NV Bekaert SA (BEKB) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Welcome, everyone, to the Q3 2023 trading update. Many thanks for joining today. I'm very pleased to report another period of strong strategic progress. And before handing over to the team, I would just like to remind of the Safe Harbor Provision. This presentation may contain forward looking statements. Such statements reflect current views of management regarding future events and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements to be expressed or implied by such forward looking statements. Bekaert is providing the information in the presentation as of its date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in it in light of new information, future events or otherwise. Bekaert disclaims any liability for statements made or published by third parties and does not undertake any obligation to correct inaccurate data, information, conclusions or opinions published by third parties in relation to this or any other publication issued by Bekaert. With that said, I'm very pleased to handover to Yves and Taoufiq.

Good. Thanks, Guy. And also warm welcome from myself and Taoufiq, and also the full Bekaert executive team. Welcome to the trading update for quarter 3. So as you all know, in the most challenging market environment, we are delivering a resilient performance in the first 9 months of the year. We will give a little bit more perspective for the business in the next section. So let me give some of the priorities we've been working on in the last 9 months, and we will continue to do for the remaining of the year. It's demonstrating a really strong pricing discipline across our different segments, we report in the core segment as well as in the growth segments. We've been diligent on the business selection where we want to be in a section of the portfolio of businesses, products, but also customers, a very strong cost focus and continuing in the current market environment to be really cost conscious and very important margin maintenance and improvement that we will report on that one later. In that context of market environment and business sales, we are generating a very strong cash flow. And so from a figures point of view, the top line for the first 9 months is around EUR 3.3 billion revenue, a reduction versus previous year 2022 of 13%. And there are a couple of drivers where I will give you the high-level highlights and Taoufiq will give that recent segment. So first of all, as you know, we had last year a huge inflationary environment, impacting a lot of the input cost, raw material and energy. And this year, we went into a more normalizing situation, the reverse trends of the wire rod increases, and that's impacting our top line. Secondly, from a volume -- business volume point of view across the business is slightly different, but on average, 5% lower volume compared to the 9 months of previous year. Previous year, you remember with this very strong certainly first quarter, also second quarter within some of our businesses we buy due to the geopolitical events that happened last year. And of course, in a market environment which is more challenging for this year, we have been defending the market shares and our business positioning in all these segments. On the upside, we have a very strong mix improvement. This is a good generation of the journey we are in. We are strengthening on high-margin products, but also thanks to the pricing power in some of the segments, also the, let's say, product portfolio evolution, we can demonstrate a strong mix, and Taoufiq will give you some financial figures, what that means for our first 9 months top line. Let me move to also give you some highlights on the strategic developments. First of all, in terms of the end markets where we are focusing in the future growth. So talking about energy transition first. We've announced the memo of understanding with Toshiba company, specifically with the division on energy, where we are exploring the upcoming weeks, months, joint work on bringing a [indiscernible] products. So mainly on electrolysis assembly products for the hydrogen market -- to the market in the upcoming years, strengthening the -- or combining the strength of both companies Bekaert and Toshiba in terms of product technology, but also in terms of go-to-market. Linked to the Energy segment, we've been talking about our offering Currento in the hydrogen space. Strategic component on the electrolyzer equipment. We all know that this business is scaling up. So we're happy to report that we are on track with our plans on that growth, both on the commercial side as well as on the capability manufacturing site where we will open our second location at the end of the year, becoming operational. But also more important on the qualification talking to big customers globally on being qualified with our product hence being expecting for the future. I was happy to announce that in our division of Ropes BBRG, we've signed an MOU on working with ABB. ABB being a company and specifically within the mining division, working on asset management, preventive maintenance of the operations they have around the world. And so our technical and solution of monitoring the Ropes performance called VisionTek will together work on extending the life of the Ropes, also in the context of providing services, but also in the context of cyclicality and sustainability. On the more established business, in the area of carbon -- low-carbon construction, good progress and nice wins in Dramix. Let me highlight some of them in the more traditional application, the flooring business in the high-end battery factories or automotive factories some nice wins there, but also in the tunnel segment where we had won our first businesses in China and India for tunneling. And so a nice result there in terms of mix and profits, and we'll continue to do that. On the performance side, in our business, rightsizing the capacity and competitiveness. We took the decision to close the plant in Chongqing in China to rationalize our footprint there. And basically, also, of course, we will get the impact on our employees and our people that we've been taking care of them, and we'll continue to do that a successful conclusion of that project. Communicated before in the area of SWS, Steel Wireless Solutions. We announced the divestment of our operation in Chile and Peru to our partner. So we're happy to report that also financially, that it is completely closed at the financials, as you can see. And this business is now in good hands for in Latin America. So having shared these highlights, let me hand over to Taoufiq to give you some more financial perspective.

