Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional ($CSNA3)

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. At this time, we would like to welcome everyone to CSN's Earnings Conference Call for the Fourth Quarter '25 and full year. Today, we have with us the company's executive officers. We would like to inform you that this event is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] The event can be accessed at ri.csn.com.br, where the presentation is also available. There will be a replay service for this call on the website. Before proceeding, we would like to state that some of the forward-looking statements or trends are based on current assumptions. and opinions of the company's management. They may differ materially from those expressed herein, which do not constitute projections. In fact, actual results, performances or events may differ materially from those expressed or implied by forward-looking statements as a result of several factors, such as general and economic conditions in Brazil and other countries, interest rates and exchange rate levels, future rescheduling or prepayment of debt denominated in foreign currencies, protectionist measures in the U.S., Brazil and other countries, changes in laws and regulations and general competitive factors at a global, regional and national basis. We would now like to turn the floor over to Marco Rabello, Investor Relations Executive Officer, who will present the company's operating and financial highlights for the period. You may proceed, Mr. Rabello.

Good morning, everybody, and thank you for participating in another earnings call for CSN. We're here to speak about the results for the fourth quarter '25 and full year, a very special period for the company where we achieved important goals. The third quarter had been very good, and the fourth quarter was not different. We begin with the highlights on Slide 2. We have a quarter marked by negative seasonality of the rain period and weaker rains and CSN was able to present a stronger results for the year. We have enormous operational resiliency and with cement and logistics presenting consistent results. The Mining was impacted by nonrecurring events. We had 15% increase in our EBITDA. All of this because of record volumes in mining and logistics, lower cost in steel and the price environment that began to recover in the cement market. Now despite our operational resiliency, we saw our leverage increasing for the first time of the year only in this exercise because of an increase in investments and other expenses. On January 15, CSN announced a strategic movement that was necessary to improve the capital structure of the group. We are working with assets that will enable us to raise until BRL 18 billion to reduce leverage and to open the path for the growth of the group, and this should continue on until the end of the year. So the leverage is a onetime effect that is being addressed definitely in the group. We now go on to the highlights of mining. In the fourth quarter of '25, we had the second largest volume of production and sales in the company's history despite a weaker seasonality and the weaker rainfall period. This reflects the efficiency of the company in terms of its production capacity and its logistic model. In 2025, the sales volume for the first time went beyond 45 million tons going beyond the guidance in 5%. Since the IPO in 2021, the volume has had a growth of 8.4% every year without investments in capacity during the period, showing the capacity of our logistics structure and the efficiency of the production. The combination of record results and maintaining the prices at a high level allowed us to grow 9% in EBITDA for the year. In mining -- I'm sorry, in steel, we had a new drop in the production cost, reaching the lowest level since 2021. We had significant strides in operational production, of course, an optimization in the use of raw material. This continuous reduction of cost reinforces the structural complexity of the operation and contributes towards maintaining margins in a period of a difficult commercial structure. We are trying to support the antidumping measures being put in place in the last few months, and this is important for local producers. This is reflected in the results of 2026, allowing steel to be an important growth vector for this year. In the cement market, we continue to observe strong performance and the company is able to pass through prices even in a period of weaker commercial operations. This shows the resiliency in the market, and we have a more positive commercial environment due to the capacity of local producers. We also have a new strategy and the priority is results in detriment of volume with a strict control of costs, the company had another year with an EBITDA margin reaching 30% for the fourth quarter '25. And finally, looking at the right of the slide, we have the highlights of logistics and energy. We had record EBITDA for the year 2025. In energy and logistics, this is one of the main pillars for the verticalization of CSN and one of the vectors for greatest growth in the group. Now we have a new logistics subsegment in the railroad area, adding freight of trucks to dry ports and [ STK ] presented record cargo volumes during the year with impeccable operations. In the fourth quarter of '25, we were positively impacted by the excellent operational performance for the year, enabling the company to maintain an EBITDA margin stable vis-a-vis last year of 42% in energy. This is another year of strengthening with growth of 79% in EBITDA impacted by an improvement in prices. Now let's go on to the next slide. We show you our EBITDA margin and adjusted EBITDA for 2025. This was the best result of the year with an EBITDA of BRL 3.3 billion and a margin of almost 28%. This performance shows a strong resiliency in mining, logistics and cement and nonrecurrent events that we observed in steel. To the right, you can see the positive evolution that almost all segments enabled us to have with EBITDA with the only exception in cement, where there was price pressure with raw material in the first half of the year. In the other segments, the growth of EBITDA and profitability are the result of the extraordinary efforts put forth by the company, especially in mining and logistics. Besides the assertive strategy that we applied in steel, we stopped one of our furnaces to enhance the efficiency of the operation. The EBITDA of BRL 11.8 billion during the year represents a sound growth of 15% vis-a-vis the previous year, pointing to the potential of the company to further advance capturing results. For 2026, cement and steel, of course, will increase, while mining and logistics will benefit from the operational efficiency, maintaining the iron ore cost at very high levels. In the following slide, we share with you our investments during the period. You can observe a growth of 42.4% of CapEx vis-a-vis the previous quarter. This is a seasonal concentration of disbursements during the year besides strategic projects such as P15 in mining, the recovery of the UHE in Jacuí and the renovation of our fleet in the logistics multimodal. We had a higher disbursement of investments at the end of the year. When compared with the same period 2024, the figure in truth was not altered. The total investments for the year added up to BRL 5.9 billion, in line with the advance in the infrastructure of P15 and as part of the guidance set forth for the year. We go on to Slide #5. Here, we have our working capital where we can observe an important release during this quarter, once again, because of seasonality with lower commercial activity in steel and cement impacting receivable accounts. We had a growth of 8.5% in the quarter, reflecting a higher volume of purchase of iron ore from third parties. In the next slide, we share with you our adjusted cash flow that was negative in BRL 261 million, a significant improvement vis-a-vis the results of the previous quarter because of a slowdown in investments for the period. This shows the resiliency of the operation and the release of working capital. The company has been able to reduce the impact of cash burn throughout 2025. Now the outlook for the future of cash is more favorable as we expect a very good evolution in 2026. Besides the reduction in inventory levels and the gradual decrease in the interest rate levels. In the next slide, we share with you the situation of our indebtedness and leverage. and the behavior of our debt during the quarter. To the left, the main message