Bom dia, good morning to everybody from a rainy São Paulo, I hope it's still a good morning for everybody. Let's jump into this presentation, as usual, we start with having a look on the global markets. If we look at the light vehicles, it's different than commercial vehicles that you see on the right side. Light vehicles kind of flattish in 2025 versus 2024, whether you look on including China or excluding China, doesn't matter too much. We used to look at global production ex-China, because that's the more relevant market for us. Kind of flattish, we expect the same to happen in 2026. That doesn't mean that everything's flat.
I, want to remark here that, for instance, two markets, Brazil and India, that are important markets for our company. Those markets show more meaningful growth, we believe in 2026, and that would be good for our company. If we look on the out years there's a little bit more growth, like, 1%-2% per year, and that would bring the light vehicle market back to a volume of about 95 million-100 million vehicles in the year 2030. If we look on the commercial vehicle site, it's more dynamic there.
Unfortunately, in 2025, as everybody knows, it was negative dynamics, primarily, but not only in initially North America, then also South America, but also the European market, especially at the end of the year, was not great. Overall, -7% in 2025 versus 2024, that's a meaningful downturn. 2026 looks better, and we take that. I think it's, you know, more or less in all the regions that people foresee and we concur with that view, markets should be better.
Just the year 2026, you look at North America, We will talk a little bit more about North America during this presentation. Like we did in the last presentation, that market is still down 4%-5%, people say, We take it because the market was down so much in the second half of 2025, 30%, 40%, especially in the heavy vehicle market. Some of you may remember I talked about it in the last call. That is the most important market for us, is the heavy vehicles, Class 7, Class 8, that we supply from our Maxion Structural Components unit, that was hit the most.
If that market comes back to only being -5%, compared to 2025, taking into consideration that the first half of 2025 is pretty good, that means you need to have a good increase during the year 2026 to get back to more or less the volumes that we had as a whole year, 2025. North America, we take that number, and what we see so far this year, it is confirming that trend. We don't have an outlook for the second half of the year yet, but the first few months of the year are in line with the assumptions that we took for the North American market.
We believe Brazil will be better, especially in the first half of 2026, and we also believe Europe will be better. That's what we see happening as well. Asia, for us, most importantly, there, India, should show solid growth as well. More optimism from a point of view of the truck market for 2026. If you look in 27, 28, a little bit more out, you know, that's pretty significant growth. That's good growth. Even if that materializes to a good extent, not completely, maybe even more, but if these numbers are more or less true, then our company is well, very well positioned to benefit from those market trends.
We all know that even in the year 2025, and we see that later on, even in the year 2025, there where it was possible, like in Europe or like in Asia, we outperformed the market. If the market comes back and we keep our performance, which definitely is the aim, and I think it's gonna happen, we should be very well positioned for those numbers to capitalize on those numbers. All right, enough on the market. Let's look at the numbers on the next slide.
On net revenue in 2025, really a mixed number, because the first half was pretty strong, and then the second half, initially only because of North America truck, and then, let's say, during the third quarter, especially the fourth quarter, or the Brazil truck production went down, and that hits us not only in our components division in Brazil, but also in wheels. That trended our numbers down in the second half of the year. Overall, in the year 2025, we still came up with a BRL 15.3 billion turnover, which is slightly up versus 2024.
Our gross profit in the fourth quarter of 2025, despite all that drama in North America and also in Brazil from a Commercial Vehicles point of view, still at 11.7%, which took us to 12% gross profit margin for the whole year, which we believe is a pretty solid number, given the circumstances. Our recurring EBITDA, pretty much the same story as on the gross profit, 9.6% in the fourth quarter and still a double-digit margin in 2025. Again, despite that situation in Commercial Vehicles in the Americas, which is a very important market for our company.
