperform the market by growing 13%. We also have continued to invest and increase our head count by about 7%, and this was necessary in a difficult year because we know that subsequent years, we are going to expect a significant growth, and we need to be prepared for that. And similarly, we continue with our people transformation strategy along 4 pillars, which I will share with you later on. I think at the heart of ASM, people is what really matters. Talent is what really matters and we need to continue to build on that. Sustainability, one of the things that we are especially proud is that last year, we had our net zero 2035 targets validated, verified by the SBTi, and we were actually the first in the industry to have done that. So right now, starting from this year, it's execution, and we are putting all the plans together. One big opportunity for us going forward, of course, is the inflection from the FinFET transistor architecture in to gate-all-around transistor architecture, that is going to present significant benefits, especially for the type of equipment that we produce. And we do expect that the transition to gate-all-around, this is going to last, again, just like the FinFET transition for the next 10 to 12 years. So there's a lot of opportunities in front of us. AI is now pretty much a big buzzword. I think all of us are hearing about it, to some extent, also impacted by it. We are very actually enthusiastic about this. I think we are very well positioned for some of the AI applications that will come as our customers start to manufacture more and more AI-related semiconductor components. And we look at how are we going to make sure that we have enough capacity all the way until our midterm target of 2027. So we have already taken that into consideration. And I will share with you some of the expansion investments that we have done. But as of today, we are quite confident that we have enough capacity to make sure that we can deliver on the high end of our 2027 midterm target. So maybe let's dive into 2023. So 2023, again, was a tough year for the semiconductor industry after very significant growth in 2022. I think when we look at semiconductor chip sales, it was probably down by more than 10%. If you look at the market that we play in, which is wafer fab equipment, it was kind of flat, maybe a slight negative, but we think it's more flat than negative. And against that, basically, what we were seeing is that there was a slowdown in leading-edge logic and foundry investments. Memory was down, and I will show you in another chart, but these were actually compensated by the older legacy or mature node investment, which helped to prop up the overall market. One buy spot for us was the silicon carbide epitaxy business. This was an acquisition that we did of an Italian company called LPE, and that's showing now a lot of good results. In fact, we probably tripled the head count there because of the demand and the significant amount of work that we have to do. And we gave a target to the market that we would significantly increase revenue to at least EUR 130 million, which we exceeded that. So we are now in a very good position also to continue growing when the market comes back. Supply chain constraints, maybe, again, to repeat what Pauline has mentioned. Since the end of 2021, the whole industry and actually many other industries have been constrained by the supply chain. But we are seeing things improving. And except for certain specialty materials, I think, the market has, by and large, are normalized, and we are -- or we have, during the last 2 years, done a lot of work to make sure that when the ramp in the semiconductor industry comes again, we are prepared. So we have done a lot of work to try to mitigate any risk. In 2022, we continue to invest, especially in R&D. And again, I will come back to this. There is a slide that we show you, which other areas that we have been investing. A big part of it is actually in our R&D infrastructure. We had to do that because the opportunities in front of us is just huge, and customers are pulling us to do more and more. We -- again, for the manufacturing or capacity part of it, we completed the expansion of our manufacturing facility in Singapore, which is basically responsible for 80% to 85% of our total output. So we have now everything in place. And we also kicked off an expansion in Korea, EUR 100 million expansion, which is now under construction. That will also triple the amount of manufacturing space that we have in Korea and double the amount of R&D space that we have in Korea. That facility or their construction should be completed by sometime in the first half of 2025. We also announced -- we haven't start the work yet, but we announced a EUR 300 million expansion in Scottsdale in the U.S. That is going to be our flagship facility in North America and we are all eagerly looking forward to that. We're in the process now of working through the design, the permits and so on. And hopefully, we'll be able to start the construction soon, but that will be a major addition as far as our R&D and, to some extent, pilot manufacturing capabilities are concerned. The net zero 2035 targets I've just mentioned that. And the thing that makes us proud is that we were the first in the industry, and we wanted to make sure that we be very transparent with our targets. And we are, of course, very glad that after a lot of work, this has been validated by Science Based Targets Initiative. And in terms of people, we continue to build on our culture. The core values are we care, we innovate, we deliver, and we have supplemented this actually ever since 2022, with the core behaviors of accountability, collaboration and empowerment. And we have put also special focus on inclusion, equity and diversity. I think that comes hand-in-hand with the values that we believe in, and we are working towards increasing, for example, whether it's gender diversity or various diversity within the company. So a snapshot. So 2023 was the seventh consecutive year of double-digit growth. And we grew 13% -- sorry, can you click one more time? Okay. So we grew at 13%. The probably negative aspect of last year's market was the drop in memory sales I think there was a drop of probably greater than 40% of -- in terms of investments by the customers. But nevertheless, the memory segment is a smaller part of our business. And this was more than compensated by what we call the key growth or the significant growth in the mature logic and foundry and also legacy-type chips, which is in power, analog, et cetera. They are more than compensated for the drop and resulting in our ability to continue growing in a pretty tough year in 2023. So snapshot again, financial performance. I think here you can see revenue was at a record. Profitability, whether it's in terms of operating profit, free cash flow, they were all at what we call profit record levels. And due to, I would say, a better mix and especially quite some business coming in from China, I think, we also achieved a very good gross margin. Here, maybe to share some of the new technologies that is going to help us continue to drive the business. One, of course, is metal ALD. So just a recap, 2 of the biggest plays that we do is in ALD equipment and silicon epitaxy equipment. And ALD accounts for more than half of our total equipment sales, so it's a major part of our business. And we are going into metal ALD. And an opportunity is now just in front of us with the transition from copper and tungsten into moly. So we are heavily engaged with our customers. And in fact, we already have secured some initial wins. So that's going to help us over the next couple of years. Silicon epitaxy is something that if I look at where we came from, let's just say, 10 years ago, we probably had a low single-digit type of market share. At the end of last year, we were above 20%, and we are on track, and we are confident that we will reach a 30% market share by the time we finish 2025. So we are making significant gains in the silicon epitaxy market. And again, this will be another key driver for us over the next couple of years. And we are winning because we have and we offer the most competitive technology that is available on the market today. A little bit on the awards that we got from our customers. So as usual, with our 3 biggest customers, we get the early awards. But this -- actually, we will be getting the award in June, even though it's published. But for 2023, we are especially proud that with Intel, we will get, I think, the highest level of award, which is outstanding. We are one of only 2 equipment suppliers that will be getting that award. And it's primarily based on the support and the technology that has differentiated us from some of our competitors. In the same way and we are very proud that for the first time, in Asia, we have been awarded best company to work for or one of the best companies to work for and one of the most caring companies. I think this is a testament to some of the work that we have been doing over the last 4 years in terms of our values of We Care. And I really am very proud of this HR awards that we got for Asia. Just a quick snapshot. So ASM has been growing over the years. So many years ago, we were #12 on the WFE. We got to #7 in 2022. And last year, we moved up one more notch. So we are now the sixth biggest WFE equipment supplier in the world, which means also that we are now, to some extent, viewed as a major supplier by all the key semiconductor companies. A little bit on the index return compared to the AEX and the SOX, which is the semiconductor index. I think we have done well for ourselves over the last couple of years. And here, I would like to maybe add a comment. Of course, we have done very well, and Pauline was very kind to sort of say that it was because of me, it's not really just me, it's the entire team and especially the employees of the company. Everybody has put in and contributed and this is the reason why we have this kind of results. Outlook for 2024. I talked about AI a little bit earlier. This is happening all around us, whether it's large language models, whether it's generative AI. But I think we're also seeing AI being adopted, implemented with autonomous driving, ADAS. We're also seeing edge devices starting to have AI functionality, whether it's smartphones, whether it's PCs, I think, those will be coming out in the second half of this year. Now overall, I think we are going to see AI being a significant driver of growth for the semiconductor industry. And our view is that we are still very much at the beginning. This has a long way to go and will be good for the semiconductor industry and to some extent, especially for ASM because we play in the leading-edge type of technology and a lot of the AI chips components are manufactured at the leading edge. Something that we showed already some time back in September last year at our Investor Day, we are quite bullish that by 2027, all logic devices, at least 30% of them will have some kind of AI functionality. I think this is going to help drive, again, a lot of advances and also capacity to be added as far as leading-edge logic and foundry and manufacturing of chips are concerned. Something which I alluded in the slides on 2023, gate-all-around or the inflection to gate-all-around is very important for us because this is where the most advanced technology in semiconductor is being played out. And this slide is a little bit technical, but just to give you a preview or show you what are the opportunities that are ahead of us. And there are many, many opportunities, both in ALD and in epitaxy, which are the 2 main products that we have. We look at the new interconnect metals. We look at selective deposition processes and we look at embedded functionality. All of this will require more ALD, more epitaxy, and this is really going to help us drive the business and grow the business over the next couple of years. A little bit on the general market. So if you look at '22, '23, '24, I mean, the market, WFE market, which is where we play