Thank you for standing by, and welcome to the strategic update on Cement and FLSmidth trading update. All participants are in a listen-only mode. This call is scheduled to last around 30 minutes. There will be a presentation, followed by a question-and-answer session. I'll now hand over to CEO, Mikko Keto. Please go ahead.
Good morning, and welcome to the investor presentation regarding Cement and Trading Update. This is a very significant milestone for FLSmidth, giving the history of our company, which started 140 years ago in a cement business. Very significant milestone. Next slide, please. I'm joined here in the studio with Roland Andersen, who's our Group CFO, and we cover also the trading update in the end of the presentation. Next one, please. The usual forward-looking statement caveats. Next slide. So announcement today is about that we start to explore divestment options for cement business. In other words, we are starting a sales process for Cement business. The business is in a good shape at the moment. It's a healthy asset. You've seen the quarter four full- year result.
It's actually in a good condition. Also that the recent sale of the MAAG product line is indicating that we have valuable assets in terms of technology and services as belonging to cement business. We also are increasing our cost synergies from previous, and we are now raising run rate cost synergies to DKK 600 million. Reason for this one is that to be able to have a lean organization than early anticipated, so much of these synergies, hard synergies from head count savings and facilities. So it's hard synergies, not soft synergies, what we are having there. We are confirming that we are reaching our guidance for full- year 2023, and also we are giving out guidance for 2024. Next slide.
This is actually exactly what we said in the Capital Markets Day, reasons for pure play. And now upon completion of the pure play, which means separation of mining and cement businesses operationally, and now from legal point of view, starting January 1st, we complete the separation. We are still continuing separating support functions in the first half of the year. But what we presented in the CMD, reasons for pure play, reasons for separation of two companies are still 100% valid. Next one. So next steps, regarding looking at divestment options is that, we have a legal entity for cement in place. We have a new company structure. We continue separating some of the shared support functions, and that will be complete by middle of the year.
We continue executing our strategy, what we presented in the CMD, and in very simple terms is service, product-centric business model and focusing on trends, transition in the cement industry. We have been de-risking the cement asset, and that is one of the reasons why the order intake is down. So project risk has been brought down, and we have had a focus on quality of earnings also in cement business, value over volume. And, we are expecting a potential transaction to transpire at the earliest, late 2024, as typically it would take, nine to 12 months for the process. We are in a process of, selecting advisor for this process and then kicking off, the work, together with the advisor. And I'm handing over to Roland, to look at, the final sale update.
Thank you for that, Mikko. So, yesterday, we announced our preliminary numbers for 2023 and then also issued our 2024 guidance. We hope for your understanding that there will be a limit to how detailed we can go with the questions, as we will have a lot more details when we announce our Annual Report on February 21st this year. So we're saving the best for last. But if we just look at the step back a bit, and we took over mining technologies, the first of September 2022. In the outset, before knowing anything about the asset, we estimated our synergies to about DKK 360 million.
Six or seven weeks into the ownership period, it became clear to us that the synergy potential was considerably higher, and the non-core activity segment was established, and we said that basically we have concluded the full integration of mining technologies by the end of 2023, and happy to announce that the total synergies is now around DKK 600 million. So about DKK 200 million of those were harvested in 2023, and the remaining DKK 400 million will have full- year impact in 2024. Next slide, please. Preliminary numbers for 2023 on audited, so a top line in mining of 17.1 versus guidance of around 17. Our adjusted EBITDA margin ended at around 10, 10.8%.
We guide at 10.5-11. The full- year mining result here will be adjusted for DKK 408 million in integration costs, and this is a considerably smaller number than the 550 we had initially anticipated when we started out the year. For cement, we guided around DKK 6 billion, and the revenue will end at DKK 6 billion. Our EBITDA margin for the full- year would be 6.7%. And that margin, as we recall, includes an accounting gain from the sale of our Filter Media business in Q3 of about DKK 100 million. So this is also in line with our predictions.
