Hello, everyone. Welcome to Solvay and Syensqo's Capital Markets Day 2023. We're so excited to be able to host our event here in our new office and to welcome so many of you that traveled to Brussels today to be here with us live. It's been quite a few years before we've had a live event such as this, so we really appreciate the time that you took to accompany us today. I'd also like to welcome those of you that are joining by webcast, so hopefully you'll navigate and follow through the presentations we have for you today. Let's take a look at our agenda for the day. We're going to begin today with a presentation by the Solvay management team. That will be followed immediately by a Q&A session, at which time, at the conclusion of the Q&A, that'll bring us to lunchtime.
Where lunch is, is fairly simple. You leave and exit through the doors that you entered in, and straight ahead in the main reception area, we will be serving lunch. Everything for today is on the same floor to make it a bit easier for you. After lunch, we kindly ask that you arrive back into this room just before 2:00 P.M. We're trying to start promptly at 2:00 P.M. for the Solvay presentation, and this is because our viewers joining by webcast will begin their link promptly at 2:00 P.M. We're very excited after the Solvay question and answer period, to lead you through some of our more exciting innovations.
We have a tour planned for you today, for those joining us live, and this will be an organized tour where we will be putting you in some groups, and we will be walking you through the various innovation showcases. We have assigned those groups, and I can explain that to you later in the afternoon. Please take advantage of the wonderful opportunity to hear from the experts that are in the room. Talk to them, ask them the questions. They'll also be available after the innovation showcase, because if your time permits, you can go back and speak to them a little longer, because we'd like to keep the event organized and timely, so everyone has an opportunity to see all of our wonderful applications. After that, we will invite you to join both management teams, again, in the reception area for a walking dinner.
At that point, you will have the occasion to speak to all presenters and the full executive teams of both companies. We've made it really easy for you today, because if you haven't already noticed, we have color-coded the ties and the scarves of the ladies and gentlemen, so you will quickly be able to distinguish who will continue with the new Solvay organization and who will continue with the Syensqo organization, to make it a little fun. Please take advantage of this opportunity where they're all together in one place and dive more into the exciting presentations that they'll show you today. Maybe for a few housekeeping issues next. We are in one of our facilities today, so it's important that we refresh you on some of the safety procedures, so I'll give you a moment to look at this slide.
Most importantly, if there is an emergency today, the exit for this room will be the same door that you entered in. And what you'll do is you'll go all the way through the reception area and turn right, and it leads you around the outside of the building, back to the front of the building, where there will be a gathering area. Hopefully, this won't be needed today. Also, as a friendly reminder, I would like to ask those of you with cell phones to kindly turn them on to vibrate. And finally, I'd like to remind you that today's presentation are being recorded and will be accessible for replay on our investor relations website. The presentation today includes forward-looking statements and that are subject to risks and uncertainties. The slides today are available on our website as usual.
With that, gives me great pleasure to welcome Geoffroy to the stage, who will start the Solvay presentation. Thank you.
Hi, everyone, welcome to the session dedicated to Solvay, and welcome to the world of the future Solvay. I'm Geoffroy d'Oultremont. I will be leading the investor relations team of Solvay after the spin-off, and I'm really happy to have today the team of... the management team of Solvay with us. Look what we prepared for you. We will start with Philippe Kehren, incoming CEO of the future Solvay. He will present you the vision and the strategy of Solvay in the future. We'll follow with Lanny Duvall, the future COO of Solvay, will explain us how the separation will help us to be even more efficient, even more performant. Then, Etienne Galan for Soda Ash, Carlos Silveira for Peroxides, will go deeper in their respective business.
Then we'll have Alexandre Blum, the future CEO, CFO, sorry, of Solvay, will come back on some key metrics, key financial metrics, and will also give some more detail on the financial target that you saw this morning in the press release. And after some closing remarks by Philippe, we will take some Q&A question. I will come back for that time and moderate the session. Philippe, the floor is yours.
Good morning, and welcome to Solvay's Capital Markets Day. I am Philippe Kehren, and I'm thrilled to be speaking with all of you today as the future CEO of Solvay. Working in Solvay has always given me an immense sense of responsibility and pride, and I'm truly honored to soon be leading the company where I began my career 30 years ago. I also want to thank the board of directors and Ilham Kadri for their support and confidence. I have a passion for industry. This is why I started as an engineer. I strongly believe in sustainable development. This is why I developed two of the biggest greenhouse gas emission reduction projects in the world in the early 2000s. My ambition is to contribute to the transformation of the industry. This is why I decided to move to business.
Now, today, we begin our next chapter of this great history, a 160-year history that started with the invention of the Soda Ash synthetic process by our founder, Ernest Solvay. Now, we are gathering all the essential chemical businesses to create the new Solvay. We will embrace our past, and we'll carry forward our legacy of progress. At Solvay, we are mastering the elements essential to our world. We master our technologies. We believe in science. This is in our DNA, and this is how we have maintained, year after year, our leadership positions. This is thanks to our unwavering commitment to operational excellence and to process innovation. More importantly, the elements we produce are essential to our world. They are at the heart of people's everyday life. Our products are essential. They are everywhere.
You can find them in glass windows, electric vehicle, solar panels, hemodialysis treatment, microchips, green tires, and a lot of other fantastic applications. It's very exciting to perpetuate this legacy of leadership, thanks to our excellence in process and technology. At the heart of our journey is our determination to achieve carbon neutrality. Through relentless process innovation and a commitment to sustainable practices, we are not just adapting to a changing world, we are seeking to lead it, crafting a path to a sustainable future that others in our industry may follow. So this is our manifesto, our ambition, our promise to you, shareholders and investors. As we embark on this new chapter, we do this with the certainty that our best years are yet to come.
As we navigate through this transformative period, the decision to separate in two companies stands as a strategic milestone, unlocking significant value for our shareholders, for our customers, and for our employees. Let me outline the profound advantages this simplification will bring. We are bringing together businesses that have the same profile, the same requirements, the same strategic imperatives. This will enable us to build a fit-for-purpose operating model that will generate cost efficiency and that will support our market leadership position going forward. We are streamlining operations through standardization and end-to-end optimization. This means cutting out complexity and acting decisively to respond to market dynamics swiftly and efficiently. Our investments will be more focused than ever, targeted towards essential CapEx and attractive returns.
This involves allocating capital to areas with the highest returns, including decarbonization. To put it simply, the separation allows us to tailor our strategies more precisely and to dedicate resources more efficiently. Being more focused will drive greater value to all stakeholders. Now, a word on governance. I strongly believe that diversity of thought and perspectives are key ingredients in business, and everywhere, by the way. Our board of directors has been thoughtfully assembled to bring deep experience and diversity of thought. I'm also very much looking forward to working with our independent chairman, Pierre Gurdjian, and to leverage on the collective wisdom to maximize value for all our shareholders. It gives me great pleasure to lead this journey with a team of seasoned executive leaders. Today, I'm on stage with Lanny, Alex, Etienne, and Carlos.
Along with Anne, Lisa, Daniela, Mark, and Brad, we have a well-thought balance between in-house talents and newly hired seasoned professionals. I'm really proud to lead this team. Together, this team embodies the collective expertise and visionary leadership that will propel us forward. Now, let me just say a few words about who we are. This is the new Solvay. As you can see, we will be a major player in the essential chemical arena. We operate five major business lines, all with leadership positions in the markets. We have critical mass, and we are very proud of our top quartile EBITDA margins at 23% and cash conversion at 70%. We have a well-balanced geographical footprint of both global and regional manufacturing plants. These regional locations are close to our customers, which is a key competitive advantage.
And looking at sales, you see the same well-balanced geographical presence. Our products serve essential needs across a wide and diverse range of end markets, ranging from auto to consumer goods, from electronics to building. And this broad range of sectors support the resilience of our company with no exposure above 21%. This is unlike our peers, who tend to be more concentrated in one of your markets. Our applications are equally diverse. You can find Solvay's solutions everywhere. The use of our products is driven by key megatrends, such as the need for more energy-efficient solutions, which drives more use of silica in our cars and more soda ash for triple-glazed glass windows in our homes and offices.