in was generally flat. So even for this year, consensus is that the market is generally going to be flat, maybe a little bit of growth, but the positioning is that 2024 is going to be positioned as a growth year for 2025 onwards. And if we look at the TechInsights and the Gartner industry specific type of forecast, it, in fact, is showing that there will be significant growth coming in '25 and '26. And that's one of the reasons why we also need to be prepared for the growth. And that's one of the reasons why we continue to invest both in infrastructure and also in our people. This is a slide where I tried to explain to you what we are doing in terms of expansion. So if you look at Korea, we had groundbreaking in May last year, and we have started construction of a new facility, which is next to our existing facility, which will triple the amount of manufacturing space and double the amount of R&D space. Both are solely required because we are expanding very quickly in Korea. And then we look at the U.S., we had an event to kick it off with a EUR 300 million investment. And we were very fortunate that we could time this together with the visit of the Dutch Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, so he attended together with the Minister, Micky Adriaansens. So it was a great event for us. And as I said, we are now in the process of finalizing design and permits and hope to be able to start construction soon. Japan, we actually already expanded in previous years. But last year, what we did was we made the office. We renovated the office just to improve the working environment for our employees because the office was also becoming too crowded and we had to reorganize and rearrange. Singapore, the expansion of the second manufacturing floor, which is a major preparation for us for 2025 and beyond. Netherlands and Taiwan, what we did was we created training centers, demo centers for our equipment, both in Taiwan and also here in the Netherlands, here in EMEA. And what is not shown here with the acquisition of our, let's say, LPE business in Italy, we also renovated, expanded the demo and the process lab that we had in Catania. So that is now a much more, I would say, professional and presentable and we have had a lot of customers go to there for demo work and then also for process development work. So that's what we have been doing in terms of R&D and manufacturing. As we go into the rest of this year and also into next year, as and when we see that there will be additional necessity to expand, that's what we will do. Because organic growth, that is probably the first pillar of our capital allocation policy. And a little bit on the ESG part. So we do not believe in just setting targets, we want to take action. We are a firm believer in what we need to do as far as the climate environment is concerned. So we have done materiality assessments with various stakeholders. And with this, we have now prioritized what we need to do, which is shown on the right of this chart. And of course, we fully subscribe and follow the 5 SDG goals that are also listed here, which is clean energy, et cetera. So that's what we focus our efforts on. And in terms of the priorities, of course, climate is one of them, but it goes beyond that and we look at, for example, what we do as far as developing our people, as far as the supply chain is concerned, living wage, which is something that we are proud of because we already in 2021 were one of the leading advocates with the Responsible Business Alliance. And now we have a task force that is in the RBA looking at that, and we are waiting for the guidelines and making sure, of course, that health and safety is a priority for all of our employees. Pauline mentioned a little bit about the ESG ratings, and we are actually very enthusiastic and proud of what we have achieved. I think in the CDP rating last year for the first time that we have achieved A minus, and we are ranked among the top, especially in our industry area. If you look at Sustainalytics, we have improved also significantly, and we are actually #1 in our peer group, #3 in the wider industry group. Some of this, we are very proud and it's not just the ratings, but I think it's a recognition of the efforts and the resources that we have put in to make sure that we do a good job as far as ESG is concerned. Net zero 2035 targets. As I've mentioned, we got our targets validated by SBTi last year in July. And since then, we have been putting together all the different plans, that is going to help us get there. One of the things that we are -- which even before the targets were validated, which we have really set for ourselves was to get to renewable electricity 100% by end of 2024. And as of last year, we were at 88%. We are confident that we will get there 100% by end of this year. We also launched the climate or we published our climate transition plan in March this year, as a result of all the work that we needed to do. And maybe last but not least, so we are building new facilities in Korea, and later on in Arizona as well, both of them are designed to gold standards as far as environmental friendliness is concerned. And that's something that we will continue to do. All new infrastructure will be environmental friendly. Supply chain. That's something that we also did quite a lot of work in 2023, whether it's getting the -- our suppliers to do the RBA assessment so that we can understand what is the risk, getting our suppliers to disclose, let's say, climate action according to CDP. Responsible minerals, making sure that our suppliers use certified smelters and refineries. And we have been engaging strongly with our suppliers. This actually started already, sometime, I would say, in 2021. We, in 2022, for the first time, gave a supplier award to suppliers that have performed well for environmental reasons. We call it the PRISM award. 2022 was the first, 2023 was the second year. And we will continue to do that to acknowledge and recognize suppliers who do a good job in this area. People. And the people transformation strategy is at the core of what we need to do over the next couple of years. I think a lot of us know that in the semiconductor industry, one of the biggest bottlenecks that will happen over the next couple of years is talent. And of course, there are various initiatives, both private, government and combination of private and government that's trying to address that. By the end of the day, I think as corporations, we also need to do our part. And we, on our part, have identified the 4 pillars, one, of course, is talent. How do we acquire? How do we grow our talent? We also need to focus on as the company grows to become a EUR 4 billion to EUR 5 billion company by 2027, how do we scale? And the next thing that we need to focus on, the semiconductor industry is changing, changing very quickly. How do we have an agile organization that's able to respond to all the different changes that may come in front of us? And last but not least, we continue on our culture journey, which we have started a couple of years ago. Trying to live our values and making sure that we will model the behaviors that are necessary to create one united ASM. Some key people facts. And as I said, in 2023, even though it was a tougher year for the semiconductor industry, we still hired quite some people. In fact, we increased headcount by about 7%, and we hired 730 people. We, of course, as part of our inclusion, equity and diversity focus have hired more females, and this will continue. We have a target for '25 and also a target for beyond, and we are actively working towards that. The other area that I think is noteworthy. As we look at the number of nationalities represented in ASM, that has increased. We now have 66 different nationalities working within the company. And we're also very proud that if you look at the average remuneration of the employees, this has increased significantly from 99,000 to 111,000. We are committed to building the culture in ASM. This journey that has started really a couple of years ago, but we are accelerating that. And again, the core values are we care, we innovate, we deliver. Underpinned by, I would say, the model behaviors of accountability, empowerment and collaboration. This actually helps us to drive employee engagement and underpinning some of these values and also the behaviors, of course, is included inclusion, equity and diversity. And on the employee engagement part, I think, we have very clear signals from our employees that they want to have their voices heard. In a pulse survey that we did last year, we had a 94% participation rate, which is really, very high by industry standards. And we are proud and happy that employees are willing to speak up and let us know what needs to be improved and how we can make the company better. Last but not least, the midterm guidance and priorities. So the strategy of the company hasn't changed. We showed this for the first time in 2021 at the Investor Day in September. And by and large, the strategic objectives of the company with the strategic enablers remain the same. Of course, as the market develops, every year, there's a little bit of tweaking here and there. But if you look at the longer term, the strategy is intact, and we are focusing on the right things. Just another shot to show that digital transformation is going to drive the semiconductor business significantly, grow the business significantly over the next couple of years. And the often mentioned number is that the amount of -- or the revenue for semiconductor chips will hit USD 1 trillion by the end of the decade. Last year, it was probably in the mid-$500 billion. So you're seeing a significant growth over the next 6 to 7 years. And these are the targets that we have openly disclosed and shared with all the shareholders and also the investment community. Next year, we expect to be between EUR 3 billion to EUR 3.6 billion, which actually represents a 16% to 21% growth if you compare that to 2020 where we are coming from. And in 2027, we expect and are confident that we will be between EUR 4 billion to EUR 5 billion, which is 11% to 16% compound annual growth rate compared to 2022. We are working diligently towards these targets, and we are actually, barring any massive changes in the market, we are confident that we will get there. Again, the key takeaways. For all shareholders, 2023 was, I would say, a pretty difficult year, but we still managed to grow at 13%. We have increased our headcount despite the difficult year because we need to be prepared and talent is a major issue for the whole semiconductor industry. Our people transformation strategy continues with the 4 key pillars. We continue to focus on our sustainability after having had our net zero 2035 targets validated last year. Inflection, form a FinFET to gate-all-around is providing us with a lot of opportunities to further grow the company. AI is a big buzzword today. It's going to be a big driver for the semiconductor industry, and we are well positioned for that. And last but not least, we have done -- or we have taken steps to ensure that when the ramp comes, probably starting from next year, we have enough capacity, and we are well prepared to do that. Next. And this being my last AGM, I would also like to say a couple of words. The last 4 years, it has been probably the privilege of my life to have been able to lead ASM. I think I'm very [ honored ], and I had great colleagues and also employees that have managed to grow the company to where we are today. But I also want to thank all the shareholders for your kind support over the last couple of years. And as I transition to Hichem, I cannot be more happy that you will be in very capable hands. And in fact, if I look at where the market is going to be over the next couple of years, I'm more than confident that Hichem is going to bring ASM to even greater heights. So once again, I want to thank all of you for your support in the last 4 years. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Benjamin, very moving. Paul, a few words from you?