here is that we have increased indebtedness because of the concentrated investments at the end of the year and the cash flow during the period. Now the leverage indicator for the last 12 months reached 3.47x with the first increase after 3 consecutive quarters of drop. Despite this onetime increase in leverage, the company is committed to reducing its debt and shows its commitment towards social capital. On January 15, 2026, we presented to the market a strategic plan to speak about liquidity and leverage of the group using the cement asset and assessing routes and other strategic movements for the development of our steel plant. All of this will contribute to strengthening the company and significantly reduce the leverage. To the right, you see the main vendors during the period, the extraordinary impact of the steel mill, amortization of prepayment contracts for steel, the renewal of new operations of prepayment during the period and the effects of the exchange rate. Let's go on to Slide #8. We present to you our indebtedness profile. We have a very high level. And in the short term, we have banking debt, and we will be able to honor these without difficulties. We have been working actively towards lengthening a significant part of the curve. And presently, we're speaking with banking institutions to anticipate the payment and to reduce our gross debt that will be achieved through the sale of our assets. With this, we end the presentation of consolidated results, and we can go on to Slide 10 to speak about the highlights of the steel plan. In this first slide, we see the results of our commercial activity with a reduction of 6% in the quarter sales because of the typical seasonality of the period. This retraction is also due to the high level of inventory among local distributors, increasing the volume of imported material in the domestic market. Now it's important to note that most of the reduction of commercial activity mainly came from the foreign market. There's a reduction of 7.5% in the pace of sales vis-a-vis the previous year due to the foreign pressure mentioned and the strategies adopted by the company during the year where we are prioritizing profitability instead of volume. In the following slide, for production, we see that the result of the fourth quarter is the highest quarterly volume for 2025. We have been able to obtain greater efficiency at our production center. The strong drop in annual comparison is due to a stop for maintenance of our furnace without further consequences for the products of produced and the price per tonne. To the right of the slide, you can see that the cost of production dropped once again in this quarter, reaching the lowest level in the last 4 years, reflecting an increase of efficiency in our production process with a better use of raw material. Now the performance per ton also had a significant improvement because of the positive dynamic of cost and the positive effects recorded in the period. A lower level of use of our installed capacity also helped. We go on to the financial performance of the steel mill on Slide 12. That strategy of prioritizing profitability instead of volume during part of the year 2025 was assertive. We had consolidated growth of 2.6% in the annual average price despite the difficulties with imported material. On the other hand, we're still being pressured by the struggle of the company against imports and the stop of the furnace #2. To the right, the story is different. We had an increase in profitability in the quarter and for the year. You see the operational efficiency and the commercial discipline that is very consistent with prices despite the highly competitive environment. We also had the positive impact of the extraordinary effect that I mentioned previously. Now also because the profitability is the result of a very assertive productive efficiency that we have adopted for the local market. Now to address that pressure of imported material with the competitive measures being adopted, the steel mill will be an important vector of growth for the results of 2026. Let's now go on to the Mining segment. On Slide #14, we have the results of production and sales. 2025 was a special year for CSN with records in purchases and production. For the first time, we went beyond 45 million tons produced in the period. This performance shows the high efficiency in production and our logistic efficiency. Now we reached the guidance and went beyond it for the year. This was the second best quarter in the history of the company, only behind the previous quarter because of the beginning of rainfall. For the year, we had a volume of 45.9 million tons sold, which represents the best results in the company's results, showing the strengthening of our logistics platform and our capacity per shipment. With the 2025 results, the company was able to record an average growth of 8.4% since the IPO with extraordinary operational efficiency. Now regarding the financial performance on Slide 15, the reduction of net revenue during the quarter reflects a combination of a lower volume of shipment with a slight reduction in price. Nevertheless, the results of the year shows some growth of 18% with operational records and maintaining the iron ore prices at high levels. In EBITDA, we also had a strong performance with an increase of 9% for the period with an adjusted margin of 41%. The annual result is due to the sales volume and a better performance here in the efficiency and the cost efficiency. This shows the structural robustness of the sector of mining. Here, we have adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter compared to the previous quarter. In this case, we can see the impact of seasonality of the period with lower volumes because of the beginning of rainfall. Now additionally, the performance was also impacted by a worsening in the cost of freight, more purchases from third parties and because of the effect of cargoes exposed to future periods. Let's go on to analyzing cement. On Slide 18, we see the sales volume for the quarter and for the year. In cement, seasonality is even more marked at the end of the year. Because of the rainfall, we have a lower number of working days. We also have the holidays at the end of the year. This justifies the impact on sales for the year. Now in the yearly performance, we see stability despite the price increase in the second half of the year. This shows a good level of consumption of cement in the Brazilian market despite the high interest rates in the country. This also proves the resiliency of the demand and the commitment of the company of preserving volumes in a highly competitive environment. In the next slide, we see the financial performance of the segment with a drop of 6% in net revenue because of the seasonality offsetting the price increase for the period. On the other hand, the results for the year shows the highest level of revenue recorded for the company. Now we have scale, logistic efficiency and operational discipline, enabling us to capture opportunities associated to additional demand. As regards to EBITDA, we had a slight drop because of the increase of raw material observed in the first half of the year that were normalized throughout 2025. This allowed us to have profitability close to 30% in the second half of the year, the highest margin in the entire sector, reinforcing the competitive edge of our operation because we're working with newer plants and a fully verticalized system. We go on to analyzing the Logistics segment on Slide 21. Here, we see new records attained during the year 2025. Net revenue and EBITDA were increased through efficiency that ended up in the highest EBITDA ever recorded. This also was helped by the Grupo Tora working with railroad and because we now have control over the entire logistics chain. We have railroad logistics, this is the main driver of the results, sustained by a strong movement of cargo, especially sustained by MRS. EBITDA reached almost BRL 2 billion with a margin of 44%, a level slightly below 2024 because of the lower contribution of the port model and lower margins from the Tora Group. Finally, we go on to Slide 23 to speak about energy, another segment presenting historical records. Here, the financial performance was driven by the operational robustness and the price of the sale of energy during the year. We had a growth of 79% in '25 with an adjusted EBITDA margin of 54%. With this, I would like to end the presentation of the segment, and I invite Helena Guerra to present our ESG highlights.

