Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Prysmian Group 2021 financial results conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. There will be a presentation, followed by question and answer session, at which time, if you wish to ask a question, you'll need to press star followed by one on your telephone. As advised, this conference is being recorded today, March 1, 2023. I would now like to hand over to your speaker, Mr. Valerio Battista, CEO. Please go ahead, sir.
Thank you very much and good afternoon to everyone. Full year results 2021, the financial results of the Prysmian Group. Okay. Let's go. Let's start with the highlights. We used to deliver, at least to deliver in line with the commitment we have got with the shareholders. Sometimes, as in 2021, we even, if able, are going to over-deliver. As you can see, the guidance we gave in March 2020 was a range in between of 870-940 EBITDA, and a free cash flow of EUR 300 million ±20%. In July, thanks to the reasonably good market conditions, we decided to upgrade the guidance to 920-970, and keeping vice versa, the free cash flow in line with the original guidance.
That's why, because in the meantime, raw materials and inflation was ramping up. The actual has been EUR 976 million EBITDA, higher than the upper side of the guidance, even if not dramatically, EUR 6 million only. Three hundred and sixty-five million free cash flow. I would say a satisfactory 2021. Let's move to the next. The highlights, page 4 of the presentation. The demand is strong, especially in certain regions, with a good performance on all the businesses. Most of all, in Q4, we have seen margins keeping sound with 8.6% EBITDA margin at current metal price. The last quarter has been the strongest ever. Projects. The projects backlog is extremely high. As you know, the order awarded in 2021 of the company has reached EUR 4.8 billion.
The all-time record backlog is now over EUR 4.4 billion, with a considerable number of projects coming from the U.S. market that has started. Just for you to know, we have started now the execution, finally, of the Vineyard Wind project. That has been the first we took almost two years ago. Okay. There is no results if there is no cash. The cash, fortunately, or thanks to the market conditions and thanks to our management, has been pretty good, with a free cash flow of EUR 365 million, a free cash flow yield of 4.6%, and what counts most of everything, is the net debt that dropped to EUR 1.76 billion. Still a little bit high, mm? Last but not least, the commitment to climate change.
As part of a lot of indexes and shows, what I like is the number of tons of CO2 that we have been able to reduce. That's the goal I share with my team. 192,000 tons of CO2 emission reduction is not so bad. Obviously, we have still a lot of way to go to reach a more decent level of CO2 emission. Having said that, and having seen the performance of the company, especially in terms of free cash flow, the decision has been taken to increase the dividend 10% to 0.55 EUR per share in order to share part of the results with all the shareholders. Okay. I move to the next, and I go to the financial highlights. The sales.
The sales closed at EUR 12,736 million, with an organic growth of 11%. Good numbers. Of course, the sales are significantly high, but never enough. With an increase of the metal that is not negligible. Consequently, metals is pass through, let me say, or the margins on metals are very, very limited. The organic growth is pretty important and reached 11% solidly, with a 12.3% on E&I, for the time being, mainly driven by E&I. PD has still to come, or we expect to come, but will not be as fast as E&I. Industrial network component grew 8.4% with a strong, especially renewable growth, round about 22%. Finally, Telecom, driven by very good market, grew 12.7%.
The problem of Telecom is that growth is mostly concentrated in North America. That is fine, but is not sufficiently fine. EBITDA-wise, EUR 976 million, as I said. 7.7% EBITDA margin on the sales with the significant growth of the methods. The margins have been resilient. You can see that the 8.4%, 8.6% the 7.7% can be read 8.7% with the methods of the previous year. Versus the 8.4% in 2020. At the end, the percentages in our business have a limited value. What counts are the euros. What you can put in the bank are the euros. Everything else is stenography. Adjusted EBITDA has been pretty good over the level of 2019. That is our reference year for the time being.
The significant result comes mostly from E&I, energy business, generally speaking. That's despite a still negative Forex impact of EUR 11 million. That, if we compare the Forex impact with 2019, the negative impact has been EUR 55 million, so very important. Free cash flow. Free cash flow is the real bottom end of our activity. If there is no cash, there is no party. EUR 365 million free cash flow with the net debt at EUR 1.76 billion. The free cash flow continued to deleverage. EUR 226 million reduction of the debt in 2021, with a free cash flow yield of 4.6%. The operating net working capital on sales improved to 3.5%, compared to the 4.3% in December 2020.
We have been able to reach better level of net working capital on sales, but it depends on the season. Thank you. I move to the next. By region and by business. The organic growth 2020 versus 2021 versus 2020 and 2019. The entire group, as I said, in the center of the chart, you can see 11% organic growth in 2020 versus 2019. Sorry, in 2021 versus 2020, and a 2.7% compared to 2019. Consequently, the business is recovering, is now higher than 2019. Geographically, you can appreciate that North America is pretty strong, 10.2% organic growth versus last year, with a 3.3% versus two years ago.
The region that has been able mostly to recover compared to the previous year has been EMEA. EMEA, that in 2020 versus 2019 has got only 1% improvement, has been able to reach a 9.3% compared to 2020. Latin America is in a very good trend with almost 24% organic growth compared to last year and 12%, sorry, compared to 2019. Asia Pac is the weakest region we have, but we are not from that region. We are present, but the size of Asia Pac for us is not big enough, at least for the time being. Going into the business, E&I, 12.3%, has been accelerating most of all the other segments, with even a +4.6% compared to 2019.
Industrial network component, reasonably good, not so bad, with 8.4% and versus 2019 at 2.3%. Telecom. Telecom is the sole segment that has not yet recovered the 2019 level. That makes sense because if we remember the second half 2019 started the collapse of telecom prices, mostly. That is translated into the organic growth of the telecom. That, by the way, in 2020 has been able to recover largely in rising the organic growth by almost 13%. I flip to page 7. The project business. The project business has seen outstanding performance in terms of order intake. The new orders that we have been able to secure during 2021 have been EUR 4.8 billion. The market is growing, definitely.
3.6 Billion of orders are not yet in the backlog, simply because they are not in with an agreed with customer notice to proceed. This is Tyrrhenian Link, the Commonwealth Wind and Park City Wind in the U.S., the Sofia, and the Dominion Energy. Let me note that out of the EUR 1.71 billion order for Tyrrhenian Link, we have considered only EUR 150 million, if I'm not wrong, that is a firm order. Consequently, it is an order with the notice to proceed, just for preparing the project. We have the Sofia, the Saudi-Egypt Interconnection, the Turkish Strait Crossing, and the Elba-Piombino, plus some other minor projects. Overall, our order backlog is today EUR 4.4 billion. At the current capacity and sales speed, it is a pretty significant order backlog.
