Evonik Industries AG (EVK) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Yes please stay connected. This is the right event. It's not the Paris Fashion Show. It's the second division spotlight series event. Welcome to Evonik, welcome to Essen to all of you out at the screens. These fancy shoes that you've just seen are only the one-off many examples of smart solutions products that you will get to know today, and my colleagues will give you all the details in a second on the shoes and the other highlights of today. It's about 2 months that we have hosted first part of our division spotlight on Nutrition & Care. And since then, the division has executed on their strategy as promised. They have ramped up the lipid nano particular production in Hanau in Germany in record time and started delivering to BioNTech. And they have signed an agreement with Stanford University on polymer-based messenger RNA delivery technology. And recently, they have acquired Infinitech, a company for novel active ingredients for cosmetic applications. So these are the next steps for the division in executing their strategy. And with that, we switched to a division which is not less exciting for sure, and that's Smart Materials for today. I have the 3 members of the management team with me. That's Claus Rettig, the President of the division. That is Ralf Düssel, the Head of the High-Performance Polymer business line and Gerd Löhden R&D head of the division. They will introduce themselves at the start of the presentation in a minute. And after the presentation, we will start the Q&A session. You can already now post the questions in the questions section of your browser, and we will try to answer obviously all the questions if time allows. We are targeting about 1.5 hours for this event. So it's scheduled to last until around 4:30. And with that, I hand over to Claus to kick off our today's division spotlight on Smart Materials.

Yes. Thank you, Tim. Thank you to all of you joining us online today, hopefully for the last time before we can come back to a physical meeting which would be, of course, much nicer for all of us. Let us briefly introduce ourselves. I am Claus Rettig. I am a chemist by education and with Evonik for more than 30 years now. More than 1/4 of this time was working and living in South Africa and Japan and working for the predecessor companies of what is Evonik today. I came back to Germany in the year 2003 when I joined the Executive Board of the former Goldsmith AG. And for the last 18 months, I am leading now the division's Smart Materials. Before I was heading the segment resource efficiency. So Ralf, do you want to continue?

Welcome. My name is Ralf Düssel. I'm roughly 25 years with the company after functions in engineering, production, R&D controlling abroad and in different sites in Germany, and the last 15 years handling different businesses of Evonik, currently is the high-performance business line and in the past, the business line oil additives. Gerd?

Thanks, Ralf. Yes, Gerd Löhden, I'm heading the R&D group for Smart Materials and as well for Evonik R&D for Asia. I'm since 1996 with the company, starting classically as a polymer chemist in R&D. Then with increasing responsibility, having different technology groups, both in R&D and also in applied technology for different businesses and parallel to what Claus has said, I'm on this shop now for 18 months for the division Smart Materials and have done the same or a similar job before for the segment with source efficiency. By that, I give back to Claus.

Very good, very well. So let us start with an overview of Smart Materials, which you hopefully can see on your screens now. I'm sure that you know that Smart Materials is roughly 2/3 of the former segment resources efficiency. But the new structure brought clearer and better focus. Today, in Smart Materials, we are focusing on smart engineered materials, which are based on our 2 technology platforms, inorganics and polymers. And a big part of what we can do -- what we do, what we are targeting, you can summarize under strong growth via future mobility and EcoSolutions. You also see on this page, our financials for the year 2020. However, they certainly do not reflect the capability and the power of our division. That's why I would like to move to the next page to show you some historical figures. And here on this page, you see our financial track record from 2015 until 2020, so for the last 6 years. And what you see here is that we, over this period, at least from 2015 until 2019 showed the continuous sales growth and a continuous EBITDA growth. As a matter of fact, we even improved our EBITDA margin in this period of time by 200 basis points. What you also can see here on this page is that our volume growth is lower than our sales growth. We had an average sales growth of 3.5% per year from 2015 until 2019 and sales growth was below -- volume growth was below. And this is -- and that's just a word of caution, in our division, you cannot take the volume growth as the real measure for our growth because we have a very complex portfolio, and we had a lot of shifts inside this portfolio over this time period. So -- and as our strategy is clear that we also in -- over this time from 2015 have the clear goal to shift from volume products to more specialized products we replaced within our existing capacity. These volume products are some of them with more specialty products with higher prices and higher margins, of course. And I think it's clear that this is resulting in lower volume by higher sales and EBITDA growth. Of course, the improvement of 200 basis points in the EBITDA margin was also supported by our continuous efficiency measures. In the year 2020, unfortunately, you see a drop in our numbers. This is, of course, due to the economic situation the world faced in 2020, and we could not really totally escape this development. Of course, we would have liked to have better results in 2020. However, I have to say, from my point of view, under the given circumstances, we performed pretty well. And in 2021, we are already back on track. So -- but we'll hear more of this later in the presentation. Good. Let's move to the next page. And here, I would like to talk a little bit about our competitive strengths and the advantages of Evonik Smart Materials. What do we offer in Smart Materials? What is a smart material? And in Smart Materials, we are solving complex customer requirements with tailor-made products, materials and services. We call our product smart or material smart because they are often tailor-made to specific customer needs, really fitting exactly the customer requirement and offering our customers differentiation. And often, we supply together with the materials, special application know-how and technical services. This makes our material, and you want to call it, as we call it smart. And let me touch on 3 fundamentals of our business model, which is, number one, innovation. We constantly develop innovative solutions or modify innovative solutions via innovation. This is a continuous process. Second, we offer, like I said before, tailor-made solutions for our customer needs. You can see this and it's proven when you look into our portfolio, we have a high number of different products and grades. And this shows that we are capable of handling this in a very good way. And it becomes even more important in the future to create individualized products, at least in certain areas. One example you have seen when Tim entered the room with this fancy shoes. These fancy shoes, I have also some here, are made -- at least the shoe sole made via 3D printing from our tailor-made polymers just as one example. Last but not least, the third fundamental, which makes us strong, which is a real competitive advantage is that we offer also individual know-how and services in many areas. And just to illustrate this, maybe I can give you one example on the food processing side. So when we offer food disinfection products, we, of course, make a tailor-made product for the task on hand in terms of purity, in terms of concentration, but we also offer the dosing equipment and the dosing know-how and the dosing guidelines, just to show what we mean by additional services. Yes, let us move on now to some customer statements, but very quickly browse through them. We've added them actually for your reading pleasure. And you see also what customers telling you about us in these statements. Because I want to focus a little bit on our strategy and explain a little bit what is all our strategy about. And our strategy is based on 3 strategic pillars, which you can see here, which is growth, excellence and leadership. And we have all what we do -- in the center of all what we do, are our customers. And you also see in this picture here, sustainability and innovation. This is what we regard as part of our DNA. We will focus in the further slides very much on growth and excellence and not on leadership. However, I just want to point it out, this is not because it's less important, of course, focus on our people will be even stronger in the future because smart materials, of course, depend on smart people. Yes. So in the next slides to come. We want to go a little bit deeper into these elements of our strategy. And let me start with one part of what I call our DNA, the sustainability part of DNA before I hand over to Gerd for the innovation part of our DNA. So sustainability, of course, we, as Evonik, we take responsibility for our footprint, this is out of question. On this page, however, that also our handprint is very important. You see here that our handprint especially in our sustainability focus areas, which you see on the page here, is of high importance to our business and, of course, offers a lot of growth opportunities for us. I will not go into more details here because they are numerous, and we will see some of them later in the presentations. But I can tell you, 45% of our portfolio today is made up of products that offer superior sustainability benefits over competitive products. And with having said this, I hand over to Gerd to tell us about our innovation DNA piece.