I bet you didn't know that hydrogen peroxide is not only used as a disinfectant, but it's also used to produce microchips, and this is driven by the digitalization trend. All these elements that I've just shown on top of our capacity to lead our markets, and because benchmarks allow us to display a great resilience of our performance. This is a view of our performance over the last seven years, which demonstrates stability, predictability, and that is through, and you know that very well, pandemics, economic cycles, and so on, that we've been through. And this quality reflects both the leadership positions that we have in our businesses and also the responsiveness of our teams. And this translates into a predictable, strong cash generation.
Now, our highly engaged employees are a testament to our high-performance culture, and I can't think of a better metric than the fact that one in four of our employees are personally invested in the future success of the company, and that 80% of our employees say they are fully engaged. So why invest? Why should you invest in Solvay? Well, thanks to our leadership on our markets and on our technologies, thanks to our resilience, thanks to our highly engaged people, we will continue to deliver top-quartile cash generation and margins, as we have consistently demonstrated in the past years. Rewarding shareholders remains a priority, and we offer attractive, stable to increasing dividends.
In short, an investment in Solvay is an investment in our commitment to deliver superior outcomes. So now that you know where we come from, what we stand for, and what our vision and our ambition are, let's talk about strategy. Our strategy is founded around four core priorities. First, market leadership. Being the market leader allows us to be the owner of our destiny. Cost and process leadership support a sustainable, competitive advantage. Energy transition is critical to our carbon neutrality goal by 2050, and we have already made very significant progress. Not only do I care deeply about this topic, but it is critical to our competitiveness, to our customers, and to our employees. We embark on our journey with a sound balance sheet. We will maintain our capital discipline, making prudent and rational use of cash.
Now, let's take a closer look at our businesses and markets. Again, we are very well-balanced. We are leaders, not only in soda ash, but also in all of our other businesses. We are balanced but focused as our four main technologies: soda ash, bicarb, peroxide, and silica, represent close to 70% of our sales. About three-quarters of our portfolio is growing in line with GDP. This brings predictability. This is the bulk of our activities, which is essential and makes us resilient to economic cycles. And then we have 25% of our business, which is growing faster than GDP. For example, soda ash goes into lithium carbonate used in batteries, and this market is growing at 20%. Electronic grades of hydrogen peroxide used in microchips grow at 25% a year. Quite amazing.
The next pillar of our strategy relates to cost and process leadership. This is at the core of our strategy, and therefore it is so important, you know, to our success. I will let Lanny Duvall, our Chief Operating Officer, take you through the lever, levers that will unleash our value. Lanny will bring to life how simplification and standardization will significantly reduce costs, and how our process innovation leadership will deliver more progress. So I move directly to our third pillar, which is an extension of our One Planet commitment that you are already familiar with. Sustainability is profitability. It secures our position as a leading supplier for our customers, and it preserves our competitive advantage for the long run. Solvay One Planet is our North Star.
We will continue to drive progress, including the fact that we confirm our carbon neutrality target by 2050, and we are committing to a living wage for all our workforce. We must deal with the environmental footprint of our production process, especially in soda ash. The good news is that we remain committed to improve this. Like we told you before, our climate ambition is to become carbon neutral by 2050. This is imperative. We've made progress already, and we'll continue to develop solutions to do more. Coal phase out is critical to the initial phase of our plan. Today, we still have five plants consuming coal in our soda ash business. In a few weeks from now, we will have stopped using coal in the U.S. As we speak, two projects are in construction in Europe to exit coal within two years.
So you understand we are well advanced, we are walking the talk, and we do it in a way to reinforce the competitiveness of these sites. By the way, by the end of next year, the best-in-class soda ash plant, not only in Solvay, but across the entire industry, will be our plant in Rheinberg, Germany, which will primarily use waste biomass. That's quite amazing, right? For a process that is 160 years old. And then carbon neutrality will be in reach, thanks to our new Solvay process named e.Solvay. This new process is currently being piloted at industrial scale in Dombasle, France. Now look at the total number of projects that we have all over the world, including soda ash. This is an overview of all the energy transition projects, either completed or underway across our global network.
To date, we have already delivered a 10% structural emission reduction with the projects executed in Germany, in Bulgaria, and in the U.S. We have launched projects that will deliver another 15% emission reduction by 2025, and we are designing the projects to save another 10% by 2030. What this means is that we are on track to meet the -30% target by 2030. Our projects will generate returns that will exceed the cost of capital, meaning that they will generate financial value as well. Last but not least, capital discipline is key, and it's a muscle that we have developed over the past years. The separation will allow us to have a simpler and more focused cash allocation strategy.
Our business is highly cash generative, and what is key in these circumstances is how we allocate capital. Essential CapEx only consumes one-third of our cash. Dividends are sacrosanct, of course, and we will allocate the remaining one-third with discipline and with returns at the forefront of our thinking. Discretionary CapEx decisions will be made on the basis of merit and affordability in the domains of capacity growth, process efficiency, and energy transition. And in everything we do, we will always secure both dividends and our investment grade. Now, our 2028 targets are the results of everything that I've explained. The separation will allow us to generate EUR 300 million of savings from the new operating model. This will allow us to further anchor our leadership in our markets and create more value for our stakeholders.
In formulating our objectives, I took into account the strength of our portfolio and the growth that we can deliver. I assessed with the team all the opportunities that I expect our new operating model to generate from simplification and standardization. We are starting from a strong position, but I want, we want, more. That's why we are raising the bar on all the key metrics that I'm convinced will maximize value. In simple terms, I want us to go from being top quartile to becoming the benchmark. Lanny and the team will demonstrate to you how we intend to do this. So now it's time to hand over to Lanny, our Chief Operating Officer. Welcome, Lanny, on stage.
Thank you, Philippe. I joined Solvay in May. Prior to joining Solvay, I spent the last six years working for companies owned by private equity. This taught me the importance of both focus and speed. I joined Solvay because of the quality of the company and the opportunity to support an industry leader in value creation through a separation process. In addition to that, I'm extremely excited to join Philippe's leadership team as the future COO of Solvay. Philippe just highlighted our leadership in cost and process technology. I will now develop this further and focus on our operations. When I joined Solvay earlier this year, I was surprised by how much had already been achieved, despite the complexity of our business and the multiple operating models. This separation gives us a clear and simple framework. It allows us to be more efficient and to act faster.
We will drive simplicity and standardization because this allows us to take what works in one organization and duplicate it. So what does that mean? Soda Ash, Peroxide, and Silica represent 70% of our assets, and these are based upon three technologies. The separation allows the organization to focus on efficiently scaling our improvements across these technologies. There's a lot more to tackle beyond the manufacturing domain. Our standardized service model allows us for simplification to remove duplication and cost in our supply chain, logistics, and global business services. Again, this simple, repeatable model will allow us to extract value out of our support functions. This morning, we announced that we will deliver EUR 300 million of cost reductions by 2028. Now let's talk about how we will generate these reductions.
This is an important slide, and I'll take more time to explain how we're going to do it. There are three areas that will deliver the majority of these outcomes. First, we will implement a standard operating strategy that I will steer centrally, and we will deliver lean and efficient operations. We have a wide range of operational maturity across our organization. We have some plants that have elements that are best in class, while others can be improved. As an example, we have several plants that have world-class predictive maintenance practices. This has resulted in higher plant availability and lower cost, but these practices were developed in isolation. As you know, there's a strong correlation between predictive maintenance and unplanned production outages. Higher the rate of predictive maintenance, the more we can produce, and our costs are lower.
We have many other examples where we have isolated practices, but limited deployment across the network. We know what great looks like. We have the people and the knowledge to implement these practices across our facilities. The next area of focus is our digital transformation. Actually, I look at it more as a digital revolution. This is our biggest opportunity to improve our cost. We have developed a digital roadmap that is governed by me. A major portion of our roadmap focuses on raw materials and energy. We spend EUR 2.5 billion per year on raw materials and energy. We will use digital to optimize its consumption. We have limited penetration of digital and very few applications of advanced process control.
To deliver these savings, we will take the operating decisions out of our operators' hands and rely on automation and machine learning. It's not to say that we don't have great operators, it's simply the fact that a computer can operate our plants more efficiently. I'll give you an example of why this is so exciting. The soda ash process is our most energy intensive. A significant portion of our energy takes place in the lime kilns. Using machine learning tools, we've demonstrated that we can improve the efficiency of our lime kiln by 10%. This is significant. We can now implement the improvement across all of our synthetic soda ash plants. This is just one example in one plant. We have a whole list of improvements in all of our technologies.
