Good morning. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Acerinox fourth quarter and fiscal year 2025 results presentation. As you well know, 2025 has been a challenging year, marked by a complex macroeconomic environment, low global demand, and ongoing tariff tensions. Despite these headwinds, the group has maintained a solid financial situation, demonstrating the strength of our diversified business model and a strategic position in the United States, Europe, and South Africa. In many ways, 2025 has been the year for setting the foundations for industrial reactivation in both the U.S. and Europe, with the improvement of Section 232 in the U.S. and the European Steel and Metals Action Plan in the European Union. Looking ahead, and although final demand remains low, we maintain a positive outlook for 2026, based on our solid strategy and supported by the different trade defense measures.
Acerinox, thanks to its geographical diversification, is best positioned to benefit from this new environment. During this call, we will hear from our Chairman, Carlos Ortega, our CEO, Bernardo Velázquez, our Chief Corporate Officer, Miguel Ferrandis, and our CFO, Esther Camós. They will explain our full year results, our corporate strategy, and they will also provide us with an outlook of the upcoming year. Before we start the presentation, let me remind you that this conference call is being broadcast on our website, acerinox.com, where you can also find all of our year-end documentation, including the annual accounts and the management report. Now, I'll hand you over to our Chairman, Carlos. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Carlos. Good morning, everyone. As Carlos said, this has been a very challenging environment, very difficult year, full of geopolitical tension, macro issues, low demand in all the markets that we have. Having said that, we believe in our strategy, and we believe we have done well within our strategy, and what we see is a very bright future in the medium term for Acerinox in particular. With that in mind, for 2025, we have recorded an increase in net sales of 7%, EUR 5.78 billion, which incorporates Haynes, the acquisition that we had last year. In the level of EBITDA, Adjusted EBITDA, we are 5% below last year at EUR 422 million.
The one of the key aspects of the results this year has been the generation, the cash flow generation. The operating cash flow you see is EUR 455 million, which is more than 50% more higher than last year's. This has allowed us to follow up with our very significant CapEx program, investment program, at the low part of the cycle, over EUR 300 million invested. We have paid taxes, almost EUR 100 million in taxes, and we allowed us also to pay our stable dividend policy with EUR 155 million this year, paid as well.
All of that, plus, unfortunately, foreign exchange impact, the depreciation of the dollar versus the euro, that has impacted on our net debt, has increased our net debt by EUR 68 million- EUR 1.189 million in net debt. Again, that increase, slight increase in net debt is based on the investments we've made, the dividends, and the FX differences. We have stuck, we stick to our strategy, as you saw, the four pillars of our strategy. The excellence in our operations, in particular, Beyond Excellence program, that is doing far better than expected. As you know, we had year mark EUR 100 million savings in three years by 2026.
We're doing better than expected. We have increased our target to EUR 120 million because we believe we can do better. We are investing in the low part of the cycle, EUR 311 million this year. That adds to our increase in value added in the industry and in our strategy, you know, HBA is a very important part. We incorporated Haynes into our perimeter. We believe we are going to higher the value products for our customers. Sustainability continues to be a key part of our strategy. As you may know, we have been included the S&P Sustainability Report for 2026, which is the first time and the only stainless steel, the only steel producer in the industry that has that recognition.
All of this allows us to continue with our financial strength. That provides us the ability to continue with our stable dividend policy, which is again, EUR 155 million this year, EUR 0.62%, that we continue, we want to keep doing for years to come. All in all, we believe it's a good year, despite the headwinds that we have suffered in Europe, in particular, with low prices, in the U.S., with low demand. With all of that, we have generated a lot of, a significant amount of cash flow that allow us to continue with our investments and dividend policy. With that in mind, I leave you to Bernardo, our CEO.
Thank you, Carlos. Good morning, everyone. Just as our chairman said, 2020 have been a challenging year. If there is a word that can define the market situation, it is uncertainty. Everybody is speaking about uncertainty. How can you make a budget if you don't know you're going to have tariffs in your market, so tariff in the export markets? How can you define who is going to be your competitors, if you don't know anything about tariffs, and you have all these geopolitical tensions? The word that we are using in all the market with other customers is uncertainty. What can happen? Now, this is the third consecutive year under this situation.
We are showing in the stainless steel, the business in the left part of this slide, the parallelism between Europe and United States, because the general situation is more or less the same. The PMI has been below 50 in both markets for 10 months of the year. What this is very representative of the market sentiment. Apparent consumption has been flat, but it's a minus 1.5% in United States, + 2.8% in Europe. That is flat for the third consecutive year. Inventories in both markets are below the historical average. The situation is more or less the same. What makes the difference?
In United States, we have a very effective, the Section 232, that by the way, nobody is questioning. Nobody's questioning, even though there were some rumors about the end of this tariff, nobody is questioning, the Vice President of the United States has said that it was a fake news. No problem with this. With this effective tariffs, imports have decreased by 17%, we keep very healthy market conditions with a stable and reasonable prices. In the case of Europe, it is very clear, as we are demanding year by year, is that the safeguard measures are not effective. They are not effective, imports are increasing. Imports increased 25%, the opposite than in United States.
Under this situation, with a flat market, a depressed market, plus increase of imports of 25%, that means that especially if these imports are coming from countries that are not playing the, this game with the same rules than we are, prices are going down. We are in a critical situation of prices in Europe, probably the lowest in the history. Fortunately, we have a very clear strategy, and we are following this, and this help us with the to compensate the good places, the bad places. We are in United States, but we are in Europe, but we are also in high-performance alloys, and this is a different market, and this diversification is giving us a more stability.
I think that our volatility through the cycles is being reduced thanks to this diversification. In the case of Europe, HPA is also affected because there are no projects or projects have been canceled. It's because under this uncertainty, many companies are postponing this investment. This is why oil and gas sector and chemical industry is going down, and that is affecting VDM. On the other side, we have Haynes in United States, and Haynes is more focused in aerospace and more focused in turbines for the industrial gas power stations.
