Titan S.A. (TITC) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. I am Geli, your Chorus Call operator. Welcome, and thank you for joining the Titan Cement Group conference call and live webcast to present and discuss the full year 2023 results. Please note, this call and presentation is intended for analysts and investors only. [Operator Instructions] And the conference is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Mr. Marcel Cobuz, Chairman of the Group Executive Committee; Mr. Michael Colakides, Group CFO; and Mr. Leonidas Canellopoulos, Titan Group Chief Sustainability and Innovation Officer. Mr. Cobuz, you may now proceed.

Good afternoon. Hello, everyone. Very happy to be here with Michael and Leonidas, and walk you through our results for full year 2023. I think as you have seen from the press release, Titan is more dynamic than ever, performs at a new level of performance with both financial and nonfinancial performance increased with an accelerated mode of its Strategy 2026 execution and with the transformation ongoing. First, on financial performance, you have seen sustained growth of sales and overproportional EBITDA growth in all regions, mainly thanks to pricing and cost performance in U.S. and Greece. You have seen margin expansion and at the same time, a stronger balance sheet in a year where we also continued our growth investments in our main markets. This has resulted in improved ROACE, improved earnings per share, and therefore, we have proposed to the Board an increase in dividend by more than -- by 42%. Second, on ESG performance. Here, we bring a testimonial our improved ratings. We will give some color on the performance on CO2 reduction. And one thing which makes me proud personally is that our safety results are getting to best-in-class level as we have achieved last year for employees and contractors a level of 0.35 lost time injury frequency rate, which is one of the best in the industry. The third is on the execution of our strategy. We have walked you through our strategic directions last year in September and very happy to report that we are well on track and in an accelerated mode to achieve our targets 2026 on all 3 directions. First, in strengthening the core in our attractive markets, U.S. and Europe. You have seen that we have completed our growth investments in the U.S., and we have entered a number of partnerships and acquisitions, which are adding access to supplementary cementitious materials and aggregates here in Greece. Second, on time to market on green materials, and solutions. You have seen from the press release that we have doubled our investment in research and innovation. We have improved our percentage of green sales, green volumes, and we are using our venture capital arm and again, acquisitions to further improve our access to innovation. The third one is on new technologies. And here, we have progressed on the end-to-end digital manufacturing. We remain committed to have an integrated digital model on manufacturing, logistics and customer interfaces in all our markets by 2026. We have done a couple of interesting partnerships with startups in waste heat recovery. And we are in a prefeasibility phase on our carbon capture project. The fourth is on our ongoing transformation. We have strengthened and we will continue to strengthen our operating model, which allows a very fast execution capability at our local level with performance focus with decisions made in the market and with a lean corporate. Second, we have a strong momentum in our corporate culture, remaining performance focused, but also being energized by a new purpose. We have announced these days, a new set of values and a refreshed logo. So it's a dynamic Titan reporting excellent results for 2023, and I'll pass the floor to Michael for the numbers and then to Leonidas for the nonfinancial performance.