Yes. Maybe a few -- sorry. So maybe a few more words on our sustainability policies as that was asked for, maybe in addition to what Benjamin already has illustrated just now. On the governance, of course, Supervisory Board, Audit Committee is very much involved in overseeing what we're doing. Management Board being present here, of course, take a lot of initiative and priority in making sure that we drive a sustainable value creation in long term for the company. And we have a Sustainability Board in the company with representatives from business and global functions. So that's how we manage it. I think a key pillar in the E part is our Net Zero 2035 targets. Benjamin talked about that, so no need to repeat that. I think on the S, it's the people agenda that Benjamin talked about, and particularly, of course, building a diverse and inclusive culture where we put a lot of emphasis on. And on the G, of course, being an integer and ethical, moral company with good behaviors. That's also where we believe we need to set the right tone at the top, which we, I think, all do. And then last but not least, we are putting a lot of effort in the [ CSD ] reporting, which will become in place from next year. We have a team. We are progressing well. You might have seen in our annual report already this year that we've added quite a few nonfinancial indicators. And that's all, let's say, progress towards becoming fully compliant on CSD. And these numbers also have, I think, now for the third year in a row, if I'm not mistaken, limited assurance through our external auditor, KPMG. Anything I'll leave it to that, Pauline.

Thanks a lot, Paul.