Thanks, Claus. First, one short remark. It is actually a perfect transition coming from sustainability to innovation because these 2 topics really go hand-in-hand in Smart Materials. But let me now talk a little bit about our principles in R&D, about our focus fields and also about our setup and starting with one very important principle, Claus talked about our customers and customizing products for them. I would even go one step further. A high number of our customers are not only customers, but they are really partners, developing partners that we need. If we talk really about complex solutions and the demand or the complexity of these solutions actually rise with over time. Often, we can't solve them by ourselves, it's the same for our customers. You see here 5 customers, and I maybe only pick a few ones out. Now you might know we work very closely with our HPG technology together. [ Linde ], Ralf will stress on that later on in our membranes field. [indiscernible] in 3D printing. And Henkel is for us, a very important partner in the Adhesives field. This list is not exhaustive. And as you have already seen with the series of testimonials we have a high number also of other customers with the same category. Why is it so important? It's really about differentiation. And it's really also about openness with our customers, working together, sharing knowledge and at the same time, also a great win-win situation. On the topic side, I would like to mention here additive manufacturing and membranes. Out of 2 reasons, actually, 1 of the reasons is these are 2 of the 6 innovation growth fields of Evonik. You might have heard already of these fields, they were defined in 2015 with a clear target to generate sales of EUR 1 billion. I forgot to say we defined overall 6 innovation growth fields. And this combined target is EUR 1 billion by 2025. We have the responsibility here for 2 of them. And I think we can also claim, I think Ralf can also confirm that we are on track with our sales promise. These fields grow over proportionally. We will also see it later on in the presentation. Another topic that I would like to stress is our setup. You see here our high share of people working in technology, namely 840. And you see also our number of R&D sites. This pure number is a little bit misleading. We have to -- or I have to admit that our focus, our footprint in Europe is actually over proportionally. We gained actually a lot of size via our acquisitions, not only Porocel and PeroxyChem, but also Huber in the U.S. But we have to work on our setup on our strength in Asia. I would like to underline this with the statement that I said in the beginning, how crucial partnerships are for our success for our growth and having the right footprint in Asia will be very critical because we expect the majority of the growth in Asia. This might give you a rough overview about our R&D set up about our focus topics and also our basic approach. By that, actually, I would like to lead over to one of our strategic pillars. And the first strategic pillar that Claus also mentioned is excellence. It might be a little bit surprising that now R&D comes with the topic excellence and especially in the context of speed. But I can assure you speed is what counts also in R&D. Not being fast enough, meaning losing being second is not the company that we will win. So speed is for us of supercritical importance for R&D. And what I would like to share here today is actually a project, an initiative that we started in 2019, together with IBM. And I think we -- after this current status of this tool, we can really claim we will reinvent R&D by this tool. What we do here is actually use artificial intelligence to speed up our innovation efforts. A rough overview about what we are doing there to give you a feeling how complex and also how intense work it was to generate this tool. In the first step, we more or less digitalized every information, every data out of the Polyamide12 compounding area. To give you a number, we digested 1.5 million data points, information pieces into one system, brought them into context, brought together what belongs together, what has relation to each other and have now in a first step available all this historical knowledge on the. What do we do with that? This -- actually, this tool is capable to provide you information how a certain composition will perform in terms of properties. The other way around, this tool is also capable to -- for a given set of properties, to provide you in succession what composition you should choose to fulfill it. And this actually closes the loop also what Claus said before. By that, we can actually generate the customized solutions or tailored solutions our customers are looking for. Again, summarizing by this, we gain or cut our development speed by 20% to 40%. I should mention this tool is self-learning, meaning the more we use it, the smarter it gets. And also the shorter development cycles are. We think we have a one-of-a-kind tool here in hand, which will actually also differentiate us from our customers -- or from our competitors have to say. Sorry for that. By that, I hand back to Claus.