Thank you very much, Yves, and good morning, everyone. So as Yves has alluded to it, we worked for the first 9 months of 2023 to a normalization period. It's something which was not completely unexpected. We did anticipate a lot of it. So we all knew and we communicated last year around the impact of the inflation pass-through that have significantly impacted our top line in a positive way. We're going through normalization phase, which is normal in these kind of cycles. And this has resulted in the top line evolution, which is standing at EUR 3.4 billion. I think that key highlights and the key messages are basically twofold. The first one is that we have been able in the current volatile market environment to contain the volume drop at circa 4.6% of the top line. We further elaborate on that, but we are seeing the volumes in China coming back and we are running our plants in China at full occupation. So this has been one of the highlights and the positive news for the first 9 months. And very importantly as well is that despite this volatility, we do see a price and mix effect on top line, still performing at a very good level contributing EUR 150 million to the top line, again, indicative of the portfolio adjustments, the pricing adjustments and management that where we are performing very strongly since last year. So as I said, a top line contraction of 13%, 5% is driven by volume. The balance is primarily related to the normalization of the raw material prices. So this has resulted in a reduction of EUR 350 million. But again, looking at some of the trends that we have explained last year with the evolution of the wire or this is something that was not completely unexpected. So moving to the view by business unit and starting with -- so we did see a challenging market landscape with a mixed picture, as I mentioned, with positive news -- as very positive news and some less positive news. So a top line which has decreased by roughly 13.5%, so dropping to EUR 1.5 billion in 2023. This decline is reflective of several adverse factors. The key drop, which is roughly 9.7% and was due to the passed-on wire rod price decreases, so the normalization of the raw material. And on top of that, we did see because of the volume in China coming back and to some extent, the volumes in Europe and North America coming down, we did see some negative in terms of pricing and mix as a result of that. So despite all that, I mean, as I mentioned, we did see a resilient volume utilization, so 1.3% versus a quite strong 2022. So 1.3% expansion in volumes. So recovery, which is particularly noticeable in China, as I stated, and this has compensated for the contraction in EMEA and North America. We were very successful in mitigating some of the residual price effects in terms of energy during the first part of the year and also some of the wire rod price inflation that we still had to deal with during the first part of the year. So overall, the sales narrative for RR does somehow speak for the resilience and the adaptability of the unit in the face of the various external pressures that have referred to. The unit has demonstrated a strong ability to maintain and even grow its volume in key regions for us, such as China. And this has happened amidst a broader context of declining prices, unfavorable exchange rates to mention some of these headwinds. So the strategic response has been to the global market conditions has been the right one. We continue focusing on our efforts to optimize our mix and the pricing strategy. We see that our high-end applications -- applications in the business unit progressively growing. So just to share 1 important indicator for us, which is the share of the ST/UT application, which is now representing 48% of our total volume. So the price, the mix and the differentiation through product is something which is very key for us to sustain performance in our business unit. So in terms of forward outlook, so we are currently working hard to secure the volume commitments and the new deals with our major customers. So we are working on them to optimize sourcing for competitiveness to work on some targeted cost reduction. We are also implementing our strategic initiatives in order to engage even further with our [indiscernible]. We're bringing technology and innovation, we are initiating activities associated with sustainability projects, including recyclable steel. So a lot going on for the rubber reinforcement for the next quarters. Moving to SWS. So we are reporting a decline in consolidated sales of 16.8%. The contributing factors are mainly related to lower sales volume roughly 11%. The decrease of the wire rod prices and also some unfavorable currency movements. We have been working hard there as well to pass and to improve the pricing and mix, I will explain later on what we have done specifically on that. Looking at the regional segmentation within the business unit. So in Europe, we did experienced the most significant