We were able to realize a double-digit margin over the year 2025. Leverage 2.65 in the fourth quarter of 2025. That compares to 2.55 in the third quarter of 2025. We need to keep in mind here that we lowered our forfaiting or factoring by about 100 million BRL. If you neutralize that effect, our leverage would actually be pretty much the same in the fourth quarter of 2025 than what it was when we talked to you guys about the third quarter 2025. Okay?
If we look on the revenue by product, it's obvious that, you know, our components unit is hit in North America and South America because of commercial vehicles. Our wheels unit was hit in Brazil because of that. Not in North America, because from a wheels point of view, we supply also truck wheels to the North American market from Mexico, but we supply the medium truck segment, and that was a very different picture. Slowing down, but much less than what we saw on the heavy truck segment.
Therefore, you know, instead of having a split of roughly 75% wheels, and 25% components, in 2025, that number looks more like 80% wheels and 20% components. If we go to the revenue by customer, it's pretty much the same effect that you see there. Just two examples there, you see Traton and Daimler, which are big customers for our company, for components in North America. You know, their revenue, as a percentage of our total revenue goes down meaningfully, but it's being made up by other customers, like Toyota, like Stellantis, like Ford, and those are typical wheel customers, of course, light vehicle customers, that we serve through our wheels unit.
We were able to not make up completely, but mitigate to a large extent those impacts that we saw for components in North America in the second half of 2025. We go to the next slide, and we look a little bit more on the regions. Starting with South America, you know, I think this number shows that we have been outperforming the market. You know, both light vehicle production and commercial vehicle production ultimately was down in 2025 in Brazil, but our revenue is up.
Of course, it was more up in the first half when truck was still okay than it was in the second half. Overall, the revenue is up, and of course, that has to do with us outperforming on the light vehicle side, which is the wheel segment, where primarily, we did very well from an aluminum wheel point of view that, you know, didn't make up everything in the second half. You see second half, fourth quarter was still down, but less than the market. Again, a mitigating factor of the headwind that we had in the Brazilian market. Market not so good in the second half, but Maxion at least mitigating partially that market effect.
If we look on North America on the next slide, and this is the drama that we have been talking about, that you can read about everywhere, and it has been hitting us hard in the second half of the year. If you want to hear good news about that market, I can tell you that the fourth quarter was not good, but it was a little bit better than the third quarter. Let's see if that's a trend that will continue into 2026. What we saw in the first two months is in line with the targets that we put ourselves, and those targets are mostly based on the data that we showed on the first slide that come from GlobalData from IHS.
We don't have the visibility yet for the whole year, but at least the start of the year is in line with the assumptions that we took for this year. You know, big impact in North America, the fourth quarter at least being a little bit better ultimately than the third quarter. We go to EMEA, which is Europe, in our case, Europe, Turkey, and our plant in South Africa. You know, we clearly outperformed the market. I think you see light vehicles was slightly down over the year. Truck was more or less stable over the whole year in in Europe.
It was down in the fourth quarter, was a little bit up in the beginning of the year, but more or less stable over the whole year. Us, you know, being having 18% more revenue on, on truck, is a pretty strong number, and Maxion having 13% more revenue in 2025 than what we had in 2024 shows that we are performing solidly or strong, I would say, in this important market for the, for the company. That's largely based, not only, but largely based on our position that we have in the truck market there.
not only good for the region, it also has been supporting our global results, which, you know, if we would have only been acting in North or South America, those would have been impacted more, impacting more than what we now see in our overall consolidated results for the company. We go to Asia? I've been saying the last few presentations that my expectation would be for Asia to start playing a bigger role in our overall revenue and margin situation. And we see that happening. Starts happening in the fourth quarter of 2025, at this time in PASCAR, where, you know, the market is good, and I think Maxion is outperforming the market there.
you know, our aim certainly will be to continue that trend, and also to complete it with truck. My expectation for truck, also both for India and for China next year is, this year, is positive. So, we saw the start of this region outperforming or supporting our results more significantly happening at the end of last year. Our wish is for that to continue not only in 2026, but going forward. India, which is the most important location for us in, in Asia, I would say it's a very good place to be nowadays, and we're well positioned there.