This is also booming now in United States, especially because of the data centers. These data centers need a lot of electricity, so they need to build more power plants. They are using a turbine gas. That turbines are made with our nickel alloys in Haynes. In a challenging situation, in a difficult environment, we are demonstrating that we have the right strategy, that we are resilient, and that we are ready for what can happen in the future that we think will be better.
Now, if we go to the figures, today, we are not only presenting our year-end results, we have also published in our web page the consolidated management report, audited by PwC. We are well-recognized for the transparency and the detailed financial statements. I strongly recommend you to go through it. Most of the questions or the basis for understanding the year 2025 are perfectly explained in our financial statements. Having said that, I want just to give three, four ideas. You have the figures in the chart. Let's start by the EBITDA. The EBITDA of the year has been EUR 354 million. By itself, it could be considered is not a remarkable amount, but we need to put the context of what's taking place in the market.
First of all, is the probably the worst market condition ever achieved. The demand collapsed 20 year, 20% in America and in Europe, in all the Western world, three years ago, and it still has remained flat. We are playing in that environment. For putting it on place, you can realize that more or less every time, our distance from our competitors is getting bigger, no one is getting even close to the figures we are reporting. EUR 350 million in this environment is really relevant, but especially keeping in mind what has been taking place mostly at the year-end with that strong adjustment we have done for EUR 69 million. We have made two very relevant adjustments.
One is taking place, the rejuvenation plan in Acerinox Europa by EUR 9 million, but the most relevant is the EUR 60 million inventory adjustment. Why? What's taking place there? There are two issues, both very relevant in 2025. During the year, we have been experiencing a price decline, mostly in Europe, also in South Africa, but especially worse in the fourth quarter. It could be considered that the prices could not deteriorate more, but what in Europe took place in the fourth quarter is a clear reduction of prices as a consequence also for increase in imports in Europe, anticipating the new measures in place for the year 2026. This has its effect. Consequently, at the year-end, we have made a huge analysis of the realizable value of our inventories.
Keeping also in mind that at the starting of the year, the nickel has been moving up, but in the actual market conditions, mostly in Europe, it's not so simple to believe that it's going to be a pass-through of the nickel cost. As a consequence of that, in a very prudent exercise, we have preferred to make a strong inventory adjustment by this side, and in the other, in the huge strategic exercise of working capital reduction, we have also analyzed which material we were keeping in hands in our inventories and plants, that in the current market conditions, is not easy to sell and has not been rotated.
Material that for more than one year, we have keep it in our books, and it's not so easy to consider that we are going to probably sell it in the short term in the current market conditions. We have preferred to scrap that. This shall be obviously benefiting our raw material purchases expenses in the beginning of the year because we shall use our own generated scrap. It's not going to be taking place a reversal on higher profits because of that, but we have just adjusted that to put it according to the scrap prices. These two effects at the end has this EUR 69 million . We prefer for not making confusion during the year. We never talk about adjusted and so on. We normally talk about EBITDA at the year-end.
When there are some relevant issues taking place, we normally mention EBITDA and adjusted. For example, last year, the adjusted corrected the EBITDA we were reporting because it appeared the sale of value, which obviously was not a recurrent part of the business. This year, the effect of the adjustment has been in the contrary, because at the end, what has been taking place is this fact. It should not have been by this fact, the fourth quarter EBITDA should have been, as appears in the chart, EUR 101 million and EUR 422 million Adjusted EBITDA for the tough environment experienced in the year 2025. We are proud about the figure that we have achieved. If we analyze also the bottom of the chart, we see the net financial debt.
Net financial debt, EUR 1.1 – EUR 1.2 billion, is also, again, a consequence of our financial strength. It's a consequence that we have enough financial strength for making strategic acquisitions in the low part of the cycle, for moving forward, for making a aggressive expansion plan, and this is showing this figure. Keep in mind that just in the last year, the acquisition of Haynes, the AAA investment decision, America, Alloys, and Aerospace, increased our net debt almost EUR 900 million. In addition, that four years ago also, in our strategy of moving forward to the HPA, we also acquired VDM. At the end, if not were for our strategy moving to the HPA by acquisitions and integration, we should be in a cash position only by our stainless business.
For us, it's relevant that our financial strength allows us to invest in every part of the cycle, even in such difficult times as today was. We are not getting just comforted with that. In any case, what we are concentrating is also in generating cash and trying to compensate this increase of debt by a strong cash flow generation, which has been also remarkable in the ways of EUR 455 million. We are keeping our strategy programs, we are keeping our investments, but we are generating cash also for minimizing the effects in our debt. Even though that, I always, as I always remember, keep in mind that we have not a single covenant in our debt since the year 2009 related to results or EBITDA.
For us, it's an indicator, it's a KPI that says an internal indicator for us, but none of our leverage contracts is related to any specific debt to EBITDA ratio. Having said that, I also want to remark one issue. Two, three years, Two, three years ago, we explained in our Investors Day presentations are through the cycle, and we were more or less explaining. We consider currently, after the big investments done in the past, we are in a through-the-cycle EBITDA of about EUR 700 million. If we analyze what has taken place after the COVID, we have two magnificent years, and then two years of a strong correction, and this year, which has been the worst.
If we consider this to be a cycle, because the valley and the bottom clearly has been achieved in the year 2025, what appears is the average EBITDA of this period has been EUR 764 million, the average. The average operating cash flow has been EUR 432 million. We are generating cash in every part of the cycle, and the range from these horrible years to the remarkable year has been a range from EUR 294 million-EUR 544 million. Some years, the cash flow generation is driven by the profits. Some years, the cash flow generation is driven by the strong exercise of reducing working capital, and we are able to face every water in this condition. 2025 has been the valley. We consider that we have reached the bottom. Any case, let me make some quote.
My favorite piece of music is from Handel's Messiah, "Every Valley Shall Be Exalted." Exalted in 2025 means we have generate EUR 455 million. We have reduced inventories in EUR 400 million. We have overperformed in sustainability. We have overperformed in the Beyond Excellence plan. We have keeping on a strong organic growth plan at the same time that we are keeping a strong inorganic growth plan. All of these issues shall appear in, Esther's presentation now for all the financial details, but keep in mind that this year, 2025, this valley shall be exalted.