sales volume decrease roughly 16.6%, predominantly in application in construction, agriculture and consumer sectors. In North America, we did see a decline of 13.6% on the back of resilient energy and utility sector albeit we did see some phasing issues with sales probably pushed to the right as a result of some overstocking in the supply chain, which should be normalizing in the next quarter. In Asia, sales for SWS are relatively small, but we did see a stable market environment. In terms of price mix and strategy, so there again, I mean, we have been able to successfully pass through some of the inflationary effects that we did see in the first part of the year. We have maintained a rigorous focus on the price management and improved our sales mix. And this has helped us buffer to some extent, the impact of some of the market adversities. Segments like energy and utilities, but also flex pipe in Europe have been instrumental in driving a more profitable sales mix overall. So despite facing all these external pressures to our strategic pricing initiatives and sales mix adjustments have allowed us to partly offset the negative impacts of the market volatility moving forward. We will continue to leverage these strategies alongside the strong market presence that we benefit from -- in segments like energy utilities, flex pipe, and this will help us to sustain and improve our financial performance. Moving to Specialty business. Specialty business saw a 15.3% decline in consolidated sales year-to-date 2023. Looking at the performance of the business unit by segment and starting with building products. Top line has contracted by roughly 14%, mainly related to phasing in projects related to slow over ground projects in Europe -- in Europe primarily and also some underground project more globally, so phasing that work expecting -- where we're expecting to see a normalization more towards the beginning of 2024. Again, we're comparing the figures for all the segments and especially for specialty business against a very strong 2022. So in the case of the building applications during the first quarter, we did see a very strong performance, which was mainly triggered by what we referred to as panic buying triggered by the Russia and Ukraine conflict. So the baseline for comparison is an unusual baseline, a very strong one, but the key information there is that despite this contraction, we do see a higher price, but more importantly, a much better mix towards the high-end applications or the 4D and 5D applications in Dramix, which are representing 50% of our total volume for the 9 months 2023. Moving to fiber technology. The segment has shown a good level of resilience with a top line or a volume top line increasing by almost 4%. We did have to face some steep price erosion in China with some specific applications like the core wire. This is mainly due to the fact that the competition has been releasing some additional production capacity. The production prices for this type of application had normalized in Q2 2023. We did see as well a slowdown in the semiconductor industry which has led to the decrease of the filtration sales. This is also something that we see as a phasing issue and that should normalize in the coming quarters. We continue to see the good level of progress with our H2 ramp-up production, sales and overall volumes. We're dealing with some inherent issues associated with this type of ramp up with some technologically complex products. So some issues in terms of quality that we are addressing but nothing which is significantly negatively impacting our top line for the time being. Moving to combustion technologies within the segments. So their sales have significantly contracted 37% contraction versus last year. This is mainly triggered. This has been mainly triggered by the uncertainty in the energy transition policies in Germany, which has affected our end markets. And as a result of that, we did see some lower sales with some of our key customers, such as Bosch. Last but not least, the Hose and Conveyor Belt. So a contraction of roughly 21%, albeit on much relatively small level of sales, but what to be mentioned that this shortfall has been observed across all the regions, with the exception, the multiple exception of China, but the pricing still continues to perform at a very strong level. Moving to BBRG. So the very strong performance in terms of top line, 6.2% expansion of the consolidated sales year-to-date '23. We did see some minor volume contraction of roughly 1.4% contracted evolution by segment within the Ropes business with application in oil and gas, mining and structures, performing very strongly some reduction of volumes in applications like fishing and marine and wire but the key information there is the very strong performance that we have delivered in terms of pricing and mix, where our average price per ton has increased by roughly 8% during the 9-month period. With that, back to you, Yves.