Thank you, Marcel, for the introduction. Good morning, and good afternoon to everyone from me as well. We have recently published a trading update. So in today's call, we would like to provide you with further information, shed some color on the results and answer your questions. So 2023 has been a year with remarkable results and the important limestones -- milestones accomplished by Titan Group. We are proud to have achieved a strong financial performance, growing sales and earnings for the second year in a row, while simultaneously strengthening our balance sheet and liquidity despite the persistent global macroeconomic challenges. In '23, group sales posted a year-on-year increase of 11.6%, exceeding EUR 2.5 billion at EUR 2.547 billion, with our key markets of the U.S. and Europe contributing more than 90% of the group's revenue and profits. We hit a record EBITDA of EUR 540 million, up by 63%, while double-digit growth over 50% has been achieved by all our regions. Several positive factors contributed to these strong results, including the increased demand across our key markets and products; second, the firm pricing, which counterbalanced the persistent inflationary headwinds; third, the improved energy cost performance; and fourth, the operational efficiencies achieved as a result of our CapEx investments across the regions with all the above enabling the group to expand profitability to higher margins. Net profit more than doubled to EUR 268 million, up by 145% leading to increased earnings per share of EUR 3.60 per share compared to EUR 1.45 last year. Return on average capital employed also improved significantly, reaching a high of 16.9%. We also strengthened our balance sheet with net profit -- with net debt dropping by EUR 137 million, closing the year at EUR 660 million. The impact of lower net debt and the increase of EBITDA drove the sharp reduction of the net debt to EBITDA leverage ratio to 1.2x, marking the lowest level in a decade. And this happened despite high CapEx, mainly to growth-oriented projects, improvements in the energy mix and efficiencies in production and logistics. The group's credit ratings improved with S&P revising upwards the rating for TCI in September to BB with a positive outlook and Fitch assigning a rating of BB+ after their first review was. Following the improved results, the Board of Directors will propose at the Annual General Assembly scheduled for May 9, a dividend payment of EUR 0.85 per share, which is a 25% payout or if we also look at the buybacks that makes more than 30% paid to shareholders. And the dividend payment corresponds to an increase of 42% compared to last year. On the next slide, which covers the nonfinancial, the ESG performance and decarbonization, I will simply skip it because Leonidas will go into more details later on. Now the next slide, you can see that the group has been growing its sales consistently over the last 3 years. Our 2023 level of sales is 60% higher than what it was only 3 years earlier back in 2020. On the other front, our EBITDA growth followed at a slower pace, while not matching the sales growth in '21 and '22, our margin improvement efforts, including dynamic price adjustments, CapEx investments in our plants and distribution networks, energy cost management, among others, culminated in 2023, marking the rise of EBITDA margin to 21.2%. The next slide, we'd like to show the quarterly growth evolution, both of our sales on the left chart and EBITDA on the right. I would like to highlight here 2 points. The first is that at the group level, we have been growing our sales every quarter, year-on-year over the past 2 years, while our EBITDA has been growing again for every quarter since the second quarter of 2022. So that Q4 of '23 represents the seventh consecutive quarter of year-on-year EBITDA growth. The second point is that our EBITDA growth comes from all the regions we operate. In fact, in 2023, all regions' profitability was growing for every quarter compared to the respective quarter of the previous year. Moving now to the group volumes. In 2023, solid demand levels for the group's leading products across all main markets have resulted in increased total volumes at group level. In cement, the group's domestic cement sales increased by 2% to 17.5 million tonnes with volume increases in all regions, in Europe, in U.S., Southeast Europe and East Med. A significant increase of 5% was also noted year-on-year in ready-mix modules at 5.9 million cubic meters, while aggregates volumes also grew by 4% to a total of 19.9 million tonnes, driven mostly by the substantial demand in Greece. Now taking a quick look at our P&L. We can see that our overall costs still increased during the year, though at a much lower rate versus our sales growth. As we will see in the next slide, this overall picture, there are 2 different trends. Raw materials, staff costs, third-party fees, SG&A, were still growing at higher rates following the general inflationary trends, while energy costs were reduced due to our energy cost saving actions as well as due to nominal cost decreases. Despite higher interest rates and FX losses, mainly from Turkey and Egypt, following the high EBITDA, our net profit for the year rose to EUR 268.7 million, resulting to the high earnings per share and return on average capital employed. In the next slide, we try to illustrate the energy cost environment and the elevated current overall operational cost environment. In the left chart, you can see that our group energy cost in '23 improved versus 2022, thanks to the implementation of several energy savings actions taken, such as digital optimizers in cement production, other investments, such as the use of hydrogen injection performed during the last years, higher use of alternative fuels, lower clinker to cement ratio products and of course, also due to the more recent energy market softness. However, despite the improved energy cost performance, we still operate in a much higher cost environment. Energy costs are now up by more than 70% compared to the 2018, 2021 levels, when, on average, the energy cost [ bills] were at the range of EUR 250 million per year, while now they were over EUR 400 million. Nevertheless, cost pressures are very visible in other parts of the business as well, such as in logistics, labor, third-party fees and so on, and raw materials. And as you can see on the right-side graph, excluding energy, cost of goods sources and SG&A have risen by more than 50% over the average of 2018 to 2020. The price increases implemented in 2022 and 2023 targeted and resulted in offsetting these cost pressures leading to the reported improved margins. A quick look at our cash flow. As expected, operating cash flow was very strong, thanks to the robust EBITDA performance. With operating free cash flow close to EUR 300 million, in fact, EUR 293 million and following 1 more year of high CapEx spending, increased taxes and high returns to shareholders. The end result was still a result -- was still a decrease of net debt by EUR 137 million. Now turning to CapEx. In 2023, CapEx was sustained at high levels, allocating funds of EUR 224 million, about half of which was diverted to the U.S. Capital allocation priorities were mainly focused on sales growth and capacity expansion, cost efficiencies, transition to lower emissions, logistics, digital transformation and storage capacity expansion. In 2023, we completed some of our landmark projects, the calciner in Kamari cement plant in Athens, which will enable the group to accelerate alternative fuels utilization was commissioned last summer. The 2 new domes in the group's U.S. import terminals in Tampa in Florida and Norfolk in Virginia, which will expand our import storage capacity by more than 130,000 tonnes and the important local operations are also now complete. Other smaller investments in alternative fuels in Bulgaria and Egypt were done as well as energy savings products like photovoltaic investments in some of our Southeast Europe plants. Looking at our debt and liquidity picture. Net debt dropped by EUR 137 million, reaching EUR 660 million at year end, driving the halving of our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio to 1.2x. In December '23, we successfully issued EUR 150 million bond issued through a private placement with a 4.25% coupon and maturity of 5.5 years, effectively extending the group's debt maturity profile and reducing financing costs. The group continues to maintain very low exposure to interest rate risk as approximately 90% of debt is in fixed rates, while the next significant maturity as can be seen in the graph on the bottom of the slide, the next maturity is in 8 months from now in November 2024 for EUR 350 million. Now turning to the regional performance. Before moving into each region individually, taking a quick look at the regions. It is worth noting that the U.S. and European regions, which represent more than 90% of group sales, recorded significant sales growth double digit. Over 50% growth has been achieved in EBITDA in all regions, as mentioned earlier, where still Europe and the U.S. contribute the biggest part, which sums to about 94% of our total EUR 540 million group EBITDA. And with that, we are moving to a coverage of the individual regions, starting with the U.S., Titan's largest market, where great results were delivered in 2023. Titan America continues capitalizing on its unique product and market positioning in specific geographic areas that exhibit positive fundamentals significantly better than the U.S. national average. In 2023, infrastructure projects and commercial investments picked up, offsetting the temporary slowdown observed in the residential sector. The group successfully navigated the diverse market trends, realizing healthy sales growth throughout each quarter of the year. Titan America sales in last year rose by 16.6%, reaching approximately $1.6 billion, while EBITDA for the year exceeded $319 million, marking a substantial increase of 67% compared to a year earlier. EBITDA margin was restored at 20% with cost efficiency investments in digitalization in manufacturing, logistics, infrastructure and energy paying off. Pricing remained strong with increases across most of Titan America's main products, reflecting the strong momentum. Despite the deceleration of the rate of cost increases, costs remain elevated, especially across raw materials, labor and transportation, reflecting the remaining inflationary realities of the U.S. economy. Our results reflect the positive economic trends in our U.S. regions and the resilient demand levels. 2023 was particularly significant for Titan America in terms of progressing our strategic investment plan, as we completed on time the 2 import terminals that I referred to before as well as a series of other investments in our logistics infrastructure. Turning now to Greece. Titan's operations benefited from the favorable economic conditions prevailing in the domestic Greek market, driving strong performance. The group recorded volume growth as it was able to capitalize from the expansive construction activity in the country where investments are spread across the residential, infrastructure and tourism sectors. In total, domestic and export sales for the region for Greece and Western Europe grew by 22%, reaching EUR 408 million, thanks to significant volume increases across cement, ready-mix, aggregates and the rapidly growing mortars segment. EBITDA more than doubled year-over-year to EUR 64.7 million, with growth underpinned by higher prices in both domestic and export seaborne trade markets. Within 2023, the group made some key investments focusing on capturing future growth. This encompassed, among others, the establishment of new mobile ready-mix units and mobile equipment in the vicinity of large-scale developments. Strategic actions were also accompanied towards the expansion of our pozzolana and perlite reserves, securing our long-term supply chains for cementitious alternatives. It is worth noting that our product mix has been evolving, thanks to our concentrated effort approach to vertical integration. In 2023, we achieved the increased sales in new higher-margin products in ready-mix and mortars. Our ongoing investments towards the decarbonization of our plants progressed in 2023 with the completion of the calciner at the Kamari plant that I mentioned before. And some of you have seen during the Investor Day that we ran back in September. Now moving to Southeast Europe, where several existing drivers of growth, advanced construction activity across most of the markets where we operate in the region, marking a historic high as the total sales volumes across all markets, total of the markets, not our own share, reached a 10 million tonnes mark. The group was able to participate in the regional growth with increased sales volumes. Growth has been supported by the large infrastructure projects funded by Europe, which aim to modernize and upgrade the region as well as by private residential large-scale developments close to large urban areas where the group is conveniently located. Growing remittances in the region continue to play a major role. In this environment of growth and under the effects of resilient pricing throughout the year, sales for the region grew by 9.5% to EUR 422 million. Our EBITDA result for the year has also reached a new record level of EUR 147 million, supported also by the softening of electricity-related costs and operational efficiencies achieved. In the line with group strategy, all plants achieved in 2023 a drop in the clinker-to-cement ratio and also an increase in the use of alternative fuels. In our East Mediterranean region, both Egypt and Turkey, encountered macroeconomic imbalances throughout the past year, mainly due to the depreciation of local currencies and weak demand and pricing -- in Europe, sorry, our total sales figure for the region dropped by 6% to EUR 240 million. However, in local currencies, sales showed an increase of over 50%. EBITDA, on the other hand, strengthened and reached EUR 33 million, largely driven by the strong performance in Turkey, while however, an improved performance was recorded in Egypt as well. Starting with Egypt, where the cement market posted a 7% decline following 2 consecutive years of growth. The drop in demand was a direct result of the deterioration of the economic conditions in the country, reflecting the freeze in discussion with the IMF, the scarcity of hard currency and the consequent slowdown in public projects, along also with low household disposable income, which restricted residential construction. Titan responded to this situation by capitalizing for the first time on export opportunities for cement and clinker. During the year, the group managed also to augment the use of alternative fuels and expanded its product mix offering by increasing its share of blended cements. Now in Turkey, cement sales posted solid growth as the group increased prices to offset the devaluation of Turkish lira, while also managed to record high export volumes, leveraging the group's own terminal in Samsun, in the Black Sea. Following the earthquake in February of 2023, large investment projects have been fueling the reconstruction process, while the country's construction sector is growing despite the economic challenges as due to the soaring inflation, liquidity is channeled to real estate as anti-inflationary value measure. Increasing investments have also been registered in the tourism sector, while demand has been rising, thanks to the upgrade and restoration of existing building stock. And lastly, a word about our venture capital in Brazil. Apodi that has -- that, as a reminder, we consolidate only on an equity method. Domestic cement consumption in Brazil declined by 1.7%. However, in our own region, there was a growth in the Northeast of 0.5%. The market was negatively affected by high interest rates that prevailed during the year. Apodi posted increased sales of 11% year-on-year, reaching EUR 128 million, while EBITDA reached EUR 24.4 million, an increase of 15%. In Brazil, we'll continue focusing on pricing and special products, penetrating further the bulk cement, serving the precast industry infrastructure projects and high-rise construction. With this, I conclude the cover of our regions, and I turn over to Leonidas for the decarbonization and ESG.