Non-core activities revenue of DKK 950 million, we guided DKK 900 million-DKK 1 billion, and we will lose about DKK 345 million in the higher end of the guidance range, but that just reflects that we are executing that segment slightly faster than we had anticipated. Important to note here that we have guided that we will lose DKK 1 billion in total during the exit period of that segment, and that number is still our best estimate. Next slide, please. Let's have a look at our 2024 guidance. This guidance reflects our ongoing transformation journey, especially in the mining business. Our mining revenue is estimated to DKK 16 billion-DKK 17 billion. We estimate an adjusted EBITDA margin of 11.5%-12.5%.
In Mining business, we will be calling out one-off costs of about DKK 200 million. This is predominantly transformation costs that goes to changing our operating model into what we call a principal company model, or what we internally call a core company program, where we will place all our products, our technical specs, but also a large part of our supply chain in terms of PO order flows and so on, will run through that platform, and that will require some changes to our operating model, and that is what we will spend the majority of the DKK 200 million in one-off costs for in 2024. There will be a smaller ticket here also as part of the DKK 200 million for separation from cement.
Cement is guided at a top line of DKK 4 billion-DKK 4.5 billion and adjusted EBITDA margin of 5.5%-6.5%. We recently announced that we have sold our gearbox business, MAAG, and that business is expected to close during Q1, and that's included in the guidance, and that will leave a relatively small accounting gain in Q1, expectedly. Now, in EBITDA, we're also calling out DKK 100 million in one-off costs. Those DKK 100 million is partly for final separation activities from the mothership. It's also sales readiness costs, and finally a smaller ticket for finalizing the transformation.
Cement is currently finalizing their geographical footprint and the organizational structure that needs to fall 100% in line with plans. Then in 2024, we will finalize our non-core activities and close the segment latest by the end of the year, and we estimate a loss of DKK 200 million-DKK 300 million, and that's basically the residual that gives us the DKK 1 billion loss during the course of the exit period. We recall that the exit period has been from Q4 2022 until the end of 2024. Yeah. Next slide, please. Then we will just give a little flavor on the development in our EBITDA margin in mining. And yesterday, we announced that our adjusted EBITDA margin is 10.8% for full- year 2023.
If we deduct the integration costs that we spent during the course of 2023 of DKK 481 million, approximately 3%, we will end at an EBITDA margin reported for the full- year of 8%. Now, moving into 2024, those DKK 148 million is obviously not coming again, so that's the 3% we are adding here in green. Additional cost synergies of 2.5%, which is the extra DKK 400 million in 2024, so a total of DKK 600 million, DKK 200 million came in 2023, DKK 400 million extra in 2024, 2.5%. Then we're deducting a bit of inflation. Inflation here is predominantly on the SG&A base, as all inflation on cost of goods sold are expected to be able to pass on.
We have also spent a bit of the synergy savings here in especially in our PCV pumps business, but also certain parts of our consumables business, mill liners and others, where we are stepping up the game. Then the DKK 200 million I discussed in the previous slide, 1.5% in transformation and separation costs, will give us an implied reported EBITDA margin for 2024 of 10%-11%. And deducting the transformation and separation cost of DKK 200 million leaves us with the adjusted EBITDA margin guidance of 11.5%-12.5%. This is fully in line with our plans, that this is on the path to delivering the long-term targets in 2026, of a reported EBITDA margin of 13%-15% in mining. And with that, next slide, please.
I'll give it back to Mikko.
I'm very pleased about how fast we've been about the transformation. We are ahead of the plan, means that transforming the company into focusing on quality of earnings, de-risk business model. Some of the monies, as, as Roland said earlier, that what we are using this year is to make the operation model scalable, simple, that allows us to grow in the coming years without adding too much SG&A. And that requires Principal company model, that requires simple order flow, that requires simplified ERP landscape, and that is a platform for future growth. Of course, there would have been choice not to spend the money, but then we wouldn't achieve sustainable platform for long-term growth. So we are using some of that money there.