Thanks, Taoufiq. So conclude to our presentation, two additional information. One is on the outlook for the full year. So we are targeting EUR 4.3 billion top line, EBITu percentage -- EBITu underlying percentage between 8.5% and 8.7%. This compared to previous year performance of 8.2% and a very strong cash performance for the year. Of course, the situation, as we all know, remains a little bit unpredictable and unstable in terms of the market environment. So in terms of the wider context, we think that this will continue in Q1. We are continuing to strengthen the way we remain focused on successful having managing these headwinds. So we continue to deploy our strategy on fundamentally strengthening the core business, and you see that in the evolution of the departments and the performance, but also investing on the growth platforms and where we have some proof points to date, but also moving forward, we can communicate more about that. So basically, to conclude, I want to share and looking forward to meet some of you on the Capital Markets Day, which will be organized on the 7th of December in London, where you will have the opportunity to meet the BG -- Bekaert Executive Group team. And also we will be discussing about the performance journey we are in. It's also more important how we see the portfolio of Bekaert evolving over the upcoming years and giving the opportunity to talk and discover some of the new businesses that they got to be in the upcoming years. So handing over back to Guy. Thanks.

Thank you, Yves. Thank you, Taoufiq. I'd like now to open up to questions. [Operator Instructions] And I've got a number of questions already. Alexander, it looks like you were first. If you could unmute and ask your question that would be great.

Alexander from Kepler here. So the first question would be on the guidance. So -- we know that the guidance implies an underlying EBIT of around EUR 365 million to EUR 375 million. Would you -- what would make you reach that top or end of that guidance? And then also, again, on that guidance, you guided basically for an H2 margin of around 7.1% adjusted EBIT. That is higher than the H2 margin of last year, which is 6.4%, but how much inventory revaluation did you take into account in this guidance? Because I think last year, if you exclude the revaluation impact, you arrive at a margin of around 8.6%. So I'm just trying to recalculate your margin gains here. And then I have a couple of more questions, but I'll let my colleagues go first.

Hi, Alexander. So indeed, I mean, the implied range of EUR 365 million to EUR 375 million is the right one. What might impact the upward performance or downward performance is basically related to the evolutions that we will see in terms of volumes for the remainder of the year. It's still very volatile. So that's the reason why we have a differential and bandwidth in terms of performance. The second element, which might impact the actual level of performance is related to the wire rod prices, alluded to that in the second part of your question. So last year, for the 9 months period, we did benefit from a positive impact resulting from the inventory revaluation this year, the impact is much more negative. So the result of the decline in wire rod prices. It has not completely stabilized yet. We do see some regions where wire rod prices starts increasing, but it's not a consistent view across the region. It's still falling down, but at a much lower pace than what it did during the first part of the year. That's why we're expecting more a normalization and stabilization of these prices in Q1 of next year. But for the moment, we want to account for any further degradation coming from the wire rod prices.

Look, Frank, it looks like you're next in the queue.

Question, you guide for a strong free cash flow. Of course, our working capital will also be play a role here. Could you elaborate what we roughly can expect for working capital? Will it be stable as a percentage of revenues? And what are the main drivers here? That's my first question. And then second question, maybe on China, on the RR volumes are now recovering. What do you see, let's say, on a competitive environment? Do you see less pressure and hence big step-up in profitability there. Could you elaborate on that, please, as well?

Okay. So the first question on [ 4D ], we'll not be in a position to give you an exact figure in terms of cash. All I can say is that our conversion will be very strong. So we're aiming at a conversion, which would be above 80% in terms as a ratio of our EBIT. So a very strong cash without being able to disclose the exact figure that we are currently targeting. The second question and probably Yves also will further elaborate on that. So what we see, first of all, the key element is the normalization of the demand, as I stated in my comments. We do see a plant occupation which is currently at 98% or roughly back in line with the level of 2021. And this in the context where we all know that the competition in China has been releasing and implementing additional capacity so this has triggered obviously some tensions in terms of pricing that we have been very successful in mitigating. Our pricing is doing quite well in China. And where we're doing it -- doing it is by increasing [indiscernible] with the most added value applications and constructions mainly in ST/UT. So we're differentiating ourselves through a high value, high-end applications, but we are also tactically managing the plant occupation by making sure that we leverage our fixed cost absorption in our plants in China, and we have also some less high-end applications coming in, in our production to optimize fixed cost absorption, as I said.

And if I can add to what Taoufiq said, clearly the mix will be a good mix in China that we are focused on, which is also our capacity reduction with closing Chongqing plant which was a business, which was on the lower end of the business mix. And then important to mention on top of the pricing power that we're doing is also the cost optimization in terms of materials where we are deploying a program which will change specification, which is creating also a cost competitive advantage for us.

Thanks, Frank. I'd like to hand over next to Wim, please.

Also a couple of questions from my side. Can you maybe elaborate on the savings initiatives you're undertaking amongst others, the closure of the Chinese RR plant and I think also on BBRG, there's the German plant that was closed a while ago, what kind of savings are these generating? That's the first question. The second one would be on pricing. Are there areas in your portfolio where you really cannot hold onto the pricing discipline that you want. Can you maybe also elaborate on that? And then a last one on the PTL business. Would there be a change in ambitions with the Toshiba agreement? Can you maybe also elaborate a bit on that? Those were the questions.