Yes. Very good. Thank you, Gerd. I'm really happy to hear that with a good combination of artificial intelligence and human intelligence and of course, with your nice running shoes, you're going to be even faster in the future by developing very innovative solutions. So yes, excellence and artificial intelligence, of course, important in many areas of our business. We use AI, artificial intelligence also to become better in our supply chains. It is our goal as Evonik, but also as Smart Materials to become the leader in our industry in supply chain management. We brought one example with us here showing the deployment of AI to optimize our silica network. We operate 18 participated silica plants globally and across all the regions, you could say it's the biggest silicon network on earth. And we use AI today to optimize it in many dimensions. And by doing this, we improve the lead times and supply security for our customers at optimum cost. How do we do this? With the help of AI, we calculate the optimal product portfolio for each plant. We calculate the best combination of customer, production site and transportation. And by doing this, in the end, we improve the customer satisfaction and at the same time, our profitability, our asset utilization and sustainability. So I want to leave now this DNA part and go to our growth pillars, and the one that is here also in the focus today, the growth pillar of growth or, let's call it, extraordinary growth. We -- in Smart Materials, we have, of course, developed a lot of growth plans for the different areas of our business. And we want to create or get accelerated growth by continuing to increase the share of specialty products, specialty applications in our portfolio. And we want to do this by 2 means. One is continuous targeted acquisitions like we did in the past with the acquisition of PeroxyChem, a very good one, by the way. And Porocel also a good one. So going to continue with M&A and of course, also do it organically by our own developments in also by our own R&D. And increase the share of the specialty applications, like I mentioned a couple of times before. Where do we want to do this? You can see it on the next page. Of course, we want to do this in attractive markets where we can deliver Smart Solutions, obviously. We have quite a few of these markets. I have to say we have a lot of these markets that qualify for this definition. These are markets we are already in, but these are also new markets. And to make it easier, we group these markets. And it's actually pretty good to do into what we call 2 growth fields for us. One is the growth fields of future mobility. The other one we call EcoSolutions. So future mobility is driven by lightweight, it's driven by electrification and of course, towards -- geared towards the overall goal to reduce emissions. EcoSolutions is geared towards resource efficiency, use less resources, use recycled resources, create less waste and is pushed by regulation today even in many areas of the world. So these are the 2 core growth fields for us for Smart Materials. And now we want to actually go into a little bit deeper dive into fields. And I see Ralf has already his diving equipment ready and we'll start the first dive.

Thank you, Claus. So future mobility, as you see on the picture, go back one slide. It's far more than automotive. You see also the future there, for example, with our high-performance [ forms ] in those applications. Nevertheless, automotive today is the largest part in future mobility. Today, roughly 20% of the division sales are in the automotive area. In 2021, so in this year, we will achieve roughly EUR 750 million sales, which is already beating the precrisis level of 2019. We see great growth opportunities in the future in this field. In the conventional combustion car, we see more or less a GDP of roughly 4%. In hybrid cars, we see a potential of growth-wise of 25%, in electric cars, even more. This will add up in the next 6 years to roughly sales of EUR 1.1 billion or a CAGR of 7% and or roughly [ 3.5 million ] more sales. Our competitive position in automotive is based on our advanced technology, our innovative spirit and our close cooperation with our customers. By focusing on future trends and movements, be it sustainable transportation and resource efficiency. We stand behind our OEMs to tackle their challenges on future mobility. We have a great variety of products in a conventional car already today, be it with applications under-the-hood, be different lines, fuel lines, cooling lines. We have silicas additives to achieve low resistance tires. With composite materials, we are inside and outside of the car. And with additives and components for adhesives and sealants, we are all over in the car. So at Evonik, we can say, we have nearly for every component and a car a solution. If you look at Smart Materials, specifically, we estimate roughly a value of EUR 30 in a car, be it in this way, a conventional combustion car. But there's way more to come. With our innovative solution, we will shape the future of electric and hybrid cars. And you see here some examples. For example, I mentioned already the cooling lines. For modern batteries, you have very complex cooling, way longer lines and high demand, which we can fulfill. We have solutions also for batteries, in this specific case for the connecting of battery so-called power bus bars. And besides silica, we have also other additives to even optimize the low rolling resistance, be it liquid polybutadiene called Polyvest. And also in normal lead batteries, we have fueled silicas here in those modern cars or new technology cars. You have lithium ion batteries where you need metal oxides in the battery. So overall, you see really new ideas and already solutions existing in those cars, which end up in significant numbers. So we can -- if we look at a hybrid car, increase the amount of material or the value of material by 50% to EUR 45. And for an electric car, we can even more than double the value in a car to EUR 70. And this doesn't even count future innovations to come. Now coming to Polyamy12. PA12, which is close to my heart as it's part of the high-performance polymers. First, I would like to say there is not one PA12. PA12 is a compound, a formulation, made of a lot of different additives components and it's tailor-made to achieve a specific target of an application or a customer. We are selling today roughly 300 compounds, all tailor-made. And PA12 has excellent properties, be it, for example, chemicals resistance, be it easy processability or be it a broad temperature range like in a car from minus 40 to plus 80. So -- and to mention some examples, briefly here, the cooling line seems simple, but it has, as I mentioned, in a battery, really difficult task to fulfill lightweight. And also the next one you see in the middle, those connectors replace brass, significantly lighter for the lightweight and also easy to connect. And then that's a typical power busbar. Power busbar connect battery cells. So in here is polyamide12 with great electrical insulation, easy processability and flame resistance. So you see we have great advantages of PA12, and we estimate in a hybrid or electric car, more than 50% more value of PA12 as today in a conventional car. Therefore, we are really happy that our new PA12 plant in Marl will come on stream in the second half of this year as this material is in high demand, and we are totally sold out. More on the details of batteries from Gerd.