At the same time, while we are still transforming the company in 2024, we are already now looking into how we can kickstart the growth in the areas that we want to grow. So we are creating a platform for long-term growth in 2024, whether it's a pumping business, whether it's a m ill liner business, whether it's consumables business. So we are doing all that work in the background. We've seen continued profitability improvement, both in Mining and Cement, and that has been our main focus in the company. Also de-risking the backlog of Mining, de-risking backlog of the Cement so that they're healthy, high quality backlog in both businesses. We've been increasing strategic cost takeout, mainly with the people.
When the full- year result comes out, you will see significant reduction in the head, in our headcount in one year and a quarter. So it means that we will be mean and lean going forward in our operational model. We are looking at options for Cement divestment. We believe that, we believe that the asset is high quality, and also sale of the MAAG product line is indicating that there's interest for that asset. It's a high quality asset in terms of improved profitability, reduced risk, and ability to pure play clean ticket in the Cement market going forward. And we remain fully committed to long-term targets that we have, but we are committed to deliver those targets in sustainable way.
Rather than not spend the money for transformation this year, we want to spend the money so that then we can deliver continued good results in the coming years when we grow the business. Then we go for the Q&A section, please.
Thank you. We will now begin the question and answer session. To ask a question, you may press Star, then one on your telephone keypad. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing the keys. To withdraw your question, please press Star then two. We ask that in the interest of time, you please limit to one question at a time. If you would like to ask further questions, you may press Star one again to rejoin the queue. Your first question comes from Claus Almer, from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Yeah, of course, I will do one question. I have just one regarding your margin bridge for 2024. So this 1.5% point negative from SG&A cost deflation. If I do some quick math, that indicates that you expect to see a 10% cost inflation in the SG&A in the mining division. That sounds a lot. So can you try to explain this negative margin impact?
It's not, it's not 10%. It's, I think we are on, on a global level, a bit more than 5% on our salaries, on certain parts of our, admin also. So there may be a bit of overlap in what we do on our commercial, investments and then in the, inflation adjustment. So those two may have to be seen together.
So can you explain that again? So it is an overlap between what? Sorry?
Yeah, so we are adding, we are adding headcounts in the commercial front end, right? The one that we call, the one that we call commercial, the ramp up-
Right.
In the bridge. Those two will have to be seen because those people have flown in during Q3 and Q4.
I guess you're not adding 5% more employees. It sounds like you have taken, as always,
conservative, you know, math when you calculated that, the margin?
Thank you for that, Claus. So we're pretty precise, and also these percentages are, of course, rounded numbers, right?
Okay, it's only one question. That will be it. Thanks.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Casper Blom, from Danske Bank. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Just a question on the development within cement in Q4. On my numbers, it looks as if the Cement margin comes in rather strong here in Q4 compared to Q1 and Q2 in 2023, probably an EBITDA margin up towards the 7% . Could you explain if there's any non-recurring things, extraordinary items or anything in cement in Q4? Thank you.
Thank you for that. So there's a few adjusting items, year-end items, and the 7.4 is not a run rate number. We'll add a bit more flavor on that when we announce the annual report. So it's not a run rate number.
Okay, and you can't give any details to what it is that is affecting it?
Yeah, so we have had some restructuring during the course of the year, and that means when we end the year, right, and most activities have been concluded, there's a few provisions that would have been released and so on. But these are sort of non-recurring year-end adjustments. We'll give a bit more flavor when we announce the annual report.
Okay. Thanks a lot, Roland.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press Star, then One. Your next question comes from Klaus Kehl from Nykredit . Please go ahead.
Yeah, good morning. Also a question related to the Cement business. I'm a bit surprised about the guidance or margin guidance for cement in 2024, and yeah, to be honest, I'm surprised on the upside. You're guiding for an adjusted margin of 5.5%-6.5%, even though your top line more or less collapses. So what's behind this very strong margin guidance? Is there any impact from the divestments here in 2024, or yeah, just a few thoughts on that.