You can take the last.

I will start with the last one if you do not mind. And then we can take them in reverse order. So on [ Currento ], we know it's a new product and it's a complex business as well. So our core business today is in the porous transport layer, what we call the Currento, which is a critical component in the MEA assembly of the electrolysis. So basically, first of all, that we keep on scaling up the PTL business and our own business. The offering with Toshiba is basically combining -- assembling the membrane and the porous transport layers plus the [indiscernible], so providing more of an assembly components to the electrolyzer world. The technology or the joint collaboration with Toshiba is in the area that we will apply, let's say, the catalyst coating on the porous transport layer, which will create, let's say, a reduction of the iridium needed, okay? And this is product combination the offering of the technology of Toshiba plus our porous transport layer can get, of course, a nice view offering for the future for the industry. So from a long-term perspective, that this is of course, a strategic direction for us in competitive offering. Now the more -- the world of the electrolyzers than the other hydrogen projects is still scaling up with a lot of dynamics, positive news with also some of the delays. So we want to remain very realistic. While this is a huge opportunity for the future, we will look in the upcoming business planning cycles, what is the upside in terms of growth and margin. But certainly, that's a promising field of collaboration.

Okay. So the first question you had was most related to the footprint adjustment. So I mean, as -- to use the sentence that we have consistently used each time we get this question asked is that we are tactically and opportunistically looking at our footprint and what we have done with China is another opportunistic move. So we have closed the plant, which in the brand scheme of things for us in China was not really any more relevance in the current context. What I refer to the fact that competition was reducing some additional capacity. We had this plant in Chongqing, which was in the center of the country a bit remote from all the key production centers. So customer base around us in that plant was not really that optimized, it was for many years used as a buffer for us to be able to absorb additional capacity. So in many aspects in the current environment, it's a no-regret move that we have done with disclosure. So the impact that it will generate, I mean, we see it mainly in a better absorption overall of our fixed cost in China. We start already seeing some -- in term of this effect. So the closure is still ongoing with some [ rigid ] activities to be performed. It will generate some upside because we have some assets associated with this plant that we will be monetizing. So all in all, it will have a positive impact. The BBRG also referred to the closure of Gelsenkirchen plant in Germany. And I think that you can already see some of the impacts of disclosures in the results and the performance delivered in BBRG. We have published the EBIT for this BU in quarter ago. So it has clearly an impact in the overall performance of the BU. It contributes to sustaining the leverage -- the high level of margin. It's part of our overall transformation and profit restoration plan that we have implemented for BBRG. So all in all, it has also an accretive effect. So we will continue looking at this footprint adjustment again very proactively. The environment is changing and we need to change with it. We will do it in the best possible way to make sure that we have an accretive impact each time we decide to make more associated with the footprint. So in terms of the second question you had was related to the pricing. So I mean, when you look at the figures on a consolidated basis, so you see that the pricing and mix for total Bekaert had a negative impact in the top line by roughly 5.2%. I think that within this pricing analysis, we need to distinguish what is price normalization associated with the wire rod price decreases or the raw material price decreases versus the impact -- positive impact coming from pricing as a result of the optimization of our portfolio and the fact that in some segments, we're moving more towards high-end application, which will generate a better pricing. So if you try to break down the overall negative, what you will see is that out of the 5% price/mix evolution, there is a minus 9% related to the raw material price normalization and the roughly 4%, which is related to -- positive 4%, which is related to the impact coming from our pricing derived out of the product segmentation that we have activated. And you can see it by just seeing the [indiscernible] that we have provided.

Very good. Thanks, Wim. Chase, you are next.

I have 2. I will take them one at a time, if that's okay. Firstly, so you obviously discussed that you're seeing quite a weak macro environment in Europe, which had some pretty significant volume impact. I'm just curious on, let's say, Q4, so far, how are you seeing those volumes develop? And do you think that yes, the volume environment will stay lower for longer and it could lead into -- deep into 2024 as well? Or are you seeing any sort of bottoming there?