First of all, not only Polyamide12 is close to my heart, but also other materials. Before I start with explaining what we have today already in batteries. I would like to start with a general statement to put some things into perspective. So Evonik won't become a company, which will supply a full battery. Neither we will produce sales anymore. We won't even supply high-volume materials to this market. Our game is specialties. Claus named us as smart materials. I think this is the perfect pit especially also to this market. So we are -- in the specialty game, we are not in the high-volume game also in this application field. Here, roughly an overview about what we are already doing today in batteries. And most of the applications that you see here are actually in the environment in the -- outside of the cell, the only example that is given here is our -- is #1, our special oxide application for separator. I think we can claim every Tesla is driving around with a special oxide from Evonik. So a very special application, but strongly growing. The other next 2 examples Ralf already explained. I don't want to repeat. These are polyamide12 application and the lower 2 ones are application from our sister division, Specialty Additives that I think you have the chance to talk next week to. Overall, our today's business is in the low double-digit million euro category. And -- but we think we can significantly grow this to a solid EUR 100 million upwards the business. How do we want to do that? Actually, for that, our inorganic platform is perfect. We talk here about specialties, about additives, about materials to be used inside of the cell. Before I go into the 2 examples, I would like to explain the overarching theme. We improve performance. We make battery safer. We make them longer lasting. These 2 examples are not, again, exhaustive, but we have around 10 R&D projects, clearly targeted, not only for the classical lithium ion battery technology, but also for solid-state batteries and solid-state battery lithium metal batteries, where we also work with key innovators globally. Quickly, it's to the 2 examples that you have or get a feeling what we are doing. The first one is actually a project which already yielded into a product, which we call Siridion Black. It's a specialty design silicon carbon composite material that it used to dope anodes to increase lithium capacity of the anode by that also overall battery capacity. We target here first the consumer electronic markets, not the automotive market yet. And -- but what we should also mention at this point, we can produce this material already on commercial scale. The second example is a really high-tech material from our silica business is a special oxide particle concept where it's about high lithium ion conductivity to protect cathode, anode and also separator. Again, here, it's about durability, by that also capacity retention. And the picture that you see here is also a good example to highlight one other aspect because what we also have to consider here is simplicity, how to get our materials into the customer systems. And this example shows that by a simple dry mixing we can actually fulfill the properties we are looking for. So we are very, very confident that this initiative will grow us to above EUR 100 million by 2027. But what does this mean for our setup? And it's pretty simple. We will go to Asia, we will go to China, more specifically, maybe I even don't need to explain it because this market is driven from there. All major battery cell producers are Asian, primarily Korea and Chinese. And you have to be present there to be able to cooperate with them. And this is an example I referred to in the beginning. Again, we're here talking about one of our key factors, partnering, creating joint solutions, and you have to do it close to your customer. Yes, we also maintain a scientific network to stay up to date with all major technology development. But it is crucial for us to be there to also take advantage of the speed, the Chinese market or the Asian market overall offers to us. By that, we move actually on to our second growth field. And it's called EcoSolutions. And it's the only one where I have to read from my notes, because I would like to give you the definition of what we understand at EcoSolutions. The EcoSolutions are defined for us as the second -- as superior solutions, which are saving resources and enable environmental-friendly processes. Considering this definition, we expect in 2021, actually, roughly a turnover of EUR 550 million by this and grow it by 2027 to EUR 900 million, I think, with an average growth rate of annually 9%. What is in this growth driver -- in this growth category? So we have the first 3 fields, active on specialties, membranes and special catalysts. We will have separate slides on separate information. But I would like to maybe comment quickly also on those 3 on this occasion. Two of them are heavily driven and boosted by our acquisitions PeroxyChem and Porocel. And the membranes actually show here an annual growth rate of 25%, which also maybe illustrate what expectations have on growth field, where we even expect a higher growth rate than from the other topics here. And I would simply quickly comment on the other field, which is mainly driven by our business line silica, thermal insulation materials and wind turbine additives from adhesives and for -- yes that is roughly the category. And we currently have roughly EUR 50 million turnover in this group. So the majority really comes from the first 3 ones. So let's look into those 3 odd subtopics. Active Oxygen specialties. So active oxygen is from the outside, maybe a very easy looking chemistry, but the beauty-ness is really also here the simplicity. We have hydrogen peroxide, acetic acid as it's main products. Both, if you look at them, can be more -- can be done, the 100% renewable raw materials or resources, I should better say, if you consider electricity and -- not as a resource, as a raw material. The next really beauty about this product category is in use they are oxidants but they produce or the byproducts are either water or acetic acid. So extremely harmless byproducts, environmentally friendly. It's no surprise that we actually adhere the benefit also from environmental regulations because our products is really the prime example of environment friendly oxidants. But it's not only the environmental aspect that makes this product group, especially specialty group so attractive, it's also the growth rate and also the margin, which differs from the volume business in hydrogen peroxide. We usually have 3% to 5% higher margins depending on application in this field. By the next slide, we would really like to go then into 3 applications. The first one is ultra-high purity hydrogen peroxide for wafer cleaning. It's an application on also, let's say, a product category that we got with the acquisition of PeroxyChem. We inherited a global setup, we inherited facilities that are capable to produce this ultra-high purity, which sounds more complicated than it might be in the beginning. And this -- the growth rate here is even higher than the 9% that we saw for the overall category. This application will further grow, driven by smaller geometries, which require more process steps and also then more cleaning steps, which then again is feeding into our growth plans here. Second application is peracetic acid and also hydroperoxide for water waste disinfection. It is really also here a prime example that we do more than just chemistry. I think Claus mentioned before, the third example is where we also position ourselves as a solution provider. It is the same here. We not only supply the material, meaning in peroxide or peracetic acid. We supply the dosing equipment, we train our customers, employees. And in some cases, we even run the facilities for our customers. So this is really leading beyond chemistry and not just selling products. The third category actually Claus already lined out. This is our application in food processing, disinfectant of poultry and similar and also aseptic test infection where we work with market leaders like [indiscernible]. Again, here, also driven by long-term trends, which should also underline the trust that we have here in this growth of this category. By that, I hand over to Ralf to explain to you our membranes business and also our membranes vision.