The fact that we have repeatable technology allows us to go further and faster. This is a running machine that we are turbocharging as a result of the separation. The third area will be to creating a simplified ERP landscape, allowing efficiencies in many of our support functions. The fact that we have multiple SAP instances creates duplicate organizations in all of our G&A functions. A simplified ERP is a critical enabler to help us to move from being top quartile to becoming the benchmark in terms of G&A. I know when we talk about a new ERP, people get concerned. Between myself and Brad Rector, our new CIO, we have successfully implemented ERP systems multiple times. We're confident that with our teams, we can accomplish it again. I've spent the last five months traveling to our sites and understanding our business.
I've worked with my leadership team, and there is an appreciation that these targets are both challenging but achievable. With that, I'm pleased to confirm that these commitments are made on behalf of the whole operations organization. I explained at the beginning that speed matters as much as the euros that we will deliver. So how long will it take to capture these savings? The answer is simple, as fast as we can. I expect us to deliver the majority of these cost reductions by 2026 and 2027. It goes without saying that with Philippe and Alex, we will regularly update you on the progress. Now let's talk about how this strategy will be deployed in our industrial sites. Star Factory is our system that creates a multi-year plan for each of our sites.
This includes a comprehensive roadmap covering safety, sustainability, talent, customers, and competitiveness. These plans, these Star Factory plans, are comprehensive roadmaps that actually have a lot of the elements that you have seen presented today for the whole Solvay. The site leaders know what success looks like, and they know what they need to do, and Star Factory allows us to support our sites by prioritizing resources. We started the implementation in 21 of our 42 sites. Those that haven't started yet are pushing hard. There's clearly a no one wants to be last mentality in our organization. It does take time to mobilize and create sustainable roadmaps, so we cannot do it overnight. But I can confirm that by this time next year, every site will have started. Furthermore, in 2024, we will emphasize the Solvay production system to accelerate the cost savings in our operations.
What does Star Factory really mean? It means that in addition to being low cost, highly competitive, we are safe, environmentally conscious, and we are about being a responsible partner in the communities that we operate in. Star Factory is our improvement engine for our 7,000 manufacturing employees. I have no doubt it will amplify the pride that we experience in our sites and will reinforce the appreciation in our communities. The fact that we are at the start of this journey is exciting, because I know how a program like this supports our operations and has a significant impact on our business performance. This is an exciting journey for our manufacturing organization. Now, let's talk about process innovation. Do you realize that without process innovation, Solvay would not be the industry leader that Philippe described?
Process innovation has made our synthetic Soda Ash the lowest cost in the world. Process innovation and peroxide has confirmed our leadership, not only in cost, but equally important, in process safety. Process innovation is in our DNA. We have continuously disrupted the industry, and we will continue to do so. I've mentioned how we are continuing reinventing our processes. Etienne and Carlos will cover a couple of the examples on this slide. As you take a break and stretch your legs, have a coffee, I want to invite you to our innovation stand, where Biosilica and Alve-One are covered. There, you'll meet some of our talents, and we'll give you insight on the breakthroughs that we are creating for our customers. So in short, we have the privilege of leading a business with a long and proud history, with deep foundations in technology and process leadership.
I've worked with my team for the last five months to develop our plans to deliver on these targets. My mission as part of Philippe's team is quite simple: I'm entrusted to drive simplification, standardization, and take out redundant cost fast. For me, the separation is simply the accelerator that will help us to deliver fast. Together with our operations leadership team, this will be our focus. We are mobilized, and nothing will distract us from delivering these targets. With that, I will give the floor to Etienne, who will share the key highlights of our great business of soda ash and bicarb.
Thank you, Lanny, and good morning, everyone. I'm very pleased to be in front of you today and honored to be the incoming president of the soda ash and bicarb business, the one that started it all at Solvay. I'm a new face to this audience, but I'm not new to the business. I'm actually the longest-standing member of the GBU's leadership team, second only to Philippe. I came to the GBU nine years ago, through the doors of strategy, then quickly took on management roles and progressed all the way up to our global soda ash business, where I'm very proud to have contributed to our track record of resilience and superior cash flows throughout the period. Now, a lot has been said about this business today already.
I will now share with you why and how we will continue to deliver superior results and resilient cash flow in the years to come. First, we are leaders in both our soda ash and sodium carbonate businesses, and sodium bicarbonate businesses. In soda ash, our industrial footprint is well balanced between synthetic Solvay Process in Europe and natural trona-based process in the U.S. With the acquisitions of our former U.S. JV partners share, and after completion of our planned capacity expansion in the U.S., the balance will be close to 50/50. Our leadership position is even stronger in bicarb, which we produce in Europe, the U.S., and Asia. With the relatively bigger proportion of our production in Europe, coming from the fact that the synthetic process allows us to produce a larger range of grades, including the high-value premium pharma grades, which, by the way, also grow faster.
With this network of assets, the soda ash and derivatives business reached EUR 2.2 billion in net sales in 2022, and consistently delivered strong cash flow with a cash conversion of 70% on average. Soda ash represents 75% of our sales, with, as Philippe pointed out, most of our end markets growing at GDP-like rates, while others, like lithium for EV batteries, photovoltaic glass for solar panels, are growing much faster. Bicarb make up for the remaining quarter of our sales, which is noticeably higher than our peers, and the main applications here are flue gas treatments for cleaner air, pharma, animal feed, and food. Bicarb is growing twice as fast as soda ash, with opportunities in several emerging markets, and it has shown a very strong resilience during crisis periods.
Virtually all of our markets are driven by unstoppable forces, which support growth in demand for our products. Evolving demographics is one such trend, but even more powerful is the aspiration of society to make a better use of natural resources and energy to produce sustainably and consume efficiently. Strong evidence of that is to be seen in the fast-growing demand for lithium products in LatAm and China, as well as the sharp increase in demand for solar panels in Asia and the U.S. But it also sustains high levels of demand in more mature applications like insulation, sustainable packaging, and pharmaceuticals. This is why I believe this industry will continue to be as resilient as it has proven to be in the past decades, offering moderate, yet robust GDP-like demand growth.
Soda Ash is the tenth largest essential chemical product in the world, but unlike other commodities, it is less cyclical and more resilient. Demand and utilization rates do not plummet during major crisis, and recovery is fast. 2009 and 2020 have been very good illustrations of that. The industry is also cost and cash conscious, and it has demonstrated its ability to take hard decisions when needed. Over the past decade, we took out capacity in Europe and the Middle East and right-sized our organization. Earlier this year, we've once again anticipated and taken proactive action when we announced the resizing of our Spanish plant. Looking ahead, we see the market tightening in the long term and growth to remain at 2%-3% per year.
Bicarb will continue to enjoy higher growth rates, specifically in pharma and flue gas applications, where our leadership is even stronger. Looking forward, we see the demand outgrowing the supply and anticipate the market to remain tight. This is why we focus our expansions, like in Bulgaria or line conversions, like announced recently in Spain, Torrelavega, on high-value-added bicarb grade production. Philippe and Lanny have been very clear about it. Competitiveness will remain the priority for our businesses alongside sustainability. The resilience of our results and our ability to win in our markets is the result of our competitiveness and cost leadership, which is a reality across our industrial network. Our assets can be put into two categories.
On the one side, our global assets, Green River in the U.S. and Devnya in Bulgaria, which are the best positioned to serve customers competitively anywhere in the world, especially where there are no suitable local alternatives. On the other side, our regional assets, which are typically smaller, closer to our local customers, well, they're actually a competitive advantage for us. Why is that? Because successful regional assets are actually more competitive on a delivered basis than global assets. To illustrate how robust and relevant this portfolio is, I will reflect on the past nine years I have spent in that business. We have seen in Turkey, the largest greenfield to date using new low-cost process. We went through COVID-19 and the global logistics mayhem which followed, and finally, the Ukrainian war and energy crisis in Europe.
Yet, we stand in front of you today having delivered our strongest results in history, and with customers considering us as the reference supplier. So how will we win? Being leaders, competitive, close to our markets, and even closer to our customers. Now, looking ahead, we will continue to grow in the U.S. while further reducing our footprint using state-of-the-art technology. We will also enjoy logistic competitive edge with our future export terminal in Vancouver. As mentioned, we've resumed the construction of our soda ash capacity expansion in Green River. It will expand our capacity by 600,000 tons, and at this time, we believe it will be ready to serve the growing needs of our customers in early 2025. In addition, we will deploy a new breakthrough technology to reduce emissions, leading to a 20% reduction of the site's greenhouse gas emissions.