[Interpreted] Right. Ladies and gentlemen, this means that we will move to Agenda 2B, which is the corporate governance structure and compliance with the Dutch Corporate Governance Code. In December 2022, an update of the Corporate Governance Code was published by the Corporate Governance Monitoring Committee, which I chaired. And in line with the monitoring committee's recommendation, ASM included the chapters of the 2023 Annual Report, describing the corporate governance structure and compliance with the Corporate Governance Code on the agenda. Chapter 13.1 contains an explanation of corporate governance at ASM, including an explanation of the various bodies of the companies and the right and obligations. For example, the role of the Supervisory Board, the General Meeting, the Management Board and the Executive Meeting are discussed -- sorry, Executive Committee are discussed as well as the relationship between the various bodies. And in Chapter 34, we discuss compliance with the Corporate Governance Code, and we explain why we deviate from the code on certain matters. And in summary, these concern the delegation by the Supervisory Board of contacts with the internal auditor to the Audit Committee, the majority of Supervisory Board members are members of the Audit Committee, and the committee is the most financially literate. However, it is guaranteed in the Audit Committee charter that the internal auditor may always escalate matters to me as the Chair of the Supervisory Board. And for that same reason, the internal auditor reports to the CFO. ASM believes the CFO is best equipped to oversee internal audit. And for the same reason, the Audit Committee rather than the Supervisory Board maintains contact with the external auditor and the Audit Committee to have briefed the auditor on its performance. The updated code requires an organization-wide diversity and inclusiveness policy, which actually should have been adopted in 2023. ASM adopted that in February of this year. And it's 2 months behind. The code requires the Chairman of the Supervisory Board to provide a Vice Chair. The Supervisory Board had discussed this in the past, but has concluded at the time that it did not think it was necessary given the limited size of the Supervisory Board. Unofficially the NSR Chairman fulfilled the role of Vice Chair. Given ASM's growth, however, and the proposed expansion of the Supervisory Board from 6 to 7 members, the Supervisory Board decided earlier this year, after having discussed it again, to formally appoint Mr. Lamouche as a Vice Chair so -- on a formal note. And then I will now give you the opportunity here in the audience to ask questions about Agenda Item 2 report on the 2023 fiscal year. I'd like to remind you to ask a maximum of one question at a time. And we have 2 microphones in the pathway. So if you can stand up and walk to the mic, you can do so. If you cannot walk up to the mic, we have another microphone that can come to you. So I would like to give the floor to [ Ho ]?

[Interpreted] Inaudible to the interpreter, my apologies.

[Interpreted] Right. So in summary, return on my shares is 5,000%. There is nobody else who has that 5,000%. I acquired those shares a long time ago. I never did anything with it. And the return on those shares is 5000%. It's the best performing share in the Netherlands. And I think that you are very happy with me stating this at the beginning. I'm also very happy that in the Netherlands, we have a family run business called Heineken, and we are very happy that Heineken is still in the Netherlands. And I'm really trying to get Max Verstappen into the latest James Bond movie together with Humberto Tan to promote Heineken 0.0 and really make that a very popular drink. The same applies to ASMI because it was founded a long time ago. I think Chuck built what his father created, and Benjamin Loh really put the turbo on it. And Hichem is very, very modest, which is all nice, but he is the engine of the company. And the great thing is we're moving from Asian regions to African regions. And I think there's a lot to do. And at this moment, not a lot is going on in the field of research there, and we've noticed in this country that people -- well, if you want people to stay there, you need to have employment there and a nice working climate. So -- and also the climate in general, so a nice research lab or -- in Africa would be nice because the climate is not doing really well, and we need forests. And also ASM will benefit from stability. And we now have a very weird combination of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran, that is completely disrupting the world, and they use terrorist groups for that, especially Hamas in Gaza, and this leads to a weird dangerous situation also in the Netherlands. So it's very important that you with your powerful companies and network that you do something about it. You can provide stability in regions because this is required for further growth. And what I have been missing here, I have not received an answer to my question, what's the actual value is of this company? And in the Netherlands, we say that we want 50% people from outside. We have people with a lot of experience in IT and cyber [ crime ], wouldn't it be great that you can send one of the people that work for you to sit in government because we don't have a lot of competent people in our government. So they could use your expertise. We asked one question at a time. I actually wrote down several questions from your side, Mr. [ Fraken ], so that we can give the opportunity to other share. Well, the good news is that I have to leave pretty soon. So the number of questions is limited this time. And of course, I agree. So upon my leave, I know you will not have to answer my questions anymore, but I have a lot of positive feedback as well. This is my last one. I don't think ASMI is doing a lot of sponsoring and [indiscernible] Van Gogh Museum, et cetera. But with such great results as a company, it is important that ASM has excellent sponsorships in the Netherlands and abroad. So these are my questions and comments.

