Vesuvius plc (VSVS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Vesuvius Capital Markets Day. My name is Patrick Andre. I'm the Chief Executive of Vesuvius. And with me today are Mark Collis, our Chief Financial Officer; Pascal Genest, the President of our Flow Control division; Karena Cancilleri, the President of our Foundry Division; and Richard Sykes, the President of our Advanced Refractories division. I will start by giving you a global overview of our strategy and the main drivers of the Steel and Foundry markets. Then the 3 division presidents will present to you in more details their activities, ambitions. Mark will also give you more details of our financial performance and midterm objectives. Then after a quick conclusion, we will open the floor for questions. What are the main messages of our presentation today? First, the 2 main markets where Vesuvius operates, Steel and Foundry. We experienced positive growth over the coming years. This will, in particular, be the case for the Steel markets outside of China, which is a reversal of the trend of the past years with very positive implications for Vesuvius. Second, the business model of Vesuvius, which is based on technological differentiation, enable us to outperform our underlying markets. Third point, our profitability will continue to increase, and we will target this to exceed 12.5% latest in 2026. Three self-help levers will enable us to reach this objective; market share gain and net pricing performance, both made possible by our technological differentiation. And third point, further cost improvements of at least GBP 3 million by 2026. These cost improvements represents the equivalent of around 150 basis points of return on sales improvement. This profitable growth strategy coupled with our asset-light business model, requiring only a very limited amount of capital investment means we expect to generate at least GBP 400 million of free cash flow after CapEx over the next 3 years. And thanks to that, to increase return to shareholders. But before developing this point further, I think it's useful to remind what is the business of Vesuvius. Vesuvius is not a generalist refractory producer. Vesuvius is a specialist provider of high-technology solutions to the steel and foundry industries. The foundation of our business model is a world-class R&D organization. More than 95% of our sales are high technology consumables. So we are not dependent on the CapEx cycles of our customers. Our products, which represent less than 3% of the production cost of our customers create very significant value in the process of these customers, alongside 4 dimensions. First, safety. Our products improve the safety of our customers' operations and decrease the risk of accidents for their employees. Second, quality. Our products enable the production of higher quality and better performing steel and castings. Third, efficiency. The higher performance of our products enables the steel and foundry producers to optimize their production cost. Last, but not least, sustainability. Our products will generally enable our customers to reduce their energy consumption and their CO2 emissions. Vesuvius is active in every region of the world, which positions us very well to take advantage of the favorable steel and foundry dynamics. The black dots on the map represent our manufacturing plants and the red dots, our R&D centers. You can see that we have a strong presence in the fastest-growing regions of India, Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. Our plants in EMEA are also now mostly located in low-cost Eastern European countries and are ideally positioned not only to serve the mature Western European area, but also the fast-growing North Africa and Middle East markets. This global network of manufacturing plants enables us to produce close to the location of our customers and to customize and adapt rapidly our offering to the evolution of their specific needs. It also allows us to attract talents in emerging countries who can then pursue an international career in the Vesuvius Group. Over the past 7 years, 15 manufacturing operations have been closed in the mature North America and Western Europe regions, both in the Steel and Foundry divisions and the corresponding capacity has been relocated to low-cost fast-growing areas. And today, thanks to this manufacturing footprint optimization, which is now mostly over. We are ideally positioned to benefit from the growth of the steel and foundry market in emerging countries. And you can see in the pie chart on the bottom right of the slide, that our sales in the mature areas of North America and Western Europe already represent less than 50% of our sales. Let's now get back to the main messages, starting with the steel market. The most important point here is that we believe that we are at an inflection point. Over the past 10 years, most of the growth of the steel market has been concentrated in China, where Vesuvius realizes only around 10% of its sales. The market dynamics of the next 10 years will be very good, due in particular to the fast development of India and to a lesser extent, of Southeast Asia, Middle East, Africa and Latin America. The decarbonation of Western economies, which will require very significant incremental amount of steel will also support the steel consumption in the world outside of China. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act in the U.S. could increase the yearly U.S. steel consumption by close to 5%. All in all, we believe that the steel production outside China will increase by at least 200 million tons or around 25% in the coming 10 years, half of it in India. And this is probably a conservative estimate. You may have heard the ArcelorMittal estimate. ArcelorMittal has assessed that the demand for steel outside China is expected to increase by 300 million tonnes over the next decade. So our 200 million tonnes is probably a cautious assessment. This new trend will represent a significant tailwind for Vesuvius as we realize 90% of our sales outside China. To be noted, however, that despite the expected reduction in steel production in China, with Vesuvius, we will continue to grow in China, through mostly the Flow Control division. Because the Flow Control division will benefit from the gradual evolution of the Chinese steel sector towards a more sophisticated steel product mix. Let's now zoom in a bit more to see where exactly the steel production growth will happen in the coming years. As already mentioned, India will represent around 50% of the global growth. But besides India, other regions will also expand rapidly their production. In particular, Southeast Asia, North Africa, Middle East and Latin America will all see significant steel production increases in the coming 10 years. The production capacity expansions of Vesuvius launched over the past 2 years in the very cost-competitive locations of India, Eastern Europe and Mexico are all scheduled to be completed by mid-2024, next year. This will position the group very well to benefit from this growth of the steel market in the coming years. Our Flow Control division, more specially will also continue to benefit from the progressive evolution of the steel sector, not only in China but worldwide towards more technology-intensive type of steels, either because the steel is being produced through sophisticated processes like thin slab casting or because it is designed to highly demanding end markets like automotive, engineering or energy. This high-technology steel sector, representing around 34% of the steel market today, could represent around 43% of the global market 10 years from now with a share of more traditional long steel product construction declining percentage-wise. You can see on the bottom right of the slide, that Flow Control already realizes 58% of its sales in this faster-growing part of the steel market, which will continue to support the above-average growth of the Flow Control division in the coming years. It should also be noted that the profitability of sales in the high-technology steel market is generally higher than ever. Let's now turn to the Foundry market. Most of the Foundry division end markets are expected to grow at around 2% per year volume-wise on average over the coming 10 years. The only exception is the light vehicle market, where due to the gradual electrification of the vehicle fleet, the end market is expected to remain stable. This light vehicle end market, however, represents only around 23% of the global Foundry division end markets, which is the lowest percentage amongst its global competitors. Furthermore, the Foundry division has engaged for a few years now into R&D strategy to develop new technological products to accelerate its penetration of the growing aluminum casting sector for the automotive market, which we believe enables the division to continue to grow in the light vehicle sector. I'm sure you've heard about the mega casting that Tesla is introducing for the manufacturing of new electric vehicle. Both our steel and foundry markets, we experienced positive growth trends in the coming years. But our ambition is to do better and outperform these markets. To fulfill this ambition, we rely on the Vesuvius business model. The foundations of this model are both our core values of courage, ownership, respect and energy and our organizational principles. We are a decentralized entrepreneurial and non-matrix organization where entrepreneurial managers close to the customers are empowered to make quick and efficient decisions to propose high technology and customized solutions to our customers to help them solve their problems. This high level of entrepreneurial spirits and high reactivity are key assets of Vesuvius in the international competition. Based on these foundations, our business model is supported by 2 main pillars: first, a leading world-class R&D capability; and second, a relentless focus on cost competitiveness. The first pillar, a leading R&D strategy enables us to simultaneously optimize our pricing and gain market share. We are not gaining market share through pricing, we are gaining market share with technology. And the second pillar, a strong focus on cost control enables us to continuously improve and optimize our manufacturing cost base. And as a result, we are confident in our ability to reach our target profitability of at least 12.5% in 2026 and also to continue to generate a significant free cash flow after CapEx in the coming years, as Mark will explain in detail later. R&D is the first pillar of our business model. Our R&D community gathers more than 250 talented scientists and technicians from 18 nationalities operating within a network of 6 research centers located all over the world. Next to our historical research centers in Europe and North America, we've opened in the past 5 years, 2 new research centers in India and in China to attract some of the best minds in those countries. At the same time that we expanded the geographical footprint of our R&D, we also optimized the management of our R&D resources, increasing and concentrating at the same time our R&D efforts on a reduced number of high-impact programs. And the success of this R&D strategy over the past years, can be evidenced through the evolution of our new product sales ratio. This is defined as a percentage of our turnover realized with products which didn't exist 5 years earlier. You can see on the right part of the slide that this new product sales ratio has consistently moved upwards over the past 8 years and should reach and stabilize above 20% by 2026, coming from 11% in 2014. Thanks to this effort of R&D, our innovation pipeline is now very dynamic and full. And this will support the continuous introduction of new products on the market over the coming 3 years and beyond. This focus on R&D has enabled us to progressively build and maintain a strong technology leadership, which in terms enable us to simultaneously optimize pricing and gain market share. Regarding pricing, our technological differentiation enable us to fully pass through to our customers, the fluctuation of all cost factors in our manufacturing process and in particular, the variations of raw material prices. But beyond this full pass-through, we are also optimizing our pricing by sharing with our customers the value that our solutions create in their production process. Regarding market share gains, the long-term structural trend towards more technically advanced steels and castings, increases customers' demand for our technologically advanced solutions enabling us to outperform the market actually in Flow Control and in Foundry. The second pillar of our business model is our relentless focus on cost optimization. Beyond the manufacturing footprint optimization already implemented in the past 7 years, we have identified an incremental GBP 30 million of potential recurring savings, which we intend to realize in the coming 3 years. These savings relate to both manufacturing and SG&A. As the majority of those savings will be achieved through our lean and continuous improvement programs and through the automation and digitalization of our manufacturing but also administrative processes. We will, however, also take advantage of a few remaining opportunities to optimize our manufacturing footprint. The cash cost of this cost optimization program will be around GBP 40 million, out of which 75%, GBP 30 million will be CapEx and GBP 10 million of restructuring costs. We intend to take those restructuring costs above the line. So we expect that the program will have a net slightly negative impact of GBP 3 million to GBP 5 million in 2024 when restructuring costs will slightly exceed savings, but net positive benefits will start to flow into our P&L as from 2025, with full benefit expected in 2026. The 2 pillars of our strategy: leading R&D and focus on cost control, will allow us not only to reach and I hope, exceed our target of 12.5% return on sales in 2026, but also to generate a minimum of GBP 400 million of free cash flow after CapEx over the next 3 years. This will give us a means to conduct a very selective and disciplined M&A strategy focusing only on potential opportunities, which would bring us technological or geographical complementarity. But this will also give us the means to improve our shareholders' cash returns, both through our regular dividends, but also through share buybacks. At the same time, as we will be improving our financial performance, we will also continue to make significant progress in our sustainability journey. Regarding our objective to progressively reach a net zero carbon footprint in 2050. We expect this year to exceed our first intermediary target of a 20% reduction, which we initially planned to reach only in 2025. So we are ahead of plan. And we are fully on track to reach latest by 2035, our second intermediary target of a 50% reduction in our carbon footprint. Regarding safety, as you can see on the right part of the slide. We are continuously improving our performance. And we should be, for the first time this year, below the threshold of 1 lost-time accident per 1 million of hours worked, which positions us among the best-in-class companies worldwide, not only in refractories, but among all companies worldwide. We intend to continue our journey towards our objective of 0 accidents in the coming years. You will find on this slide, a reminder of our key messages today. Positive growth trends in our steel and foundry end markets with, in particular, a positive inflection in steel markets outside of China. Vesuvius aims to outperform these underlying markets, thanks to its technology-based strategy. This will enable us to reach our targeted return on sales of at least 12.5% in 2026. And this will also enable us to deliver on our target of cumulative free cash flow after CapEx of more than GBP 400 million in the coming 3 years to the benefit of our shareholders. I will now hand over to Pascal who will give you more color on our Flow Control division strategy and ambitions.