On the other side, obviously, due to the market that today can be easily considered something like EUR 7 billion plus, we have to adapt our capacity because we are fully saturated. You can see on the upper side of the chart the new plant in U.S., how it was the past picture with the Brayton Point energy production site, as it is today with the energy production site dismantled. Technically, it is a piece of land, or almost a piece of land. The future, 2-3 years to go, the project of the new plant in Brayton Point. This plant will serve the North American market. In the meantime, we have to serve the North American market other than the European market. How to do it? Increasing the production capacity in Arco Felice, Naples, Nordenham to a lesser extent, and Pikkala.
Drammen is there because it's there. We inherited from the Draka acquisition. We have not yet decided what to do with Drammen in the future, but it is a very minor capacity. On the other side is the installation. The installation today is based on the Leonardo da Vinci, the new ship that we are gonna make the christening shortly. The Ulisse, the Giulio Verne, the old big ships of the group, and the Cable Enterprise. Four ships for installing cables. Let's flip to page 9.
The performance across all the business, and you can see that the projects have reached an organic growth of 10.2%, raising the turnover from EUR 1.4 billion to almost EUR 1.6 billion, and a significant increase of the EBITDA from EUR 186 million to EUR 210 million. The EBITDA margin has closed at 13.2%. It's clear that the projects picked up basically the last quarter. Not so much in terms of sales, but significantly in terms of orders on one side and margins on the other side. We expect projects to grow significantly in the next two, three years. The execution has been outstanding, no problem at all.
You can see at the bottom of the highlights on projects, the organic growth of Q4 has been 34.7%. One quarter has a limited sense, we have to look at the full year. Energy closed at almost EUR 10 billion, EUR 9.5 billion, compared to the EUR 7.2 billion of the previous year. Of course, inflated in terms of turnover by the metal price, but with a serious 10.7% organic growth. That is not negligible for this business. E&I, as you can see, the organic growth has been even higher, 4.3%, whereas Industrial Network Components, an organic growth of 8.4%. Not so bad overall. Let me highlight that the performance of T&I has been extremely good, especially in North America.
The PD, the Power Distribution, is improving, but with a lower speed compared to T&I because T&I is a much more volatile and fast business. PD has contracts with the price of metals, but not automatically transferred in terms of other metal raw materials in the prices. So it is a more complex business, more resilient when the market collapse. That's written in stone. When the market collapse, whereas T&I is pretty fast to collapse too, the Power Distribution is much more resilient. In other Network components, strong organic growth, 8.4%, not at the level of E&I, honestly speaking. In that segment, mostly the renewables have been rising significantly. Last but not least, the Telecom. EUR 1.585 billion, the total sales for Telecom, with an organic growth of 12.7%.
Not so bad. Not on the same line, the margins that have closed at 13.9% with EUR 220 million EBITDA, compared to the 214 of the previous year. The demand is very strong in U.S. Unfortunately, in Europe is strong, but not dramatically picking up. Anyway, it is what it is. Last but not least, YOFC contribution has closed at EUR 14 million. Still pretty far from the peak of 45, 50 million of three years ago, if I remember. Four years ago. Overall, good results. Finally, the geographical view of those results. EMEA went well, and the EBITDA has increased from EUR 197 million to EUR 265 million, with an organic growth of the sales of 8.3%. North America.
North America has already reached a peak in 2020, EUR 345 million, with sales that rose from EUR 3 billion to almost EUR 3.8 billion, an organic growth of 10.2%. T&I is, in the U.S., outstanding. Renewables is outstanding too. Power Distribution, not yet at the level of two years ago, three years ago. We have to look for the expansion of the CapEx of utilities for the renewable. We have not to forget that we suffered a Forex impact of EUR 11 million during 2021, compared to the previous year. Latin America. Latin America closed with a turnover of EUR 1.06 billion, coming from a EUR 723 million of the previous year. A very strong organic growth of 23.8%.
An EBITDA of EUR 99 million, 9.4% EBITDA margin. Compared to the previous year, EUR 64 million. A very good performance driven by construction market, renewable market, and a negative impact of EUR 4 million from the Forex. Last, at the end, but not least, Asia Pac closed at EUR 1 billion, coming from EUR 742 million, with an organic growth of 9.6%. The results has been good, mainly driven by China with a positive Forex impact of EUR 3 million. Finally, in 2019, we closed at EUR 1 billion and seven. Today, two years after, we have closed at 976. Not so bad. Not yet at the level of the record of 2019, but with EUR 55 million of Forex negative impact. What has been our job? We had a significant impact of raw materials influence.
You see the inflation, that we have been able, largely, to pass to the market. You can see the column of price and mix and energy. For energy, sorry. That is almost equal to the cost increase in raw materials. The telecom doesn't go in the same direction because whereas the volumes have grew a little bit, the price mix has been negative. Sorry, the volume even has been slightly negative. Overall, the EBITDA of the projects from 2019-2021 has been not positive yet, but with a sharp recovery in the last quarter, in the last two quarters. Finally, the efficiencies and the fixed costs are helping to reach the level of EUR 976. The climate change. That's the chapter that is very important for our successors and our children. 1,000 tons of CO2 emissions.
We have been able to reduce, you see from 2019 that has been SBTi verified, 870,000 tons, down to 736 in 2020, and 678 in 2021, with a reduction of almost 200,000 tons of CO2. We have to go further down. We are investing seriously. Not a lot of money because there is a need of time to realize it. In 2021, we invested EUR 15 million to reduce the CO2 emissions. Next year or May 2022, we are committed to invest other EUR 12 million. The target is to go to zero with scope one and two by 2035, and those targets have been approved and are to be verified by SBTi every time needed. Finally, the outlook 2022.
We are back to the level of 19, where we believe to be able to go. For sure, over EUR 1 billion, with the guidance EUR 1.01 billion-EUR 1.08 billion. The free cash flow that is expected to be EUR 400 million ±15%, ±EUR 60 million more or less. Obviously, there are certain assumptions behind this guidance, but they are not extremely challenging. Projects have to benefit from the backlog that they have in hand, and we are reasonably sure of what we do. The solid execution and the capacity utilization that is in the number. What we cannot control is the pandemic, of course. Even if, honestly, we see the pandemic scaling down, not day after day, but month after month as we see.
The most important chapter today is the Ukraine crisis that may have a significant impact or not to the group. The guidance is to overcome, to reach a higher level than 2019. That has been the record year of the company, with almost EUR 400 million free cash flow. That's it. Thank you very much. I leave the floor now to Francesco Facchini for the details of the P&L.