[Interpreted] Thank you, [ Mr. Fraken ]. Yes. A couple of those are suggestions, I think. So thank you very much for those complements and suggestions and congratulations on your share return of 5,000%. I think more people are happy about that. You talk about employment in Africa. And a suggestion on ASM forest in Africa. I think it's not the first time that you have commented on that. I'm afraid we don't have an answer to that yet. But we will include your suggestion, you talk about stability in the world and value of ASMI is around EUR 30 billion, slightly above. You have a friendly suggestion that people behind this table should form government, but you do realize that they won't be able to sit on the Board here, right? Well, they can choose or delegate people from their network. I completely agree with you, Mr. Fraken that we should urge people with a certain expertise to do something, to stand up and go into politics and stand for election. And if that is your point, I wholeheartedly agree with you. Then sponsoring. I would like to give the floor to Paul Verhagen.

[Interpreted] Correct. In the Netherlands, we might even have 0 sponsoring. So if it's there, it's not big. In several countries that we operate in on a smaller scale, we do give back to the community by initiatives that were founded by employees. They do charity work. We try to do that here, which is different from sponsoring, I understand, but it's still giving back to the community, right? And we believe it's very important that our employees contribute to that and ourselves as well. Nevertheless, sponsoring is on the agenda, and I do agree with you that we need to review the sponsoring policy. If you're a big company, then -- if you're big, then you need to also return to the community big time. Other questions. Yes, go ahead? The lady over at the other microphone.

Thank you, Chair. Stephanie [ Glassons, VBDO ], Investors for Sustainable Development. We represent 80% of institutional investors with EUR 1,600, million that's quite a large number. ASM is a great example for VBDO over the past years. And I'm going to assume that with the new people onboard, ASM is going to continue what it has been doing. A company is not an isolated object. It influences its environment and the environment influences the company, and a company is part of the chain, the value chain and cannot be considered and cannot exist without the chain.

This is the starting point for the analysis when it comes to risks and opportunities. Biodiversity is one of the biggest risks according to VBDO. We would like to complement ASM with the fact that it's doing many good things for Net Zero for the climate, but biodiversity has -- or deserves the same attention. Critical raw materials are essential in the value chain of ASM. They come from mines and processing these materials has a huge impact on man, environment and community.

[Interpreted] But to what extent does ASM measure or includes this in the value chain? And to what extent is ASM willing to face those risks and act on those risks? Or does ASM considers this part of the -- well, we do value it. So Paul, please, can I give these questions to you?

[Interpreted] Well, first of all, biodiversity. We drafted a policy. We published this policy. So it's very important to us as well. I think it's important to also understand the context that we operate in. We are a company with a low manufacturing number, we produce slightly less than 1,000. We don't have huge buildings, huge factories so that would have a huge impact on biodiversity in the environment. You put those locations in. I think the largest part of our impact on biodiversity comes from emissions that take place in the value chain for the benefit of the manufacturing of materials and our own equipment. And we addressed that through our Net Zero 2035 target. So that's what we focus on. And indirectly, we contribute to biodiversity. And also secondly, good to know is, Benjamin talked about some expansions, amongst which in the U.S. One of the things that we did there for the first time is a biodiversity assessment. We had never done that before. And the results of it are shared with the development company and will be included in the further development of the facility that we are building there. So also from that perspective, we try to take into account as much as possible biodiversity. Then the critical raw materials. What is important here is that we have a policy in place. So from our suppliers, we expect them to work with certified refineries and foundries to be able to supply to us. So indirectly, we have attention for that as well. From a direct perspective, we might not be doing that sufficiently, especially because of overall capacity. So we have a close connection to our Tier 1 suppliers. So we visit them. We have direct audits with them, but further down the supply chain, not so much, but it has our attention in the future to do it more. But through the certification system, we try to achieve that also manufacturing of raw materials that this happens in an environmentally friendly manner. Who's next?

[Interpreted] My name is Andrea van den Heuvel, for Achmea Investment Management. And I have a question on the Dutch Tax Governance Code, [ ASM E ] has signed this code. And I would like to ask whether ASMI will fully report according to this code or country-by-country tax report?

[Interpreted] That's again a question for our CFO.

[Interpreted]. Yes, it is correct. We signed this particular code. And on almost all accounts, we operate in line with this code. So we have a tax strategy. We have no artificial construction to mitigate tax or to evade tax in any way whatsoever. Paying taxes is an operational commercial activity in the countries that we operate in. We really try to really follow the intention of the code. What we do not comply with is the country-by-country reporting. And the reason for that is that we try, and we haven't found that way yet. We try to strike a balance between transparency, but also not giving away competitive and commercially sensitive information. For certain countries, we only have one product deposition. And in other countries, we have only one big customer. So if we were to report country-by-country revenue, FTE, profit before tax, et cetera, then basically, it provides a lot of competitive information that we do not wish to share. So we really try to look into how we can deal with that in the best way possible. We have not found that answer yet. We're working on that.

[Interpreted] Any other questions on this item?

[Interpreted] My name is Hedo Van [indiscernible], European Investors VB. My question is this one. ASM has a market-leading position in ALD. If you look at underlying, then you were also leading in logic and foundry and memory. You wish to expand further. My first question, if you look at recent development in by lab research, can you say something about the latest competition developments in logic and foundry? And on top of that, in contrast to other bigger players, you have a less big portfolio in chip tools. Can you say anything about -- or to what extent this is a disadvantage to you?