Thank you, Michael. Good afternoon, and good morning. Let me actually start with some words on our digitalization strategy, which we continued to execute during the year, with efforts spanning every aspect of the value chain, from manufacturing and integrated supply chain management, all the way to enhancing the experience of our customers. In manufacturing, notable advancements included the rollout of AI-driven real-time optimizer solutions with significant savings and improved production efficiency. The deployment of machine learning for predictive maintenance has also seen widespread adoption across our cement plants, leading in this way to tangible reductions in failure costs, downtime and the unpredictability of maintenance. Capitalizing on these innovations, we also launched CemAI, offering these proprietary services to external customers as well. Additionally, we introduced a new AI-driven digital solution for cement quality prediction and are seeing very promising results already. Now in the realm of integrated supply chain management, we are trialing an AI-enhanced dynamic logistics system for concrete operations in select U.S. regions. We have introduced push notifications for our customers and dynamic dashboards with real-time analytics. We are also piloting an in-house tool for the optimization of the distribution of aggregates in the U.S. We are rolling out our customer app across the world, starting from Southeastern Europe. And we have implemented solutions to optimize the management of fast-moving spare parts, thereby reducing our working capital. Now moving on to our ESG performance in 2023. Let's look at some highlights. First of all, addressing climate change remains at the top of the group's sustainability agenda, and we continue to increase the share of green products in our portfolio, reducing our direct net emissions by 11 kilograms and by 64 kilograms or 10% versus 2020, which is our SBTi baseline. This has led to an even sharper decline in CO2 per unit of revenue, which now stands at 37% below 2020 levels. We have also significantly stepped up our investment in research and innovation, which we are convinced will further accelerate our decarbonization efforts as well. Turning our attention to our people, our greatest assets. Our lost time injury frequency rate declined to a record low, as Marcel mentioned in the beginning, demonstrating our dedication and commitment to safety. We implemented over 200 well-being initiatives during the year, and we further embraced diversity and inclusion, seeing thus a significant increase in women in management roles. Our impact, of course, extends beyond our operations to the communities that we serve. And in 2023, we launched 265 community engagement initiatives directly benefiting over 300,000 individuals. Our commitment to local development has also strengthened and reflected by our procurement practices with 68% of our spending directed towards local suppliers and communities. Last but not least, on the responsible sourcing front, we've surpassed our 2025 targets in energy efficiency and waste management, and we've made substantial progress in reducing water consumption across our operations. Now let's deep dive a little bit on decarbonization. The continuous reduction of our footprint of CO2 has been made possible through a record 19.6% utilization of alternative fuels and the further reduction of the clinker content in our cement products. To increase its offering of green products, the group has not only invested in expanding its logistics capacity but has also secured over 100 million tonnes of pozzolan reserves in Greece through its participation in Aegean Perlites and in Turkey, where it acquired concession rights in Vezirhan in East Marmara. A major milestone of the year was also the selection of the IFESTOS carbon capture and storage project in Greece by the EU Innovation Fund for a grant of EUR 234 million. The project seeks to capture almost 2 million tonnes of CO2 per annum. This is about 1/5 of our group emissions and to produce over 3 million tonnes of carbon neutral cement for use in the market of Athens and beyond. Now our ESG efforts have been recognized once again by key rating agencies. For the second consecutive year, we've been included in the CDP's A List, reflecting our leadership in climate change transparency and mitigation, and we've also achieved an A- score for water security. We maintained our AA MSCI rating, further improved our ratings by ISS and S&P and received high assessment scores from other expected organizations. Now a few words on my side also on innovation. In 2023, we launched a EUR40 million venture capital fund designed to foster innovation within the construction ecosystem and early exposure to transformative green technologies. We made the strategic investment in Zacua Ventures, which is an early-stage global venture fund focused on sustainable construction and the built environment. We also increased our investment in Rondo, which is a U.S.-based innovator in zero-carbon industrial heat and energy storage solutions. We extended our portfolio as well by investing in Carbon Upcycling, whose technology enables the injection and permanent storage of captured CO2 into industrial byproducts and minerals, converting them into high-performance cementitious materials for use in cement and concrete, something that is critical to our green growth strategy. And we are actively exploring additional technologies for the activation of SCMs. We supported Natrx as well, a company specializing in high-performance, nature-based solutions for coastal resilience and protection, which has a very nice geographical fit with our U.S. operations in Titan America. Moreover, we joined forces with Orcan Energy to explore the scale-up potential and benefits of a new modular technology that can convert large waste heat volumes into clean and affordable energy. We continue to experiment with 3D printing and carbon capture solutions and our involvement in the HERCCULES CCUS research project, along with other partners, underscores our commitment to exploring and demonstrating the viability of carbon capture utilization and storage technologies across Southern Europe. Last but not least, we took steps to enhance our innovation culture, including an internal ideation challenge that generated over 200 innovative ideas. That's all on my end.