Pleasure, so membranes, exciting area, 1 of the 6 growth field of Evonik, as Gerd pointed out. Membranes are highly efficient gas separation tools. They produce less waste, use less energy. They don't need additional materials, so really efficient. They can be easily set up and the module built could be easily expanded on the volume, which is needed to be separated. And they have high yield and low maintenance. And for us, why we are in membranes, we are polymer experts. And you see on the upper parts, they are really the material production, the module production starting at the polymer. We design the polymer to achieve a specific separation task. So we can really tailor-make that polymer to achieve it. And what is the membrane? I brought a membrane with me, a module, which you see here. A lot of, we call it, spaghettis. We also brought you a little video, which explains what is happening in such a membrane and such a module. If you can start the video. And we picked SEPURAN green, which is the biogas separation. And those spaghettis are hollow fibers. You see here, we are selling really the module, the separation task we -- to the customer. And we are looking inside now here. What you see here, that's the thousands of those fibers are in one module to do the separation. And let's look inside. The gas is fed on one side into the holes into the bores. The [indiscernible] stays within the holes and the permeate goes through. Now look in one specific -- one of those fibers. What's going on there? And biogas is consistent of CO2, H2O and methane. Methane stays within, the rest goes outside. And then afterwards, we have the pure methane. And we are not selling just those fibers or modules. We are even selling concept. We patented this flow concept here, which allows the customer to really reduce energy consumption and achieve a high yield. And the advantage of those membranes also, we can have this model are set up like in a container. And then you can add modules if you need more flow or more separation, if necessary. We are working globally with a lot of different OEMs, which supplies our solutions at the end to the customer. So I hope that gave you a little insight what's going on in such a membrane, in those spaghettis and why we are really believing designing the polymer and at the end, delivering the module is a path going forward. And you see here where we are coming from. We started with this biogas. It's a green, SEPURAN Green. And we have already globally 500 plants equipped with our membranes to separate biogas. And then we expand it over helium, nitrogen, organosolent nanofiltration, very specific test. Then the big volume on natural gas and helium and now also VOC, Volatile Organic Components for tank recoveries to get the gas back. So globally, with the entire portfolio, we have now 800 plants worldwide running. And we see even future potential in hydrogen. And let me touch on hydrogen briefly. You see on that slide here, the future from our perspective on green and hydrogen economy. So number one is the green one, the biogas, I touched earlier. Let's look at number 2 in the bottom there. That's the electrolytic conversion. So that we can enable power tracks. By using hydrogen and CO2, we can create methane or synthetic biogas. That's one opportunity of the future. The other one, which you see in the middle is the pipeline there. In Germany, for example, we have more than 500,000 kilometers of installed natural gas pipeline. And we can enable that hydrogen is produced where cheap or green energy is available be it solar, be it wind, it's fed into the existing pipeline in small amounts, and we can then separate the hydrogen where it's needed at a different location. So you don't need to build a new network. We are working here with our partner, Linde, we have a pilot plant running that's proven technology and really available today. And then number 3 here, the future. For electrolytic production of hydrogen, you need today membranes and you will need them also in the future. But today, those membranes are so-called proton exchange membranes. They have a disadvantage that they need high acetic environment, and they are thick. We have now with our anion exchange membrane, AEM, first of all, thinner membranes and we can reduce the CapEx by roughly 30% and the OpEx by 10%. So you see membranes have a great past, but even brighter future. We estimate that until 2027, we can grow this business year-by-year by 25% starting already today from a high double-digit million euro sales. Now back to catalysts.

Thanks, Ralf. The third pillar in our equal solution growth field is actually a special catalysts. Here, you see a general description about catalysts. I hope that I don't need to explain into too detail because I think catalysts are known to be saving energy to lower energy consumption to also lower byproducts and similar. So by nature, it is a technology with high sustainability criteria. If you watch actually one is catalyst business, maybe global market share might not be the best measure to look at it but rather look at where we are active and see there our leading positions. And that you see on the right side. And today, actually, we would like to or I would like to talk a little bit about the refining catalyst and also give you an outlook or a glimpse of what we are doing in R&D to further shift the portfolio of catalysts to more sustainable solutions. Here, you'll see it. How do we shift the portfolio for catalysts. The 2 left examples are coming from our Porocel acquisition and the left one is set from R&D. Quickly, absorbent technologies, refinery catalysts. We still believe that there will be a place also for combustion engine in the foreseeable future. Everything will be electrified. And there will be streams coming from crude oil or from bio-based alternatives. But what will actually come also to this market is more stringent regulations. And actually, we benefit from these regulations by our special catalyst, but as well also from our absorbent technology. Second is the Excel rejuvenation technology. I think with this scheme, you can see the functional use catalyst gets actually renewed and this 95% at least activity is then being achieved. I don't want to explain the technology here in too much detail again, but rather like to mention that already 10 major refinery companies have approved this technology and has successfully used already for more than 30 different catalyst types. Then the future also here, Carbon2Chem. We talk here about synthesis gas. But when you talk about synthesis gas, you might have something different in mind. We talk here about streams of carbon monoxide, hydrogen and carbon dioxide, and they don't come classically out of the syngas reactor, but one option could be pyrolysis gas from plastic recycling. It could be off-gas from steel mills. So usually, waste streams hard to handle. And what we are doing here is work with these streams and close the loops. Close the loops for a circular economy. And I can at least share to that extent that we develop patented processes, patented catalysts that will yield a very cost competitive building blocks like higher [indiscernible] and other things. By that, I give back to Claus.