Good afternoon. Thank you, Patrick, for the introduction. I am Pascal Genest. I worked on Vesuvius since 2021 -- January 2021 as President of Flow Control. I have enjoyed my last 20 year, working experience in steel, working in 7 years in finance and my first 7 years in aluminum. I joined Flow Control for 3 reasons, which makes the business attractive and that I will develop during my presentation. Number one, the business generates recurrent cash flows because we offer comprehensive end-to-end solutions. Number two, we are a global player with a deep understanding of the customer pain points and their needs. And number three, we provide a business-critical service, which drives the growth of both the top line and the bottom line. These 3 points made me excited every morning when I woke up. There are the reasons, we generate record results in recent years, and they inspire me to set even higher targets from my team. Flow Control is an end-to-end solution provider through the supply of technologically differentiated products and systems and related services. To give a sense on how we do this, we use computers to model, fluid and material. We then identify repetitive dangerous tasks and developed robots. All of our systems involve customized consumables, which is a great revenue stream which on average, deliver 5x per year the cost of systems. Finally, our digital solutions monitor the processes and provide real-time data to optimize the casting process. Our end-to-end solution is made of a number of very high-quality products. We continuously invest in research and development, with 155 professionals and 40% of engineers have PhDs, and also with artificial intelligence tools that already brings creative ideas. We are leaders in the field of mechatronics applied to steel continuous casters. What I'm talking about here is a special application of engineering, computer science, robotic and mechanical systems, 135 engineers and experts from product development to installation, 40 robots installed and 10,000 systems on the ladles and tundishes. I heard previous feedback that Flow Control business is complex. So I would like to clarify a few definitions. Flow Control, the name of the business unit relates to 2 functions in 2 product ranges of refractories to master the flow of liquid steel from the ladle to the tundish, to the tundish to the mold. VISO, Vesuvius's isostatic refers to tubes made of refractory materials shaped in isostatic presses, containing and directing the liquid steel between the equipment, against the ladle, the tundish and mold. And Slidegate as a function of the tap, regulating the speed in which liquid steel flow in the VISO tubes. Flow Control is the #1 player worldwide on both VISO and Slidegate. The combined sales of these 2 product ranges represent 80% of the revenues of Flow Control. So we not only maintain, but gain market share by regularly launching new products. I will highlight in a later slide the example of a new VISO tube from tundish to mold with a product name of DuraSleeve. Flow Control is a global player with a deep understanding of customer pain points and the needs. Nearly 60% of all the steel plants worldwide are active customers of Flow Control. Our presence is even higher for quality demanding steel rates and for the most technologically advanced casting technology, for example, thin lab casting, already mentioned by Patrick. To maintain our strong position in the market, we need to be physically present regionally with technical support, experts and with R&D centers. I keep growing salespeople and technical experts with almost a continuous presence on the large customer sites. Our installed systems and the service contract generate recurrent revenues accounting for most of our Flow Control sales. Two examples in the next 2 slides illustrating how we serve our market. To demonstrate our technology has improved safety, quality, efficiency and sustainability, I thought that I will explain some of the processes at customer site. To connect the ladle to the tundish, we need a VISO tube through which liquid steel flows. [ Suspense ] needs to be fitted to the bottom of the ladle. Then the casting operator will start tapping of the ladle by moving the plate in the Slidegate so that the liquid steel can flow through the whole of the plate. The casting operators need to take steel sample in the tundish and drop the protective powder, the flux on the liquid steel. These are extremely dangerous procedures carried out by people. I am very proud of our engineers who successfully automated this process using robots in the old style, dusty, and [indiscernible]. Let me show what I mean. [Presentation]