Well, good morning, everybody. When we speak about the strides in our ESG agenda, I think the main point is very simple. We're not dealing with a simple agenda. All of the achievements are in the operational area, in the financial area and others. Now we have increased the security of our dams. We began 2025 with our dams being fully certified besides the advances in our schedule of decharacterization of the dams. This, of course, is fundamental in mining to reduce our environmental liabilities. Despite that heavy volume of rains that we have recorded, our operations maintain their conditions stable and secure with all of the company operating under safety. This shows the robustness of our platform. In terms of operational security, the rate of accidents stands at 1.9%, stable during the year. We had a reduction of more than 10% in events with the potential of being lethal, serious consequences with a reduction of 67%. This means more secure operations and less operational losses. In environmental management, we continue to advance in our investments -- what is important is to streamline everything we have. We have BRL 750 million invested with relevant impacts in the quality of Volta Redonda and in areas surrounding our operations. And this also reduces our regulatory risk of our main assets. Now we have advanced in the reduction of CO2 in our cement operation. We are the best company when it comes to the price of carbon among global companies. And we had a relevant evolution in the main ESG indicators in 2025, of course, we have improved our position in all of the global entities. We are among the best assessed worldwide. And we have joined the CDP for climate in terms of risk management. Another important point, I'm almost concluding here. We have reached our goal and diversity goal set forth in 2020. Now we have reached 28%. This is an important achievement, but it also helps us to retain our employees, especially in a sector that is so labor intensive. And it also generates operational gains. In 2025, our program for continuous improvement -- well, invested more than BRL 120 million per year. All of this reinforces what we have always wanted. Our ESG agenda does not happen in isolation from our operations. We have worked to have less regulatory risk, less environmental risk, and this means better stability and competitiveness for the company as a whole. Thank you very much. I will return the floor to Marco.

Thank you. We will now give the floor to our CEO, Benjamin Steinbruch for his remarks.

Good morning, everybody, and welcome to the CSN earnings results. I will begin by the segments, beginning with mining. We had a very good year in 2025 with all of the records achieved in terms of production, purchases, shipment, working arduously on cost. We were able to maintain a lower guidance in cost that was set forth for the year 2025 and month after month, attaining the necessary production with an important follow-up of the shipments at the port. Now the forecast with investments, especially regarding P15 are materializing according to the schedule. We're following on the evolution closely of this project is one of the main projects for mining. The prices are higher than the market expected. This contributed to our results as well as contributing for our performance in 2026. We had that outlook of a price increase because of the war, because of China. We had significant increases in prices very recently. And of course, we have our commitment with cost. This is part of the lower range of the guidance, a commitment that we have made and we are following up on the increase of production at the ports month after month with good results. Therefore, I think the results are better than we had expected, not only in terms of production, but also in terms of shipments, purchases and reducing costs. I would say that we're doing the same this year. We're challenging ourselves ever more in production, in mining and the shipments at the port with a constant cost reduction. In terms of steel, we began important work in the second half of last year to reduce costs, to have more predictable production. And quarter-on-quarter, we work to obtain these results. We have already reached the lower cost -- lowest cost in the steel mill in the last few years, and we're working on this to make it something constant so that we can ever more have a cost reduction with the measures adopted by the government in terms of antidumping that had an enormous impact on our value-added products on our coated products that were coming in, in volumes higher than 60% to 70% in the market. And with the present day measures, we believe the Brazilian market can go back to normalcy working without these aggressive measures and the turbulence due to the excessive imports we were facing. We believe that prices will slow down, and this will lead to an improvement. We're also strongly working towards reducing our inventories. With this, we're going to harness an enormous amount of cash. We have BRL 12 billion in inventory. We hope to be able to reduce this soon through the sale of finished products of all types of products and also in terms of raw material and products that are under production. All of this, of course, will enhance our values in terms of parts and equipment. Well, there will be an increase because of the P15 project. As you know, all of the parts are coming in. They have had an increase, but we're also working with what we have from other sectors that -- well, do not refer to the P15. We believe that the steel mill will continue to deliver very good results. We're working with furnace 3, producing the same amount we produce with furnace 2 or producing practically the same amount. And of course, this has a significant cost reduction. And this is something that we want to put in place. This is what all of our workers at Volta Redonda would like to achieve. We hope that the steel plant will continue on with this evolution of reducing cost, but maintaining production with a price improvement in the domestic market because with the antidumping measures, we believe that the market will begin -- will become, I'm sorry, ever efficient. Now we are working quarter-on-quarter in terms of good production with prices under evolution. We had a timely problem with raw material for energy. The price had increased considerably. Well, this had an impact on our cost line item, but we do believe that the margin evolution that we are practicing can perhaps become annualized, and you will have a view of which would be our results for this year for cement and the results will be much higher than those we had in 2025. We had a very strong price evolution in the Northeast, more specifically and a positive price increase in the Southeastern market, especially for bulk products. So this will reiterate the good performance in 2025. In logistics, this is the segment that has the greatest potential of valuation for CSN. We have created a company of logistics, which will enable us to have all of our assets properly priced for mining and steel. Now the price is practically 50% less than you normally see in logistics companies. We believe that the contribution of this will be enormous for the company once our investments in logistics become fully operational, which we believe will happen in the third quarter of this year. Now regarding energy, there's another important pillar for us for growth, of course. We had the positive growth of last year with very good margins. We have an asset that will strongly contribute to the results of CSN for the year 2026. We had an EBITDA that was higher than that of last year, 15% higher, reaching almost BRL 2 billion. This is an expressive figure 2 billion in EBITDA is a significant amount. We had a timely problem of an increase in debt. Marco can perhaps clarify this subsequently. But it was a onetime effect due to the nonrenewal of the prepayments for mining, the exchange issue that favored mining considerably. And of course, Marco can give you further explanation on this. Now that -- this is simply a onetime effect, and we will recover this with the exchange rate without a doubt in the first quarter and the renewal of the prepayment for the export of iron ore that we carry out in large volumes. This is not something we do every month or every 2 months because we need to have the necessary volumes to obtain the prepayment, but Marco subsequently can fully explain to you what happened regarding our debt in the fourth quarter. Speaking very generously, I can say that CSN is doing very well in all of its production sector, logistics, mining, steel and others. And the steel segment is also converging towards this with the efforts that we are doing. And what we want is not to have significant cash burn. We see this in 2025 vis-a-vis 2024. We're going to put a halt to this in 2026. Along with the deleveraging measures we have announced, we believe that in the second quarter, we will begin to show very good results. This is what I wanted to share with you, and I return the floor to Marco Rabello. Thank you very much for your attention.