So first of all, I think we see for Q4, a stable environment. I think we are bottoming out in some of the businesses. We are in our current projects. So far, we see that, at least Q1 will be around the same type of levels. On the others, we see some upsides coming for the upcoming year and more towards Q2. Taoufiq mentioned some of the businesses like in semiconductor or other businesses. We also see that destocking has been done in the full supply chain. So then we know that there is another period coming up where we are more normalized. So basically, short answer is for stable Q1 at the same level and then we start to see some of our business some upsides.

Okay. Great. And my second question on Dramix. I think you mentioned in the press release that in Europe, you saw some increasing competition there. So I was wondering if you could give a little bit more color around what type of competition is and how that's impacting the business.

Yes. So I think it's a mixed view. I think the -- we see increased competition in pricing mainly from Chinese imports. And that is, let's say, impacting some more standard applications. Our strategy is not to fight in that segment. Our strategy is to fight in the higher ends -- to win and not to fight there but to win there. And that's why you see also -- you see the result in the mix up the 4D, 5D and many of these applications are also protected by patent and IP as well as more differentiating in terms of the complexity to get specified also in the norms and the standard. And so our team strategy is more on the higher end of the Dramix application, so focusing on flooring, focusing on tunneling, increase focus on the infrastructure area with the precast solutions and also on the field of renovation, renovation of bridges and others. So yes, we see an increased competition, but that's basically it's well known. We know which segment is this and our focus is more on -- more complex topics and high-end, meaning also high-value capture statements.

Thanks, Chase. Over to you, Martijn.

First question, I'll take them 1 by 1 is again on that underlying price mix. I've just gone back to the 2021, '22 presentations. And if you take out the wire rod effect so basically trying to focus on that underlying you get to quite a high amount cumulative for 2021, 2022 and now also 2023. So my question is, would it be reasonable to assume that you can continue to do that in 2024, given the enormous impact, positive impact on EBIT from your EBIT bridges already in the last 3 years? That would be question one.

Martijn, I think that probably -- we just need to align on and make sure we understand something the positive impact effect that you -- effect that you were referring to was very clear in 2021. It was very strong for the 9 months '22 and it has completely been erased for the balance of the year and ended up with a neutral inventory valuation for the full year '22. And for '23, it's a negative impact quite significantly. So now what we're saying and the way we look at our results is that last year, we had a neutral impact. This year, a negative and in '21, significantly positive. And despite these fluctuations in the inventory valuation in our P&L, what we're saying is that -- we are not anymore in these episodes where it was directly impacting our profitability. We're able to sustain a very high level of profitability. And I think that the percentages we're disclosing for the guidance are also indicative of that. In the year where we are negatively impacted by 5.4%, whereas we are still able to give a guidance between 8.5% to 8.7%. So that's how we see our results.

Maybe I wasn't clear, but I was specifically talking about price/mix effects excluding wire rod, excluding. If you take the amount from your own presentation and you deduct from that the wire rod effects, which you've given, you get to the underlying price/mix effect. Add up all those amounts for the 3 years, 2021, 2022, and year-to-date 2023, it gets to almost EUR 400 million. I'm definitely not wondering about your projections for wire rod. I was just wondering, you've been raising prices for 3 years in a row. You have been very disciplined in pricing. You have moved into more value-add segments. Can that continue? That is the question.

Well, the short, simple answer is definitely, yes. If we further elaborate on that. We are very adamant on that because this is at the core of the transformation and the focus that we have had in the company. Most of our efforts and strategy are geared toward making these price changes and this pricing power something structural in our business. So I think this comes from a realization within the financial team within our Board that we have suffered from too long from this perception that we are a commodity business with no pricing power. And that's the reason why we were really on the board to make sure that we structurally improve the pricing, not only doing tactical things whenever we have the opportunity through energy and so on, but like fundamentally changing our portfolio, our go-to-market that's one. So even in applications such as rubber reinforcement. I mean we are not just selling Tire Cord. We are differentiating ourselves versus competition with technology. I mean you can see it in the evolution that I referred to in terms of ST/UT. We are selling as well an availability through our footprint. We are selling as well innovation and R&D through the investments that we're doing to make our customers more sustainable. So all this comes with the pricing, and this is how we're sustaining this level of pricing in big segments such as RR. SWS, same goes there. I mean, we're closing, we decided that applications that we typically had in Latin America, in the south of Latin America. This is not applications that could give us this leverage in terms of pricing. That's why we're disposing all these activities to refocus on things where we think that we have this pricing power and that's energy and utility. Same examples as well in specialty business with Dramix, 50% of our business is from patented 4D, 5D, where we are the only one, and we can control the pricing. Same goes for BBRG. So again, just some examples to show you how much we are on the ball on this pricing because this is, for us, probably not the single key indicator of the way we are transforming and repositioning the company from the perceived commoditized company to a company which has the pricing power.