Thank you, Gerd. That brings us almost to the end. So I think we showed you some of the key elements of our strategy and also shared with you some of the growth opportunities within the 2 important growth fields of future mobility and EcoSolutions. We believe these 2 growth fields will deliver or add about EUR 700 million of growth to our business until the year 2027. We, of course, have also other besides growth targets, I have to say, ambitious targets. Of course, we focus on people. Like I said in the beginning, here we strive to become more international and more diverse in our top management and senior management. We are focusing, of course, on the planet. We have the clear goal that next-generation solutions should come account for more than 50% of our portfolio. And of course, last but not least, we have also financial targets, challenging ones or ambitious ones. Volume growth, maybe what you see is not that ambitious, but it's above 3% volume growth we are targeting. EBITDA margin target is 20%. And the ROCE, Return On Capital Employed, we target to be above 11%. I can tell you, I'm pretty confident that we'll achieve these financial targets also already within the next couple of years. So that brings us to the end and to the Q&A. Right, Tim?

Absolutely. Thank you very much for the interesting insights and the interesting presentations. With that, we have a good further 30 minutes for the Q&A and have already received a couple of questions. Let us start with the first one, and I can hand over directly to you, Claus. There's a couple of questions on the silica business, on our silica business and about the market situation at the moment and our strategy going forward in our silica business.

Yes. Okay. That was something we also expected to come, I have to say, because there was not much about silica in our presentation, but this was on purpose because we wanted to show you facts that are maybe not so well the capital markets community. But it does not mean at all that silica is becoming less important. Silica remains to be a very important business for us. We believe we are the best silica player in the market. We have the broadest portfolio, the most specialized portfolio, and we have the, like you have seen in the presentation also, the broadest global network. And the growth fields we have presented also are important for silica. One example certainly is EcoSolutions or in future mobility. Of course, future mobility with cars will require different type of tires, rolling resistance. Fuel economy is important for green cars for electric as well. But additional component in electric cars is abrasion. An electric car has a much higher aberration. So we are developing new tires where the abrasion resistance is also higher. We have a very promising development in the pipeline. We touched on this in many of the investor calls before, where we make the green tire available for trucks as well. And I think this is not far from a realization. Silica is used in battery. So cut a long story short, of course, silica remains to be an important part of our strategy and will also contribute to the growth of the divisions Smart Materials.

Yes. Thank you very much. Next question also here a couple of questions on our Polyamide12 exposure, Polyamide12 investment and also the market situation. On the one hand, what is the expected and intended ramp up for our new Polyamy12 plant in Marl? And how do we see the market and also the competitive situation going forward?

Yes. So PA12, as you know, we are building in Marl the largest worldwide complex to produce PA12. And I'm happy to report that it will start up in the second half of this year. We are 3 months roughly behind our initial planned schedule. We had our groundbreaking September 2019. So considering all the challenges we had with the virus situation, be it different hygiene situation, be it material problems to get them on site, be it also having people in quarantine. I'm really happy that the delay is only those 3 months. And as I said before, we need that material really urgently. And we are spending roughly EUR 0.5 billion to expand that capacity by more than 50%. And we are planning to ramp up the plant then at the second half. We don't expect a significant EBITDA impact this year, but definitely a contribution next year. And also the profitability in the long run will be above the Smart Materials goal of 20%. Touching on the competitive situation. We did an in-depth analysis, of course, before we invested situation, considering the competitive environment. We are observing in 2 new plants coming PA11 and Singapore and PA12 potentially in China. And we see, as I explained, really a growth of those -- of that specific materials. We are finding new applications. So we are very confident even with those competitors coming on stream or expanding their capacity, which we have roughly 12 months advantage over them, which we will utilize that also in the long run, this business will strong growth. We expect with our plans to have then a 3-digit million euro sales in the foreseeable future.

Yes. Thank you very much. Third block of questions we have received is on the hydrogen opportunity we mentioned during the presentation. And Gerd, I think this goes best to you. What is the potential you see there in hydrogen? What is the future benefit? And what role will Evonik take in this broad and attractive growth market?

So maybe first to understand the question correctly, we are not talking about our own use of hydrogen because Evonik is also quite a big hydrogen user. I think this is now about producing and also maybe distributing green hydrogen. Ralf mentioned or a few applications for us. I would like to add one or the other, but -- and then also maybe add it up to a potential. First, hydrogen production. This is electrolysis. This is AEM, but not only AEM membrane, but also a catalyst for the electrodes. Here, we can also take advantage of our combined technology, both in polymer and in inorganics. For AEM, Ralf, I think we estimate EUR 100 million upwards potential. So then the second for catalyst is actually pretty tough already to estimate. for distribution, Ralf also described hydrogen extraction from natural gas pipelines. We see a high double-digit million potential. And then there are also some minor applications in pipes, in containers and similar, which I would actually rather -- I wouldn't say ignore, but if we add up the potential, they won't play that much of a role for us. So it's a potential, I would say, something around EUR 100 million to EUR 200 million. But we have to stay on a time scale, this is not next year. This is also only realistic one screen hydrogen becomes cost competitive, where we also need support from regulation to make that happen.

Yes. Thank you very much. Next couple of questions were more a clarification question on the financial targets and the time frame on the targets given, the 20% EBITDA margin, also the ROCE target. Claus, is this short term? Is this midterm? Is this long term? How ambitious are you for your division?

That's a very short answer. We calculate 2 to 3 years.

That was a quick one. And we come to the next one, where the answer might be probably a bit longer. That is on our strategy in peek and our role in peek and how we see that role in the portfolio going forward and our position in that market? I think Ralf that goes to you.

Yes. PEEK, a very special polymer where we are in the top 3 globally, and it plays an important role in our portfolio. It gives us access also in addition to PA12. And we have nice growth, especially in the medical area, where we are strong. And we see also nice potential in the composite area, especially in aviation going forward. And you asked specifically also on volume if we have any expansion plans, I can tell you, we have enough capacity right now. We grew nicely over the last years, and we want to continue doing that and focusing it. We have a special team on PEEK set up globally, which is focusing on promoting, developing that specific polymer.