Okay. So we close the presentation with an outlook statement. As you may have figured out, we are quite optimistic for 2024. In the U.S., the construction market is expected to grow, thanks to the combination of increased infrastructure and commercial activity. The momentum is driven by the surge in large scale and infrastructure projects, effectively outweighing declines in the interest rate sensitive categories of residential and light nonresidential. However, any such softness should not last long countered by buoyant demand in the regions we operate. The pricing outlook for cement, ready-mix and aggregates remains positive. Tight supply in the face of strong demand fortifies this outlook. The strength of the U.S. economy, coupled with healthy state financials, population growth, housing pent-up demand and expected infrastructure funding boost should all weigh positively on demand for our products in the forthcoming years. Notably, our operations are strengthened and our market-enhanced presence with the addition of 2 new domes in Florida and Virginia. They position us for continued success in the country. In Greece, construction activity should continue to expand in 2024, supported by the implementation of the European Recovery and Resilience Plan and a resilient economy. The construction sector should continue growing as many large infrastructure projects as well are on the way and also numerous other infrastructure and land development projects across the mainland. The group will continue developing its capacity to service efficiently this growing market's needs, expanding its product offering and further capitalizing on its more than 150 million tonnes recently acquired reserves of aggregates, pozzolana and perlite. In the markets in Southeast Europe, which have exhibited resilience despite political uncertainty and global geopolitical tensions, growth is set to accelerate moderately ahead, with inflation expected to soften, while wage growth and remittances bolster disposable incomes, coupled with substantial stimulus supporting major public infrastructure projects. EU accession negotiations may accelerate structural reforms bolstering fiscal sustainability. Amidst this environment, the group is investing further solidifying its profitability in the region by more efficiency and capacity improvement investments. Turning to the East Med. In Turkey, the Central Bank has signaled its mandate to cool inflation with a return to more orthodox policies. This is balanced by the country's economic strengths, such as a relatively high per capital income and dynamic and entrepreneurial private sector, together with a more diversified economy. This leads us to expect a further growth in the Turkish market. In Egypt, we had very significant developments last week. First, ADQ, an Abu Dhabi investment vehicle launched, a $35 billion investment into a new mega real estate development project, west of Alexandria, with a large part of the funds already injected in Egypt. In parallel and simultaneously, I would say, the IMF bailout loan was increased to $8 billion, while the Central Bank increased interest rates and allowed Egyptian pound to devalue and float. These news are setting a new scene for the Egyptian economy and the Egyptian as a country, the country default risk is practically no longer a concern. And as the market will now operate freely and international trade is unblocked. These developments clearly set a more optimistic outlook for the Egyptian market. And beyond this, I will turn to Marcel to close with our strategic outlook.