This innovation will be the first a company implements in such a mine. It's called regenerative thermal oxidation, and it will abate our emissions in the mine. Finally, I cannot conclude without a few words on what will allow us to revolutionize once again the synthetic soda ash process. The soon to make history, e.Solvay process. eSolvay is a major process innovation breakthrough. As you know, Solvay's journey started 160 years ago when Ernest Solvay invented a new process to manufacture soda ash, drastically improving at the time, the cost and sustainability profile of the Leblanc process. Today, we are doing it again. For the last 30 years, we've invested more than EUR 40 million to develop at lab scale the next generation process.
We started the pilot in our French plant this year, and we're confident that if things go as we want them to go, eSolvay will be part of our operating reality before the end of the decade. I would hate to spoil with too much detail, the great showcase hosted today by by our process experts. On the contrary, I will just tease you further with some numbers: 50% CO₂ reduction and 20% less water and salt consumption, and 30% less limestone, elimination of limestone residues, and we reduce CapEx in the future. For years, our customers have been looking for us to lead the way and raise the bar further. This is how we will keep the success story going, responsibly and sustainably. Thank you, and I will now hand it over to Carlos, who will share with you how we generate value in peroxides.
Congrats, man. Good morning, everyone. I'm really pleased to be with you this morning, and honored as a new president for the Global Business Unit, Peroxide. Start with a question: What is a market leader? Some talk about market share, other service levels or specs. Let me give you my perspective. Who doesn't have a fridge at home? We all do, right? We are all Solvay's customers because insulation uses polyurethane, and the polyurethane produced by our partners integrates peroxide. Everybody has a smartphone today. The cell phone microchips are cleaner and functional because of peroxide. All these products of everyday use are relying on peroxide on the value chain. We are pretty much everywhere. I'm personally very proud about how essential we are for society. And I'm also very proud how essential we are for Solvay. This is one of the highest cash generator of the group.
Let's have a look at our presence in the market. I've led Peroxides in South America for about 9 years. Together with our team, we quadrupled the business. Today, I lead it globally, and as you can see, we are leading everywhere. Our strongest regional position is South America, followed by Europe. In North America, we are a strong number two, but very well positioned for the upcoming market growth in electronics and electric vehicle battery recycling. Whilst in Asia Pacific, market is much more fragmented, but we are a clear leader in Southeast Asia. I will tell you why our leadership position makes a difference. It's about reach. We can serve a chip fab in Arizona with our electronic grade, or a shrimp pond in Guayaquil, Ecuador, a uranium mine in Kazakhstan, a pulp mill in south of Chile, or a photovoltaic panel assembly in China.
We can serve peroxide in a jerrycan, in an IBC, in an ISO tank, or a rail car. We nail the logistics. We do it really well. And you know what else we do well? We hold the number one cash cost in every region we operate. And why won't our competitor catch us? Lanny mentioned it. It's about consistent innovation in process. We have proprietary oxidation. This means less electricity. We have higher strength crude, so less steam. We have a specific extraction design, which mean less hydrogen consumption. But it's also about process safety. We are confident because Solvay master the process, and we are not going to stand still. I will give another perspective. Peroxide is a very adaptive molecule. We are adaptable, too. We can serve small to large volumes and technical grade to ultrapure. In this business, one size does not fit all.
We also run different kinds of plants. For example, we operate our H2O2 plant from a control room from more than 2,000 Km away. Because of our adaptability and because we are vertically integrated, we have adjusted our cost structure to serve reliably and competitively the different needs of our customers. That make us unique, and that is leadership. Now you know what we are passionate about. So how does this translate into results? We invested and delivered consistently over time, growing threefold over the last decade. This is the leadership in the industry, and we are proud about it. Now, looking ahead, our mastery of peroxide allow us to choose the sectors we want to pursue. We want to be in the most attractive and highest growth markets, and because this market has highest barriers to entry, we are best positioned to capture that.
I will give you an example. Every smartphone today does more than a PC of 10 years ago. This is thanks to the intensification of microchips, which are as small as a single-digit nanometer, the size of a dust mite. You can imagine how clean the assembly must be to allow those things to work? You need clean, you need pure. That's our electronic-grade peroxide. We are essential for this technology. Let me grab a sip. Let's talk about the second growth opportunity, which is integrated chemical complexes. We call them ICC. We have a proven track record of success business for the three existing mega plants with our JV partners in Belgium, in Thailand, and Saudi Arabia. Next to that, we have seen an opportunity with an asset-light approach to diversify our reach in the ICC through licensing.
We closed two deals in China over the last 15 months. You heard Philippe say, we want to have flexibility to use our cash smartly. The licensing is giving us that flexibility. Now that I have given you more details about why we think this is a winning business, you can better understand the power of peroxide and the impressive scope of our leadership. Now I hand it over to Alex. Thank you.
Thank you, Carlos. Good morning, everyone. I am pleased to meet you, and I look forward to getting to know you all and the investment community. I've been working with Solvay for 20 years, in several countries, in several positions, so I'm extremely familiar with the organization, the business, and the financials. For the past two years, I've worked under Philippe's leadership in the soda ash business, where we have delivered record results. I must say, it's a real pleasure to embark on this journey with Philippe, and I'm extremely excited to help deliver the objective we will share with you today. I also take this opportunity to thank Ilham and the board for that trust. You've heard a great deal from my fellow colleagues.
For me, at least, the recurring themes of having a strong leadership position, mastery of process technology, and a strong determination to reduce costs further are key. What I intend to do in the next few minutes is to show that our foundation are indeed very strong, both in absolute term and compared to our peers, and to describe to you how we will leverage on that strength to move us further, generating more cash. But before we look at the future, I want to start with what history tells us. You can see the exceptional track records of our delivery over the past 10 years. This show the quality of our performance. We have been able to grow our margin to 23% and grow EBITDA by 6% per year, and at the same time, reach 70% cash conversion for several years in a row.
Where does that resilience come from? For me, resilience is the combination of three things: the quality of our business, the portfolio effect of them, and the speed and agility of the management team. You've heard a lot this morning from Philippe, from Lanny, about businesses. Let me now give you the example of the agility of the team. Look at this CapEx trend. You see how we've quickly adjusted our CapEx during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, and how we have quickly reinvested for our future, right out at the end of the crisis in 2022 and 2023. All of these factors are driving our resilience, which, as a future CFO, I really like, because it gives me the confidence and the ability to commit to generating more cash sustainably.
I've compared our performance to the past, but that's not enough. I am the first to acknowledge that as investors, you have the choice, that you want to put your investment in businesses that outperform others. So how do we compare? Here is another illustration of the uniqueness of the new Solvay. This is high-quality business, and here is the evidence. We are not just as strong, but we are strong across the board in terms of financial performance and ranking. Whether it's on profit, cash, or return, Solvay constantly outperform almost all of its peers. But even more unique is the fact that we are the only one ranking high on the three dimensions. Look at company one, who is our closest peer in EBITDA margin. They rank last in cash and return.
Look at company four, who is slightly ahead of us in cash conversion, but only mid of the pack in EBITDA and return. I really hope the demonstration is clear. As an investor, I also appreciate the fact that we are more resilient than many of our peers. Facts: for the period 2017 to 2022, the difference between the highest and lowest EBITDA places us on the less volatile and more resilient end of the scale. In simple terms, it means that if our profit peaked at 100, then at the bottom we were at 70, when the most volatile peer was close to 35. So what does this all mean? It shows the quality of our business, and it means our financial foundation are strong, and this positions us well to look forward with confidence.
You've seen the quality of our starting point, so let me now come back to the target which Philippe introduced earlier. The fact that we have a strong foundation and that we are first quartile does not prevent us from aiming for more, from first quartile to benchmark. Our new operating model and our strategy are set to deliver EBITDA growth in mid-single digit, EBITDA margin in mid- to high-20s, free cash flow conversion to exceed mid-30s, and finally, ROCE, which is already high, to exceed 20%. The two main levers here are cost reduction, which Lanny introduced, and disciplined capital allocation. As far as cost reduction are concerned, it is important to recognize that our starting point in terms of the old Solvay was over EUR 500 million already delivered, and our businesses contributed fully to that historic achievement.