As you have seen on the video, we have said new standard of safety. Keeping the operators significantly safer by reducing their presence. It is hard to imagine a new continuous caster project to be authorized without this level of safety. As I told you before, it is DuraSleeve, a VISO product, another example of our solution-driven approach to the market. In the video, you saw a VISO tube between the ladle and the tundish. DuraSleeve is the segment threshold, the tube between the tundish and the mold. The segment threshold is eroding while metal flows through it. It is often the limiting factor of the life of tundish and of the length of the casting sequence or the number of ladles being poured in the tundish. DuraSleeve has an extended life being more resistant to steel corrosion by 20% versus standard segment thresholds. It enables to extend by 20%, the life of the full tundish, which is a major cost saving for customer and a significant gain in productivity. DuraSleeve is therefore sold at a premium, sharing the value created between customers and Vesuvius. Critical to our success is having skilled salespeople. Caster managers lead a difficult and fragile process. They are naturally risk adverse, and there are on changes as long as not required. The salesperson need conviction and relevant arguments to have the caster manager, testing and evaluating new products and solutions. We, therefore, invest a lot of time and energy to train our salespeople in soft and technical skill. We also have developed software tools for the calculation of the economic value of our offers and for price setting. We provide business critical service, which drives the growth of both the top line and the bottom line. I will continue to grow the business, leveraging our end-to-end solution and reinforcing Flow Control as a reference for the refractory in the steel continuous caster. We shall also benefit from external positive drivers for growth. So steel production has doubled in size since I joined the steel sector 20 years ago and it will continue to grow. Patrick has shown that high tech steel is enjoying a significant faster growth on a worldwide basis. This high-tech steel market represents 58% of Flow Control sales. We have a strong presence in fast-growing geographies: India, NAFTA, Turkey, Middle East, Africa and the China Hi-Tech segment. So the steel industry is revamping its industrial assets as part of their decarbonization journey. Flow Control is a natural partner for OEMs and steel makers. They want to optimize the efficiency of their new assets and their safety for the operators. Flow Control has the right industrial footprint for cost-efficient large plants, leveraging both proximity to main markets and economies of scale. With the capacity investment completed in the last few years, we have increased by 20% plus -- we can increase by 20% plus, our VISO and Slidegate production volumes. Fluxes, which are the powder and granulates to cover the liquid steel, the tundish and the mold. To follow the growth of Fluxes, we are erecting a new plant in India, expected to start production in Q2 2024. So we have a network of plants that deliver to customer, business continuity, on-time delivery, consistent quality, optimize total cost of ownership and the access to the best and latest technology. Flow Control enjoyed a network of 40 engineers in its main plant for continuous improvement and cost optimization. We are now using AI solutions to define new roles to integrate raw material specification to our manufacturing process into the specific customer applications. Flow Control will be a sizable contributor to the group's GBP 30 million gains in operation efficiency. All what I presented has become reality, thanks to the talented, professional Vesuviusians. What makes us, the Vesuviusians, proud of our business. Let me use an analogy to illustrate how important the refractories are for the steel making. The refractory industry is the mother of the steel industry. Refractories are holding the [ pig iron ] and the liquid steel. So each step of the transformation: blast furnace, steelmaking, casting, to protect steel from reoxidation and impurities until delivery as a casted semi product. You see the similarity with the mother carrying a baby, protecting them from the outside world and until delivery. Steel is everywhere around us. Housing and construction, transportation, energy, tooling for agriculture, steel demand grows with the population and the economic development. Steel and refractories are here forever. As a result of this, we are able to attract talent to join us in the refractory industry, offering them fulfilling career path worldwide in all activities of the Vesuvius Group. To sum up: one, the business generates recurrent cash flows because we offer comprehensive end-to-end solutions; two, we are a global player with a deep understanding of customer pain points and their needs; three, we provide a business critical service, which drives the growth of both the top line and the bottom line. I am confident that Flow Control will remain a resilient and growing business, getting value for customers and ensuring a good return for shareholders. Thank you very much for your attention. I now hand over to Richard.

Thanks, Pascal. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Richard Sykes. I'm a chartered accountant and I joined Vesuvius in 1998, following the acquisition of Premier Refractories, where I was Finance Director. I've held a number of senior management positions in Vesuvius, most recently Vice President of Flow Control EMEA and President of Business Development. I am now President of Advanced Refractories and Advanced Refractories and Flow Control make up the Steel division of Vesuvius. Before explaining what we do in Advanced Refractories, I'd like to stop with what a refractory is. Simply put, a refractory is a material that is resistant to decomposition either by heat or by chemical attack. A material that maintains its strength and shape at high temperatures and refractories can either be consumed in a matter of minutes or many years depending on the industry and the process. Without refractories, industries around the globe will be unable to produce materials vital for everyday living. Without refractories, we will not be able to build houses, make cars, drink from cans, refine oil or incinerate our waste. But let me get back to what we do at Advanced Refractories. At Advanced Refractories, not only do we sell refractory products, but we sell combinations of products and services that create genuine value for our customers. Let me explain. Our sales and profits are supported in 3 main areas: Firstly, through material science and new product development, we have developed market-leading products in magnesia carbon bricks and in alumina silicate monolithics, of which the quick start is just one example. But when Advanced Refractories products are combined with Flow Control products, we have an offer that few competitors can match. The second area is through our on-site support services where we install our products or where we manage the total refractory requirements, including the supply chain from beginning of the steelmaking process to the end of steelmaking process, a fully outsourced solution for the customer. And contracts like this are becoming more and more important as customers own in-house refractory knowledge is diminished, and they tend to be of longer duration. Finally, we can bring industry-leading technology and mechatronic solutions. And by that, I mean robots and automation. And through a combination of these offerings, we seek to maximize the value of our sales for Vesuvius and for our customer, where we add value in 4 areas: safety, quality, efficiency and sustainability. I want to be clear, we're not trying to offer all possible products to all possible customers. Our objective is to improve profitability. Our growth is focused in 4 main areas where we believe we have market-leading solutions that command higher margins and are differentiators. The first area is Tundish Solutions, where we believe we have a worldwide opportunity. For those of you who don't know what a tundish is, it's basically just a big bath or reservoir used to transfer liquid steel from a ladle to the mold in the continuous casting process. We are introducing our new range of QuickStart products and QuickStart range means exactly what it says. It significantly reduces the drying cycle of the tundish. This allows for a faster turnaround time for the customer and a quicker start. It also reduces costs and CO2 emissions. But in addition, Vesuvius can also offer tundish robots to eliminate manpower by automating the lining installation, improving consistency, increasing reliability whilst removing people from dangerous areas of the steel plant. Finally, we can also partner with Flow Control products to offer a total tundish solution that improves the steel quality for our customers and we can share in the value that that's created. Our second strategic area is in laser monitoring and robotic gunning. We are in the process of rolling out our combined offering of bricks, laser scanning and automated gunning solutions. This is known as VARG or Vesuvius Advanced Robotic Gunning. And for those of you who don't know what gunning is, I'd like to play a short video. [Presentation]

The VARG high-speed gunning system reduces the time required for furnace repair, thereby returning the furnace back to productive service more quickly, increasing the customers' productivity. It also reduces the lost energy by protecting the residual lining temperature, saving CO2 emissions. In this way, we seek to generate a higher level of recurring revenue whilst enabling Vesuvius to share in the value created for the customer. We're also combining our digital scanning solutions with predictive technology. Predictive technology is being used with scanning to estimate the useful life of a vessel lining, which again delivers value to the customer in 4 main areas. Firstly, it reduces cost by maximizing the life of the lining. It avoids dangerous breakouts of molten steel. It improves yield and data granularity, and it allows for an improved performance in both steelmaking practices and refractories. Our third strategic area is relining, where we seek to leverage our highly efficient plant in China through increasing volumes and sales of new products in markets where we are traditionally underrepresented such as India, Americas and Asia. We also want to increase our penetration in the higher-margin segments of electric car furnaces and basic oxygen furnaces. And finally, our fourth strategic area is industrial processes. Process industries include aluminum, cement and foundries, just to name a few. In cement, we continue to develop our product portfolio to access wider markets across the world. And in the aluminum industry, we're working closely on a project which is developing a new process to revolutionize the way of making aluminum. This technology aims to eliminate direct greenhouse gas emissions from the aluminum smelting process. The technology is currently in the industrialization phase but has the potential to transform the industry. So in summary, we believe we can grow profitably through our market-leading solutions that command higher margins and are differentiated. Slide, please. Our research and development focus is developing products that provide clear value to our customers and support our strategy of differentiation. Over the past 3 years, we have reorganized the department and increased our investment. Our aim has been to create a work environment that promotes innovation and technical collaboration. We've created 3 teams: in Asia Pacific, in the Americas and in EMEA. And in addition to that, we've also created centers of excellence for each of our product lines. In Ghlin, Belgium, we've built a new R&D facility in close proximity to Flow Control allowing greater cooperation and collaboration between business units. We've also invested in people. We currently employ 50 people in Advanced Refractories Research and Development with 60% holding either a PhD or master's qualification. We are rich in diversity with over 10 different nationalities and our level investment continues to increase. We have seen 8% annual growth from 2020 to 2022, and we continue to build our pipeline of new products. Again, these are centered on the 4 strategic focus areas I outlined earlier. We also have further efficiency gains in our manufacturing operations that can be realized through technology transfers across manufacturing plants, through consolidation of manufacturing activities in Americas, and ongoing lean and waste initiatives. Investments in automation and new equipment will also reduce further costs and improve efficiencies. In particular, investments in the automation and packaging lines and guard vehicle all of these efficiency initiatives will support profitability improvements. Finally, we are investing in new capacity, as Patrick previously announced. Unlike some of our competitors, we believe it's better to invest in new capacity in growth markets than to acquire existing assets. Indian steel production is forecast to grow by over 6% per annum with 100 million tonnes of new production expected in the next 10 years. In order to satisfy that growth, we are investing in 2 new manufacturing facilities, a new aluminosilicate plant at Vizag in India with a capacity of 120,000 tonnes per annum, which we expect to be operational in mid-2024. This will support the growth not only in iron and steel production, but also to support growth in the industrial process sales where we've seen a 47% growth over the past 3 years, principally in cement and aluminum. Our second investment is in providing additional basis monolithic capacity to support both our tundish solutions and our robotic gunning capacity capability. Initial capacity will be 70,000 tonnes per annum but can be scaled up to 110,000 tonnes per annum in the future. And again, we expect the plant to be operational in March 2024. Both investments will cost less than GBP 10 million, but we'll have state-of-the-art technology and digitalization from the outset. We expect our efficiency at these sites to be best-in-class and further benefits will be realized as volume increases. In conclusion, I'd let you to take the following: Firstly, we're not trying to sell all products to all customers. We will grow profitability through bringing together products and services where we have the greatest differentiation, through focus on geographical areas where we have the greatest opportunities, supported by our newly restructured research and development organization and through further manufacturing automation and optimization. Many thanks for listening. That concludes the Advanced Refractories presentation. I understand we'll now be taking a break before restarting with foundry. And during the break, please take the time to look at our displays and our videos, which are outside in the coffee area, and there will be some of my Vesuvius colleagues to answer any questions that you may have. Thank you very much. [Break]