Okay, thank you, Miguel. Let me now explain you the results by divisions, okay? I will start by stainless. Let me summarize the main drivers of the quarter. Most of them has been mentioned either by Bernardo, Carlos, or Miguel, but I will centralize what's been the main drivers of the quarter. First of all, the quarter has been marked by the weak demand, weak demand in both markets, both Europe and the United States. Secondly, the seasonality, especially in our main markets, United States, with a decrease in the quarter of around 10% in volumes. There's been a consolidation price increase in the United States, as we announced, and we have the opposite side in Europe.
In Europe has been affected this quarter by the higher volumes prior to the approval of the CBAM. I think this was one of the reasons why fourth quarter was affected by higher input, and consequently, a higher price pressure, which has led us to lower prices in Europe. With all this, we have had extraordinary adjustments in this quarter that Miguel has already mentioned. In the case of stainless, the extraordinary adjustments have been the restructuring provision of EUR 9 million for Acerinox Europa, also an inventory adjustment of EUR 48 million in the case of this division. Out of these EUR 48 million, EUR 21 million is what's been the scrapping materials that Miguel has already explained. With all of this, our Adjusted EBITDA, this division, in the quarter has been of EUR 58 million, which compares to the EUR 56 million that we had last year.
We are very proud of our successful working capital reduction plan. This has been launched throughout all the group divisions, and this has allow us to generate EUR 104 million in the stainless division in this quarter. If I move to the year, if we compare to 2024, we have grown 7% in the, in productions, in volumes, okay? That's not only affected by the strike that we had last year in Europe, but we have also grown in United States. In the United States, we have grown around 6%, mostly not because of the demand, but mostly because of the reduction of the, of the, of the inputs in that market. In the opposite side, we have Europe.
Europe has been affected by the higher input this year, and consequently, the lower prices. Also to mention in the year is the negative impact in our results of the devaluation of the U.S. dollar. You, as you know, we consolidate in Europe. We have a lot of results in U.S. dollars, and this devaluation in the year has impacted more or less around $20 million. With this, the Adjusted EBITDA for the year in the stainless divisions has been $226 million. Proud of our cash flow generation, mainly driven by the working capital plan. We have generated in this division $269 million, which is more or less the figure of EBITDA that we are reporting in the year. Going to HBA.
Okay, if we go to HBA, I think the strategy of diversification that has been followed by the group, not only in the diversifying in high value-added product with high-performance alloy, but also diversifying in the regions where we are really having a higher profitability in this time. We have achieved in this division 40% of the EBITDA of the year, okay. With EUR 146 million Adjusted EBITDA. The situation in HBA has been different. On one side, we have had a gradual recovery of the aerospace sector, okay. On the other side, well, on the other side, sectors like oil and gas or chemicals have been progressively going down due to the uncertainties that Bernardo mentioned, okay.
That is postponing investments, especially in big projects. That's what we have. Even in this situation, thanks to our strategy, we have been able to balance these two different positions. In comparison, year-over-year, it was to mention also that last year, as we mentioned also, we had positive impacts of the nickel. We have tailwinds on nickel of around EUR 30 million we are not having this year, okay? The inventory adjustment, we also are releasing an adjusted inventory. The inventory adjustments in this division have been of EUR 12 million at year-end. The cash generation has been a constant in both divisions, both the stainless and high-performance alloy, and mainly driven by working capital reduction.
This working capital reduction has been especially focused on reduction on inventories. The cash generation in this division in the year has been EUR 186 million. If we go to the cash flow, and we start by the fourth quarter, again, the strategy, and you can see it there, even the strategy of reducing working capital has allowed us in this quarter to reduce the net financial debt in EUR 55 million, despite the high payment of taxes and the high investments in this quarter. The high payments of taxes was already announced. There was an extension in United States because of the floods in the state of Kentucky, and most of the payments of the year have been concentrated in this quarter.
Okay, that's the reason for the EUR 97 million. Out of the 240 reduction of working capital that we have had in the quarter, 200 is coming from inventories. Okay, really, it's been a high success of the working capital reduction, especially on inventories. Moving to the year, as Miguel mentioned, we generate cash even in the lower part of the cycle and even increasing activity. Okay, we have generated in the year the same cash flow as in year 2023, when we earn double EBITDA.
Even in the low moments of the cycle, and even increasing the activity, we have been controlling our debt and generating cash of EUR 455 million. I think you are seeing, now you have there the year. We are generating EUR 455 million of operating cash flow. Almost again, the reduction coming from reduction of inventories and working capital reduction. We pay a lot of taxes. Yes, we pay a lot of taxes, mainly in the United States, because of our profitability in that market.
This year also, we are paying taxes in Germany, the taxes that we are paying in Germany come from 2023, from the results we had in 2023, which was the best result of VDM Metals in that year, the most high profitable. In the side of the interest payments, you see that even with a debt of $2 billion , we are paying $47 of interest, which shows the competitive cost of our debt. Under the others, which we have $64 million, it's true that we have also conversion difference because of the devaluation of the U.S. dollar, part of this conversion difference affect also has had an impact on the reduction of the working capital.
The strong CapEx, we are having a CapEx of EUR 311 million, which is EUR 100 million higher than last year. All the projects that we have for generating higher EBITDA are also invested in our CapEx, okay? We maintain a consistent return to shareholders of EUR 155 million. With all this, we have increased a bit our debt, but we have also an impact because of the devaluation and the conversion of the U.S. dollar. Okay, the conversion of the U.S. dollar exchange rate is being applied to our cash in U.S. dollar and this has had an impact in the conversion of EUR 126, negative impact of EUR 126, which has made our debt to slightly increase from last year.
We are controlling our debt, even in moments when we are doing investment and having lower EBITDA, which I think is a great success of the year, and the thing that we can be more proud of is this cash generation.