Thank you, Benjamin. Let us now go on to the Q&A session. Thank you. We will now begin the Q&A session for market analysts and investors. [Operator Instructions] The first question is from Rafael Barcellos from Bradesco BBI.

The first question regarding your disinvestment plan presented about a month ago. If you could share with us the details of the negotiation and which is the timing for seeing to begin the operations? My second question regarding the steel plant. We have observed some price initiatives. I believe there is a 5% increase set forth for April. So which is your view of the dynamic of demand, inventory price and the efficacy of the recent measures adopted for the market protection measures announced recently.

Thank you for the question. This is Marco Rabello. I will address your first point. As you heard on January 15, we're highly focused. As Benjamin mentioned in his comments, we want to have the signing of all of these processes in the third quarter of this year. Now in the case of the sale of the control of cement, this is a very healthy process. We have received several proposals after the presentation of January. We have potential buyers from different geographies, several from Asia, from Europe as well as Brazilian ones. So we believe we will have a highly healthy and competitive process for the sale of cement. We have Morgan Stanley with a mandate to head this operation. We have been working with them for some time. The entire process for the preparation of material BDR information package is well advanced. We believe we will have a speedy process in the coming months. And to give you more color, the signing will be in the third quarter. In 2 months, we will have several proposals and everything is quite feasible. Regarding the infrastructure, the process is advancing positively. As support, we have Bradesco and Citibank. We have advanced in a different way. We spoke with the potential buyers before the transaction. In 2025, we were testing the potential of this vehicle and the results were positive. The appetite of the market for this infrastructure platform that we have created with these 7 assets is important. The dynamic has been very strong from the viewpoint of discussion with the buyers, but it does have a structural complexity that is different from cement. We're creating something new using different assets of the group for something novel. And of course, we have regulatory institutions involved in the process such as the CADE and others. For the third quarter, the commitment continues to be valid, and we will get there.

Rafael, this is Martinez to speak specifically about prices. Let's give you a more complete scenario that we have imagined for steel for the first half of the year and the second as well. If we analyze what happened in those pillars that I mentioned, cost, operational excellence, imports premiums, competitiveness, value price in the last 2 years, CSN was hit very strongly. We had higher costs. We were bombarded by imports. There still are some imports, and we have to follow the market to be able to compete. Now the opportunity is to change this curve completely. In the first quarter, we should have stable volumes in steel. And in the second quarter we're already foreseeing an expressive increase in our portfolio in added value materials that represent 50% of our output. Still in the first quarter of 2026, our forecast is that the price presented will be between 4.5% and 6% for the first quarter, keeping in mind the other initiatives that we have for the higher added value products. We have reduced the discount. We still have not begun that stage of price increases. I think the reduction of discounts is more important. And to reinforce what Benjamin said about antidumping measures regarding China and coated products, the initiative of CSN against antidumping is important because it will extend for 5 years. The entire antidumping process will extend for 5 years. Against China, I think those problems have been resolved. We now have the attention of the entire industry, not only of steel, but upstream industries as well. We have the issue of circumvention and the impact on trade. If you look at the exports of China to Vietnam, they ended the year with 7 million that could be also derailed to Brazil, Korea with -- so we have to be attentive to this. Another initiative is supervision of the IRS and INMETRO to guarantee that the products reaching Brazil have the proper specifications for Brazil. ensuring this will not compromise work or the performance of equipment. In this first half of the year, this is our forecast for price between 4.5% and 6%. Other factors can also help us to increase prices because of the events in China, the finance, the spike in iron ore, coal that went from 200 to 250. Now -- if we put this together with operational excellence, the cost of slab dropping from [ BRL 3,300 to BRL 3,100 ] with those initiatives, our margin will end up with a positive 2-digit figure. So these are the opportunities we foresee in the market for the first and second quarters.