So as you heard from Lanny, this is our collective commitment, and we plan to go fast and expect to deliver the majority of these savings in the first three or four years of our plan. These are well thought and planned targets, which we are confident to achieve, but of course, at the same time, I, and we, are committed to distributing stable to increasing dividends while maintaining investment-grade rating. Let's now turn to targeted EBITDA trajectory, for which we aim to deliver an average of mid-single-digit growth. Again, where will that growth come from? First, it will come from top line. You heard Philippe, three-quarters of our portfolio will grow broadly with GDP, and one-quarter can outperform GDP.
This growth in demand will be served either from our existing assets or by new projects, such as the new natural soda ash capacity currently under construction in the U.S., or, for instance, new units of H2O2 electronic grade, which will be needed to meet market demand. But even if I'm fully convinced of the solid fundamentals of our business and their strong link to megatrends, the pace of GDP is obviously not in my control. And as a consequence, we took a prudent assumption in the plan we present to you today. This is especially true compared to the GDP growth we have seen over the last decade. But here, even if I don't control GDP, the good news is that our main growth driver is the one we can control as it is cost reduction.
Our EUR 300 million plan will not only exceed the 25% dyssynergies, it will also completely offset inflation. I see three main sources of cost reduction. As DNA, with the new Solvay, we have the possibility to simplify and standardize all processes, finance, HR, procurement, IT, and we can further push shared services. And as we prepare the company split, we have established plans called TOM, Targeted Operating Model, which provides a clear roadmap for the organization simplification. Second lever is production efficiency. Lanny told you about the significant saving on raw materials and energy yields, which will be substantial when you consider the scale of our plans. Finally, production fixed cost, which can be reduced and more focused, with a more focused and digital new Solvay.
So even if 24% is already best in class, I am confident we will continue to outperform our peers and achieve this plan, because the largest bar on this graph is the component we control the most. I know this company well, I know where the opportunities lie, and I know we will convert them. This gives me hope, and I hope it gives hope also for investor and high confidence in our ability to deliver. Moving to ROCE. As an investor, I also want to maximize my TSR, and I know that return on capital is strongly correlated with value creation, so return are key. Our return is already high. Not so many peers have ROCE of around 20%, but this will not prevent us from continuing to improve. How we'll do that?
First, obviously, by actioning the key levers to deliver the profit growth I just mentioned. Second, asset efficiency by discipline, capital allocation, strict investment selection with a minimum return threshold consistent with the group target, and that applies to all projects, whether they are for volume growth, efficiency, or decarbonation. Thirdly, we can also optimize our asset efficiency by adapting our footprint when and where it makes sense. Etienne mentioned to you some example of the necessary action we took in soda ash in Spain, Portugal and Egypt before. In short, you can count on us to be agile, focused on cash and return in good and bad times. I've been delivering ROCE and focusing on cash for years. I know what it is about. For every EUR 1 investment, I want high margin. For every EUR 1 of sales. Sorry, for EUR 1 investment, I want high sales.
For every one EUR of sales, I want high margin. In summary, our strategy for enhancing ROCE is built on investment, cost management, asset efficiency, and sustainable practices. These are the lever that we are confidently pulling to ensure our capital employed not only generate attractive and improving return, but does so in a long and sustainable way. Capital structure. When it comes to capital structure, you won't be surprised by the figure I'm sharing to you today, because they are very consistent with the one we've shared with you in June, so I won't be long here. Though, at the risk of stating the obvious, our balance sheet is strong, our capital structure is optimized, and it will allow us to implement and deliver our strategy efficiently.
This balance sheet will also ensure that we are equipped to generate the cash and pay dividend sustainably, while also retaining our investment grade rating. I'm coming to the end of my presentation, and even though Philippe has already shared his insight on this topic, I want to highlight the point that I consider to be the most critical. I've already explained you that we have a strong balance sheet, but there is more, because the good news is that we are a highly generative cash-generating company, and consequently, the way we prioritize and deploy our cash is critical. As a rough guide, in the next five years, we expect pre-CapEx cash to reach about EUR 4 billion, which would be broadly equal, equally split between three buckets you see on the screen. We have operated several plants for over a century.
I say that because we will always ensure that our industrial assets are safe and maintained sufficiently. Thus, essential CapEx is priority CapEx, and not least because our customer need and expect that security of supply. Customer counts on us. You can also see that after paying dividend, we expect to generate more than EUR 1 billion of surplus cash flow. Of course, this cash generation won't be linear, but what can you expect from us? You can expect us to deploy cash surplus sometime, as we've spread on sometime reinforcing our balance sheet or sometime opt to invest for more targeted organic project. The key word here will be discipline. Finally, as CFO, I will ensure we focus on delivering the value, improving margin, cash, and return with two main headlines: dividend, Investment Grade. On one side of the balance sheet, we will maintain prudent financial policies.
On the other side of the balance sheet, we will prioritize and allocate capital with focus and discipline. This is how I've operated in the last decade, and I will make sure we continue to do so. I look forward to the dialogue with the investment community as we embark on this new journey. With that, I will invite Philippe back on the stage for his closing remarks. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Well, you see there is a key word, which is essential. I mean, our products are essential, and our vision, our strategy, our targets are, I hope you agree with me, clear and simple, focused. We will aim for the essential, right? So I hope that the last hour and a half or so gave you a taste of why the team you met today is both humbled and excited. Humbled by the privilege of leading a business with such deep roots, with a heritage that anyone would be proud of. And excited by the opportunities we see that will reveal the full potential that lies ahead. Our track record, our track record of delivery that have been shown by everyone from the team, I think speaks for itself.
Our ambition and our plan to sustain and to extend our leadership in our markets and in our technologies, I trust this is clear as well. The last few years have been amazing, and the separation will allow us to go further and faster. It will allow us to adapt the way we work, to further enhance our cost-effective operating model, and to be even more cash focused. This is the journey that we offer. This is what we are committed to. This is the journey that I invite you, our investors, to join. Thank you very much. Now, I invite my colleagues to join me on stage for the Q&A session. Please come. So we'll now start to take your questions.
So we have a lot of people following us through the webcast, so please wait to have the microphone in your hands, and please state your name and the name of your institution so that we can see who you are. I will maybe start here on the first row.
Thank you. Sebastian Bray of Berenberg Bank. Thank you for the presentation today. My questions are cash flow focused. The current run rate for the year 2023 for CapEx is significantly higher than what would be implied by the so-called essential CapEx. So I have two questions related to this. The first is, how would you expect near term, meaning for the years 2024 and 2025, the CapEx to be behaving? Would it still be significantly above the EUR 300 million? And my second question is on environmental provisions. The business historically, I think, has had about EUR 80 million of cash out a year relative to book value of environmental provisions of roughly EUR 400 million. Is it sensible just to assume that remains flat for the foreseeable future? And what exactly is the money being spent on? I have a final one.
I appreciate it's quite a bit at once, but CO₂ hedging, even allowing for the 30% reduction in CO₂ emissions by 2030, there's still quite a lot of CO₂ certificates that might need to be bought. From memory, the company was well hedged into the late 2020s. Could you give some more detail on that? Thank you.
Okay, thank you. Thank you very much for the question. So you want to start with the CapEx, and I will complement if you want, Alex?
Well, I can do HC as well, if you want.
All right.
Okay.
Perfect.
Now, the CapEx, I mean, this was my demonstration. I mean, we adapt and we adapt quickly. So yes, we cut during two years, quite deeply, I mean, almost no growth, going only almost to the essential CapEx during COVID. We started to reinvest. I mean, it's public with, especially our project, our project in the US. So going forward, we will adjust. I mean, this is exactly what we said. We will do essential CapEx, which is, as you said, roughly EUR 300 million, and then, organic CapEx, we'll see what we can afford. Affordability is a key part of the equation.
On environmental cash out for the environmental provision, I mean, we will communicate some more precise guidelines, but you can take EUR 50 million as a first estimate for your modeling.
No, absolutely. And yeah, you see in the slide how what is the prioritization, you know, in cash allocation, and that's the nice thing with creating these new companies, that it's very clear the way we'll allocate: essential CapEx, dividends, and then discretionary CapEx. For CO₂, that's what that was your last question. Indeed, we are decreasing year after year our CO₂ emissions, and that, of course, puts us as close as possible to the amount of free allowances. I'm talking about Europe, of course, because in the U.S., we don't have this. And by the way, in the U.S., we are monetizing the CO₂ emission reductions that we're doing, and that brings us, you know, revenues, which I think is important to mention.