As we talked about in other presentations, you know, we have a couple of plans in the drawer to do even a little bit more in India going forward. With that, go back on the next slide to some numbers. As we talked before, our margin, I think both in the fourth quarter of 2025, our gross profit margin, as well as for the total year, 2025, very much in line with 2024, which I believe, you know, based on the sudden reduction that we saw in the North American truck market, and then also in the Brazilian truck market, that's a pretty solid result.
A result that, you know, we would have signed up for, when we would have known what happened in the second half of the year in primarily North America. If you go to the next slide, it's pretty much the same story on our EBITDA margin. 9.6% recurring EBITDA margin in the fourth quarter of 2025. You know, with, you know, that market situation in the Americas, from a truck point of view, is, we believe, a solid result.
The 10.1% margin that we delivered over the whole year, double-digit margin, with those sudden drops in the truck market in the Americas, is also something that we believe is a good outcome for the company. We'll look on the next slide. The net income, it's a little bit more depressing story, both for the fourth quarter of the year as well as for the total year. You know, here you see the reduced income and CV, of course, which you also see in the EBITDA, especially when it's not recurring EBITDA. You see the higher restructuring costs here as well, and also financial expenses.
ng this sale to be at the level where it was during most of last year and where it is today. That has been hurting many companies, including our company. Also, we had higher taxes in this quarter, particularly in Q4 of 2025, that hurt our net income. Actually, instead of being slightly positive, now it was a negative net income for the quarter. We go to the next slide to look at our investments. We said we have good discipline in place regarding investments, and I think we delivered on our targets, which was to have a meaningful reduction in 2025 versus what we invested in 2024
A little bit more in the fourth quarter, that was a managed action. We were pushing out some CapEx from more in the beginning of the year to more towards the end of the year. The final number for the year, the BRL 554 that you see on this slide, is a meaningful reduction versus what we showed, what we invested in 2024. Go next slide. You look at our leverage. I talked about it, went slightly up quarter-over-quarter. Again, the BRL 100 million less factoring that is included in that number, basically brings back the leverage to kind of the same level than what we had in 2000 and...
Sorry, in the third quarter of 2025. We go to the next slide. Look at the gross debt. There's not a lot of change here. I think there are still, you know, very manageable amounts of debt for 2026 and 27. Of course, we have a little bit more work to do to prepare ourselves for refinancing our bonds in 2028, which we will do. At the same time, you know, we have a lot of cash liquidity available, $1.6 billion in cash, and then on top of that, $760 million of undrawn credit line.
I would say a healthy situation from a debt point of view on this slide, like we explained in prior presentations. We go to the next slide. Usually here, what you see, if you remember, we show a few new business wins regarding wheels. We decided to do different this time. This is a picture of. The guy in the middle is Giorgio Mariani, and he was in China a couple of weeks ago, picking up an award from Chery for the good work that we do together with Chery. And we don't talk a lot about all the new business wins that we have with our customers, primarily because we're not allowed to, unfortunately.
I can tell you here that, you know, we are growing rapidly with the Chinese OEMs outside of China primarily. Just to give you a glance, you know, we now have in place purchase orders, or we are already supplying not less than 16 Chinese brands all over the world. This is happening in all the regions that we talked about before, Asia, Europe, North America, South America. Some of you may remember that we talked about believing we're well-positioned to have higher market shares with the Chinese OEMs when they go outside of China, than what we have currently as market shares for our products in the regions where we operate. That it seems to be materializing, and so we're very happy about that.
We are very proud to be able to work with the Chinese OEMs. That will continue to grow in Brazil, in Europe, in the Americas, we believe, of course, also in Asia. You know, we like to work together. They recognize our product portfolio, our innovative products, they jump on it, and they also recognize our global footprint, when we work with them in China, or when we work with them in Asia, or we work with them in Europe. Of course, it's a much smaller step to also work together, for instance, in the Americas. A good story here for a company that we were hoping for, and that seems to be materializing. We go to the next slide. Last slide, the business summary.