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back. My name is Karena Cancilleri. I'm in charge of the Foundry business unit, and I joined Vesuvius in October 2019. I started my career at Shell, where I spent 10 years in specialty polymers. Afterwards, I worked for 3 different private equity-backed firms, serving different industries from personal care, automotive and floor coverings. Today, I would like to explain to you what we do, what our strategy is, the importance of R&D and how we will continue to drive out costs in operations. We are the world leader for the supply of products and services to both ferrous and non-ferrous foundries to support their casting processes. We generated approximately GBP 550 million in revenues in 2022. 70% of our revenues come from consumable products, where we are the market leader. Our products are critical to our customers. We improve both their metal quality -- metal casting quality and also their production efficiencies. The cost of our product represents less than 5% of the overall spending, a low amount relative to the high value we deliver. We are highly diversified by geography with our 26 plants by customers, with our 5,000 customers. No single customer represents more than 3% of revenues. So our commercial risk is spread. By end market, serving a wide range of industries like automotive, machinery, general engineering, mining, agriculture and infrastructure. When I became President of Foundry business unit, the key question was how to deliver attractive top line growth. At that time, I asked myself 2 questions. First, how can we outperform the end markets outside the light vehicle market which, as Patrick explained, represents the majority of our business, namely 77% of our total sales and which is growing at approximately 2% CAGR. I will go into more details throughout the presentation. But clearly, our focus is on the geographies, the end-use markets and the customer that will grow above 2% CAGR, and where we are well visioned due to our superior technical product and service differentiation, close relationship, and we are able to gain market share. The second question I asked myself was, how can we mitigate the impact of electrification on our light vehicle business. As Patrick explained, the overall light vehicle business represents the remaining 23% of our business. The impact of electrification is obviously not on the full 23% as certain geographies, certain light vehicle parts will not be affected by this electrification transition. We intend to further accelerate our growth at non-ferrous foundries, which are unlike the iron foundries, positively impacted by electrification. All this strategic consideration led to our 3-pillar growth strategy. First pillar, defend and grow our core ferrous business in developed markets, which represents 55% of our revenues, the largest part of our business. Within this core part of the strategy, there has been some recent headwinds with a weakness in demand in Northern European countries across ferrous foundries. We assess the majority of this recent downtime is cyclical and should not pose any longer-term strategic concern. We have seen a slow transition of ferrous casting activities from Western Europe towards Turkey, especially for certain end markets. We expect this to continue in the next years. We have been planning for it. We are well prepared, and we can serve the transition from the existing facilities. This leads me to the second pillar of our strategy, namely expand in emerging countries such as Turkey, which represents today 26% of our business and where we are experiencing strong growth rates, and we expect a continuation of this strong growth where we have great opportunities to further gain market share and to further reinforce our market position. Third pillar, which I already mentioned, growth in non-ferrous, specifically in aluminum foundries, which today represents 19% of our revenues. Non-ferrous foundries offer higher longer-term growth rates versus our ferrous customers and presents positive market share opportunity for us, also helped by the growth in electric vehicles. How do we win in the marketplace? We win in the marketplace thanks to our superior technical product and service differentiation; our low-cost and highly automated manufacturing network; continuous investment in commercial and technical expertise, especially in non-ferrous and emerging markets; capacity investment, again, both in our emerging countries and in our non-ferrous business. R&D is the clear cornerstone of our strategy. It underpins our technological leadership and helps us to maintain our competitive advantage. We have continued to invest in world-class R&D expertise, including during COVID times. Our product portfolio grew from 11% in 2020 to 18% in 2022, and we are focused on continuing to grow also in the coming years. We have increased significantly our R&D focus on non-ferrous. Even if the nonferrous business today represents only 19% of our business, as explained before, 50% of all our developments are focused on non-ferrous. This represents a significant increase compared to a few years ago where the nonferrous efforts represented a small number of projects. Obviously, the remaining 50% R&D will support our growth in the 77% of our business outside light vehicle which is and will continue to be an important part of our business. Today, I will show you 2 innovation targeted at our ferrous business. R&D is instrumental in rolling out our new and most successful products supporting the expansion of our nonferrous pipeline, which grew from single digits to 50% on the past few years, as I explained before, and also developing fit-for-purpose product, especially for the emerging markets. The ultimate goal is to accelerate our top line through market share gains and support premium pricing. I would like to show you now some concrete examples of the type of innovation we bring to the market and how we create value for our customers. These 2 innovations are targeted at our ferrous business, one specifically for our steel foundry customer, ROTOCLENE; and the other one, the second one, at any ferrous customers. Let me start with ROTOCLENE. In the manufacturing of steel casting, one of the key processes is to remove impurities. This is important to produce very high-quality steel. We decided to come up with a solution that would revolutionize the process by developing ROTOCLENE system. What it does, it stirs the molten steel, like a short of food mixer and injects argon gas. It looks like a simple concept, but it is a revolutionary development for the steel industry. And let me show you what I mean. [Presentation]

The installation equipment is installed. It can be further supported by additional tailored-made consumable to keep it operating at peak performance, not just from the foundry product portfolio, but also from the Flow Control and Advanced Refractory product portfolio. Another interesting development is our SEMCO coating that reduces drying time, saves energy, reduces emission both in terms of CO2 and formal date and ultimately improve the casting quality. If you haven't done it yet, please visit our stand outside where my colleague will demonstrate you the product in action. Besides the top line growth enterprise premium, we have solid plans on how to deliver cost savings. Firstly, we have relocated production of certain products from high-cost country to low-cost country, from Germany and the United States to Turkey, Mexico and India. We will continue to do this for additional high labor-intensive product, although no major restructuring is required. We will also continue to invest in automation, especially in high-cost country. And thirdly, recently additional capacities have been installed, investment in China for aluminum foundries, to support the electric vehicle growing market. No additional capacity expansion is expected for the next 3 years. In summary, the foundry business is well positioned for profitable growth. We have a clear 3-pillar strategy for top line growth which will allow us to focus where profitable growth will occur in the next years. We have a world-class R&D and a strong innovation pipeline, also focused on where profitable growth will occur. Clear plans to ensure a low-cost manufacturing footprint with no additional major capacity expansion required. Thanks very much for your attention. And now I pass to Mark Collis, our CFO.