The main driver for the operating cash flow has been the strong working capital reduction. We made a very ambitious program for years 2025 and 2026 of working capital reduction. We have, by far, overperformed. What is also relevant to remark is that it has been done through the whole organization. This working capital reduction of EUR 406 million, for your understanding, EUR 202 million has been taking place in the stainless andEUR 204 million in HPA. It's almost equal, keeping in mind, in any case, that HPA is very few tonnage compared with those of a stainless, but in its value is substantially higher, and also the maturity of the process is substantially longer. It has been done through the whole organization, half on stainless and half on HPA.
Also, what relevant is that this is not window dressing, so we have not been focusing on making factoring contracts regarding customers, reverse factoring for suppliers. We have mostly focused on inventories, and we have been extremely active and aggressive in our inventories in hands. The driver from this 406 is the EUR 383 million in inventories, and again, I insist, half in stainless, half in HPA. EUR 194 million in stainless and EUR 189 million. It's a global program, and the whole group is absolutely focused and committed on this basis. This is, for us, is some of the most remarkable issues we must be proud in this valley year of 2025.
As our Chairman mentioned at the beginning of the study, of the presentation, we have a very clear strategy. I think it's something that is remarkable, and most of our analysts and most of the people that are following and saying, "No," realize we have the clearest strategy in the sector. This is very important for us, and we are keeping since 2020, more or less the same basis. We are adapting the strategy. We have released this year a new plan, 2026, 2030, but following the same. Following the same four pillars that we always speak about. Excellence, because we are a commodity maker. We are focusing in making new stainless steel grades, new HPA, but we cannot forget that stainless steel is a commodity.
In a commodity, you have to be very competitive, and to be competitive today is not enough being good. You have to be excellent, this is why we are focusing in this. This is productivity, this is efficiency, and this is the way of doing things aligned and through all the organization. We are focusing in added value. That is, we call added value to the HPA, nickel alloys, and also the special stainless steel grades that we are developing, and we have been successful in this. It's starting to fill the pyramid of material that we have presented several years, that is. So we are making the base of the pyramid. That is a stainless steel commodity, and then tailor-made grades for our customers and users.
We have the top of the pyramid with HPA, very special materials, but we are filling the gap in between with very special stainless steel and grades that are developed, tailor-made for our customers. Not this is just a standard grade, but adapted to the necessities, to the machinery of our customers. This is very important, and we can say today that we have the widest portfolio of products in our industry, and some of our competitors are following this strategy, but they are late. We came before, and we are playing with the best components of this market. Sustainability, speaking about sustainability only from, of course, a social environment point of view, but very related with our efficiency and with our social action.
I mean, efficiency, so we are speaking about reducing the emissions of CO2. This is very important, but it's important because we are more clean than before, but it's also important because we are consuming less gas and less electricity than before, and this is cost. This is efficiency, and this is excellence as well. This is what we are doing, focusing in efficiency, reducing water consumption, reducing electricity, reducing natural gas in our furnaces, and trying to put in value what we are doing in our communities. As you know, we have big plants that are normally out of the big cities. We are in rural areas and other areas where we have to develop the community.
We have developed the skills of the people that they don't have when we arrive to these places, and we are cooperating with diversity, with women and minorities inclusion. We are cooperating with them. We developing a dual colleges and universities, and we are very proud of this. This is why this is not, as Miguel mentioned, for other reasons, but it's not window dresses. This is not greenwashing. This is reality, and we are sustainable. Our financial strength that we have spoken a lot about this, but this is the basement of all this strategy. This is what we are doing, delivering through the cycle of value creation, and this is the base of our strategy.
If we move to sustainability, at the end, you know, because it's public, that we have very ambitious targets for 2030. Mostly with a continuous effort on reducing 10% the accident rate, but also 45% reduction on carbon emission for 2030, and 90, as much as 90% of recycled waste utilization. When we analyze the parameters of the 2025, it has been a great success. First of all, by its relevance, we have reduced the lost time injury frequency rate 15.2%. In addition, we have reduced the carbon emissions as Scope 1 +Scope 2, almost more than 13%, 13.4%, and in recycled waste utilization of more than 79%. We clearly are on the track.
We are confident that we are more than fulfilling all these ambitious targets, but also what is more relevant as far as I also mentioned, that we are well-recognized by our, the quality of our financial statements. We are also well-recognized every day more in the sustainability ratings. A part of all those that we normally mention, only in last week, we received three new awards. We can only explain today two, by some licenses issued and so on. Last week, we have been awarded in two extraordinary relevant sustainability ratings. One is the Clean200. Analyzing the largest publicly traded companies in the world of every sector, analyzing 80,300 companies, we are in the list of the 200.
We are in the 122 position by the more sustainable revenues, and then this is revenue sustainable due to our products and our solution. This is absolutely remarkable. In addition, last week also, we were notified that Standard & Poor's includes in The Sustainability Yearbook of 2026 because of our achievement in 2025. This is an analysis of every sector in all the world of the listed traded companies, of 9,200 companies, and they are only selecting less than 9%, 850 companies. We are there. We have obtained the maximum qualification, 100 over 100, in transparency and reporting, and we are above 90 in business ethics, in product management, and in health and safety.
Also now, all the rating agencies are realizing and putting on value and certifying all the works we are doing in this area. In addition, if we move to the efficiency plan, we are doing on continuous and recurring savings. We launched last year the Beyond Excellence plan for creating EUR 100 million in savings in three years. At the conclusion of the second year, we have overperformed, and now we have achieved EUR 83 million. This and the more knowledge we have been developing through all our internal benchmarking on the group and the participation of all our teams, we have realized that we can be, again, more ambitious and reaching for the coming year 2026, the new target of the EUR 120 million.
You have the split, of which is more or less including in that by order of importance or relevance in this split. Obviously, the first chapter is customer-centric. This obviously means quality. We are talking mostly about predictive quality, big achievements over there. Big achievements also in efficiency in our sector is critical, mostly efficiency in raw materials as well as in variable costs. We are also overperforming there, as well as in research and development, obviously, in this regard, once again, we need to mention the EcoACX [3NOX]. We are launching, with great success, the EcoACX [3NOX], which is produced with 100% renewable energy, which is produced with 90% of recycled material and with a 50% reduction in emissions. In all these areas, we are clearly overperforming. In regard.