Thank you Valerio, and good evening to everybody. Let me summarize the main achievements using this profit and loss statement. As Valerio said, organic growth very close to 11%. Pretty good across all the business lines and most of the geographies. What is even more important, with a pretty strong Q4, which obviously marks a very good exit rate for 2022. Adjusted EBITDA set a record Q4, as Valerio anticipated. The EUR 251 million in Q4 has been the highest Q4 ever, driven by a very solid execution in the project business. Top right you see the kind of progression that the project business reported in the fourth quarter, EUR 30 million above last year in terms of EBITDA.
A very strong progression also of the energy business, very consistent by the way, with EUR 38 million in Q4 improvement over the last over the Q4 of 2020, after a very strong improvement already in the first three quarters. Even in terms of margin, as Valerio already mentioned, the 7.7% reported EBITDA margin is indeed a very good margin because considering the huge metal inflation we had in 2021, and restating this at the 2020 metal price, the EBITDA margin reached 8.6%, which is even a further improvement on an already very good 2020. Reported EBITDA benefited also of a reduction of restructuring charges. Last year we still had restructuring charges, mainly in South Europe. This year...
Sorry, in 2020. In 2021, decreased pretty significantly. Also in terms of financial charges, we had an overall stability and also a decrease on some items, driven mainly by the convertible bond issuance at beginning of the year. Tax rate was a bit higher than expected, 34.9%. Hopefully will decrease a few points, at least a couple of points, next year. It's been driven up by some tax litigations, inspections. Nothing particularly significant, but some of them, of course, that we decided very prudently to provide for. Also net income, I like to mention this, over EUR 300 million, EUR 308 million group net income, almost doubled compared to the previous year.
Overall, a very strong set of results of financial results. I go to the following page with the statement of financial position, the balance sheet. Let me just comment the very satisfactory achievement of operating net working capital. As you see, we had a very modest growth of operating net working capital up to EUR 476 million from EUR 432 million. It's a minor increase, EUR 40 million-plus increase, despite the huge negative effect of course of metal price increase on working capital, which counts in the region of EUR 230 million. On top, the inflation of raw materials hit very significantly also our inventory level, which grew by approximately EUR 200 million. Of course, offset pretty significantly by a growth of payables as well.
We have been able to compensate all this, bringing, as I said, the working capital almost flat, thanks to a project business which took a lot of orders, as Valerio commented, in 2021. The orders are very important also because they mean down payments. They are very important to sustain and support our cash generation. As important as that, a very strong receivable management. Just to give you an indication, despite the huge effect of the metal price increase, we were overall able to keep our receivable almost flat, which means a very effective improvement in terms of DSO, in terms of overdues, which generated real cash and helped us to stabilize the working capital.
All this translated into a net debt reduction of EUR 226 million that Valerio mentioned already, bringing the financial leverage, the ratio of net debt on EBITDA, well below 2 x. I would say around 1.7, 1.75, which is a pretty good improvement compared to last year.
Not enough.
Not enough. I was going to say this. I made a mistake because Valerio. Sorry for the joke. Cash flow, flipping to the following page. EUR 365 million, excluding the antitrust settlements, and excluding, of course, the, let me say, minor acquisitions for EUR 93 million that we have done last year, and of course, also the dividend payment year. It's very clear how we have been able to contain the working capital growth. You see a cash absorption of only EUR 28 million, and here we comment on this slide, the impact of which metal price increase, which is the EUR 230 million, EUR 228, to be more exact, that I was mentioning before.
The guidance is certainly a good guidance, I believe, but the guidance for 2022. A midpoint at EUR 400 million ±15% means EUR 340 million, EUR 460 million. As you perfectly know, we are always focused on at least the midpoint of this guidance. It's obviously challenging because unfortunately or fortunately, the raw material prices keep increasing. If we take our management plan assumptions of a couple of months ago, we have certainly higher copper price, much higher aluminum price, significantly higher FeSiAl price, and these will need to be offset with very strong actions, further improving receivables. It will not be a piece of cake. Further improving inventory management, but I'm confident that overall we'll be able to deliver this.
Delivering the outlook, the guidance for free cash flow means just for you to have an idea, a net debt in the region of EUR 1.6 billion, potentially even lower than EUR 1.6 billion. Another step in the right direction, but not enough as Valerio is saying. The following slide is very important in my opinion. I try to give you a consistent view, a historical view of the stable and consistent cash generation of our group over the long term. Sometimes I believe we are too focused on one-year cash flow, which doesn't mean that much. What is important is to rely on stable and strong cash flow to deliver, to continuously deliver. Because continuous leverage is obviously a very strong driver of value accretion by itself. You see the numbers. You have top left, the...
On the left part of the slide, the picture of our cash generation post General Cable acquisition, the last four years. You see that the average of free cash flow generation was EUR 350 million. On the right part, we took an even longer period of time to give you the sense of that. Eleven years, which is the period after the Draka acquisition, with an average yearly free cash flow before dividend, of course, of EUR 290 million.
If we take the seven years period going from 2011 to 2017, before General Cable acquisition, the free cash flow on average was a yearly free cash flow of EUR 250 million, which means that the scale that we acquired with General Cable acquisition gave us ammunition to rise the level of cash flow by EUR 100 million, which is a lot. Let me also remark that this EUR 350 million average cash flow in the last four years came with a total restructuring charges, because of course we had to integrate and restructure after the acquisition, that you read in the third column of this chart of EUR 278 million, which is not a detail over four years, is a pretty material restructuring charge.
On the right part, let me also note that, in the 11 years that I took here, again, post Draka acquisition, the total free cash flow of EUR 3.2 billion was enough to fund all the acquisitions that our group has done after Draka, including General Cable. As you see, in total EUR 2.9 billion, out of which EUR 2.5 billion is General Cable. Allowing us also to return to the shareholders almost EUR 1 billion cash, mainly in dividends, but also in buybacks. Let me flip now to the following and last page to just repeat and confirm what Valerio anticipated. The decision to increase the proposed dividend to our coming, upcoming shareholder meeting to EUR 0.55, 10% up.
1.8%, of course, to as a natural consequence, let me say, of the picture that I was showing you on the previous page, and also as a clear signal of the confidence that we have on our dynamics, both financial and cash dynamics and of course, business growth. Thank you very much. I think we can.
Sorry, Francesco.
Yeah.