Thank you, Karena, and good afternoon. For those that don't know me, my name is Mark Collis, and I am the Vesuvius Group CFO. Today, there are 4 key points I intend to land. Firstly, based on past performance, we expect that our revenue will outperform the market by at least 2%. Secondly, by applying the self-help measures of cost, pricing, market share gains, we are targeting an increase in our margin to at least 12.5%. Thirdly, we aim to deliver more than GBP 400 million of free cash flow. And finally, this will translate into enhanced cash returns for our shareholders. I'd like to start by looking back over the last 5 years. This will help provide context for our future targets. Starting with the graph on the left, you can clearly see that the revenue from our Steel segment has grown despite a fall in our addressable market outside of China. In the last 5 years, not only has the steel market outside of China stagnated, but also we have lost 3 profitable markets: Iran, Russia and Ukraine. These 3 markets combined are similar in size to the steel production of the entire NAFTA region. Taking all of this into account, the production volumes in our addressable market outside of China have dropped by a total of 150 million tonnes or 18%. Against the substantial market headwind, we have successfully grown our Steel division revenues by 30% and this clearly exceeds inflation over the same period. Now looking at the chart on the right. Adjusting for these very significant headwinds, you can see we have also made strong progress in the profitability of our business. Starting with our margin in 2017, adjusting for ForEx and for the market factors just described, we have increased our margin by 170 basis points. We've done this through a combination of client restructuring, cost efficiency, gaining market share and superior pricing. I think you will agree that in the circumstances, this can only be described as a robust performance in what has been a very challenging environment. And to me, this is what I love about Vesuvius. It demonstrates the strong performance culture, which I witness and I am part of every day. We are focused, we are driven and we always raise the bar. Being part of the company and a team that has this mindset gives me the confidence that we can deliver even more. So now turning to the future. If you look at the chart on the right, this shows the steps to reach our 12.5% margin target. Outside of a medium-term market growth assumption of around 2% per annum, there are 3 levers which we will pull. Firstly, volume growth. We intend to outperform the market by another 2%. And as previously announced, to meet this increase in volume, we are close to completing all of our capacity investments. Secondly, cost savings of GBP 30 million. This will be achieved with efficiency investments but also some restructuring. And finally, pricing, which each of the business units has given you very tangible examples of how they intend to capture value. There's no harm to make the point again that our ability to increase price stems from our very focused investment in R&D. In our opinion, pricing value for our customers is the best way to achieve increasing and sustainable margins. So now let's look at the cash flow dynamics of our business. To put it bluntly, the Vesuvius business model flows off cash, and therefore, the challenge is how to optimize it even further. In fact, if you look at the graph to the right, we have generated positive cash flow for 10 years in a row. Firstly, we are an asset-light and a low CapEx intensity business. This is evidenced by a plant footprint that costs around GBP 40 million a year to maintain or circa 2% of revenue. Secondly, with our consumables, these are both customized and in many cases, designed to integrate with our patented systems. Both assets allow us to enjoy valuable customer loyalty, and this generates recurring revenues. Thirdly, we are actively reducing our working capital, and we are targeting a reduction from 24% to 21% of revenue. Finally, we are close to the end of our capacity expansion program. This means our CapEx spend will step down by around GBP 30 million a year, which further boosts our free cash flow. So before we talk about how we will deploy this surplus cash, let me touch on our approach to investment. For me, it's very simple. Where do we make the highest margin? Where are the biggest growth opportunities? How can we save money by investing money in automation and systems? So what's our track record? We invested in the higher-margin Flow Control business. We've invested behind the shift in emerging markets, in particular, India, and we will further invest in plant automation and improve IT systems. This model has proven to generate good returns, and in my opinion, is a recipe for an increase in margin. So regarding those returns, we will focus on all the typical investment metrics. However, for the purposes of our organic growth plan, we are also targeting a return on invested capital, excluding goodwill, of greater than 20% by 2026. And of course, it came to M&A, we would utilize a ROIC, which includes goodwill. So I've talked about how and why we generate cash, but how do we intend to use it? As we have said, we are targeting to generate at least GBP 40 million of free cash flow. We intend to divide this up as follows: Around half will go towards our progressive dividend, currently GBP 60 million per year. For the balance, we have the option to use it for M&A. Otherwise, it will clearly be available to return to our shareholders. But before summing up, I want to mention a few other cash under the capital allocation heading that I've not already touched on. For M&A, as you know, we are very disciplined and we are very clear. We will only invest in targets that fill in a geographical or technology gap. And of course, they must be at the right price. For example, in India, we have decided to invest organically. In our opinion, it's better to invest in new facilities rather than acquiring targets with old ones. For technology, we would start by backing our world-class R&D teams before defaulting to buying others' ideas at a premium. And finally, it would be a remiss of me to not update you on our leverage targets. We have widened these ever so slightly, just to give ourselves a bit more flexibility. But that said, given the cyclical nature of our end markets, we continue to prioritize a prudent balance sheet. So in conclusion, my messages are very simple. History has shown we can outperform the market, and we are targeting to do it again. We have demonstrated our ability to deliver margin improvement. You have a very driven management team absolutely focused, delivering our target of 12.5%. Our business froze off cash. We will optimize it even further, and we are aiming to deliver at least GBP 400 million. And finally, while we are not against M&A, a highly selective criteria means there could be further cash available for our shareholders. And with that, I thank you for listening. I will turn the floor to Patrick for his concluding remarks.

Before opening the floor to questions, I would like to remind the key messages of our presentation today. First, the 2 main markets where Vesuvius operates, Steel and Foundry, will experience positive growth over the coming years. This will, in particular, be the case for the steel market outside of China which is a reversal of the trends of the past years with very positive implications for Vesuvius. Second, the business model of Vesuvius, based on technological differentiation positions us very well to outperform our underlying markets. Third point, our profitability will continue to increase, and we target this to exceed 12.5% latest in 2026. Three, self-help levels will enable us to reach this objective. Market share gain, net pricing performance, both of these made possible by our technological differentiation and serve lever cost improvements of at least GBP 30 million by 2026. This profitable growth strategy coupled with our asset-light business model, requiring only a limited amount of capital investment means we expect to generate at least GBP 400 million of free cash flow after CapEx over the next 3 years and to increase return to shareholders. Thank you for your attention. I will now open the floor to questions and invite the team to join me on the floor.

It's Andrew Douglas from Jefferies. I've got 3 questions. I've got more, but I'll come back. I'll let other people have a go. When we think about the steel markets going forward, you talked about 200 million tonnes of growth. You talked about one of your customers saying 300 million tonnes. That delta, 100 million tonnes, is that in areas that would be positive for Vesuvius or would it be in China where maybe you're not as likely to benefit or is this emerging markets, India, America? If you could help us understand where that delta could be for you guys? Second question. When Donald Trump wins the American election next year and he puts in a Section 212, is that a net benefit for you guys? And if so, why? And is it more a market shift towards America? Or is it just a growth in markets? And then third, the efficiency gains and improvements, you talked about GBP 30 million. Can you just give us a little bit of help as to kind of how that's split by division and when we should see the benefits coming through, please?

Thank you, Andy. On the first part, our customer -- our esteemed customers, we have a lot of respect for ArcelorMittal. They are a little bit more optimistic than we are. This being said, they may be right. And if you look at the difference between their assessment and ours, they are a bit more positive than we are in the mature areas. It's not China. They are a bit more positive than we are in North America and Europe. They believe I was mentioning the fact that the Inflationary Reduction Act could result in an increase in 5% of steel consumption in the United States. They see a sizable improvement of steel consumption in the U.S. and also in EU plus U.K. area due to the consequences -- the positive consequences for steel of the decarbonation of this. If ArcelorMittal is right, which I really hope they are because it will be very good for us -- so it will be very good for us because it means that the production of steel in the world outside of China will progress even more than the 200 million tonnes that we are mentioning. And honestly, I think that we are always cautious, as you know, but ArcelorMittal is a very good marketing department, and I think that 300 million tonnes is not coming from nowhere. It comes from -- so probably 200 million tonnes is probably a cautious assumption. On your second question, as I can imagine, I will not tell you who will win the U.S. elections next year. But assuming that winning candidate, whoever that is, would reincrease the use of Section 232. First, it will not increase the total steel consumption in the world. So I don't think that any American President has a possibility to increase. But it will mean that a greater proportion of the steel consumed in the U.S. will be produced in the U.S. And this would be good for Vesuvius because our sales per tonne of steel in the United States are significantly higher than average as compared with the rest of the world. So we have a very strong penetration of customers in the United States. So for us if 1/3 of steel is produced in the U.S. rather than being produced elsewhere, it's rather good for Vesuvius. On your third question, on the GBP 30 million, we do not communicate on the split by division, but it clearly concerns all the 3 divisions without any exception. So it's a common strategy to contribute to this GBP 30 million. And the order of magnitude, you can have in mind in terms of impact on our P&L, the first year and '24, a very slight negative because we think that restructuring costs will probably exceed a little bit the savings, I would say, a negative of between [ GBP 2.3 million to GBP 2.5 million ], a positive of on or around GBP 10 million in '25 and the full benefit of GBP 30 million in '26.