Sorry, in regard of the synergies that we are obtaining in the integration of our high-performance alloys in the group, we have achieved the targets, slightly above the target for year 2025. We have obtained in the first year, $12 million. We are confident that we are reaching in 2026 at least $23 million. Obviously, this year is more concentrating in cost synergies. Gradually, also, the revenue synergies shall appear as a consequence of cross-selling and so on. The biggest contribution is coming from now and mostly in the years 2028 and 2029, when in addition, we shall be running the new equipments in place.
If we go now to the projects actually in place, the organic growth, you can realize that at the end, currently, in the current years, in this period, we have organic growth investments. If we aggregated all the CapExes appear here, we reach EUR 505 million. Clearly, we are prioritizing for CapExes, the areas where there is more warranty return. Obviously, the first in this warranty return is no other than North American Stainless. You know, the big expansion we are accomplishing there since year 2023. Actually, it's coming on place in 2026. The crane was installed last year.
We announced it, as well as the cold roll that has started its trials in 2026, as well as the AB2, the skim pass now shall be starting on the month of April. This is mostly now coming during the year 2026. In addition, in Haynes, a part of the acquisition, we are also investing for taking advantage of the excellent momentum coming not only in the aerospace, but also in the gas turbine. We are growing also in VDM, in Europe, with the EUR 66 million. In those companies where still there is no such a warranty return, but we are doing our best for improve and transform the business. We are diversifying even more Columbus with introduction of electrical steel.
Now Columbus is able to cover the necessities of the South African and the African market, as well as exporting, but mostly having the most diversified portfolio, which is stainless, it's carbon steel, it's electric, it's allow also to transform HPA. And in the case of Acerinox Europa, we also involved in the turning around, and also is a relevant part of our programs actually in place. With this, we are clearly in position for the coming years to increase our EBITDA in more than EUR 300 million.
This is a beautiful summary of what Miguel have been mentioning. We started in 2020 with this strategy. We have been, even with the bad years, we suffered COVID, we suffered all the tension, geopolitical tensions, these disruptions of the supply chain and all the geopolitical situations that we are facing, the tariffs, whatever, uncertainty, everything. We are going ahead with our strategy. We are going ahead, and we are revising the strategy, but insisting in the same. Simple and beautiful, just this. You can put the starting point to whatever you want, in the average through the cycle, EBITDA last year or whatever. We have an upside potential of EUR 500 million EBITDA. With the organic growth that Miguel has been explaining, that is including also the possibility that is exciting.
It's a fantastic project that we are going with the new investments in Haynes, with the new forge and the new furnace. It will have an excess of production of that that we will be able to process in North American Stainless to make long products. Haynes is focused in flat products, and in us, we have both flats and long. We will start making HPA long products in North American Stainless. Making a very boutique project, in a commodity factory, that's gonna be a game changer. You need EUR 68 million, billion next year, EUR 120 billion total. We believe that we have a potential of EUR 500 million EBITDA in our future. Our future can only be better than our present.
We have a new environment, and this is another thing that is going to change. That's why we think that we have already touched the lowest part of the cycle. We have a new environment, and we are actively participating in the creation of this new environment. We are actively participating in Washington, in Brussels, to explain and demonstrate the administrations that the industry is totally essential for our future, that we need industry, and we need basic industry, and we need stainless steel. We are redefining this landscape and prioritizing a strategic autonomy. You know, you have seen how the European Commission is changing the wording now. Until a few years ago, it was impossible to speak about in these terms.
Now, strategic autonomy is very common, and everybody knows what it is, and everybody knows what are we referring to. In the last weeks, Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the Commission, is strengthening this message. She's not speaking about the strategic autonomy. She's speaking about independency, the need of independency for Europe, for the European industry. Something unbelievable before, you know, that a commissioner of the European Commission is speaking about a buy European program, that we need to do local purchases, especially for public purchasing, called responsible purchases, but also for products or projects that are subsidized or receive any kind of help from the European Commission. This is very important.
Europe is waking up, and Europe is realizing that there's no future without industry, and this is the picture that we have here. We have United States, already a protected market with this Section 232, that nobody's questioning. This is applying to every country, is with a 50% tariff, that is not under consideration, with no exclusions per country, with no exclusions per product, and also extended to downstream product. That is very important. Our best customers are also protected by this Section 232, because tool makers, sinks makers, screws, all these kind of things that are where stainless steel is a big portion of the cost of the product, are also included here.
Our customers are also included, and of course, the melted and poured , that is avoiding the possibility to do a circumvention between countries to avoid the tariffs. The other tariffs, who knows? This is the today's uncertainty. We have the reciprocal tariffs that has been canceled by the Supreme Court of the United States. Now, they are applying Section 122. That is 10% duty, and it's a general duty for every country, every products, except what is included in Section 232. Let's see if it can be increased to 15% because still there's nothing published officially.
We know that the administration, and we are cooperating with that, is looking for a new tools or new tariffs or reviewing the American law and the American Constitution to find out where they can put this protection, that in some cases, we can complain because it's a political weapon or is using tariffs as a political instrument, but in other products or in other terms, are necessary to keep a healthy industrial production in the country. In the case of Europe, we have a CBAM that is already in place since 1st of January. This is not a tax, this is not a protection. This is something that to compensates the efforts that we, the European industry, are making in decarbonization.
What we can say until today is that there's a lot of uncertainties yet. This is, the importers are applying the default values to calculate a CBAM. This is very high. Today, it's going up to EUR 600 per ton for several countries. The average is around EUR 400 per ton, it's a lot. In the future, these exporters will have to calculate their own values, and they have to evaluate all these values, and somebody will have to certify that these values are right. This is part of the uncertainty that we have. What is true is that already in January, imports have been low, have been decreased a lot, and in February, it looks like it's going to be more or less the same.