Martinez, a follow-up at the end of last year, when we were speaking with market participants, I understood that there was a slowdown in demand along with a higher inventory level in the market, along with the ports. Now which is the evolution of that dynamic, especially when we're at the end of the first quarter and looking at the second quarter.

An excellent question, Rafael. Allow me to mention a third point. Last year, the apparent consumption of flat steel in Brazil that ended at 16,500 was a record an absolute record. The only problem was that the internal sales of plant was BRL 12.2 million compared with BRL 14 million in 2013. We still have not gone back to that level. I have made some calculations to see what the year will be like. Imports closed last year around 25%. It's worthwhile remembering that CSN was hit by a storm, 50% aluminum, 60% metals, [ steel ] 43% if we are able to reduce this and go back to a level of 30 million in the domestic market. Now there will be coming into the market, 1.5 million to 2 million. And I think this is what will happen in the domestic market. Steel will also have a strong growth, the steel consumption in Brazil, that is at a very interesting level. At the end of last year, the beginning of this year, what happened was an anticipation of the import purchases so much so that in February, according to government data double the amount was imported. So I'm saying that the opportunities are there to recover margin through the reduction of discounts and a slight price increase. This will allow us in the first and second quarters to have the inventories in Brazil to be consumed a part of them at least. What is more important is that the figure for demand continues to be strong, very healthy. And the main goal is to recover the purchase of imports for the domestic market and to have CSN recover everything in terms of the coated products.

The next question comes from Daniel Sasson from Itau.

My first question is for Marco. I know you gave us more color in terms of your strategies that we will have novelties in the coming 3 months with a signing for operation in the third quarter, but some things are perhaps outside of the control of the company, market conditions, for example, which are the alternatives -- strategic alternatives you have in mind as your B or C plan? If you will have a bridge loan, a temporary financial structure to calm down the market and buy you some time to analyze that competitive process that seems to be very healthy for the cement assets, especially. It would be interesting to understand your mindset regarding those alternatives. A follow-up for Martinez about the previous question. Martinez referred to the volumes coming from China. They are now more protected, the 5-year extension of the antidumping law. Are you concerned with volume coming from other places, for example, volumes coming in from Korea. And are you going to request that investigation be begun for products coming in from other countries? Is this something we can see happening in the short term? In May, you have the maturity of that second year of that hybrid system of quotas and tariffs. Will this system be replaced a 25% import tariff for everybody? Or would this not happen simply so that we can better understand your mindset?

Daniel, this is Marco. Thank you for the question. Well, first of all, you know how all companies work, especially companies of the size of CSN. Financial management has a myriad of options, alternatives and strategies, not only to address the liquidity of the company, but also the debt of the company. And we have an entire hallmark at our disposal that we are building to be able to use. And because of our company profile, we will only bring to the market something when the operation has been signed, closed and has become fully formal. We will disclose this to the market with great isonomy. We avoid bringing in intermediate operations about financial operations that the company is considering. Now to answer your question, and because of media, there is a great deal of information on media about the operations the company is working on. Yes, as you mentioned, and I said during the presentation, we do believe on the sale of assets of the company. This has been very healthy. Cement stands out. Cement has a higher check involved in the operation. It's more emblematic and it draws more attention of the market. They mentioned in the market that we were carrying out an operation with that asset. Now our priority is a structure where the sale of cement is a collateral to the operation. We were very close to concluding that operation a few weeks ago. We had negative events, including other companies that were not CSN. And this generated a great deal of noise in the credit market. private credit funds, banks as well. Now if we speak about the war, we're all following up on this. We ended up not signing at that moment. We have waited a few more days waiting for the dust to settle. We are now back with this operation in the market. The same group of banks that was with us is presently working with us again. And the operation at this point is very mature. In a matter of days, very few days, this operation should be signed and fully closed. Once it is closed, the company will formally disclose this to the market to inform all the stakeholders directly. Of course, we have other options. I focus more on this one because of its media presence. I prefer to give you more color on that operation that is very close to the closing. And it will be a highly healthy operation, bringing about qualitative and financial benefits for CSN for the sale process and for our creditors as well.

Daniel, that's an important question. There's a piece of data that I would like to reinforce here. The participation of the government has been decisive at this point in time. We need to thank the participation of Minister Alckmin and Mr. Rosa. After a long time, we were able to convince them that we cannot compete with China. Secondly, there's an issue of the industrialization that could happen faster than we imagined and that measures have to be put in place with a greater speed. In the last 4 or 5 months, we were able to achieve this. Regarding the antidumping, when we began the process, we worked on antidumping because this is a system that will extend for 5 years. In metal sheet. First of all, we worked with China, and I'm referring to margins simply to give you an idea, margins of $300 to $500 in dumping margins in Brazil. And a month ago, the government also approved the antidumping project for prepainted and galvanized with very high margins of $300 to $700 in the case of galvanized products in metal sheets and the end of the investigation will be in 4, 5 months against Germany, Holland and Japan. It's not only China working with dumping in Brazil. In tinplate, we found margins of $500 to $800 per ton of tinplate. Now regarding the derailing circumvention, route of escape for trade, it's important to highlight that in coal roles, the main problem here is Korea. We're working with the government to observe in those countries and with other products, what could be done. Another country that entered Brazil in tinplate without a background is India. So there are some countries we have our eyes on so that we can lead to a fore encompassing discussion regarding antidumping. We have India, Korea and more. Another important matter, we have to be careful with this, and it comes from Paraguay. There are some companies that could bring the products to Paraguay and bring them to Brazil without tariffs. We're closing up this operation to be fully competitive in this sense. Regarding China, nowadays, the premiums with imported material nationalized coming from China are already negative. So as I mentioned, we began to carry out some reductions in discounts. They are very timely for coated products. And throughout this quarter, beginning of next quarter, we will begin to recover a more equal level of imports and premiums.