It's Harry Philips from Peel Hunt. Just a few from me, if I could, please. First of all, just in terms of the sort of capital allocation strategy, just scribbling some sort of very rough maths and thinking, let's assume you have GBP 250 million of EBITDA, just to pick a number going forward. You sort of spend away 50% as you say, broadly on dividends. Leverage without doing any M&A or buyback is going to be -- you're going to have debt between EUR 50 million to EUR 100 million, say, and [ EUR 25 million ] -- GBP 250 million of EBITDA times 2 is EUR 500 million. Sort of where -- in a buyback, how far up the leverage curve would you go to? Your range is 1% to 2%, but I'm assuming that sort of is primarily the top end be a sort of M&A-induced high end. But where would a buyback sort of sit comfortably, if you like, in that process. And therefore, in a way, I'm thinking it's more than GBP 400 million, I suppose, not to be too greedy. Secondly is just in terms of -- and I was talking just a moment ago in the break around this, but sort of in terms of total solutions, pricings thereof and in particularly where the growth is occurring, is the solution model, the preferred model in those environments? And is that -- how much of that is really sort of integral to the enhanced broad -- rather the now firm 12.5% plus margin target? Just trying to think of how critical our solutions and the solution selling model because clearly, that gives you a differentiation and enhances your sort of tie in with the mill to prevent competition you said on the volume side?

Thank you. I will answer the second question. I will let Mark answer the difficult first one. On the second question, yes, really, our business is to be a solutions provider. So we, where we differentiate is in our ability to propose comprehensive solutions, creating values, value in the process of our customers, meaning that we are not there in a cost-plus fee model. We are proposing a solution which will create x millions of value in the P&L of the customer. And then we discuss with the customer how we could have a fair sharing of this value creation. And this is really what makes us specific, what makes Vesuvius, I would not say unique, but very specific and relatively few people know how to do that. And we are always trying to push and convince our customers to go this way because we believe that it is in the interest of customer, it's also in the interest of business, but it's first and foremost in the interest of the customer. And then it depends on the customer, but I would say more and more customers are being convinced that this is the right way to go. And especially, we mentioned in the steel sector, what we call the high-technology steel. So high-technology steel is the most fertile ground for proposing those solutions, because then we have in front of us customers who have complex problems to solve. And they need complex solutions to solve complex projects. That's really the land of solutions. And it's, in particular, the case for Flow Control and Foundry. Foundry has very similar opportunities when casting foundry customers, they want to produce more and more strange complicated testings, they look for solutions. The reason why they want to produce this complex testing is because the price at which we can sell those complex testing is higher. So they want somebody to help them, to help them do it. And this is where Karena and her team can help and all the strategy of Advanced Refractory is to go more and more in this field. Historically, as a field of Advanced Refractories is less open for solution selling. And what Richard showed earlier is that we are trying to reorient to change the playing field of the Vesuvius Advanced Refractory division, to move away from the area of commoditized product where solution selling is not that easy towards a limited number of product lines, a limited number of high technologists were there as the example of the VARG that you show on the screen. We can sell the solution because the value is typically a solution. We sell reduced downtime to the customer. We debottleneck still plant with VARG. So then when you debottle an eco steel plant, discussion with the customers is not about the cost of consumable. It's about -- it's a competitive different solution. So our ambition, it's already the case in Flow Control and Foundry and the ambition and reach of Richard and the Advanced Refractories team is to move more and more Advanced Refractory towards the Flow Control like and on Foundry like business model of solution.

This is the question I have to answer without actually giving an answer, but I'm going to try and give you as much color as possible. I guess you know our priorities, invest in the business, M&A, but for a very stringent lens and then obviously, what's left, we give back to shareholders. So that's the, obviously, the classic principle. First thing I would say is we don't need to invest in any more capacity in the next 3 years. However, if the plan goes better than expected by the end of '26, I think there could be an aspect of perhaps invest in more capacity because I think if the upside is there, we want to invest in that upside. M&A, as I said, we're not against it, but there are things out there that we'd still be interested in. So never say never. So, and then obviously, there's issues around the world economy and the level of leverage. But you're right, today, we're 1x, if we didn't do any M&A, and we just delivered our plan, we'd have a leverage of 0 in 3 years. And clearly, that's not the right position to get to. So I'm not going to give an amount, obviously, but for every 0.2x leverage is about GBP 50 million buyback. I think naturally, both Patrick and I are cautious on the world economy and on leverage and keeping our balance sheet prudent. So I don't know if that gives you enough color without giving you amounts or timing, but that's kind of where my head is at. I think you would add -- add to that?

Yes, I think that we may well have in the coming years, not only one, but several buyback program, which we will calibrate progressively. But, and your remark is very good. Probably, I don't see us going to leverage only because of buybacks. So we will probably stay in the bottom part, in the lower part of our range, if it's only about buybacks, and we will always keep some flexibility for M&A.

I think we would like to do something more regularly rather than just a one-off is, I think, also relevant.

George Featherstone from Bank of America. So first one would be, will there be any changes to your incentive plans to focus on and deliver the targets that you set out today? You've also mentioned a lot about R&D, automation, digitalization. These jobs are quite in high demand across industrial companies right now. How do you attract and retain that talent? And then the third question is just on the high-tech steel market. I think the share of the steel market was about 33% high-tech in 2017. You said it's 34% as of last year. What's going to catalyze the shift to 43% by 2032?

On the first part, our incentive plan, this is first a question for the Board to answer. But over the past years, and I'm sure that will be the case of the few years, the Board has always been very careful to align the objectives used in the incentives of management with our business objectives. So I don't see any reason why it will not be the case in the future. And already, we have introduced recently in the management, return on capital employed with -- if you -- because all this is public, if you can see quite ambitious targets in terms of average return on investment -- on invested capital for the year to come, which we believe are good targets that we expect to deliver. On your second point of digitalization, yes, competitive is a challenge, but it's a challenge that we have to meet. So we are now recruiting a significant number of data scientists in the use, I would say, like most manufacturing companies which want to go to the next stage. So we started 3 years ago now to create a pool of talented data scientists in Vesuvius. They are today located mostly in Poland and in India. And we are expanding those teams to support our digital initiatives. And we will continue to do so in the future. We've created a position of Chief Digital Officer last year, and we are growing relatively rapidly the number of digital initiatives and to attract the right talent when we, there is a market. So we are pragmatic. And we are positioning ourselves in the market to be able to attract those talents. But I think that's a no-brainer. So manufacturing is going digital. The relationship with our customers is going digital. Material science remains very important, and we sell a product, but the way we sell this product and the services around this product are becoming more and more digital. So it is the right thing to do, and we are definitely engaged into this journey to also integrate in the team, some data scientists and digital specialists. High-tech steel, there are many drivers. One of them, well, maybe the most important of them is the, I want to say the explosion, but there's a very strong growth of steel recasting, steel lab casting, steel recasting is really increasing. It's far from being the only driver, but it's one of the very, very important driver. It's a technology. It's a way of producing flat steel, which is, by the way, very smart, and there is a reason why this way of pricing for flat steel is developing. It's because it's a very economical and efficient process. But of course, it's a complex process, which requires, especially at a continuous casting area, which is the area where we are the specialist worldwide, since steel casting is kind of revolution in the continuous casting, which requires, which is, which puts a lot of demand on the qualities of the Flow Control product, in particular, and for us, it's excellent because the more difficult it is, the better it is for business. Because the more difficult steel it is, less and less people you have who are able to solve these specific problems. And Vesuvius is one of them. So the development of steel recasting is one of the main reasons, not the only one, one of the main reason why high-tech steel is developing fast. And it's clearly one of the area where we have a special expertise. But maybe Pascal, you can say a few words about it.

Yes. Well, there is 2 elements, one is the technology. So steel casting did, will require more production and type of casting. These are the element of the fundamentals of the steel demand. We see that there is a decarbonization, move the energy production to more capital, it's still intensive technologies. So that would be the journey to 0 carbon in the next year, it's good for the steel industry. Need much more steel when you do a wind farm or solar farms when you do a coal-based plant. So that's a big driver. The second driver is that the cost of steel will increase because of the compensation also, the new investment plus what the ETS you will pay for the carbon emission. And there will be a trend to optimize the construction of steel like we have seen in the kind industry for many years, should affect also other industry. So you go to using less steel for the same product. So the high-quality steel, one which you need less impurities, better quality and therefore, it goes from the standard flat product to what we call the high-tech, the flat products. And the same would apply to the raw products. So these two trends will drive a higher percentage of what we call the high-tech steel, so which is a good news for Vesuvius. We've seen that trend in the last years globally worldwide, the increase of the part of high-tech steel. And by a big amount in China, the growth of high-tech steel been extremely the last year, which was very good. That's why we have a big business in high-tech steel as for Flow Control in China. And ensure that this estimate is to the finished product. So the actual of the rest of the world is to say we want also to keep control of our industry. That's why the high-tech steel, those developed elsewhere by importing less, not only of steel, but of finished products from China. So the rebalancing, I would say the third driver for more high-tech steel outside of China.