[Interpreted] I mean, ASM being a smaller company competing against very large competitors, some of them are actually 10 times our size. But I think if you look at the -- what we have done over the last 4 years or last couple of years, not just the last 4 years, we have been able to outcompete despite our small size. And the main reason for that is we put a lot of focus on innovation and technology. So if you look at the ALD as you mentioned, that is something that is now becoming more and more important as we go into the more advanced notes. And we have been able to, let's say, carve out a fairly significant market share for ourselves, compared to our 3 largest competitors. And of course, we do understand that our largest competitors are going to come after us because it's a very attractive, fast-growing market. But we remain confident that given the focus, the emphasis that we have on innovation and R&D and also the efforts that we have put in to ensure that we work together closely with our customers, we will be able to maintain that kind of market share. And in some areas, for example, in [indiscernible], where we are a smaller player, perhaps even to increase our market share. So we are confident of being able to hold them -- hold off of our competitors.

[Interpreted] Follow-up question? Yes.

[Interpreted] So if you look at transition to [ moly ], to what extent is that an advantage for lab research, where they're coming from and looking at the product offering?

[Interpreted] So again, I will actually just answer this quickly, and then I would actually like my colleague, Hichem, to be able to add on to that. Now the transition to moly opens up an opportunity for us. It's an area where we were not playing in, in the past with copper and tungsten. So when this transitions to moly and they have to do the deposition very much using ALD, it is something which is incremental to the market that we are really serving. But maybe Hichem, you can also add your comments.

[Interpreted] I think on the question that was asked earlier about sustainability. We -- at ASM, we actually have developed moly, metal, ALD to actually reduce the energy usage of chips. So by going to moly, we've actually been able to reduce the resistance of metal, which actually reduces the energy usage of chips, which helps sustainability from that point of view. So we have been successful in bringing this technology. And this is the first time as what Benjamin has mentioned. This is the first time that we entered the metal ALD market, and we entered this market with molybdenum, and we see that for all devices, 3D NAND, DRAM and Logic, they will use this metal. And it's actually a new era that's happening right now in metal deposition.

Thank you, Hichem. Can we then move on to the next item on the agenda. One more question -- 2 even, right. We have other opportunities for questions, by the way. So just don't -- you can hold your horses, if you want.

[Interpreted] Thank you. My name is Sebastian [indiscernible] for Add Value Fund, a question. If you look at your targets, if you look beyond '27, one of your biggest drivers, of course, your -- on Board most important product is ALD, and you benefit from the increasing number of layers in the leading-edge foundry production. If we look at the penetration at the moment of ALD in the leading-edge foundry production, how big is that now? And how far can it keep on increasing? That's my question.

[Interpreted] Bastian, I think, this is -- we will not address this directly because that will be a competitive information. So what we have always shared is, if you look at our overall market share, it is at least 55%. This is logic and foundry combined with memory. Now our market share in logic and foundry is substantially higher because we have a smaller market share in memory. So I think if you look at what will happen as far as the first of all the transition to get all around, that's going to add more layers in terms of logic and foundry, ALD applications. But at the same time, memory is also advancing and will require more and more ALD layers. So as far as we are projecting, we think that the additional layers and coupled with a certain amount of investments in '27, that's going to lead us to the EUR 4 billion to EUR 5 billion kind of target that we have set for ourselves. And based on current view, unless there are something that changes dramatically, we're actually confident that we will get there.

[Interpreted] Okay. One small follow-up. Maybe if you look beyond the '27, do you see this trend continuing with more layers for ALD?

[Interpreted] I think if -- that's not our view. But if you just look at what's going to happen as far as the technology road map is concerned, so beyond 2027, all around will come in other, let's say, variations. For example, at the end of the decade, maybe you might see [ CFET ], which is one on top of the other. And all those are all just going to add to even more ALD layers. So without giving any kind of projection because that should probably come in the next Investor Day, we think that the growth in terms of layers as the technology becomes more and more advanced, that will continue.

[Interpreted] Ms. [ Glassen ], one for you, and then I propose that we move to Items 3 and 4.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Chair. Stephanie [ Glassons, VBDO ]. Livable wage was already a topic in presentation. Livable wage, obviously, is not a topic for own employees, but obviously down -- further down in the supply chain. You have said that you were waiting for the results of an initiative for livable wage. What are you waiting for? And which steps is ASM then going to take?

[Interpreted] Again, since 2021, we have been advocates of living wages with the Responsible Business Alliance. And I think that has finally taken shape. What they have done is they have created a living wage task force. And of course, we give our inputs into what should be the guidelines or what should be in the guidelines, which they are going to -- which they are preparing and hopefully, publishing soon. So one of the things that we are waiting for is to look at exactly what will be in the guidelines. I mean we provide input, but we don't write the guideline. So once that is out, we're going to use that as the basis of not just, as you correctly mentioned, Stephanie, not just for internal purpose, but also how can we use that guideline to work together with our suppliers. I think that is important because you're absolutely correct. Living wage is not just an ASM issue, it's also in the value chain and specifically our suppliers.

[Interpreted] And then also for [indiscernible] in the supply chain.

[Interpreted] Yes, exactly. So predominantly in the supply chain, yes.

Okay. For the sake of time, let's move on to Items 3 and 4 on the agenda, which means first voting block. 3 and 4. And after Item 4, I will give you again the opportunity to ask questions on both agenda items and also to KPMG, that will make a presentation in a moment on Agenda Item 3B. But first, yes. This is the notary. I now get the final number of registered shares that have a voting right in this meeting and that number is a 38,421,463. Great. Okay. The next item is a 3, which is a voting item with 3 subitems. So 3A, Remuneration Report 2023. An overview of the implementation of the remuneration policy can be found in the Remuneration Report included in the Annual Report 2023. This can be found on Pages 153 to 166 of the Annual Report 2023, as also mentioned in the agenda. And we have an explanation by the Chair of the NSR Committee, Mr. Lamouche, Didier, over to you.