So clearly, in Europe, we still have a little bit of deficit, clearly, and that we manage through a hedging policy. So we still have some hedges that were done in the past years, done at the right time, I would say, and that allow us to lower the average cost of CO₂. But obviously, we need to continue this hedging policy, and at the same time, do the energy transition, so that by 2030, you know, we're at the right point.
Thank you. I stay close.
Yes, thank you. I just want to go on the mid-single digit EBITDA growth target, 'cause obviously you're in for a very challenging 2024, potentially. So it probably implies that you're growing high single digits after that, which would infer in line pretty much with historic. And obviously, the big worry for the market probably is around soda ash and the potential expansions in the U.S., which are far in excess of what happened in Turkey in 2016-2019. So cost cutting is the big part of that. Just some confidence around that sort of scenario, given your largest business faces pretty much unprecedented capacity additions. And then the second question, it hasn't been mentioned, is the energy services business. Now, I've been at Rhodia Capital Markets days, many years ago, where they like this business, including for the third party.
You had a good year in it last year for EBITDA contribution. Are you telling us basically over a cycle, it really didn't produce much, and the volatility is just such that it's not worth keeping this business? Thank you.
All right. Thank you very much for your question. For the first one on soda ash, maybe, Etienne, you want to kick off?
Sure.
And then-
Well, fundamentally, in the long run, which is the time horizon for the expansions that you've mentioned, we do see the market continue to be very healthy and tighten. So we do not expect those new additions to change fundamentally that picture. And in the shorter term, while indeed some markets these days, like construction, for instance, do suffer from high inflation and high interest rates, some others, like lithium, photovoltaic, but also more resilient, like detergents, and are providing the right level of demand and sustained demand for our business.
Comes on as scheduled or not? Is your assumption assuming all this U.S. capacity does come on in the time frame that's mentioned or not?
Well, I cannot comment for our competitors' project. You know, ours will come when the market needs that, and we've indicated the time frame. And it remains the most competitive expansion project in Soda Ash globally today. For other of our competitors' project, I can only assume that what they are committing to the market will hold true.
What is important to notice for soda ash is that the long-term fundamentals are really good. I mean, you know, they are in line with all the key mega trends. And I think we've demonstrated over the past years that we are able, we know how to do, you know, to manage those bumps on the market. I mean, this is not specific to Solvay. You know, this is the situation that all of the industrial companies have to face, and we've demonstrated, I think, during the COVID, during the European energy crisis, during the war in Ukraine and the subsequent, you know, ban of some raw material from Russia. We know what we have to do, you know?
So we will adjust our assets in order to cope with the situation. We will adjust our CapEx, if necessary, not touching, you know, the essential CapEx and the dividends, obviously. But we know how to manage this, and we are confident with that we can do it. Now, the perspective that we give for 2028 really relies on our confidence that the long-term fundamentals are good.
Maybe I'll answer the other question, just add a few things. I mean, first, I mentioned it, the assumption we took in our guidance is conservative. If you look at the last 10 years' GDP, we took a slightly lower assumption. Two, Soda Ash, yes, it's important, and we'll get back to you on 2024, early next year, but it's only one third of EBITDA. So just to remind that.
For third-party energy business, maybe I can say a few words-
Sure.
Very quickly, because, I mean, we've been there, you know, some years ago, so, so we've been also managing the,
We've made money with it.
The energy. We've made money. What I just want to say is that what was good, you know, 10 or 20 years ago, might not be good today. So it's a very conscious decision that we make on the best use of our balance sheet. We think that this is not a business that we want to develop based on the resources that we have to allocate, right? So we want to allocate the resources to our core businesses.
And it's a factor of viability, and in case you have not understood today, we want resilience. So this business, as the market involved, evolved, I mean, it's not worth the risk. And on top of that, I mean, Lanny need the expert, because we've built some expertise. I mean, whether it's on market, on industrial, and he wants the guy to focus on our plant, not on the third party.
He's right.
Yeah, and we've taken the key, many of the key competencies that historically resided in that business, and we have brought them into the corp, into the whole company now. And we have centralized energy so that it is now the great practices that were there are now serving the entire company.
Thank you. This is Martin Rüdiger from Kepler Cheuvreux. I have two questions, if I may. The first question is for Alexandre. I have a specific question to your slide number 6, 64, where you show the EUR 300 million cost savings and attached to that, the cost inflation. So is it right to understand that cost inflation will eat up half of the cost reduction? And if so, can you provide us what is the assumption in terms of growth rate of inflation? Which kind of inflation you pencil in? And also would like to know in this context, do you anticipate that you have to share some of your cost savings with your clients? The second question is to actually, either you or Philippe Kehren about the selective investment projects.
I would like to know, is that some specific growth CapEx, or is that some acquisitions, or do you also consider buying out further JVs? Thank you.
Okay, first one, so the target is before inflation. I don't see a reason to share with customers, okay? This is really the saving we will retain. It's part of the competitiveness that we need to sustain as market leader. Our leadership is leadership in size, cost, and technology, so that's part of that plan. Then in terms of inflation, you can take at least for the first years, around EUR 40 million per year. That's our share of the inflation of the current Solvay.
You've seen the amount that we would like to dedicate, you know, to what we call the growth projects or, you know, to the third bucket in the cash prioritization. Clearly, we are working for, you know, to serve our customers, but we also need to dedicate a lot of capital to grow with them. We said that we are growing like the GDP and even for some segments above GDP, and we also need to do the energy transition. So we will dedicate. We need, you know, to have this remuneration also from the customers in order to make those investments possible. So we count on their support as well.
The category covers the three types-
Mm-hmm.
of growth, efficiency
Yeah.
-and energy, yeah.
...What was the last question? No, there was another one.
No, no, that was it.
That was it? Okay.
Yes, Frank Claassen from Degroof Petercam . I've got a question on your EUR 300 million cost savings target. What kind of, let's say, one-off structuring costs or cash outs can we expect, and what kind of timing? And also related to that, are the, let's say, the dyssynergies, which you flagged, the EUR 25-30 million, are to get rid of these dyssynergies, is that included in the EUR 300 million target?
You, I can start. I mean, so dyssynergies, the fact that we are creating two companies is EUR 25 million. This is the part for, for Eco. So yes, the this is the fact that we have two investor relation, two executive committee and so on. So we won't eliminate directly this, but we will quickly do savings elsewhere that will more than offset the impact. On one-off, okay, probably today we won't share the detail, but let's say that in our plan, it's part of our financing plan, and we will continue to use the guideline that we've used in Solvay. Typically, that restructuring, we need a payback within two years.
So there will be one-off, but we will be able to absorb them and still continue our financial policy.
Thank you, sir. Matthew from Bank of America. I think I'm gonna follow up on some of the earlier questions. Your slide 67 that shows the capital allocation. Struggling a little bit with that one-third at the bottom, that's somewhat discretionary on how the cycle is doing, and I appreciate the flexibility. What is the base case scenario? If you do your EUR 4 billion of free cash over the period, what is CapEx likely to be? And then as an aside to that, you said in the remarks that you thought the return on your investments was value creative, it was positive. Can you maybe give us an example of that? Be it one of the decarbonization projects like Rheinberg or the eSolvay business model, just to give us more confidence that this is indeed value creative.
Okay, maybe you will give some example. Again, I cannot give you exactly the number of CapEx because we said what we want. And this is really, this is really deeply the operating model of Solvay, of the new Solvay, and that may be different from the old Solvay. As we will look at every year or during the year or looking at the next few years and decide: do we want to make a CapEx? Does the market need CapEx? Do they need growth, not growth? In which area we will adjust. And depending on the situation, we will see how to best allocate our cash. And if one year we won't, we will, we don't find the attractive project, we may want to reinforce and deleverage, deleverage a little. So this is why.
I mean, it's really on purpose that we give you an idea of, the essential CapEx, the one that we need to stay safe and well-maintained, and the rest, really, it's, it's decision, and it's deeply part of our model. You want to give some example of-
Yes, absolutely. I think your question is great on the energy transition projects, because, you know, it's not just about doing the energy transition, it's about doing it in a profitable and competitive way. And that's the whole challenge for a company like the new Solvay. There are two ways to look at those projects. I mean, the first one, clearly, is to look at the profitability. So where does this profitability come from? It comes from the fact that you move from fossil fuel that is extremely volatile, and you will agree with me, in Europe in particular, extremely expensive, at least for the last two to three years. And you move to a local sourcing of a local primary energy that is available.
