Vesuvius plc (VSVS) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Ladies and gentlemen, as it is 11:00 a.m., I welcome you to the 2024 Annual General Meeting of Vesuvius plc. I confirm we have a quorum of shareholders, and I declare this meeting duly constituted and open. Before we start the business of the meeting, I would ask you to ensure that any mobile phones have been switched off. Please note that this meeting is being recorded. If there's an emergency, may be necessary for us to leave the meeting room. And if you hear a fire alarm, it would not be a test, if one sounds, I will ask you to leave the room in an orderly manner by the nearest exit. The staff here will assist you. If practical, we will reconvene the meeting as soon as the emergency is over. Thank you. With your permission, I will take the notice convening the meeting date in the 20th of March as read. Thank you. Firstly, I would like to introduce myself and all my fellow directors. I'm Carl-Peter Forster, I'm your Chairman. Starting at my far right are Douglas Hurt, who is our Senior Independent Non-Executive Director and Chairman of the Audit Committee. Douglas has served on the Vesuvius Board for 9 years and will be stepping down from the Board today. We thank him for his dedicated service, wise counsel and exceptional support and wish him all the best for the future. Then we have Robert MacLeod, who is an Independent Non-Executive Director. Robert joined the Board on the first of September 2023. He's a qualified chartered accountant has held a number of operational and finance roles, most recently as CEO of Johnson Matthey Plc. Robert will succeed Douglas as the Chairman of the Audit Committee. Next on is Carla Bailo, who is an Independent Non-Executive Director; Mark Collis, our Chief Financial Officer; and then Patrick Andre, our Chief Executive. To my far left is Dinggui Gao, who is also an Independent Non-Executive Director. Friederike Helfer, who is a Non-Executive Director and partner of Cevian Capital, our largest shareholder. Kath Durrant was an Independent Non-Executive Director and Chair of the Remuneration Committee. Next to me is our company Secretary, Henry Knowles and there will be an opportunity for you to meet the directors and me after the meeting. We are also proposing today to appoint Eva Lindqvist as an Independent Non-Executive Director. Eva is an engineer with more than 35 years' experience in global industrial and service businesses and have served on the Board of a range of listed companies. Unfortunately, Eva couldn't be with us today as she had to attend the AGM of Keller Group plc, where she is stepping down from the Board. Subject to her appointment at this meeting, Eva will succeed Douglas, the Senior Independent Director of the company and I know will be a valuable addition to the Board. Before we move on to the formal business of the meeting, I would like to say a few words about trading in light of this morning's trading update. The performance in the period was in line with our expectations and hence, we maintain our expectations for full year 2024. Excluding India and EMEA, which is Turkey, Middle East and Northern Africa, steel markets remained subdued at the beginning of the year as we anticipated. Foundry markets outside of India remained weak, particularly in the EU-27 in U.K. and North Asia. We continue to perform robustly due to our differentiated product offering with a resilient pricing performance. Flow Control gained market share in all regions, except EU and U.K. and foundry gate market share in all regions. Our cost-saving program is proceeding to plan, and we are confident in delivering both our current India and exit rate targets as well as our EUR 30 million cash cost savings target by 2026. We continue to make progress in the reduction of working capital intensity and market fundamentals remain attractive, and our significant investment in growth initiatives in Asia and Flow Control remain on track. The resilience of our business gives us continued confidence that we will deliver on our full year 2024 expectations. I would like to take this opportunity on behalf of the Board to thank all of our people for their significant contribution and hard work to the continuous success of the company. Before putting the resolution to the meeting and proceeding to vote, I would like to invite questions from shareholders on any of the resolutions proposed. Are there any questions? That doesn't seem to be the case. Thank you. We will now proceed to vote on the resolutions. In line with past practice, voting will be by way of a poll rather than a show of hands. This means that all votes will be counted according to the number of shares held. I should like to point Helen because of our registrars, Equiniti as the poll scrutineer. The resolutions are set out in full in the notice of meeting, a summary of each resolution is displayed on the screen. Resolutions 1 to 16 are ordinary resolutions and, therefore, require a simple majority of more than 50% of votes cast to be voted in favor for the resolution to be passed. Resolution 17 to 20 are special resolutions and therefore, requires 75% of the votes cast to be voted in favor for the resolution to be passed. Those of you entitled to vote will have -- have been given a voting card at registration. If you have already voted by proxy and do not wish to change your vote, then you do not need to complete a voting card. If you have not voted or if you wish to change your vote, please complete the voting card and place it in the ballot box. There is the ballot box. Thank you. As you leave the room at the end of the meeting, the poll will close when the meeting room is clear. The results of the poll will be announced later today by a regulatory announcement to the stock exchange and will be posted on the company's website. I now propose formally that each of the resolutions set out in the notice of meeting and listed on the voting card we put to the meeting as separate resolutions. Poll is now up. So please complete your poll cards. I can tell you that all the proposed resolutions were supported by a substantial margin by the proxy votes submitted in advance of the meeting. These percentages, which are provisional figures only are shown on the screen now. Thank you for attending the meeting person or via the webcast. I would like -- also like to thank those shareholders who could not attend but submitted their votes by proxy. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes the formal business. I declare the meeting closed. Thank you very much.