Just to remind the audience that our cash flow includes all the CapEx. Whatever CapEx we're talking about.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your question, please press the pound or the hash key. Once again, if you have any questions or comment, please press star followed by one on your telephone now. Call's coming from Vivek Midha from Citi, please ask your question.
Hi. Thank you. Sorry about that. I had two questions, if I may. Firstly, on Telecom margins, you appear to have had a bit of a deterioration in Q4, I guess reflecting these price cost challenges. Could you give us some of your expectations on Telecom margins going forward in 2022, also, in light of the EU anti-dumping case? My second question is if you could give us any indication on trading so far in the first quarter of 2022, that would also be helpful. Thank you.
Thank you for the question. First of all, the Telecom margins have been scaling down a little bit. Why is that? Because differently from energy, especially E&I, the raw material cost increase, we have not been or we are not allowed automatically to pass into the sales. All the other materials that are rising because copper and aluminum, if any, are separately treated, is not easy to pass it. Once you have a contract that covers some quarter or a full year, you are not entitled unless the negotiation with customers let us to do it. I don't know if Philippe wants to add something about it.
Yes. No, that's the essence of it. I would say we have two effects in Q4. The first one is the fact that we are fully with our new contracts that were negotiated during the year before the increase of raw material prices. The fact that at the very end of the year, we had a sharp increase of our raw material costs that we were not able, of course, to compensate immediately in our P&L. We are-
Energy.
Energy as well, yes.
For Telecom, energy is not negligible, especially on the fiber business.
You have a double effect in Q4 that, of course, is going to be less visible in the coming quarters because we are actively working on correcting the prices now.
I'm sorry. The second question was related to?
Current trade.
Current trade first quarter, let me say that, the situation is in line with the Q4. It's going pretty well, especially North America, but even Europe. Of course, now with the Ukraine crisis, we don't know where we are gonna go. For the time being, touching wood, the business is going very well. Honestly, I've seen the February flash just today, and is in line. I cannot tell you. It's in line with the expectations.
Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
We have the next question is coming from Max Yates from Credit Suisse. Please ask your question.
Thank you. Good afternoon. Just my first question is around the energy projects division in 2022. I wanted to understand sort of how much is your capacity fully covered for 2022? I just wanted to understand kind of where should we expect revenues to go based on sort of effectively the business being at full utilization, because I would assume you have some visibility on that. The second part of the question is there any major difference in mix around installations type of projects that you're gonna be delivering in 2022 that will change profitability or change the look of profitability?
Okay, Max. Thank you very much for the question. Let's talk about the situation of projects. The situation is pretty good, honestly. The capacity in the first quarter, let me talk about today, is fully saturated. The problem is another. When the project runs at full speed on all the line, including the installation, the risk is to have a problem and to have a cascade in terms of effects. That's what we take care of most of all. For the time being, but I leave the floor to Hakan to give you more details. For the time being, I believe that we are saturated, and until the capacity will not increase, we have already launched the investment to do it. It will stay very, very high saturation. Hakan?
Yes. For 2022, yes, we are fully saturated. I have to tell you also that, you know, to be fully compliant, we are waiting, you know, some customers to give us a notice to proceed. For the 90%, I can say that we have the full, you know, orders in hand. And the additional 10% is coming. I mean, it's only a matter of, you know, procedure. Overall, I think that, as Valerio was saying, now we are entering into an era for the next few years of flawless execution. We don't see any issues on the order intake.
The mix of the project at the very beginning. I would not comment on the different project mix, but more on, let me say, the project cycle. We are in the beginning of, you know, building the project. Therefore, as you know, at the completion of the project, if we were successfully completing the project, then the mix will make it more significantly, you know, apparent in the results. Apart from the different mixes of the project, it's more important if we are at the end of a project or at the beginning of the project. That is again related to what Valerio said, the domino effect.
If everything goes right, we will definitely see better mix at the end of the life cycle of the project. Overall, yes, we are saturated, installation saturated also, in terms of production, and not only for this year. With that I-
Okay. Just my second question would be around energy costs, which obviously is a concern given everything that's happening. How much of your total costs is energy? Could you talk about sort of how you're hedged and what sort of levels your hedges are negotiated at? Then maybe specifically on Telecom, do you have any kind of. I know you have multi-year frame contracts. Do you have any sort of price escalation clauses? Or how specifically in Telecom does it work to actually pass it through to customers?
It's clear that energy counts in the total business of the group, roughly 1.5% of the sales. Consequently, in average is pretty low. Obviously, if the 1.5% is becoming 2% because of the price increase, is a 0.5 point lower profitability for the company, unless we are able to pass to the market. Most of all, the energy is dangerous for the fiber business, because the fibers have a content of energy that is roughly 10% of turnover. Once the energy cost grows, we have a problem in term of profitability or in term of cost, at your choice. I don't know if Philippe wants to add something.
No, it's right. It's the fiber production is energy consuming, and we produce a part of it in Europe, so that is more exposed than the U.S. from that perspective. Yes, it's a question. It's a point that we have to try and transfer to our customers, which we are doing as we said earlier. In your question about our contracts, we operate indeed largely on multi-year contracts, but we have a good relationship with our customers, and we went to them to discuss that issue with them. In most of the cases, we received a good understanding from them.
No slapping.
Of course, never.
A reasonable-
It's pleasant for nobody. It's as a matter of fact, something we didn't choose, we have to suffer from, and they understand this, most of them. We had discussions with them, and we are now. You will see the effect of that in the coming quarters, unless the raw material prices keep on growing. In that case, we'll have to continue that discussion with our customers. The
Okay.
It was not badly received, I would say. It's such a global issue that everybody can see it in reality.
Let me add one thing, Valerio. The energy issue is primarily a European issue. We don't suffer very much from energy costs soaring in Latam and North America and other parts of the world. Of course, in Europe, we have seen a doubling of the gas costs, but gas is a very minor portion of our energy costs, and an increase by 57% of electricity only in Europe. As Philippe said, we are trying not only in Telecom, in energy, to pass it through the final customer.
How much is it, the total bill of energy?
Inflation value is EUR 170 million cost, which will increase by EUR 50 million, 2022 over 2021. It's EUR 50 million, a problem that we have to tackle. Big chunk of this we already passed to the customer in the second quarter, in the second half and quarter four last year. We'll continue to do the same job in 2022. Nothing different from what we've done last year.
Okay. Valerio, perhaps just a very final quick question.
Yeah.