So we are still expecting the Service business to develop positively, and you've seen the decline in the service order intake in 2023, and that has been predominantly from upgrades and retrofits, which is kind of project type of Service business in that same category. But now the underlying Service business going forward is about spare parts and professional services, which means that it's higher profit and lower risk. And of course, we see less large orders coming in for the kind of capital business, because in capital business, we are becoming product centric instead of project centric. So you see actually going forward, hopefully then the mix will play into the kind of profitability as well.
We are expecting that the service business will be stable with a high profitability, so that will also improve it. And of course, we're taking cost actions for the SG&A of the cement business, which a big part has been already done, but it's ongoing throughout the year still. So we are still looking at support functions, overlap all the support functions between mining and cement. So the SG&A cost continues to go out, and we are expecting service business to stabilize it at a good level in terms of kind of margin.
Okay, but just to be clear, there's not any one-offs related to divestments included in the adjusted EBITDA margin for 2024?
So there's a very small accounting gain from market, but that's not driving the margin. It is, as Mikko said, pruning of that service portfolio, and then the fact that we are now de-risking the cement business significantly, and the projects are fading out, and we'll be focused on selling products that supports our service business.
Okay, great. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Your next question comes from Christian Hinderaker from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good morning, everyone, thank you for the question. I just wanted to ask about, I guess, the timing of the exit. We know that this has been on track for a while, and I guess also, maybe you can't comment, but whether you have an indication on potential suitors in terms of the nature of who might buy the business. If you look at the full- year 2024 guidance for EBITDA, for example, it looks like cement profitability is gonna be down by more than a third in 2024. Appreciate that's about the de-risking approach that you've taken and the margin improvement strategy. I just wanna think about the dynamics of why now and whether that's driven by potential appetite that you've seen already from potential suitors. Thank you.
So we are just starting the process. We haven't formally appointed the advisor yet. We are in that process, so we are at the start of the process. Of course, internally, we've done preparation for the potential sale of the asset with a pure play, started separating the businesses, also having separate legal entities. So we can't comment on any potential buyers for the business, but business, because the issue in the past in Cement has been project risk and also losses realized as through those project risk. And then we believe that it's a high-quality asset now, with the centricity selling products to projects and not undertaking project risk and also focusing on services.
Well, we believe that what is interesting for potential buyer is basically technology, in other words, products, R&D, what we've done for the green transition, and then ongoing service business. We felt that having lots of project volume there would be rather negative for the asset than positive. So that's why you're seeing the volume going down quite a bit in the order intake. That has been. The market hasn't been great, but also more than the market, it has been our own conscious decision to focus on technology and services.
Thank you very much.
Thank you. Once again, if you wish to ask a question, please press Star, then one. We'll now pause a moment to allow for any final questions. The next question comes from Debashish Chand from Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Hi, good morning. I had just one question on the Mining outlook. So if you could just give a bit more color on both the product business and the service business. I understand about the softer demand environment for business, but if you could just give some color on, you know, how much we could expect product business to be soft in 2024, and how do you see the service business strength in 2024? Is it still kind of robust, or do you see some weakness could be in that business as well? Thank you.
So I think, we are very much seeing the market as we started indicating actually already six months ago, that it's a bit more quiet in the mining market. But still, if you look at the resiliency of the certain commodities where we are strong, copper and gold, which is where we have our biggest exports, are doing pretty okay. Last year, the copper price was up a bit. Gold price was kind of doing well as well. So I think those are the two biggest commodities. And then we are less impacted by lithium and that type of activity. So it's mainly copper and gold market.
But what we saw that some of the mining companies started optimizing the kind of near-term result and therefore constraining some spending on. But we haven't. So from our point of view, the producers are running almost full capacity, so they so in that sense we are not concerned. So what we see is that the service market is stable, what we indicated six months ago and then a quarter ago, and then we're expecting it to be good. So good profitability, stable market for service, where there has been timing issues, has been more the products market. And what we saw, some of the orders that we were possibly getting fourth quarter, we saw coming in now in the first quarter, HPGR orders from South America.