Yes. Thank you. Next couple of questions from Martin Roediger, for example, from Georgina Iwamoto, goes to some of the growth rates, ambitious growth rates we've shown in the presentation in our markets, in our growth fields, future mobility and EcoSolutions and comparing that to the volume growth target for the division of more than 3%. Claus, the question is, is this not ambitious enough if you compare that to the growth markets, are we conservative here? Or do we see other businesses even shrinking? What's your aspiration level there in terms of growth in your markets growth for the division?

Yes. Like I already touched on earlier, the 3% has a greater S sign in front. So of course, we target more than 3%. And it's clear when you see the number I have given a EUR 700 million for the 2 growth fields, this alone would be 3%. We have, of course, different growth rates in the different businesses, and we have also quite a range. But I also pointed out earlier that we have also still the strategy and that remains in place to replace volume business by specialty business as much as we can also to save CapEx, obviously. And that's why we have maybe here being a little bit on the lower end. I can tell you our, let's say, plans for volume growth are much higher. But of course, we put down here more than 3% because we have a lot of things to consider like CapEx availability, this trend of exchanging volume versus specialty, and that's why it's more on the lower side, I would agree. And I can really say that we here in the Smart Materials division really want to be at a much higher level.

So that's good to hear. So maybe there's some potential then in the next years to go. We have another question from Charles Webb. My clarification question again. How much of the growth in future mobility, we are targeting until 2027 relates to PA12 or to the PA12 expansion we are doing, Ralf?

Yes, I'm happy to get that PA12 is so attractive, like it is to me. So today, roughly 25% of the PA12 sales are into the automotive area. I showed that with hybrid and electric cars, we have more than 50% more value in those new technology cars. So we expect in that time period, you more around 30% of sales in the automotive area.

Okay. Thank you very much. Next, I would say, 2 related questions are around battery materials in general, I would say, from Geoffrey and from Gunther Zechmann. On the one hand, I think, Gerd, goes probably goes best to you. The first question from Gunther is, can you discuss why Evonik is now targeting silicon anodes for autos yet? What's holding you back given high growth rates in EVs? And the second related question from Geoff is our SIRIDION Black, our silicon anode material. Is it being used in batteries, in 3C battery systems yet? And how much improvement do we get in energy density versus 100% graphite anode?

Yes. Actually, I'll start with a second because I think this was also influence on the first one. We are in qualification and qualification at customers to be that it is being used in consumer electronics batteries. So it's not realized yet. And this partly also is an answer to the automotive consumer electronic qualification is much faster. Automotive takes long to be qualified. And we would really first test this market and then overthink if we should go into automotive or not. Actually, in all silicon anode additive providers go this route because the consumer electronic market is the easier market to penetrate. Energy density is actually not easy to answer because it depends on the formulation of the customer. We can achieve 20% to 30% easily, but again, be very careful. You can't only take a look at this one when it comes to capacity. So the overall system has to provide that. And -- but maybe this rough number gives you already a feeling about what extent we are talking.

Okay. Thank you very much. Next question, Ralf, again, on Polyamide12, very prominent topic today. And the research comes Chetan from JPMorgan. It's about the recyclability profile of Evonik's polymer products. What happens to our PA12-based plastic at the end of the lifetime, can it be recycled? Is there a process to recycle them already?

Yes. Thank you very much for that question. Circularity is very important to us. Today, PA12 is used really in technical application, long lasting more than 10 years and really the end of lifetime is really long time. And also, we don't have any PA12 in -- yes, consumer goods really in big time or in material which is not used in a short period. So for us, sustainability is holistic. So we are looking at mechanical recycling. We are looking at chemical recycling. We are working with partners in 3D for example, to recycle material mechanically. We are working on a chemical recycling possibility for PA12. So for us, that topic is getting, of course, more and more important. And we are paying attention to that and also developing solutions.

Okay. Thank you very much. Next question is more a complaint, I would say. And that despite we have all these nice shoes here on the table and on my feet. Sebastian from Berenberg complains that we didn't mention 3D printing in more detail in the presentation. Is that something that Evonik will focus and be able to price up the future or to downstream to customers, taking our polymer powders here? So I don't know who wants to take it, Ralf, Gerd. Ralf had so many questions already. Maybe you can share it.

Good. Then I start. We -- of course, we are happy to have 3D. As Gerd pointed out, Evonik has 6 growth fields. One was the membranes we touched on in detail. And the other one is definitely 3D printing. It's 1 of the top 6 fields of Evonik to grow in the future. We are today the market leader in powders for 3D printing. You see here on the screen Three important global partners we have today. We are expanding that. So powder bed fusion is for us a key that is this powder material, but we are also investing in photopolymers. I will leave that to Gerd to touch on, and we are working really to develop large-scale production with our partners to really develop additive manufacturing [indiscernible] from prototyping to really industrial production. But maybe you want to touch on photopolymer, Gerd.

Yes. I'll add to it. I think we expect similar growth rate as we have for the membranes, Ralf. Just maybe to give you a feeling how important it is for us. Photopolymer is very simple. If you see the market actually powder and photopolymers, other technologies, at least for the plastic piece which look like they will win and they will cover different areas of the application space. In photopolymers actually, we have a nice position because very well back integrated also with our sister division system also business lines where we can provide also here a key raw material uniquely for us. And Ralf explained it with you on the occasion of the membranes, how important also polymer design redesigning on a molecule level for some applications is, and this is also true for the photopolymer field, very important.

Okay. Then next question comes from -- let me see, can't find it at the moment. Relating to the membrane opportunity in biogas and hydrogen and so on and so on. Is this more a domestic opportunity? Or are we also targeting markets abroad U.S. and other markets in Asia and so on?