I think the year 2025, you know, of course, it was highlighted, if you want to call it a highlight, by all the dynamics that were going on with markets, truck markets under pressure, first in North America, then in South America. We did a good job, I think, as a company in optimizing our structures. We did a good job in not spending more CapEx than we committed to, and lowering our CapEx versus 2024. We did a good job in adapting pretty quickly. We would have not done that, we would certainly not have been able to do a double-digit margin in this kind of market environment for us.
From a cost and from a flexibility point of view, I think the company did a good job. From a growth point of view, as we talked about in prior presentations, you know, we're not planning to do another big, you know, investment, build a new plant on the very short term, but we are planning to grow. You can grow through increasing shares, we've been doing some of that in 2025. Of course, we will target to do the same in 2026 as well. We are commercializing innovative products, not only with the Chinese OEMs, but also with the Chinese OEMs. They're jumping on it. We like it. We both like it, the customers and we, and that's also creating some growth.
Then we will execute some selective growth initiatives. We did it already in Mercosur with our acquisition of Polimetal in Argentina. We are doing some more in Turkey. We may be doing a little bit more in India. We have a series of good smaller projects in the drawer, that we will take out of the drawer, piece by piece, and so that will create some growth in a little bit different shape and form than just building a new plant, left and right. In a nutshell, you know, if people ask me, "How's the company doing?" I would say, you know, when I open the newspaper every morning, and I'm sure you do, you do as well, then you see a lot of dynamics.
You read a lot about politics. When you read about automotive news, it's a tough world, right? There's a lot of write-offs. There's a lot of pressure on profits. I look at our company, I say, "You know, maybe we didn't reach all the targets that we put ourselves," which was not possible because of some of the negative some of the headwinds that we had in important markets for us.
Overall, our company is in a very stable position, and even more important, our company is well-positioned to deliver on, you know, more solid markets, and in the truck environment, and some growth in regions that is predicted by IHS, by GlobalData, that are important for us, like Brazil, like India, or in Europe, the truck market coming back on top of market share gains. So, you know, I read the news, I read the automotive news, I look at our own company, and I think, you know, we're not so bad, positioned. With that, I open it for questions and answers.
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We are now going to start our Q&A session. Please ask all of your questions at once. Remember that if you ask your questions, please send it through the Q&A icon on the lower portion of your screen. Your names will be announced so that you can ask your questions live. You will receive a request for your mic to be unmuted. First question is from Fernanda Urbano, from XP. You may proceed.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two questions. First, in regard to the United States, I know it's a little bit early to say, but I would like to know your projections for 2026, considering your scenario and considering the tariffs. You've released that the, in the fourth quarter, you were seeing some signs of stability for the market, especially for the end of 2025. I would like now, if you can share, what is going to happen for 2026? What do you expect as far as timeline is concerned, so that these tariff effects are going to actually affect the company's sales in the market? My second question is in regard to Brazil. I would like to explore a little bit the demands for heavy vehicles in Brazil.
We see some news today in regard to the beginning of the MOV Brasil program and the release for possibilities within the program, posing for more production, especially starting in February. I would like to know from you if you know about this project for Brazil, and I would like to hear about the U.S. as well. Thank you.
Thank you very much. Very important questions. Let me start with the first one on the U.S., or let's call it North America. As I said, it's too early to give a prediction for the total year 2026. When we ask our customers, they give us more information, let's say, for the next coming months. They're not yet able to talk about the whole year of 2026. What I can tell you is that, you know, our assumptions are in line with IHS, with GlobalData, that during the year 2026, there will be a ramp-up of volumes, which, you know, needs to be the case if you want to end the year 2026 slightly below 2025.
You start at 2025 very high, you ended it at a low, it means, you know, the curve needs to swing the other way. What I can tell you is that at least in the first months of this year, that's what we see happening. Now, a lot more needs to happen for that market to come back to the levels that we saw at the beginning of 2025, I can't give you any better input right now, already. At least the start of the year is in line with our assumptions.