Lushanthan Mahendrarajah from JPMorgan. The first is on sustainability. So you mentioned a couple of times about the presentation, but I guess, how important are your products to your customers and sort of energy savings? And is that a key part of the push? Or is it more the safety, the efficiency side? And just to get an idea of how material that could be? Secondly, on refractories and that shift towards some of those target areas like gunning, et cetera. How big is that as a part of that business currently? Just to get an idea of sort of the growth opportunity, I guess. And then just in terms of the GBP 30 million of cost savings, I think 25% of that was from optimization of a footprint, although you said sort of no major restructuring, et cetera? What exactly is involved in that sort of that 25% of that GBP 30 million in terms of footprint optimization and where?

Your second question, how big was -- what exactly?

The four target areas in refractories.

On the first point, yes, sustainability is an important part of the value that we create for our customers. And when you look at the continuous casting area, for example, you -- it's not the part of the shipment which emits most CO2, but it emits CO2 when there is an incident. So the majority of the CO2 is emitted when there is an incident. And our Flow Control products, in particular, by reducing the occurrence of incidents is having potentially an important impact on the CO2 performance of our customers or in Advanced Refractories. The quick start new products that Richard mentioned can result in significant energy savings in the tundish area for our steel customers. Now the question is, how do our customers valorize this specific part of the value creation? Today, we have significant, I would say, geographical and company differences. Some, which is, I would say, representative of the diversity of the world in terms of attention to the sustainability issue. We see there is a positive trend where we see a growing number of steel customers around the world, not only in Western Europe, but also is now in some other regions outside of Europe where we see in our customers a strong motivation on these issues of reducing their CO2 footprint, reducing their energy consumption. There are still other regions of the world where there is still some room for progression, I would say, in the level of awareness. So where these diameters of value creation around sustainability, carry less weight. But if we, if I look at the evolution of, I've been in Vesuvius little bit over 7 years -- over 7 years, I really see the trend. We are far from being at 100% of customers motivated by this -- by the sustainability angle of value creation, but it's growing year after year, month after month. I would say we have more and more customers who really attach growing importance to this. So we believe that's an important point for us to invest not only to invest new product, but to invest in our ability to explain and convince customers of all the benefits they could derive in terms of sustainability for more products. The second point about gunning. Are you gunning for tundish and continuous casting? Already, this is relatively big. This is a relatively important part of Advanced Refractory today. Basic monolithic gunning for tundish is one of our core historical strength, and we are perfecting these trends. But gunning in BOF like you've seen on the VARG or electric arc furnaces is a new territory for us. So it's our decision to invest into this new product line has been taken following in-depth strategic review of where we wanted to play in Advanced Refractories. And we have selected this area, in an area where we believe we can generate good margin for the profits and the benefit of our customers by bringing them something that others cannot bring them and creating value in the process of our customers. So we have decided a few years ago now to invest in technology, to invest in R&D, to invest in people in this specific gunning. And now we are seeing the first results. We are, at the beginning, we believe, of the orchestric curve in robotic gunning for BOF and EAF. And we see this as one of the strong growth area of Advanced Refractory going forward. But still today, it's relatively small. Your last question about the GBP 30 million and the 25% of those GBP 30 million, it's relatively classical and manufacturing footprint optimization means manufacturing footprint optimization. It means that we will probably close some things somewhere and transfer it somewhere else. That's very basic. But it's a good old VCP, which works relatively well when it's well implemented. So it means that it's classical restructuring by closing some operations somewhere to transfer this operation in the most efficient way, somewhere else. We have nothing to compare with what we've been doing over the past 7 years, where we have released heavy lifting of restructuring, but we still have a few interesting ideas, which we are planning to implement in the coming 3 years.

Don Convey from Numis. Two questions, if I may. In the past, Patrick, you talked about the sort of margin structure of each of the 3 business units that we've heard from today. I just would appreciate maybe an update on the mix impact with regard to that 12.5% target. I think in the past, you've said Flow Control and Foundry ought to be mid-teens, but Advanced Factories structurally a lower margin. And secondly, in the past, you've also talked about a potential inflection point for the adoption of robotics in notoriously risk-averse steel industry. I'm just interested to hear whether that's still the case and perhaps where you would expect to see that coming through first?

I will answer your first question about margin, and then I will let my special item steel colleague, Pascal and Richard say a word about how they see the acceleration of adoption of robotics abilities. I believe it is the case, but I think it's interesting that you hear this in their own words. In terms of margin, so our objective, the way to we are planning to reach this 12.5% is relatively similar to what we said already. We believe that the potential for Flow Control is well above 15% return on sale. Will not tell you what well mean, but well above the 15% return on sale. We believe that the potential of Foundry is above 15% return on sale, and we believe that the potential of Advanced Refractory is above 10% return on sales. And this is this mix with the respective weighted average of the 3 business unit and -- on or around 1.5% cut of central cost, which gives you the recipe, if I may use this world, to reach our objective, and I hope to exceed our objective of 12.5% return on sales. Maybe Pascal and Richard, if you want to say a word about robotics?

Yes, the robot industry relatively new trend. I mean new when you compared to the steel, which, as you say, a risk adverse in the last 10, 15 years. There are quite a lot of them now in the easier place to install, which are marking of finished goods or close to the steel [ operator ] measurement. We don't, [indiscernible] by steel segment because our business model is to sell robot linked to refractory sales and our systems. So that robotics is the most difficult one to implement. That was the OEM, are not very attractive based on robots because it's risky to implement. That's why the customer prefer to contract with somebody who has the best interest to make it work, which is our case. If we put a robot, it doesn't work, it's unlikely we sell to consumer, which is a key driver of our business. So when a customer select us for the robots, in order we make it work, whatever the cost is. So what is good is that the most advanced all robots we have installed are running. All the robots we sold are running, which is -- which you can investigate elsewhere. And the most difficult one that the one I was showing on the video, which is a breakthrough in the industry because the ladder is not maintained by arm as it is usually the case. It's self-maintained on the ladder. So it's a small revolution in the casting industry. And now we have it in 3 customers, 1 of the leader in South America, the biggest player worldwide in China and also a big player in Asia. So it's, the Foundry industry knows about it and they speak about it themselves, when they go to [indiscernible] fares, they present the technology. It's likely to be a game changer for most players to consider what to put in place. So for existing casters, I don't think it will be implemented on a large scale because it's difficult to implement. Because the industry is moving to new investments in new plants in many cases. They have to invest a lot already when they close the blast furnaces to go to new technologies. But when people will do the investment in new technologies, including steel lab casting, it's hard to imagine, they don't automatize the full process. In that case, we are the best position to propose robots around the customers. So I think it will be, in the next 15 years, really specific part of the global offer for our customers.

Yes. I think there's two areas, really. The first one is if you look at our Advanced factories, our robotics and automation solutions are in two main areas. The first One is Tundish, and the second, as I demonstrated today is in EAF and BOF. I think there's a degree of criticality of the process depends on the acceptance. So there's still a very conservative nature of steel production and no one particularly wants to be the first adopter. So I think we are now getting to the situation where our technology is proven, particularly in tundish. Tundish robots are becoming more and more available and more and more prevalent in the market. And we've recently got our first reference point in Northern Europe for VARG. So as the technology is proven, I believe that it will continue to roll out probably in a quicker way than it has done at the moment.

And to complement my 2 colleagues said, One of the key reasons why we believe it's a long-term trend, which will only accelerate is first, that it's more and more difficult for steel plants worldwide to find employees who want to work in this most dangerous part of the steel plants. So in some respect, it becomes an obligation. It becomes an obligation when experience -- generations of experience, blue collar, not only experienced, but also accepting to work in this part of the steel plants are gradually retiring and they need to replace them. Many of our customers are confronted with simple fact that they just don't find anybody who wants to work there. And on top of that, not only is not to work there 2 years and then to go to work behind the desk is to become an experienced operator in this most dangerous part of the steel plant, you need to stay 15 years there. So you need to find somebody who not only wants to go there, but we're happy to stay there for the following 15 or 20 years. It's complicated to convince a 20 years old to do that today. And so the automatization, the reliable automatization of this dangerous part of the steel plant is a challenge. It's a problem to, for more and more of our steel customers worldwide, and we are bringing them a solution. Because as Pascal said, we are proposing them robots, which work, not only robots, which will work 5 minutes and then will not work, but robot, which work with operating time of very close to 100% because we are there permanently in the steel plants. You know that we have more than 3,000 employees embedded in the steel plants of our customers. So we are there. We operate the robot. We maintain them. We make sure that the robots works 24-hour -- 24/7 and that our customers are satisfied. And this is what, this is the right solution to the problem for customers. And we see more and more interest now including in North America. North America has been for a long time not very open to this robotics solutions. Now we have a strong acceleration of this. So I think that all the regions of the world, one after the other will shift to this robotic solution in the coming 10 years.