Thank you very much, Martinez. Regarding the possibility that the government will abandon that system of tariffs and quotes in May, well, what was simpler was to put a 25 import levy for everything. It's not long lasting like the antidumping. So the great victory was to put for the main products of CSN, the antidumping mechanism. the government has 14 systems under the quota and tariff system. And there is pressure from the steel companies that this should become 25% for all. Now finally, there are 7 million of steel coming to Brazil through direct imports. Of the 6 million that comes into Brazil, there's an additional BRL 7 million coming in indirectly. And in the stream changes. The government sees an increase in imports, home appliances, machines, equipment. Last year, there were 500,000 cars imported into Brazil. So the industry as a whole has understood that this is not a problem for steel. It refers to competitive isonomy for the industry as a whole.

The next question comes from [indiscernible] from JPMorgan.

First of all, a follow-up. You're speaking a great deal about investments. I would also like to hear a follow-up on partners in steel. We saw that the result of this quarter, independent of the adjustments show that this is a very challenging industry. What is happening to these partnerships in the steel sector? And if you have news of a potential sale, is this part of the pipeline and which is the partnership? The second question for steel again refers to imports. What do you foresee as being different vis-a-vis what has been approved in antidumping compared to tinplates. Is there a different protection for tinplates? Do you have to speak to the government? Is this the only path open to you?

Tatiana, this is Marco. I will answer the first part of the question. First, referring to the steel plant. We had a significant cost reduction during the year. In the fourth quarter, we had the lowest cost of production for slab in the last 4 years. So everything referring to the competency capacity of the company, well, we're delivering this. Now with the antidumping measures approved and with the prices, we do have this new equation of price recovery, and this will enable the steel plant to continue growing its EBITDA to appropriate levels. Regarding strategic alternatives and plans, we have a plan from January 15, we're carrying out an in-depth assessment process in-house that will take some more months to discuss the type of partnership we want, the projects we will work with, with those partners to reach an EBITDA margin that is even higher already aided and updated by the prices. This is the assessment we're carrying out at present. Regarding your question about the company's sale, there is no definition in the company until we are able to assess investment routes, possible partnerships to support a better profitability in the steel plant. As soon as we have something, of course, we will broadly disclose this to the market. regarding imports. What I am forecasting for the year is a drop of BRL 1.5 million to BRL 2 million in imports. What happened in January and February was simply an anticipation of purchases. For the first point, we're going to be directly impacted because this volume of imports coming to the domestic market will further benefit CSN. We have more added value products. We're focused on construction compared to other companies that have spot prices. This is important. Let's think of a prepainted product that we obviously produce in Brazil. There's a new line that is ready to be assembled that is in Porto Real. We're going to work with that line as well. There will be a demand for this. If we look at a prepainted product, our margin presently is BRL 900 per ton with a slight cost reduction, nothing expressive of BRL 200 per ton and a correction in our discounts, we could increase that margin to $300 per ton. So the issue of profitability will bring us interesting surprises when it comes to the drop of imports that will impact us directly. When it comes to tinplate, for example, what is coming here will no longer come from China. And in the countries where we have antidumping Germany, Holland and Japan, there will be an increase in imports. Now the growth in the domestic market will be stronger in tinplate in the first market. So we should increase sales by 20% in Brazil in a product where we have a very high margin. So the scenario is very positive, very different from what we have faced in the last 2 years. I think this situation is here to stay. There are other situations we have no control over, but we can recover margins because of the prices.

The next question comes from Marcelo Arazi from BTG Pactual.

We have 2 questions. The first, I would like to discuss that increase in net debt in the company. You published a negative cash flow of almost BRL 300 million, but net debt increased close to BRL 4 billion. If we could better understand this gap, there are BRL 900 million in prepayment, monetary variation. We also have business combinations, something that is not very clear to me. If you could give us more clarity here regarding these 2 points. If you allow me a second question, there's a relevant impact in the EBITDA of the steel mill this quarter. If you could give us more clarity in terms of those impacts and if this should continue going forward?

Marcelo, thank you for the question. This is Marco once again. Regarding the slide of net debt, I'm looking at it here. The 2 main impacts -- we have a discussion of exchange variation, BRL 900 million, the payment of iron ore, BRL 900 million. And of course, the exchange variation. We had a devaluation of exchange at the end of the year. Now we had the valuation of the real as a strong currency at the beginning of the year and the prepayment of iron ore, Benjamin explained this very clearly. As always, these are operations of $300 million, $400 million, $500 million at a single time, and we do this in midyear. We did this in the third quarter of '25. We didn't do it in the fourth quarter. We're going to do it between the first, second or third quarter. We're looking for the best market moment to carry out this assessment. But our cash position will vary during the year. And as we didn't do it then, this amortize the operation, the amortization goes throughout the year, and we have that drop in our cash. So these 2 events are events that come back very clearly for the beginning of 2026. You speak about BRL 1.2 billion. We do have some events with a very clear impact. If we add them up among them, we have variation in the MRS accounts. If we consolidate those figures, we had an increase in the debt of MRS, a reduction in cash of MRS, the impact of BRL 200 million to BRL 300 million that you mentioned. There was an event for operational performance. and that will explain the BRL 1.2 billion and a carrying out of a large number of surveys in the company for a monetization plan for our inventory, something we have already remarked on at the end of last year, amounting to BRL 1.2 billion as a whole. We reassessed, restated this amount for inventories, this had to be adjusted. It's a second-line inventory and this brought about a significant impact on our indicators at the end of last year. Now for the inventories, we have begun to amortize in 2026, we will have positive results. Now another impact on steel also comes from the BRL 1.2 billion. It's an adjustment of factors that are from outside of the company, an adjustment of onetime effects based on the costing and external factors for the company. This is a factor referring to other operations. It's part of the net revenue of the company. Now some of this was generated by the shutdown of furnace 2 as well, quite extensive. And now this is put in the line item other operations, something done in the fourth quarter. It wasn't done during the other quarters. We do this at the end of the year. And we ended up having the total impact of the year only on the fourth quarter. To answer your question, this is not a factor that will be repeated in 2026 because this type of classification of event only happens with temporary factors for factors that will remain in place for longer periods. They are not part of that accounting law CP 16. I hope this has been explained clearly.