We hope that CBAM is going to compensate, therefore, that we are doing and will be a kind of filter for unfair or non-sustainable steel coming from other places. In the case of the new trade measures that we are working hard on this, we have seen and we have, during these years, that the same measures have not been effective, and we need something stronger. We need a strong support and demonstration of the European Administration that we need the industry. What I can say is that, in the case of Spain, the Spanish administration is cooperating with us and is helping us a lot, and is supporting all these activities in Europe. Of course, the industrialized countries in Europe are supporting by.
are supporting our initiatives, but Europe is a complex mechanism, and there are some other countries with other interests. Today, it's clear that, we will defend the industry. With the new system, the target is reduce imports at the level of 15% market share. That means in the case of the stainless steel, that imports will have to reduce by 15%, very helpful. If we have a market where, imports are only 15%, of course, we will compete because we have enough capacity between the European producers.
Having more stability, having no dumping imports, at the end, we will have a more stable market, and we will have a healthier prices that will help us to generate EBITDA in Europe, and will help us to keep on investing and paying dividends to our shareholder. That is necessary to keep the industry alive. Now, the situation is improving. As I mentioned at the beginning, we have lower stocks in all the market. What is positive, the PMI in the biggest economies are turning around. United States, from December to January, the PMI went from 47.9- 52.6. This is a big change. In the European Union, from December- February, it moved from 48.8- 50.8.
We are in both areas, we are in the positive side now. We have a future with measures, a future with more industrial activity, and a future in which we have developed a very strong and reliable strategy. That take us to the end of the presentation. We consider that we have a good result in 2025, a very good EBITDA in the lowest point of the cycle. We are delivering our strategy, and nobody's confusing us, we are following the way that we have defined for Acerinox. We have a clear strategy that is already in place and is being developed, and it's going to be the base for our future success. We have a better environment. We have a more positive environment for our future.
At the end, it's can only be better. We will start gradually recovering through the year. We will start gradually increasing our EBITDA through the year, take us to the, especially with the, in the second half of the year, with the new commercial measures in Europe, that will help us. Gradually we will be increasing. That's why we said prudently that our outlook for this first quarter 2026, that the Adjusted EBITDA is going to be slightly higher than fourth quarter. That's all from the presentation.
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much, Bernardo and all the presenters. Let's start now with the Q&A session. We will start first here in the room, then we will move to the conference call. Please raise your hand if you want to make a question.
Hi, everyone, and good morning. Óscar Rodríguez, Banco Sabadell. Congrats on the free cash flow. Thank you for taking my question. Just one. You have shown us today your long-term vision. What should be the levers in terms of regional volumes and pricing that would lead to reach the EUR 500 million figure for EBITDA improvement? Thanks a lot.
When we calculate the potential of these new investments, all this strategy normally is calculated at historical average or the regional price. We have to develop this CapEx program. We have to develop the new equipment. We have to do the ramp-up, and we'll have to, of course, to increase our production with this investment. It's reasonable because having calculated with the actual prices.
Yes, good morning. Francisco Riquel from Alantra. Thank you for taking my questions. I have two. The first one is on the U.S., which is your core market. I want to assess how NAS is holding up in the current environment, whether the short-term weakness in the group earnings is also applies to NAS or is also mainly related to Europe. If you can comment on volume, margin dynamics in the U.S., and also on the EUR 60 million of inventory write-downs. You mentioned EUR 12 million allocated to HPAs, so anything also for the U.S. or if that is mainly the rest to Europe. My second question is about Europe.
CBAM is already effective. I wonder if you can update on what you are observing in the market since the beginning of the year in terms of import flows, your order book on utilization rates, and pricing dynamics, or whether you are still dealing with excess inventories in the system. Thank you.
This is a short question that deserves a very long answer. Thank you, Franco. The United States, the situation is, as we mentioned, speaking about apparent consumption, is still low. It's around 20% below what was normal because there was a accumulated close to 30% reduction since 2022. The situation of NAS is very healthy. You know, NAS, you have visited NAS. NAS is a great factory. It's the best plant in the world, or at least in the Western world. It's working more or less at 85% of capacity utilization today. Improving because our order book is increasing now in the beginning of the year, partly because of the seasonality of our business, but also because we see a very slight recovery.
Too soon to say that we are finished in February. Still, we don't have too much information for this. NAS is performing very well, making money with stable prices and stable costs and a stable production at this level that I have mentioned. In the case of CBAM, there's nothing that we can say yet. Generally, imports has been low, but we cannot conclude that that's going to happen for the rest of the year. Let's see how it works. In February, it looks that it's going to be similar than January, and let's see. I think that's. I read in a magazine in the one of our sector, that prices were increasing in Europe because of CBAM. I don't think so.
I think that prices are growing in Europe a little bit because the nickel price is going up, because the market is better and is accepting these price increases, and CBAM maybe is giving this support to these activities. Not but it, but it is so we hope it will work well, you know, but this is an experiment. There's no experience for this. To speak about inventories, Miguel, do you want to?
Yeah. As we said before, inventory reduction has been taking place everywhere. The adjustment and the write-off has been done mostly in Europe.
Thank you.
Any other question here in the room? We can start now with the questions coming from the conference call. Please, operator, go ahead.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you would like to ask a question over the phone, please press star one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star two. Our first question comes from Dominic OKane with JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hello. Thanks for taking my question. I have two questions. If I think about the outlook for 2026 and the guidance you've given us for Q1 on EBITDA to be slightly higher, could you maybe just help us with the bridge about how we think about the cadence of the EBITDA growth coming through in 2026? Is it, in your expectation, skewed to the second half? Is that going to be driven by price, or can you talk to us maybe about specific volumes in the second half of the year that will drive significant improvement in the EBITDA? That's my first question.
Well, for the year sorry, for the year 2026, I think it should be a gradual recovery, more or less. We understand the situation. As Bernardo mentioned, we are in stable, much more stable environment in America, even though obviously there is uncertainty. The uncertainty was the main driver for year 25, but still there is uncertainty on the starting of the 2026, and we have seen more or less what has been taking place everywhere in the last two months. Still, even for our customers, the situation is a bit unclear, and our customers are not in position of taking any strategy approach of grow or how to grow because still the rules of the game are not going to be clear. We see now, for example, in the agreement, Europe and America and so on.