From a tariff point of view, this is changing so much as we know that, you know, it's sometimes hard to keep track of what's happening and what are the impacts directly or indirectly on your company. Purely from a North American standpoint, I would say, right now we believe there is little impact for our company because we were handling or commercializing our products under Section 232, where there is no change. Of course, there's tariffs under Section 232, but since we are supplying from Mexico, which is getting USMCA exemption, that was the case, and that is still the case.
From that point of view, for our company right now, based on what we understand and based on where we are today, we believe that there is no meaningful impact from the latest changes regarding the tariffs. When we look on Brazil, we're positive. On Brazil PASCAR, we believe will be positive this year, and we're well positioned to profit from that. Our plants are doing well. Our aluminum plants, we moved some equipment from around the world to Brazil to have a little bit more capacity in Brazil. We acquired a majority stake in Polimetal that will help us to generate more capacity for Mercosur, not just for Argentina, but for Mercosur. From PASCAR point of view, we're well positioned.
Then truck, we do have the capacity, both for components, and for wheels. We believe that at least in the first half of the year, yes, the program you're talking about, will be helpful. So, we're looking forward for those projections to materialize. I hope that answers your questions, gives you a little bit more insight.
Yes, it does. Thank you, Pieter. Obrigada pessoal.
You're welcome.
Our next question is from Gabriel Rezende, Itaú BBA. You have the floor, Gabriel.
I will ask the question in English so Pieter can understand.
Just following up on the answer you gave regarding heavy vehicles here in Brazil, if you could comment how you're perceiving the inventory levels for your customers here in Brazil, it could be great. Just to get a sense, because we have seen a steep deterioration on production levels in the fourth quarter along the latest months into 2025. Just trying to understand whether there's a catch-up in production to happen in the beginning of 2026 here in the Brazilian market. Also, if you could comment, provide further details on what we could expect for market share gains throughout 2026. As I understand, because you gained market share along 2025, you start 2026 with an already high market share.
Just trying to understand whether we should see only a carryover effect or if there's additional projects for you to get additional room for you to get in your customers at this point. Thank you.
Very much. For Brazil, we do not foresee any special effect of too high inventories or too low inventories. What we see happening is the market coming back to a certain extent in the beginning of this year. We do not see any special effect of having too low inventories and a catch-up of production or having too high inventories and still cooling down, even though sales of trucks goes up. You know, it's in line with our assumptions, and those assumptions are better in the first half of 2026 than what we saw in the second half of 2025.
When you talk about market share increase, of course, you talk more about Europe and Asia where that story is happening, especially on the commercial vehicle side. You're right, some of those market shares, you know, they cannot continue to increase, but I would say some already happened beginning 2025, some happened more towards the end of 2025. My expectation is still to see a positive effect of that. How big that effect will really be, depends a little bit on how the market develops and how quickly we can materialize all of our potential. I agree with you, the story is not endless.
At the same time, I'm hopeful that we will still see some positive effect from that, also in 2026, and not only in 2025. I hope that answers.
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Wonderful, thank you.
Our next question is from Luiza Mussi, from Safra. Luiza, you have the floor.
Hello, everyone. I have two questions. First, could you please give some more details in regard to what happened to CapEx in this quarter? Considering your scenario you describe, what could we expect in regard to leveraging of the company for 2026? These are my two questions.
Well... Luiza, can you hear me?
Luiza, can you hear me? Yes, now I can. I apologize. Well, thank you for your question. Let me explain to you in regard to what happens to the effective taxing for 2024 and 2025. It is explained by some recurring points that benefit 2024. They have not been repeated for 2025. Some of the movements are: in the fourth quarter 2024, we had a positive impact of around BRL 30 million. This is due to a plant in India. It took us four years for the ramp-up. When we can prove that the plant is in a good situation and profitable, we have the trigger for this acknowledgement of the tax re-related losses in the company. We did have this positive impact. We are not being impacted by the same in 2025. Another important point is what we call inflation accounting.