No, no, I get that. I was just wondering, since a number of those factors you mentioned, Dramix, portfolio management, that has been going on for a while. But thank you for that clarification. Just to come back on the guidance, I'll rephrase the question. In the first half of the year, you had a negative absolute impact from wire rod and EBIT of EUR 27 million that comes from you EBIT bridge again. Given that you have a higher negative impact from price/mix effects now already in Q3, which should be roughly the same in Q4. I think it will be reasonable to assume that it would be EUR 27 million negative or even more negative in the second half of the year, would that be a correct assumption?

The correct assumption is that it will be more negative.

Okay. Got it. Okay, which actually means that if you get to 8.6% for the full year at the mid of your range, and you add back that negative impact on wire rod, you're already over the 9% from your medium-term target.

That's absolutely correct.

Okay. My final question is a bit of tease. How many more of those plants like Chongqing do you have that are low value adds, relatively small capacity overflow? In other words, what other little pressures are there that you can cut out of the portfolio?

So I would take that one. So I think many of you have been following Bekaert for many years. So on the portfolio, we're pretty widely spread in different businesses and also a good geographic global presence. So in the strategy moving forward, then that's an evolution of the strategy correct is to continue to look at both from the business portfolio or in whatever the business that we can scale, what are the businesses where we see that growth opportunity or high-margin business, where do we see opportunity in innovation also to build the sustainability agenda. So we continue to review as a leadership team also together with the both on the portfolio of the businesses. On the other side, that would also mean that in terms of that strategic focus plus an operational excellent focus that we constantly leave our manufacturing footprint growth and our supply base and to see, okay, we have continued to take cost out, optimize there, right? So we'll continue that portfolio review one on the business side, but also operational on our footprint side and see how we can consolidate and get cost out.

I assume that there will be more information on December 7 on this subject then.

Both topics, we will continue to communicate as soon as we can communicate with the market.

Thanks, Martijn. I'll hand over to Stijn next, please.

A couple of follow-ups from my end, too. One is a clarification. Maybe I mean misunderstood. But you stated volumes are coming back in China. But to my knowledge, that has been relatively strong throughout the year despite all the negative headlines. And you also stated to be at full utilization. So do you see China RR as a fundamental growth driver into '24 because it looks like it's already at good capacity level. So that's my first one.

Yes. Thank you. So we -- it's important in our -- and specific question for the rubber reinforcement business. If you look at the tire market and some of you have been also following that industry correct in the trend. So I think that's a growth market depending on GDP market evolution. But on average, over the years, you can expect the growth of 2%, 3% in the tire industry. And then, of course, you have geographical differences, you have differences in passenger tires, truck tires, Off-the-road, mining tires, as you know, we are more skewed towards the truck business tires and high end of the business, rest all in the passenger tires. So in that context, we see the overall end market growth is moderate growth 2%, 3%. So it's about also the business you choose in terms of customer portfolio, product portfolio. And so that's our strategy moving forward, to be very diligent and very selective on the business we want to go for in that market environment, which is an average growth market.

Okay. Yes, maybe to follow up, to be clear, is there strong volume growth potential in China in 24?

There is very strong -- I mean, we will be...

If you are at full capacity right now.

Exactly. We will be capacity constrained. So at 98%, there only so much that you can do. But the growth that we can see is by relocating the volume. So as I mentioned earlier, we have some -- it's probably not the right term, but some filler business in order to make sure we optimize the fixed cost depending on the growth patterns that we will see in China, we will reallocate these capacities to more high-end applications. And this will drive top line, this will drive mix. This will drive profitability, obviously. So it will be by tactically adjusting our volumes allocation that we will generate the growth in China.

If I can add a follow-on -- so because I understand your question, you're looking at the China market itself but so from a supply chain perspective...

No, no. I'm talking specifically about Bekaert.

Yes. I mean the Bekaert China, but what I want to mention is we said full capacity, but we have a supply chain where there's some flexibility from where we source, right? So even today, we have full capacity for the local market but also for some of the export volumes, right? So even if the opportunity of the growth in the Chinese market, we can reallocate also in terms of supply chain and where to supply from.