Thank you, Ms. Chair. Thank you. Thanks again. Ladies and gentlemen, I will now take you through the highlights of the Remuneration Report for 2023. As Mrs. van der Meer Mohr already indicated, this report is included in its entirety in ASM 2023 Annual Report from Page 153 to Page 166. Of course, here, I will just give you a few highlights. But if you need more details, you can refer to the full report. This report fully complies with the Dutch Civil Code and the principle has set out in the Dutch Corporate Governance Code. In accordance with the Dutch Civil Code, we ask you the General Meeting to cast an advisory vote on the Remuneration Report 2023. Allow me to remind you that the current remuneration policy for the Management Board on which the Remuneration Report for 2023 is based was adopted by the General Meeting on May 15, 2023. Let's look to the various elements of the remuneration report. On the base salary first. In '23, the base salary of Mr. Benjamin Loh, our CEO, has been increased by 10%, justified, of course, by the excellent performance, which has been illustrated before, and generally in line with the market movement that we have seen in the Netherlands following a period of inflation as well as generally in line with the average increase for ASM employees in the Netherlands. This did bring his annual base salary from around EUR 671,000 to EUR 738,000. As far as Mr. Verhagen, our CFO, base salary is concerned, the increase has been by 5% in 2023, which did bring his base salary from around EUR 538,000 to EUR 565,000. And the base salary of Mr. Hichem M'Saad, as CTO, has also been increased with 5% in '23, which brought his base of USD 600,000 to USD 630,000. Now let's take a closer look at the variable compensation, at the variable remuneration elements of the [indiscernible], namely the short-term cash yearly incentive and the long-term share incentive, which is, as you know, delivered under the form of performance here. As far as the STI, short-term cash incentive is concerned, the payout level is based on one hand, on the achievement of financial targets, which has a weight of 75% of the nominal total and on the other hand, on 25% nonfinancial targets. These nonfinancial targets are ESG-related and strategy related. All targets are set annually by the Supervisory Board. The STI target as a percentage of annual base salary is set at 125% for the CEO, Mr. Loh and at 80% at target level for the CFO, Mr. Verhagen, as well as for the CTO, Mr. M'Saad. The maximum attainable level is 187.5% at base salary -- of base salary, sorry, for the CEO and 120% of base salary for both the CFO and the CTO. It will, of course, not be a surprise to you that given the strong performance here that we have recorded in '23 for ASM, all Management Board members have shown an overachievement on 4 out of the 6 predefined STI targets. Two nonfinancial targets have been realized on target or slightly below targets. I want to say also that the Supervisory Board did apply a downward adjustment of the overall outcome on the nonfinancial targets based upon their assessment of the realization of a critical nonfinancial target. The total outcome still resulted in an overall overachievement of 137% of target payments for all 3 Management Board members. Last but not least, the long-term share incentive program which, as I said before, is performance-based. I mean, yes, it's performance-based and paid in shares. This is, as you know, a multiyear variable payment, which is delivered via performance shares, which become unconditional after a period of 3 years, over which the performance is measured and which are subject to a 2-year holding period after this period of 3 years. So in total, 5 years. The unconditional award is a result of the realization on the following 2 targets. First of all, revenue growth, which is measured vis-a-vis the market, and the market performance is tracked vis-a-vis -- versus a public indicator. And second KPI, the average EBIT versus a preset objective, which is determined by the Supervisory Board. Based on the achievement of the performance criteria per end 2023, the vesting for the 2021 grant in 2024 is 135% for both the CEO and for the CFO, corresponding for the CEO to 578 -- excuse me, 5,786 shares and for the CFO, 2,915 shares. There was no vesting of performance share for the CTO given his date of appointment and the applicable 3 years vesting period. Furthermore, the following amount of shares, conditional to performance, again, as measured over the coming 3 years, have been granted to the 3 Management Board members in '23 at an on-target value with a 3-year vesting period, so ending in '27, and in line with the remuneration policy. In terms of numbers, Mr. Loh, CEO at that time, received 40, 50 -- I'm sorry, 4,052 shares, representing roughly EUR 1.3 million. Mr. Verhagen received 2,580 shares, representing 84 -- EUR 847,000, sorry, for my hesitation. And Mr. M'Saad, the CTO, received 8,039 shares, representing roughly [ 2,600,057 ] shares. It is to be mentioned that as of the 2023 grant, so-called related -- I'm sorry, relative total shareholder return, which is a performance indicator measuring the return to the shareholders as compared to a basket of comparable company, this indicator has been added to the 2 already existing performance measures. This third measure is set up as a modifier or multiplayer that can impact positively or negatively the total achievements, upwards by plus 35% if we are measuring an overachievement and negatively by minus 35% on if in 3 years from now, we record an underachievement. Last but not least, I would like to give you some color on the so-called CEO pay ratio. As you know, the ratio of the CEO remuneration and the average remuneration of all other employees is calculated and tracked. It is called the pay ratio, by dividing the CEO's remuneration by the average remuneration of all employees. The [ SMC pay ] ratio is relatively stable, moving from 27 in '22 to 31 in '23. I want also to mention that this ratio is rather at the low end of the range when you compare to other comparable [ AIX ] listed companies. And with that, I would like to turn back the microphone to you, Mrs. Chair.

[Interpreted] Thank you, Didier, for this presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to inform you that the General Meeting will vote on this in line with Article 2:135b Paragraph 2 of the Dutch Civil Code, and this will be an [ advising ] voting item. Then base adoption of the Annual Report 2023. The annual report has been checked and well audited and approved by KPMG, and I would like to give the floor to KPMG to give an explanation and to comment on the audit statement.