Considering Turkey is a hyperinflation country, we have the updates of all those numbers with the inflation accounting, this update happens with equity. When we have this equity update, we generate a credit in equity, we generate a debt in the operational expenses because it is included as an expense. With this, the PBT was reduced, when you apply the nominal tax, you have less tax to pay. The inflation accounting was being applied in the previous years, on December 25th, the Turkish parliament approved some measure in which the monetary correction is suspended for 2025, it leaves 2026 as suspended. This inflation accounting also has a negative impact of around TRY 40 million. These are these two impacts that we suffer.
Of course, we have other positive impacts that lead us to BRL 32 million. This is the difference between quarters. Another important thing to highlight is timing. When we look at 2025 against 2024, we do see an improvement of around BRL 40 million. Our effective tax is not the accounting tax, it's the actual tax that is paid. It was in around 27%. This is the explanation of what we saw in the fourth quarter. Unfortunately, this inflation accounting impact affects our net profit. This is what happened for 2024 December. In regard to the leveraging, as Pieter mentioned, we wrap this year at 2.65 fold.
Of course, there is a reduction of around BRL 100 million in our factoring operations. At the end of the day, we would be close to the same leverage we had in Q3. Obviously, there is some deterioration of this leverage from 2.4 last year to 2.56 adjusted. We also see cash generation that is strong in the company, even with the scenario that we've explained. We see BRL 328 million of cash generated with cash flow, we say indirectly, and a series of investment that was in line with what we had appointed, which was around BRL 500 million. We close with BRL 508 million.
Of course, there is a reduction in cash because there is some liquidity, in general contest, we do generate cash, BRL 328 million, and obviously worsening the working capital in BRL 100 million, because we don't follow with factoring. In view of this scenario, we have managed to control. Even with the impact, we had around BRL 50 million in expenditures with restructuring, and it impacts EBITDA and leveraging. We do not have significant deterioration with this scenario. Looking forward, as Pieter said, we are in line with what the agencies have been forecasting in regard to vehicle, light or heavy vehicles production, and we are very close to the situation that we are envisioning today. You are very clear, as usual. Thank you very much. Next question is from João Andrade from Bank of America. João, you may proceed.
Good morning. Can you hear me? Thank you, Pieter. Thank you, Renato. My question is in regard to the antitrust investigation occurring in Germany. If you could share a little bit, if you have any estimate so that this investigation is concluded. The fact that you are collaborating with authorities is good, but I would like to hear from you in this regard, and thank you for the opportunity.
Yeah, João, thank you for the question. Of course, we cannot speculate about this matter. As you say, we're fully cooperating with the authorities and, you know, there was a next step through this formal notification. You know, together with the authorities, we are studying what that means, and, we're looking, you know, how we can best manage the next steps in this procedure. At this moment, it's really unclear, you know, what it means, if it means something from a financial point of view.
We're not in a position at this stage of the investigation to give any further comments regarding amounts of money that could be involved or would be involved if they are involved.
Perfect, Pieter. That's clear. Thank you so much.
You're welcome.
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Our next question is from Andre Mazini from Citibank. You have the floor. Thank you. Kieter, can you hear us? With no further questions, we are now closing the Q&A session. I would now like to give the floor to Pieter Klinkers for his final statements.
Thank you very much for your participation. I can inform you that the rain has stopped in São Paulo. I hope the rest of your morning, whatever time zone you're in, will be okay. You know, we will work hard this year to deliver the results that we've put ourselves on. You know, during this year, it's still a long year. We're in February, there will be positives, there will be negatives, but I think we're well positioned to hopefully capitalize on a market that, especially from a truck point of view, is looking to be in better shape in 2026 than it was in 2025.
I'm looking forward to come back to all of you with our first quarter earnings call in a few months from now. Thank you for listening to us. Bye-bye.