I think you've talked about the ambition of getting energy projects to EUR 400 million-EUR 500 million of EBITDA in the next five years. My interpretation of that was that that may result in about EUR 3 billion of revenues by sort of 2026. I just wanted to think about with the capacity additions that you're making in Pikkala, Arco Felice, and the new plant that you talked about in the U.S., do you see a fairly linear ramp up towards that kind of number over the next few years? Or should we think in the period sort of 2022-2026, that that will be more back-end loaded? I know you've already started making investments, just how to think about that capacity ramp up.
Of course, it will be more back-end loaded because the growth of the capacity is not very fast. The demand is very high, and we are negotiating with customers, even myself, helping Hakan on how to be able to make them happy without breaching our historical reliability in terms of execution.
Okay. We think about, yeah, more back-end loaded. Understood. Thank you.
You're welcome.
We have the next questions coming from Akash Gupta from JP Morgan. Please ask your question.
Yes. Hi, good afternoon everybody. My first one is on projects, and I was wondering if you can share the timeline of this Brayton Point plant in North America. When do you expect to produce the first cable, and is it two years, three years, or more than three years, given the lead times in this market? So that's question number one.
Okay. Thank you Akash. I leave the floor to Hakan because he came from North America Monday, just in case after the negotiation of the purchase of the land, and probably he's the most updated person in the group.
Right. Thank you Valerio. The plant, of course, as you have heard also from the, you know, communication, it's contingent on the permits. The speed of the permits is going to be the driving factor in accomplishing the fastest possible time for establishing the plant. The permits can be procedural from 12-18 months, but we are not going to stay still during that period. We will already take some precautions to accelerate the investment parallel to that. I can say that, you know, in 2.5 years, we will have potentially a plant ready to produce, but readiness is not going to be complete until we have the qualifications performed.
Therefore, I think it is, you know, something in the range between 3 years and 3.5 years. We can say that we will be able to complete the full factory, being able to supply, let me say, cable. Overall, you know, the timing is difficult to give exact numbers, which, you know, has some also. It's not dependent on us. Even if you have the cash, you have to have, you know, the environmentals and the procedural parts. But we have a very supportive government. I have to thank them. You know, the Massachusetts government has done a tremendous job in helping us to come to that point. From that perspective, I don't think, you know, we will face issues.
On the contrary, they will help us to go faster.
Maybe we can add that in the meantime, we'll use the European capacity to back up the order book that we already won, that we've already been awarded for North American projects. It's not that the U.S. expansion in our footprint, commercial footprint, will only rely on the factory in U.S. We'll be producing 2023, the project that we won last year, for North America. In the meantime, we are expanding the European capacity that is much faster and easier to do than a greenfield plant.
Definitely. Thank you.
Yesterday, just in case, I was in Arco Felice, and I came back last night to negotiate with the local community the expansion of Arco Felice.
My follow-up question is on U.S. Power Distribution market. I mean, that market was booming in 2020, and last year we saw decline. Looking ahead, how do you see recovery in that part of market? It looks like U.S. wind installation might be down next year in 2023. Do we need to wait until 2024 for recovery of that market, or could it come before? I don't know, maybe if you can help us with exposure to your Power Distribution business in U.S. between wind and non-wind, like solar and other Power Distribution markets.
Akash, I ask to Massimo, that has been enjoying the ramp up of the Power Distribution in U.S. two years ago, to give you the answer.
Yes. Thank you very much Akash. The market has been strong since 2020 in United States, and the demand has continued in 2021. It will continue in 2022, and we see this continue for the next years, for the future, for at least 3, 4 years. We didn't perform in line with 2020 in 2021, only because of the cost inflation. We had some hiccup in transferring cost inflation to the market. In terms of volume, the market has gone up also in 2021. We have approved last year investment for capacity increase in United States, which will come into fruition in January 2023. From next year onwards, you will see a stronger volume and a stronger sales growth in our footprint.
Our share of wallet has remained more or less stable, very high, in the region of 50-55% in this Power Distribution business United States, which is highly driven by the energy transition, which is benefiting high voltage power distribution, low voltage, a big chunk of our energy footprint in the United States. The demand is very strong. The level of prices is very high, and now we have finally reached a good balance between inflation and prices, so you will see margin increases in 2022 as a result of these actions.
You expect growth to continue in the coming years and margin improving in 2022 in Power Distribution overall in the U.S.?
Correct Akash.
Thank you.
Welcome.
We have the next questions coming from Miguel Borrega from BNP Paribas Exane. Please ask your question.
Hi. Good afternoon everyone. Thanks for taking our questions. First question on the projects division. Can you give us a flavor for how the profitability of a project like the German Corridor projects will be like? Just to understand the mechanics of such a large project, how are you booking your margins? Do you book a higher margin initially since the installation only comes at a later stage, or do you essentially average it out? Can you give us an idea of how much will this weigh on next year's profitability? That's my first question.
Okay. Thank you very much for the question. Projects and German Corridors in particular. At page, sorry, 42 of the presentation, we posted some picture because the first barge, in reality even the second, bringing the reels of the German Corridors into the German territory, has arrived in the German port. They can see?
Yes.
Okay, our first 87 km, if I'm not wrong, are already there, ready for business. When the installation will start, that has to be verified with the local crews and the customers. I've been in touch with the customer. They are confident that they will get the approval from all the landowners. Of course, today, with the scarcity of energy in Europe, is even an accelerator to the execution of these projects and maybe of German Corridor projects too. We are happy with that. I leave the floor to Hakan, talking about the margins you asked. The margins are pretty good for the cable side. The installation, we don't know yet because we have to realize. I can tell you about the forecast of the margins that are not so bad.
I would say that the margins, cable and installations are 60/40.
The German Corridor overall, you know, the margin situation is no different than any other project in terms of the project cycle. At the very beginning, it will be relatively limited compared to the overall project because of the risks involved. As you know, big projects have risks and also high margins, so this is always the balance.
What we think that at the very beginning the risk is relatively low. We have done a perfect industrialization, and we have completed especially on the P-Laser side a major milestone in terms of production, flawless production, which Valerio also in the previous session had explained. Now, from that perspective, we will enjoy higher margins, as Valerio said, but it will be further in the going forward because of the, you know, when we have flawless execution, then we will be able to realize the real margin. We will be more precautionary at the very beginning, but I don't see any issues so far.
We have a very good and experienced team, and first production, as you saw, has been already delivered on site. We don't see any issues also of significant delays, because currently, of course, everything has changed, you know, in Germany also, the political structure has changed, the world energy balance has changed, and these projects are the most important projects in Europe currently, so everyone is focused to accelerate rather than to delay these projects. This is what I can say.