Thank you, Michael. So a positive outlook for the group. We -- practically, we are firing from all engines, well positioned for growth. Our exposure to infrastructure segment is a healthy one, and we will keep investing at similar levels to 2023, with more than 50% of our investments being focused on growth. So we continue pursuing our strategic 2026 priorities. We are well on track to deliver on our strategy target by focusing on the existing core business and attractive market by increasing the time to market of green materials and solutions and by taking new technologies in order to lower the cost and improve the efficiencies. With this, the formal presentation is over. So open to questions, Spyros, please.

[Operator Instructions] The first question is from the line of Athanasoulias Nikos with Eurobank Equities.

I have 3 short questions for you. First one is, you mentioned that you are well on track to reach your 2026 goals in all of your activities. But with regard to financials, it seems that you've already achieved and -- your goals and effectively made the EPS target, for example, obsolete. Where does the group head now? What's your outlook? I know it's optimistic, but should we expect a continuous growth of that caliber or give us a little bit more color on that. The second one is regarding EBITDA margin. I think you mentioned -- I saw -- I read somewhere that you expect margin expansion. But based on your strategy, you have -- you will have a tilt towards lower-margin activities such as aggregates and ready-mix. So how does that reconcile? And the third one is regarding your dividend strategy. You did not step up the dividend despite the step-up in -- significant step-up in profitability. Given that this is a new base for profitability for the group, shouldn't the payout ratio remain stable in the 40% or 50% that was last year in 2021?

Thank you. I will take the first 2 questions, and I will give you the dividends one, Michael. So 2026 goals, we are well on track to achieve our targets, both in terms of sales growth over the period. But also, we have guided that it will be -- there will be an overproportional growth of EBITDA at an average of 10% per year. So we had also nonfinancial targets. So we pursue those targets. If we update the targets midyear, we will come back and confirm those to you. I think in terms of EBITDA margin, you have seen a record EBITDA margin in 2023. We are increasingly confident that those margins can be sustained, and the first 2 months of the year are confirming that. And thanks to the vertical integration, we see improving margins in ready-mix. And thanks to the disciplined capital allocation, the few bolt-ons we have done so far in aggregate that are also meant to improve the overall margin. So we will focus more on this at the publication of quarter -- first quarter and half year results. On dividends?