And Stijn, one additional important information is Vietnam. So Vietnam is coming back online. So we are now producing 10,000 tons. The first formal allocations did happen. We had the first sales. So should we have a capacity expansion both for domestic or export, primarily export we have spare capacity at a cheaper price coming out of Vietnam.

Okay. Understood. Understood. And then the second one is also on the guidance, more specific on the commentary. You see the current headwinds extending into Q1 but you also say that there is a lot of uncertainty, and that has been going on for quite some quarters. So what is your actual visibility on the market recovery after Q1? What could be the drivers for it? And then also related to that, seasonalities typically favors your first half. So do you see a risk to consensus expectations if such a recovery post H1 would not materialize because that would impair your more dominant first half.

So seasonality doesn't seem to be a curse. And if you remember a couple of years ago, when we had a low Q1s and Q2s, we did see catch-up effects happening later on during the year. Obviously, it will not happen from segments like construction or winter. It's typically rather limited, but all the other applications when there is strange environment in the first part of the year do seem to catch up for the balance. And again, I think that -- we need to look at the environment as an impact for the volume, but the same way as we have tried to describe it for the 9 months of 2023. We also have compensating effects, which are happening. So volume is something, but you also have the progress that we're making, and we are continuously improving in increasing the share of wallet of the high-end applications, which are helping us sustaining and mitigating and bottling out some of the volume issues that we might be exposed to. But we hope that -- I mean, at least during the first part of Q1 -- by the end of Q1, many of this headwinds will stabilize. So for the moment, we are building the plant that we will further elaborate on during the Capital Market Day, where we don't want to assume that we will have massive volume growth. So our focus will be on improving the margin, improving the portfolio, so continuation of the strategy that we have described so far.

Okay. Maybe if you allow me one more follow-up. You made the analysis on utilization levels in China. But can you also do that for Europe? What are the utilization levels right now in RR I mean?

We're between 70% and 80% utilization. So we started trending at 80% towards the end of the 2023 period reported. We started rather low in the range of 70%, and now we're improving this utilization.

Okay. What is the hypothetical maximum in Europe? I assume that 100%, so.

So yes, I think that when you -- when we say occupation, it's a combination of man hour occupation and machine occupation. So typically, when you say you are running at 90%, 92%, that's already full occupation for 1 or 2 of the parameters.

One more sneaking in. Alexander, please go ahead.

Yes. Just some small additional questions. On BBRG, you mentioned a good order book, but we saw the volumes decrease, of course, also the closure of the plant, but where are the order book levels versus prior year? And then maybe one small question for the challenging environment you see in Q1 2024, could you explain maybe a bit which segments, but also what it means in terms of margin that will -- because margins if excluding the inventory valuation effect, last year was around 10.8%. Just wondering what -- if we can expect a bit of the same margins going into 2024.

I will start with your last question. So margins will continue trending at the level where we currently see them as a baseline. But at the same time, as you know, we have a new CEO for the business unit with a renewed mandate and the mandate is really to focus on the cost base and the operating cost of the business. We do still see a lot of opportunities to improve the cost base and we want to use these levers as margin improvement catalyst or at least if everything goes wrong, which we do not open expect to use it as a buffer to mitigate some of the headwinds that we might see specifically in North America or Europe, China being more on the safe side. So margin expectation at least in line with this year, potentially an improvement in the coming quarters. Order intake for BBRG. So as said, I mean there was volume contraction, but rather limited. So tonnage-wise, it's really irrelevant. It's primarily in Ropes. It's mainly related to phasing. So as you know, we have closed some plants transferred production to the U.S. So we have some ramp-up execution issues that we needed to address. So now that this ramp-up is finalized, we will be able to catch up. But the order intake still remains strong, probably slightly, but just slightly below the levels where we saw it last year, but nothing were to be mentioned, still a very positive outlook with some differentiations in terms of segments. So probably oil and gas cycle will come at an end towards midyear of next year. But at the same time, we see a pickup in the mining application, which is compensating for some of the drops that we have seen in oil and gas.

Good. Very good. I think that was the last question. So with that, I'd like to close the conference call. Many thanks for everyone joining and looking forward very much to seeing many of you on 7th December.

Thank you very much.