Yeah. Maybe if I can give a technical clarification. It's not that we book the, let me say, cable production margin at the beginning, and then when we start to install, we book the installation margin. Project accounting works differently from this. We have an estimation of the margin on the overall project, including both cable production and installation, which is constantly updated monthly, I would say, on a monthly basis. Of course, when installation will kick in, revenues will grow faster because you will have both cable production and installation, and will drive a higher margin in absolute terms. Not, I would say not in percentage terms. In percentage terms is rather flat. Of course, the accountant is perfectly right.
At the beginning of the execution of a large project, we tend to be a little bit more cautious, more conservative. When we approach the final phase of the project, if we have some contingencies or costs, let me say, excess built in our budget assumptions, in our margin assumptions, we release them. That's normal.
That's very good. Thank you for clarification. Excluding the German corridors, are you seeing margins going up? Would you say that everything else equal pricing of your recent tenders has improved? I remember you saying that a couple of quarters ago, that margins in the U.S. would be at a similar level as in Europe. I'm just trying to figure out what should drive your margins to a new level from here, if this pricing is relatively stable, as you said a couple of quarters ago.
Of course, I mean, it's demand and supply, you know, and the demand is pushing upwards in these days. We are talking about projects which are going to start in two years and three years. Our customers are planning for the long term because the capacity, the supply is going to be relatively short. From that perspective, definitely the prices have an uptick, there is no question. If you look from our, let me say, from our perspective, you will expect also that there is going to be an increase.
Again, I will refer to what Pierfrancesco said, you know, we will see these effects, the bigger effect, at project completion rather than at the very beginning. You're right. There is a market which is increasing with an increasing price. There is no question.
Increasing price doesn't mean 20%.
No, of course not.
Just not to create a false expectation.
No. We are in the cable industry. We will have, of course, from time to time, spot businesses which are exceeding the average, but overall, the trend is pretty consistent in cable.
That's great. My last question on telecom and following the European Commission decision in your favor regarding the anti-dumping case. What are you seeing now in the market? Are your competitors immediately applying the tax duties and pricing? Are you seeing pricing going up? Can they actually appeal the decision? Will this take longer to be finalized? Can you talk about your other contracts that need to be renewed? Do you have anything left to be renewed or you don't have any other legacy contracts at prices much higher than what you're doing today? Thank you very much.
Okay. It's Philippe speaking. First, the anti-dumping measures were decided in late November of 2021, so It's not long ago. It's too early to see a real effect on the market, and it's logical, because two, three months is not enough to really see an effect. They are definitive measures. There is no possible appeal. They are in force at least for five years. This is the European laws. We will have these measures in force for five years. Whether we will see a change in the behavior of our Asian competitors, I don't know. As I said, it's too early to say. What is also for sure is in case of what they call circumvention, trying to go around the measures, there are extremely tough fines. One could even be banned from the market in case of extreme behavior.
The European Commission has also declared that they are going to look very carefully to the practices of our Chinese competitors in that field, and we will see. It's a bit early to say. On your last point, contract, yes. Now all our contracts are with prices that were fixed after the drop of the prices worldwide. This is now over. We do not have any price that is from before the telecom crisis anymore.
We have
Thank you very much.
We have to remind you that unfortunately the anti-dumping case has been accepted against the Chinese fibers.
Sure.
Not the Koreans, nor the Indians. Consequently, competitors are still in the market, even coming from outside of Europe.
Cables, not fiber, of course. It's a partial protection in any case, as we know. It's a sign that Europe is able to defend-
Mm-hmm.
a fair playing field and it might be not the last case.
Mm-hmm.
We will see.
We have the next questions coming from Renato Gargiulo from Stifel. Please ask your question.
Yes, good afternoon. Well, my first question is on Telecom, and regarding the U.S. market, you have been experiencing clearly very strong volume trends up to date. Some competitors were pointing to volumes up double-digit over the next few years, also thanks to the impact of the U.S. plan. Do you share this view going forward? Then the second question, you have been talking about production capacity for energy projects. Could you give us an update about your current utilization of production capacity across the other businesses? And then the third one, actually a very general question.
Given the new macro scenario with the war in Ukraine and the high dependence on some countries like Germany, Italy, and Russian gas imports, do you expect a further potential acceleration for energy projects in Europe? Just to give you an example, an acceleration also for EuroAsia award or like this? Thank you.
Thank you Renato. First of all, the Telecom question. I leave the floor again to Philippe.
The answer is simple, yes. We see the U.S. market growing double digits in the coming years.
Yes.
Under the push of the incentives and the real needs of the market. We are well positioned in the U.S.
We have not increased the capacity in the U.S. significantly in the last five years. Now, we are launching two consecutive, one already launched, the second one going to be launched in the second half of the year to raise the capacity of U.S. output. Your second question, Renato, was-
Saturation of the-
The saturation of all the divisions.
Non-projects.
Non-projects.
non-projects. Projects we have been talking about, E&I is relatively high. Let's say high compared to the traditional standard. Consequently, we are running at 70% of saturation. Whereas in the Telecom, we are running at almost full speed, depending on the regions. What I'm not very happy is that the Telecom run very fast, but the margins are still pretty low. Philippe knows very well because almost every day we shout.
Even from time to time, more than once a day.
Last but not least, the Ukraine situation. The Ukraine situation is, we have basically very limited relationship with Ukraine and Russia. We have no activity in Ukraine. We have a plant in Russia. Obviously, we have to see which will be the effect of the sanctions. I believe that, there will be a minor impact on our P&L and cash. Overall, we have one plant in Russia that runs EUR 120 million turnover with EUR 5 million EBITDA. That's it. The problem is not our activity. The problem is the possible effect of the sanctions on our metals coming from Russia. That's the sole risk I can see. Did I answer to your question, Renato?
Yes. I was also referring to the potential positive impact in terms of acceleration, further acceleration of energy projects in Europe, given that some countries, Germany.
Okay, Renato, I leave the floor for it to Hakan.
Overall, of course, related to the unfortunate Ukrainian situation, there is going to be definitely an acceleration request on independence of energy production in all of the European countries. That's a given. Taking the Ukrainian situation apart, there was already a big request for projects inside Europe. The main problem that we are going to face is that it's not possible to execute all of them. One of them you were mentioning, Ojesa, depending on the technology that, of course, our customer is going to choose, to complete them at the wish date is going to be, from my perspective or our perspective, a dream because the capacity utilization is relatively high in all the industry.