You know, all of you know what we are, what we are facing, so it's not so simple. Having said that, when we say that gradually it's going to be moving up, the basis of our performance on the North American market is in stainless are very solid. We think that the gradual recovery, expected in Europe, mostly for the second semester, one since the 1st of July, the new measures taken by the European Union are in place, and this at least should allow us to improve the situations in Europe. The situation in Europe, first of all, the new rules of the game appear to be favoring the industry, and especially from the second semester.
In our case, in the plan that we are putting in place and the turning around plan in Acerinox Europa, we're also preparing everything for taking advantage in the coming future. We have done the adjustments that we have done for preparing and having everything well prepared, but still what's not clear is when it's coming, the reactivation of demand. It's unique, the situation we are experiencing in the last two years, it must come, but with the uncertainty, the demand still is a bit dormant. This is the point which makes difficult to make predictions for the second half of the year. We are doing our best. We understand that gradually we're going to improve.
We understand that we shall be in position for bringing gradually Acerinox Europa on break even maybe for the second half of the year, because still at this level of prices in Europe, it's impossible to be profitable for the industry in general. This is something that must change. We have better rules. We are in better condition, but still the demand in Europe has not been reactivated. In the case of the HPA, we are, at the end, benefited by our diversification. Now it's coming a proper tailwind for, especially for the aerospace and the gas turbine generation. This should be clearly benefiting Haynes. VDM, which is more concentrated in the oil and gas, still that sector appears to be facing a tough, challenging year for the 2026.
Our strategy always has been diversification for trying to play the cycles, and sometimes there are your regional crisis, sometimes there are crises by sector. Fortunately, we can growth in HPA, but the growth is going to be driven gradually from the aerospace that is more or less recovering, and also the recovering is coming to the flat products, and Haynes shall be there, as well as to the gas turbine. These are going to be very relevant drivers for the HPA in America in the coming years. We understand that we are probably moving up gradually during the year, but still there is uncertainties in place, so we cannot have a much more clear vision.
Thank you. Our next question is from Adahna Ekoku from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Hi, thank you for the presentation and for taking my questions. First on Europe, is there any kind of indicative guidance you could give in terms of what uplift from the safeguard measures and CBAM that we've discussed on your profitability? Could we assume that at full run rate in maybe 2027, you could reach normalized volumes of around 600 KT and the normalized EBITDA, which I think sits at EUR 100 million-EUR 150 million? Then just second on the NAS expansion, what proportion of the 200 KT volume should we expect to see in 2026? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. For the first one, there's not much that we can say. CBAM is already in place and with the actual situation that, you know, the Parliament and the European Board, plus the has accepted what the European Commission proposed. Now they have to meet between the three parties. It's called the Trilogue, and they are starting meetings. They started the 23rd of February with the first meeting, and they are supposed to finish by first part of May. That means that even trying to push and go fast will be in place first of July. How is it going to affect to the market and prices? Will depend on the situation when we start having these measures. It still is difficult to predict.
We don't have the crystal ball for this. I think that you, the analysts, have to make the calculations. Not something that we cannot speak about prices. For the next expansion, we are already started. First coil was a cold roll last week. When you do the first coil, you have to fix many, many things and do the fine-tuning of the equipment. We will start with the ramp up. Probably this new equipment will be in full production by June. That means that in this year, we are going to contribute to the EBITDA of NAS, and of course, will depend also in the market condition. Today, we are working at 85% of capacity utilization.
If we increase our capacity utilization, then the new equipment will bring the 20%, so the potential of 20% production increase that we are planning for this equipment.
Thank you. Our next question is from Bastian Synagowitz from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I've got two as well. My first one is just coming back on the European business. I think you mentioned that with current prices, it's impossible to be profitable in the current market, yet I think some of the European peers have been profitable in Q4. Generally see some uptick in Q1. I just wanted to just get back to that point. Is your view basically that you will not be able to get the business back to break even, just stand alone with the current market conditions you're seeing, given that prices have started to trend up a little, probably also taking currently a little bit of market share back from imports?
Do you really need the TDI to turn the business around? Is there actually an earnings level or, and a return target for the European operations, which you basically have set to yourselves to keep allocating capital to the European operations? That is my first question.
You know, it's, I don't know what the other competitors are doing, what other sector are doing in general in Europe. We are all complaining that under this situation, even if you are a little bit profitable, this is not sustainable because of the level of prices in carbon steel and in stainless steel. We are more or less all in the same situations. Some of us are better or worse than others, but the situation is the same for everybody. We don't disclose results per unit, so we cannot speak about this. Of course, market share, we will increase our market share coming from imports. It will reduce import level from 24%, that is today, to a level of a target of 15%.
That means there will be 9 points of market share that will be distributed between the European players. Nothing else we can have from 10%-15% of that market, so this is more or less what we will increase in our production. If finally we have these measures, and finally these measures work as we believe. Of course, the volumes are very important for our business. With these new volumes, we think that we'll be able to be above break-even point. This is the target. With all the plans that we have, with the investments that we have, how we're improving with a small little CapEx in digitalization and things to the bottleneck things and upgrade our lines, update with the electronics and best technology.
The factory with these measures, I think will be in a better position and able to contribute to the profits of the group. We are allocating CapEx to all the plants. This is compulsory. I mean, if you don't invest in a factory like ours, you have to close the factory very, very soon because you always need some investments in maintenance and trying to keep the equipment updated with the new technologies. In this case, we are now facing a big CapEx program in the place, because even in a company like Acerinox, even being a Spanish company, we don't have an unlimited amount of money to invest.
We have to, with, according to our strategic plans, according to our budgets and prediction for the future, so we have a certain amount of money that we dedicate to CapEx. Fortunately, we have a lot of ideas, and we have more ideas than money. That means that we have to limit our CapEx programs, and to limit this CapEx program, we have to give priority to the places where the return is faster, the payback is faster. Especially investing in United States, in Haynes and NAS, and second in VDM, in HPA, in Europe. We never stop investing because we have to.