We were expecting to get that the last kind of in the fourth quarter, but then it was postponed till first quarter. So we see some of the kind of large CapEx decisions by customers moving a fair bit. But quite often it's not only the market, it's also the still the good old licensing issues, what there is in many countries, impacting equally much. So timing is more difficult to predict for products, for capital orders, but service market remaining, I would say, at the same level as it has been for the kind of latter part of last year. So it's good market for us.
And at the same time, you need to remember that we are also exiting basic labor, means that, it's not a big number, what we do there, but still we are exiting basic labor services, which is not really generating any profit for us. So there's slight mix impact still in our numbers. It's not a big number, they are basic labor services, but still we are in the process of exiting that.
Thank you.
Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Klaus Kehl from Nykredit . Please go ahead.
Yeah, hello. Just a follow-up question related to, cement again. What's the book value of, of the, cement business, as of today?
So that's a good question. That we're not disclosing today.
Okay, but what if I did the math on Q3 or end of 2022?
But if you look at our balance sheet, there's next to no goodwill related to cement business. So I think we'll have to dwell on that at a later stage.
Okay. Thank you.
You're welcome.
Thank you. We have a follow-up question from Claus Almer from Nordea. Please go ahead.
Also a question regarding Cement. Where in the world do you think the most likely buyer will come from? And do you expect it to do in one go divestment, or would it be in more pieces?
So our aim is to sell it as a one entity, because it's. Why we sold, for example, for all industries. So from a logic point of view, that's a kind of different type of asset. But if I look at remaining assets, they are dominantly focused on cement, so they go well together. So from up, our assignment to our advisor and what we try to do is to sell it as a one full entity. It's much cleaner and better for us. And you ask about potential buyers. We, of course, are starting the process.
So I think, I believe that there's a potential interest both by industrial buyers and from kind of financial entities. And then, of course, that would then impact the potential closing of the deal, whether it's industrial buyer or financial sponsor. So I, we are expecting interest from both.
But if you compare to the thyssenkrupp Cement division, you know, was it a few years back, where ended up not being sold, and I know there's, you know, big difference between, FLS and, and them. Do you think there's a, a five potential buyers, a 10%, potential buyers? You know, what is the, yeah, the potential number of, of interested parties?
I can't speculate on that one, but we are talking about a significantly different asset to thyssenkrupp. It was huge exposure to risky projects, so that's why we've been de-risking the cement business already for a while because the asset can be called toxic if you have a huge project risks in the books. And that's why we've been managing the risk down a lot in cement. So we believe that this is a good asset from risk point of view, that I think that deterred the buyers from the other company, that the risk. And I think our risk profile is quite low, and we have a healthy ongoing service business which can grow in the coming years.
We have a number of good products that are selling not through the project, but are competitive on product-to-product basis. We believe that our asset is totally different from the kind of TK Cement asset. They are, I would say that are totally different.
And then do you think it's a 5 or 10 or, you know, how many, you know, likely, in your view, potential buyers should be out there at the right price?
We don't know actually, because we are starting the process.
Fair enough. Thanks.
Thanks.
Thank you. This concludes our question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Keto for any closing remarks.
I'd also like to highlight that this is a very significant milestone for FLSmidth. The company started in cement, and there are lots of heritage in that part of the business. What we've done for the Cement asset and business over the last year and a half, we made it healthy. It is really good asset, good products, and we are now able to stabilize the service. We've improved profitability of the business, so it's really good business. And then the reason for selling that is exactly what we indicated in the Capital Market Day, that the peer-based strategy, mining needs to be successful in its own right, same for cement. In mining, we are turning into growth mode in a bit.
Once we are clean, mining entity is all about growth, and now we are creating foundation for the transformational activities to be a platform for long-term growth in Mining. And then, cement be successful under the new ownership. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to talking to you when we announce the full- year results, and then we can discuss about the details.