It can be RDFs or recycled waste, it can like in France, it can be waste biomass, like in Germany. And this gives you competitiveness and also predictability, because you have long-term contracts to source those material locally. Number two, of course, is the saving that you make on the CO2, right? But this is where the tricky part comes, because most of the time, we cannot afford to have a CO2 cost. We start from a situation where we have free allowances and a deficit if we use coal, obviously. So the whole purpose of this project is that at the same time, so they are profitable, but they also need to make the sites competitive on their markets. So either able to compete on the global market or be able to face imports from outside the European Union, where you don't have the CO2 cost, right?
And so this is where we need the support most of the time, not to say all the time, from the member states, so that we can preserve the competitiveness, meaning the cash cost, right, of our units. Because we take commitments. Most of the time, we try not to use our CapEx, our cash out. We are doing it with partners in a deconsolidated way so that we don't have it on our balance sheet. But to do that, we need, in fact, to have some support in order to be able to take the this long-term commitment that we take through an offtake contract, for example. Does that make sense? Thank you.
Hi, Chetan from JP Morgan. Can I just check, the slide that you have on the screen, the EUR 4 billion of levered free pre-CapEx cash flow. Does it include interest, pensions, environmental liabilities? Is that-
Yeah.
-including everything-
Yes.
-besides CapEx?
Yeah, let me clarify this, because I was quite sure that we would get this question. So don't worry, we are not introducing a new metric, okay? Take it today is the, today we communicate, and we will continue to communicate free cash flow to shareholder, which is after interest and so on. Here, we just remove the CapEx. Again, to explain to you, okay, we have discretion. I mean, exactly what I was telling, we don't want to commit to a number of CapEx. What matters is the free cash flow. So this year, the guidance is on free cash flow, but this gives you how we get to the to the commitment, to the target.
Again, just to confirm, it's after all the cash outs?
All the cash out, provision cash out, interest cash out, the working capital-
Okay.
You know it. Before dividends. This is really the cash flow to shareholder after, after leverage impact.
Okay. And just, second question I had was, of course, the key elephant in the room is 2024, right? Because you have maybe that is a transition year.
Right.
I mean, I don't know how you guys think about it, but, maybe if you can help us sort of giving your initial thoughts across, okay, Soda Ash, question mark on pricing, but what about Hydrogen Peroxide? You know, how you think about the market dynamics. Do we have to worry about the pricing, that part of the business next year? And also Silica, how do you think about the market dynamics there? So just to think about, businesses outside of Soda Ash. I mean, of course, if you have any view on Soda Ash next year, great, but, at least we will appreciate for other businesses.
No, sure, and we will obviously give you more visibility beginning of next year, you know, when we will have completed our negotiation campaigns. I think, please keep in mind that we are resilient, right? And it's a mix of businesses, it's a mix of markets, and this gives us, you know, this resilience. And you have businesses like Soda Ash, as you mentioned, which today are, I would say, hedged, let's say, at around 30%, more or less, and the rest is still under negotiation for next year. And then you have businesses like Peroxides, where you have industrial contracts in the long run, which gives us good visibility. And the same for Silica, where you have mid to long-term contracts, which gives us also visibility.
So the way we manage this portfolio gives us the resilience, right? Now, obviously, our customers expect some relief given the current situation on the energy market, and the prices are going down. It will give us relief, relief as well. So this is not negative, and by the way, mechanically, it increases our margins.
But again, I come back, and this is really important. We don't control GDP, offer, demand, and so on. But our focus will be on the cost-saving plan, because this one, I mean, we don't need to wait for the end of the commercial campaign to start working on it. So that's our first, first priority. And yes, when we have more visibility, obviously, we'll get back to you, like Solvay did every year when we publish our full year result.
Thanks, Geoffroy. Laurent Favre from BNP. I've got three questions, please. The first one is regarding the decarbonization CapEx of about EUR 1 billion, that I think was identified two years ago. What are your thoughts now on that billion? And, if we follow this plan, on the slide, how much of that billion should be spent by 2028? That's the first question. The second one is on the EUR 300 million cost saving program. So I mean, typically, we use a ratio of 1x to 1.5 x when we hear companies say, "We will save 300," we're thinking 300 to 450. Is there a reason why this number shouldn't apply, in your case? Second question. And then the third one, can you talk about the incentivization of, top management?
There are a bunch of KPIs that you've talked about, but, are you more, I guess, from a KPI standpoint, do you think more about margins, returns, absolute free cash flow? And will you be, will your compensation be linked to the share price of Solvay? Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you very much, for your questions.
The first one was... Remind me?
Three hundred.
Ah, yeah, the billion.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah. I think on this one, probably today, we won't communicate in detail. We'll get back to you. I think that's part of the things we need to get back to you. Just keep in mind that, okay, when we provided the guidance, we have taken into account those investment. Philippe show you this map with all the investment. I mean, lot of the investment we need to reach our 2030 S-CO2 target is already on the way. Some of it is already spent. A lot of the project are already completed. So I understand we need to provide long-term guidance, but, okay, today, I don't think we are, this is.
No, we will clarify this. I think what you need to keep in mind is that a big part of this billion has already been engaged, and for our biggest, the biggest part, it's in the consolidated way. So it's not Solvay cash out. That, that's very important. And so obviously, yeah, we said we will have to spend EUR 1 billion until 2040. This is probably still true, you know, in terms of amount that we need to dedicate to this. But again, it's not obviously cash out for Solvay.
And again, this is when we say consolidated, it means we bring investors. Typically, in Dombasle, we brought banks and investors to carry out this investment because these are good investments. Again, we don't want to use our CapEx. We want to keep our CapEx for core activity investment, to invest in our GBU, not in energy, in energy assets.
You want to address the 300?
Well, I think-
Or Lanny, maybe.
Maybe, Lanny, do you want to-
Yeah
to mention also the capital? Yeah, the investment.
How we build this 300 and-
Sure.
Sure. What is the investment linked to it?
So the first thing to recognize that it's not all in fixed cost. It's a split between variable cost and fixed cost. Secondly, is the cost to achieve those savings are within our typical parameter that we talk about. And then when that gets to restructuring, I think Alex already has said, we will first engage in the way that we have always engaged with our partners, and that typically, these engagements resulted in better than a couple year paybacks on those engagements. But it would not be accurate to say that we're gonna generate the EUR 300 million by reducing the number of people to generate EUR 300 million. So that's not the way I would look at it.
And again, it's part of... Sorry, it's part of the—we've included that in the EUR 1 billion of investment. Part of that is for efficiency. I mean, when Lanny is talking about working in the plant, there are some CapEx, some tiny. But I think on the digital, it's probably, and you have some ratio in mind, on digital, we can probably get some saving without spending the typical ratio you have in mind of 1, 1.5.
Right. And then on the incentivization of the management, clearly, I think we prefer to communicate this after the creation of the company. You know that we are still waiting for the approval at the shareholders' meeting on the eighth of December. The only thing I can tell you is that, I mean, we have a system today in the current Solvay that works well, I think. And that is based, you know, on fixed short-term bonus and long-term incentives, and that we will always link this remuneration to the targets that we've shown you.
Yes, good morning. Wim Hoste, KBC Securities. I have two questions, please. First, you already have a relatively prudent balance sheet today with about 1.5 x net EBITDA. So if you say we want to maintain that, what's kind of the optimal net EBITDA structure that you have in mind before you might move to other shareholder returns options, et cetera? So that's the first question, and second one would be on peroxides. What is the growth strategy for peroxides? And the reason I'm asking is that, about 10 years ago, you had this expansion wave into the mega plants. You have moved more recently to a more asset-light approach. Is it now, I think, under the helm of the big Solvay Group, that was more logical?
Is it now an option to move again into, yeah, a more asset-intensive, growth trajectory for Peroxides and building new mega plants, or will you stick to, relatively smaller projects in electronics, et cetera?
No, thank you very much. Alex, I let you handle the first one, maybe on the balance sheet.