If I may add to that, with the expectations in Europe, with the new trade measure of CBAM, remiss will be, I believe we will have a problem if we were not to invest a bit on our European plants, because the future is there. I would believe the European plant will, with these new measures, with the lowering of imports, demand, who knows? We just with that, prices should go up a bit, and with that, we should be able to capture some of the profitability coming from the European side. As Bernardo said, we are investing heavily in the U.S., as we keep doing, because that's where we believe the demand is there.
Already protectionism measures work well, and they are improved, so we believe the future is there. Also will be a problem if we were not to capitalize on the return, on the turnaround of European business, thanks to these new tariffs that hopefully will be put in place in July.
Thank you. The next question is from Maxime Kogge, from ODDO BHF. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Two questions on my side, too. The first is on the CBAM. What's your initial takeaway of CBAM that has been now in place for two months? It seems to be driving a little bit of price uptick. Some default values have also been revised awards, so it seemed to be more efficient than it was originally meant to be. Any view on that would be helpful, and what are the remaining loopholes that you see need to be addressed for it to be fully effective? The second question is on South Africa, because basically, I mean, we've seen some measures taken in countries like Brazil or Mexico, where your competitors operate.
Could we hope for similar tariffs to be introduced in South Africa and thus address the risk of deflection of Chinese imports, which cannot make their way now into the U.S. and also into Europe?
Thank you, Maxime, for the first question. As I mentioned before, CBAM is very early yet to speak about the how it's going to affect to our market. What I said, you know, I don't think that prices are going up because of CBAM. Prices are going up because we have more activity in the market and because these raw materials are normally linked with this more activity. At the end, we have been able to increase our prices of these raw material prices to the customers is because the market is in better conditions. Otherwise, we will not be able to do it. I don't think that we can say that CBAM is provoking this price increase.
I don't think so, but we'll support the better market condition, for sure. In the case of South Africa, you know that we are even for South Africa, for Columbus, the second major market is Europe. Still we have, we are exporting to Europe, and we have a lot of clients in Europe that need the South African material, especially ferritics. Columbus, as you know, so we have South Africa is a big producer of ferrochrome. We have a very competitive ferrochrome price in South Africa, and that means that we can be very competitive in ferritic grades, and we are exporting to some of the European customers, especially in the outdoor sector.
if we think that in the future, all these measures are going to be tougher for importers, we are trying to anticipate this in Columbus Stainless and trying to diversify in products through the flexibility of the plant. We think that we have a very strong position in the African market. We have close to 50% market share in the whole continent, and most of that is in South Africa, but in some other countries. What we're doing is trying to develop the African market, because sooner or later, it is true that we have been saying this for many, many years, but sooner or later, Africa will have to wake up, and we have that strong position there. We are making stainless steel in South Africa. We are making carbon steel
We are already making electrical steel, with this new line that we are implementing, we'll be able to coat this electrical steel to be able to send it to the market. This is the only electrical steel plant in Africa. It's the same that we have the only stainless steel plant in Africa. The situation is there. South African market is also depressed, we are also working with the local administration, with the South African government, to increase tariffs. We had a 5% tariff in South Africa that we have incremented to 10%, now we are negotiating a pricing, a tariff increase to 50%. That is the magic number that everybody is applying today. South Africa is the best plant in Africa.
It's the only plant there, and it's a very good position, but our market is smaller than Brazil or Mexico. It's not comparable. That's why we are focusing on the whole continent.
Thank you. The next question comes from Iñigo Egusquiza from Kepler. Please go ahead.
Good morning. Good morning, all. Thank you for the presentation and for taking my two questions. The first one is just a clarification on the, on the regulation. Bernardo, on the U.S., you mentioned that nobody's questioning the new tariffs, approved by the U.S. administration back in summer 2025, but there were some press comments that the U.S. was thinking on the possibility of changing the, this new system. Can you confirm, with the information that you have, that this is not gonna be the case? This is the first question on the U.S. regulation. On Europe regulation, from what you mentioned, Bernardo, the impression is that we are not gonna see an anticipation on the, on the new system, new tariffs, ahead of July, when the existing system expires.
This is the first question on regulation. The second question is just on CapEx. Probably, Miguel, a question for you. What is gonna be the CapEx for 2026? It's gonna be similar to the EUR 311 million invested in 2025. Thank you.
Thank you, Iñigo. For the first question, regulation, I don't know, sometimes you are surprised with what you read in the newspaper, we are not being informed of the regulation. We are actively participating in this regulation, we have first-hand news about this. I can tell you that nobody's questioning the Section 232 in United States. Even when there was that fake news, it was in a very serious media, it was Financial Times, there was this fake news. We, the American steel industry, we called to the government for, you know, to clarify or not, very soon, the Vice President of the United States made a declaration saying that was fake news, that there's nothing there.
Section 232, nobody's questioning it. In case of Europe, you are, you're right. Everything go slow in Europe, but at least it's moving. We were optimism, thinking that maybe measures will be in place in around May of this, but with the new information saying that the final conclusion will be taken in by mid-May, it's gonna be very difficult because after, i t is only that if they take the decision mid-May, they have to publish the, in the, as the boy, in the, they have to publish the law, and once it is published, they have to be translated to the 27 languages of the European Union. It's gonna be difficult to start before 1st of July.
Regarding the CapEx for 2026, the figure shall not be far away from the figure of 2025. Probably slightly below, as a combination of the starting up final payments on the expansion in NAS taking place at the same time that we are moving, and we have already made the adjudication of the equipments for the expansion also taking place in Kokomo, in Haynes, and so on. The aggregated amount of all these figures shall be slightly below that of 2025.
Thank you. We have no further questions in the queue, so I'll hand back to the management team to wrap up the call.
Okay. That concludes today conference call. Thank you very much, once again, for joining us and for your continued support. Thank you very much.