To add new capacities as we are doing, as Valerio was mentioning, in Arco Felice, in Finland or in the US, this will create some advantages for the long term, but not for the next few years. This should be discussed among our customers, and we are discussing it daily. It is overdue to wait until the last minute to do a project. You have to plan the project in advance. Sometimes in five years advance, you have to plan big projects, especially the offshore winds, which are growing in 2 giga. These are significant, all the interconnect. From that perspective, I can say that, yes, there is an acceleration, but you won't see that acceleration in the execution until the capacities are going to become real.
Very clear. Thank you.
I would say, Renato, if I may, that the Ukrainian crisis and the gas crisis may drive really a trend of energy independence for Europe. The energy independence for Europe comes from the renewables, and the renewables comes mostly from the northern Europe wind generation. It may be that the offshore will have an acceleration in the next years. The problem is the capacity.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.
We have the next questions coming from Daniela Costa from Goldman Sachs. Please ask your question.
Hi, it's actually Daniela here. Thanks for taking the questions. Couple of follow-ups. First, just wanted to ask regarding the high voltage backlog which you have now, which is at a very high level. How does the margin in the backlog now compares with the margin that you're reporting at the moment? That's question number one. I can ask the others after.
The margin is stable. We have not yet increased the margins of the project, even if we have still a significant order backlog. I don't know if Hakan wants to add something.
I mean, of course, the newly added projects have a bit of improved margins, but it's early to say without execution, you know, that the margins are better or worse. I agree with Valerio. The only thing is, as we had answered also before, if the prices go up, it will reflect itself into the margin. This is also our expectation.
Daniela, do not forget that at the same time we are raising the volumes, we are even raising a little bit the fixed costs related to the projects. That's in order to have a proper and flawless execution.
Okay. Thank you. That's very clear. The second thing I wanted to ask you is regarding, like, your main competitor is increasingly focusing just in electrification, divesting potentially telecom, some of the industry, industrial areas. You've been clear in explaining why you think diversified is better. Would you be interested in looking into some of those assets, if you can comment?
Basically not.
Cool. Okay.
My answer is very, very quick, blunt, and direct.
That's good. That leaves me maybe space to ask two more things, if that's okay. One I wanted to ask was regarding security of supply on metals. You talked a little bit throughout the call about it, but obviously not just the situation now, but I think a lot of people think that we're getting into a supply crunch regarding available copper and maybe now aluminum as well. You're probably one of the biggest buyer of these metals, which I guess is different to some of your smaller competitors, especially on the low voltage segment. Do you think this will have tailwinds in terms of market share and pricing on the energy product side of things? How do you think about this?
Daniela, Massimo speaking. We are certainly addressing this possible shortage of material with serious actions. We believe at some point that this will happen, and we are trying to manage it with additional stock that we are creating in Europe and also in North America. Suppliers coming from the Russian supplier are currently delivering it to Europe and to United States additional volume to help us weather this especially difficult times. This will certainly add a scarcity of cable in the market, and we believe we might leverage the scarcity of cable, provided that we have additional capacity, thanks to the stock that we are creating to improve our service to gain maybe some market share and hopefully to work on prices as well.
We're working on this case. We don't want to disclose too much because people listen to this conference that we don't want to share our strategies to. But we are taking care of this seriously.
Thank you very much. Very quickly, just in terms of the new capacity additions in high voltage, I think obviously the U.S. one, but also the Arco Felice one that Valerio just mentioned earlier. Can you help us understand how impactful in terms of added capacity to the market they are in kilometers and incremental revenues?
We are simply adding in Europe 600 km. Adding 700 km in Europe, and we're adding an additional 800 high voltage and low voltage in North America. We're basically doubling submarine capacity that we used to have, Daniela, and we're adding a significant portion to the voltage cable capacity. Of course, as we said before, this capacity will come on stream in the second half 2023, and will continue in a linear way to 2024, 2025, and 2026.
Sorry, very quickly, in terms of CapEx on the Arco Felice, 'cause I think we know the U.S. one, but the Arco Felice one, what's the CapEx extra?
CapEx are EUR 200 million for the brand new plant, excluding land, excluding the value of the land. For high voltage for Arco Felice and Pikkala are another EUR 100 million roughly.
Okay.
Just to complete, Daniela, in total, we have EUR 500 million worth of capacity, worth of CapEx approved under the deployment stage to increase the high voltage land and submarine up to the next 4-5 years. In order to reach the famous EUR 400-500 million EBITDA. Gotcha. In 3.5-4 years, we will be double in high voltage overall in transmission. As of today, with all the plans of today. But you know.
Mm-hmm.
I think the demand is going to be even higher than what we are planning. We may, along the way, think again or should think again.
Got it. Very clear. Thank you so much for the answers.
We have the next question from Vivek Midha from Citi. Please ask your question.
Thanks very much, everyone. I had a question on the midterm outlook in slide 22. I know it's not a new view. But just wondering on energy, and sort of following up on Akash's question, is the view in energy perhaps a little bit conservative in your view? I'm just thinking in terms of structural drivers, things like the distribution network, transport, electrification. You're expecting relatively limited EBITDA growth. Is there any upside risk to that view? Thank you.
Well, thank you for the question. Frankly speaking, I have to say that if I look at all the sentences and expectations, I agree with you, but I prefer to be more careful in the expectation of growth. The market will grow, but for the time being, it's a pretty long trend. Consequently, I do not want to create over expectations that maybe the market and ourselves will not be able to catch, simply that.
Okay. Thank you.
I'll be happy if energy is able to keep the EUR 400 million-EUR 500 million EBITDA overall. Because it's very fast. Energy, especially T&I, is extremely fast. Going up, I've seen more than one cycle in my career. As soon as oil is fast going up. Is even faster going down, and sooner or later the E&I market may go down.
Understood. Thank you very much.
You're welcome.
We have the next questions coming from Lucie Carrier from Morgan Stanley. Please ask your question.
Hi, good afternoon gentlemen. Thanks for taking my question. Just a couple of follow-up, really. I will go one at a time. The first one, you were just mentioning, I think, that you had some metal sourcing coming from Russia. Can you help us understand a little bit here, kind of the exposure you have to that, considering some of the trade and financial restriction which are now being applied on to Russia?
Okay. I tell you very clearly the situation. We are buying from Capr, from Rusal, basically, the aluminum and a minimum part of the copper. Overall, are we talking about 40,000 tons, something like that?
Let's say 50, round number. 50,000 more or less.