Okay. On dividends, you are right to raise the question, but dividends don't usually -- don't typically follow on a straight line, the net profitability. The distributed -- the proposal for EUR 0.85 is already a 42% increase compared to last year. And we would like to have, let's say, a smaller trajectory of the dividend growth and not to follow any ups and downs of the net profit line. And there is an additional comment to be made. We have to say that we are -- even ourselves, to some extent, we were positively surprised by the end result of the year. We did expect a very good year. We made our plans early in 2023, including the strategy plan that you saw in September. We have been positively surprised by the markets. We have to remain committed to the strategic dimension of the plan. There will probably be acquisition opportunities that we'll have to look at. So it would be a bit premature to jump to, let's say, doubling the dividend within 1 year. We can review the situation next year after we see whether the actual plan and our optimism is materializes, but also after reviewing what opportunities we may have for growth and for allocating capital.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from the line of Kourtesis Iakovos with Piraeus Securities.

Congratulations on the great set of results. My question is about CapEx. How do you expect it to move towards in 2024? And I know you've said that you are optimistic about the first -- you've seen the encouraging signs in the first 2 months of 2024. Any news about the pricing in the U.S.? Did you manage to take further pricing initiatives at the start of the new year, especially in Florida?

I will take the CapEx question. We continue to face more and more attractive opportunities for CapEx, which allow us not only to decrease cost, but also to expand our effective capacity. So the 2024 CapEx is expected is going to be over EUR 200 million in the range of EUR 200 million to EUR 250 million, probably closer to the higher range. But as long as good opportunities come up with good returns and the early paybacks, there are many early payback opportunities in the energy saving, in the alternative fuel usage areas where we continue to focus. And I will add a comment about Egypt now with the liberalization of the currency and hopefully, the improvement in the market conditions, there are opportunities in Egypt to -- also to invest in the energy cost improvements, which will have a good impact on the bottom line.

As for pricing, thank you for the question. So we currently see in the market positive context for further price increases, both in U.S. and Europe. We are currently discussing with customers for price increases in some markets we have already announced. It's premature to say how -- what the lending is for this. We will report more at the time of quarter 1 results. But overall, it's a positive environment for further price increases, not at the levels of 2022 or early 2023, but rather a resilient market. And this is justified also by our continued drive for investments, growth investments, improving also the quality of service to our customers.

[Operator Instructions] There are no further audio questions. We will now proceed with written questions from our webcast participants. The next question is from Mr. Auguste Deryckx, and I apologize if I'm not pronouncing this correctly. And I quote, hello and congratulations on these results. #1, have you reached a low level of debt at 1.2x EBITDA? Do you plan to accelerate CapEx? And if so, and in what area, environmental transition, more production capacity, et cetera, is an M&A operation conceivable? The first question. Would you like to answer this question first, and then I can proceed with the second question?

Well, I think on the first question, it's the same that [ Iakovos ] was mentioned before. So it's already been answered.

Okay. And the second question is, there is a EUR 350 million bond due to mature by December. Have you already refunded it? And congratulations again.

We have refunded part of it through the private placement, the EUR 150 million we raised last December. We are in no rush to refinance the balance as we see strong cash flow coming from operations during the year. So we may need very little. And that can be refinanced from our banking lines, so there is no pressure or need for an early bond issue in '24.

We have another question from one of our webcast participants, [ David Tomlinson ] from Franklin Templeton. What do you plan to do regarding your 2024 bond maturity?

I think we just answered that.

Okay, perfect. Ladies and gentlemen, there are no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference over to Mr. Colakides for any closing comments. Thank you.

Well, I would like to thank you all for attending. Just to remind you that the first quarter results will be announced on the same day as Annual General Assembly on May 9. And I hope we'll be in a position to report to you equally good results as we have done today. Thank you.

Ladies and gentlemen, the conference has now concluded, and you may disconnect your telephone. Thank you for calling, and have a good afternoon.