[Interpreted] Well, good afternoon. My name is Frederik Croiset van Uchelen, and I'm the external auditor of KPMG, responsible for the audit of the financial statements of ASM. This is my fourth year as a responsible partner of KPMG. And KPMG is now the auditor of ASM for already 9 years. I would like to take this opportunity to give you further explanation of our audit of ASM's financial statements for the year 2023. But before I do so, I would first like to say a few words about the complete research into the answers to questions from mandatory tests and this results from settlement with the U.S. Regulatory. I deeply regret that the sharing of the answers was safe to take place within our organization. This shouldn't have happened. I apologize for this on behalf of the company and myself. We have properly investigated the courses of this and have taken several measures based on this to prevent this from happening in the future. To you, our shareholders, I would like to confirm that I personally was not involved. This also applies to all 5 other audit, IT and ESG partners involved in the audit. Due to Dutch regulations as the GDPR privacy rules, I cannot say anything about the outcome of the investigation regarding the other team members. KPMG has sanctioned everyone involved. Some have left KPMG since then. KPMG has also taken remedial measures based on the investigation, including actively monitoring the correctness of tests as well as retesting of individuals involved. We have a very robust quality system, including evaluating all its work within the audit team. With this fact and the experience and qualities of our team, I fully support the quality of the work performed and thus, our audit opinion. Having said that to, I would now like to talk about the 2023 audit of ASM. This presentation follows the structure of our statement as included on Pages 290 -- 259 to 266 of the annual report. Next slide, our opinions now. On the first of March 2024, we issued an unqualified audit opinion. And in brief, this means that the financial statements present a true and fair view without any material mistakes. So the annual report gives a clear and fair view of the situation. Then we audited and we issued an unqualified audit opinion on the nonfinancial sectors. And this is what we see on the pages 251 to 253 of the annual report. First the materiality, in the planning of our work, we take into account what is known as materiality. In brief, we consider something to be material if the extent of statements is such that it recently affects your decisions as users of the financial statements. Well, a maturity of EUR 33 million has been used for the audit of ASM's financial statements, which is 4.87% of the pretax income normalized mainly for the reversal of a previous write-down of ASMPT. We report all identified discrepancies above EUR 1.65 million to Management and to the Supervisory Board. Now the risk analysis. We conduct our audits using a risk analysis. We focus on those areas where the risk of [ errors ] that is intentional or intentional [ errors ] or misstatements is the biggest in financial statements. In our risk assessment work, we included fraud risk factors related to foreign financing reporting and improper appropriation of assets. The risks in relation to IT and cybersecurity and then the noncompliance with laws and regulations, including trade restrictions, then the internal control environment, including culture and design and also client-related risks and continuity risks. We discuss such risks in the audit team so that we can remain alert to new insights and developments. Together with our specialists, such as IT auditors, [ claimant ] and forensic specialists, we evaluate whether these factors indicate a risk of a material misstatement. What is our audit approach? Partly for reasons of efficiency, which choose which activities we performed centrally and which more locally, because of the setup of the financial organization at the shared service center present in Singapore, we're able to plan and execute an almost complete central audit, which resulted in the fact that we performed detailed audit work on 91% of all assets and 85% of the total revenue. This means that we do central audit work for the main operations in Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Singapore and the Americas. We ordered these operations primarily through audit work at the Shared Service Center as well as using work to perform local KPMG auditors. In addition, we use the engagement of the non-KPMG auditors of ASMPT. As part of our audit work on the item, investment in associates. We reviewed online the recorded work of the relevant local auditors in Hong Kong for the audit of ASMPT. In addition, we had several calls and virtual meetings and discussed the local audit approach as well as identified significant risks. This year, we also physically visited the operations and where applicable, the local audit teams in Singapore, Italy and Korea. All local auditors, who performed work for the audit of the consolidated financial statements, performed their work in accordance with our instructions and under our supervision. Next slide, please. So now fraud and non-compliance with laws and regulations. Specifically, with respect to fraud and noncompliance with laws and regulations, we performed several specific activities. A summary of these can be found in the audit report on Pages item 261, 262 and 263 internal audit control. In the audit, we look at the quality of internal control and administrative organization based on the question of weather and which internal control is relevant to us and whether we can make use of it during the audit and/or whether additional control risks emerge. So it is, therefore, not a matter of expressing an opinion on the effectiveness of internal control as a whole. The nature and scope of the identified opportunities for improvement are limited and mainly in process improvements and to our documentation of internal controls. Then a few words on IT and information security. For our audits, we consider the risk of material misstatements due to cyber risks. We took note of what ASM has drawn up to improve cybersecurity as well as noted any cyber incidents, and we involved our IT specialists. We also performed work on management's process regarding backup and recovery procedures. And from this work, we concluded that there were no findings that had a material impact on the financial statements and/or our audit approach. Then client risks. Management has considered the impact of climate on business operations as part of its strategy and internal controls. You've been able to read more about this in the planned section of the annual report. We have determined, rather recognized the risks could also have a potential material impact on the financial statements. Based on the work we performed, we have determined that client-related risks do not have a material impact on the financial statements including on the valuation of fixed assets. Finally, the key points of our audit. It is also included in our statement of Pages 263 and 264. We've identified 2 key issues this year. While consistent with prior year, we have identified key issue related to revenue recognition. And this is due to the financial impact and financially -- any specific situation related to delineation. Risk includes the assumed fraud risk that management deliberately fails to fully account for revenue. Secondly, also consistent with prior year, we have identified a key issue related to capitalizing development costs. We've included this as a key issue considering the financial impact and the estimates involved as well as the complexity related to estimating to what extent specific criteria on that to capitalize development costs. Well, we found no particularities in these 2 key points. The 2022 key item regarding the purchase of [ LTE ] and the valuation and allocation of the estimated value to individual assets is no longer applicable this year as it related to the specific situation in 2022. Well, as to the audit of 2024, we are currently preparing this, and we will discuss it briefly with the Audit Committee. We expect the approach and scope to be in line with last year. So this was my presentation. Thank you for your attention and confidence. And of course, I'm ready to answer any questions you may have. Mrs. Chair, I would like to hand the floor back to you.