The next question comes from Guilherme from XP.

I also have 2 questions. The first question in terms of cash generation and all of the topics we discussed here. Is there the opportunity of reducing or making CapEx more flexible for the project B15 in mining? Could we see lower figures in your business plan going forward? And my second question refers to steel and the antidumping them. Is there any update in terms of the antidumping of BQ, any timing referring to the products that have already come in, the prepainted and galvanized products. When will we see this scenario of volumes being reduced from China and a better context of supply and demand in the domestic market so that you can pass through better prices in these product lines impacted by the antidumping here.

I will address the first part. We have a company with 5 segments of the size of CSN. It's obvious that we're quite flexible in holding that CapEx to manage the company or in moments of difficult liquidity. We do have that possibility when we define strategic route for the steel mill and bringing in partners, we want to improve that discussion of reducing CapEx for the steel mill. Now the space we have in midyear should be for investments of 45% to 50% of investment or still that was contemplated in the plan of 15th of January. Now all of this should bring a benefit in the use of cash of the company and CapEx as a whole. And the sale of the cement segment that will also bring about a reduction in CapEx to answer with -- in shorter terms, yes, we do have that flexibility. The discussion in the company does have that focus on CapEx. And the -- at the end of the year, we should have a better situation in CapEx. Guilherme in tinplate galvanized and cold-rolled lamination, The discussion is over in hot-rolled products, the government came to a preliminary determination, but has not applied provisional rights that have opted to do this because of the red tape referring to control. There are margins that vary from $230 to $300 in BQ. Now the legal term of 18 months will be in December. Based on the conversations we have with the government, the final determination should be implemented until June or July at the most. And this is positive regarding China, another important case that could be used as tour prudence for the other antidumping problems we're looking at for tinplate for Germany, Japan and Holland, the legal term is December of 2026. But the government has already set forth a preliminary of $315, but this has not been enforced yet. It should be enforced in the next 2 or 3 months. This is the portfolio that we have for trade defense and competitive isonomy. We're always looking at the damage, the cause and the antidumping proven in these cases. Now the tariff program has helped us. It could be more effective if we increase the number of items. Now what we're going to do during the year in the first quarter, there were no reductions of imports, quite the contrary. There was a strong increase in February. So a more expressive reduction should come about in the second half of the year. My expectation is that we will have a reduction during the year of 1.5 million to 2 million tons of the products that impact CSN. There's a question that Marcelo Arazi posed that was not answered. The CSN margin and what will happen going forward. We had a very difficult scenario despite this and comparisons are hateful but necessary. If we take away the nonrecurrent effect, of the idle capacity explained by Marco, we would have an EBITDA margin of 7.6% to 8% higher than the average of the sector. And it was a huge challenge for us. Imagine competing with products that have 50% imports. We had to be very creative to capture and bring in those results, although these are not the final results we imagine in the second quarter and until the end of the year, we should recover margins, bring them close to 2 digits or somewhat above 2 digits, depending on the incoming imports, they should drop expressively in my understanding.

The next question comes from Henrique Marques from Goldman Sachs.

Simply a quick follow-up regarding steel. For the first quarter, you will have an increase of 4% to 6%. That wasn't very clear for me. Or is it simply a reduction of discounts for the first quarter. Now given that outlook of a potential improvement in volume and a drop in imports, is there any planning? Are you thinking of potentially reconnecting your furnace 2? Is this part of your short-term planning? Or are you going to wait for the Volta Redonda furnace? Now regarding the prepayment -- this fourth quarter, was this a onetime effect? Are you having a difficulty in rolling the prepayment contracts? Is there any type of concern that you have or not? You mentioned that it should come back in the first or second quarter. But once again, as these are large contracts with a relevant impact in cash generation, I would better like to understand the timing of the rollover of these contracts.

In truth, Henrique, in the first quarter, between the improvement in mix and reduction of discounts, we should stand between 4.5% and 6%. This is not the impact of a price increase, but this will positively impact our results in the first quarter. Regarding the top furnace 2, I would like to underscore this. We have a strategy to complement our production with the purchase of slabs. If we look at the track record in 2023, we brought down 400,000 in '24 -- almost 700,000 tons. And in 2025, we were more creative as we stop the top furnace 2, we brought in more BQD. That had a cost performance ratio that was more interesting. We ended the year with 500,000, BRL 200,000 in slabs, the rest in PDQ. And this strategy proved to be successful. We are following up to see what will happen with the situation of slabs. There has been an increase in price vis-a-vis Europe. But I believe we will still during 2026, live with the purchase of imported raw material and perhaps from the domestic market if the conditions are correct to be able to compete. Henrique, about the prepayment question. As I mentioned during the call, there is no link with a difficulty in funding in the issuance of new prepayments. Quite the contrary, we have a large number of trading companies interested in carrying out the prepayment. Last year, we had 2 additional companies looking out for the company to do this with better prices than that we have now. companies wanting to work with a prepayment line with CSN. There is no concern. It's simply due to the amount of iron ore involved in those transactions that makes sense for them. Sometimes it's not justified to carry out operations below BRL 800,000 for the fourth quarter, maybe have operations of BRL 2.5 billion to BRL 3 billion. And that is why we do this operation twice a year, not more than twice. We could do this 3 times, but not more than twice a year. This is what we did last year and in previous years. Of course, no difficulty in this case.