Yes. First, clearly, that's a global, yes, business. We have a global responsible person, and we have a global team setup. We are working with mentioned OEMs globally. And each country has different -- yes, first of all, regulations like in biogas, as any subsidies. So each country is a little bit different. In that specific one, you have natural gas in different area, different regions of the world in different volumes. So each area has different priorities. And for us, the membranes is a global business, clearly. And opportunity.

Okay. Next question is on the silica network optimization we have described in the presentation and the question here from [ Jordan ] is aside from cost synergies and service improvement targets, are we favoring a shift to a particular segment or a global region in silica with the project as such and as a consequence of the project? Claus, I think this goes to you.

Yes. Let's see. On the silica side, I have to say there is a shift certainly in the business. However, it does not come from our network optimization. And we actually figured it out even without the help of artificial intelligence. You know that we invested in a plant some time ago in Chester into new participated silica plant for the tire industry, which actually is exactly there at the right time because the U.S. market is really, really taking off. So this is a big growth area for us and an even bigger one and that's also, I think, important and in line with, I think, expectations is Asia. Here, we are also, well, let's say, positioned, on the silica side. Here's is also the fumed silica. We have a joint venture with the Chinese company, Wynca, where we will soon take new plant in operation in China. And so there is a shift or let's say there is bigger growth outside of Europe in silica and -- but again, it's not part of the project. When you look to the project we have done the network optimization project, of course, this is, let's say, verified by the system. But we did it in time, and we will have the plans ready also in time. The one in the U.S. is already operational. Here, we even think about expanding this already. And the one China is coming soon.

Okay. Thank you very much. We are slowly already running out of questions. I think we have discussed most of the fields that are mentioned in the question. Maybe last opportunity here and there for an additional question if we have one. Just looking. No. There's some more questions also on the -- yes, there we go. Another question on the Porocel acquisition from Nicola from Exane. Do you see further acquisition opportunities in catalysts beyond the Porocel acquisition, can you discuss? And that's the first part of the question of the question. Second one on competitive landscape in [indiscernible] Active Oxygens we do afterwards. So first one on acquisition opportunities in Catalysts and maybe also beyond that for the general division, Claus, before we then go to hydrogen power side.

Okay. Yes. Of course, we are a small catalyst player and the Porocel really was an attractive piece. We could acquire also at the time, I have to say, for an attractive price. And this will actually boost our business. We are on our way to really leverage on the pro sell side. And of course, we would like to acquire more on the catalyst side, and we certainly will be looking. But it's also an area where there is not on the market. And from that point of view, I can only give a generic answer. Certainly, we will be somebody in the market that looks to increase our exposure in catalysts. It's a really good business to have. And so we will be screening the market and when an opportunity arises, we certainly will look into it. This so far for the Porocel side, and that's the same is true for the entire division. We are one of the growth divisions. So the company is willing to invest in us. And -- so we also constantly look for what's for bolt-on acquisitions. So that means acquisitions of a smaller dimension like the ones we have done here in the recent past. And that's, of course, also supported by the very good experience we have done with our acquisitions. The PeroxyChem acquisition, some of you in the capital markets were some time ago, surprised that we did this acquisition, but I can tell you, it shows and proves it's a specialty business we have acquired. Even in the last year, in the downturn, this business did not go down in its performance. And we have seen some of the growth areas like food safety, electronics. Huge growth opportunities there. So we have good history here. The company is willing to give us money. But again, we will look out for what makes sense and where we can create value. In the end, it's all about value creation.

Okay. Second question from Nicola was on active oxygens, competitive landscape and maybe also our position in the market, our position towards specialty more. How are you seeing this market and our strategy in that market?

Yes. We may -- we have active oxygen is a very fundamental piece of our business. And yes, we have still in the portfolio more standard business for paper bleaching this is still the case. But it's also one of these areas I was talking about earlier, where we are shifting towards specialty. Our portfolio has shifted substantially already in the last years in electronics, in food safety, but also in many other areas. And hydrogen peroxide also, under sustainability viewpoint, is a very clean chemical because it's only then when applied oxygen and water. On the footprint, we are working on reducing the footprint very heavily. We have quite a few ideas in the pipeline. So looking to our competitive positioning, I think we are very well positioned in this market, especially on the specialty side, we are the clear leader in the industry. And this is something we are going to build on. Not to talk about all the potential we have in Asia with this business. And you will also see that we build up more on our license business, which is a side stream of the business we have, where we give licenses for our propylene oxide technology, which is using hydrogen peroxide as a raw material and catalyst from us. So all in all, it's certainly a very core piece of our business.

I think so. I think so. Yes, that, I think brings us closer to the end of our second division spotlight on Smart Materials today. Thank you very much to all of you out there for actively participating, sending us questions. We hope we could give you some insight into the division into some of our interesting growth opportunities. Claus, I hand over to you, if you like, for some closing remarks, summarizing what we heard today.

Yes. Okay. Yes. Certainly, Tim. Sorry that we again cannot see each other in person, would be much easier. Hopefully, even without the missing direct interaction, we could bring across here together. The beauty of our business, the potential of our business, which I believe is huge and also our competitive positioning because we are really, really well positioned in, I have to say, almost all the areas we're active in. So the position is very good. We have a very good competitive advantage. In many areas, we are well positioned in these fields, our future mobility and EcoSolutions. And you know that these are certainly one areas that are very much driven by the whole structural movement into this direction. So hopefully, you could bring across this a little bit to you that we are looking for a really, really good future. And yes, I hope to see you soon in person, so that we can maybe go a little bit more deeper and also on the question side.

Okay. That was it for today. Thank you very much, Gerd, Ralf, Claus, for participating today. And if you like, we already [indiscernible] see each other again virtually, obviously, next Thursday. So in exactly a week, same time on the 3rd of our growth divisions on Specialty Additives. We are looking forward to that event and hope to see you then again. Thank you very much, and goodbye.