50,000 tons. Is that flow going to expire? I don't believe. Maybe we'll have some difficulties. We have some backup. For instance, our OCI subsidiary in the Middle East has the possibility to double the capacity of aluminum. We are thinking if to invest some dozen million EUR in order to double it. The risk is that we are gonna double, we are gonna get the capacity output when the crisis will be over, and consequently. We are thinking about it.
Let me add one thing, Valerio, because I don't want you to be skewed by this fact that we're buying 50,000 tons from Rusal. We need also to bear in mind that Rusal and other Russian suppliers are producing raw material for European aluminum rod and copper rod producers. Should this sanction be effective one day, we will struggle to buy material from Rusal, as well as all the other European producers of aluminum rod and copper will struggle to source the raw material they need for this production. The whole Europe will come to a halt in terms of lack of material. This will be a common problem all European cable makers.
The alumina, that is the raw material for producing aluminum.
The cathode, which is the raw material for copper that are currently produced in Russia, will probably become scarce in Europe. The whole industry will suffer from this, and so we'll be in the same situation. The more we prepare ourselves, the higher will be the chance that we outperform the others in this situation. As we said before, we don't want to touch much more on this strategic topic, because it's something we want to leverage in the coming months as an opportunity for us.
Okay. Understood. Thank you. Just maybe to kind of put into context the 55,000 tons that you just mentioned, are you able maybe to say how much does that represent out of your total supply of metals?
20%.
20%.
Of European volume that we use for our production.
Okay. Very, very helpful.
10% for the global one.
Bear in mind that we can move metals from one affiliate to the other, of course, with certain costs, but we can.
Understood. Thank you very much. That's very helpful. My second question, you know, you've spoken a bit about Telecom and kind of the pressure you had seen around the price now anti-dumping or in place but not yet delivering. In China itself, I mean, considering you were mentioning, I think the contribution from YOFC to be only EUR 40 million for this year, as you said, it was much larger before. What is your kind of outlook in terms of, let's say, at least qualitatively the next few years coming for YOFC? Because that also is a big contributor historically to the Telecom profitability.
Lucie, you know very well that, being YOFC a listed company, we cannot anticipate anything about them. What I can tell you is that obviously after the crisis of the prices in China in 2019, the market has not recovered yet. It is improving, but not recovered. I don't know if Philippe, but by the way, he's a board member of YOFC. Obviously, he have to be.
No, just one thing I could add, Lucie, is that YOFC will soon release their full year results, which has not yet been re-released. We will know more when they announce it. We cannot say much more than this.
Good.
You're not seeing the market improving in China despite the better tenders that we have seen?
Prices have gone up in China, and the volume as well is much stronger than one year ago. This is, as a matter of fact, a reality. What I don't know is whether the capacity that is installed in China is t oo big, too small, or just the right one for this market.
Don't forget, Lucie, that the prices in China dropped dramatically.
30%. Just even more, even 50%.
+10% is a marginal recovery of the losses.
Okay, all right. That's it for me today. Thank you very much. I'll go back in the queue.
Thank you.
The next question comes from Alessandro Tortora from Mediobanca. Please ask your question.
Yes, hi. Good afternoon everybody. I have three questions. You know, the first one is related to the delta between Adjusted EBITDA and reported EBITDA. I would like to understand if you can, let's say, give us any idea of what's your expectation, let's say inside this delta, where there were a lot of items in last year, so let's say for 2022. The second question is on, let's say your... You mentioned before that there is a situation of full saturation. I would like to understand if the company sees any possibility of some, let's say bolt-on or external growth opportunities, basically purchasing production capacity. Mm?
The third question is, so it's on the Telecom, because I didn't catch the answer on the expectation on the profitability for this division in 2022. The sub-question on Telecom is, considering that the pricing environment is not, let's say, amazing in Europe, are there any possibility maybe to restructure some production capacity in Europe? Thanks.
Okay. Provided that I did not understand the first question. I don't know if anybody can.
Yeah. He's gonna take.
Okay.
Ciao, Alessandro. Francesco speaking.
Ciao.
Regarding the EBITDA adjustments, you saw that in 2021, we had EUR 49 million already decreasing from the EUR 59 million of the previous year. This is mainly including restructuring costs and some other costs related to antitrust, in principle, which were, by the way, pretty neutral this year. The expectations for 2022 is a further decrease of this mainly on the item of restructuring charges, because following the General Cable acquisition, we can well say that now restructuring is over, was already almost over in 2021. In 2022, will be definitely over. I would expect a further decrease in the region of maybe EUR 15-20 million.
We have also component of costs related to the pandemic, to the health crisis, and I expect that also this cost will start to decrease in 2022.
Okay, your second question, Alessandro. The saturation of the capacity, it may drive some move in terms of acquisition, bolt-on acquisition for us. The answer is maybe, meaning that today our capacity on the low end is not fully saturated, but may be reasonable and useful to consolidate a little bit more the market, even in Europe, for having a higher level of presence slash importance to our customer, the distributors. I do not expect to make any kind of acquisition similar to General Cable or something like that, but maybe some additional bolt-on acquisition, if the opportunity comes, maybe we are looking for. Frankly speaking, today everything is getting expensive and also we have to be careful. For the question on the Telecom margin expectations, I leave the floor to Philippe Vanhille.
Let's say that the trends are not bad. In particular, as we said earlier, in North America, where demand is growing strongly and the price dynamic is good. In Europe, we see a growing market to a lesser extent compared to the U.S., and we also see a price trend which is upwards after the two years of very bad crisis that we had. The competition is still there, and the costs of raw materials and energy are rising, especially in Europe. All that tells me that globally speaking, I'm not personally expecting an erosion, a further erosion of the Telecom margins.
Also because we keep on working on our cost base, as always, but you know, there is a certain level of uncertainty, in particular on the raw material and energy cost side of things. Here also, I would like to be careful.
bit early to talk about the overall 2022 now. Your last question, Alessandro, was about the capacity, potential restructuring in Europe. We never say never, huh? Today is not in the agenda, but for sure, talking about telecom per se, what we mean, the telecom solution, we don't see any reason for that. Talking about fibers, of course, with the cost of energy and the cost of labor and the increasing cost of raw materials, the fibers is not any more a pleasant business. We have to look at the integrated markets, fiber plus cables, because once you don't have the fibers, you cannot make the cables. Consequently, first of all, we have to make as much as possible the fiber business productive and efficient. Then, if that's not possible, we will see other alternative solutions.
Okay, thanks.
There are no further questions at this time. I hand back the conference to you for any closing remarks.
Okay. Gentlemen, thank you very much, and thank you for having been participating to our full year 2021 conference call. Goodbye.
Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you, and have a very good day.