The next question comes from Pedro Melo from Citi.

Several questions have already been answered. I would like to go back to deleveraging plans among the alternatives that you mentioned, the sale of assets, cement, steel, perhaps there's another relevant cash source. This is important for the market when we think about amortization of BRL 1.4 billion in 2026. Would you have another plan besides the one we have already discussed?

Pedro, thank you for the question. Now to attempt to answer your question in a very clear way. Proposals for strategic deleveraging in the company goes through the sale of assets, generating capital within the company. And based on that, of course, we're going to incentivize the entire market to reduce net debt and continue on with the refunding in the company. Now deleveraging of $14 million, $15 million, $16 million as we have been mentioning, we have title securities that are easily discounted in the market. But the strategy when it comes to using the capital that will be raised with this financial activity is to do things in the most friendly way possible. This is the company mindset. Now simply to add to this, it's a strategy, the sale of assets and monetization of assets the company has. Besides these assets, as everybody knows, this is in our balance. There are several other assets the company has that could be also sold further ahead that could be used for deleveraging, but these 2 assets show that because of the size of the check, they will be sufficient to comply with the intended deleveraging.

The next question comes from [indiscernible].

I simply have a follow-up on the liquidity of the holding specifically. If you could give us more color on your present day cash for the entire holding and how you look upon liquidity for the maturity of the bond in 2026, rolling of the other debt in 2026 and the draw risk that we saw during the quarter simply to comfort the market that is a bit under stress because of liquidity.

Thank you for the question, Nicolas. The cash -- to speak very clearly, we spoke of BRL 16 billion consolidated. If we take away the cash of mining, cement and other smaller companies, if we focus on the holding cash, BRL 5.5 billion a comfortable cash for the company indeed. Now to answer to the bond for 2026, BRL 1 billion maturing in a little more than 1 month at the end of April. The 2028 bond, of course, is our main goal. We're focusing on this. We want to reduce this with cash and with liability management with refunding as is normal for an amount of this size. And as some have asked, it will be very important because of this strategy that we have now, even the bond for 2028, we will have sufficient material, a good base and we will work in a friendly and intelligent way with the market to reduce the 2028 bond. There is an important increase of suppliers at the end of the year, but this is linked to the purchase of iron ore from third parties for mining. This is not draw risk. I don't know if this has answered your question.

[Operator Instructions] As we have no further questions, we will return the floor to Mr. Marco Rabello, CFO and Executive IRO for the closing remarks.

Thank you all for your questions. Of course, we are at your entire disposal to clarify any doubts that you may have in the coming days and weeks. And of course, we will always meet at these call earnings. I will now return the floor to our CEO, Mr. Benjamin Steinbruch, for the closing remarks.

I would like to thank all of you for your attendance at the CSN earnings call. We do hope that the government will continue to support Brazilian industry as a whole, especially the steel plant, which was the most impacted. And I would like to add that we are going to do our homework. We have been delivering what we have promised. We're working arduously in the steel plant. We have obtained good results, and we will continue to work in this way. As regards supplies, this part has been fully mobilized. We're purchasing in a better way at a lower cost. In terms of our commercial part, this has been very well set up. We're reducing our inventories. Beginning in March, we think there will be a significant improvement in the market. January and February perhaps was not very good, but March has already shown very strong results in terms of sales commercially. Now our greatest commitment, deleveraging, we reaffirm our commitment here as we have been doing, we have committed the company to doing this in the shortest term possible. There was a question from Guilherme from XP regarding CapEx. We're working not only on CapEx, but also focusing on OpEx. We do have sufficient flexibility in terms of investments. We're scanning all of our contracts, and we will have good results. Regarding all of this, we should not be working with a high inventory of 2 million, but regarding investments and maintenance, we have to be very determined to have an efficient and rapid reduction so that this can also help us in the part of deleveraging, not only through the sale of assets, but enhancing the capital structure. Of course, we have short, medium and long-term alternatives, alternatives for deleveraging and negotiation of different ways of deleveraging, not only the structure that was mentioned by Marco, the one that is best known in the market. We do have other alternatives that can be put into action as soon as we conclude with this one, then we have a second one, a third alternative that has already been contracted. So it is our obligation to have alternatives, and we do have them and the increase of debt that timely increase of debt, this is a onetime effect, and there will be a reversion in the first half. Now the issue of the prepayment, perhaps this will extend to the second quarter. Now we have been favored by the exchange rate. We already see an improvement in that direction as well as everything else that was explained to you by Marco. I would like to thank all of our employees for their work, and I invite them to do even more. I invite them to be ever more determined so that we comply with what we have committed to do, the deleveraging and in other areas. We have very good assets. We're going to do our utmost to get the most out of them. I thank all of you for your attendance, and we're at your entire disposal for any questions that you may have. I will return the floor to Marco for the closing.

Thank you all for attending this conference call. We will now conclude our earnings call for the fourth quarter full year 2025. Have a very good week. The CSN earnings call ends here. Have a very good afternoon.