How surprising. No. So I mean, again, we've already given quite a lot of guidance, targets. Gearing is not one of them, so you're right. I mean, mechanically, you come to 1.5. But again, Investment Grade, paying the dividend, this is, I cannot say north star because there are two, two stars. But okay, that's the headlines. After, no, I don't see the gearing as being a target in itself. Again, depending on the project, depending on the macroeconomic context, we will see what, how to best create value for the shareholders, investing organically or returning some cash. That will be—that will be assessed.
Regarding peroxides, yes, indeed, we have this flexibility, and I will let Carlos maybe say what he would like.
Sure, absolutely. Thanks for the question. Well, first, on the long run, I believe that I have shared here what we see as the main drivers for it, but you were more specific on the contribution of the model that we have with HPPOs in our growth. Indeed, what we want is to have the flexibility. It doesn't mean that we're gonna do only licensing, right? Whatever the project makes sense, and we have affordability for it, of course, we are going to analyze that on a case-by-case situation. But I would like to say something more on the rest of the market. On the merchant market, we are, as you've seen here, diversified in terms of region, and the dynamics on those regions are very differently.
So I see a lot of new capacities are still going to be required. We just invested recently into a new plant in Chile that after four months was already at the nominal capacity that we wanted to achieve for the period. We still have capacity in Europe to absorb growth. We still have some capacity in North America to absorb growth, and we do have a business development approach. So there are some segments, depending on the region where we are present, where we are expecting growth. I can mention about all the water treatment in the countries under development. I could mention the mining and the recycling of batteries. Those are new applications that are going to require, of course, some capacity.
Depending where we will be, we have already capacity and others, not. So that's for the merchant. For the electronics, that certainly is going to require CapEx from us, and we are ready for this. We have projects, and in the due time, they are going to be executed. But there is another part that contributes to our growth in what I consider significantly manner over the period that we have indicated here. It is the innovation. What I have in innovation, particularly in our platforms, for instance, of catalysts, will allow us to deliver substantial impact in our results. So those are the components that will allow us to move forward in the trajectory that I have shown before.
Hi, it's Chris Counihan from Jefferies. If I remember, just back to Lauren's question on the decarbonization targets, you also, at that time, said all other businesses outside of soda ash, to achieve carbon neutrality, would require an investment up to EUR 1 billion. So my question is: How much of that sits within Solvay Essentials versus Syensqo going forward? What's your split?
No, I think what I can say very, very simply is that soda ash is more than 80% of the CO2 emissions of Solvay, right? So the main focus is really on soda ash, and we don't expect, you know, a major impact on the other businesses, right? So again, soda ash is the main contributor, really. The target ex soda ash was 2040, carbon neutrality. So it was 2050 for soda ash and 2040 for the other businesses. I think it doesn't make sense, you know, to say we will do it that way when 80% of your emissions will be sold in 2050.
Obviously, I think it's fair to say that our target is 2050 to be carbon neutral, right? Obviously, we will try to do it as fast as possible, and I'm pretty sure that it will move even faster than that.
Again, a large part of this CapEx, we are targeting investors to come and-
Decarbonization.
So don't, yeah, add the other billion, but probably we'll have to come with a more structured answer with,
Yeah.
We will get back to you more specifically.
Again, we've done already a lot, so I think we need to give you a clear status on where we stand and what is left.
Hi, this is Sam Perry from UBS. So, if you step back high-level, of the four parts of the strategy, so leverage, divest, drive, deliver, and prioritize, where do you have the biggest lever, or which is the most important to achieve the final? Any small parts of the portfolio where divestments could have a role going forward?
Okay. So, thank you very much. On your first point, clearly, our biggest lever today is to take the full benefit of the separation, right? The separation allows us to implement a new operating model that will generate a lot of savings, as you've seen, and this will give us a lot of levers for our future. I think divestment is not the topic today. We need to be focused on implementing this operating model and take the full benefit out of it and be excellent in execution on our current businesses. There is no priority today to look at the portfolio. We have a sound portfolio where we have, you've seen, leadership positions everywhere, so we can make a lot of additional value with the levers that are given by the separation process.
And again, all the businesses in the new Solvay are cash generating, so there is nothing to fix. So, we'd rather, yes, implement our plan, in the whole, in the whole portfolio. And again, don't underestimate. I mean, we've grow, strategy. Ilham starting to provide us differentiated model, which have helped us to improve, but we are reaching a limit, honestly. And I think, Lanny can testify, there is a lot in front of us, so we need to implement that in the whole, in the whole eco-portfolio.
Yeah, Peter Clark from SG again. I just a quick follow-up on the peroxide business and the contract protection or not in the HPPO business. Because my understanding was obviously the CapEx going on the ground, long-term investment, there was pretty good contract protection in that business, which is a big chunk, obviously, of the peroxides business itself. So just some clarity on that.
Indeed, that is a important part of our value creation within the business. It continues to be so. So we do have a business model that allow us to predict and to create value indeed, on the investments, and that is still in place. And whenever a contract finishes, we do have other levers to create value.
Andreas Heine from Stifel. Two questions, if I may. On the CapEx intensity of soda ash, is that share of CapEx you will invest in soda ash significantly higher than the share in sales, or is that, broadly speaking, the same? Second is, well, we learned a lot about soda ash and hydrogen peroxide, and the other lines were a little bit short. Maybe you can spend one line on how you see the rare earth business, the fluorine chemical business, and silica business, and Coatis, please.
No, absolutely. So on your first question, clearly, I mean, we will allocate our CapEx based on merit and affordability. So, nothing specifically targeted to soda ash versus the others.
Well, in terms of ratio, I haven't done the math. I don't know. What I can tell for peroxide, I think it was mentioned, has a cash conversion, which is exceptionally high, but yeah.
So, no, though, it's really. I mean, we will allocate the capital based on the merit and the affordability. That's the point. Then on the other businesses, yeah, for sure. I mean, we have to choose where we focus, and it's true that soda ash, bicarbonate, peroxides are most often, you know, where we get a lot of questions. We have great businesses besides those two historical businesses, I would say. Silica is, and they are, by the way, all in line, you know, with those big megatrends that we were mentioning.
Silica is very much about, you know, providing ingredients to manufacture green tires, and this is becoming more and more important in the current also, you know, electrification trend that we are seeing in in mobility. We are the leader on highly dispersible silica based on biosourced, right? And Coatis is also a great business that is more regional and where we are developing very much in green solvents.
And then we have other businesses that are very exciting as well, and I'm thinking about the Rare Earths business, where we can see that there's a clear movement towards, you know, magnets, in order to grow with all the digitalization, you know, of our world.
Maybe I can add two things. I mean, just two facts that may help you to understand the quality of this business, and you will have opportunity to interact also with the leaders. For the rare earths, keep in mind, we are the only one in Europe with separation capacity. And again, permanent magnets today is not big, but rare earths are very important for the strategic independence of Europe. Number two, on the silica, keep in mind that electric vehicle consume more silica than internal combustion engine. So that's a big driver also for the growth. We've asked you, we said it's growing with GDP. My own feeling is that we could have an opportunity to see more than that, thanks to the clean mobility trend.
Sorry, just had one more follow-up. Could you just provide us your latest expectations? You obviously said that you'll be refinancing the debt and the bonds next year. You've obviously presented credit ratings, et cetera, but what's your expectations as to the cost of that financing?
You want me to take this one?
Be my guest.
But we will have a bridge loan that will give us the flexibility to choose the best condition to do the refinancing. I mean, if you want to put something in your model, assume about EUR 100 million of financial cash out, the interest cash out per year. After, we will try to maximize the phasing, the condition, and so on. But that's, I mean, for our midterm, I mean, that's that would be the assumption I would take.
Okay.
Chetan from JP Morgan. Just one follow-up on silica business. You know, one of your key competitors in Europe took a big write-downs in first half of this year. What is different in your setup, which is allowing you to have still pretty good margins in the silica business?
Well, I think our first real lever is all the cost savings that we will do at the group level, right? This will really give a competitive edge to all of our business, and in particular, to Silica. That's really the differentiation. And the separation is enhancing this.
Okay, so there are no further questions, then we can close this morning session with Solvay. I would like to thank-
Thank you
... The entire management for this. We will restart at 2:00 P.M. sharp. So be here a little bit before, so that we can start at 2:00 P.M. Also, for the people on the webcast, you can disconnect on the webcast and reconnect at 2:00 P.M. on the other session. So there is... Pay attention, there is another session.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.