Thanks for today's presentation. Colin Moody from RBC Capital Markets. I understand clearly there's a focus on moving towards solutions sales in Vesuvius factories. I was wondering if you could kind of quantify how much of the business today is kind of solutions/noncommoditized versus commoditized and what sort of percentage that could end up at? Perhaps also just from a kind of group perspective, what is that at the group level versus what it could go to? Then just a very kind of quick bookkeeping question. On the 2022 to 2024 growth program, your incremental GBP 30 million of EBITDA. Can you just give an idea of our phasing present how much has already been delivered? How much is still left to go?

Richard, do you want to take the first question?

Sure. If I look at the service -- on the service side of our business, this is where we're providing something other than the product, and that can vary from a whole fully outgrown solution to a particular area of the steelmaking process, such as tundish. So we have approximately 20% of our revenue coming from supported service contracts at the present time. If you then look at the balance of commodity versus differentiated products, this is an area that -- as I alluded to earlier, this is an area that we're trying to change. So I would estimate that 25% of our product sales today have a differentiated nature. And we have 75% that are primarily commoditized. We have a number of projects in the pipeline to gradually move from our commoditized base to a more differentiated and value base for our customer. That will take time. But our research and development pipeline is leading in that direction. So we, as Patrick said earlier, we want to have 20% of our sales based on new products over the last 5 years. I see that differently. I see -- I want to see an increase in our differentiated product sales over the next 5 years.

Okay. So on the program. So I'll just give you all the numbers from start to finish so you can capture this, I think obviously quite important. So GBP 30 million of savings, cost to achieve is GBP 40 million. Of that GBP 40 million, GBP 30 million is CapEx and GBP 10 million is OpEx. In terms of then how that all flows into the P&L, so recognizing some of its CapEx and its depreciation element. So we think in the first year, the net charge to the P&L was between GBP 2 million and GBP 5 million.

Sorry, clarifying that on the program, not the efficiency program? What should be the company between 2022 and 2024?

Sorry. So on the expansion program, so it's -- the majority of it has been spent and it's probably around GBP 20 million to GBP 30 million in 2024, and that will see it conclude. And the only caveat to that is we're trying to predict CapEx in a precise time and there's a possibility that some of the CapEx in '23 will drift into '24, but the program itself is largely complete first half of '24.

Okay. And the kind of run rate benefits of that GBP 30 million of EBITDA or GBP 40 million of EBITDA, that's wellbeing materialized?

More or less linear over the coming 3 years.

And I think the point to remember is it's about capacity expansion. So the market volume picks up, you deliver the EBITDA. So it will follow the profile of the revenue.

Great. And sorry, just to clarify, and thanks for the color on the Advanced Refractory sort of commoditized as a non-commoditized mix. I just wonder perhaps an update on the overall group level, how that kind of sits?

At the overall group level, today, Flow Control and Foundry, I would never say 100% noncommoditized but are relatively close. So the business model of Foundry and Flow Control today is a noncommoditized one. We have more than 17,000 active SKUs in Flow Control, I think 8,000 or 9,000 in Foundry. Karena, you will correct me. But, so it gives you an idea the level of customization in Flow Control and Foundry is absolutely huge. There are no two steel plants where we sell the same product. And even inside of the steel plant, two different casters. We will tailor made, customize the product for 2 different casters, in the sense, for the same steel plants for 1 year, and maybe the year after, it will be again different product because the problems of the steel makers have changed. So we are really, really close to the steelmakers to permanently adapt our solutions to their needs. So the level of customization is probably very close to 100% in both Flow Control and Foundry and 25% yet in Advanced Refractory, but progressing.

Andy from Jefferies again. I thought I'd do a Foundry question, just to be polite. With regards to the 3 elements of the revenue split, am I right in thinking that the nonferrous, you've got a better or worse market position, technology differentiation, R&D kind of backdrop compared to ferrous. And do you guys have to play a bit of catch-up? Or are you already ahead of the market and looking to get further ahead through your R&D process? Now you're not going to give you the numbers, but I'm not going to ask. But am I working on the assumption going forward that the 55% is a low single-digit growth element. And then the other 45%, the 26% and the 19% mid-single, high single how you want to cut it. Is that how I should be thinking about that business going forward?

Yes. You are right. When you look at the 55%, so the ferrous developed market, yes, we are talking about a single-digit growth. When we're talking about the emerging markets, we are talking about double-digit growth. And in nonferrous, we are also growing faster than in the ferrous area. Now nonferrous, we expect to grow, obviously faster than the ferrous because this is what the market is actually doing, but given the fact that we are spending 50% of our R&D resources on nonferrous we have and will also in the next coming years come with new products that will allow us to obviously outperform the market, get also into application where we have not been traditional, create markets. There is an interesting development on our stand, which is called the [ VASCO ] development. It's a new technology that doesn't exist today, and it will allow us to -- to allow our customers to produce some sophisticated hollow special form casting in the very high-growing HBDC market, that today, the HBDC foundry do not have this capability. So we are -- thanks also to our expertise in the ferrous. We are actually using our know-how there to actually also bring it to the nonferrous area. And we are the only player that have the capabilities and reach both in ferrous and nonferrous. So this will definitely allow us to grow faster than we have been in the nonferrous area.

And from a competitive position, ferrous versus nonferrous, you are strong in nonferrous as you are in ferrous?

From a competitive area, it depends really on the product lines because in ferrous we have a series of different products and also in non-ferrous. So the only thing I can tell you is that, as I said, in 70% of our product, we are the market leader. And it depends really on the product lines and on the geographies.

And if I may, one quick one for Pascal. I think when you joined Vesuvius, one of the things that Patrick was quite excited about was you're coming from the customer. So you know how the customer works for you know how to price the customer maybe better than 1 or 2, 10 years ago might have been done. Where are you on that journey? Are you now confident that our sales force can sell properly value probably? Or if you have more to do? And I guess why don't we throw it to the Foundry and Advanced Refractories? Where are you guys on your sales force?

I was held by the increase of raw material in 2021 to make a change in the [ modality ] of Flow Control and with my colleagues, we did for all of Vesuvius because all the industry had to push through the price of raw material market. So historically, you're right that a 2% or 3% increase of refractories was the maximum this person could consider. We did more than 30%. So the change in modality did happen, which is good because now sometimes the reverse. I need to slow them down, to be a little bit too aggressive, not always, but it may happen sometime also. But the most important part of it is that while we have been training our people and they are more and more keen to use that now is to really quantify the value creation of the solution we are pushing in the market. So we have software to quantify that. And that's really the way that we are marketing more and more products, the way we speak with, but to do that also, we need to speak sometimes with different people, different decision-makers. So one of the difficulties that our Account Manager doesn't have access sometime to the right decision maker. So there's a question also of developing a relationship with the team makers at a different level to make the right decision. The robot decision is taken by the usual guy in front of our account managers. So we need to develop this multi-level contacts with the steel makers to completely transform, let's say, our ability to price correctly. But we did, I think, good progress in most geographies, Americas, in particular, both the North and South, I think they are very well progressed on that. But it's not a finish domain. There's still potential to do more. We have been working also with third parties to -- on both sides, I mean, on the technical training. We have our own heat training, which we are enforcing for people to know our products and technologies, but also on the soft part for people to present properly the technology, to manage relationship and on the pricing part to really be a bit more sophisticated in pricing.

Mark, you start off talking about the phasing of the cost savings and the cost to achieve. I was wondering if you could finish that point off. It was quite interesting.

Slightly ahead of that in my time. Now to finish up the answer to the question. Do you want me just start again or start halfway through? I'll be quick on the first part. So GBP 40 million costs to achieve, GBP 30 million CapEx, GBP 10 million OpEx. In terms of the P&L benefit or the negative. So in 2024, we think there will be a negative impact of somewhere between GBP 2 million and GBP 5 million, which is really reflecting the OpEx element and an element of savings that will start to come through, hopefully, early on. In 2025, we think the net benefit will be GBP 10 million in the P&L. And by 2026, we'll see the full benefit of the GBP 30 million.

Any further questions? If there are no further questions, I would like to thank you all for your attention this afternoon. And to invite you for those of you who can stay for the last drink, where my colleagues will be with us to answer any questions you may have on our presentation today and our activity. Thank you very much again for your attention.